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darkriddle1 — STORY...The MIST...Pandoras Ale
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Published: 2017-06-15 21:26:31 +0000 UTC; Views: 7924; Favourites: 23; Downloads: 1
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One of the most popular Fan-Fiction Stories on the Web; The Mist: Pandora's Ale is set 3 years after the Frank Darabont film and sets up not only a sequel to the film, but a wider connection to the entire Stephen King Universe.
The Mist: The Search for Pandora’s Ale
Based on the great Stephen King's novel “The Mist” this cover story sends a pack of big-game hunters and a popular TV naturalist to venture to the secret island dubbed The Window as they encounter creatures that defy imagination.
While the Arrowhead Project's epic blunder continues to be a problematic nightmare, creatures that spilled over from the Wastelands, and adapted to Todash Space Ecology, wreak havoc on an unprepared earth.
Bob Hart sat still in the plush chair as the executive of Sea World International fiddled nervously with a pen. Philip Smart was the epitome of his namesake, having several distinguished degrees in business management and another acclaimed award for creating the financial basis for three large nature parks.
He was the opposite description of Bob Hart, who had little education and mostly earned his credit in the field. Phil was tall and pale, while Bob was short and dark. The two seemed to have little in common, but Smart had just made an offer that even Bob’s strong morale found hard to refuse.
“So, will you do it?” Smart asked. “I mean Project Arrowhead didn’t start in Maine, you know. My lead to the island is good…credible.”
Bob looked unconvinced.
“Credible? You seem to want to throw in loads of money into hunches, Phil.”
“They are not hunches, Hart – this is the kind of secret information you can only get through the Nite Wire, if you catch my meaning…”
Bob laughed unimpressed.
“I suppose you mean top-secret, right?”
Phil Smart folded his arms in a frustrated gesture.
“Of course it is.” He conceded.
“Still, that is a great deal of money to offer.” Bob muttered. “I mean, how do we even know this so-called Window-Island even exists? That business back in the east was said to be the result of a freak storm.”
Phil simply smirked in cynicism.
“The government and just about every other military faction quarantined an area bigger than any in history. It’s been over three years since that so-called storm-incident and not one cover story made any real sense.
Plus, I’ve gotten eyewitnesses, even children that said they saw creatures that were not of this earth. –Many of them claimed to have lost family members. There has to be some truth to it. …I mean something has to be real concerning this island-town of Xebico.” Smart reasoned.
“It was reported that a freight train full of medical serums crashed during that storm, and that the people there were possibly suffering from induced hallucinations. I have to say, that seems far more credible than beings visiting from outer space.” Bob countered.
“Ah, yes, but what about Inner-Space? Project Arrowhead was a real operation being run just outside that town. Do you think an experimental facility specializing in particle physics has no relations to that storm? Do you really believe it was coincidence that such a vast quarantine was ordered for a few spilled chemicals?”
“I don’t know what to believe, Philip. However, I must decline the offer. I can’t be bought. Endangered species need me in other places. In fact, I have a pride of lions in the Skelton Coast awaiting my documentation and I don’t have the time to begin a witch-hunt for Chupacabras or Bigfoot.”
“Damn it, Bob, forget about lions. You’re the best naturalist on the planet. Isn’t this what you always wanted, to discover and document new species of animals? Do you think we would be offering eighty million dollars for you to embark on a regular safari tour? I mean damn, son - that is far more than any NATGEO or BBC TV special would offer!”
“I don’t capture animals, Smart, I save them. I observe and document them. And frankly, I don’t like the idea of having five overtly testosterone-pumped hunters trailing my every move either. If there was some cryptic animal on Window-
Island, what use is it to me if those bozos shoot the thing before I could even examine it?”
“Okay, so you’re an idealist then. --But what about sick children?”
“What the hell are you getting at, Smart?!”
“I’m talking about a cure for cancer - hell, a cure for almost anything we get sick from. Have you ever heard of ‘Pandora’s Ale’?!”
Bob tilted his head a bit in thought. He had heard of Pandora’s Ale...or at least the exaggerated rumor of it.
“That is just a folk-tale that rode in along with that mist. There is no such thing as Pandora’s Ale.” Bob retorted.
“Ah, but there is,” said Smart, as he threw a sloppy file of forms and photos in front of him.
Bob looked down and sifted through the papers until he came across a dossier of one Richard Hallorann. The form had a photo of an elderly black man with a bald head and kind face.
“So what is this one all about?” Bob prodded.
Smart leaned over his desk with a smile.
“This is proof. That man is old Dick Hallorann. He had a bad case of something-or-other when he was a kid. In fact, his whole family had some kind of sickle cell type sickness until one day his mother or grandmother – I forget which one, took it upon themselves to make an elixir from some honey-like excretions of a hellish mud-bug they caught down in Florida, Key West if I'm correct.”
Bob paced about in frustration.
“Mud-bug? You’re not making any sense, Smart!”
“What I am saying is the Mist had come to this world before. Not unlike it did in Maine – in Florida it appeared for a few hours, right after a severe electrical storm. There was a hurricane and something very odd was set right-smack-dab in the middle of the storm’s eye. Some kind of foggy anomaly. When the storm was over, people found dead creatures. Nightmare Mud-Bugs – you know, like crayfish and lobsters and the like, only – well, twisted and distortedly huge versions of them. Anyway, it was said that the excretions from these dead bugs could cure any sickness.”
“And Dick Hallorann was cured?”
“Hell, first his grandma, and his mother, and him, and who knows who else? The man lived a healthy life with not more than a limp in his leg and an occasional cough. No diseases – no cancer – no sickle cell – and they say he could see things afterwards – things about the future and the past. The man was a shining example of what good comes from exploiting natural resources, my friend.”
Bob grew a smirk over his face.
“So now I get it. You don’t want some alien animal to exhibit in a cage; you’re really after a cure for cancer. That would explain the vast amount of money you’re offering. But how do you know if any of this is even real?”
Smart dropped his head.
“I have some resources and I don’t believe in coincidence.”
“What ever happened to Dick Hallorann? Wouldn’t he be interested in seeing this – I mean another encounter with the Mist maybe?”
“Well, he might have, but he’s dead.”
Bob giggled.
“Well there it is then – apparently Pandora’s Ale isn’t the cure-all you made it out to be…” Bob replied.
Smart just dismissed this with a wave of his hand.
“Hallorann was doing just fine. He died of something more…un-natural.”
“Really, what was that?”
“He had a crappy job in a boondock hotel – some alcoholic caretaker got drunk and whacked him with an ax. It was nothing that my elusive cure-all could help him with.” Smart explained.
Bob sighed.
“So much for dead-ends and bad leads…”
“Not so much,’ Smart added. “I did get some valuable information before he died.”
“Hmm, how so?” Hart asked.
“First off, his grandmother is still alive and kicking – a widow called Abagail Freemantle. Yep, good ol’ Mother Abagail is over one-hundred-years-old! And still making her own bread in a run-down cabin out in the hills of Nebraska. --Just making her own way, playing that guitar of her's near the cornfields. She gave me a weird parchment Dick kept in his secrecy – a scroll with the word ‘Todash’ on it.
“Todash, what the hell does that mean?” Bob bit.
“I am not sure, but it was the central word that was found when my research team searched the ruins of Project Arrowhead – in fact, it was the only word we found. There was a crushed flash-drive with the words ‘Todash to Arrowhead’ written on it. The flash-drive was worthless, far too damaged to fix. I don’t believe this is a coincidence.”
Bob was growing very interested and Smart responded by adding some security and comfort to his proposal.
“Hey, man, you wouldn’t be going in alone, you know. I hired some of the best woodsmen and outdoors specialist anyone could find.”
Bob smirked again.
“You mean mercenary hunters!” He barked. “Specializing in destroying what nature creates...”
“Well - if you insist on seeing it like that, Bob. At any rate those big-game hunters would be going along with you for your protection. We don’t know what is on that island. Besides, some of them are Ex-Black Ops guys. They’re the only ones who can get you past the military perimeters. Listen to me, Bob; just think about how many animals and environments you could save with eighty million dollars.” Phil tempted.
After a long moment of deep thought Bob Hart submitted.
“You drive a hard bargain, Phil Smart. I’ll trek to the Atlantic for you, granted I’m sure I’ll find nothing new to science. You’re paying the bills for this expedition and you already know I have low expectations. I mean really, what new species do you expect to find on a nine-mile island of old rocks?” Hart warned.
Phil just smiled in devious excitement.
“I’m not sure, Bob, that’s your job now. But I suspect we’ll find a few animals that people never seen. After all, the world is still a mysterious place and who knows, maybe I will be like Alex Fleming. He’s the man who discovered Penicillin and the world was never the same again.”
Window-Island
Bob approached the mountain-shaped island on a speedy skiff. Four men and one woman were along for the ride. The game hunters were a mix of many different ethnicities, including African, Swedish, and Mexican just to name a few.
Bob was disheartened by the fact that they all seemed far more like soldiers for hire and battle-hardened mercenaries than actual game hunters.
In addition, they all had somewhat worn faces, marked with keen eyes and the look that only experience in the field could grant. Bob knew this from his own personal excursions into the wilds.
“Alright, roll call – this is where we bait the Arrow!” The tall African ordered.
In military fashion, each one of them sounded off, giving their name and status.
“First Point-man, Ron Herring; heavy weapons specialist.” The Swedish man replied with a native accent.
“Second Point-man, Hector Guzman; tracking and communications expert.” The strong Mexican shouted.
“Third Point-man, Luanne Trump; Navigation and tech specialist.” The Australian woman added.
“Fourth Point-man, Gary Fisher; tactical weapons and strategy.” The short man answered.
“Fifth Point-man, Ogun Umbazzi; explosives expert and surveillance.” The African man huffed.
Afterward, they looked toward Bob, clearly expecting the same type of identification, despite the fact that they already met hours before. Nevertheless Bob went along with it.
“Uh, Bob Hart, err, televised naturalist?!” He answered somewhat dubiously.
Ogun was obviously the team’s leader and was the dead serious type. He took to the front of the boat and activated a set of switches.
Instantly, Bob felt the boat rise. He looked over the corner and saw that their boat was moving much faster than before and was now practically hovering over the water on blade like stilts.
“What’s this; I never saw such modifications on a boat before.” Bob asked.
“It’s a Navy Stealth Skiff. The Seal teams use it to infiltrate enemy waters.” Ogun answered.
“So, this is going to get us past that electric perimeter? It looks like they got the place blockaded pretty well.”
“Not well enough, Mr. Nature-man. You’ll see soon.” Ogun smiled wickedly.
Picking up a bizarre weapon that looked a cross between a rocket-launcher and a spear-gun, the tall African aimed it towards the sky just above the island’s perimeter bands.
The bands around the island were actually thin walkways, where a whole contingent of military guards patrolled the island border. Strangely, they seemed to have been placed a good hundred feet or so from a thick and pale white fog that completely permeated the entire isle.
For the military, it was an ideal set up. By now they had learned to be quite successful at keeping the origin of the Mist and it's deadly denizens trapped on the island with electrical fences, sophisticated sound-waves and invisible pulses.
Even the flying beasts could not venture near it, since the entire menagerie of tech had now created a virtual force-field of sorts.
Be that as it may, many of the creatures themselves actually chose not to venture far from their foggy home - some people even claimed that the beasts could not live very long outside of their misty environment to which they had evolved, sort of like fish out of water. Yet this was never put to the test.
“Get ready, people – now we bait the Arrow!” Ogun yelled as he pulled the trigger on the huge projectile weapon.
Bob and the others watched as a cartoon-like bullet about the size of a football rocketed out of the gun and shot high into the air. A moment later, a wide blast of light was seen among the dark clouds above, but there was no explosion heard.
“It was a dud? Your rocket thing-ee doesn’t seem to work, Ogun.”
“Be patient, Nature-man,” Ogun said in his thick African accent. “It works fine and dandy.”
“Look, the power is going off line!” Luanne shouted. “I can’t see their patrol lights anymore.”
“Good, that means the EMP bomb worked, as I expected. Quickly now, let’s make for the shore while the electrical fields are down.” Ogun ordered.
And just like that their boat sped across the water and past the Army guards above them who were still desperately scrambling to return power to their perimeter grid. The boat landed on a rocky shoreline where the fog of the odd island was less thick and the team jumped out with weapons ready.
The boat had a large hatch and when opened, out popped a pair of small ATV vehicles. The ALL-Terrain-Vehicles were a bit odd with one wide wheel in the back and two in the front. They could sit three people each with an extended back seat. As tough as the ATVs appeared, Bob was skeptical about their performance among the white mists and rocky ground of the island.
“Come on, we don’t have much time,” Ogun ordered. “Let’s get on the transports and head for the island’s inner plateau. That is where we will find the game Smart wants us to capture.”
Ron, Hector, and Ogun took the first ATV and sped off into the mist, leaving a bright pulsating yellow light to guide the other slim ATV.
Luanne piloted the second one as Bob and Gary jumped on. Bob was straddled behind Luanne, while Gary was situated behind him, carrying a wicked looking machine gun.
The ATVs were surprisingly quiet and they stealthily made their way into the thicker fog.
Luanne mimicked Ogun and switched on a weird blue light that seemed to penetrate the foggy vapors much better than the traditional headlights. Still, they could only see about twenty feet ahead of them before all images vanished. Ogun drove his ATV alongside Luanne’s.
“Heads up!” Ogun yelled as he pulled an Uzi submachine gun from his side and began blistering gunfire in the cloudy sky.
“What’s going on?” Bob asked.
He got his answer when a dozen or so freakish-looking insects began to fall from the thick mist above him. One landed on the windshield of their ATV and Luanne quickly crushed it with the butt of her handgun. Bob got a good look at the foot-long fly before she swept it off of the vehicle.
“Dear God, that thing was huge. And its face, it almost looked skeletal, as if it had some sinister intelligence. Why didn’t you stop?” He asked Luanne. “This is why we came here, to document new species. I never saw an insect that large before.”
Luanne slowed down their transport and directed the halogen lamp of the ATV toward a huge cluster of shadows ahead of them.
“If you liked that stinging fly I just squashed, you’re going to love these things!” She answered sarcastically.
There, wriggling in a more forested region of the island stood a grisly assemblage of spider-like creatures. Some were as small as a mouse, while others appeared to be five-feet across in size.
As Luanne predicted, Bob Hart was truly stunned.
“I thought we were looking for some kind of lions,” Gary added in growing fear. “These things are like nothing I’ve ever seen before.”
“They are Gray Widowers!” Shouted Ogun. “They were described in the manual that Smart gave us. We are not looking for them; we are looking for big lobsters, the ones that can make the Pandora ale!”
“Gary is right. Ogun and I stocked a supply of tranquilizing sedatives in our packs, but these things don’t even look like mammals. How do we know if the sedatives would even work?”
“By trial and error.” Ogun suddenly answered as he pulled his ATV next to theirs.
Ogun’s passengers looked just as shocked as they were.
Bob knew that the hunters expected to see prized animals, but he suspected the sight of such bizarre beasts took them by surprise. Nevertheless, Ogun aimed his riffle at one of the larger spider-things and shot a powerful tranquilizer dart from it. To his astonishment, the dart hit its mark despite the hindering fog.
“Ah ha, you see, we CAN dart these animals. They’re strange but they act no different than those I’ve captured in Africa.”
Luanne and Bob displayed a look of both fear in awe in their faces, knowing that the island’s residents were nothing like the creatures they expected to see.
“Hey, don’t look so glum, people. We’re about to be millionaires, right?”
Luanne, Gary, and Bob stood on their transport, but Ogun got off of his ATV and carefully walked a few meters in front of the parked vehicles.
They watched as Ogun drew closer to the huge spider-thing that he tagged. It wobbled about clumsily on six spindly legs and turned over, obviously succumbing to the sedative, but then it suddenly rolled back on its legs and rushed toward them.
It hissed like some nightmare demon and Bob could see that it, too, had bizarre, almost human-like features to its face – and what a fearsome face it was.
Ogun began backing up, while wrestling to pull out his live-fire ammo, but a wispy string of white webbing shot from the spider’s abdomen and landed across his face and torso, Ogun screamed in mortal terror as the acidic webbing ate through his flesh and sent his convulsing body to the wet ground.
“Holy crap!” Luanne yelled. “Those things are lethal.”
Indeed they were. As Ogun’s body still wiggled on the floor, a whole menagerie of the spiders came rushing in and covered him. Small and large ones tore into his flesh, biting, stinging, and impregnating the veteran mercenary even as he struggled in desperation.
“Damn it, this is no prize hunt, Smart tricked us!” Luanne shouted.
Realizing now, that the animals in question might be more than just undiscovered species, Bob instantly made a decision despite his intense curiosity for the odd beings.
“I’m not even sure these things are from earth. Luanne, let’s get back to the shore, tell the others -”
“What others?” She shouted while pointing to a vanishing shape being pulled into the web encrusted trees all around them. “Something’s got a hold of them!”
Gary and Bob gawked as a series of massive tentacles wrapped around the other ATV, dragging Ron and Hector in the deep white of the fog banks.
The tentacles were filled with spiny teeth and they had come from a moist ball of gelatinous mucus – a bizarre octopus-thing not smaller than eighty feet across. It was a huge wriggling horror to behold.
Spouts of dark blood could bee seen flying from their squirming bodies as sickening crunching noises permeated the air.
The appearance of the huge tentacles had made the spiders run and this no doubt accounted for their temporary survival.
Luanne drove the ATV at top speed and headed back towards the shore where they arrived. But a mass of flying creatures came out of the bleak sky.
Unlike the stinging bugs, these were large and bat-like with long snouts edged in a sharp beak. A swarm of the huge creatures tracked them through the fog.
“Hurry, I can see them starting to dive!” Gary shouted as he began shooting wildly into the thick mist.
Several of the bat-things made a loud thud as they hit the floor, pierced and killed by Gary’s shooting. However, they were now far off of their original path and Luanne found it impossible to navigate through the murky haze.
“Damn it, we’re lost!” Luanne screamed in anger. “I can’t find the path to the shoreline.”
“Wait, I have a compass.” Gary offered. “It should lead the way back. Remember we came from the island’s south, so we-”
“Gaa-a-a-ck!”
A bucket load of blood suddenly splashed from Gary’s innards and soaked Bob and Luanne.
In the short moment it took them to stop and think, a freak version of some devilish crab-mantis emerged from the murk.
Hazed in shadow, they could see that the creature was as tall as a city bus and had pincers as sharp as giant fish hooks.
It was those very pincers that clipped Gary’s body in two and sent his head and torso into a pair of hellish mandibles. Luanne quickly bolted their ATV out of range of the slow-moving monster.
“We’re trapped; we’re going to die here!” She panicked.
“Wait, look to your right.” Bob pointed.
Luanne could see an ominous membrane that appeared to be only inches think. From the side angle they observed it; the membrane was vast in size.
It was much taller than any tree on earth, yet it looked paper thin. It pulsated with freckled light and seemed to be whirling in on itself in an ever dripping swirl of gelatin goo.
“My lord, what the hell is that?!” Luanne quipped.
“I think it’s a doorway – or…a window.” Bob answered. “That must be the rip the military is trying to quarantine here.”
“A rip?” Luanne griped. “I don’t understand.”
“Why do you think it’s called Window-Island? It must be some kind of portal out of here.” Bob explained. “--some type of extra-dimensional rift.”
The rift was far from any other buildings. It seemed to be nestled there alone in the wilds of the island. There was nothing there except a peculiar old car, rusted and half-sunken in the island’s moist earth of ferns and queer otherworldly-looking plants.
Luanne briefly drove her ATV next to the disheveled Buick and noticed an ominous message scratched into the Buick’s front side. Next to her, Bob Hart read the queer words.
“I don’t kill with my gun; I kill with my heart…” Bob recited. “What a queer thing to write.”
“Hmm – what does it mean? Do you think it’s a clue; anything to help us leave this place?”
Bob shook his head.
“I don’t think so, seems more like a declaration of some sort, rather than advice.”
Luanne was about to ask another question, but she saw a fast growing shadow of scuttling shadows moving very quickly toward them.
“Damn, it’s more of those spider-things.” She cried.
In sheer terror from the shadowy apparitions growing larger in the distance, she swerved the ATV and drove her and Bob directly through the wet membrane ahead of them.
The path through the gelatinous membrane gave only a slight drag, but Luanne’s panicked driving sent them tumbling through in a violent rush.
On the other side of the dimensional rift, the two fell from the rolling ATV and they both landed in a sticky, inch-high sea of red liquid.
Immediately she noticed a freakish creature the size of a buffalo. It seemed covered by a grotesque and wriggling mass of fungal matts on its back and sides.
It walked slowly through the red murk they stood in, as it waved its chameleon-like head side to side. The blueish-grey insecto-lizard had a wicked overbite with saw-like teeth sticking out from its mouth.
Although slow-looking, it suddenly darted away quickly, as some red nightmare splashed in from the deep fog. This was unlike the Gray Widower spider-things they encountered in the island's maze of roads earlier.
It was like some hellish camel-spider with giant mandibles and two long, spiked tentacles that waved about furiously from its chitinous exoskeleton.
Bob and Luanne backed away, as its indigo blue eyes, all eight of them, merely passed them by, while it continued to chase the insectoid chameleon-thing.
With a big splashing rush, it moved off with such speed, the whooshing impact had knocked Luanne to the ground.
For a long moment, Luanne was dazed.
She shook her head back and forth, trying to focus.
Her eyes struggled to focus on three crimson objects floating in front of her.
She reached for her firearm, thinking some nightmare wasps might be aiming for her face, but as her eyes regained their function, all she saw were three red balloons, floating ominously into the miles-high fog until they disappeared in the thickness of the smoky vapors.
“What the hell are balloons doing here…” She mumbled under her breath.
Luanne stood up and watched Bob turn the ATV back to its driving position. The fog was thicker here and the air seemed thinner with a rich acrid scent to it, but despite this arcane situation, Bob was genuinely relieved.
Luanne took cover near a rocky outcrop. As she did so, her eyes widened. She saw through the milky fog a colorful and grand mural; it was mysteriously painted on a huge flat rock face near a cliffside crevice.
Drawn in green and blue, apparently inked by crushed petals from alien wildflowers, was the image of a huge majestic turtle…or turtle-like thing.
Bob noticed it as well, but was more drawn to glimpses of tall structures in the distance.
“Good God, we made it, Luanne. We made it!” He shouted in delirious glee. “Look, I can see tall buildings just behind the fog line.”
But Luanne merely dropped to her knees and whimpered in defeat.
“Hey, it’s alright. We’re safe now; we’re off the island’s perimeter.” Bob said in a primal laugh.
Luanne just blinked at Bob in depressed anger.
“Those aren’t tall buildings, Bob. Those things are alive.” She said.
Bob craned his head upward again, this time he could see four impossibly large creatures slowly walking through the murky vapors.
Entire flocks of bat-like beasts flew around the tentacled behemoths, as Bob’s jaw dropped in awe inspired terror.
“Don’t you get it, Mr. Naturalist?” Luanne snapped. “We’re not in our world, we’re in theirs!”
The End
Fan-fiction story based on the Mist from Farina Djuric and Dark Riddle
