Published on Deviant Art under Single_leg
Written as a script, and set in Louisiana in 2143-44 Fencemen is a post-apocalyptic vampire/zombie setting that goes beyond the standard tropes—tropes that are there for you horror nerds—into the timeless allegory of the social construct. Vampires, based in Manhattan of course, are the social elite blood farmers, who prey on those below them in the donor cities even as they are resisted by the rural humans who have not sold themselves out. To make this setting complete the author has zombies as a brain dead surrogate for the criminal underclass/imported alien labor force that the vampires—like the human elite ever has—use to threaten the slaves trapped at the base of the hierarchy.
For me that is a setting that works, and I think hosts two other serials, Empire State and The Coyote Kid.
What I like most about this serial is the masculine working class basis for the storyline. In the majority of post-apocalyptic fiction, and in anything set in the tired vampire-zombie domain, major protagonists tend to be drawn from somewhere in the scientific, military or law enforcement hierarchies, and the cast—recently at least—usually looks like a Rainbow Coalition photo op.
In Fencemen you have weary ground down—but not done—men, working a shit job trying to do their part to keep the walking dead fenced in—or rather fenced out. The fact that most such fiction overlooks is that men will make a job out of the most horrific task, and normalize it; often using alcohol to self-medicate against the stress. Dominic gets that dynamic, and presents it through the characters of Travis Mars and Jack Morris.
Where most authors perceive a paradigm shift in any measure as an opportunity for all genders, races, and ideologies to embrace in a struggle against evil, in Fencemen, the author takes the most obvious and most intentionally overlooked insight into how men measure themselves against the world and expresses it in a way that effectively says, So much for the vampire-zombie apocalypse ending it all, it’s just another shitty job.
Sample From #3
“As the gates closed and the sun began to set, the vast Louisiana wilderness returned to its natural sounds, wildlife, birds cawing—and the moans of the Deaders, almost like the wind blowing; the song of the Dead, calling for their living cousins.”
