Free The Mist by Stephen King

at the extreme right.
    The two men and Ollie went inside the generator compartment. Their lights flashed uneasily back and forth, reminding me of something out of a boys’ adventure story—and I illustrated a series of them while I was still in college. Pirates burying their bloody gold at midnight, or maybe the mad doctor and his assistant snatching a body. Shadows, made twisted and monstrous by the shifting, conflicting flashlight beams, bobbed on the walls. The generator ticked irregularly as it cooled.
    The bag-boy was walking toward the loading door, flashing his light ahead of him. “I wouldn’t go over there,” I said.
    â€œNo, I know you wouldn’t.”
    â€œTry it now, Ollie,” one of the men said. The generator wheezed, then roared.
    â€œJesus! Shut her down! Holy crow, don’t that stink! ”
    The generator died again.
    The bag-boy walked back from the loading door just as they came out. “Something’s plugged that exhaust, all right,” one of the men said.
    â€œI’ll tell you what,” the bag-boy said. His eyes were shining in the glow of the flashlights, and there was a devil-may-care expression on his face that I had sketched too many times as part of the frontispieces for my boys’ adventure series. “Get it running long enough for me to raise the loading door back there. I’ll go around and clear away whatever it is.”
    â€œNorm, I don’t think that’s a very good idea,” Ollie said doubtfully.
    â€œIs it an electric door?” the one called Jim asked.
    â€œSure,” Ollie said. “But I just don’t think it would be wise for—”
    â€œThat’s okay,” the other guy said. He tipped his baseball cap back on his head. “I’ll do it.”
    â€œNo, you don’t understand,” Ollie began again. “I really don’t think anyone should—”
    â€œDon’t worry,” he said indulgently to Ollie, dismissing him.
    Norm, the bag-boy, was indignant. “Listen, it was my idea,” he said.
    All at once, by some magic, they had gotten around to arguing about who was going to do it instead of whether or not it should be done at all. But of course, none of them had heard that nasty slithering sound. “Stop it!” I said loudly.
    They looked around at me.
    â€œYou don’t seem to understand, or you’re trying as hard as you can not to understand. This is no ordinary fog. Nobody has come into the market since it hit. If you open that loading door and something comes in—”
    â€œSomething like what?” Norm said with perfect eighteen-year-old macho contempt.
    â€œWhatever made the noise I heard.”
    â€œMr. Drayton,” Jim said. “Pardon me, but I’m not convinced you heard anything. I know you’re a big-shot artist with connections in New York and Hollywood and all, but that doesn’t make you any different from anyone else, in my book. Way I figure, you got in here in the dark and maybe you just…got a little confused.”
    â€œMaybe I did,” I said. “And maybe if you want to start screwing around outside, you ought to start by making sure that lady got home safe to her kids.” His attitude—and that of his buddy and of Norm the bag-boy—was making me mad and scaring me more at the same time. They had the sort of light in their eyes that some men get when they go shooting rats at the town dump.
    â€œHey,” Jim’s buddy said. “When any of us here want your advice, we’ll ask for it.”
    Hesitantly, Ollie said: “The generator really isn’t that important, you know. The food in the cold cases will keep for twelve hours or more with absolutely no—”
    â€œOkay, kid, you’re it,” Jim said brusquely. “I’ll start the motor, you raise the door so that the place doesn’t stink up too bad. Me and Myron will be standing by the