I originally wrote this story for an anthology of cosmic horror that ultimately never came to fruition. It is based on an idea from my son, Cayden, who asked during the run up to the 2016 election, what if they actually did build a wall, and then there is some kind of apocalypse and instead of keeping people out, the wall ends up trapping everyone inside with the sickness? So when I saw the call for submissions for cosmic horror stories with a political theme, I asked him if it was alright if I stole his idea as long as I give him a co-author credit, and that he had better say yes, or I would make him pick up the dog poop all summer. He agreed, his brother got stuck with the poop patrol again, and I sat down and wrote this story. Since the anthology never came to pass, and it was written for that alone, it has been sitting in my file for quite some time. Recently, there has been a lot of wall talk in the news again, and so I decided to just put it up here because, after reading
Here in the Black and White