What the Fog Carries

The Last Exit

The gas light had been on for twenty minutes, and Tiffany was driving blind through the backroads of Tennessee. Her GPS cut out three miles ago, swallowed by a dead zone she hadn’t expected this close to I-40. Trees lined the two-lane highway like a wall, and there wasn’t a house or gas station in sight. Her phone battery blinked at 3%.

She hadn’t planned to be driving at night. She was supposed to be at her friend Joan's cabin by sunset, sipping boxed wine and laughing about old high school memories. Instead, thanks to a wrong turn and a useless navigation app, she was speeding toward empty roads and a full-blown panic.

The car sputtered once. Then again. The third time, it stopped pretending.

Tiffany coasted to the shoulder and turned the key. Nothing. Just the pathetic whir of a dying engine.

She sat still for a moment, letting the silence settle like fog. No music. No engine hum. Just the buzz of insects and the occasional far-off howl of something wild.

She tried calling Joan. Straight to voicemail.

A car passed once — an old pickup that didn’t slow down — but otherwise, the road was dead. After ten minutes of hoping a savior might show up, Tiffany got out and started walking.

Half an hour later, her boots were caked in red dirt, and she was rehearsing the awkward story she’d tell if she knocked on the wrong door and met a shotgun.

That’s when she saw it.

A flicker of light — warm, golden — off the road ahead. A porch light. The kind you left on for company.

She followed it like a moth.

The house was small, sagging, with a porch that looked like it might give out under a strong breeze. But the light was real, and so was the woman standing beneath it.

She looked to be in her sixties. Worn jeans. Flannel shirt. Hair tied back in a tight gray bun. She smoked like it was the only thing keeping her upright.

“You lost?” the woman asked before Tiffany could speak.

“Car ran out of gas. I’ve been walking a while.”

The woman nodded, like this was normal.

“You from the city?”

“Knoxville,” Tiffany said.

“You don’t look like the kind that ends up out here on purpose.”

“I didn’t. Just need to find a gas station. Or a ride.”

The woman took a long drag, then dropped the butt and crushed it under her boot. “Name’s Julia. You can come inside. Phone works. Sort of.”

Tiffany hesitated, but the cold was starting to bite and her options were none.

The living room smelled like smoke and old wood. A lazy ceiling fan spun overhead, and the furniture looked inherited from another century. A brown mutt lifted its head from the rug, sniffed at Tiffany once, and went back to sleep.

Julia pointed at the phone on the wall. The kind with a cord.

Tiffany dialed Joan again. Still voicemail. She tried 411. Nothing. Not even a dial tone this time.

“Yeah,” Julia said. “It does that sometimes.”

“No signal either,” Tiffany said, holding up her phone.

“You want some tea?”

Tiffany nodded, though she hated tea. It was something to do besides stand awkwardly.

Julia disappeared into the kitchen. The house creaked with every step she took, like it was alive and arthritic.

Tiffany sat on the edge of the couch. A faded photo on the table caught her eye. Julia, maybe twenty-five years younger, standing next to a man in a sheriff’s uniform. Both smiling like the world hadn’t done them wrong yet.

“You live out here alone?” Tiffany asked when Julia came back with a mug.

“Mostly. Had a husband. He died ten years ago. Haven’t had much reason to leave since.”

Tiffany took a sip. The tea was bitter, earthy, but not bad.

“There’s a gas station six miles up the road,” Julia said. “I can take you in the morning. Roads get mean at night.”

Tiffany didn’t like the idea of staying, but the thought of walking another six miles in the dark didn’t thrill her either.

“You got a spare room?” she asked.

Julia nodded.

That night, Tiffany lay on a bed that creaked every time she shifted, listening to the house groan and settle like an old man in a rocking chair. She tried to scroll her phone one last time, but the screen finally died.

She stared at the ceiling for a while, wondering why Julia seemed so calm. Why someone would live out here, alone. And why there was something about the house that made the hairs on her arms stand up.

At some point, she fell asleep.

She woke up to the sound of barking.

Loud, frantic. The dog was at the front door, scratching and snarling like it wanted out — or wanted something out there to stay away. Tiffany blinked in the darkness, heart hammering. The sky outside had gone from black to a bruised gray-blue, the barest hint of dawn creeping in. Fog pressed against the windows, thick and low, curling through the trees like it had a mind.

She stepped into the hallway.

Julia was already up, boots on, shotgun in hand, standing like she'd been standing, like she hadn't slept at all.

“What’s going on?” Tiffany asked, voice barely above a whisper.

Julia didn’t answer. She was staring out through the fog, her jaw tight, knuckles white on the shotgun. The dog growled low beside her, hackles raised.

“Coyotes,” Julia said finally. “Or something that wants you to think it is.”

Tiffany felt a cold ripple at the base of her neck. “What does that mean?”

Before Julia could answer, the dog let out a high, terrified whine.

And from the trees came a sound.

It was distant, muffled by the fog — but human, or trying to be. A voice calling her name.

“Tifffff…anyyy…”

Drawn out. Wet around the edges. Like someone trying to remember how to use their mouth. Then another voice, deeper, crackling.

“Help… lost…”

Tiffany’s breath caught. “Did you hear that?”

Julia’s eyes didn’t leave the window. “Don’t listen to it.”

“It said my name.”

“No, it used your name,” Julia snapped. “Get back in the room. Now.”

Tiffany froze.

“I said go.”

She obeyed.

Inside the room, she sat on the edge of the bed, every hair on her body standing. She heard the porch creak. Then a shot. Then another. Something hit the side of the house — not a body, not quite. Something heavier, stranger.

Then silence.

A few minutes later, Julia opened the door, face unreadable

“It’s gone,” she said, lowering the gun.

“What was it?” Tiffany asked.

Julia didn’t answer right away. Then- “Something that don’t like strangers. Let’s get you to that gas station.”

The ride was quiet. Julia drove a battered Ford with a cracked windshield and a glove box full of old country tapes. The trees gave way to fields, and the road widened just enough for two cars to pass each other.

They reached the station around 7 a.m. It was the kind of place with a single pump and a dusty vending machine out front. Tiffany stepped out like she’d just been rescued from a shipwreck.

“Thank you,” she said.

Julia nodded. “Be careful who you trust out here. Not everyone’s as friendly as me.”

Tiffany laughed nervously. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

She went inside to get a gas can. When she came back out, the truck was gone.

No goodbye. No number. Just dust in the air and the faint smell of smoke.

Two days later, Tiffany was back in Knoxville. She told the story at a bar, turning it into a joke — her car breaking down, the creepy woods, the old woman with a shotgun. People laughed, called it “classic Tiffany luck.”

But something about it stayed with her.

She looked up the road she’d taken. No gas station at that mile marker. No house listed where she remembered Julia's being. Just forest.

She called the sheriff’s office in that county, just to see. Asked about a woman named Julia who used to live off Route 74.

The man on the line was quiet for a moment.

“You said Julia? Julia Schmid?”

“I think so.”

“She passed. About eight years ago. House burned down. Shame, too — place had been in her family for generations. Never found out how it started.”

Tiffany didn’t know what to say.

“Why you asking?”

“I thought I met her,” she said, then hung up.

She never told anyone that part of the story. Because sometimes, the person who saves you doesn’t stick around to explain why. And sometimes, the help you get isn’t the kind you can Google afterward.