WHAT IS THIS:
In a world where superpowers have become a mundane part of everyday life, heroes are less the shining beacons of hope they once were, and more the carefully curated faces of multi-billion-dollar corporations. The air hums with the static of constant chaos: billboards advertise superhero brands, news channels spew endless reports of superhuman skirmishes, and the average person moves through the wreckage of a society that’s learned to live with it all. Yet, even in the midst of this madness, there are those who slip through the cracks—people like Herbert Smalls.
Herbert is a man you wouldn’t notice twice. In his early sixties, he’s spent the last forty years working at a local golf course, a quiet man content to keep his head down and his routine intact. With tattered clothes, a weathered appearance, and a fondness for precise lawn trimming, Herbert’s life revolves around simplicity. A cold beer after a long day, an occasional look over the fence at the neighbor’s too-long grass—nothing more. The chaos of superpowers never touched him. Until the day it did.
When Herbert discovers, in a shocking moment of catastrophic destruction, that he possesses the bizarre ability to create explosions with his fists, his carefully constructed life crumbles around him—quite literally. In one unfortunate swing, Herbert obliterates the golf course he has worked on for decades, setting off a series of events that pulls him from a quiet existence into the world of vigilantes, criminals, and superpowered chaos. No longer just a man in the background, he takes on the unlikely mantle of The Fence Runner, finding solace in running fences and unleashing his newfound explosive powers on those who cross him.
But Herbert’s journey is far from a hero’s rise. He doesn’t seek fame or glory—just a sense of belonging, something he never had. His explosive fists tear through suburban streets, leaving broken fences and charred lawns in his wake. From odd vigilante jobs to dangerous altercations with local gangs, Herbert’s transformation from an unremarkable man to a fearsome force of destruction becomes inevitable. And as his temper, long suppressed, boils over, he begins to lose control, his anger driving him down the path from reluctant vigilante to full-blown villain.
Enter Louis Jones, a seasoned agent of the Deep State, and part of an elite covert group known only as the Storm Watchers. Jones has seen it all—telepaths, energy manipulators, even people who can turn reality into candy. Yet something about Herbert Smalls stands out. The man is an enigma, a quiet storm brewing just beneath the surface, and Jones knows he can’t be left unchecked. When Herbert’s final explosive rampage leaves a trail of destruction too large to ignore, it’s up to Jones and his team to bring the old man in before he tears the world apart.
With sharp wit and a no-nonsense approach, Jones leads the charge to subdue The Fence Runner, culminating in a battle that tests both of them—Herbert’s explosive fists against the tactical genius of the Storm Watchers. But in a world teetering on the edge of chaos, the question isn’t just whether Herbert can be stopped, but whether the world can survive the storm he’s unleashed.
Heroes & Fences is a darkly humorous, deeply detailed exploration of a man who never wanted to stand out, and the absurd, explosive journey that turns him into a force to be reckoned with.
Prologue
Herbert Smalls had never asked for much in life. Every morning, for the past forty-two years, his alarm clock would buzz at exactly 5:13 AM, a time he chose for no reason other than that it felt right. The buzz, a tinny, metallic sound produced by a relic of a machine manufactured in 1977, would rattle on his small wooden nightstand that he built himself in the spring of ’92 using oak from a tree he’d cut down during a brief and uneventful attempt at woodcraft. It had three drawers, all of which stuck a little when pulled. The top drawer contained socks, the middle drawer contained more socks, and the bottom drawer remained mysteriously empty, save for a single marble that, over the years, had become impossibly stuck to the corner.
Herbert, of course, wore only one brand of sock: Whiskers & Wool. He appreciated the texture. It reminded him of the woolen undergarments his grandmother used to make him wear as a child, garments that somehow itched, despite being washed three times a week in a concoction of lavender, goat milk, and disappointment.
He always put his left sock on first, followed by the right, though one could argue that “always” was a strong word. There was that one time in 1984 when, due to a bee sting to the ankle, he had put the right sock on first out of sheer panic. This event haunted him occasionally, usually during long, sleepless nights, but he never spoke of it.
After donning his socks, Herbert would shuffle to his bathroom. The tiles—white but slightly off-white because, as Herbert liked to believe, they had absorbed just a touch of the world’s melancholy—were cold beneath his feet. He preferred it that way. His toothbrush, a blue and white model from 1999, stood at a slight angle in its holder, not because of design, but because Herbert had once dropped it and, despite the fall being less than three feet, the base had chipped.
The day he discovered his power, everything had begun as it always did. Socks first, brush teeth, avoid eye contact with the spider that lived in the corner of his bathroom (he’d named it Gerald but hadn’t mentioned it to anyone—people might think him mad). At precisely 6:03 AM, Herbert would step into his car: a 1991 Buick Roadmaster that smelled faintly of old cigars, though Herbert never smoked. It was a mystery he was yet to solve, though he suspected the previous owner had a fondness for cheap tobacco and even cheaper cologne.
Herbert drove the same route to the golf course every day. He counted the potholes as a form of personal inventory. There were 18 in total, though one could argue the small crack near the old Weeping Willow was technically a pothole-in-waiting, but Herbert wasn’t one to rush judgment on asphalt imperfections.
The Morning Winds Golf Course had been his place of employment for nearly forty years. He’d mowed every blade of grass, raked every bunker, and once, when he had nothing better to do, spent an entire afternoon collecting stray golf balls that had nestled in the underbrush of the 7th hole, the one where Mr. Winthrop had famously shouted, “FORE!” only to send his ball careening into a nearby beehive. Mr. Winthrop had never returned, and the bees had since become the unofficial guardians of that corner of the course.
Herbert had never cared much about superpowers. They were a dime a dozen these days. The kid at the grocery store could control bread dough with his mind, the mailman had once flown halfway across town to avoid traffic, and, most notably, Mayor Harrison could turn into a ferret but refused to do so publicly after a rather embarrassing incident at the city’s 4th of July parade three years ago.
Herbert’s life was simple, routine. No powers, no drama, no explosions.
Until, of course, the explosion.
It had been an uneventful morning at the golf course. Herbert was trimming the edges of the 5th hole, a particularly fussy patch of grass that seemed to grow at half the rate of the others. He was contemplating the existence of clover—why it only grew where it wasn’t wanted—when his hand twitched. A small, barely noticeable tremor, but enough to knock the clippers from his grasp. They clattered to the ground with the sound of a hundred spoons being dropped in a cafeteria. He bent down to pick them up, muttering something about the quality of modern tools, when his fist clenched… and exploded.
Now, it wasn’t a small explosion—like when you accidentally shake a bottle of soda and it bursts open with a disappointing fizzle. No, this was a full-blown, cinematic explosion, the kind you see in movies where people leap away from fireballs in slow motion. Except there were no fireballs, just a crater where the 5th hole used to be, a large portion of the fairway uprooted and flung skyward, and Herbert Smalls standing there, blinking into the smoking abyss.
He stared at his hand in disbelief. It looked like any normal hand—wrinkled, a bit calloused from years of yard work, a single scar on the thumb from a run-in with a particularly sharp rake in 1987—but apparently, it was capable of mass destruction.
Herbert’s brain worked slowly these days, like a rusty bicycle chain trying to catch on gears, and it took him a full minute before he realized what had happened. He had blown up the golf course. The golf course. The only thing he had ever cared for, besides his socks and the peculiar smell of his car.
“Oh,” was all Herbert could manage to say.
He stood in the midst of the destruction, the smell of dirt and fresh-cut grass mingling with the lingering scent of his homemade lunch—bologna and cheese on rye, wrapped carefully in wax paper and now strewn across what remained of the 5th green.
Panic set in quickly. Herbert was not a man built for panic. His heart rate typically only increased when he misplaced the television remote, and even then, it was a controlled concern. But now? Now he felt something bubbling inside him—like an overboiled kettle—and that bubbling quickly turned into a decision that changed his life.
Herbert snapped.
“They’ll never let me live this down,” he muttered to himself, eyes darting around as if the bees from the 7th hole would show up to judge him. “No… they’ll… they’ll hunt me!”
And thus, Herbert Smalls—the man who had spent four decades trimming greens, collecting golf balls, and quietly enjoying the soft hum of mediocrity—became The Fence Runner. He didn’t know why he chose that name. There wasn’t a fence in sight, and running hadn’t been a strong suit of his since the late ‘70s, but it sounded… heroic.
First Battle of Fence Runner
It had been exactly four days, seven hours, and twelve minutes since Herbert Smalls had blown up the Morning Winds Golf Course, give or take a few seconds due to the odd rhythm of his wristwatch, which he’d bought from a discount store in 1995. It lost time at an unpredictable rate, but Herbert didn’t mind; in a world that prided itself on synchronization, he found comfort in the small rebellion of being precisely off-schedule.
Herbert had not adjusted well to his new life. Since the explosion, he’d been living under the delusion—no, the certainty—that the world had always been waiting for The Fence Runner. It just didn’t know it yet. So, when Herbert stood before the mirror in his small, linoleum-floored bathroom, meticulously tying an old checkered scarf around his neck, he felt a growing sense of destiny. The scarf wasn’t special, but it did add flair. Heroes needed flair.
Today was different. He could feel it in his knees, specifically the left one, which tended to twinge when something important was about to happen. “A storm’s comin’,” he muttered to no one, testing out his new gravelly voice—a voice he believed should match his newfound heroic persona. It wasn’t great. Sounded more like he had a throat infection.
And so, armed with nothing but a checkered scarf, his explosive fists, and a gut feeling, Herbert ventured into the city.
It was on the corner of Birch Street and Lamp Post Avenue—a street named not after an actual lamp post, but after a man named Jonathan Post who, in 1943, famously invented the world’s first adjustable lampshade—that Herbert’s first challenge appeared.
At first, it seemed like a normal day. Cars honked in a manner that suggested no real hurry, just habitual impatience. Pigeons cooed softly, one of them pecking at a discarded pretzel with a level of determination that could only be described as heroic in its own right. And then, Herbert saw it.
The creature was at least twenty feet tall—no, thirty feet—and covered in scales that shimmered with a sickly green hue. Its eyes burned with a crimson fire, and its claws scraped the pavement as it lumbered toward him. Herbert instinctively balled his fists, ready to unleash the full fury of his newfound powers.
He called the creature The Lizardator. Not because it looked particularly like a lizard, but because Herbert’s imagination had been working overtime lately, and everything had to end with “-ator” or “-zilla.”
“Fence Runner,” Herbert growled to himself. “This is your moment.”
The Lizardator roared—a deep, guttural sound that caused a nearby newspaper stand to topple over, scattering magazines and yesterday’s news all over the sidewalk. The sight of the disarray only fueled Herbert’s sense of purpose. He approached slowly, each step deliberate, the heel of his shoe squeaking slightly due to a loose sole.
As the monster bellowed again, Herbert threw a punch, fully expecting the earth to tremble beneath the force of his blow. And tremble it did—though mostly because his punch triggered a small explosion that sent him hurtling backward into a nearby fruit stand. He crashed through the display with a symphony of squashed tomatoes and rolling apples, his body suddenly covered in a mixture of bruises and melon juice.
“HA!” Herbert exclaimed, leaping back to his feet, his bones creaking in protest. “Explosive fists… with a side of vitamin C.”
The Lizardator was unfazed by the destruction of the fruit stand, but Herbert wasn’t done. He charged again, this time leaping into the air with the grace of a man who hadn’t jumped in three decades. His punch connected, another explosion ripping through the air as the monster staggered back, hissing like a faulty steam engine.
Herbert, however, found himself once again airborne, colliding with a lamppost (the actual object, not Jonathan Post’s legacy), and slumping to the ground. His body felt remarkably fine, though; perhaps the explosions were healing him somehow, or maybe it was the adrenaline masking the inevitable back pain he’d experience later.
The battle raged on, each of Herbert’s punches creating shockwaves of destruction. Trash cans were upturned, parking meters exploded into showers of coins, and yet, Herbert couldn’t feel more alive. His hands tingled with power, his scarf flapping dramatically in the wind that didn’t exist.
But as the final blow landed—an earth-shattering, monumental punch that caused the air to ripple like pond water—something changed. The monster, which had seemed so menacing moments ago, was now… smaller? Less monstrous? Herbert blinked.
The Lizardator wasn’t a towering beast. In fact, it wasn’t even reptilian. The scales? Merely a shabby leather jacket. The glowing red eyes? Just the reflection of some car headlights. And the claws? Well, those were simply hands. Hands attached to a man. A very ordinary man.
A very ordinary, now thoroughly exploded man.
Herbert blinked again, realization washing over him in slow, disbelieving waves. The “Lizardator” was, in fact, a mugger. A mugger who had been attempting to rob an elderly woman before Herbert had intervened. The woman, of course, had long since fled the scene, leaving Herbert standing alone in the aftermath of his “victory.”
“Oh,” he said, feeling a bit deflated.
The mugger, now mostly a crater with bits of debris scattered around, was nothing special. No superpowers, no menacing backstory, just a poor soul trying to make a dishonest living in a world where even kids could move mountains with their minds. Frankly, being a powerless mugger in a city full of super-powered people was both embarrassing and a bit sad. Herbert almost felt bad for the man.
Almost.
“Really? A mugger? In this day and age?” Herbert muttered, rubbing his aching knuckles. “No powers? No armor? No… anything?”
He shook his head, staring at the scattered coins from the exploded parking meter as they rolled across the street. He briefly considered collecting them, but that seemed beneath a hero of his caliber.
“Well,” Herbert said to the now-smoking sidewalk, “I suppose even Fence Runners have to start somewhere.”
He turned and walked away, his scarf fluttering in the non-existent wind once more, as the distant sound of sirens slowly approached.
The Quiet Before Soup
Herbert Smalls wasn’t much for fanfare. After his bout with the “Lizardator”—or, as he later reflected, Larry the Mugger—he needed something simple, something grounded. And so, at precisely 9:03 AM, he found himself walking through the automatic doors of Big Saver Grocery Mart, a place he had frequented since the grand opening in 1986. He had attended the ribbon-cutting ceremony that day, and though no one would remember it but him, he had been the first customer to buy a loaf of Stark White bread, which claimed to be the softest in the city.
The store was, in a word, comfortable. It wasn’t fancy, nor did it try to be. The faded linoleum floors were speckled with little black dots, a pattern that once suggested modernity but now simply said, “We’ve been here a while, haven’t we?” The ceiling buzzed with the soft hum of fluorescent lights, one of which flickered near the frozen foods section, though no one had bothered to fix it in years. Herbert didn’t mind. It felt lived-in, like an old sweater that had been washed too many times.
He passed the produce section first. The bananas, still slightly green, were stacked with meticulous care, while the apples—Granny Smith, Fuji, Gala, and Honeycrisp—were arranged in neat pyramids, each variety claiming to be the superior apple. Herbert paused for a moment, considering the Honeycrisps. He’d once heard a debate between two shoppers in this very aisle about the flavor profile of Honeycrisp versus Fuji apples. One had argued that the Fuji was the “thinking man’s apple,” while the other had declared the Honeycrisp was “for people who wanted a little thrill in life.” Herbert had taken the Fuji that day. He liked to think of himself as a practical man.
Today, however, he simply grabbed an orange.
As he meandered through the aisles, Herbert noticed a television mounted near the ceiling, playing the local news. The volume was low, but the captioning scrolled across the bottom of the screen in a neat, clinical font. A new superhero, The Bisonator, had stopped a runaway train by headbutting it, and a dog with the ability to teleport was causing minor chaos downtown by appearing in bank vaults and then disappearing again before anyone could catch it. There was also something about a building-sized jellyfish terrorizing the docks, but the news anchor appeared nonchalant as if this was just another Tuesday.
Herbert shook his head slightly. It was all so… typical now. He remembered a time when the thought of a super-powered canine would have been front-page news for weeks, but now? It barely interrupted the usual chatter about the weather and local politics.
He continued down the aisles, weaving between a mother juggling two children and a grocery list the size of a small novel, and an elderly man who seemed to be contemplating the nature of cheese. Herbert nodded politely at both but kept his pace steady. He wasn’t in any rush, after all. The world could wait.
And then he arrived at the soup aisle.
There was something about the soup aisle that always struck Herbert as oddly serene. The shelves were lined with an almost reverent order—rows upon rows of canned soups, each label facing forward, perfectly aligned. It was a gallery of broth, a museum of convenience. Herbert paused and let his eyes wander over the labels. There was Classic Chicken Noodle, the reliable standby. Right next to it sat Hearty Beef Stew, a soup that pretended to be more than soup. It was a meal in a can, it proclaimed boldly. And further down the line, there was Cream of Mushroom, which Herbert had never trusted. It wasn’t so much the taste but the texture. He didn’t want his soup to feel like it was trying to be pudding.
He picked up a can of Tomato Basil and examined it. The label was shiny, new. It smelled faintly of the glue used to attach it. Herbert considered the can for a moment longer than was necessary, turning it over in his hands as if the secrets of the universe were hidden beneath the barcode. It claimed to be “artisan,” though Herbert doubted any artisans had been involved in the process.
Setting the can back on the shelf, he moved further down the aisle. His eyes landed on a new contender: Cajun Shrimp Bisque. Herbert raised an eyebrow. He had never trusted bisque either. Too fancy for its own good. But he found himself staring at it, imagining a life where bisque was a regular part of his diet. He pictured himself in a cozy cabin somewhere, far from the noise of the city, wearing a sweater and reading a book while sipping on bisque. The thought was absurd, of course. He didn’t even own a sweater like that.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity of contemplation, Herbert reached for a can of Split Pea and Ham. Simple, no frills. It was dependable, like the Buick. He liked that.
His groceries were light today—just a few things: a loaf of Stark White bread, a carton of eggs, the aforementioned orange, the can of Split Pea and Ham, and a box of tea bags. Herbert liked tea in the evening. It helped with the digestion, or so he’d read in an article once, though he couldn’t remember where.
At the checkout counter, the cashier—a young man with blue hair and the faintest glow about him, a clear sign of latent superpowers—scanned his items with an impressive lack of enthusiasm. Herbert handed over a few bills and a handful of change, collected his receipt, and packed his groceries into two paper bags. He liked paper bags. They were sturdy, and there was something satisfying about how they crinkled when you folded them just right.
Out in the parking lot, Herbert packed his car with the same careful attention he applied to everything in his life. The eggs went in the passenger seat—he didn’t trust them in the trunk—and the bread was tucked in carefully beside them. The other items found their places with ease. Herbert took a moment to adjust the angle of the split pea soup can. It sat at a perfect 45-degree angle in the bag now, just as it should.
He drove home in silence, save for the gentle hum of the Buick’s engine, which had developed a slight rattle over the past few months. Herbert knew it was the fan belt. He’d get to it eventually.
Back home, Herbert unpacked the groceries with the precision of a man who had spent his life organizing the world around him. The bread went in its designated drawer, the eggs into the fridge, and the soup was placed on a shelf reserved specifically for canned goods. It was a small shelf—there wasn’t much variety in Herbert’s pantry, but it was organized. Everything had its place.
He moved to the kitchen with a slow but deliberate pace, taking out a small saucepan. The soup was first—Split Pea and Ham, simmering gently on the stove. As the smell filled the kitchen, Herbert turned his attention to the chicken, which he had already seasoned earlier that morning with just the right amount of salt, pepper, and a dash of thyme. He laid a few lemon slices over the top before placing it into the oven. Baked lemons. He liked the subtle tang they brought to the dish.
As the meal cooked, Herbert stood at the window, looking out over his small backyard. The fence—newly repaired after a particularly windy autumn—stood proudly, marking the boundary of his world. He appreciated the fence. It didn’t ask for much.
When dinner was finally ready, Herbert sat at his small, round kitchen table. The chicken was tender, the soup was warm, and the lemons were baked just right. He ate slowly, savoring each bite, the quiet of the evening settling around him like an old, familiar blanket.
There was no rush. There was never any rush.
Rise of the Fence Runner
Herbert Smalls sat at his small kitchen table, staring at the classifieds section of the local paper. The ink was smudged in places, a result of the cheap newsprint combined with Herbert’s tendency to absentmindedly drag his fingers across the page. The paper crinkled under his hands as he adjusted the angle for what must have been the seventh time. Finding a job wasn’t difficult in the city—people always needed help with something—but finding the right job? That was trickier.
Herbert didn’t want anything corporate. No desks, no suits, no meetings about synergy or whatever new buzzword was making the rounds in the business world. No, Herbert wanted something simple, something that didn’t ask too much of him. The paper offered a few potential candidates: Delivery Driver for Fred’s Floral Service, Warehouse Stocker for Bulk ‘n’ Save, and an ad for Part-Time Custodian at the local high school. None of these filled Herbert with any particular excitement, but then again, he didn’t need excitement. He just needed to pay the bills.
He circled the ad for Part-Time Custodian, mostly because the hours were flexible and it sounded peaceful. He could imagine himself sweeping the empty halls, the sound of the broom echoing softly against the tiled floors. There was a certain tranquility in janitorial work that appealed to Herbert. Quiet, predictable, and—most importantly—he could work in peace.
But all that would come later.
For now, he had training to do.
Herbert had made a decision. A strange, irrational decision, but one he felt in his bones—particularly his knees, which were aching this morning for no discernible reason. He had taken up the mantle of The Fence Runner, and if he was going to commit to this, he would need to live up to the name. After all, a man couldn’t call himself a Fence Runner if he didn’t actually run on fences.
The first fence he chose was the one in his own backyard. It was a simple wooden structure, recently repaired, standing about four feet high. Not particularly challenging, but Herbert didn’t want to start with anything too ambitious. After all, the last thing he needed was a twisted ankle—his insurance didn’t cover superhero training.
The morning air was crisp, with a slight breeze that rattled the leaves of the old oak tree at the far end of his yard. Herbert stood at the base of the fence, hands on his hips, gazing up at the wooden slats as if they were the walls of some great fortress.
“All right, Fence,” he muttered under his breath. “You and me. Let’s do this.”
Herbert took a tentative step onto the bottom rail, testing the wood. It creaked slightly under his weight but held firm. Satisfied, he planted his other foot, balancing himself with a slight wobble. He could feel the fence shifting slightly beneath him, a reminder that he was not, in fact, a spry young man. But he pressed on, shuffling slowly along the length of the fence like an awkward tightrope walker.
About halfway across, Herbert began to pick up speed. His arms flailed a bit as he struggled to maintain balance, but he kept going, his feet moving in short, quick steps. The wood groaned beneath him, but Herbert ignored it. He was The Fence Runner, after all. Running fences was what he did.
He reached the end of the fence and jumped off with a small, triumphant flourish—though “jump” might have been an exaggeration. It was more of a controlled fall, but Herbert counted it as a victory.
“Not bad,” he muttered, brushing his hands off. “Not bad at all.”
But running on one fence wasn’t enough. If he was going to be a proper hero, he needed to train, to hone his skills. And so, over the next few days, Herbert expanded his territory.
The next fence was on Maple Street. It was slightly taller, closer to six feet, and painted an unfortunate shade of pale blue that had long since faded in the sun. Herbert approached it with the same sense of gravitas he’d given his own fence, though this time he felt a bit more confident. After all, he had successfully completed his first fence run. How hard could this one be?
The answer: harder than he expected.
As he climbed onto the fence, Herbert realized that the extra height added an element of danger he hadn’t considered. The wind was a bit stronger up here—or at least, that’s what he told himself as he wobbled precariously. But he was determined.
Step by step, he made his way along the top of the fence. His heart pounded in his chest, not from exertion, but from the thrill of it all. This was more than just running on fences—this was training. The kind of training that would make him ready for anything the world threw at him, whether it was muggers, monsters, or… well, probably more muggers.
“You’re doing good, Herbert,” he muttered to himself as he reached the midpoint of the fence. “Real good.”
His foot slipped.
For a brief, terrifying moment, Herbert flailed wildly, arms windmilling in a desperate attempt to stay upright. He felt his balance tipping, gravity pulling him toward the pavement below. But then, in a flash of inspiration—or possibly sheer luck—he planted his fist down on the fence.
BOOM.
The explosion wasn’t large, just enough to propel him backward and send him crashing into a nearby bush. But it worked. Herbert stared up at the sky through a tangle of leaves and twigs, his breath coming in short, startled gasps.
“All right,” he wheezed. “Maybe… maybe start smaller.”
The job interviews were uneventful.
Herbert sat across from a man in a plaid shirt and khaki pants at the local high school, filling out the standard application for the part-time custodian position. The man, who introduced himself as Mr. Finkel, spoke with the enthusiasm of someone who had been running the same hiring interviews for twenty years without a break.
“So, Mr. Smalls,” Mr. Finkel droned, glancing at the form. “Why do you want to work here?”
Herbert shifted in his seat. “I’m good with a mop.”
The man nodded slowly, as though this answer was entirely acceptable, before moving on to the next question about availability. Herbert tuned out slightly, his mind drifting back to the fences.
There was a chain-link fence on Cedar Avenue he’d been eyeing lately, and it posed a new challenge. It wasn’t as stable as the wooden ones, and it would require a different technique. Maybe a lighter step, or possibly more use of his hands for balance. He’d have to test it, maybe tomorrow, after his trip to the hardware store.
“Mr. Smalls?”
Herbert blinked, snapping back to the present. “Yes?”
“You’re available to start next week?”
“Uh… yeah. Sounds good.”
Later that afternoon, Herbert found himself back in training mode. The chain-link fence on Cedar Avenue was indeed trickier. It wobbled with every step, making him feel as though the ground itself was uncertain. But Herbert persevered, taking it one step at a time, his arms outstretched like some sort of amateur acrobat. He could feel the fence vibrating beneath him, each rattle sending a shockwave up through his legs. But that was part of the challenge.
“Balance, Herbert. It’s all about balance.”
As he neared the end of the fence, he decided to practice his explosive punches. After all, he had to keep his offense sharp.
Herbert clenched his fist, focusing on the sensation, the slight tingle that ran from his fingertips up to his forearm. He could feel the power, waiting, simmering just beneath the surface. With a deep breath, he swung.
BOOM.
The explosion sent him flying backward, though this time he was prepared. He tucked into a roll as he hit the ground, coming to a stop with a soft thud in someone’s front yard. The lawn was freshly mowed, the scent of cut grass filling his nostrils as he lay there, staring up at the sky.
“That… that was better,” he muttered to himself. “Getting the hang of it.”
Herbert’s days continued like this—a strange balance between job hunting and fence running. He had three more interviews that week: one as a part-time stocker at Bulk ‘n’ Save (they never called back), one as a delivery driver for Fred’s Floral Service (Herbert didn’t like the idea of navigating traffic with flowers), and another as a dishwasher at Sam’s Diner. None of them felt right, but that was okay. Herbert knew he’d find something soon. He always did.
In the meantime, he had more fences to conquer.
Each day, Herbert pushed himself further. He expanded his territory, moving beyond his neighborhood to new, unfamiliar fences. He found a tall, wrought-iron fence near the park, which provided an extra challenge due to its narrow rails. He even started experimenting with combining his running and explosive punches, launching himself from fence to fence with small bursts of energy.
And through it all, Herbert talked to himself.
“Gotta keep improving, Herbert. Can’t let up now.”
“Fence running’s just the beginning.”
“You’re getting faster. Stronger.”
“Bet those other heroes don’t train like this.”
It was absurd, of course. Herbert knew that. He was a man in his sixties, running on fences and punching the air like a madman. But it felt good. It felt right.
In a world where people could fly, turn invisible, or control the weather, Herbert Smalls was doing something no one else was: he was becoming The Fence Runner.
Other Side of the Fence
It had been a few weeks since Herbert Smalls began working as the part-time custodian at Briarwood High School. The work was everything he had hoped for—quiet, simple, and with just the right amount of physical labor to keep his hands busy and his mind from wandering too far. The floors, though worn from decades of students shuffling over them in cheap sneakers and the occasional pair of cowboy boots (why did kids still wear those?), were remarkably well maintained. He had a system for everything: sweeping in precise, overlapping arcs, mopping in a spiral pattern that ensured no spot was missed. Even the trash cans, each lined with a black plastic bag that emitted the faint smell of lemon-scented disinfectant, were positioned at exactly the same angle relative to the walls. He had measured it—25 degrees. Perfect for ease of access.
It was during one of these uneventful afternoons, as Herbert adjusted a particularly obstinate broom that refused to stay upright against the janitor’s closet wall (he suspected it had a warped handle, likely a defect from the factory), that the boys approached him.
They were a familiar group. Herbert had seen them before, lurking around the gymnasium, making the kind of loud, meaningless chatter that teenagers made when they didn’t have anything better to do. One of them had a habit of dribbling a basketball everywhere he went, the rhythm of the ball hitting the floor annoyingly inconsistent, like a bad jazz drummer who couldn’t keep tempo.
“Hey, man, that’s him,” the tall one with the backward baseball cap said, his voice carrying that mix of confidence and doubt that only came from a teenage boy who believed the world revolved around his every thought.
Herbert kept his head down, focusing on the task at hand—wiping down the handle of his mop with a rag he’d folded precisely three times. Folding it four times would have made it too thick, five times too bulky, but three was the optimal number for absorption and maneuverability.
“Nah, it’s just the janitor,” said another kid, this one shorter, with the kind of shaggy hair that Herbert imagined felt greasy to the touch. He didn’t like greasy things. The cafeteria’s fryers were greasy. They required extra effort, and Herbert always brought an additional rag specifically for those days. He had one for each type of spill. He was prepared for everything.
But the tall one wasn’t convinced. He stepped forward, basketball forgotten for a moment, and eyed Herbert with a smirk that was far too practiced for a boy his age. Herbert could sense the kid sizing him up, the way he narrowed his eyes in the same way you’d squint at a mismatched pair of socks you weren’t sure belonged together.
“Hey, aren’t you that guy?” the boy asked, his voice laced with that condescending curiosity that only comes when someone already knows the answer they’re fishing for. “You know, The Fence Runner?”
Herbert’s grip on the mop handle tightened—just a little. He felt it creak under the pressure, a tiny, almost imperceptible sound, but to Herbert, it was like a gong going off in his head. That noise meant something was bending, and bending meant breaking. And breaking meant fixing. He would have to address that later.
“You sure? ‘Cause I saw this dude the other day, running on fences and… I dunno, man, he was like… exploding stuff.” The kid mimed an explosion with his hands, wiggling his fingers like they were tiny fireworks. Herbert noted the poor form in the gesture—if you were going to mimic an explosion, you had to do it properly, with emphasis on the central burst, not the trailing sparks.
Herbert remained silent, mopping in slow, methodical strokes. Left, right. Left, right. The water in the bucket swirled in response to each dip, a faint ripple forming every time he squeezed the excess moisture from the mop head. He liked the rhythm of it. It was dependable.
The boys weren’t done, though. They never were. Teenage boys were like pigeons—they just kept pecking at you until you gave them a reason to scatter.
“Yeah, show us how you jump fences,” said another, this one chewing on a piece of gum far too aggressively for Herbert’s liking. He could hear the smacking, each pop of the bubble punctuating the end of their taunts.
Herbert glanced down at the mop water. It was a dull gray, swirling like a miniature hurricane trapped in a bucket. He needed to change it soon. Dirty water was ineffective for cleaning. You had to swap it out before it became a liability. Like everything else in life. When something got dirty, it was best to clean it up before it got worse.
“C’mon, Fence Runner,” the first boy goaded, stepping closer now, his sneakers squeaking on the tile floor. The squeak was high-pitched, like the whine of a loose fan belt on a poorly maintained car—irritating, persistent. “Let’s see you do your thing. Bet you can’t even jump anymore.”
The squeak. The chewing. The incessant mocking.
Herbert tried to focus on the mop. Left, right. Left, right. But the noise—oh, the noise—it was building in his head, layering over itself like an out-of-tune orchestra. The boys’ laughter, the creak of the mop handle, the squeaking shoes, and that chewing—that chewing.
He couldn’t take it.
Without warning, Herbert dropped the mop. It fell to the floor with a muted splat, the dirty water splashing out of the bucket, spreading across the tiles like a miniature flood.
He turned to face the boys, his fists clenched tightly at his sides. They had pushed him too far. They had crossed the line.
“You think this is funny?” Herbert’s voice was low, barely a whisper, but it carried the weight of a man who had spent decades swallowing his frustrations.
The boys stopped laughing. The gum-chewer paused mid-chew, his jaw slackening as he realized something had shifted. The tall one took a step back, just a small one, but it was enough. They knew. They felt it.
“I said…” Herbert’s voice rose now, a tremor of rage threading through it. “You think this is funny?!”
Before they could answer, before they could utter another word, Herbert’s fist shot forward. He didn’t think, didn’t calculate the angle or force—it was pure instinct. The explosion that followed was immediate, a crack of thunder that reverberated down the hallway, shaking the lockers and causing a fire extinguisher to fall from its mount with a dull clang.
The boys were thrown backward as if they were rag dolls caught in a windstorm, crashing into the lockers with a series of metallic bangs. The gum-chewer’s gum flew out of his mouth mid-air, landing with a splat on the linoleum floor where it stuck, its fate now eternally sealed in the annals of custodial nightmares.
“YOU LEAVE HERBERT SMALLS ALONE!” Herbert shouted, his voice echoing through the now-silent hallway. His fists smoked from the explosion, the faint smell of burnt metal and singed hair filling the air.
And then, as quickly as it had come, the anger dissipated. Herbert blinked, his mind clearing like the smoke that swirled around him. He stared at the boys, now crumpled against the lockers, groaning in pain and clutching various limbs.
His fists unclenched. The weight of what had just happened began to sink in, the realization dawning on him like a slow-moving train you can’t avoid. He had hurt them. He had done that.
Herbert had done that.
His breath caught in his throat. He hadn’t meant to… but the name—his own name—it had just come out. He was The Fence Runner, not… not Herbert Smalls. But somehow, they were one and the same. And that thought terrified him.
Without another word, Herbert turned and ran. His shoes squeaked against the wet floor, though he barely noticed. The sound of his own heartbeat thudded in his ears, drowning out everything else.
He didn’t stop running until he reached the edge of town, the familiar fences standing tall in the fading light of the afternoon. The sun dipped low, casting long shadows over the wood, painting the neighborhood in soft, muted colors—browns and golds that reminded Herbert of autumn leaves and old books.
He stood in front of a fence, his breath coming in ragged gasps, sweat dripping from his forehead. He reached up to wipe it away with the back of his hand, but the sweat wasn’t just sweat—it was mixed with dirt and something else, something that smelled faintly of burnt wood. His hands still trembled, and his chest heaved, the adrenaline from the explosion still coursing through him.
But the fence—it was solid. It was real. Unlike the chaos of the school, unlike the noise and the confusion, the fence was dependable. The world felt too big, too unpredictable, but here, on the fence, Herbert felt small. And safe.
He climbed onto the fence, his movements slow but deliberate, each step as precise as the last. The wood creaked under his weight, but it held, as it always did.
“This is where I belong,” Herbert whispered to himself, his voice barely audible over the soft rustling of the wind. “The fences… they understand.”
And so, Herbert ran. He ran along the fences, his feet moving in a rhythmic, almost hypnotic pattern. Each step was measured, deliberate, the sound of his shoes tapping lightly against the wood a steady beat in an otherwise chaotic world.
The fences didn’t judge him. They didn’t laugh, didn’t mock, didn’t ask him to be anyone other than who he was. Up here, on the fences, he was free.
Herbert Smalls was home.
Weight of a Quiet Life
Herbert Smalls sat on the small porch of his home, staring out into the stillness of the evening. The sirens in the distance were growing louder, but in his mind, they were just noise—distant, unimportant. His thoughts were elsewhere, stuck in the heavy, gray memories of a life spent alone. His hands rested on his knees, the skin wrinkled and calloused from decades of work, each line in his palm like a roadmap of the life he had lived. He had never thought much about his hands before, but now, in the quiet, they seemed to tell a story. A story of survival. A story of pain.
He had always been a man of few words, but that wasn’t how he’d started. As a child, Herbert had been talkative—perhaps too much so. He had asked questions, endless streams of them, hoping that someone might answer, might explain the world to him in a way that made sense. But no one had. His father, Harold Smalls, was not a man who entertained curiosity. Harold had been a big man—both in stature and in temper. His presence filled the house like a storm cloud, dark and brooding, ready to erupt at the slightest provocation.
Herbert had learned early on that questions were dangerous. He remembered the first time he had asked his father why their house was so cold in the winter. He had been no more than five or six, bundled up in a blanket that wasn’t quite warm enough, his small fingers gripping the edges tightly. His father had been sitting in his usual chair by the window, staring out at the street with a drink in hand, the smell of whiskey and old cigarettes hanging in the air.
“Why don’t we have a heater, Daddy?” Herbert had asked, his voice soft and innocent, the kind of voice that hadn’t yet learned to be afraid.
His father’s response had been swift. The back of Harold’s hand had struck Herbert across the face before he even had time to react. The sting of the blow was sharp, the metallic taste of blood filling his mouth as he stumbled backward. But it wasn’t the physical pain that stayed with Herbert. No, it was the look in his father’s eyes—cold, hard, and distant. The message was clear: Don’t ask questions. Don’t complain. Just endure.
From that day on, Herbert kept his questions to himself.
He grew up in a house that echoed with silence. His mother, Margaret, had been little more than a ghost in his life. She was there, physically, but emotionally? She was absent. Always distant, always retreating into her own world, never engaging with her son in any meaningful way. Herbert couldn’t remember a single moment of affection from her—no hugs, no comforting words, nothing to let him know that he mattered. She would sit at the kitchen table, staring blankly at the window as if waiting for something, though Herbert never knew what it was.
And then, one day, she was gone.
Herbert had been seven, and the day was etched into his memory like a scar. He had woken up to an unusually quiet house—no creaking floorboards, no clinking of dishes in the kitchen. He had wandered through the house, calling for her in his small, trembling voice, but there was no answer. Her room was empty, her closet half open with clothes missing, and her shoes no longer lined up neatly by the door. She had packed up her life in the dead of night and disappeared, leaving behind nothing but the faint scent of her perfume and a gaping hole in Herbert’s world.
His father hadn’t seemed surprised. He’d simply poured another drink and muttered, “She’s gone. Get used to it.”
Herbert had gotten used to it. He had no choice.
And then there was his grandfather, a man who seemed to drift in and out of Herbert’s life with the same careless ease that he moved from one bar to the next. Old Mr. Smalls was a relic of another time, a man who believed in living life in the moment—though his moments mostly consisted of cheap whiskey and the fleeting company of women whose names he couldn’t remember. He would show up at their house sporadically, smelling of booze and stale tobacco, offering no real comfort or guidance, just the occasional pat on the head and a slurred story about “the good old days” that made little sense to Herbert.
There had been one night, when Herbert was about twelve, that his grandfather had stumbled into the house with more than just whiskey on his breath. He had brought with him a woman, younger than Herbert’s mother had been when she left, dressed in clothes that barely covered her skin. Herbert had watched from the hallway as his grandfather laughed, pulling the woman onto the couch, ignoring the fact that Herbert was standing there, watching, confused and uncomfortable.
That was the night Herbert had learned that family didn’t mean much. Not in his world. Family was just a word, an obligation at best. It wasn’t something you could rely on.
As Herbert grew older, the silence that had been forced upon him as a child became a part of who he was. He learned to keep his head down, to avoid drawing attention to himself, to endure the pain and the loneliness without complaint. He poured himself into his work at the golf course—his one constant, the one thing he could control. The grass, the sand traps, the rolling hills—they didn’t judge him. They didn’t mock him. They were simple, predictable, and they let him be.
But even that had been taken from him.
Now, here he was, in his sixties, sitting alone on his porch, a man with nothing and no one. No family. No friends. Just memories that weighed on him like a thousand-pound anchor, pulling him down into the depths of his own sadness. The world had moved on without him, and he had let it. Maybe he deserved it. Maybe this was his punishment for never being enough—for never asking questions, for never standing up, for always being the quiet man who let life happen to him.
And then there was Thunderstrike.
Herbert wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, though it did little to stop the tears from falling. Thunderstrike had been his hero, the one figure in his life who had seemed larger than the pain, larger than the sadness. Thunderstrike had represented everything Herbert wanted to believe in—a man who could fight back, who could stand up for the people who couldn’t stand up for themselves.
But Thunderstrike had been a lie, just like everything else.
Herbert remembered the day he learned the truth as if it had happened yesterday. He had been a teenager then, still holding onto the hope that maybe—just maybe—there was something good in the world. Thunderstrike had been on the news almost every night, a blur of blue and gold, saving lives, stopping crime, doing the things that Herbert wished he could do. Herbert had collected newspaper clippings, watched every interview, studied every move. He had believed in Thunderstrike.
And then, it had all come crashing down.
The news had broken in the most devastating way possible. Thunderstrike wasn’t just a hero—he was a monster too. He had a split personality, a darker half that emerged when no one was looking, undoing all the good he had done. By day, he was the savior of the city. By night, he was The Devastator, the very villain he had sworn to stop. He had destroyed half the city in a single rampage, his mind fractured beyond repair. In the end, there had been no choice but to put him down. A man as powerful as Thunderstrike couldn’t be contained, couldn’t be saved. The world had to end him before he ended it.
Herbert had been devastated. Thunderstrike was supposed to be different. He was supposed to be real. But in the end, he was just as broken as everyone else.
That was the day Herbert stopped believing in heroes.
Now, decades later, as he sat on his porch, the weight of those memories pressed down on him like a vice. He had spent his whole life running—from his past, from the pain, from the loneliness. But no matter how far he ran, it always caught up to him.
The sirens were closer now, their wail cutting through the night air, but Herbert barely registered them. He was too lost in the storm of his own mind, too consumed by the sadness and anger that had been building inside him for as long as he could remember.
His fists clenched, his knuckles white as he fought back the tears that continued to spill down his cheeks. He wiped his face again, harder this time, as if he could scrub away the years of pain and disappointment that had led him to this moment. But the tears kept coming, relentless, unforgiving.
Herbert wasn’t sure when the sadness turned to anger, but when it did, it hit him like a freight train. A slow, simmering rage that had been buried deep within him for years, decades even, now began to bubble to the surface, threatening to explode.
The sirens grew louder, their shrill cries echoing in his ears, but this time, they didn’t sound like noise. They sounded like a call—a call to action, a call to do something, to stop sitting on the sidelines of his own life.
He stood up slowly, his legs shaky, his breath heavy. The anger coursed through him now, hot and violent, filling the empty spaces inside him where the sadness had once been. He wasn’t sure who he was angry at—his father, his mother, his grandfather, Thunderstrike, the world itself—but it didn’t matter.
He had spent his whole life holding it in, swallowing his pain, keeping his head down, staying quiet.
But no more.
Herbert Smalls was done being quiet.
The sirens were just outside now, flashing red and blue lights casting long shadows across his lawn. He stared at them for a moment, his heart pounding in his chest, his fists still clenched at his sides. He wiped the last of the tears from his eyes, his face hardening into something unrecognizable even to himself.
The sadness was gone.
All that was left was the anger.
The Fence Running.
And the world would pay attention.
Explosion of a Quiet Life
The flashing red and blue lights cast a surreal glow over Herbert Smalls’ modest front lawn, turning the faded, patchy grass into a landscape of pulsing shadows. Herbert stood at the edge of his porch, staring out at the spectacle like a man caught in a dream he hadn’t yet fully awoken from. His fingers twitched at his sides, not from fear, but from the simmering anger that had been building inside him for days—no, years. Maybe his whole life.
There were two police cruisers parked haphazardly along the curb, the doors open, and officers behind them, crouched slightly as if expecting a battle. The light from the streetlamp above them flickered at odd intervals, making the whole scene look like something from an old cop drama Herbert used to watch in the afternoons, back when TV hadn’t yet betrayed him with its cheap lies and empty heroes. Starsky & Hutch, maybe. Or was it Miami Vice? Didn’t matter. The whole world felt fake.
Two officers approached him cautiously, their shoes crunching softly on the gravel walkway Herbert had meticulously maintained for years. The gravel itself was a mix of quartz and river pebbles, hand-picked from a landscaping catalog in 1983. He remembered because it had taken him four days to decide on the exact type of gravel—he wanted something that was durable but also aesthetically pleasing, which, in hindsight, seemed an utterly absurd priority. Now, it was just one more thing the world didn’t notice.
“Sir, are you Herbert Smalls?” one of the officers called out, his voice tense but controlled. He had a strong jawline, one that looked like it had been sculpted by generations of stern ancestors. His name tag read Officer Phelps, and his uniform was a bit too crisp, the kind that suggested he spent too much time ironing it. His belt jangled slightly with all the assorted tools of authority hanging from it—handcuffs, baton, radio, and a shiny badge that reflected the flickering light like a disco ball at a very sad party.
Herbert stared at him, his fists still clenched at his sides. “Yeah,” he said, his voice gravelly and low. “That’s me.”
The second officer, a younger woman with dark hair pulled into a tight bun, stood just behind Phelps. Her uniform was less crisp, more lived-in. Her name tag was tilted slightly, as if she had attached it in a hurry. Officer Garza, it read. She held her hand on her holster, but her fingers twitched, nervous energy radiating off her in waves. Herbert could sense it. It reminded him of the time he’d tried to paint his house by himself and had to give up halfway through because the ladder kept wobbling—instability.
“Mr. Smalls,” Officer Phelps continued, stepping forward but maintaining a cautious distance, “we need to ask you a few questions about some… incidents in the area.”
“Incidents?” Herbert’s voice was colder than he intended, but he wasn’t in the mood for polite conversation. “What incidents?”
Phelps exchanged a glance with Garza before responding. “We’ve received multiple reports of an individual matching your description involved in several… altercations around town. Explosions, to be precise.”
Herbert blinked. Explosions? Oh, right. The mugger. The fence running. The kids at the school. He’d forgotten how loud his punches had been.
“That so?” Herbert muttered, glancing at his fists, which, at the moment, looked harmless enough. Just old hands—worn, weathered, calloused from years of pushing lawnmowers and trimming hedges. But he knew better. He could feel the energy simmering beneath the surface, like a kettle that had been left on the stove just a little too long.
“Yes,” Phelps continued, his tone growing more authoritative. “There are strict regulations regarding the use of powers in public spaces. We’ve had reports of you… using some kind of explosive abilities without any form of identification or registration. That’s a violation of code 37-14 under the Municipal Powers Act.”
Herbert squinted at the officer. “Municipal Powers Act? What in the hell is that?”
Phelps sighed, clearly frustrated. “Mr. Smalls, everyone with powers is required by law to register. You’re using your abilities without authorization—without any supervision. It’s dangerous. You’ve injured several people. You’re putting the public at risk.”
Herbert tilted his head slightly, his eyes narrowing. “And what if I’m not interested in your damn registration? I didn’t ask for these powers. They just… happened.”
“That doesn’t matter,” Garza spoke up, her voice sharp but tinged with that nervousness she couldn’t quite hide. “You can’t just go around blowing things up. It doesn’t work like that.”
Herbert chuckled, a low, bitter sound that didn’t reach his eyes. “Funny. My whole life’s been about following rules. Keeping my head down. Not asking questions.” He clenched his fists tighter, feeling the familiar warmth in his knuckles, like the beginning of a fire waiting to ignite. “And where did that get me? Alone. Forgotten.”
Phelps took another cautious step forward. “Mr. Smalls, we understand you might be frustrated, but this isn’t the way to deal with it. We need you to come with us, peacefully. You’ll have a chance to explain everything downtown.”
Herbert didn’t respond immediately. His gaze flickered to the cruiser behind them, the lights still spinning in an almost hypnotic rhythm. He remembered the last time he had been in the back of a police car—back when he was twelve, after his father had been arrested for getting into a bar fight. The officers had been kind enough to drive Herbert home, but the looks they gave him—the pity in their eyes—it made him feel like something was wrong with him. Like he was defective.
He wasn’t going back into the back of a police car.
“Peacefully?” Herbert repeated, his voice low and dangerous. “I’ve lived peacefully for sixty years. And what did it get me? Nothing.”
Phelps shifted slightly, clearly sensing the shift in the air. “Mr. Smalls, we don’t want this to escalate—”
But it was too late. Herbert’s anger, the years of pain, the loneliness, the frustration—it all boiled over in a single, powerful punch.
BOOM.
The explosion ripped through the air, sending a shockwave that knocked both officers back. Phelps stumbled, barely keeping his balance as the ground beneath him cracked from the force of the blast. Garza fell to the ground, her hand instinctively reaching for her gun, though she hesitated for a split second—long enough for Herbert to take another step forward.
“Mr. Smalls!” Phelps shouted, his voice shaking slightly, but trying to maintain control. “Stop! You’re making this worse!”
Herbert didn’t hear him. Or if he did, he didn’t care. His fists smoked from the explosion, the heat radiating from them like the sun had decided to live in his hands. He felt alive—more alive than he had in years.
“Put your hands up!” Garza barked, finally pulling her gun and pointing it at Herbert, her hands trembling slightly.
Herbert smirked, his eyes cold. “What are you gonna do? Shoot me?”
Without hesitation, Garza fired.
POP POP POP.
The bullets whizzed through the air, but by some strange twist of fate—or maybe just dumb luck—they missed. Every single one. Herbert felt the wind of them brush past his ears, but none made contact. They buried themselves in the wood of the porch behind him, sending small splinters into the air.
Herbert chuckled, a sound that was part disbelief, part exhilaration. “Guess luck’s on my side tonight.”
Phelps pulled his gun now, aiming it directly at Herbert, his face pale but determined. “Don’t make us do this, Smalls.”
Herbert stepped forward again, fists still smoking, eyes gleaming with a mixture of fury and defiance. The sirens blared louder, their wail piercing the night as more officers arrived, surrounding the house, lights flashing in every direction.
But Herbert wasn’t afraid. Not anymore.
He was The Fence Runner.
And no one was going to stop him.
The Candied Showdown
Hours had passed, but to Herbert Smalls, it felt like an eternity. The once-quiet street in front of his home was now a battlefield, a landscape of destruction. His front lawn—once his pride, meticulously maintained with edges trimmed to precise angles—was now a wasteland of craters, broken shrubs, and scorched earth. The quartz gravel, which he had painstakingly chosen after days of debating the balance between durability and aesthetics, was now scattered in every direction, pulverized by the relentless explosions.
Herbert stood in the middle of the chaos, his fists still smoking, his breath ragged. He could feel the exhaustion creeping in, his body aching from the strain of hours of combat. But his mind was still sharp, still buzzing with the adrenaline of the fight. He had faced wave after wave of police, their tactical squads moving in with precision, armed with everything from riot shields to beanbag shotguns. They had thrown everything at him—tear gas, flashbangs, rubber bullets—but his explosive fists had sent them flying time and time again.
And now, just when Herbert thought he might have a moment to catch his breath, the real trouble arrived.
A low, rumbling hum echoed through the street, and Herbert squinted against the flashing lights to see a massive armored vehicle rolling into view. It was unlike anything the regular police had deployed—this was military-grade, built for one purpose: to neutralize people like him. People with powers. And standing at the helm of this bizarre unit was the most bizarre thing Herbert had seen all night.
Candy Mandy.
Herbert blinked a few times, wondering if his exhaustion was playing tricks on him, but no—there she was, stepping out of the vehicle with an air of absurd confidence, her pastel uniform shimmering under the streetlights. She looked like someone had raided a child’s birthday party and turned the decorations into battle armor. Her tight curls were an impossible shade of bubblegum pink, and her cape—was it a cape?—fluttered dramatically behind her as if she were some twisted parody of a superhero. But what caught Herbert’s eye most of all, oddly enough, were her hands. They were small. Unnaturally small. Too small for her body, like they belonged on a doll and not on an adult woman leading a specialized combat unit.
“Herbert Smalls,” she called out, her voice a sickly-sweet sing-song that grated on Herbert’s already frayed nerves. “I’ve been hearing about you all night. You’ve been very naughty.”
Herbert stared at her, unsure whether to laugh or explode something. “Who the hell are you supposed to be? And what’s wrong with your hands?”
Candy Mandy’s eyes flicked to her hands—those ridiculously small hands—and then back to Herbert with a playful grin. “Oh, you noticed? Aren’t they cute? I always say, small hands, big surprises!” She wiggled her fingers in the air like she was conducting some invisible candy orchestra.
Herbert grimaced. Something about the way her tiny hands moved—it was unsettling. They seemed out of proportion, like a magician’s trick gone wrong. He found himself momentarily distracted, watching her hands instead of paying attention to the rest of her, and that’s when things started to get weird.
With a flourish, Candy Mandy twirled the oversized lollipop she had been holding like a baton. As it spun, the air around her shimmered, bending and warping until the world itself began to change. The cracked pavement beneath Herbert’s feet softened, turning into something sticky and pliable. He lifted his boot and saw it was sinking into what looked like pink taffy, stretching out in long, elastic strings as he tried to pull free.
“Welcome to Candyland, Herbert!” Candy Mandy announced with a dramatic sweep of her arms—those weirdly small hands moving in a way that shouldn’t have been as graceful as it was.
Herbert glanced around, trying to take in the scene. His front yard had transformed into a pastel-colored nightmare. The shrubs that lined his walkway were now sprouting gumdrops the size of basketballs, and the tree in the corner of his yard had turned into a towering licorice monstrosity, its twisted branches dripping with strands of red and black licorice. The air smelled sickeningly sweet, like the inside of a candy factory that had somehow come alive and decided to turn against humanity.
The ground itself was sticky, and Herbert could feel it pulling at his boots with every step. But despite the bizarre surroundings, his focus kept drifting back to Candy Mandy’s hands. They were just so small. How was she holding that giant lollipop with hands like that? It didn’t make sense. It wasn’t right.
“Mr. Smalls!” Candy Mandy’s voice jolted him back to the present. “You’ve been causing quite a mess, haven’t you? Blowing things up, hurting people. That’s not very nice.”
Herbert scowled, trying to ignore the way her fingers curled around the lollipop handle like some kind of sinister marionette. “I’m not the one turning the world into a candy-coated nightmare.”
Candy Mandy laughed—a high-pitched giggle that felt like nails on a chalkboard. “Oh, Herbert, it’s just my little playground. A place for fun, for sweets! But for you, well, I think it’ll be more of a… punishment.“
With a snap of her fingers—those impossibly small fingers—the candy world came to life. Giant gummy bears emerged from the shrubs, their beady little eyes glistening with an unnatural intelligence as they lumbered toward Herbert. Jellybeans the size of bowling balls rumbled across the ground, ricocheting off the taffy-covered pavement like deadly candy projectiles. The air itself seemed to shimmer with the scent of sugar, thick and suffocating.
Herbert braced himself, his fists clenched. He was tired—bone tired—but he wasn’t going to go down without a fight.
The first gummy bear lunged at him, its gelatinous body jiggling obscenely as it swung a meaty paw in his direction. Herbert ducked, narrowly avoiding the swipe, and with a growl of frustration, he let loose an explosive punch.
BOOM.
The gummy bear exploded in a shower of sticky goo, splattering across the yard like some demented birthday cake gone wrong. But before Herbert could catch his breath, another bear was upon him, followed by a hail of jellybeans bouncing across the taffy ground.
Herbert dodged, his boots sticking with every step, making each movement slower and more labored. He threw another punch—BOOM—and then another, but for every gummy bear he destroyed, more seemed to take its place.
Meanwhile, Candy Mandy stood off to the side, watching the chaos unfold with a delighted smile, her tiny hands clasped in front of her like she was enjoying a particularly entertaining carnival game. “Aren’t they sweet?” she called out, her voice dripping with false innocence. “My little gummy soldiers. Oh, and just wait until you meet the licorice whips!”
Herbert grunted as he punched another gummy bear into oblivion, sweat pouring down his face. His fists were aching now, each explosion taking more out of him than the last. But it wasn’t just the exhaustion that was getting to him—it was those damn hands. He couldn’t stop thinking about them. Why were they so small? How did she hold that lollipop so easily? It was distracting, pulling his focus away from the battle at hand.
As if reading his mind, Candy Mandy twirled her lollipop again, the motion smooth and effortless despite the disproportionate size of her hands. “You like my hands, Herbert? You keep looking at them. So dainty, aren’t they?”
Herbert scowled, wiping sweat from his brow. “They’re… wrong.”
Candy Mandy’s smile widened. “Oh, Herbert, there’s so much wrong with the world. But at least my candy makes it all… sweet.”
Before Herbert could respond, the licorice whip lashed out—long, black, and impossibly fast. It coiled around his arm with a sickening snap, tightening like a snake ready to strike. Herbert gritted his teeth, feeling the sticky, pliable licorice dig into his skin, and with a roar of fury, he swung his free hand toward the whip, unleashing another explosive punch.
BOOM.
The licorice shattered, sending fragments flying in every direction, but the force of the explosion knocked Herbert off balance. He stumbled backward, his boots catching in the taffy ground, and for a brief, terrifying moment, he thought he might fall—fall into this sickeningly sweet nightmare and never get up again.
But he couldn’t let that happen. Not here. Not like this.
With a surge of determination, Herbert steadied himself and charged forward, ignoring the sticky ground, the jellybeans, the gummy bears—ignoring everything but Candy Mandy.
She didn’t seem worried. She twirled her lollipop, those infuriatingly small hands dancing around it like she was conducting an orchestra, and with another flick of her wrist, she sent a wall of candy canes spiraling toward him.
Herbert ducked under the candy canes, dodging another licorice whip as it cracked the air beside him, and with a final burst of strength, he reached Candy Mandy.
Her eyes widened in surprise—just for a moment—before Herbert grabbed her by the arm. Her skin was cold, sticky, like touching melted caramel, and Herbert’s grip tightened as he swung her toward the shrubs that had once lined his walkway.
With a guttural roar, he hurled her into the bushes.
CRACK.
The sound was final—sickeningly so. The once-vibrant world of candyland shimmered, flickered, and then collapsed, the pastel nightmare crumbling into nothingness. The gumdrops, the licorice, the taffy—it all dissolved, leaving behind only the cracked, scorched earth of Herbert’s ruined front yard.
Candy Mandy lay still, half-buried in the broken shrubs, her small hands motionless, the lollipop rolling away from her like a discarded toy.
Herbert stumbled back, gasping for breath, his vision swimming. His fists—those hands that had once been so ordinary—now felt like dead weight at his sides. The world around him spun, the exhaustion hitting him like a tidal wave.
He fell to his knees beside the destroyed shrubs, his body trembling from the fight, his heart pounding in his chest. The sirens—those damn sirens—still wailed in the distance, but they felt far away now, like they were part of a different world.
His vision blurred as he collapsed beside Candy Mandy’s still form, the ground cold beneath him, the night sky spinning above.
Was this it?
Was this the end of The Fence Runner?
Herbert didn’t know.
But as his eyes fluttered shut, he couldn’t help but wonder if he’d ever see the top of a fence again.
Storm Watcher
Louis Jones sat at his desk, staring at the holographic map that hovered a few inches above the surface. The room was dimly lit, casting long shadows across the walls of the underground facility, each shadow dancing faintly with the soft glow of blue light emanating from the map. He leaned back in his chair, the leather creaking softly beneath him, and exhaled a slow, measured breath. His eyes, sharp and calculating, traced the series of glowing dots that dotted the map, each one representing a flare-up, an incident, a disturbance. The world, it seemed, had gone mad, though it was difficult to pinpoint exactly when that had happened.
The world is always in chaos, he mused, a phrase that had become a mantra for him over the years. The question is whether anyone notices.
For Louis Jones, chaos was a constant companion. It was part of the job—part of the world that existed beneath the surface, hidden from the public eye, operating in the shadows. He was part of the Deep State, an organization that technically didn’t exist, working in a facility that officially wasn’t there. His team, composed of men and women like him—faceless, nameless, and essential—monitored the strange, the dangerous, the unexplainable.
And right now, the unexplainable was becoming all too common.
Jones narrowed his eyes at the largest cluster of glowing dots on the map: a small town nestled in the Midwest, unremarkable by most standards, but currently the epicenter of a series of bizarre incidents. The town of Crayton had gone from quiet to catastrophe in a matter of weeks, with reports of superpowered individuals wreaking havoc, local law enforcement overwhelmed, and civilians caught in the crossfire.
His fingertips brushed the surface of the desk, and the map zoomed in, revealing even more details about Crayton. Property damage was off the charts. Explosions had been reported almost daily. There had been rumors of a man with the ability to conjure storms, another who could levitate cars with his mind, and some sort of shadow creature terrorizing the outskirts. But none of that had bothered Jones.
Until now.
He tapped the corner of the map again, pulling up a series of video feeds. Security cameras, drone footage, police body cams—all feeding into a singular stream of chaos. Louis leaned forward, his gaze flicking from one image to the next, trying to make sense of it all. The footage was shaky in places, distorted in others, but the pattern was there. It wasn’t the usual chaos of a world filled with superpowered people struggling to find their place. This was different. More focused.
And then, there was the man. The one that had started showing up in reports more frequently over the past few days. A man in his sixties, dressed in torn, worn-out clothes, with fists that exploded with the force of a grenade. Herbert Smalls, they had called him.
Jones had seen men like Herbert before. Ordinary people pushed too far, finding themselves on the wrong side of extraordinary power. Most of them didn’t last long. The power would consume them, or they’d lose control and end up in one of the Deep State’s many “facilities”—places where people with powers went to disappear.
But Herbert was different. The reports coming in weren’t just about a man who could punch through walls. They were about a man who had spent his entire life bottled up, suppressing something, only for it to explode out of him in the most literal sense.
Jones watched as the footage from earlier in the night played on the screen. It was body cam footage from one of the first responding officers—a young cop who had clearly been unprepared for what he encountered. The video was grainy, the camera shaking as the officer approached Herbert’s home. The next few seconds were chaos—a bright flash, the crack of an explosion, and the camera feed cutting out.
More footage followed—drones circling overhead, capturing Herbert as he fought off wave after wave of police. Explosions rocked the neighborhood, sending debris flying in every direction. The man moved like someone possessed, his fists a blur of light and destruction. But it wasn’t just the power that interested Jones. It was the man himself—the way he moved, the way he fought. He wasn’t just lashing out randomly. There was a method to it. A purpose. Even as the world around him fell apart, there was something calculated in Herbert’s actions.
Interesting, Jones thought, his fingers drumming lightly on the desk.
The world had always been a mess, ever since the rise of superpowers. When powers first started showing up—decades ago—people had been excited. Superheroes, they called them, the saviors of a new age. But that golden age had passed. Now, powers were just part of the everyday chaos. Heroes were corporate brands, supervillains were reality TV fodder, and ordinary people tried to go about their lives pretending none of it mattered.
But Jones knew better. He had been around long enough to see what really happened beneath the surface. The Deep State had been created to handle situations just like this—to step in when things went too far, when powers threatened to tip the balance too much. The world could survive a little chaos, but there were limits. And men like Herbert Smalls? They pushed those limits.
Jones tapped another button, pulling up the latest reports from Crayton. The anti-power unit had been dispatched, and they had done their job. Candy Mandy—the head of the unit—had been taken down, killed in some bizarre altercation with Smalls. Jones had read her file—knew that her power allowed her to conjure reality from candy, a bizarre but effective ability. And she had been taken down by a sixty-year-old man with explosive fists.
The final video feed began playing, showing the aftermath of the battle. Herbert lay in a heap, half-buried in the scorched remains of his front yard, just beside what looked like a shattered shrub. Candy Mandy’s body lay nearby, her signature pastel uniform smeared with dirt, the once bright colors now dulled. It was a mess.
But Herbert was alive.
Jones sat back in his chair, folding his hands together—those large, sturdy hands that had handled more covert operations than he cared to remember. He watched the footage again, this time focusing on the small details. The way Herbert’s fists still smoked, even after he had collapsed. The way his body twitched slightly, like there was still some fight left in him.
Jones had seen people like Herbert before. Ordinary men with extraordinary power. They were dangerous, unpredictable, and—if they weren’t careful—they became liabilities. And the Deep State had ways of dealing with liabilities.
A knock at the door pulled Jones from his thoughts. He glanced up, watching as a young agent entered, carrying a tablet with more updates.
“Sir,” the agent said, his voice professional but tinged with urgency, “we’ve received confirmation. The man with the explosive fists—Herbert Smalls—has been recovered. He’s unconscious, but alive. They’re bringing him in now.”
Jones nodded slowly, letting the words sink in. So, the old man wasn’t done yet. There was still more to this story. More to unravel. He watched the final moments of the footage again, the explosions, the chaos, the way Herbert had fought like a man possessed. There was something about him—something different from the others.
Jones leaned back in his chair, tapping the armrest thoughtfully, and then, in a low voice, he muttered, “This old boy is storming.”
The agent glanced at Jones, confused by the statement, but didn’t ask for clarification. Instead, he handed Jones the tablet and quietly exited the room, leaving Jones alone with the chaos on the screen.
Jones stared at the map of Crayton again, the glowing dots still flashing in their chaotic dance. The world was in turmoil, as it always had been. But now, there was a new storm on the horizon.
And its name was Herbert Smalls.