Patreon Exclusive: The Fog Chapter One (Patreon)

The Fog
By FC Punk

Chapter 1: The mysterious fog

At a news studio a woman was pointing at a green screen.

"The forecast for the week calls for more heavy fog. It's rather strange for a desert town such as ours to get all this fog, but it's not going away any time soon. Back to you, Tom."

For weather meteorologist Amanda Fuller this truly was an abnormality of the highest accord. It was just something that did not happen in this part of the country. It was driving her crazy that she had no idea what was going on.

After the broadcast she went to get her things from her locker. The locker had a mirror in it and she took just a moment to check herself. She was still wearing the makeup from her broadcast on her face, it really brought out her red hair she thought.

When she left the studio she immediately winced. There was another unexplained thing to go along with the fog: The smell. A strong musky smell saturated the air and Amanda had to pinch her nose while making her way back home. The fog was thick enough to hide the moon in the night sky, only the glow of the street lights illuminated the path forward.

Suddenly she heard shouting, yelling, and police sirens.

“Oh God, ANOTHER riot?”

Over the past summer there had been mass unrest that erupted into riots. It seemed like every night there was some riot. She reached into her purse and pulled out pepper spray, ready for whatever was to come. Backing up she bumped into something.

She turned around and screamed!

it was an immensely fat person that was naked and resting on the ground.

It’s legs were spread out and there were rolls of fat everywhere. It tried to reach for Amanda but the drooping hanging fat on it’s arms caused it to drop them onto it’s immensely obese stomach. It was making unintelligible noises, seemingly unable to speak correctly from the enormous sagging double chin around it’s throat, each savage sound making the ring of fat wobble like jelly.

Amanda backed up immediately, tripping over her feet and landing on the ground before hurrying to her feet to run. As she ran through the fog she was met by a pick up truck. In the back of the truck was a man in jeans and a baseball jersey brandishing a baseball bat that reached out to her. “Come with me if you want to live!” Needing no further prodding Amanda grabbed his hand and jumped in the back as the truck sped off.

“What’s going on! Who are you!” Amanda demanded while the man was going through a backpack at his converse covered feet. A pitcher’s mitt was also at his feet and the floor of the truck was littered with beer cans. He wore a hoodie that was pulled over a baseball cap.

“Call me Kenny, the driver’s name is Jose. Some serious shit is going down.”

The truck pushed through the fog and along the sidewalks and the street were similar fat blobs, each one wailing and squealing like savage beasts.

“Keep close, these things are contagious!” Kenny ordered her. The more they moved through the fog the more clear things became. To Amanda’s horror fat people were running as fast as they could towards the truck, only to fall to the ground before they made it close enough. What’s more, she saw that they were changing; some that were only a little plump were growing bigger and flabbier like rising dough in an oven. What started as a fast run degenerated into a shuffling waddle that got slower and slower until they collapsed. Amanda screamed when a few got close enough to grab hold of the truck, only for their hands to be crushed by Kenny’s bat.

The truck turned a corner and went over a bridge, getting the hell out of downtown. When they were far enough away Amanda fell back and slumped to the ground, her chest rising in and out.

“What the hell is going on! Who are you people?”

Kenny sat down in the truck and turned his Yankees cap behind his head. He looked back at the city that was lost in the fog as the sounds of sirens blared in the background.

“My friends and I, we were at the park doing some batting, you know? We’re part of the university baseball team, so we were training for the season. We were just hitting some balls when this enormously obese woman came waddling onto the field. Our friend Dieder, he went to see what was up. You don’t really see many people that size, right? You know? So, he goes up to see if she needs help, right, and what does she do? She bites him! She fucking bites him!”

Kenny opened a cooler and took out a beer. He cracked it open and took a drink.

“So we were horrified, we’ve been on edge since the fog came, this put everything over the top. I took a fucking swing at her and knocked her the fuck out and we grabbed the first aid for his bite when suddenly he started to balloon. His gut started to grow out of his top and his arms turned into flab. Stretch marks broke out all over his body, we could fucking see them forming in his skin! His face looked like a balloon blowing up! He then bit Julie and it happened to her! Soon everyone was biting everyone and then blimping up! Jose and I made it to his truck. Speaking of which…”

Kenny pulled the window back and yelled out, “Jose where the fuck are we going!”

“No lo sé, ¡todavía estoy enojado porque recogimos a la perra!”

“¡Ella estaba en problemas!”

Amanda watched incredulously at the two arguing in spanish before yelling out, “Hey I’m still here!”

Kenny looked back at her and opened the cooler back up, reaching inside he offered her a beer. Amanda exhaled and weakly muttered, “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“Fine, more for me then” Kenny finished his own beer before crushing it and tossing it out the trunk.

“Hey don't litter!” Amanda protested to which Kenny retorted, “Who cares? It’s the zombie apocalypse, the fatty apocalypse! Rise of the Living Fatties!”

Amanda looked down at her feet.

“Is this really a zombie apocalypse? Are we going to get guns or what?”

“No.”

“What do you mean no? They’re zombies, we gotta shoot them!”

Kenny took off his crap, ran his hand through his curls, before putting it back on and saying, “It’s not that simple.”

“Not that simple?”

“No. Remember that sack of shit you knocked into?”

“Yeah?”

“He was too fat to move. These things eventually grow so fat they can’t run, they can’t even stand. The threat they present is only when they’re still small enough to move, once they reach a certain size they’re harmless.”

“So we don’t need a gun?”

“Nah, we just need some sorta blunt object”

He gave her a bat, “Here, take it.”

Amanda held the black aluminium bat in her hands before she suddenly said, “That thing you said. Come with me if you want to live, wasn’t that from Terminator?”

“Yeah, it sounded appropriate. Plus you gotta admit it’s bad ass.”

“Oh my God,” Amanda groaned, double face palming.

“Relax, we’re going to survive this. Wait, I know this area. José! Gira a la izquierda, ¡hay una tienda de deportes que podemos saquear!”

The truck turned left and drove until it cam across a sports shop.

“Come on,” Kenny said, taking her hand. Amanda hopped out of the truck, bat in hand. Kenny looked left and right before taking his bat and smashed the glass door open.

“Aw, come on,” Amanda couldn’t help but admonish Kenny as he started picking up baseball bats, cricket bats, hockey sticks, golf clubs. Anything and everything that was a blunt object was being picked by Kenny, he even got a couple of pool cues. He handed them to Amanda who went back and forth, adding to the back of the truck. Suddenly she heard a guttural scream and a rapidly fattening woman came waddling towards her from out of the fog.

“Oh my God, oh my God!”

“Prrhhhhhh!” The obese woman gurbled out as her belly hung lower and lower. When it came close enough Amanda took a big swing with the cricket bat in her hand. The woman got hit in the head and tumbled down on her belly which inflated her up like it a fleshy balloon. Kenny came running out with his own bat and poked her with it, turning her over. When she was turned onto her back her fat belly sloshed back and forth like a sea of lard.

“Heeelp me!” She wheezed at Amanda, who was pulled back by Kenny, “Don’t get near it. These things can at least pretend to talk normal. They just want to bite you.”

Amanda looked at the growing blob with savage fear in her eyes, “It’s just like my cat at home, she will try and chirp like the birds to get them closer.”

“Exactly, don’t be fooled. Come on, we’re stocked up, let's get out of here.”

Amanda and Kenny both got into the truck and sped off.

As the blob of a woman was left behind in the fog Amanda felt sorry for her. She put her hands to her chest. Perhaps it was some kind of prayer she was making. She grabbed her cell phone and saw that service was down.

Amanda knew her life was never going to be the same again.