They Came From Beyond

by Nelly Geraldine García-Rosas

She was born and raised in Mexico and is an immigrant to the US. She was part of the Clarion West class of 2019. Nelly’s fiction has appeared in Lightspeed, Nightmare, Strange Horizons, and elsewhere. You can find her on Twitter as @kitsune_ng or at nellygeraldine.com.

It was thirty-seven minutes and forty-eight seconds past ten on a Thursday morning. It must have been that they arrived silently because no one noticed that by 11:03, all the roads that lead to the four-times-heroic city of Puebla de Zaragoza were blocked by a thick fog. Nothing appeared able to get in or out.

The first person who ventured into that apparition was a bus driver. He said that the transportation company had a very strict schedule to follow, hence their motto: “Always first.” This, of course, was bullshit. He was running late for a robbery previously arranged with an organized crime group. The driver would allow for the passengers to be mugged as long as he could take 5.9% of the profits. As the fog settled around Puebla, the bus driver grew anxious and sweaty. He did not want to anger his business partners over dubious haze, so he drove into the unknown.

Peddlers and street vendors materialized a mere half an hour after the fog itself. They were accompanied by crowds of passersby, hungry for greasy food and spicy drinks. A middle-aged woman pushed a wheelbarrow full of quesillo balls for the cemitas stall, a rosary of nuns carried at least thirteen boxes of rompope bottles, a tattooed man cut perfect squares of cheese and paired each one to a raisin for the pasitas shots, a pair of twins lit the fire for five vats of hot lard that bubbled ready for chalupas and molotes to be fried.

People wore unofficial fog t-shirts by 11:42, the same time a small ferris wheel was installed by three women who drove a big truck that had been blue many years ago. Its dashboard looked like a miniature museum with pieces of broken pottery from the archeological ruins nearby, a cat figurine made of talavera, and a three hundred and forty-seven page incunabulum liberated from the Palafoxiana library.

Police officers and paramedics arrived exactly at noon. They stared at the fog, not knowing what to do until one of them decided that there was no emergency, so they should call it a day and go home. After all, everything seemed to be quite normal apart from the fog. Some officers stayed, though, asking for bribes and free food. “We’re the authorities, aren’t we? We have to authorize things, to author them too,” said one of them.

Researchers from the Meritorious Autonomous University of Puebla brought cameras, geiger counters, gas chromatographers, seismic detectors, oscilloscopes, and other beeping kinds of equipment. From their measurements, the researchers learned that the fog could not be measured at all. They decided, then, to call the Bishop. He found nothing evil nor sacred in it. The Bishop in turn called his mother, who immediately recognized the fog as otherworldly. She explained that it was made up of billions of microscopic sentient creatures who had come for a specific reason. She did not say what that reason was. It must have been 2:14 pm by then.

Exactly at 3:28, the mayor showed up in a black, bullet-proof SUV. It was surrounded by four even blacker, more bullet-proofed sedans packed with bodyguards who spoke in code to their earpieces. As soon as they pulled over, they improvised a podium for the mayor to address the gathered people.

“His excellency, mayor of the four-times-heroic city of Puebla de Zaragoza, wishes to present the fog with the key to the city as a gesture of friendship and camaraderie,” said one of the bodyguards, their mouth so close to the microphone it got stained with lipstick. The other bodyguards gave a round of robotic applause because no one else did. They continued: “Please, come forward, honorable fog representative.” But the fog stood where it had been since the morning, blocking all the roads.

The mayor approached the podium with haste. The microphone poked his forehead, causing a red mark. He stepped back. Some bodyguards brought a wooden vegetable crate to use as an improvised stepping stool and helped the mayor up. More than a few people in the audience laughed at this sight.

Then, the mayor said: “What a momentous occasion to strengthen the bonds between us. The fog is and always will be a friend of our government and an ally of our party.”

He made a pause that the bodyguards used to forcefully remove from the audience the person who had laughed the most. The mayor continued.

“The joint efforts we are showing today shall never be forgotten. Not at least during the two and a half years that I still have in office as your leader. You, the working people of our four-times-heroic city of Puebla de Zaragoza must continue to be humbled by the amazing deeds of this administration. Homeland, science, and work!”

The bodyguards clapped again, helped the mayor step down the podium, got him into his SUV, and drove away.

Throughout the day, many people approached the fog curiously, but no one felt like going through it.They did not have the need of going out the city and into the highways where they could get mugged, or worse, lost and hungry. No one dared to take selfies with it either.

By 6:23 in the afternoon, there was a full-fledged carnival set up with an even bigger ferris wheel, electric go-karts, gambling, and at least twenty-four food and drink stalls. Twenty-four children had pipián enchiladas sauce stains on their fog t-shirts, seven of them ran in circles under the effects of the extra sweet Sevillian lime lemonade. A group of teenagers debated whether chileatole was a drink or a food item. A local band played the fog’s reggaeton. Mueve tu niebla, mami, gimme all your fog. In this city of angels, you will feel mi amor. Everyone danced and sang along.

At 7:48, fourteen cases of pickpocketing were reported, but the police officers who remained in the area were too drunk to be helpful.

Days later, the mayor would say that he sent the riot police to contain the fog “as it was getting out of control” but the truth is that at five minutes to eight, the armored squad used excessive violence to disperse the jolly crowd. Seven rounds of shots were directed at the fog that remained indifferent around the city.

The sun set at exactly 8:14. Seventeen seconds later, the fog disappeared.

To this day, the whereabouts of the bus with license plates UBN-7058 and its thirty-two passengers are unknown. The driver was found, detained and released exactly a week later when he tried to rob a gas station located on the 120 km mark of the Mexico-Puebla highway. He later changed his name and became a televangelist preaching the gospel of the fog and singing the portents of its second coming once a week on Channel Seven’s 2:38 am slot.

Almost obscured by static, inside an echoey room, he sang and he longed and he waited. Every day.

Praise the fog. Praise its prophet, the Bishop’s mother. Praise the roads blocked by its gauzy thickness. Praise the billions of creatures that are the fog. Praise the carnival and the ferris wheel. Praise the fog! Mueve tu niebla, mami, gimme all your fog. In this city of angels, you will feel mi amor.