Feral

Prologue

Prologue

They called it The Playground of Dreams, and that's what it was at first.

Built in the early 1970s, it was a project one part government grant, two parts community spirit. The planning had taken years, but once they broke ground it finished up in a three-week whirlwind of donated time and money. The massive playground sat just outside of town at the eastern end of Blackstone Park where the neatly manicured green gave way to wild grass, groves of old willows, then stony, weed-choked shoreline. The northern border of Blackstone Park was the Snake River, flowing docilely toward the Pacific Ocean like a dark, liquid giant, and a paved walkway that joined Blackstone Park to the city. Its southern border was a line of tall willows, a sound barrier separating the park from highway.

Blackstone Park was developed in the 1960s as the cornerstone of Riverside's largely successful beautification project, and The Playground of Dreams was Blackstone's pinnacle.

It was a place where Riverside’s kids could go and indulge their every fantasy while parents waited and watched from park benches just outside the midget kingdom's iron-barred wall. Pirates roamed the deck of a tiny grounded ship, climbing up and down ladders and knotted ropes in search of treasure or imaginary enemies to run through. Brave and able knights guarded high wooden castle turrets and patrolled winding walkways like the tops of castle walls.

Sometimes the pirates and knights battled each other; sometimes they fought together, recruiting from each other's ranks to mix up the endless battle even more. Sometimes Black Beard watched over Camelot while King Arthur pillaged. It didn't matter, it was all one kingdom. The only enemies in The Playground of Dreams were boredom and reality, and inside that magical iron border they stood no chance.

Mostly there was no organized play. Mostly it was just perfect, joyous chaos.

Then the dream died.

In the late 1970s a girl was found beaten almost unrecognizable, naked and violated, half buried in the playground's sandbox. Her name was Jenny Heyworth, and she was only nine years old, a runaway.

One day The Playground of Dreams was full of screaming, rioting children, the next it was empty.

Blackstone Park, dubbed Feral Park after years of disuse, became a different kind of playground, a playground of drinking, drugs, and teenage s*x. City workers blocked the access road from the highway with a barricade and a sign reading Blackstone Park is closed to the public—Enter at your own risk. Someone had since crossed Blackstone out and written Feral above it in dripping, purple letters. Soon Feral Park gained a reputation as something else entirely, and even the partiers left it alone.

Sometimes the kids still found it. Street kids, runaways, children of the night, and many who went there were never seen again.