The monster from my story… I think it’s here!
I’ve lived in Morro Bay for a long time. I’m an author here, and my whole identity is tied up in this town’s most famous feature: the fog.
I’ve written dozens of stories about it. I’ve imagined it as a living entity, a shroud that hides impossible creatures, a mist that eats sounds and holds onto the echoes of the dead. It was all just a creative exercise, a way to personify the beautiful, eerie gloom that rolls in and swallows Morro Rock every evening.
It was all fiction. I need to keep telling myself that. It was all just fiction.
But for the last three nights, something has been wrong.
It started with the buoy. If you live here, you know the sound of the buoy horn out by the harbor entrance. It’s a deep, mournful BWWWOOOONG… a long pause… BWWWOOOONG. It’s the town’s heartbeat. It’s comforting.
Three nights ago, the fog rolled in thicker than I’ve ever seen it. It wasn’t our usual wet, salty mist. This fog was dry. It felt electric on my skin, and it smelled wrong, like ozone and something ancient… something like rotten kelp left to dry on the mudflats for a hundred years.
I was in my office, trying to write, when I heard the buoy. But the rhythm was off.
BWWWOOOONG. Bwong. Bwong.
The main groan, followed by two short, sharp echoes. Like it was trying to say something. I chalked it up to an atmospheric quirk, a trick of the mist.
Then last night, it happened again. The fog was so dense I couldn’t even see the streetlight in front of my house. And the sound came again. BWWWOOOONG. Bwong. Bwong
I went to lock my front door, and as I was walking through my living room, I heard another sound.
It was the quiet, metallic-stone clink… clink… clink of a wind chime.
The problem is, my nearest neighbor’s house is empty. They moved out last month. And I took my own wind chimes down years ago because the sound was driving me crazy.
I stood there, frozen, just listening. Clink… clink… clink. It was coming from my own front porch. It was a heavy, dull sound, like sea-polished rocks hitting each other. Not the bright tinkle of glass.
My blood went absolutely cold. Because earlier this year, I wrote a story for my blog about a thing I called “The Estuary Man.” It was a creature made of mud, stone, and kelp, and it would lure people out into the fog by mimicking sounds. In the story, it would hang little chimes made of sea-polished rocks and abalone shells from their porches. It would use the sound to mask its own approach as it came to the window.
I told myself it was just the wind. It had to be. I didn’t go to the window. I just locked the door and went to bed, pulling the covers over my head like a child.
Tonight, the fog is back. It’s pressing against my windows. I can literally see the glass in the frame bowing in slightly, as if under a physical weight. It’s not just drifting, it feels… heavy. Static. The buoy is at it again, BWWWOOOONG. Bwong. Bwong. And the chime is back. Clink… clink… clink.
I’m sitting in my office in the dark. I’ve been trying to convince myself I’m just spooked. That my own imagination is getting the best of me.
But an hour ago, something new happened.
I heard a tapping at my office window.
It wasn’t a branch. There are no trees on that side of the house. It wasn’t rain. It was a slow, deliberate tap… tap… tap… on the glass. It sounded wet. Like a muddy finger.
In my story, after the chimes stopped, The Estuary Man would tap on the window to get your attention.
I’m writing this right now because I’m too terrified to move. The tapping stopped about ten minutes ago, but I can still hear the chimes. I’m staring at the window, but I can’t see anything past my own reflection. The fog is a solid white wall. I keep thinking, did I write this into existence? Did I create a character so vivid that it decided to come and visit?
I don’t know what to do. Do I call the police? What do I tell them? “The monster from my story is on my porch?”
I just heard it again.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
It’s on a different window this time. The one in the living room! It’s moving!!
It knows I’m in here!!!
By Pamela Beach
The fog holds more secrets…
“The Storyteller’s Curse” is the story of the author behind the mythos. Discover the other terrifying tales of the Watchers, the Takers, and the mist that consumes, in the full Morro Bay Fog-Mythos Collection.
The best way to know when the next story emerges from the mist is to subscribe to my newsletter!
As a thank-you for joining, you’ll get a free download of my exclusive subscriber-only short story, “Where the Fog Settles First,”—a spooky tale you can’t read anywhere else.
Pamela Beach is a multi-genre author, poet, and lyricist who writes from her home on California’s foggy Central Coast. She is the creator of the “Morro Bay fog-mythos” and author of The Unstoppable You. You can read more of her work and explore her complete “fog-mythos” collection at her blog, Beyond the with Pamela Beach
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