The Feral Children

The city's plan was to clear out a wooded canyon in the hills north of Los Angeles and build a housing complex there. A number of crude wooden structures already stood in the canyon, nestled haphazardly amongst the scrub oak and chaparral. Everyone assumed the rickety shacks were the clubhouses of suburban neighborhood children. They thought wrong; suburban neighborhood children don't build clubhouses anymore--suburban neighborhood children don't even leave their houses to play these days.

No, those were actually dwellings. Something of a town if you will--constructed and inhabited by many dozens of feral children. Abandoned misbehavers and runaway orphans mostly.

When the city surveyor walked up into the canyon, the feral children killed him with cinderblocks and ate him.

This did not go over very well at all. People freak out a bit over abandoned children. There tends to be a lot of finger pointing and lawsuits. A small party of civic leaders, concerned citizens and local media stormed up the canyon to rescue the children. They were promptly pelted to death with cinderblocks and eaten.

This was turning into a real black eye for the community. A town hall meeting was called, presided over by the mayor, the police chief and the school superintendent. The three of them told the assembled crowd to go up in the canyon and rescue the feral children. The assembled crowd told them where to stick that idea, and then the crowd unanimously voted that the mayor, the police chief and the school superintendent should go up in the canyon and rescue the feral children.

The mayor, the chief and the super didn't like the sound of that plan at all. They said they'd love to except they just remembered they had important business they had to attend to. The crowd called them sissies to which the mayor responded: "Fine, then replace us... who wants to be mayor, police chief and school superintendent?"

Several dimwitted local business owners enthusiastically raised their hands but retracted them moments later when they realized their very first duty would be to go up into the wooded canyon to rescue the feral children, whereupon they'd very likely be killed with cinderblocks and eaten.

It was ultimately decided that the housing complex should be built somewhere else and everyone would just try to forget about the whole thing. No one was especially happy with the decision, but everyone kept their dissent to themselves. Cowards talk loud until they're on the front line.

Several months later, pets started disappearing from backyards. The townspeople lowered guilty eyes and tried not to mention it.