On the Fence

Steam rose off the pavement as the sun beat down hotter than ever, angry that the rain had tried to provide some relief to the wasteland below. A gangly young boy wearing an orange bandana, a sweat stained button down, and dirty sneakers strode down the cracked highway with a grin on his face. The energy-draining humidity didn’t bother him one bit. Steam meant rain had just passed through. Rain meant clean water. The only clean water available these days.

“Aren’t you glad we chose this road, boy?” A scruffy mutt padding along at the boy’s side yapped once happily in response. Lucky was his name, and he was the only family he had left. He had saved him more times than he could count, and gathered all kinds of animals to share and eat, like rabbits and possums.

The boy kicked an old can out of his path and scanned the horizon as his stomach rumbled. A city was just a few miles north, according to a faded road sign they had passed that morning. North had been the plan for the past few weeks. It was only mid-February, but the heat came earlier and fiercer every year. It was getting harder to find clean water, too, since the number of Growlers seemed to increase in response to the rising temperatures.

In fact, they had just passed over a small herd of Growlers crouched in a ditch under the overpass. Six of them had been on all fours, slurping out of the dirty ditch. One, an old man with no shirt and a potbelly, had gazed up at them crossing the bridge. The boy knew they weren’t hungry when he had gazed at him with dead eyes and turned back to lazily drink from his rancid puddle.

Puddles were definitely not safe. Neither were the lakes, rivers, or streams. Growlers need to drink, too, and they’re drawn to water sources. Not to mention the fact that they can fall in, die, and rot in the water, poisoning it for everyone else.

Getting to a city was always top priority. A city where people- people who could still think and plan that is- were smart enough to have left buckets, cans, and jugs scattered on the roofs. The people may be dead or long gone, but they always left their rain catchers out.

“We’re almost there,” whispered the boy to his dog, but mostly to himself. He pulled out the gold locket he wore around his neck and rubbed his thumb over it. Ugly thing, it was. His dad had made it for his mom by melting down the rings of all the people they had lost in the beginning. A giant, chunky, uneven heart studded with diamonds half buried in the gold, it was almost more trouble than it was worth to wear it. If it ever came out from under his shirt, it made him a literal flashing target when the sun bounced off of it. But it was his mom’s, and his mom had loved it. Said it was “sentimental”, whatever that meant. He had never thought to ask. Luckily, Growlers didn’t eat metal. Otherwise, he would have had nothing left of her.

Graze hated guard duty, and not even because of the heat. It reminded him how he got his nickname. Perched high up on a rusted stairwell, he could see the exact spot where the guard on duty that day had shot at him through the fence. Cities have clean water; every dumbass still alive knew that. What he didn’t know about this particular Godforsaken city was that the occupants had built a massive chain-link fence around the perimeter before being overrun. Those that hadn’t snuffed it banded together and formed The Last Guard to clean up and protect what was left of the place.

Graze let out one dark chuckle. “Noble name for a group of people that shoots outsiders on site,” he thought. One shot, one life. That was the rule. And it wasn’t to save them, either. The one shot is reserved for “putting those poor bastards out of their misery”, according to the General.

Growlers tended to herd up in the bend in the road behind the Southgate apartment blocks. It was the main road coming off the interstate, and the Growlers followed it right into the fence. A giant murky fountain acted as their water supply, and rotting Growlers were their food source.

“Why leave when you have everything you need?” he thought wryly. They considered putting up signs to warn off the stray traveler, but really, did they want more mouths to feed once they came begging for help? Travelers didn’t come by too often anymore, but when they did, they wandered right into The Bend, and then it was too late.

Whoever was on guard duty watched the fence to make sure the Growlers didn’t herd up and break through. If they were riled up enough, they could do it, everyone had seen it. The day Graze had wandered through, Dawg had been on duty. A couple dozen Growlers had been in The Bend that day, and Graze had been sure he could hop the fence before getting caught. They snarled as he ran past, and that’s when he spotted the armed watchman on the fire escape across the street.

“Hey, you! Cover me!”

Dawg shot one bullet Graze’s way, and it cut right through the top of his ear, and had left a pencil-straight white scar across his temple. Surprise, and then rage, coursed through his body.

“You missed, asshole!” He had shouted as he topped the fence. Dawg, sitting where he was seated now, had just barked out a laugh.

He had been a welder, back before. An “essential worker”, they had called him, but it didn’t matter when that virus was released. Too many people, and not enough resources to go around. He would have given everything he owned, would have given his own life, to get his family onto one of those carrier crafts.

Graze swatted at a fly and spit. Didn’t matter now. They were gone. He had found this place, survived their pity shot, and gotten in- both into their miserable city and into their ranks. He didn’t deserve to die yet. He had lost his family. It was his fault. And this was the perfect hell to suffer in.

The city loomed up ahead, the grimy old windows in the buildings shining like beacons of hope from the setting sun. “Finally,” thought the kid, a smile stretching across his face. He could have started running if he hadn’t been so drained. Only a few Growlers roamed around, nothing he couldn’t handle. The road into the city curved between those two big buildings, just up ahead.

He didn’t hear them until he had already made it around the bend in the road. They were quiet like that sometimes, when they were well fed and resting. He let out a squeak of surprise and Lucky barked once. The Growlers turned his way and their dead eyes lit up as snarls and hisses escaped their lips. He was in their territory. The boy broke into a sprint, darting around the nearest Growlers. He needed to get further inside the city and find somewhere to hole up before it got too dark. And then he saw the fence. He skidded to a stop and looked behind him. The Growlers were closing in, angry that anyone would come near their water.

He couldn’t go back. They would grab him, scratch him. Tear him to bits with their rotting teeth and too long fingernails. Lucky would die trying to save him. The boy squeezed his eyes shut tight to block out the vision. He turned back to the fence, eyes darting around for any opening. He could climb the fence, but Lucky couldn’t. He wouldn’t leave Lucky to the monsters. In his panic, he spotted the man on the stairwell. He had a gun!

Tears started to stream down his dirty face. “Please, sir, please!” He ran toward the fence, Lucky right behind him, his mom’s locket pounding on his chest. He put his knife through the heart of a redheaded Growler in his path and pushed her aside. He ran into the fence so hard it hurt, and curled his fingers through the chinks. “Please, just help me save my dog!”

Graze groaned internally. Some fool in an orange bandana had just come around the bend and yelped loud enough for every Growler in the city to hear. He lifted his gun to look through the scope, and couldn’t believe his eyes. It was a kid, barely a teenager by the looks of it. Kids were rarer than chicken’s teeth these days, and Graze wasn’t sure about the “one shot, one life” policy when it came to them. He was surrounded, a mangy dog barking madly at his side. The kid spotted him, eyes wider than saucers, and started to plead as he ran towards the fence.

They always did, if they saw him. It just made what he needed to do harder since he was so young. At this point it actually would be mercy. The kid wasn’t trying to climb, even though those things were closing in, growling at his back. Graze centered his sights in the middle of his head. He wouldn’t shoot unless they started tearing into him, he told himself, as sweat dripped down his forehead.

“Please, just help me save my dog,” the boy shouted desperately. Graze, startled and ashamed, lowered his gun to the kid’s chest. The kid was fixing to get ripped to shreds, and he just cared about his ugly dog. Something gold on the kid’s chest caught his eye. “It couldn’t be…” he thought. It had been years, but he would know that locket anywhere. It was his wife’s. He had melted all those rings down and formed it into a crude heart himself. Graze’s own heart cracked into a million pieces, hope and fear and loss and love leaking out of it all at once.

“Kid! CLIMB!” He slammed his fist into the buzzer only meant for emergencies and fired off every bullet he had into those rotting, growling, virus-ridden bodies.