The raindrops slanted against the helmet visor of Mark's second-hand scooter, trickling down in meandering streams. At 10:47 p.m., the streets in the northern part of Foghorn Town lay as empty as an abandoned stage, with nothing but street lamps casting sickly yellow halos through the rain curtain.
His phone buzzed inside the waterproof pouch—another order had come through.
Pick-up address: Joey's Midnight Diner, No.13 Old Mill Street.
Delivery address: No.444 Pinewood Road.
Payment: $8.50, plus a possible tip—assuming the customer wasn't in a foul mood thanks to this godawful weather.
Mark twisted the throttle; the engine wheezed like an asthmatic. The headlight sliced through the rainy night, illuminating the glistening asphalt ahead. This was his 37th order of the week. His fuel tank was nearly empty, rent was due in four days, and his wallet held a measly $23.50. Welfare? He'd tried that once, queuing for two hours in an office thick with the smell of disinfectant and despair, only to crumple the application form into a ball and toss it away. Grandma always said: A Winster man would sooner starve than beg with his hands.
Back then, he hadn't understood the weight of those words—just as he hadn't understood why, on her deathbed, she'd insisted on pressing that old, tarnished brass pocket watch and a leather-bound notebook with illegible scribbles into his hands.
"Take it, Mark. Keep it with you always." Her withered fingers clamped around his wrist, strong for a dying woman. "Don't be fooled by the calm surface… The shadow of Foghorn Town has never truly lifted."
Now the pocket watch rested against his chest, tucked in the inner pocket of his jacket. The notebook lay at the bottom of his backpack, wrapped in two layers of plastic to keep it dry—though he'd never bothered to open it and read it properly. Those passages about "the blessing of salt," "iron purifying the earth," and "pine resin driving away filth" had struck him as nothing more than the ramblings of a superstitious old woman in her final years.
The bell hanging above the diner's entrance jingled as he stepped inside. Joey, the diner's owner—a burly man tipping the scales at 300 pounds—was wiping the counter with a grubby rag. He barely glanced up, just nodded at Mark.
"Order 444. Cash on delivery, as usual." Joey slid a brown paper bag across the counter, a tightly sealed lunchbox inside. "A word of warning, though… That place is a bit off."
Mark scanned the QR code to confirm pick-up. "Don't care if it's the middle of nowhere—more money, more reason to go."
"It ain't about the money." Joey's voice dropped, his eyes darting nervously. "That house… No.444 Pinewood Road's been vacant for years. Word only got around last week that someone moved in. But nobody's ever seen who."
Mark shrugged. "As long as he tips, I don't care if he's Frankenstein himself."
He grabbed the paper bag and turned to leave, missing the strange gesture Joey made behind his back—thumb brushing his forehead, then tapping his chest.
The rain was falling harder now.
Pinewood Road sat on the western edge of town, right beside the border of Black Pine Forest National Park. Mark's scooter climbed the winding mountain road, pine trees swaying on either side, their rustling merging into a wave-like roar. The farther he went, the sparser the street lamps became, until they vanished completely. The scooter's headlight became his only source of light, cutting through the impenetrable darkness.
When the navigation app showed 0.3 miles left to the destination, Mark suddenly felt a warmth on his chest.
He slowed down instinctively, reaching for the pocket watch. Through his jacket, he could feel the brass case growing hot—not scorching, but a distinct warmth, like a tiny heater pressed against his skin.
"Damn it…" he muttered.
This wasn't the first time. Last month, when he'd delivered food to the old sanatorium in the South District, the watch had grown just as hot. Seconds after he'd parked his scooter, a rotting eave board had crashed down from above, only three feet away from where he'd been standing. Two weeks before that, on the town's bridge, the watch had turned ice-cold. A few seconds later, an out-of-control truck had slammed into the guardrail he'd just passed.
Grandma's voice echoed in his mind: "When it warms, disaster draws near; when it chills, deathly aura clings."
Mark shook his head, trying to shake off the absurd thought. Coincidences—they were all just coincidences. How could an old pocket watch possibly warn of danger?
But his hand was already fumbling inside his jacket, pulling out the watch.
The case glinted dully under the scooter's headlight, the hands ticking steadily, but the metal was undeniably warm. He ran his thumb over the surface, hesitated for a second, then pressed the button to open it.
Click.
The cover popped open, revealing the dial—and on the inner surface of the lid, a line of scrawled text slowly materialized, then faded away.
It wasn't English—just twisted, cursive letters—but somehow, he understood exactly what it said.
He's hungry. He's always waiting for his meal.
The words vanished, like mist wiped away.
Mark slammed the watch shut, his heart hammering against his ribs. Hallucination. It had to be a hallucination, brought on by exhaustion and the dim, rainy light.
But his scooter had already glided to a stop in front of the destination.
No.444 Pinewood Road.
There was no house number—only a rusted iron gate hanging crookedly open, the driveway beyond overgrown with weeds. At the end of the lane, a three-story Victorian mansion crouched in the darkness, its outline dilapidated and imposing. Not a single window was lit; Mark's headlight, a trembling beam of light, stabbed at its silent facade.
Beneath the patter of rain, he thought he heard something else.
A whisper. Or the soft scraping of teeth.
Mark swallowed hard, pulling out his phone to check the order details: "Leave on front steps. Do not ring doorbell. Cash payment to be placed under lunchbox."
Whatever. Weirdos were a dime a dozen, but this one was paying. He parked his scooter outside the gate, grabbed the paper bag, and tramped across the waterlogged grass toward the front door, his boots sinking into the mud with every step.
The pocket watch burned hotter against his chest.
The closer he got to the house, the colder the air became. It wasn't the crisp chill of a rainy night—it was a bone-deep cold, like stepping into the depths of a freezer. Mark's breath curled into white mist, visible even in the faint glow of the scooter's headlight.
The steps were cracked marble, slimy with moss. He set down the paper bag, pulled out the $20 bill the customer had left in advance—payment plus tip—and tucked it under the lunchbox.
Mission accomplished.
He turned to leave, then froze.
The mansion's front door—a heavy oak slab—had creaked open a crack.
Darkness seeped out from the gap, thicker and more viscous than the night itself. And deep within that crack, something was moving.
An eye.
Pale, murky, pupil-less—its color the sickly white of a dead fish's belly—staring straight at him from behind the door.
Mark's blood turned to ice.
He stumbled backward, stepping into a puddle, mud splashing up his trousers. And in that split second, the door creaked wider—not pushed open, but swelling outward, as if the darkness itself were expanding. It surged forth like a living mist, spreading rapidly across the ground. Wherever it touched, the rain hissed and evaporated into steam, the moss turning black and withering instantly.
Mark turned and ran.
His sneakers slipped on the slick grass, nearly sending him sprawling. A wet, squelching sound echoed behind him—something heavy and damp, dragging itself across the ground. He didn't dare look back, his lungs burning, his ears filled with nothing but the thud of his own heartbeat and that sound, growing closer and closer—the scraping of teeth.
Click. Click. Click.
Like chewing. Like counting.
He reached the iron gate, swinging one leg over the scooter, but his hands were shaking so badly he dropped the keys twice. On the third try, he managed to jam them into the ignition and twist.
The engine sputtered—then died.
"No, no, no, no—" Mark twisted the throttle frantically, his eyes glued to the rearview mirror.
The dark mass had already reached the driveway, less than twenty feet away. And at its forefront, a shape was coalescing.
It was humanoid, but its limbs were twisted at unnatural angles, as if they'd been torn off and crudely stitched back together. It had no face—only that single pale eye, embedded in the place where its head should have been, locked onto him.
Its "hand" shot out—not fingers, but several tentacle-like appendages, split and oozing, writhing through the air.
The pocket watch was so hot it felt like it would burn through his jacket.
Mark's mind went blank, nothing but raw survival instinct left. And then he remembered—yanking off his backpack, unzipping it, his fingers fumbling at the bottom.
Plastic bag. Notebook.
He pulled out the tattered notebook, its leather cover soaked through. He flipped through the pages wildly, the paper softening and smudging in the rain. By the dim light of the scooter's dying headlight, his eyes scanned the scrawled lines:
Salt. Pure salt. Draw a circle on thresholds, windowsills, and around yourself. Filth cannot cross the salt barrier.
Salt!
Mark's hand darted to the side pocket of his backpack, where an emergency zip-lock bag held half a pouch of coarse salt—leftover from the pasta he'd cooked last week, saved for a rainy day when he couldn't afford proper food.
His fingers trembled as he tore at the bag, the seal splitting on the third try. Half the salt spilled out, hitting his shoes with a clatter, the white grains mixing with the mud on his feet.
The dark tentacles were only three feet away from his ankles now. The air reeked of sweet, rotting flesh—meat left out for too long.
Mark grabbed the remaining salt and hurled it with all his strength, flinging it at the ground, at the advancing wall of darkness.
Ssssss!
A sharp hiss erupted, like red-hot iron plunged into cold water. The moment the salt touched the darkness, it recoiled violently, as if burned. The humanoid shape let out a shriek—a sound like glass scraping against glass, nothing remotely human.
Where the salt landed, acrid white smoke curled upward, mixing the stench of decay with a sulfurous tang.
It worked! Grandma's ramblings had actually worked!
Mark didn't stop to think, grabbing the rest of the salt and scattering it in a ragged circle around himself. The second the circle closed, the bone-chilling pressure lifted.
The thing stopped outside the salt ring, its pale eye darting wildly, its tentacles slapping the ground in a frenzy—but it didn't dare cross the line. It looked almost… afraid.
Mark's heart still hammered in his chest, but he forced himself to stay calm. His hands shook as he turned the scooter's key again.
This time, the engine roared to life.
He slammed it into gear, twisting the throttle. The scooter shot forward, tearing down the muddy lane, crashing through the iron gate, and speeding back the way he'd come. In the rearview mirror, the dark mansion and the twisted figure at its door shrank rapidly, swallowed by the rain and the pine trees.
It wasn't until he'd ridden nearly a mile, spotting the town entrance sign that read Welcome to Foghorn Town, that Mark dared to slam on the brakes. He leaned over the handlebars, retching violently—the cheap hamburger he'd eaten that afternoon mixing with rainwater as it splattered into the roadside drain. He wiped his mouth, his voice hoarse with rage. "Fuck… Not even for double the money would I ever do that again."
The rain soaked him to the bone, cold enough to make his teeth chatter. But the lingering warmth of the pocket watch against his chest, and the salt grains still clinging to his fingertips, slowly washing away in the rain, were a stark reminder: what had just happened was no hallucination.
He'd survived. Using the words from Grandma's notebook.
After a few minutes of gasping for breath, Mark straightened up, pulling the brass pocket watch from his sodden jacket. The metal had cooled to room temperature. He took a deep breath, then flipped it open again.
The dial was normal.
But as he was about to close it, his eyes caught sight of the inner lid. There, on the once-smooth brass surface, a faint, thin scratch had appeared—as if someone had etched it slowly, painstakingly, with the tip of a needle. The handwriting was neat and precise, nothing like the messy warnings he'd seen before:
Your father's eyes are watching you through the fog.
Mark slammed the watch shut, his fingers turning cold.
Father? He'd never met his father. His mother had died when he was young, and Grandma had only ever said that his father had left before he was born, never to be heard from again.
The windshield wipers swished back and forth monotonously. In the distance, the lights of the town center blurred into a soft glow through the rain. Mark tucked the watch back into his pocket and revved the scooter's engine.
As he rode back, a cold, clear thought wormed its way into his mind, unbidden.
Joey had said the house had been empty for years—until someone moved in last week.
So who, exactly, had he delivered that meal to tonight?
And in his pocket, the $20 bill—the payment for the takeout order—was growing damp, its edges slowly bleeding into an ominous, rust-like dark red.