The Last Watch (concept chapter)

"Where are they tonight?" Colin whispered.

His breath formed faint clouds of mist as he spoke. A glance at his watch told him that it was 1 am, and well past curfew. Nita rested her rifle stand on the wall and searched the park grounds below them. From the spire of the Commerce Tower, she had a clear 180-degree view of the world around her. On the east of the tower was a large park littered with long deserted swings and seesaws, on the north was the National Bank, its windows smashed and stained with an eerie patchwork of old, dark, dry blood, on the West was the Mayfield Mall with its sprawling parking lot, scattered with the gutted remains of cars and other abandoned vehicles; both civilian and military, and on the South was the Barklay Sports stadium that had been retrofitted to become the base camp of the cities last remaining residents, and her home.

Colin watched her for a moment. She was a good decade his senior - he guessed around twenty-eight or so, maybe even early thirties. Though she was pretty easy on the eyes, her distant demeanour and cold, disconnected personality made her somewhat unattractive. Nita was a seasoned soldier, conditioned to shut out any form of emotion. The conditions didn't allow for emotional interference. He had tried to make conversation with her on his first night of Scarecrow shift, but she had shut him down without any sign of remorse. Feeling too much will get you killed beyond the walls. She had told him when he attempted to engage her. The extent of conversation since had been limited to status reports and radio broadcasts. This was Colin's first assignment outside of The Sanctuary, something he had dreamed of since childhood, and it was nothing like he had imagined it would be. He had grown up on reports of great men and women who had fought tooth and nail to defend the last haven in the city. But just as the stories in classical mythology had been embellished to some degree, so too had these.

"I don't know." She said, without looking away. The streets below were clear of activity, save for an occasional stray animal crossing the street in search of carrion. The full moon illuminated the city in an eerie lunar glow, casting ominous shadows everywhere; that concealed God-knows-what terror. Every night thus far had been the same, no movement, and no signs of activity whatsoever. Outside of the walls of The Sanctuary, the world had been reduced to a barren wasteland, littered with madness and death. Almost a century before, an unexplained outbreak devastated the third world. A condition that is now called Tyson Fever, which in simple terms causes swelling in the brain, creating severe headaches, extremely high temperatures, and a failure in the brain's ability to control emotions, eventually driving the person into a permanently violent rage. They got sick, went mad, got angry and killed everything they saw. The sufferers eventually became known as berzerkers. The cause and source of the disease were never found, and all medical professionals who could have broken the code to curing it had expired within ten years of the disease's first appearance.

"How much ammo do we have left?" Nita shifted in her position to relieve the growing cramp in her calf.

"One hundred and..." Colin paused a moment to count the last handful of rounds, "...fifty-seven rounds." Colin clipped another round into a magazine then dropped it into a black backpack that hung on a hook in the railing that surrounded their position. "We should be good for a while unless there is another surge.

A surge was the last thing a watchman ever wanted to see in their lives. Twelve years before, there had been a surge, the largest ever seen. Over six-hundred berserkers charged The Sanctuary, and if not for the Scarecrow tower, they would quite possibly have broken through. They attacked like waves on a cliff face, slamming against the walls, receded and then slammed again, all the while trampling over their own.

"I'll call in for restocking in the morning." Nita's rifle cracked as she squeezed the trigger. Colin started and brought his rifle up to bear, facing the opposite direction.

Across the street, a grey figure jerked backwards, teetered a moment and fell headlong onto the pavement. A moment later the raucous barking of feral dogs echoed through the streets as the raced to climb their prize. Nita swept along the street, toward the origin of the sound, and found that the dogs had been holding up in the gutted ruins of an apartment building a little way down the street. They rushed out onto the street yapping and barking as they ran. Nita counted seven in total, ranging from a Saint Bernard to a Rotweiller and a few smaller terriers and mixed breeds. Holding her position, her finger moved up and flicked the switch on the side of her scope to switch to biosensor overlay. The internal organs of the animals came into view as she tracked their movement. The big Rotweiller in the lead was the first target. The pointer of her rifle appeared over the dogs beating heart, and the rifle cracked again. The animal lurched right and slammed into the wall. The other dogs scattered for a moment before coming back together again and hovering around the fallen animal. A pair of Jack Russels begin nipping at the corpse, eventually pulling small pieces of flesh from it. The Saint Bernard and the others continued to the fallen figure. Nita scope honed in on the Saint Bernards head. Crack! A breath later it's head exploded as it's body spun with the force of the impact. A small group of terriers remained and gathered around the Saint Bernard. They too began to tug at the body, until they managed to pull small pieces of flesh from it.

Nita sighed as she watched. The disease had a very different effect on animals. Where in humans it destroyed all reason, in animals it mutated them into ferocious, and extremely powerful creatures. Truly the stuff of nightmares. She had seen it happen once before when a Cairn Terrier had consumed the flesh of the infected. It was one of the most terrifying things she had ever seen. The creature had grown and mutated to such an extent that it was very, very difficult to kill. She had eventually put it down with incendiary rounds designed to puncture tank shells. That was twelve years ago on her first day on the Scarecrow; the day after the surge.

Colin scanned the parking lot but eventually found no visible threats.

"Dogs." Colin heard Nita say behind him. She let out a heavy sigh and lay down on her back and stretched out her legs to relieve the cramp. They had been cooped up in that place for six days. Satisfied that the ache had been dealt with, she sat up again and pressed the scope to her eye again. The terriers were still feasting on the Saint Bernard. A hundred feet from them the Rotweiler's corpse lay abandoned.

"Shit!" She swept across to the fallen man. "Oh my God!"

Colin started as she jumped to her feet. He swung his rifle around to where hers was aimed. The body was gone. A blood trail on the cement showed that it had been dragged into the bushes. Colin's blood ran cold. He had heard stories of what happened with animals became infected.

"How many?"

"Two."

"What do we do?"

Nita suddenly stepped back, bumping absently into the pillar behind her, with her rifle hanging limply in her hand.

"What is it?" Colin asked,

"Colin, I'm sorry" Nita turned to him. Her eyes were filled with tears.

"What?"

Nita dropped her head and sighed heavily. "I fucked up." The questioning look on Colin's face prompted her to continue. "They're all gone."

Colin's jaw dropped. "All of them?"

Recruits were briefed on every possible scenario imaginable except this one, and it soon became clear why it was best to learn it on the job. Colin's eyes widened and his chest tightened as Nita explained to him what course of action was expected of them.

There were now five of those creatures out there, mutating into God knows what, and it was their duty to report the incident, then to go out and track them, and kill them. The resistance would send a chopper with replacement guards to hold their post. The limited number of residents in the Sanctuary meant that they could not afford to send reinforcements to hunt the creatures the guard was tasked to kill.

"Shit!"

"Prep the gear, I'll call it in." The resigned tone of her voice did nothing to quell the growing pang of fear twisting his gut. The gear, as it was, was their two rifles, and one hundred and fifty-seven rounds between them. In addition to these, each of them carried a Glock 9mm with a full mag. A safety precaution in case either was ever infected.

Colin clipped the strap of his pack closed and tugged on the shoulder straps to tighten them. As he did he listened to Nita reporting the situation. She rattled it off like a computer, all feelings numbed by cold fear. Something tiny and wet hit his cheek, followed by another and another - gradually each larger than the one before. Rain. Colin looked out across the space between them and the forest, as the view steadily blurred with the falling rain. Within minutes the rainfall would reach monsoon levels and make the task at hand virtually impossible.

Nita tugged on the zip tag on the kit bag she carried and opened the zipper. Colin checked his straps and refastened the holster of his Glock as she pulled out the reinforced rope form the back and attached it to the mounting of the spire above her with a set of custom made clips. These came with a remote-controlled release mechanism, that would be activated once the team were on the ground and prevented the Berzerkers from ascending to the Scarecrow.

Before he knew it, she had hopped over the edge and was rapidly descending. toward the parking lot below. Colin heaved out a sigh, attached his own line and stepped over the edge to begin his own, slower, more cautious descent.

Glancing below him, Colin saw that Nita had disengaged from the line and was already pulling out the remote. He still had some five meters to travel.

He landed with a thump. The heavy climbing rope followed soon after, spreading out across the parking lot they had landed in. An eerie sense of familiarity swept over him, despite the fact he had never been outside The Sanctuary. As a child, he had seen thousands of photos of what the city had looked like before the plague struck and wiped all sign of civilisation of the face of the planet. The Scarecrow had once been an office block to thousands of businessmen and women, both local and international. The plague had swept over the city so quickly that the lot was still littered with abandoned vehicles and random belongings. The most haunting thing about the place was the absence of human remains. Years ago the Resistance had searched the building for survivors or signs thereof but had found nothing at all. They had all somehow just vanished. The Bezerker sightings had become increasingly rare in the last few years, prompting some to believe that they had either killed each other off or had simply moved on. Some had a third theory, a much darker, more terrifying theory - that something else had killed them off. This theory was fuelled by the reports that wild animals had become almost impossible to find in recent years. The greater population had shunned such theories as to the words of crackpots, and firmly believed every word that came from the ruling parties, that often preached conquest of the plague by simply waiting it out.

Colin watched as she collected up the rope and threw it into a nearby bush.

"How do we get back up." The futility of the question hit him the instant it came out.