Plague Of The Revenants

by Chilvers, Edward

  “You talk like you’re in charge,” muttered Kit resentfully.

  “And with good reason,” I told her. “This is my plan and we’re doing it my way. If it fucks up I’m more than ready to take the fall for it.”

  “I’m not sure I trust you,” muttered Kit.

  “You must trust me more than you think or you wouldn’t have just said that,” I replied cheerfully.

  “No, I mean I think you might be using us,” said Kit. “I think you’re in this for yourself, taking advantage of us.”

  “Well of course I am,” I told her. “The question is whether or not you can take advantage of me as well.”

  “I fucking hate this,” sighed Kit dejectedly. “Fucking army still think they’re in charge when they’ve fucked up to the last.” She laughed bitterly. “And to think how much I hated that job in the bakery. How I miss it now.”

  “I miss the football,” said Paul lightly. “It would have been well into the season by now, you know. I had a season ticket for the Rovers. I’d had it every year since I used to go there with my dad as a kid.”

  “Did Rovers play in that big stadium in the town?” I asked him.

  “Yeah. Have you been there?”

  “In a manner of speaking,” I said with a shudder, remembering the mounds of bodies, the revenant attack and afterwards my hellish few days on the roof.

  “I miss it all,” sighed Kit. “I miss the phones, the TV, the soaps, the pubs. Just think, we’ll probably never have a good rasher of bacon again. I don’t know how to make bacon from scratch, do you? And I’ve been living in the countryside my whole life.”

  “No more steak, no more porridge, no more cornflakes or beer,” agreed Paul wistfully. “Although I dare say we’ll find a ragged old pig to rip apart and devour somewhere down the line.” He turned to me. “What about you, Grant? What do you miss most about the old world?”

  This question caught me somewhat. Truth be told my time inside had isolated me from the rest of the world. I shrugged and tried to think up a generic answer. “I miss getting my wage slip once every month,” I said eventually. “I miss going out and getting drunk on a Friday night, going shopping, coming home and putting my feet up. It’s all the normal, boring shit you take for granted and hate until it’s all gone.”

  “I hear that,” smiled Paul wistfully. I let out a quiet sigh of relief.

  We were well past the point at which Paul and the others had scavenged and were heading into uncharted territory. Every now and again we would come to abandoned cars blocking the road. We slowed and nudged them out of the way, then after we passed them got out and took what we could. These few cars we came across had already been abandoned but I was aware they might also form tombs for the living dead and so proceeded with caution. We found a couple of rucksacks with a total of five tins between them and some rotten food, but at the same time some batteries and a torch so it wasn’t a complete waste of time. Still not enough to keep the camp sustained. Fortunately these first few cars had their doors open suggesting the occupants fled before they turned.

  “If pickings are to be this slim this is hardly worth our time,” said Kit pessimistically.

  “Don’t be so sure,” I told her. “You see these cars crashed and smashed up yet on a straight road with nothing to make them crash. This means the drivers were panicking straight away, most likely they took to their cars either straight after they had been bitten or when they first caught whiff of the revenants. Thus they were disorganised and didn’t plan ahead. Those who got their cars on to the highway will have had a better plan, you mark my words.”

  “I don’t like that we haven’t seen any revenants yet,” said Kit darkly. “This means they must have pooled themselves into a swarm, most likely along the highway.”

  “If that is indeed the case at least we should see and hear them in time,” I said, looking around at the flat countryside and open fields.

  “It will mean we won’t be able to loot,” retorted Kit. “And we’ll come home empty handed, which will be worse considering you had us eat all our food last night.”

  After driving a couple more miles we crossed a flyover bridge. The main road stretched out below us, peppered with an endless line of silent cars, a beacon of opportunity if you discounted the sinister moans emanating from some of the smashed up vehicles. I swung our vehicle on to the hard shoulder and drove along the bank as far as I could before the massed ranks of cars made further progress impossible. I got out and climbed up upon the bonnet of one of the cars, hammer at the ready, and looked around. There were cars as far as the eye could see. I wondered where they had all thought they were going, for at that time most places in the country was as bad as one another. It would have been a futile, desperate flight filled with tragedy, despair and eventually disaster. There was nothing wrong with most of the cars. Mostly likely there had been a crash, or several, miles down the highway and the road had become blocked and clogged up with traffic, the occupants either abandoning the vehicles or else sat helplessly awaiting the inevitable. I was surprised at how few revenants there were around at this point. Possibly this was an isolated area and the revenants had moved on. “Keep going but move fast,” I ordered, turning to Kit and Paul. “We don’t want to have to make too many of these runs. That was your problem before, the reason you lost so many people. Another five minutes and we’ll have enough to sustain ourselves for a fortnight, maybe even some firearms. A place like this is a goldmine but we sure as hell don’t want to have to keep coming back here.”

  “What about the revenants?” Asked Paul.

  “Leave the revenants to me,” I replied. “You two just take care of the looting. If you can’t see inside the cars, then leave it, and watch for biters underfoot as well.”

  I took up the hammer, strode towards the car doors and opened them up quickly, brandishing the hammer in my hand. If a revenant stuck its filthy rotting head out I did not leave it a fraction of a second before painting its brains across the dashboard. At one point a revenant lunged over the cars and slid towards me, landing on a heap on the floor the other side. I leapt nimbly over the bonnets and brought the hammer crashing down upon its skull. Paul and Kit went in next, helping themselves and loading any goods they found on to the truck. I was right. These cars were better prepared than the ones we had seen crashed in the ditch. Sometimes I caught Kit watching me as I despatched the beasts and I could have sworn there was horror in her eyes. That was too bad. If we both survived long enough to work together she would see me do far worse than that. I didn’t bother with the revenants that were stuck. We steered clear of them as much as possible and I only dealt with them if they started to climb over the bonnets. I was more concerned about their ungodly moans which were disconcerting at the best of times. Here and there we saw the signs of struggle. We saw windows that had been caved in, blood all over the road, even a severed limb in places. On one or two cars I actually saw bullet holes. Each car told its own little story, but there was no time for that right now.

  Kit and Paul came out with rucksacks and bags. There was no time to check these just yet. They went straight into the back of the truck. We worked fast but we were careful too. Unfortunately I saw no opportunity to take one of the vehicles to replace the one lost the previous day. What with the modern electronics the batteries on most of them had long since worn down and besides, they were packed in far too close to be turned around. I saw several revenants stumbling amongst the cars and I did not doubt there would also be some crawlers ready to reach up and grab our legs given half the chance. I warned the others accordingly and at the same time kept my eyes peeled and struck only when there was imminent danger. I was more concerned about the noise they were making and hoped there was not a swarm nearby, ready to surround us and trap us even more completely than the former occupants of this car graveyard.

  Kit and Paul climbed over the cars with the bags. There was not time to explore their contents just yet but I was pleased to see the back of the
truck filling up with a good collection of bulging rucksacks.

  “It doesn’t feel right,” said Paul with trepidation. “It feels like we’re grave robbers.”

  “Exactly what we are,” I told him cheerfully. “And the contents of those graves will keep us alive for a very long time provided we avoid the traps. And it isn’t as if anybody else are using the things, we might as well take them for the good of the species.”

  “Still trying to save the world?” Muttered Kit sarcastically.

  Suddenly Paul stood bolt upright and looked over the bank with great alarm. I followed his stare to be greeted with the sight of a multitude of revenants clambering towards us over the cars, alerted by the warning calls of their fellows. My eyes shot back towards the truck which I saw to my satisfaction was now overflowing with bags and other merchandise. “Okay let’s go!” I exclaimed sharply. “We’ve got more than enough for one day. No point in getting too greedy.”

  We finished up what we were doing and started to make our way back to the truck which was around fifty yards up the highway. The key was not to panic. We just had to keep going. The revenants began to climb over one another, their dead eyes eerily focused on us three living. They stretched out their arms towards us and hooked at the air, their lopsided heads lolling as they shuffled forwards. They did not appear to notice the cars, but rather climbed over them without seeing, never losing focus on their prey.

  The revenants didn’t appear to have any sense of direction, didn’t seem to have a goal. It was as if they were feeling their way in the dark, stumbling into the cars and the other debris that blocked the road. I took to the roofs of the cars, leaping from one to another and bringing the hammer hard upon the skulls of any who crossed my path. From my raised vantage point I saw that they were coming in vast numbers, like the incoming tide, slowly filling up the cracks between the cars, advancing still further towards us. I looked around towards Kit and Paul and saw they were making their way back to the truck. I had no desire to be blocked in and trapped within the wreckage. Time to stop messing around. I turned and jumped down from the car I was standing on and here I was hasty, here I forgot my own rules. A hand reached out from the floor and grabbed me as I tried to run, tripping me up and sending me flying to the floor, the hammer clattering out of my hand. Instinctively I kicked out as the ravenous creature pushed its rotten mouth towards my leg, deflecting it out of the way for but a second, for it was possessed of great strength. I kicked out again and reached out to try and gain leverage on one of the cars so I could pull myself up but it was no use. Further, I now saw the revenants making their way through the gaps in the cars so they were but a few feet away. I tried to roll over but my feet had slid beneath the car and there was nowhere for me to turn. Suddenly a shot rang out. The revenant’s head snapped back and exploded in a plethora of blood, and I was splattered with rotten brains and pieces of skull. I looked up to see Kit standing over me, shotgun at the ready.

  “Does this mean we’re even now?” Said Kit with extreme satisfaction.

  “Hardly,” I laughed. “I wasn’t nearly as fucked as you were when I found you yesterday.”

  There was no more time for conversation. The revenants were still coming. I leapt to my feet and hurried with Kit to the van. Paul joined us a moment later, having seized up an armful of bags at the last moment and we all leapt inside. I slammed the truck into reverse and backed up along the hard shoulder just as the revenants breached the last line of cars and lumbered towards us. Secretly I was cursing the fact it was me who almost got killed. I suppose it the long run the close encounter was a good thing. Already I risked getting a little too big for my boots.

  We drove slowly back, because the last thing we wanted was to lose any of our precious bags of cargo.

  “We’ve got a good haul,” I said as we drove.

  “Or have we?” Said Kit. Do you think we should stop halfway and see if it’s any good?”

  “Might as well get back to the church,” I said. “We’ve all had enough close encounters for one day.”

  “Did you see how much there was still left?” Said Paul happily. “We didn’t even clear a fraction of it. We can come back again and again and see ourselves through for most of the rest of the year.”

  “Not straight away,” I told him, a note of caution in my voice. “We’ve stirred up the swarm now and the chances are they’ll be hanging around for a good week or more. Now we’ve brought ourselves time to breathe there’s no point in getting greedy and rushing back too soon.”

  “Either was it was a lucky escape,” said Kit.

  “A damned sight luckier than you had yesterday when you lost two good men,” I told her. “That was one hell of a haul we’re bringing home today and with a big haul comes big risks, risks we don’t want to have to take over and over again.”

  “No worries on that score,” said Paul triumphantly. “We’re set for the rest of the month now.”

  The others had been impatiently awaiting our return. Reverend Thorpe opened the door of the church and came out to meet us, his eyes lighting up when he saw the loot. Those who could came out to the truck and together we heaved the rucksacks and bags out and took them back into the church, crowding around whilst Kit and her father emptied them out. As I suspected there were a multitude of tins and several other useful items besides. We found several knives, golf clubs and baseball bats, quite a little armoury and a weapon for every one of us survivors, although now everybody would be able to wield them. There were also bagful’s of warm clothes and blankets, cutlery, toiletries, more tin openers than we knew what to do with, a drill kit and even some books, as well as many other more personal items that were quickly surplus to requirement.

  “It is a start,” I told them. “It means that we can focus on other things now without having to worry about finding food. We can sure up our defences, take stock but we sure as hell mustn’t start to get complacent.”

  “But was it dangerous?” Asked Reverend Thorpe.

  Kit shrugged. “Not if you knew where to watch your step,” she replied, looking at me archly.

  The atmosphere amongst the survivors in the church was transformed compared to what it had been the previous night and Reverend Thorpe immediately exclaimed that we should feast once more. Various tins of meat and vegetables were combined into large saucepans and the older women immediately set about cooking up a large stew. In the meantime Jeanette Frey started to sort out the tins and packets into days and after a time declared there was enough for thirty-one days based upon our current numbers. Throughout the course of the feast people kept coming up to me, trying to talk to me and congratulate me but I was uncomfortable with the praise they haped upon my head. As soon as I could I finished my bowl and retreated back to the clock room in the tower where I prepared to sleep. But no sooner had I lay down my head but Reverend Thorpe appeared in the doorway carrying two steaming hot mugs. “You forgot your tea,” he said cheerfully, passing me a cup. He sat down beside me on the floor and we drank together.

  “You’ve only been here a day and you’re already a leader,” said Reverend Thorpe approvingly. “Everybody is looking to you and the talk now is filled with what you are to have us do next.”

  “It was dangerous what we did today,” I said with caution. “And I don’t relish having to do it all over again although the chances are we might have to. If only there were more of us like myself, Kit and Paul, people who could run I mean, and another vehicle as well. We might be able to completely clear that entire row. It was a good boost for morale and those cars on the highway can serve as a little mine for us whenever the need arises, provided we’re careful of course, but it isn’t a long term solution. We can’t continue to forage through the ashes of civilisation forever. Soon enough we’re going to have to try and grow and raise our own food.”

  “So what do you suggest?” Asked Thorpe.

  “There are old people here and they won’t last the winter in a place like this,” I told him. “T
hey need warmth and in this new world warmth means a fire. That farmhouse over there has fireplaces I should imagine and therefore that is where we need to be.”

  “But how?” Asked Thorpe. “The place is a good hundred yards away and wide open as well.”

  “So we build a fence,” I said shortly.

  “You mean we turn this place into a fortress?”

  “We’ve got ourselves enough food to last a good while,” I said. “So we’ve brought ourselves some time. We don’t have to live hand to mouth anymore. That means we need to use that time wisely to build up and make ourselves safer.”

  “This is the first year of the infection,” said Thorpe. “Hopefully it will never be this bad again. There are few enough of us living as it is so perhaps the creatures will starve in time.”

  “I’m not seeing much of that just yet,” I said doubtfully. “I can’t think those revenants of today had fed for a long time either but they were still fast enough when they wanted to be. I’m thinking back to the early news reports. It is a parasite that’s doing this to them, isn’t it? A parasite that takes over, kills and then controls the dead body, a parasite from outer space or underground or wherever they said it was from. It doesn’t matter. What does matter is that we’re as likely as not going to be dealing with this menace for a good few years as yet.”

  “So will you train us up to fight?” asked Reverend Thorpe. “Train us to be soldiers, I mean?”

  The question caught me for in truth I knew nothing about military manoeuvres. I thought for a moment then shook my head. “You people aren’t soldiers,” I said after a pause. “And I don’t have the time to train anybody. And besides, what could I teach you? All of my own training has been focused on real, living enemies, people with souls who are capable of fear. Why do you think the army was so ineffective against the revenants to begin with? Why do you think they were able to take over? I’m sorry to say that in this situation I’m as much in the dark as all the rest of you.”