Arkham Horror

Once a month, when the fog invaded the town after midnight, the citizens of Pelican's Crest locked their doors and stayed away from drafty windows. They never knew exactly what kind of fog it would be, but they knew that no matter what the fog was never a good thing.
   This time, as he watched the thick, puffy mist rolling in from the bay, Benjamin could tell it was an evil fog. Over the years he'd made a study of which kind of fog brought what kind of menace, and Benjy, his friends called him Benjy, knew the different fogs like he knew the way from his bedroom to the refrigerator. Zombie fog showed yellow-green under the street lights, and Dracula fog made noise because of all the bats and rats and centipedes, the 'children of the night' that stayed in the mist. Ancient Old Ones fog made Benjy's skin crawl in a way nothing else did, what with all the half-seen writhing tentacles and the crazy, babbling shrieks from people who'd seen something human beings were never meant to see.
   When he recognized what was coming Benjy grew disappointed. An evil fog was just no fun. Maybe there were a few random burglaries, maybe an armed robbery or two, and there was always some hick or out-of-towner who got caught out in the evil mist and became a serial killer or something, but it was nothing Benjy hadn't seen dozens of times before. Hell, most of the people of Pelican's Crest were already half-evil to begin with, so evil fog didn't affect them much. He almost closed the curtains and went to bed. Almost. But on this new moon – the fog always came when the night was darkest – he decided to peer into the enveloping mist just a bit longer, to see if anything good popped up.
   And that when Benjy saw him. A man in a pinstriped suit.
   He seemed so normal, like a regular guy, but he was walking in the fog like he knew where he was going. Which was right to Benjy's front door. Usually the people caught in evil fog twitched a lot, or scratched their faces, or mumbled to themselves, that kind of thing. Not this guy. He walked straight and tall, and as he passed under the street lights Benjy saw his deeply tanned face and silver-gray hair, his starched white collar, his shining gold watch and rings. And Benjy shivered. This was one seriously evil fog.
   The man knocked on Benjy's door just as if he were a regular guy instead of something that had escaped from the other side. Benjy didn't want to answer the door, he knew he shouldn't, but his feet took him downstairs anyway. Even though he didn't want it to, his hand grabbed the doorknob and twisted.
   The man stood there in his pressed suit, his tanned face grinning a jackal's grin, all teeth and no emotion. He rubbed his hand across his fresh-shaved chin, his pinky ring glinting in the porch light.
   "Hello, I'm from Wall Street," the man said, a serpent's hiss. "You have money in there, I can smell it. Could I come in and help myself to it?"
   No no no no no no no no no no no no no no....
   "Well, sure," Benjy said, his body refusing to obey his commands to run and hide. He felt like someone - or someTHING else - controlled him as he opened his front door wide and stepped aside for the tanned man in the suit.
   "Thank you ever so much," the man hissed, "a rising tide lifts all boats you know."
   "That's what the government tells us," Benjy replied.
   "Did you know I have a boat?" the man said. "A yacht, actually. Paid for it with my 2009 bonus. Some people seemed to think a bonus was... unmerited. What with all the unpleasantness last year."
   "Well, I'm sure you deserved it," Benjy said, the words coming from somewhere else.
   The man just laughed.
   Benjy closed the door. Neither he nor his money were heard from again.