A wave of dismay swept over the survivors as Reverend Thorpe stepped up to tell them of the loss of Farrow and Block before leading them all in a prayer for their souls. I put my head down awkwardly until he was done. Many of the survivors were in tears and the mood was hardly helped by the meagre supplies brought back as a result of the disastrous expedition. Nonetheless they ate hungrily, a sign that they had not enjoyed regular mealtimes these past few days. Reverend Thorpe instructed the cooks to hold some back for tomorrow. “No,” I said decisively. “You’re all hungry and demoralised. You’ve lost two people and you need to take your minds off it as best you can. Eat it all up. Eat well. I’ll go out tomorrow and find more supplies. Call it my initiation trial.”
“You’re making a lot of promises,” snapped Kit. “How do we know you’re going to be able to deliver?”
“If I’m still alive this time tomorrow and you have a pile of food at your disposal you’ll know,” I replied reasonably. Kit scowled at me.
“Give him a chance, said Hammond to Kit reasonably. “We’ve got enough for one day, tops, and after losing Tim and James, as well as the truck, we’re fast running out of people to send out scavenging.”
And afterwards. Will you stay?” Asked an old man of around eighty whose name I later learned was Derek Wilkins.
“I’ve got nowhere else to go,” I replied with a shrug. “If you’ll all have me I’ll happily stick around.”
The others chorused their consent. “Of course you must stay,” emphasised Reverend Thorpe. “You got us out of a tight spot today. I know it went badly but it could have been even worse. And besides, you’re a soldier. We need men like you if we’re to have any chance of survival.”
Such was their confidence in my promises that the hungry survivors ate up all their supplies there and then. I myself consumed a tin of spaghetti, peas and peaches respectively which went some way to satisfying my hunger although there was still room for more. But the rest of the survivors were still grieving the others and as I had not known them that well I retreated to the bell room of the tower, sat on a stool and tried to collect my thoughts. Somebody had managed to set up a generator which whirred in the background and served to power the church, although the thing would surely need a great deal of fuel. Elsewhere I noticed a makeshift chimney and fireplace had been constructed to lead the smoke out of one of the windows and this served as both the oven and the radiator. For myself I had just taken my share of tins and wolfed them down cold. Still, it was good to know the survivors still worked to keep some semblance of civilisation in place. After a while the door to the bell tower opened and Reverend Thorpe came in to join me. “You’ve made quite an impression,” said Reverend Thorpe approvingly as he came to sit beside me and offered me a mug of steaming hot tea which I accepted gratefully. “I’m not sure if it was your intention or not but the people certainly seem impressed with your promises and for myself, having heard how you saved my daughter earlier, I have no doubt you’re more than capable of delivering.”
“Aren’t you worried about your daughter going out on runs?” I asked him, changing the subject because I was not quite sure how to handle either praise or thanks.
“Of course I am,” replied Thorpe solemnly. “But I can’t afford to show favouritism. She’s one of the few young people left and as such she stands a much better chance than most others. At least she can run.”
“We need to be able to do far more than run,” I told him sternly. “You can’t have afforded to lose many more. What would you have done if all the able bodied men and women had been turned and there was only the old and young left?”
“Don’t think I haven’t considered it,” sighed Reverend Thorpe. “I have to say none of us have a great deal of experience in this sort of thing.”
“Well you need to get experience, and fast,” I said firmly. “You know looking around this place just now I found myself wondering how you’d survived so long. You’ve got the very old and the very young, but I think I understand a bit better now. The stronger members of your party are the ones you send out on runs, they’re the ones who take the biggest risks and as a consequence most of them are dead now. People like Farrow, and that Block chap. It’s because you’re not ready to fight, because you’re afraid to do so.”
The Reverend sighed sadly. “It is true,” he conceded. “You have come to us just in time. When I heard your background I was hoping you’d take a leadership role. Tell me, is there anything left of the government?”
“Last I heard the government had fled to the prisons and locked themselves in with about six months’ worth of food and a ring of steel in the form of the army,” I told him. “They should be alright in there for the time being but it isn’t as if they control anything. And when the food runs out they’ll be forced to scavenge the same as the rest of us. Meanwhile if the army guarding them are anything like our unit they’ll be deserting in droves until there’s nothing left. So no, there’s no organisation, no leadership anywhere. I’m not aware of any part of the country, and part of the world, that hasn’t been hit. Maybe an Antarctic station or somewhere like that but we’re hardly going to be able to make our way there.”
“So we really are on our own then,” sighed Thorpe.
“Maybe it isn’t all bad,” I said. “I don’t see many revenants around here.”
“They come by every now and again,” replied Thorpe. “But only in small numbers so that we are able to hide out until they go away again. I suppose you’ll be wanting us to kill them from now on. It is as well this church being as isolated as it is. The village was mostly lost during the plague hundreds of years ago. Only a few scattered farmhouses remain.”
“Where have you raided?”
“Houses and farms,” replied Thorpe.
“Yeah? Sounds like a risky business, as I saw for myself today.”
“It is,” replied the Reverend. “But where else is there to look?”
“Look in the abandoned cars, look on the road,” I told him. “Most people will have gathered up what tins and provisions they could and left. Search the smashed up cars and you should find all you need. I’ve got a few ideas on that score. I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow just before we set out. How far afield have you travelled?”
Not far,” replied Thorpe. “Just this village mostly. “We’ve got Hammond up on the tower most days keeping an eye out for swarms and we only go where he says it’s safe. Of course he can’t see most of the houses which is where a great deal of our problems come from.”
“You need more people,” I told him. “Or else you can’t afford to lose anymore. The scavengers are the most important but there are some people here who can’t scavenge.”
“Found anymore survivors?”
Thorpe shook his head. “Believe me we’ve been keeping an eye out for survivors but there are none,” said Thorpe. “Everybody seems to have fled. That’s why I was hoping they were alive somewhere, in some sort of secure commune.”
“More like eaten alive in their own cars as they sat in the traffic jams,” I muttered grimly. “You did the right thing staying put where you were.”
Thorpe shuddered. “I’d better let you get off if you’ve got a long day ahead of you tomorrow,” he said. “There’s lots of blankets. You can sleep in the chancel with the others.”
“This clock room? Anybody sleep here?”
“Of course not,” replied Reverend Thorpe in bemusement. “It’s even colder in that tower than down here as you can see. I can’t see why anybody would…”
“I’ll take it.”
The Reverend nodded. “I understand why you want to be on your own,” he said. “I suppose you’ve lost family?”
“Probably,” I replied with a shrug. “Can’t say we were ever really that close.”
“No wife? Kids?”
“Fortunately not.” I said it in a way that did not advice further discussion and thankfully Reverend Thorpe got the hint. We made awkward small talk for a few
more minutes before he made his excuses and left.
I went downstairs and found myself a blanket and a camping map, of which there was an abundance, then went back upstairs too the clock room, away from the rest. I wanted to be on my own for a while, was tired of being stared at like some exotic zoo exhibit. A wind up radio was tossed, forgotten, into the corner. I picked it up, lay down on the mat, pulled the blanket over me without taking my shoes off and wound the radio up, turned the dial through the various frequencies. There were no live broadcasts. There was one message playing over and over on one frequency; an officious sounding voice promising that help was forthcoming and that updates would be broadcast on this channel every day, only the date given was over a week ago. I imagined this signalled the death knell of the government. I should move on, I thought to myself, these people could offer me nothing here. They looked towards me for a leadership I was hardly willing to provide, although for some reason I had sort of provided it. Why was that? Was it simply a sense of self-preservation? Because I was tired of running and hiding and was looking for some stability? If they didn’t change their ways I imagined they would all be dead within a month, and yet they had everything going for them in a secure place of refuge in the middle of nowhere. I decided right there and then that I would stay, for better or for worse. I was not the same man as when I first went into prison all those years ago. The years had broken me, beaten me down and for a long time I had harboured no hope. Now, with the epidemic claiming millions of lives and the dead rising to claim the flesh of the living it appeared that I and I alone had been given a new opportunity. For me this epidemic was a positive godsend. All my life I had yearned for acceptance. Now, in the space of a single day, it seemed I had found it by virtue of doing very little at all.
I slept surprisingly well, all things considered although I can hardly say I felt safe here in the church. Even with the high walls and windows the revenants could come, and if they came in numbers and all attacked at once we were surely doomed. I woke up just before dawn, went downstairs and heated myself up some leftover tea, hoping nobody else would mind. After a while Kit got up and came to join me. I poured her some tea. “So,” she said sardonically. “What’s the plan, hero?”
“We’re going to go out and find ourselves some supplies,” I told her, deciding not to rise to the bait. “Just as I said we would last night. Now I don’t know how much of the countryside you’ve seen but the parts I’ve travelled through contain a lot of cars lying abandoned by the side of the road.”
“Desperate survivors fleeing for their lives,” said Kit. “I remember it well.” She shuddered at the memory.
I went to one of the seats along which books and other potentially useful artefacts had been stored and dug out a dog-eared map of the area, opened it up and examined it closely. “Where are we?” I demanded.
“You mean to say you’ve promised to save us all and you don’t even know where we are?” Laughed Kit sarcastically. She reached forward and poked a finger on the page. I studied the map closely for a few moments.
“Well at least we’re a few miles from the towns,” I murmured.
“It’s a curse as well as a blessing,” replied Kit. “We’re not as vulnerable to revenant attack but at the same time we have to head further for supplies.”
“A small price to pay,” I told her. “Especially as we’re only about twelve miles from the main road.”
“So let’s hear the plan,” said Kit doubtfully.
“Everybody fled in their cars when the epidemic hit their villages which is why the roads are blocked,” I said. “When they fled they will have taken supplies with them, supplies which you people have thus far left alone. If there are cars on the road it is because people were fleeing and the first thing they will have taken with them before anything else is food. All the tins we need will be in those cars we see crashed by the side of the road, and the more cars there are the richer the pickings will be.”
“If the people were attacked in their cars it means they must have turned there,” said Kit doubtfully. “The area will be crawling with revenants.”
“This is so,” I acknowledged. “But they’ll be visible, and they’re slow. In a way it’ll be easier than looting those farmhouses. At least there are no walls you can’t see around. Your mistake so far has been entering the houses. There’s not likely to be much there, not enough to feed all the people we have and what’s more a building is loaded with pitfalls and inbuilt traps, as we discovered just yesterday.”
Kit bit her lip, as though searching for objections. “How many of us to go?” She said at last.
“That pick-up truck out there is only a three seater,” I said. “Thus the choice has been made for us.”
“And the three are?”
“You, me and Paul,” I replied simply. “The three strongest and fittest we have.”
“Bad idea,” said Kit. “What if we all get killed? So far myself and Paul have been kept apart for precisely that reason.”
“I understand the risks,” I acknowledged. “But we’re not just going for a smash and grab raid here. If we pull this off we’ll have enough food to last us for weeks. After that we can still engage in a little careful scavenging to make the supplies last even longer and better still we’ll be able to turn our attention to other things.”
“Such as what?”
“Long term survival,” I replied. “If those kids are going to grow up to lead full lives we’re going to have to stop living from day to day.”
It was a fine morning outside, completely clear but also with a slight nip in the air. I had built up expectations, promised people the earth and they were expecting great things from me. I knew I had to deliver. I was aware it was a big risk taking us three youngest along. Kit was right. If we didn’t return the others would have little hope of survival unless Hammond, Frey and Thorpe himself went out, and they were all getting on in years and far less agile. Still, if the gamble paid off and we were able to get to the cars it could mean a quite substantial haul which would mean we wouldn’t need to go out for a good few weeks. Paul was cheerful. I was to find he usually kept a smile on his face despite everything that could and did go wrong. Kit by contrast was quiet and sullen. I could tell she didn’t like me.
“Be careful,” said Reverend Thorpe nervously. “This is our last working vehicle now.” He nodded towards the battered old pick-up truck parked just outside the door. In its previous life it had clearly been a farm vehicle and was peppered with small dents and patches of rust on its bodywork. Still, Paul assured me the crate was still in top working order.
“We’ll try and bring another one back,” I said cheerfully.
The Reverend laughed. “Don’t go busting a gut,” he told me. “A good supply of food will do us just fine for now.”
I took the wheel. Paul offered directions. He knew these narrow country roads well, having grown up around here and he also knew which roads were blocked off an inaccessible having done a lot of looting in the preceding weeks. I wanted to drive because I was restless and wanted to focus my mind on something, even though it had been years since I had been behind the wheel of a car and had never actually passed a driving test. We drove through roads flanked with fields and woodland. Sometimes we saw a farmhouse in the distance but rarely a revenant. “We’ve lost so many already,” said Paul pessimistically. “When we first set up in the church there were more of us, but you’re the first survivor we’ve seen in over a fortnight.”
“That’s not exactly a long time,” I said.
“It’s a fucking age when you live in a world like this,” muttered Kit, staring out at the window to the fields beyond.
“Let’s not start getting down,” I said with caution. “We need to look to the future, act positively.”
A revenant stood in the middle of the road before us. I took my foot off the accelerator and drove into it at around twenty miles per hour. The truck lurched up and down as the revenant was crushed beneath the wh
eels. Kit let out a cry of horror. “Jesus Christ!” She exclaimed.
“Don’t get squeamish,” I told her. “This is why you’ve lost so many, because you’re afraid to kill them when you get the chance. Well I’m telling you they’re not human. Had you realised that yesterday and left Block behind then maybe Farrow would still be alive. You need to realise it today as well. We’re going to have to kill today, and you’re going to need to get used to that idea. There’s bound to be revenants where we’re going and unless we take them down decisively we’re going to end up amongst them. I’m not going to tolerate a repeat of yesterday. If somebody gets bitten, including myself, they get left by the side of the road. If it’s not me and you ask me nicely I’ll finish you off with the lump hammer before you have the chance to turn but I’m not going to run the risk of carrying the infection back to the camp.”
Plague Of The Revenants Page 6