Excerpts from Surviving the Fog-Kathy's Recollections

Chapter One kathy@camp dot Ugg

I don’t recall when, exactly, I accepted the likelihood that my mother and my father and my sister and my brother were dead. I remember gradually becoming alarmed when the Camp Administrator, who we called ‘the Admin,’ did not return with the counselors who had left with her. And I think that the first time I cried was the morning that Jackie, who was the only adult left, would not leave her cabin. I must have begun to face the truth when Jacob told us about the fog covering the land below us. But it was sometime after that, when I realized that I would never see my family again. I was alone in a dangerous world, trapped in the Sierra Nevada Mountains by a deadly mist, and surrounded by strangers, who I had never met before that fateful month of May.

* * * * *

On Saturday, our schedule became a little more relaxed, and there were no lecture times or films about responsibility or values, yada, yada, yada. That afternoon we were allowed to use our cell phones to call home, but not a single cell would connect. The Admin was exasperated when this happened, telling us that she had been assured that there was a cell tower with line-of-sight on one of the nearby mountain tops, and that it had antennas for every major company. If that wasn’t aggravating enough, the jeep from the little post office at the convenience store never showed up. There were a lot of depressed kids at bedtime, and I was one of them.

Sunday morning, there was a non-denominational Christian church service in the mess hall. It was not mandatory, and some of the kids did not attend including Leah, who I now knew was Jewish and not atheist. Their absence made me uncomfortable, and I was worried for them. It didn’t seem right, but I guess the Admin couldn’t cover everything. I knew that at least one of the boys was a Muslim. Our cell phones were still not connecting.
On Monday, we began the day as we usually did, but there was a lot of complaining about our phones, and apparently the Admin’s cell was not working either. In the afternoon, the mail jeep did not arrive. People’s tempers were getting short. After lunch, the Admin called us together

“I’m going down to the post office to pick up the mail,” she said and there was loud cheering from the kids and even from the counselors.
“I’m going to give the counselors a break from you young terrors.” Hoots of derision followed this announcement. “It will take a couple of hours to get there and come back, so I’m leaving Ignacio here with you. He’s going to show a movie about a boy who goes to wizard school. You’ve probably never seen it.” There were more hoots of derision. “Stay inside unless you have to go to the bathroom.”

At the last minute, there was a discussion between Ignacio and Jackie. He was anxious to hear from his wife, so Jackie volunteered to stay behind. I saw him jump into the back of the SUV, but I’m not sure that the Admin realized what had happened. Later, Erin said that leaving us with Jackie was a common human mistake with tragic consequences. None of us paid any attention to the vehicle as it disappeared over the rise. They never came back.

* * * * *

Jacob stepped up next to Mike, and then Mike stepped to one side.
"Hey!" Mike called out. All the kids got quiet.
"Everyone, come close so you can hear him," Mike ordered.
We all crammed against the podium, trying to get a good spot. Mike didn’t have to tell us to quiet down. We were practically holding our breath.

"I decided to walk down to the convenience store and find out what was going on. It took me three days to get there," Jacob said, "But I don’t mean that I got to the store. In the afternoon, about four o’clock on the third day, I stopped, because there was a mist or some kind of fog blocking the road and covering all of the land around it. Do you remember seeing the signs that said what the elevation was?”

Some of us nodded, including me. As we had driven higher and higher into the mountains, each consecutive thousand foot level was marked with a sign along the road.

“This happened just below the sign for seven thousand feet.. The road started going downhill real steeply, and I saw the fog ahead of me. It was real strange, because it was flat like a pancake, and I could see over it. It looked like the ocean, except that it was brown, and there were no waves. There was a doe standing next to the road, close to the fog. I stopped to watch it, because it was kind of cool. First, it was standing by the edge of the fog. Then it walked farther down the road into the fog, and it was staring forward, like it heard something or maybe it smelled something. Its feet and part of its legs were in the fog. Then I saw its head come up like it was startled, and it tried to jump backwards to get out of the fog. It fell down with only its head and shoulders just above the fog. I could see it was trying to struggle. It was making strange sounds. Then it stopped moving. I think it was dead. Then I saw the body of the deer moving down the road into the fog like something was dragging it. Then it was gone. That kind of shook me up.”

I heard one of the younger boys whimper, and I didn’t blame him one bit. Tears were forming in my eyes. The temporary calm of our camp was coming to an end.
“I watched for another hour, and I saw a bird fly very low over the fog. Something came out of the fog and grabbed the bird, and it disappeared. It happened so fast, that I couldn’t tell what had grabbed it. I climbed a little hill next to the road, and I looked over to the other side. There was more fog. It's like we're on an island in an ocean. That’s when I decided that I should come back here and tell you what I saw."

The tears that had formed in my eyes were streaming down my cheeks now, and I was not alone in this. Other kids, girls and boys were choking back sobs, and some didn’t even try to hold them back.

“Daddy. Mama,” I heard Maria whisper from behind me. I noticed that Mike, standing to one side on the podium, was white-faced.