I was thirteen when the crows came. The first of them anyway. An unusually sweltering September had just arrived. I saw the first crow dart from the palisade of rich green trees that encircled the back yard. I remembered thinking crows weren’t that fast, but this one came barrelling from its branch as though it had some pressing appointment. I don’t remember which stupid game we were playing out back, but I do remember the game coming to a stop, our little group of sweaty neighborhood kids frozen in place with their hands plastered to their ears. I know better now, of course, but back then we should have taken the caw for what it was.

A warning…

When winter came that year it bit like a pack of rabid wolves. Being from the Northeast we were no strangers to cold and snow, but this was different. Even as a kid I knew something bad was bearing down on us. You could see it on the faces of the adults, the fine worry lines around their eyes and cheeks that weren’t so fine anymore and in the suddenly hushed conversations that trailed off when a kid walked into the room. It was the older folk that really drove it home for me, though, the way they had all taken to staring blankly out of their frosted windows as though they were waiting for an old friend to come ambling up the walkway. They knew what was coming. I used to wish they would’ve just told us. Maybe they were right not to.

The first storm hit just after Thanksgiving and dumped a foot of snow on top of our little town. It was then I noticed the crows trickling in. One by one, they set up shop on our branches and rain gutters. We paid them no mind, figuring them for lost on their travels south. Our town managed as we always did: kids shoveled walks for small money and the guys with the landscaping gear switched over to plowing mode and cleaned up. I remember my dad coming in one night with a wad of fifties rolled thicker than a Coke can. Each night we had a fire at a different neighbor’s house. It was like a private winter festival. I don’t think I had ever seen as much hot chocolate and marshmallow.

At first the snow days were fun. Hell, what kid wouldn’t want to dodge a week or two of stuffy classrooms and math problems? It wasn’t until the adults started missing work that we kids knew something was wrong. Terms we didn’t really recognize had begun appearing on the news; things like ‘travel ban’ and ‘shortage’. We were a rural town, we typically fended for ourselves anyway. We were used to being cut off from the city every winter when the snows came. Every family that had been here more than a season knew that at first frost it was time to to service the generators and stock the basement.

But like I said. When winter arrived it was anything but. An emissary of crows had carried in something meaner. Something more bitter and empty.

On the first of December an ice fog had begun a slow creep toward the edge of town. It was a strange sight, one that will stick with me till the end. The rolling wall of miniaturized ice crystals inched closer to our streets and homes, sometimes simply hanging in place like a heavy veil, glimmering in the struggle between starlight and the purple hues of dawn. A murder of crows played honor guard to the strange weather, cawing from their perches on the branches and rooftops, advancing just ahead of the fog. People had stood out on their porches, huffing and puffing the frigid air into plumes of steam, rubbing their gloved hands and just staring into the cloud of shining diamonds and its dark heralds.

Who could blame them? It was a hell of a sight.

Something about it twisted my stomach into knots. I hated how the world vanished behind it as though God had wiped it clean with a block of Magic Eraser. It didn’t feel right, you know? Like everything you knew should be somewhere had been blinked into oblivion.

Soon after, reports of people vanishing into the seductive swirls of vapor descended upon the neighborhood. They all sounded the same: someone’s mother or son or uncle would just up and stroll smiling ear-to-ear out into the fog, muttering some nonsense about ‘the harmony’. No cares. No warnings.

No returns.

One by one, the families of our tight neighborhood began barricading themselves into their homes which quickly became little more than hardened fortresses. One morning, the sound of hammers pounding dominated our usual serenity. Windows were boarded. Doors barred. Shutters and curtains drawn. The festival-like atmosphere had vanished. A pervasive foreboding now smothered the air. At night, the generators’ dull hum played a lifeless aria. Flickering candles danced behind drawn shades, spilling scraps of light into the deserted dark.

I remember our next-door neighbor, Mr. Cronin, telling my parents through a slit cut from his door, that right before his ham radio went dark he had been listening to reports of martial law being declared all over the US. Entire cities, he said, were being swallowed up by an icy winter fog, even places like Florida and Texas. He said that whole towns had become deserted, leaving behind cryptic whispers of a strange tune or harmony. He was a smart man, used to be an engineer for NASA’s JPL, I think, before he taught junior high science to us kids. We found him a couple of weeks later on his bathroom floor. His old Army Colt pistol lay next to his mottled fingers. The heat had died in his house and the blood pooled around the back of his shattered skull had frozen to a syrupy slush. The handwritten note, folded in half like a formal dinner invitation, contained a single, lonely word.

Entropy.

Mr. Cronin’s death kept me up at night shivering for days. I couldn’t shake the sight of his frostbitten skin or the brain matter sprayed over the bathroom ceiling. I should’ve known better than to follow my father inside, but listening was never my strong suit.

It hit especially hard Christmas morning. Even now, so many years later, after so many restless nights, I can still see it. I can still see him standing up from breakfast and walking outside. Right in the middle of the meal, like it was a perfectly normal thing to do. My father, a good, decent man who worked hard every day of his life, simply smiled, pushed himself away from the table and walked barefoot into the morning fog that had crept to the end of our driveway. The glistening storm inhaled him like a starving baby set on a bottle.

I read the words plainly on my mother’s quivering lips as I had struggled through the barricade of my older sister’s arms. “The harmony. The harmony has him. You have to let him go.” The giant wads of cotton they’d plugged their ears with and taped over scraped my cheeks as I flailed. A mixture of our hot tears ran down my chin. I remember my arms turning to lead and my shoulders burning. I remember feeling that if my father was leaving than I wanted to go with him.

The next morning a staccato of throbbing metallic clanks split the silence and then sputtered dead just after dawn. By the time I made it downstairs, my mother had already jumped into action. She rushed around the house, packing supplies and throwing on extra layers before cinching her heavy winter coat to her chin. I stood there in the middle of the living room, thinking she was crazy.

My sister tapped me on the shoulder and my head swivelled. Her fingers trembled as she spoke. “The generator’s dead. Mom said we have to lift one from…” She swallowed the lump nagging the back of her throat. “From someone who won’t be needing it anymore.”

I threw my hands up. “You can’t be serious! You’re going out there?”

My mother punched the keycode into my father’s gun cabinet, proving how deadly serious she was. My mother hated guns. Hated them with a passion. But that usual look of disdain on her face whenever my father came back from the range or clean a rifle at the table had vanished.

She took one of the smaller revolvers from its mount and gave it a once over. To her credit, she popped the cylinder open in less than three tries. Satisfied, she snapped it closed and stuffed the modest weapon in her coat pocket. When she finally turned to me her forehead crinkled like I was bleeding from the eyes. I could hardly keep up with the words as they fell from her mouth.

“Why aren’t you dressed?”

Tears welled at the corners of my eyes and I knew my voice was going to crack. “I’m waiting for Dad.”

My mother stared at me, incredulous. She stormed to the closet by the front door, tore my winter coat from a flimsy hanger and threw it around my shoulders. At first I stood there, letting her dress me like a small child. Images of my father swirled in my mind. He had always been there for me. I had to be there for him when he came back. I had to make her understand. My hands flew a mile a minute.

“What if he’s hurt when he comes back? What if he’s bringing help?”

My mother’s hand snapped to my chin, squeezing a fresh coat of stinging tears from my eyes. I practically felt the heat burning from her glare. “He’s gone.” She pointed at her plugged ears. The vibration of her voice traveled down her fingers and into my chin. “It got him. Whatever it is out there in that fog got him. And if we want to stay alive we have to keep the house up and running. And that means getting a new generator.”

I started to speak but my sister stole my words. “Don’t say that. We can’t be sure. Maybe he made it into town.”

“There is no town.” My mother spent the next few minutes showing us exactly how she knew. She clicked a button on the remote and the television’s soft glow siphoned the gloomy shadows from the living room. An endless cycle of looped news footage drove her point home. The ice fog had swept over most of the world, covering the once brilliant blue globe with a blanket of glistening silver.

“You see that? That’s it. That’s all there is.” My mother tossed the remote on the couch. “Whatever’s out there is coming. Slowly. Surely. The town’s power has been out for weeks.” She pulled her cellphone from her back pocket and tossed it onto the floor like an empty soda can. “Phones are gone too. It took my husband. I will not let it take my children.”

She turned for the front door, muttering. “I will not. I will not.”

My heart sank. Desperation had colored my mother’s face shades of ashy wax. I knew she was right. If we wanted to live, we had to go.

Now.

Outside the ice fog had stalked halfway down the driveway. The tempest at its center seemed to have stalled. It was like looking at a wall of concrete. I pulled the curtain back to show my mother and sister. “We should go out the back.”

My mother nodded and lead the way. My sister followed close behind, backpack slung over her shoulder. We crossed the back yard, crunching through snow ice, casting cautious glances all around. The fog had claimed most of the space between the neighborhood houses, blanketing streets and yards alike. We followed our mother’s lead as she guided us through the maze.

The Jacksons’s house goaded us from less than a hundred yards. They had boarded their windows a few days before Christmas. Their lights hadn’t come back on the next night. I had to hope they were ok: they were the closest house to ours not completely enveloped and I didn’t want to be near the fog any longer than I had to.

A sudden wind rose, blowing hard against our faces. We leaned in but the stinging gust had a mind of its own. Its strength grew, picking up abandoned debris from the alley and yards, slinging junk like a tantruming child. Again the wind swelled. A trashcan lid ricocheted from a car’s side, missing my face by inches. I turned to follow its arc instantly wishing I hadn’t. My stomach churned at the sight of the ice fog bearing down on our house. It crashed over our two-story like a ghostly tidal-wave, swallowing the memories of birthday parties and my father’s lectures. I watched as my bedroom windows disappeared behind the sterling murk.

My sister clutched her ears as she struggled forward. When she turned, I watched in horror as she mouthed ‘the harmony’ over and over again. She fell to her knees, thrashing in the snow. I rushed over, trying to pull her to her feet but the insanity had taken hold. My mother pulled the revolver from her pocket. She threw an arm around my sister, frantically brushing the hair from her daughter’s eyes before pulling her into a bear hug. She kissed her forehead a dozen times. “If you can’t hear it, it can’t have you… I won’t let it have you.”

The revolver’s boom hammered my chest. I remember my sister’s mouth stretching into a shocked ‘O’ shape. She reached for her chest with shaking hands, each coming away with fingertips painted bright red. My jaw fell from its hinges. My mother lowered my sister gently to the ground. A bloody rose bloom swelled from the wound quickly saturated the front of her jacket. Her jade green eyes stared up at the sky in eternal shock.

I stared at the smoking weapon in my mother’s hand. She stared at the ground by her knees. Her hair had draped her eyes like a stage curtain, but behind them I saw her lips quivering. I knew she was muttering the same words as before, over and over: “I won’t let it have you.”

I stepped back and looked around the alley. There was no one there. There probably wasn’t anyone left in town at all. A frigid chill gnawed at my spine as I realized that for the first time in my life I was afraid of my mother. My own mother. The fog, whatever it was, had done something to her. Strange harmony or not, the wall of icy crystal flecks had shorted the wiring in her head. My heart pounded beneath my polar fleece. One thought, one word flashed in my head.

Run.

The ice fog closed in on both sides, narrowing into a tall corridor that climbed over the trees. I sprinted for the end of the alley. Panting, steam plumed from my mouth like a freight train. When I dared to look back, my mother was still on her knees. She cradled my sister’s head in her lap, stroking her hair as though she were soothing a sick child. I slowed to a halt, suddenly guilty that I had run. I started back, but my mother shook her head.

Her fingers were steady as she signed a final time. “I love you.”

I reached to them, hoping that somehow I could pull them to safety. But it was too late. The fog that had claimed our home rolled over them, sweeping them away like a forgotten dream. A pair of crows sitting on a powerline just ahead of the icy wall cawed at me and then burst into flight.

My boot slipped on a patch of ice. I stumbled, caught my balance by the fingertips, turned and ran. I remember running for forever, or it least it seemed that way. On both sides, towering cliffs of fog loomed overhead. Behind me, the fog continued feeding its voracious appetite, swallowing cars and homes and trees. I felt like the last little bit of sandcastle standing against the tide. I slowed. I thought about giving up. My father was gone. My mother and sister were gone. My whole life was gone. I’m just a fucking kid, I thought, how in the world could I know what to do? Where to go? Even if I outran the nightmare how was I going to eat? Where was I going to sleep? It was still December then. It was beyond freezing and getting colder. And the fog still pushed its boundaries like a predator expanding its hunting grounds.

The SUV nearly side-swiped me from my panic as it hopped the corner’s curb and punched through a stop sign. It swerved to a stop, one of its doors flinging upon as it slid. A woman jumped out, arms flailing, gesturing for me to get in. A light pink scarf covered her mouth, but her eyes screamed on her lips’ behalf.

I stood there, crying, between the fog and the SUV; still and lifeless like a block of flawed marble. The woman grabbed my wrist and dragged me to the waiting vehicle. Inside, a large man with a bushy beard appeared to be shouting for her to hurry. She shoved me onto the back bench, climbed behind me, and pulled the black door closed.

Adrenaline surged through my veins, banishing the grief and replacing it with an immediate sense of self-preservation. I scrambled down the bench until my back was on the opposite door. I kicked at the woman with the pink scarf as I reached for the door’s handle. The burly driver reached a ham-sized fist into the back seat, trying in vain to restrain my flailing boots. The woman reached for my throat. The SUV fishtailed through a snow-covered intersection. The driver’s head slammed against the side window, but the man kept his hands furiously at work on the steering wheel. Outside, the shroud of ice erasing the world spun around me in drab gray shades.

I tried to scream.

My heart slammed in my chest. A health class video on heart attacks flashed in my mind. I felt my throat closing beneath icy fingers. It was the woman, I thought. I lay there slumped against the door. I had no fight left. The woman’s hands were a blur beneath my chin. I closed my eyes. I thought of my dad.

Suddenly, air swelled in my lungs. The frigid grip around my neck had vanished. I gasped and lurched upright. The woman pulled the front of my coat open. She slowly sat back in her seat, gesturing for me to be calm. She lowered her scarf--

“It’s going to be alright.”

She looked familiar. I remembered seeing her at one my sister’s basketball games. I stared back at her, too exhausted to argue or fight or cry. She leaned forward and slowly began to sign her name.

“Ally. My name is Ally. You’re Noah, right?”

It finally clicked. I remembered my sister’s teammate and her mom. Theirs was the only other local family with a deaf child. Jessie. That was her name. I think she died in car crash after homecoming the year before the fog.

Ally found the driver’s-- her husband’s eyes in the rear view mirror and nodded. The big man kept a massive paw pressed against a lump forming on the side of his forehead. He managed to turn and briefly smile before giving me a gloved thumbs up.

An hour later, the SUV ground to a halt in front of a modest home the fog seemed to have forgotten. We approached slowly, the driver leading. His head craned and panned as though he were expecting trouble. The front of the house had been boarded up solid: plyboard covered the windows and through the narrow slits of glass on the door I saw a mountain of furniture barricading the entrance.

Ally stole the confusion from my mind. She turned me by the shoulder and signed deliberately. “Don’t worry. Everyone’s already gone.” She pointed to a side gate at the end of a narrow walkway flanked on either side by snow covered shrubs.

I followed them through the wrought iron gate into the back yard. A bulkhead had been cleared. The shelter below would have made my father wet himself. A space the size of two classrooms held shelf after shelf of giant water jugs and other supplies. I remember my first MRE. It took awhile but eventually I got used to their grainy textures. Along one of the longer cement walls was a row of fold out bunks.

Even now, twenty years after that first crow cawed at us neighborhood kids, I can remember the shadow cast by the bulkhead door sealing behind Ally’s lumberjack-sized husband, Dale. I never thought I see daylight again. We thought the fog was the end of everything. Mr. Cronin had scribbled the word ‘entropy’ before he died. It took awhile before I found an old textbook in the bunker’s humble library corner that described it.

At the time, I thought he had been right. Except for the three of us, there didn’t seem to be anything left out there. No more planes or cars. No one answering our radios. Nothing but static on the televisions. The world had gone so still we had just assumed that it had died. I had only gone back outside once. To bury them. To bury my second family. They’d gone peacefully in their sleep and aided by a bottle of pills ten years to the day the fog came. My guess is the silence finally did them in. A world with no breath of life and no heartbeat must’ve have gotten to be too much. I thought not being able to hear the harmony that had claimed my parent’s had kept me safe. Turns out the silence is just as dangerous.

The fog has closed in on all sides now, encircling the bulkhead like the perimeter fence of a prison yard with its slithery tendrils. It’s even climbed into the sky like a dome, blocking out all but a dim glow from an invisible sun. I’m not worried though. I still have a good stock of water and plenty of food. Dale taught me to look after the generator so I still have light and heat when I need it. But I’m tired. I’m tired of being here. I stopped being afraid of the fog years ago. It hasn’t bothered to swallow the bulkhead, so I figure maybe the entropy died its own death while waiting me out.

I’m going to go now. I want to see my mom and dad again. I hope that the fog will finally take me to wherever they are. I’m leaving the bulkhead doors open and this last bit of journal behind to describe what I saw. Who knows. Maybe in a thousand years if we make a comeback someone will be able to use it and figure out where went wrong. If we do, and you’re reading this, if you’re ever sweating through a sweltering summer afternoon and see the black streak of a cawing crow fly by, count your blessings.

Because they could vanish overnight.