The fog had settled overnight, not in patches but in a solid wall that started at knee height and rose past Bob's shoulders. He knew every step of this path—the way it curved past the old irrigation ditch, the loose stone near the bend, the spot where the barbed wire sagged—but today the landmarks felt foreign, swallowed by the white. Petunia walked ahead, her massive black frame disappearing and reappearing as she passed through thicker pockets. Bob kept one hand on her back, feeling the steady rhythm of her ribs rising and falling. The only sound was their footsteps and the creak of his sweatshirt. Then the hum started. It wasn't loud. It was a vibration that seemed to come from the air itself, a low electronic thrum that pressed against his teeth and settled at the base of his skull. Bob stopped. Petunia stopped too, one paw lifted, her head cocked. "You hear that?" Bob whispered. Petunia's growl started low in her chest, a sound he'd learned to read like a second language. This wasn't warning. This was recognition—something she'd heard before but didn't trust. "Easy," he said, but his own heart was hammering. He crouched, letting his hand slide from her back to the ground. The dirt felt warm. Not sun-warm. A deep, unnatural heat that shouldn't exist in the middle of a September morning. He pressed his palm flat and felt the hum through the soil, up his arm, into his bones. Petunia took a step forward, then another. Bob followed, not because he wanted to, but because she'd never led him wrong. The fog thickened around them until he could barely see his own sneakers. The hum grew louder, more defined, almost melodic now—a single repeating note that seemed to bend and warp as it hung in the air. Ahead, a shape emerged from the mist. Not a tree. Not a fence post. Something low to the ground, curved, metallic. The surface rippled with faint green light, pulsing in time with the hum. Petunia sat down. She looked back at Bob, her soulful brown eyes holding his, and whined once—a sound that said: This is it. This is what we've been looking for. Bob's throat went dry. He took one more step. The hum stopped. The fog around them began to thin, drawing back like a curtain, revealing what had been waiting in the orchard all along.