Fence Dog

:"Not only a bark. A long, mournful howling from outside. And another, another, another. A feeling of dread. A gut-wrenching guilt."
Fence Dog is the seventh story in act one of The Yellow Butterflies. It describes an incident in which seven people, and one dog, are isolated in a pub in the middle of a strange mist. It is one of the longest stories, and one of the ones briefly referred to in Manning's Meats.
A PDF of the story's current draft can be found here.
The following sections contain spoilers. Read at your own risk.
== Plot Synopsis ==
Gina Ewing awakens and prepares to go to work. Her route takes her through Clementbrook, which, she realises, is shrouded in dense fog. Regardless, she leaves, noting that the mist smells strangely of wet dog. On her way through Clementbrook, she realises she can't go much further in the fog, and takes shelter in a pub with six other people - the bartender Leon, her apparent friend Amanda, the farmer Edward Acker, Joseph from work, the motherly Jessica Church and a young girl named Ella. To Gina's disdain, there is a dog there also; she strongly dislikes dogs.
It soon becomes apparent that something is very wrong. Whenever a bark is heard, Leon's condition worsens, to the point that he loses an eye, flesh from his cheek and a few teeth, and he begins to cough up bloody red marble-like lumps. Fearing that he is near death, he confesses that he has been stealing his wife's jewellery and selling it, blaming it on her sister. When the dog next barks, the affliction seems to pass on to Edward Acker.
The bar's patrons theorise that confessing his secret is how Leon passed on the curse. After some convincing, Acker divulges his own secret - he cut open a young boy's arm as punishment for stealing blackberries. Joseph is the next afflicted, and after insisting that the dog is not the one barking, he has a breakdown as he confesses that his girlfriend is beating him, and he is unable to decide whether it's his fault or not. The affliction passes onto Jessica, whom Gina follows into the women's bathroom to confess in more privacy.
Jessica admits to Gina that she drove her own mother to suicide. They also discuss the fog, agreeing that it is weird and that it does smell of wet dog. They then realise that the curse has passed onto Ella, who is only a little girl, and Jessica becomes frantic while trying to find her. However, in her attempts, she accidentally traps Ella in a cupboard while throwing objects about, and Ella dies of her injuries. She attempts to scrawl her secret on the wall before her death - she accidentally smothered her baby brother attempting to muffle his cries with a pillow - but it is unintelligible.
After this, Jessica becomes engrieved, and Acker beats the dog to death with his cane. However, the barking continues, growing to a wail. Gina, who previously questioned how she knew Amanda, is grabbed by Amanda and realises that she doesn't actually know her, as a bloody brawl erupts. Acker and Leon fight, culminating in Acker strangling Leon to death. Jessica tries to strangle Acker with Joe's discarded tie, but is thrown off, and her throat is slit. Joe shoots Acker with the shotgun Leon kept under the bar and then faints. Breaking free of the stranger's grasp, now not remembering 'Amanda' at all, Gina flees the bar and begins to run through the fog, which seems to take the form of thousands of dogs.
Making her way to higher ground - Keyhole Tower - Gina's old dog-bite wound begins to re-open. She reaches Keyhole Tower, slipping through bent fence-irons, pursued by a red, bloody figure that was 'Amanda'. Fleeing up the tower, Gina reaches the top of the tower, and is forced to confront her own sin - out of envy and rage, she murdered her fiance's blind brother's guide dog by torturing it and throwing it in a river; it bit her in the process, which is how she got her bite-wound. Her fiance's brother then died when he fell, guided only by his own cane, into the same river. The red mass backs her up to the edge of the building and she loses her footing, falling from the top of Keyhole Tower.
Soon after, the fog over Clementbrook lifts. It turns out that this phenomenon was not isolated to the bar, and that many citizens were killed by the affliction or forced to confess their truths. The carnage of the bar was found, as was Gina - she had been impaled on Keyhole Tower's wrought-iron fence, bite-wound now closed.
== Characters ==
* Gina Ewing - The protagonist. A seemingly normal, hardworking woman with issues controlling her anger and envy.
* Leon - The bartender. A good, clean man whose only vice is his pursuit of money - he sells his wife's jewellery and tells her that her sister stole it.
* Edward Acker - A farmer. Can be very aggressive and descends into violence quickly.
* Joseph/Joe - One of Gina's coworkers. A friendly, funny guy, but can get very defensive. Is trapped in an abusive relationship. The story's only survivor.
* Jessica Church - A matronly woman who tries too hard to keep up her facade. Can be overly materialistic but cares deeply for young ones.
* Ella - A little girl. Likes dogs. Doesn't do much otherwise.
* Dog - Good dog.
== Trivia ==
* The story's title comes from switching the consonant sounds at the beginning of the words 'Dense Fog'. It also refers to the dog themes and Gina's ultimate fate.
* Inspector Candle refers to Gina's death as the 'Keyhole Tower tragedy' in Manning's Meats. This reference also reveals that Fence Dog takes place in the early 60s.
Category:Written Pieces
Category:Rhiannon H works
Category:Stories in The Yellow Butterflies