He did not open them. Presently Randall said, “Mr. Hoag?” No answer. “Mr. Hoag!” Still no answer. He separated himself from Cynthia, stood up, and went around to where the quiet figure sat. He shook him. “Mr. Hoag!”
“But we can’t just leave him there!” Randall insisted, some minutes later.
“Teddy, he knew what he was doing. The thing for us to do is to follow his instructions.”
“Well — we can stop in Waukegan and notify the police.”
“Tell them we left a dead man back there on a hillside? Do you think they would say, ‘Fine,’ and let us drive on? No, Teddy — just what he told us to do.”
“Honey — you don’t believe all that stuff he was telling us, do you?”
She looked him in his eyes, her own eyes welling with tears, and said, “Do you? Be honest with me, Teddy.”
He met her gaze for a moment, then dropped his eyes and said, “Oh, never mind! We’ll do what he said. Get in the car.”
The fog which appeared to have engulfed the city was not visible when they got down the hill and had started back toward Waukegan, nor did they see it again after they had turned south and drove toward the city. The day was bright and sunny, as it had started to be that morning, with just enough nip in the air to make Hoag’s injunction about keeping the windows rolled up tight seem like good sense.
They took the lake route south, skipping the Loop thereby, with the intention of continuing due south until well out of the city. The traffic had thickened somewhat over what it had been when they started out in the middle of the morning; Randall was forced to give his attention to the wheel. Neither of them felt like talking and it gave an excuse not to.
They had left the Loop area behind them when Randall spoke up, “Cynthia — ”
“Yes.”
“We ought to tell somebody. I’m going to ask the next cop we see to call the Waukegan station.”
“Teddy!”
“Don’t worry. I’ll give him some stall that will make them investigate without making them suspicious of us. The old run-around — you know.”
She knew his powers of invention were fertile enough to do such a job; she protested no more. A few blocks later Randall saw a patrolman standing on the sidewalk, warming himself in the sun, and watching some boys playing sand-lot football. He pulled up to the curb beside him. “Run down the window, Cyn.”
She complied, then gave a sharp intake of breath and swallowed a scream. He did not scream, but he wanted to.
Outside the open window was no sunlight, no cops, no kids — nothing. Nothing but a gray and formless mist, pulsing slowly as if with inchoate life. They could see nothing of the city through it, not because it was too dense but because it was — empty. No sound came out of it; no movement showed in it.
It merged with the frame of the window and began to drift inside. Randall shouted, “Roll up the window!” She tried to obey, but her hands were nerveless; he reached across her and cranked it up himself, jamming it hard into its seat.
The sunny scene was restored; through the glass they saw the patrolman, the boisterous game, the sidewalk, and the city beyond. Cynthia put a hand on his arm. “Drive on, Teddy!”
“Wait a minute,” he said tensely, and turned to the window beside him. Very cautiously he rolled it down — just a crack, less than an inch.
It was enough. The formless gray flux was out there, too; through the glass the city traffic and sunny street were plain, through the opening — nothing.
“Drive on, Teddy — please!”
She need not have urged him; he was already gunning the car ahead with a jerk.
Their house is not exactly on the Gulf, but the water can be seen from the hilltop near it. The village where they do their shopping has only eight hundred people in it, but it seems to be enough for them. They do not care much for company, anyway, except their own. They get a lot of that. When he goes out to the vegetable patch, or to the fields, she goes along, taking with her such woman’s work as she can carry and do in her lap. If they go to town, they go together, hand in hand — always.