Sometimes fiction is the only way to explain ideas, beliefs, hope, and fears. 

The Wildings

By: Teri Adams

 

The Wildings are out tonight. Close, by the sound of it. The distant whoops and the faint unmistakable crash of breaking glass are all too familiar. I check the Wilding App and see that there have been fifteen 999 Wilding calls placed in a three block radius in just the past hour. It’s early for the Wildings. They usually don’t come out until after ten at night, and it’s only twenty minutes past dusk, which means we’re in for a long night. I try to remember if I triple locked the garage. Was that yesterday or did I do it when I came in earlier today? I had had my hands filled with grocery bags. Did I set them down so I could reach the locks?  Damn it, I don’t remember, which means I have to go check.  I slip on my shoes, grab a can of wasp spray (it shoots a long way), open the back door, and stand on the stoop still as a statue for a second and listen. Yes, they sound closer, but not too close. I have enough time to get to the garage and check.

            I don’t carry a flashlight because that would be like shining a beacon telling them, “Here! Come and get me!” No, I slip out into the darkness and walk to the garage amidst the shadows, keeping close to the edge of the house.  The garage is only about forty yards but it feels like a mile out here in the inky blackness.  I trip over something and almost fall. I reach down and feel a small bike. I can just make out the silhouette. That kid next door. I’ve told him a hundred times about leaving his bike out. I grab the handlebars and roll the bike with me toward the garage. I’ll lock it inside so the Wildings can’t get it. That kid’s mom already works two jobs. She can’t afford a new bike if something happens to this one.

            I hear a sudden high pitched yelp and then a crunch of boots on gravel behind me. I duck down quickly just as a lone Wilding runs past, close enough so that I can smell the sweat and hear the quick inhalations from its exertions, a white shirt flashing in the night. Looks to be a small one, maybe eight-years-old. They’re getting younger since all the public schools closed down and went online. There’s little oversight for attendance, and all classes except Patriotism and Procreation, God and Country, Welding, Construction, Custodianship, and Basic Mathematics level 3, and Basic Reading level 4 were cut as soon as the Department of Education folded. Now if a parent has the money, usually old inherited money, they can take advantage of the specialized private academies that cater to the future doctors, CEOs, lawyers, professors, researchers, and scientists. The elite of the elite.

I stay ducked down a heartbeat longer and hear the Wilding as it runs away whooping loudly, Always with the whoops. This one must have gotten separated from the herd. I squat in the dirt barely breathing, my knees aching. I’ve dropped the can of wasp spray and can’t find it in the dark. I hear a car door slam off in the distance and then a screech. I hear sirens. Two of the sirens sound far off but one is nearby. In the space between the scream of the sirens there is an eerie silence, and in that silence I hear the close whisper of owl wings and a small creature (a cat maybe?) rustling as it darts from yard to fence. I look up and stare into the large front window of the house next door. The bike kid’s house. The mother steps to the window, peers out into the night, and then pulls the thick drapes closed. The lights in the house wink out and cast it into darkness so that it blends in with the night. The mom is hunkering down. Have there been more alerts? I reach into my shirt pocket for my phone to check the app but then realize that my phone must have dropped out of my pocket when I knelt to pick up the bike. 

            I stand up and my old football injury knee pops with a loud crack! I barely breathe. I see nothing but hear everything: far off sirens, distant screams, fireworks exploding (or gunfire?) and glass shattering.

            I glance towards the garage. I can see the garage’s shadowy silhouette just a few steps away. I grip the bike’s handlebars and make a dash for the garage door pulling the bike with me. I run my hand over the locks. All three bolted tight. I locked them and then forgot. Too much on my mind lately. Trying to remember my meds every morning; trying to censor myself at work so I don’t inadvertently commit crime speech; trying to budget my meager pay so I can buy fresh food and not that preservative, chemical flooded shit the government markets as NutriMass; trying not to breathe in the air thick with thick pollution now that the EPA is defunct; trying not to appear threatening to the cops in my dark male skin; trying not to encounter any lone Wildings in the day, although they are much less dangerous separated from their herds; trying to survive one more day in a world that seems bound and determined to crush not only me, but everyone.

            I still have the bike in my hands. It’s too much trouble and too time consuming to fumble with the locks on the garage door in the dark, so I decide to take the bike back to the house and lock it in my hall closet. I inch alongside the garage and then dash out into the open expanse between the garage and the house. The bike makes a metallic, squeaky sound as I roll it along and I wince at the sound that seems to echo above the other sounds of mayhem. A blinding light flashes on me and a voice commands, “Drop the bike, get on your knees, and put your hands up!” 

            I drop the bike like an unwanted blind date. My knee cracks and a sharp knife of pain slices through it as I comply. A cop walks up dressed in his blue uniform, his badge shining, the bullet proof vest making him seem larger and more imposing than he is, his dull black gun pointed at me.  I know to stay silent. The cop asks if I’m stealing the bike. It’s not really a question since his tone implies that I’m guilty no matter what I say. I am deferential and quiet. I tell him softly, “No sir, the bike belongs to my neighbor and I was locking it up so it wouldn’t be stolen by the Wildings.” I enunciate each syllable perfectly.

            He tells his partner to go check with the neighbor. The cop continues to aim the gun at me as the other cop goes to the mother’s tiny cement porch, climbs the three steps, and pounds on the door. The sound reverberates. She must be scared out of her mind right now, much as I am.  I glance up and a light goes on in the house. The door opens slowly. The cop says something to the mother. I can’t make out his words only the, “Waa waa waa waa” that sounds comically like the adults in the old Charlie Brown cartoons, and I stifle a nervous giggle. The cop on the porch gestures towards me. The mother says something back. The cop walks away and heads back to the gun pointing cop. The mother stands in silhouette in the door. The kid pops his head from behind his mother’s hip. His eyes are like tiny teacup saucers. The cop tells the one holding the gun on me that the mother has backed up my story and identified me as her neighbor. The cop holsters his gun and picks up the bike. He starts to roll the bike toward the mother’s house then looks over his shoulder at me, almost as an afterthought and shouts, “Go in the house and stay there! There’s Wildings out tonight.” I stand up slowly and try to walk at a normal pace while my heart hammers a staccato beat in my throat. My mouth has been parched of all moisture and my tongue feels like a dry slab lying against my teeth.

            I finally make it to the porch and I unlock and open the front door. It is only then that I look back. The police car is leaving and the mother next door is closing her front door. Her house lights go out again. I slip inside the house and close the door and double bolt lock it. Then I slide to the floor like a going-flat helium balloon left over from a birthday party. I hear the whoop and screams of the Wildings. They’ve gotten closer so I know the cops are really gone. I hear windows shattering like tinkling crystal down the street and the joyous screams of the Wildings as they cheer.  I stand up and turn off the lights in the living room and walk over to the window to make sure the drapes are pulled tight. I curl up on the couch and smell my fear rising off the drying sweat on my body. I sleep fitfully as the Wildings go about their nightly rampage.

            In the morning I see that one of the garage windows, a small one high up under the eaves, is broken. My dented trashcan is two doors down the street and my mailbox needs replacing again, but there’s no permanent damage and I count myself lucky. I find my phone miraculously unharmed in the damp dew spotted grass. The mother comes out of her house leading her kid by his tiny hand. She spies me and waves a timid wave before walking off quickly down the street. I go inside and get ready for work.