Plague Of The Revenants (6 page)

We set off down the road at a brisk pace. Kit had her head down and was silent. I didn’t doubt she was taking the loss badly.
Just before we came into the village Kit turned us off at a footpath and we walked down a long track by a field. I saw the church tower a long way off of course and as we got closer I was somewhat reassured at its isolated position, set quite a way back from the village with only a single solitary farmhouse for company and nothing else in any direction except open fields. “Did you know them well?” I asked eventually, unable to bear the silence any longer.
“All my life,” replied Kit sullenly. “Farrow was a mechanic whilst Block was a plumber.”
“Tradesmen huh?” I said thoughtfully. “Good people to have around at a time like this.”
“Yeah until they get fucking killed,” spat Kit. “This is a disaster, you know that? An absolute fucking catastrophe.”
“It’s not as bad as you think,” I said in all serious. “Now you’ve got me.”
Kit turned her head to look at me closely. “You’re a real cold blooded piece of work, you know that? The way you dealt with those revenants. I can believe you were a trained killer.”
“You need somebody who doesn’t hesitate,” I replied. “If it wasn’t for me you’d have been dead back there as well.”
“I suppose I should thank you for saving my life,” said Kit, although her tone was sarcastic.
“Forget it.”
“Maybe you’re right,” said Kit after a while. “Maybe I was a little hesitant, maybe we all are. It isn’t my fault I have a soul.”
“Shame the same can’t be said about those things,” I retorted. “Listen Kit, I know you think I’m being harsh but you’re got to face up to reality here. You sound like you’ve lost a lot of people by being soft and that’s the harshest thing of all.”
I found myself unused to talking to somebody of the opposite sex, unused to talking to anyone who wasn’t either a prisoner or a guard. Perhaps this was why I was so blunt with her. At the same time I found myself liking Kit. It was no surprise to me she had survived so long.
“I suppose you’re going to try and take charge once we get back to the church?” She said. “What with you being ex-army and everything.
“Probably, yes.”
“Well you probably won’t have that much of a problem,” muttered Kit. “My father certainly isn’t going to stop you. You’ll find his outlook is strictly civilian. He never wanted to be in charge anyway. His position just means people look up to him.”
“And I suppose he isn’t a tyrant?”
“Of course not.”
“Well if I take charge you’ll find I’m not a tyrant either,” I told her. “In fact I think I’ll leave the day to day governance to your dad. My expertise hardly lies in spiritualism or the distribution of rations. It is like you have just said; I know how to kill those things and not much else. Hear what I’ve got to say when we get back to your camp and we’ll see how things pan out.”

I examined the church critically as we entered the graveyard. I daresay architectural historians would have made more of it but to me it was just a perfectly standard church standing in an acre or so of graveyard.
It had a tall tower that commanded a good view over the surrounding countryside helped by the fact of the church being constructed on a gentle hill. There was a chancel, a nave and a vestry sticking out of the side. There were four stout doors, all of them with thick hinges and thickly built; the revenants stood no chance against them. The windows were large but the lowest was at least head height and as I had never seen a revenant climb I considered them well suited to repelling undead attack unless you had a swarm come along and the creatures began climbing on top of one another. All in all I was impressed despite myself.

I hung back a little whilst Kit approached her father and told
him the bad news. The older man was shocked but not as shocked as I would have imagined him to be. I suppose he was getting used to such grim news by now. In time Kit looked up towards me and I took that as my cue to approach. “My name is Reverend Justin Thorpe,” said the man, coming forward in turn to greet me. “I wouldn’t exactly say I’m in charge here but the people tend to look to me for guidance.” Reverend Thorpe was a tall and weedy looking man with a long and pointed nose that looked as though it belonged in a book and a shiny bald head with just the faintest hint of red hair to the sides, a trait he had doubtless once shared with his daughter. He also had a pronounced limp which I imagined would make him quite useless for going out on foraging expeditions.
“Just call me Grant,” I said officiously as I returned his handshake. “It was Sergeant Grant back in the real world but I daresay such titles mean nothing these days.”
“Sergeant Grant,” repeated Thorpe, as though the two words were somehow magical.
“Don’t get too excited, Dad,” said Kit cautiously. “One man hardly makes an army. We’ve still lost our two best men.” She turned to me. “Can you fix a water supply or mend a car?” She asked me archly. I shrugged and replied I could not. “Well Block and Farrow could do both of those things,” she said. “The only thing I’ve yet seen you do is kill. It’s going to take more than that to get us all out of here alive.”
“Killing those things is a pretty good start if you want to stay alive and not hide up in a fortress for the rest of your lives,” I retorted sharply. “Killing those things is, after all, what is going to keep us all alive out here.”
Kit scowled at me at walked off. I could tell straight away that she neither liked nor trusted me and I was hardly surprised at this. My experience of prison taught me that those confined to tight spaces and a tight knit group were always wary of newcomers, thought they were bad news. In this last point perhaps Kit was correct. Only time would tell.
“Kit is very strong-headed but all the same I get the feeling it is you I have to thank for saving her life,” said Reverend Thorpe, as he led me into the church. The clergyman spoke clearly but I could see he was still suffering the loss of the other two. A man with iron grey hair in his late fifties or early sixties approached us. “I’ve just heard the news,” he said solemnly. “A tragic loss.” He turned to me. “Kit is still pretty cut up about it but I don’t suppose you were able to recover the bodies?”
“I’m afraid not,” I said with a shake of my head, realising with a pang of remorse that I had not seen to it that Farrow would not turn either.
The man with the iron grey hair shook his head again. “We’re down to sixteen now, you know Justin,” he said solemnly. “If you count our newcomer here that is. Plus we’ve lost another van and added to that we only have supplies for another day.”
“I know, I know,” said Reverend Thorpe worriedly, ringing his hands together. “I suppose we could stretch to two days if we went down to emergency rations but there’s no denying we need a safe spot from which to scavenge.”
“They don’t exist,” said the grey haired man firmly. “I’m out on that tower all day and they’re everywhere, completely spread out and it’ll be just the same in the houses. I hate having to make these runs as much as you but well starve if we don’t find food soon.”
“Settle down,” I told them, trying to sound reassuring. “I know I’ve only just got here but I do have some experience of survival. Let me just get the lay of this place and we’ll put our heads together, see what we might come up with.”

The other survivors were a mixed bag and I found myself surprised at them having s
urvived so long. The man with the iron grey hair, I soon discovered, was named Tom Hammond and he was a retired police officer who had come up from London in the hope of a quiet life. He was divorced and had two children lost somewhere in the sure hell that was the capital but at least he’d never had to see them die. There was one other young man aside from myself, a burly looking farmer named Paul Burns who was in his late twenties. He came up to greet me warmly. “Good to see you,” he said, shaking my hand with a vice like grip. “I can’t tell you how glad I am to see you.” He lowered his voice. “It’s a real burden me and Kit have had placed on our heads having to go out all the time and cater for the others who can’t hunt or scavenge. Fresh young blood is exactly what we need.”
“Less of the talk of blood,” I said, trying to sound cheerful. “We must hope those days are soon to be at an end.” We laughed awkwardly at a weak joke.  There was a middle aged carpenter by the name of Samuel Frey whose wife, Jeanette, had also survived. They had no children. Most worryingly of all there were four orphaned children, all of them under thirteen as well as five survivors over the age of seventy-five, one of whom, a lady by the name of Enid Dell who must almost have been ninety, appeared to be suffering from some form of dementia. The elderly all slept together in the vestry which at least could be made snug and cosy. The others slept in camp beds and on top of mattresses in the nave. There was no heating to speak of and even though it was only September the stone walls seemed to radiate the cold. There were no complete family units. Many of the children’s parents had survived to enter the church only to perish during the hunt for food. I looked critically over the children dashing around whilst the bewildered elderly looked on and immediately declared them dead weight in my own mind.
But first impressions are often misleading. I later learned the elderly were not nearly as useless as I first suspected. Mrs Dell needed a lot of care and I didn’t think she would last much longer, especially if she had to go through the winter, but the others tried to help with cooking and a very strict, matronly lady names Mrs Brome took the children in hand and attempted to teach them maths and English during the day. Once more my experience of the prison came in handy. In order to get through the day when confined to a restricted space people needed to keep themselves busy. The children and elderly were not exactly useful to us but at the same time they did no harm. Still, I was hardly enthused by what I saw that day. Of sixteen survivors nine were either too old or too young to be much use. Reverend Thorpe was lame whilst Hammond, despite his independent spirit, could not move as fast as he used to. There was a reason he had retired from the police. That left myself, Kit, Paul and possibly Mr and Mrs Frey if we were really pushed. Added to this the group had no guns and only a few golf clubs and iron bars to ward off the revenants if they decided to attack. Such a defensive existence could not last and people were already looking to me for ideas, believing me to be an ex-army man who had survived the very worst of the outbreak.
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.