The horror zone
(first edition)
On the west side of Vättern lies a small city named Hjo, it is a city with few inhabitants and are often thrown in the shadows of Jönköping and Skövde.
It is known as a touristcity where people go during the summer months and a peacefull place most of the year.
However there is a secret side of Hjo we don't know much about. When the autumn mist fly over the fields of Grebban strange things happen.
Every year around the change between September and October a thick mist run in from Vättern and put the whole city in a thick mist where you can't see your hand in front of you.
The people who has lived in Hjo do not venture outside during these days. They know they could dissapear and never be heard of again.
People do not go outside except if they have to and if they do they never go alone. Always in groups of four or more. They even have weapons in shape of big sticks and sometimes even guns.
The police ignore the law of weapon ownage during these months because they know that something dangerous lurks in the mist.
The mist adds to the horror, there have been repported sightings of people killing animals with terrible methods but when someone go close to where they think they saw something they dissapear.
Not everybody knows about the horror in the mist and a young Robert from Gothenbourg who are in Hjo to visit his sick mother end up in the middle of this horror zone.
His mother are an old woman who lives in one of the big houses down at the seaside of Vättern. She gave birth to her son when she was fifty years old which is quite odd for anyone.
But not impossible, because Robert was born so late she has been taking very good care of him. Making him into a mothers pet, he didn't grow up in Hjo like his mother, when she was younger his father were still alive they had lived in Skövde.
Robert hardly remember anything about his father when he was still a young boy his father had gone to Hjo to work.
He had never returned, the police had found his body all bloody on the fields of Grebban.
No one had known what had happend and the police dissmissed the case as a gruesome murder. Only thing no one could explain were the huge bitemarks found on the corpse.
The police suspected that someone were breeding illegal combat dogs to use in dogfights and that it might have gotten loose. Only thing were that there were no one in the area with such dogs that could be training them properly without getting killed themselves. There had been a place like that a long time ago, but the police had found out about it and arrested the owner and killed the dogs.
How they did it no one wants to comment on and the policemen who were there during the deeds are to old to properly rememer. Or they do not want to remember.
Robert had moved to Gothenbourg when he were around tventyfive years old and had stayed there. Working for Scania as an engineer. His mother had moved to to Hjo in memory of her late husband who had left behind quite the life insurance for her.
This was ofcourse hard for her to get out because benefition of the widow is always to be thought of. But when they finaly after much work and thinking gave her the money she sold the appartement in Skövde and moved to Hjo.
She then learned about the fears of the people living in Hjo and were positive it was the reason for her husbands death. She wanted to expose the killer for what it was.
Year after year when people his inside their homes she were brave enough to move out in the mist looking for her husbands killer. However she had never been close and time wasn't kind to her.
She had fallen ill this year and had called for her only son to come to her side and help her. He had ofcourse not thought much about it and gone direclty to her to help her out.
He stayed with her for quite some time trying to make her feel better.
They had run out of milk and he was going to the store to buy it when he saw it. Two men dressed as policemen beating the life out of a small animal in the mist. Robert called out to them: "what are you doing?" The men payed no heed to his words and kept on using the animal as a football. Robert who had grown up with animal rights and left politics ideas started towards them.
Suddenly they dissapear, Robert stops and start to look around, then he sees them again. In the mist, this time further away like two shadows kicking and beating some small dark lump that he can't quite make out.
He asumes it's the animal. He moves towards the shadows, still screaming at them to stop. After some times with the same thing happening over and over he realizes that something is off. The mist suddenly grows thicker and he has no clue about where he are.
Without knowing he has walked all the way out to Grebban. The place where people usualy dissapear during these chilly Autumn days of the year. Then it becomes quiet, he can't see any shadows anymore, he can't even see his hand in front of him. The mist grows denser and denser for every ticking second.
The wind doesn't blow and no sound can be heard. All he can see is white like in the midst of a blizzard. Then something bumps into him from behind and Robert turns around fast. It's a policeman with a bloody face and terryfied eyes.
"You shouldn't be here, get away before he gets......" The policeman doesn't have time to say anything else before he gets pulled into the mist by something big. All Robert sees as the policeman is pulled away are two huge eyes then everything turns quiet.
It all went to fast for Robert to react all he could do were stand and stare at the spot where the policeman had been.
It was like the mist itself were alive and swallowed the whole area around him. He couldn't see much and started walking slowly in one direction. Then he hears a sound behind him. Slowly he turns around and then he stands face to face with a monstrous dog.
It had red eyes gleeming in the white mist and one big ear. The other one looked like it had been chewed of. Saliva was flowing out of his mouth. The dog were standing in the mist looking at Robert. A moment that felt to Robert like it was passing in slow motion. Then the dog intakes attack position lowering himself to the ground to get a better kickoff towards Robert.
Robert slowly backed away not trying not to look in the dogs eyes. Then the mist grows thick just around the dog and it all goes quiet again. When Robert tries to focus what he sees. The dog is gone, like it was never there. He doesn't take time to ponder about it and run in the opposit direction of where the dog had been standing.
Something huge grows out of the mist, the mist makes it look like a huge shadow. A building or more precisly a barn. Robert goes close to the entrance, not knowing what could be inside. The dog could be anywhere, then he hears a low growl behind him. The sound of the growl seem to get closer.
Robert didn't know what waited for him inside the barn but he knew he could end up dead if he waited for the growl to catch uup to him. He enters the barn carefully and watches every shadow.
Inside the barn everythings seems gloomy and sort of grey. Somehow light shines inside but when Robert looks outside the mist hangs thick. "How is that possible?" Robert asks to himself. Not excepting an answer he recoils in fear when a tired rusty voice answers. "It isn't I don't think we are in the living world anymore" A tired looking man appears from further back in the barn. He looks more dead than alive and a huge wounds on his face.
Robert looks at this man not knowing what to think or say but something seems very familiar about him. Like he had meet him before. But he couldn't quite place him. It was like a far away dream but very foggy.
"I think this it's some kind of parallel dimension or something like that" The man says with a voice sounding like he were closer to death than life. "Dimension?" Robert asks with a hint of amusement of the old mans theory. Robert had never believed in any supernatural things. No ghost nor vampires how could he believe in dimensions?
"You don't have to worry about the dog in here, he doesn't seem to want to go close to the barn" The old man says. Robert sighs with relief. "I can relax here until the dog gets bored and leave then" Robert says while taking a deep breath and put his head in his hands to rubb around his eyes. "Oh that dog won't get bored, it never does" The man says. "I have been hiding here for the last six hours"
"But I can't stay here for so long" Robert says worried. "My mother is ill and I need to get her some milk before the store close" "Ah it's nice to see young ones take care of their mother" The man says with a small grin and a gleem in his eye. "I have a son myself, I promised him to take him out for icecream after work but that dog has kept me conered in here all day"
The old man opens his wallet and takes out a photograph of a small boy. Robert looks at the picture and realises that the boy on the picture is very familiar aswell.
But it can't be, it's himself. How could this be? He looks at the man and can feel his temper rising. "Is this some sick joke?!" Robert almost yell at the man. "This can't be your son, it's me!" The old man looks at the picture and then at Robert. "Oh my god it is you" He look at Robert with huge eyes. "But how could this be, you were only three years old when I last saw you." Then like a light had been lit in his head he realizes something. "You can't stay here, you have to get out from here at once!"
Robert look at the man not understanding what he talks about. "You can't be my father he died years ago when I was just a young boy the police found him all torn up and bloody with bitemarks all over" The man looks at Robert. "No ofcourse I can't be your father, I'm sorry" He says hiding the deep sorrow that he feel as he says that. "But you have to get out of here, you're worried about your mum are you not?" Robert doesn't say anything but just nods.
The man sits down and start to think. "I can try to fool the dog in to following me and you can flee." Robert looks at the man with newfound respect. To put himself in line of danger like that for a complete stranger.
That was the last he saw from that man before he got up and left the barn. He only saw a flash the dog ran past the barndoor. Robert flies out to see what happend to the man but all he could see the direction they had dissapeared to. It's close to where they found his father dead.
He did not think about that for to long and headed of in the direction he had come from. Or atleast the direction he thought he had come from. After walking for some time he heard the growling right behind him.
He knew the man was dead and the dog were coming for him now. He did not look back but ran. He ran like he had never run before. All he could see were white flying past him on both sides of him and then the unsuspected happend. He emerged out of the mist.
And as he turns back expecting to see a monstrous dog he saw nothing. The mist had dispersed and vanished into thin air. What had happend and where was the old man. Was this all a dream or had this really happend?
Robert never got an answer not even when he many years later sat on the porch of his mothers house. She had just passed away and he was back to arrange the funeral. She had just died a mysterious death, someone had found her dead in her bed. Age they said but no one could explain the fur that lay around the bed.
As he sat there he saw the mist roll in from Vättern and he wasn't sure but he thought he saw a monstrious dog chasing a man through the mist.
The dog stops up and looks directly at him with it's red eyes and then let's out a growl that sounds just like thunder on the sky.
Robert got up from his chair and went inside the house. He would get just as obbsessed with the mist as his mother had and then die a lonly death in his bed. The few friends that he had would remember him as kind of crazy but deep down a nice guy.
At his funeral mist lay thick around and none of the visitors were ever seen again. Only the priest made it out alive and he never spoke ever again. Apperantly a huge dog had jumped out and that was the last thing he would remember before passing out.
People have seen the dog and someone has dissapeared but else than that life went on quite normaly in Hjo.
