Erebus Chapter 1: The Town Crier

Erebus takes place in a post-apocalyptic Ireland crawling with mutant monsters and chiefly follows the dwindling Irish Defence Forces as they attempt to tame the now wild and dangerous island. We also follow the bandits who rob and kill their way across the countryside to scrape a living. Nearly a decade before the story opens, the world is devastated by the RESURGE crisis - a mind altering, mutagenic pathogen of unknown origin swept across the world, killing billions in the initial wave and causing a brief nuclear conflict. As a small non-nuclear power with small population, Ireland got off easy. Its cities were firebombed to contain the spread of Resurge, and survivors mostly live in isolated, fortified settlements in the countryside, or risk nomadic life, often turning to banditry to survive. The army is being built back up after a successful campaign against the Revenants, a race of intelligent mutants created from humans by Resurge. Most victims of the plague become mindless husks - tens of thousands of these burnt crawlers stalk the ruins of Dublin, spilling out into the surrounding country. Revenants are very rare, but very dangerous. Eric Ryan, known as the Hunter, led the charge in two battles against the revenants that turned the tide in humanity's favour, and has since beaten the monsters down in a vicious campaign of personally conducted slaughter. He's handed the reins of the army to Colonel Harry Walsh and while Walsh is the clear ranking officer, the two essentially share command, with Ryan focusing on anti-revenant ops and Walsh on banditry and logistics. As Erebus opens, the two are collaborating on the takedown of bandit kingpin Thomas Joyce, whose men are said to kidnap children from rural fortresses by night. A certain ranger's hatred for Joyce burns particularly bright... The Hunter's most feared lieutenant is Louise Roberts, a former child soldier and defector from a malevolent foreign paramilitary. She wields a sword, and goes by the codename "Sabre", having something of a grisly reputation as a wetworker and interrogator; the men she interrogates rarely walk away in one piece. Rumours of bandit child trafficking have set her blood alight. John Naismith is the closest thing either Ryan or Louise has to a friend, having been in the fight since the blood-soaked battle of Tuam. He's also one of the best rangers in the force; if not the most dangerous he's certainly the best tracker, investigator and negotiator. Under John's watch, the bandits of the Wicklow-Dublin mountains have mostly been tamed or driven elsewhere. He's favoured by the colonel as a balance to Louise's savagery, which lands him on a seemingly routine mission into the wild South-West following the capture of... Connor Sheridan is a bandit and higher up in Joyce's gang, recently acting as a courier between kidnappers and a shadowy third party who receive his "packages". Connor's latest mission goes terribly wrong, landing him at the mercy of the Hunter's vicious rangers, and in the strange gaze of... Saoirse O'Rourke is Ryan’s old flame, recently returned to his base of operations after a clandestine excursion in the wilds. Everyone knows there's something off with Saoirse, but very few are brave enough to speak about it. She has something up her sleeve, something incredibly powerful and dangerous, but she's determined not to use it for anything other than keeping blood off the floor. While the soldiers see both revenants and bandits as subhuman waste, Saoirse sees something else. If you look closely, you can see it dancing with the ghostly red sparks in the dark of her deep, brown eyes. As old enemies emerge from the shadows and old mistakes rear their heads to bite at them from all sides, our heroes and villains are forced to confront a new darkness creeping across this blood-soaked land, and the old darkness buried in themselves.