Changing Appalachia

1

  The small town of Blaid, North Carolina was situated just on the border of North Carolina and Tennessee, where mountains rose up like a slick rock wall on the side of the highway that had been cut through it. Flimsy wire netting was anchored along the surface in an attempt to keep large boulders from breaking loose and crushing cars below, but it was a futile effort by the state to clear themselves of blame when it did happen. On the other side was the near vertical drop off the side of the mountain, guarded only by a guard rail that was far from impenetrable. It wasn't so bad in the summer and Fall but in the colder months when the trees stood bare, it was quite ominous for the passengers of passing cars to see that the trees along the highway were, in some cases, only the tops of trees. Blaid was a shifter town, it was off a narrow highway ramp that was marked with a sign whose reflection had worn off and was easily missed in the darkness.

  It didn't look any different from most Appalachian towns; the main street was lined with century old store fronts with peeling paint, squeaky doors, and occasionally broken windows that had cracks covered in clear packing tape or boarded up. The sidewalk was broken but beautifully decorated with seasonal flowers at the base of lamp posts that still worked but were so dim they did very little more than provide a glow. Shifters didn't need great lightning to function. Chain restaurants had sprang up along the highway on the outskirts of town but they dared not move into the sanctity of the historic area.

  From downtown, neighborhoods that fancied themselves historic spread out like a fan. The houses stood there as they had for, in some cases, well over a hundred years. New cars, and shiny motorcycles looked so out of place among broken down junkers on blocks in front of the once dignified homes that had fallen into various stages of disrepair. Shifters were by no means a perfect race, they had their own bad apples. Beyond the neighborhoods the rural areas and farms gave way to the roads that seemed almost vertical as they cut their way up the mountain hollers. Mobile homes perched perilously on cinder blocks lined the road. The angle of the road and the slope of the yards begged the question how they got the mobile homes into these spots.

  Very few humans lived in Blaid. The shifters held no animosity towards the ones that did, they blended in well and were friendly when they interacted with each other. It was not unheard of for shifters to take a human mate, frowned upon, but not unheard of. The problem lay in the towns around Blaid. The mostly human towns were dotted with cult-like churches that railed on against the 'unnatural' that had the audacity to live out in the open; even though most shifters kept their human form for the majority of the time, making them indistinguishable from normal humans. They had never been able to accept shifters and to them it was a sign of end times, the only thing that made them angrier was shifters that chose to marry humans or same sex partners.

  It was in these churches, darkened bars, and the living rooms of these like minded people that the centuries old hate was starting to bubble up to the surface again after decades of relative quiet. The movement seemed to have been revived by a traveling preacher who spewed some of the vilest of hate towards the shifter community. He was charismatic and wildly animated, which attracted the small town congregations that were used to sober and serious sermons twice weekly. His hatred might have been contained to the locals but he was prominent on social media, frothing at the mouth as if rabid while he called for violence and death of anyone involved in an alternative lifestyle, especially shifters.

*

  It was Sunday morning over Appalachia, and though the sun was up, it was barely visible through the thick clouds that had drifted down from the mountains. There was a reason they called these the Smoky Mountains, the clouds were often so thick they resembled smoke. Spring hadn't really started in earnest yet, but the trees were already putting forth tentative buds and even a few leaves. Crocus, daffodils, and a few tulip varieties were peeking up from flower beds to welcome the season.