Ok, so it wasn't The Mist...

Years ago, I read a short story called The Mist by Stephen King. That particular story had an effect on me. The isolation. The impending doom. The fear of hysteria taking over and your own friends and family turning on you. It was scary stuff. Oh yeah, and there were monsters too.

Skip ahead a few years. It's deep into winter and there is a snowstorm blowing things around. I ended up at a department store shopping for clothes. It really wasn't snowing that badly when I left the house and arrived at the store. It was coming down, but it wasn't anything unmanageable.

An hour or so later, by the time I was ready to leave, this steady snowstorm had turned into a blizzard. I couldn't see the cars in the parking lot from the door. It was really bad out there. It didn't seem safe enough to go wandering out into the parking lot, much less take the car (assuming that you can find it) out on the road. I was stuck.

Looking around, I started noticing everyone else who was waiting with me. My thoughts started drifting to who these people were who were stuck with me. I started thinking about The Mist. Sure, it wasn't a mist out there, but it was white and just as blinding. Of course, there weren't any monsters in the blizzard. At least, I hope there weren't any monsters in the blizzard.

As my thoughts made a turn for the worst, I started looking around and thinking about who was going to make it and who would surely die. Just as soon as I started assigning deaths to the people trapped in that store with me, the blizzard let up and people started venturing out into the parking lot. I waited for a few people to make it to their cars before heading out myself. I wanted to make sure that something didn't swoop down and snatch the up. Nothing did, of course.

So, maybe my story isn't exactly like the story version of The Mist. It was snow and not a mist, and I wasn't trapped there nearly as long. Oh yeah, and there weren't any monsters eating people. That too.