Plague Of The Revenants (7 page)

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 wheels. 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.”
“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.”