The Watchers: Episode One
by Andy Mclean
The air inside the cavernous steel shed is hot and sticky, and ripe with a thick soup of odours: sweat, cigarette smoke and animal faeces. A large diesel generator grinds and vibrates just outside the closed roller-door, pumping two-forty to the large halogen spotlights and electrified fence above the cage, and combustion fumes into the atmosphere, which seep slowly, osmotically into the dim interior.
Seventy-four voices are raised. Some in excitement, but many in an attempt to overcome the din, of which they unwittingly become a part. All voices except three are those of men, some old, some young, some variously between the two. All are here for the same purpose. They are the watchers. They have driven, many of them, for hours to reach this remote, lonely place, and many of them will stay until dawn, twelve hours from now. They have come with pockets stuffed full of folding money, caressed often by their sweaty palms, packed down hard, kept secure as they pass through the crowd of strangers, who are unfamiliar, untrusted.
High above the cage, with an uninterrupted view of the entire floor below it, is the mezzanine control booth. When the shed had been built, thirty years before, this sixty square metre room had housed the facility manager and his staff. Now, there are five men inside it, three of whom sit before computer monitors, watching columns of figures cascade down the screen, inputting more numbers as they are handed to them on yellow squares of paper. Another man stands near the door behind them, receiving the paper squares from several runners, who dart back and forth between the control booth and the crowd that surrounds the cage.
The fifth man is perched on a stool before a large, glass viewing-window. He watches the floor below him, studying the crowd impassively. He is overweight and has not bathed nor changed his clothing for several days. His once burgundy shirt is now stained a deep, dark grey-brown, wet with perspiration and slick with the oils that have seeped with it through his voluminous skin. His body odour is strong and pungent, and carries with it hints of his toilet habits, his diet of fried food and his overindulgence in bitter ale.
Start them off,’ he orders quietly, his voice high and thin, like a girl’s.
The standing man immediately speaks into a walky-talky, issuing a string of commands. On the main floor, at the far end of the shed, four strong men wheel four aluminium trolleys toward the cage. Each of the trolleys carries on it a large box made of timber and vented at one end. The contents of three of the boxes remain silent. But from the fourth, movement can be heard; scratching, rubbing, shifting, as its occupant worries at the timber surfaces, perhaps seeking escape.
Each of the boxes is wheeled into position, their roller-door ends pressed up against similar sized openings in the wire mesh that makes up the sides of the cage. The crowd stills. One hundred and forty-eight eyes widen and fix, waiting, watching.
The first of the boxes is opened, its door rolling up to reveal a shadowed interior. At first there is no movement, and several of the gathered watchers frown, reaching into their pockets to finger their bundles of cash. Shortly, they are rewarded. Movement. From the shadows, a large, black dog darts, bounding forward at such speed that it is unable to arrest its momentum before slamming into the wire on the opposite side of the cage. It turns to the left, and on thickly muscled legs it begins to stalk back and forth, silently surveying the humans, who scowl, smile or whisper excitedly to one another.
‘One.’ A voice issues from overhead speakers. As if shocked from their stillness, the crowd erupt, calling loudly, excitedly to one another, beckoning for the runners to attend them and accept their bids.
The second box is opened.
This dog is even larger than the first, and unlike its counterpart, moves slowly from the box and stands still in the centre of the cage-floor, its eyes fixed on the first dog. The tension in the crowd ratchets up several notches, some watchers are forced to tear their eyes away from the spectactle in order to dart through the crowd and place their bets.
‘Two.’ The amplified voice needlessly explains.
As the third box is opened, the first two dogs back into the far corners of the cage, as if anticipating danger. The third dog emerges and immediately retreats to its own corner, a low snarl rumbling from its barrel chest.
‘Three.’
There is stillness within the cage, in contrast to the fury that has erupted without. Several minutes of frenzied activity follow, and then, when the gathered watchers have settled into an uneasy silence, the voice from overhead issues a fourth announcement.
‘Gentlemen. Four.’
Seventy-four voices gasp in unison.
The box door slides up.
Shadows within. No movement. And then, from the interior, a quiet hiss, almost a whisper.
‘Oh. Fuck.’
Stay tuned for the next episode of The Watchers!
