The fat woman did not reply; she did not seem to have heard me. Possibly, I reasoned, in addition to having weak eyes, she was also hard of hearing.
I moved a few steps up the front walk and nodded. "Good evening," I repeated, loudly.
Then I blinked in astonishment. The wicker chair was empty! I stopped dead and stared at it. Momentarily I had glanced down at the walk to make sure that I would not stumble over debris; in those scant seconds the fat woman must have vacated her chair and slipped inside.
I marveled. For one of her bulk, she moved with amazing agility. Turning, I went back to the sidewalk and started on. I supposed that the woman was self-conscious about her continued occupancy in the condemned house and had gone inside to avoid any necessity of discussing it with a stranger.
As I walked away, I glanced back. Once again I saw light glitter on those thick-lensed glasses; the fat woman was back in her wicker chair.
Something more than the swirling mist made me shudder. Frowning, I hurried on. It was late, I told myself, and I had better leave these ruined, mist-shrouded streets and go home to a good cup of hot tea.
I walked rapidly, but I could not resist looking at the vacant houses I passed.
Suddenly I stopped. My heart began pounding. An icy gush of fear made my scalp tingle. Wide-eyed, mouth agape, I gazed through that tenuous wall of mist and felt that reason and sanity were leaving me.
Nearly half of those smashed and deserted houses all at once were occupied. I saw pale sad faces peering from a dozen different windows. Dim, mist-circled figures sat on some of the porches. An old man, twisted with some arthritic malady, worked feebly in a tiny front garden. A middle-aged woman, white as death, but with a kind of hopeless fury stamped on her face, stood glaring near a broken gate.
Worse than these were other sights. I saw a rocker moving to-and-fro on a porch, although there was no one in it. I saw a claw-like hand, tapering to a vague sleeve which in turn raveled away to nothingness, clutching the brick side of a building. In the rear garden of a half-destroyed house I glimpsed what appeared to be the disembodied head of a woman in a big straw hat drifting slowly above the matted tangle of a neglected flower plot.