Plague Of The Revenants

by Chilvers, Edward

  “Nobody does,” laughed Hammond. “But from up here I can see an area of around twenty miles. In that great space of countryside are dotted many towns with more than enough to keep the bastards occupied. Why should they ever want to come to a backwater like this?”

  “Because we’re here?”

  “Let’s hope they never find that out,” muttered Hammond darkly. Have you ever seen a swarm up close?”

  “I’ve fled from them,” I told him.

  “Have you indeed?” Hammond raised his eyes. “So what sort of chance would we stand then, if they all decided to converge on us at once?”

  “Depends how well we could hide and how many supplies we could take with us,” I replied. “We certainly don’t have the tools to fight them off, at least not right now.”

  Hammond handed me the binoculars and pointed to a spot around five miles away. “Take a look at that,” he told me. “You reckon we could hold out against that lot?”

  I regarded the swarms, milling around aimlessly, not chasing anything in particular, just waiting. “What makes them move?” I asked Hammond. “Only the living?”

  “Not always,” replied the policeman. “Sometimes they go after escaped livestock, sometimes they just all move as one, like sheep. I can’t really explain it.”

  “Has there ever been a swarm come this way?”

  “No,” replied Hammond. “But I think if they did we’d be ready for it, as long as we were in the church that is.”

  “Are you worried about moving to the farmhouse?”

  Hammond considered for a moment. “In some ways like everybody else I’m looking forward to it,” he replied. “I like warm fires, cooked food and creature comforts as much as the next man. Safety is the key, of course it is. Provided the farmhouse can be made secure I’d be more than happy to call it my home.”

  “It would be good to have a home again,” I said wistfully.

  “I’m glad you’re here,” said Hammond with satisfaction. “Prior to your arrival people were looking towards me for military leadership.” He laughed shortly. “Sadly even thirty years in the Met doesn’t qualify me for something such as this. It’s why I keep myself up here as much as possible, so I don’t have to inflict my unwanted advice on any unfortunate suckers.”

  “It is hard to lead in something like this,” I told him. “This is something none of us have any experience in. Reverend Thorpe did the right thing in sticking to what he knew and trying to help as many people as possible. It wasn’t his fault he lost so many people.”

  “Justin Thorpe is a good man,” acknowledged Hammond. “A lot of people looked to him when the outbreak first started, thought maybe it was judgement day come upon us at last, wanted spiritual guidance. He still conducts a service on Sundays, you know, but funnily enough he rarely mentions God anymore. I sometimes wonder whether he’s lost his faith completely.”

  “No surprise we have to re-evaluate what we know,” I said. “Possibly if we ever get through this there won’t be much of the old culture we want to save.”

  “Now that is deep,” laughed Hammond.

  “Too deep for me,” I laughed with a shake of my head. “Give me the here and now any day.”

  We stayed on the roof and chatted for a while. Then Hammond went off to get some lunch and a hot cup of tea in him, for it was cold up here on the roof, so I offered to take over the watch from his for a while. Although it was bitterly cold and the wind blew right through me from my raised vantage point, it was still good to be out here on my own at the top of the world, or so it seemed from here. I closed my eyes and breathed in deeply the early autumn air. It was at this moment I realised I was happy for the first time in my life. Indeed I suspected I might be the happiest man in existence at that present moment in time.

  Kit came to join me a little later. She lit up a cigarette and passed one to me. “Maybe I’ve been a bit of a bitch to you recently,” said Kit, starring out into the countryside. “But I’m not going to apologise. I still don’t trust you.”

  “Fair enough,” I replied with a shrug.

  “You’re the hero of the hour,” said Kit dubiously. “And between you and me that’s not an especially good position to be in. Farrow was the hero of the hour once and look what happened to him.”

  “You’ll learn not to trust heroes as they get killed one by one,” I said with a shrug. “Your father has the right idea. Stay back and keep as many people safe as you possibly can. No grand ideas, just living from day to day. Maybe that’s the future of mankind from now on.”

  “So you’ve got a grand plan now?” Said Kit. “I suppose this farmhouse is only the beginning before you rebuild civilisation from the ground up?”

  “We need to find more survivors,” I said, ignoring her barbed taunts. “And we need to be in a position to accommodate them. That way if and when one of us gets killed they’ll be a steady stream to step up and take our place.”

  “You don’t fancy our chances in the long run then?” Said Kit lightly.

  I shook my head. “One thing I learned in the army,” I lied. “You can be the most clever here of all, come back from mission after mission unscathed against the odds but you only need to be unlucky once. It stands to reason that if we’re the ones always going out and providing for the group, the only ones fighting the revenants in a war that isn’t ever going to end we’re not going to be dying in our beds.”

  “So you think we’re all doomed?”

  “I didn’t say that,” I told her. “But those who put their necks out the most are eventually going to get snipped. It’s the law of averages. In the long term I suppose we’ll put up gated communities like in ancient times, build great walls around large settlements and from there grow our own food and raise our own animals. If we had a thousand people we could have nine hundred living their lives pleasantly behind the walls and the rest going out expanding and scavenging. That is what the armed forces of the future will do, provided we survive at all that is.”

  “We’ve got a long way to go before we’re at that stage,” said Kit with a sigh. “You think we’ll find anyone else alive out there?”

  “Somebody must have survived out there somewhere,” I said. “Possibly in the more isolated communities, the Highlands and Islands, there are larger groups of people who might have made it, perhaps some sections of the army have made it as well. When I was, well, in the army they started to evacuate the politicians and other important dignitaries to the prisons and guarded them with armed soldiers. Perhaps they’re all still there, who knows?”

  “What worried me is that if any large groups have survived they’re going to have very different ideas on how the country is to be run,” said Kit darkly.

  “Now that’s thinking ahead,” I replied approvingly with a thin smile. “For now I’d say everybody is going to be like us, trying to survive from day to day. Of course if the army did turn up tomorrow and proclaimed it was going to rescue us all I daresay we’d be in no position to object. For myself I’d rather just be left alone.”

  “Do you hate people that much?” Asked Kit. “Or are you just that sure of your own abilities?”

  I flicked my cigarette over the side of the tower. “Maybe a bit of both.”

  The rest of the day passed relatively uneventfully. I went to see Frey in the vestry but he was busy with plans, writing and drawing on reams of paper, producing diagrams I didn’t understand. I chatted him for a while then left him to it. We all ate together once more and then afterwards I retreated back into the clock room and tried to sleep. I must have drifted off for several hours when I was awoken. The rapping at the door was slow, rhythmic, desperate and somehow completely inhuman. It echoed across the ancient walls of the church instilling a strange terror in the hearts of those who had already survived so much. I leapt out of bed and looked out through the narrow slit in the window, estimating the time to be well past midnight. I crept downstairs. From a long way off I could hear the ripple of terror the revenant’s a
ppearance was causing. The two children were crying and I heard Jeanette Frey trying to comfort them. I took up the hammer and made my way out of the side door. Paul and Kit went to join me but I ushered them back inside. “He knows we’re in here,” I said in a low voice. “I’ve come to know that whine by now. If we don’t finish it off it’ll attract others and then we’ll find out just how well those defences stand up to the swarm. We need to deal with this as quietly as possible.”

  I could have opened the porch door and killed it as it rushed in but I did not especially want to horrify the others still further with a bloodbath killing that would have to be cleaned up the following day. I was fearful of a swarm but the churchyard was swathed in darkness and eerily quiet save for the sinister knocking on the other side of the building. I made my way in a large arc around the church and to the main door where I came upon the beast making its desperate assault upon the door. I tried to sneak up on it but the thing must have had enhanced senses or something. The revenant ceased his knocking and leapt towards me without hesitation, bowling himself towards me. I caught its head on the side and part of its skull caved in. I stepped back in satisfaction as it fell and went to drag it out of the way. As I took hold of its foot it came back to life once more, as though catching me in a trap and I leapt back just before the thing clamped its jaws down upon my hand. The thing turned quickly and now crawled fast towards me. I staggered back instinctively and promptly fell head over heels over a gravestone, the hammer clattering out of my hands. I kicked out as the revenant went to seize my leg and by a sheer stroke of luck heard a sickening crack as my boot connected with its nose. I rolled out of the way and leapt to my feet as the revenant was starting to climb the headstone it a bid to raise itself and delivered another heft ick to the head which sent it sprawling to the side. I fumbled for my hammer, found it, rose up and proceeded to pummel its head into oblivion.

  I poked the revenant a few times with my hammer. Once bitten twice shy. This time, to my great relief, the thing was definitely dead. I rolled it over on to its back and made to drag it away to the ditch where I would bury it first thing tomorrow. As I did so the moonlight alighted upon it’s caved in face. There was still enough of it left to ascertain the features and I realised that I recognised the revenant from the other day. It was Farrow. I tried to cast my mind back to the initial news reports I’d heard on the radio in the prison about the cause of the outbreak and the psychological makeup of the revenants. It would seem certain that the revenant Farrow had deliberately made his way back to the church. Was this because some primitive part of his brain still functioned and he knew this was the best place to find living meat?

  “You must have had them come by before?” I asked Thorpe when I had made my way back inside the church.

  “Yes but from a distance,” replied the Reverend. “They’ve never purposely started knocking on the doors before.”

  I decided not to tell the others that it had been Farrow. There was no need to alarm them any further.

  Nobody slept well for the rest of that night, naturally enough, but on reflection maybe the revenant Farrow’s appearance was a good thing that warned us of the dangers of getting too complacent. The danger was still all around and even significant victories could soon be undone at a lapse of concentration. Now, however, was the time to progress and in the morning I went once more to see Frey in the vestry. The carpenter didn’t seem to have slept well either and rubbed his eyes blearily as he drank his morning tea. “I’ve been thinking about this project all night,” said Frey. “And this morning I went out to survey the land. It’s a big project, there’s no denying that, and its unusual too. When it’s done it needs to be structurally sound, and I mean tight as a drum and for that we’re going to need some of the best materials.”

  “What do you have in mind?” I asked him.

  “What we need more than anything are good, solid fence posts,” said Frey. “If we can knock the fence posts in we can build the passageway of whatever other old wood and boards we can find. But we need a solid foundation, especially with a long line running a hundred yards and going over some uneven ground. Speaking of which some cement or concrete would be good as well.”

  “So where will we find that?”

  “In the town,” said Frey simply. “Not the town of course, but there’s a smaller market town just eight miles away where there’s a lumber yard. I used to get all my materials there before all this started up.”

  “Do you know the town well?” I asked him, my mind already weighing up the risks.

  “It was my home,” said Frey solemnly. “When I fled a fortnight ago the place was overrun. It’ll be overrun now.”

  “I see,” I said thoughtfully. “How badly do we need those fence posts?”

  “We can’t make the tunnel without timber,” replied Frey. “And if we want the thing to have any staying power, to stand up to the revenants, we’re going to need good wood.”

  I thought hard. We needed to create this project, my years in prison told me that. In prison boredom is the worst thing. If we all stayed here in this church, living from day to day, it would not be long before we were at one another’s throats. It was the way of the human race, to always be advancing, always expanding. Even here at our lowest point it was no different. We needed to be kept busy. We needed to have hope. The farmhouse offered us warmth and comfort, fires and light. You would not be able to put a price on such things come the winter months. “Fine,” I said at last. “If we’re going to go we’ll go today, before we’ve had a chance to dwell on it too closely. I’ll go and call up Paul and Kit.”

  “I’ll come with you,” said Frey. “We might have to make a few journeys and we’ll need the tools as well.”

  “Are you sure?” I said doubtfully. “Lose you and the whole project could go up in smoke.”

  “Nice to know you’re so concerned for my welfare,” laughed Frey.

  “You know what I mean,” I replied lightly. “You’ve not been out very much, not done many raids. Sure you can handle it?”

  “You go and see the state of that town I escaped from and you’ll see well enough I can handle myself,” said Frey.

  Frey made to get himself ready whilst I went to fetch Kit and Paul. I did not like having to rely on the two of them all the time and hated to think what the worry must be doing to Thorpe. Lose his only daughter and it was possible he might break down completely. The two listened carefully to the plan. “Sure you’re not leading us directly into a suicide mission?” Asked Kit.

  “The place may be overrun but Frey tells me the lumber yard is surrounded by strong chain link fencing,” I said. “There’s a good chance it will have held. And besides, it isn’t as if we’re going to be travelling on foot. That truck over there looks sturdy enough, it’s well maintained and it’s got more than enough diesel. If things get too hairy it isn’t as if we even need to get out of the vehicle.”

  “There are always risks with those things,” said Kit darkly. “You know that as well as anyone.”

  “Look,” I said with a sigh. “We need to get this passageway finished if we’re to have any chance of long term stability. It’s cold enough in that church as it is and I for one don’t fancy having to forage for fuel to feed that generator all winter. Get into the church and we’ll have proper fires and we can use those fires for light as well. We’ll hardly need electricity at all, if only we can make the place secure.”

  My argument won the day and we set out an hour later. I drove. Paul and Frey sat next to one another. Kit, as the smallest of the group, sat in the generous storage space behind the seats and against the window. We were armed as best we could. I had my trusty hammer in the back whilst Kit had the gun. Paul carried a tyre iron whilst Frey had the baseball bat and we all had a multitude of small knives concealed about our persons, not that they would do much good if we were to lose our main weapon.

  “What about the swarms?” Asked Paul.

  “We’re avoiding them,” I
told him. “I went up to see Hammond on the tower just before we left and he pointed out where the swarms are.”

  “Are there any where we’re going?”

  “Yeah the whole fucking town is a swarm which is why we’re going to have to tread extra carefully.”

  “Great,” muttered Paul, sounding deeply downhearted.

  “It won’t be as bad as that,” I told him cheerfully, wishing I could feel as confident as I sounded. “We’ll be in the van most of the way which I’ve checked over and is in top shape.”

  “There’s also a fence around the builder’s yard,” put in Frey. “Hopefully the revenants won’t have breached it.”

  “And if they have?” Asked Paul. Nobody spoke. We all knew what that would mean.

  As we came closer to the town we found the road was blocked with vehicles and often there was no way around them. We had to drive back the way we came and find another route which inevitably delayed us even further. The revenants also became more frequent as we drove closer. Sometimes we were able to leave them behind in our wake. Sometimes, when we were blocked in by the piled up traffic, we had to reverse and nudge them out of the way. They banged their fists on the windows, leaving bloodied handprints in their wake and it was a nervous time to get away from them before they caved the windows in completely. I drove as slowly as possible in as high a gear as possible in a bid to quieten the engine. The revenants still saw us of course and came out after us. I knocked them out of the way but tried to avoid driving straight into them. The last thing we needed was to write off our only vehicle and become stranded in the middle of nowhere.

  This town was in nowhere near as poor a state as the one I had originally fled from. There was still blood on the road, corpses shot through the head and lying sprawled beside the road, burned out vehicles and the occasional makeshift barricade, and the revenants were still thick but there were not swarms on every corner as they had been in the larger town. I kept an eye out for survivors but at this stage I was hardly hopeful. Unfortunately the lumber mill was located a quarter of a mile out from the town centre which means we would have to drive through the thick of whatever was there.