I was backed into a corner and there was no escape. The revenants on the ground reached out their hands towards me whilst those who could still move their feet were advancing fast. Though I scythed the hammer manically around in an arc I knew I was tiring and could not hold them off for much longer. Suddenly the door of the church slammed open and I turned to see Frey emerging from within, clutching his injured arm in one hand whilst holding the fire alarm aloft in the other. I opened my mouth to shout a warning then checked myself. Frey knew he was finished and he wasn’t about to turn without taking a good few of the bastards with him. Frey shouted and waved his arms. The revenants turned to stare at him. I seized my chance, swinging the hammer to knock one of them off balance and charging through them before they’d had the chance to react. Frey hurried forwards, past the farmhouse and towards the barns. The revenants reached out and seized a hold of his feet but he shook them off. On some occasions he let out a cry which suggested he was bitten and he fell over a few more times but it was clear he no longer cared. The revenants came towards him. As Frey neared the barn he was virtually reduced to a crawl. I started scything my way through the crawlers in a bid to help him. Frey pulled open the barn doors and stepped inside. The revenants followed. I did not need Frey to tell me what to do but instead picked my way carefully though the crawlers until I was mostly clear of them then hurried forwards to close the doors, trapping both the revenants and Frey inside. I prayed they finished him off quickly, prayed the devoured him completely so there was no chance that he might turn.
I turned around to survey the scene. The graveyard was full of bodies and although some still walked there were nowhere near as many as before. I allowed them to come to me and annihilated them one by one.
I picked my way over to the passageway, finishing off crawlers as I went. The passageway was badly damaged but could soon be put back together. The revenants lay piteously moaning on the ground, some moving limply towards me although their broken limbs meant they crawled at a snail’s pace and thus presented no danger. With most of the revenants now either finished off or entrapped my own group slowly emerged from the church followed, a little later, by Hammond and Thorpe from the farmhouse. A few of the other survivors also emerged cautiously and looked in wonderment at the sea of bodies all over the graveyard. I was relieved to discover that nobody else had been bitten. Only four revenants had breached the windows and these had been quickly finished off by the defenders in the farmhouse. Still, the loss of Frey was a blow which we would all feel, if not now then later. Mrs Frey wept bitterly at the loss of her husband and at the circumstances of his death, which had ultimately been horrific, if heroic. The farmhouse too had survived fairly well. The barricades had been partially torn down and the corpses of some of the revenants lay over the broken ground floor window sills but I was amazed there had not been more destruction. We were secure enough. We couldn’t survive another swarm attack but the odd one or two coming by should be easily kept out.
We walked around finishing the revenants off until we could no longer hear their moans. I was pleased to see Stan helping as well, indeed he set about the task with gusto, finishing off those on the ground and even approaching to strike down a walking revenant when it crossed too close to his path. The work took us until well into the night but nobody wanted to have dead revenants stinking the place up. When most of the crippled revenants had been finished off and cleared away I took the flashlight and made a tour of our territory. The church had survived practically unscathed and indicated the importance of not abandoning it just yet. Several people congratulated me but the plaudits were muted. We were still stunned at the force of the attack and the death of Frey.
“You did it all,” said Paul, and he sounded somewhat resentful. “We could have lowered ourselves down after you, we could have helped you, taken another truck.”
“We couldn’t have afforded to lose another truck,” I told him.
“We may not have lost either had we had two trucks,” he replied. “It was hell having to watch you pull that little stunt from the roof, you know that? I almost climbed down after you and would have done had Tom not stopped me.”
“Just as well,” I said lightly. “I might have mistaken you for one of the revenants.”
“I’ve never met anybody as lucky as you,” said Kit warily. “You seem to walk on water. I think it’s because you like to kill. You’re not one of us, hardly even part of the human race. You’re relishing this.”
“Hardly,” I said. “If I did this all the time I’d soon be dead.”
“This was a one man bloodbath,” said Kit. “I can’t fault you for what you did but the way you did it, well...”
“You’re alive, aren’t you?” I replied defiantly. “And Frey was dead before I lowered myself from the tower.”
“You did too much,” snapped Kit. “Paul is right. You should have let us help you before you embarked on this one man wrecking mission. Are you looking to kill yourself? I suppose some might do it to put their troubled souls at peace, at least that’s how my father justifies the killing. But you don’t see it like that, do you Grant? You’re killing because you can, because it feels good to you? You’re doing the right thing but for all the wrong reasons. You’re dangerous.”
“Think yourself lucky I’m on your side,” I replied. “Let’s hope I’m just as much of a threat to the Elite, whoever they might be.”
After they had been finished off we dragged them on to the next field and piled them up on top of one another, a huge mound of bodies which we would burn tomorrow.
“Do you think they’re safe where they are?” Asked Thorpe, looking towards the shed with trepidation.
“Not at all,” I replied. “But they’re secure and if we try to kill them we’ll be putting ourselves at unnecessary risk. Let’s leave them where they are for now, we’ll have time enough to think up a plan in the coming days. We’ve risked enough as it is. The revenants should be safe in that shed for now. I checked it over the other day and it seems perfectly tight.”
“At least we made it through,” said Thorpe, although he sounded gloomy.
“If we hadn’t have lost Frey we would have been celebrating a resounding success,” I said.
“This was still a success,” said Hammond. “We may have lost Frey and a truck but given what we were up against it could have been much, much worse. We took on a hundred revenants today and we won and this was in no small part thanks to yourself. Don’t get me wrong, Grant. I don’t think you’ll live to be an old man and I just hope that when your time comes there’s a good friend waiting to finish you off before you turn. But until that day comes I hope you’ll teach us as much as you possibly can.”
It was seven in the morning before we finally got to bed and the sun was rising in the sky. I went back up to the clock tower although everyone urged me to come and sleep in the farmhouse. The attack had reminded us just how vulnerable we were, how vulnerable we would always be. Would the swarms ever die off? Probably not with so few of us left. The things were always hungry but never seemed to starve. It was as though they only ever fed because they could, not because they had to. Perhaps this new Dr Bashir could dissect one of them someday, see what made them work? I dismissed the idea almost straight away. I was not out to save the human race just yet. I had gone mad once more, had let myself go and it was almost as if I didn’t care if I lived or died, although I did. I thought about the revenants holed up in the barn, thought about what we were going to do with them. I couldn’t face wiping them out one by one, not after the night we’d just had and yet arrogant as it may have seemed I didn’t trust anybody else to do it. Kit was right. I really did think I was all that, I really did have a huge faith in myself. She resented me for this and I hardly blamed her. I didn’t blame anybody for being wary of a demagogue. When I was younger and searching for a father figure I often latched on to bad influences. Perhaps now I was the bad influence myself. Perhaps if I hadn’t come along they would still have
been holed up in that church; cold and hungry but far safer. I suppose I had redeemed myself in a way. In truth I had never expected to survive. Kit was right to say my actions had been stupid and in a way I was glad she was angry with me. Despite all that had happened I found myself on something of a natural high.
I was up earlier than most, for there was still much to do. The others came to join me in time. We set about fixing up the passageway and repairing the barricades, trying to make them even stronger than before although it was a far more difficult task with Frey gone. Nonetheless we worked solidly throughout the day. We sharpened the fence posts and made them into makeshift spikes, put down nets before the windows in the hope the revenants may become caught up in them should they ever try to attack again. We hammered board after board on top of the passageway. There was talk of digging a trench to further boost the defences but I was cautious of undermining the foundations and so we demurred on this for now.
“If there has been any good to come out of this it is that we are even more secure now than we were before,” said Kit.
“This wasn’t a disaster,” said Hammond. “We survived this, albeit at a terrible cost. It just goes to show we can cope with swarms and furthermore we’ve got a better idea as to how they behave. In future I’d recommend setting up obstacles to split them up and isolate them from one another so we might be able to take them on one at a time. Besides, if we’re going to be absolutely brutal about all this we’ve lost a carpenter but gained a doctor.”
Just before night fell we set fire to the revenants. Before burning them I went around examining them closely to see who they once were in life. I saw a couple with combat fatigues like the ones we had seen outside the pub the other day although they were not wearing the uniforms of any army I knew. “A militia,” said Hammond solemnly, coming to stand beside me. “Although how much of it is still left is hard to say based on this evidence alone.”
The smoke reached far into the sky as they burned. This put us at risk of being spotted but we could hardly leave the things to putrefy. I had a feeling this was not to be the first no win situation we were to be placed in before we were done with this sorry business. The stench of rotting bodies burning was like nothing I had ever experienced. We were fortunate in that the day was misty and visibility poor so the smoke was unlikely to be spotted from afar.
After all the excitement of the previous night and the subsequent clear up the one person who had been almost completely forgotten about was Dr Bashir. But the man still had a story to tell and his information still had to be digested and plans formed in response. In the light of day, and with time on our side, I was able to get a better look at the man. The doctor appeared worn and pale, and it was clear he had been malnourished these past few weeks but his state was not untypical from other survivors when they first found safety. In body, however, he was very much recovered. He was up and about and anxiously pacing his room when we went up to him.
“I cannot believe what I did,” said Bashir sadly, his voice filled with remorse. “I passed revenants on the road at night but I just ran. I never knew there was a swarm picking up right behind me.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” I said, my tone conciliatory. “We’ve all had to run from those things. And besides, we have drugs of all kind looted from various houses. We’re not sure what they were for but perhaps you can tell us.”
“You want me to form a surgery,” said the doctor.
“Well you’ll have a few patients,” I told him. “There’s several elderly survivors including one with dementia. I know you won’t be able to work any miracles if any of us are bitten but it would be good to have you around.”
“Of course,” said the doctor graciously. “Compared to what I’ve been used to this place is a positive paradise.”
Immediately after seeing the doctor I called a meeting between myself, Kit, Paul, Hammond and Reverend Thorpe. “We need to forget about the swarm last night,” I said. “It’s over now. We withstood it. Now we have to focus on the Elite. The doctor’s information was interesting but I think we need to see it up close.”
“There’s nothing for it,” said Paul. “We’re going to have to go out and spy on them for ourselves, aren’t we?”
“We are,” I acknowledged.
“And then what?” demanded Kit. “We’re never going to be able to take them on.”
“From what Dr Bashir told me this gang is formidable,” I said. “They actively go out enslaving groups of survivors and you can bet they were the ones behind the carnage we witnessed the other day. We can’t afford to take chances against them. We need to know exactly what we’re up against.”
“Can’t we just wait and see what happens?” Said Reverend Thorpe.
I shook my head. “Too much of a risk,” I told him. “What we’d actually be doing is hiding out and with supplies getting as short as they are it wouldn’t be long before we bumped into one another regardless. If the threat is too severe we may have to consider leaving and finding somewhere else. These people don’t seem like the type to negotiate.”
“Will you take Stan and Gloria this time?” Asked Hammond.
“Just myself, Kit and Paul,” I said. “We don’t have time to mess around on this one.”
So it was that myself, Paul and Kit set out early the following day in the vague direction north east. We were nervous and ill at ease but there was a sense of excitement as well. The revenant attack of the other day had made us feel even more vulnerable than ever. It was a sobering thought that there now appeared to be enemies ready to harass us from all directions.
“It’s always the three of us,” said Paul with a wry smile.
“On this occasion it has to be,” I replied. “I can’t afford to take those other three on an assignment like this, not with how they’ve been fucking up recently and we’re the ones with the most combat experience.”
“You make us sound like a bunch of SAS veterans,” laughed Kit.
“Given what we’ve already survived I’m not sure that’s too far from the truth,” I said.
“All the same we’re hardly trained for a stakeout. I mean I’m sure you are Grant but the rest of us…”
“What do you mean?” I asked her.
“Being in the army.”
“Oh yes, that.” I thought quickly. “Well it isn’t as if we’re going to do an actual stakeout,” I said at last. “We’re just going to see what’s up and get the hell out. We’re not going to get too close and we sure as hell aren’t going to be taking anybody on. Or at least if we do I don’t much fancy our chances.”
“All the same it would be good if you could teach us some moves,” said Paul hopefully.
“Moves?”
“Manoeuvres,” said Paul. “Or whatever it is you call them. Not now but in the future. You haven’t really done much of that yet.”
“Up until now we’ve only had to fight the revenants,” I said dismissively, trying to get off this topic of conversation before I let something slip. “Of course if things are about to change we’ll have to change accordingly.”
“How far is this place anyway?” Asked Paul.
“Forty miles as the crow flies looking at the map,” I replied. “Probably a seventy mile drive around these country roads.”
“Well I just hope we can make it there and back again with the truck,” said Kit. “God knows we can’t afford to lose another vehicle.”
Plague Of The Revenants Page 16