The wind howls against the fallen scrap metals of the watchtower, whizzing against the seams and dripping the frozen air into the hardly insulated building. It isn’t much, hardly considered a government checkpoint or sanctuary ground, but it’s the last threshold that protects humanity.

Perched in the watchtower—back arced into the wooden barrel of his rifle—Will trains his scope onto every minor motion which catches his eye. Those quick ministrations and reflexes left no room for negotiation to the Roamers; half-dead men who frothed at the lips like rabid animals. That was what the WHO claimed when it first began, a subtype of rabies, genetic recombination between that and chronic-wasting disease. Albeit, at first, scientists believed the disease would not surpass the biological bounds of stag and horses.

Will could laugh now.

Roamers were as alive as decomposed rats; rats that rotted in cages as experimental treatment pushed by global governments to stop the spread. As one infected, patient zero, turned to thousands.

And now, this.

A man sat at the last harbor of life—life that was futile and fleeting—staring at anything that treads through the snow until the night falls, and the next man would take his place. Anyone eligible, anyone good enough, would take post here. Staring, waiting.

All Will did was fucking wait.