Plague Of The Revenants (13 page)

As we approached the highway the ominous smell of
burning began to pervade through into the van. I looked ahead and saw smoke rising just ahead so I slowed the vehicle and flashed the lights to attract Kit’s attention from behind. We turned on to the hard shoulder and I slowed to a stop and looked on in horror. Straight ahead of us, as far as I could see, was row after row of useless, burnt out cars. I stopped the car on the flyover and leapt out. The others joined me a moment later. “What happened here?” asked Kit in wonderment.
“Somebody came through and burned them to the ground systematically,” I said darkly. “And by that they must have had some serious weaponry. Organised too.”
“Like the army?” Said Gloria hopefully. “Maybe this means there’s help after all?”
“Don’t be so sure,” I muttered.
“So what do we do now?” Asked Stan. “You said there was going to be food, Grant. How the hell are we going to survive if there’s no food?”
“We’ll have to find somewhere else,” I said quickly. “It isn’t the end of the world and even you’ve scavenged before.”
“This is a disaster,” breathed Stan, his voice close to panic. “An absolute fucking disaster.”
“Simmer down,” I told him sharply, my eyes picking their way through the smouldering wrecks, many of which were still warm, indicating that whoever did this may not be that far away. There was nothing left of any use. Everything had been burned.
“Could this have been an accident?” Asked Kit. “A lightning strike or something?”
“No chance,” I muttered. “This was a deliberate act. I don’t know if they took everything then burned the cars or just set fire to them so nobody else could reap their spoils but one things for sure; if they have taken all the supplies they must be one hell of a large group to need to feed that many people.”
“What are we going to do?” Asked Dev. “We were relying on those cars. How are we going to feed everyone if we can’t gather up supplies?”
“We need to move on,” I said with determination, trying to conceal my deep sense of unease.
“Move on to what?”
I thought fast. “There must be something else,” I said at last. “We can’t go back empty handed, even if we only get food enough for a week.”
“It also means it’s going to be a hell of a lot harder to clear this highway,” said Paul. “Whoever did this was blocking the roads for anybody else.”
“This has fucked us,” said Gloria, her voice close to panic. “I thought you said we were going to loot these cars and come back with enough to spare for months? What the hell are we going to do now?”
“Shut up,” I told her harshly, although she was right of course.
“Maybe they were trying to do people a favour burning it all away,” said Kit, although she did not sound at all hopeful. “There aren’t many revenants around this way. Maybe they looted everything from the cars then set fire to the cars to get rid of the revenants.”
“Don’t assume such good intentions,” I told her darkly. “Whoever had the resources to do this must be approached warily.”
I picked my way amongst the burnt out wreckage as best I could. Here and there I saw charred bodies but whether these had belonged to revenants or the unturned it was impossible to say.
“We can’t compete with people who operate like this,” said Paul. “Even if they don’t mean us any hard they’re still going to suck the land dry of supplies.”
I looked past the flyover and towards the countryside beyond. “What’s up this way?” I asked Kit.
“Just a few scattered villages and farms,” she replied. “Same as what we’ve been used to back at the base.”
“Any big superstores? Warehouses?”
“Nothing unless you’re prepared to go back to town,” she replied with a shrug.
“A death sentence to go back there,” I muttered. I took a deep breath. “Come on,” I told them. “We’ll cross over the flypast and see what else we can find. Everyone will be worried enough when we come back with this sort of news, even worse if we return empty handed.”
“You want to investigate,” said Kit quietly just before we parted to our respective vehicles.
“I do,” I acknowledged. “I’m not going to put us at unnecessary risk but if they did this then they’ll have left more signs. I want to see just what we’re up against.”
Stan and Gloria looked pretty despondent that we weren’t going back straight away although at least they didn’t have to raid through the cars. I drove the car over the flyover and through the smoke, back into the open countryside and whatever hidden dangers lurked beyond it.

We drove back up the hard shoulder and on to the flypast. We came on to the outskirts of a smallish market town that was crawling with revenants who came out to meet us as we drove. I quickly discounted the prospect of looting anywhere near here, although acknowledged that circumstances
might force us back for supplies should things become more desperate over the winter. The revenants were really thick in numbers and sometimes almost blocked us in, but not quite. I drove away from them and far into the countryside, away from any trace of civilisation. Something caught my eye along the road. I slowed the truck to a stop. Kit pulled up her truck behind me. “What are you doing?” Asked Stan.
“Look at that,” I said, getting out of the truck and pointing to a mound of revenants lying piled by the side of the road.
“Better off that way,” muttered Stan.
“Never mind that what I want to know is who did this?” I said gravely, going over to bend over the bodies as Kit and Paul also approached having pulled up behind me. “Look at this.” I pointed at the annihilated skull of one of the creatures. “I’m no military expert but this wasn’t done by some mere shotgun shell. Look at the trail of bullets going up its body. A machine gun did this.”
“So there are other survivors,” said Kit frankly. “That’s a good thing though, surely? Especially if they’ve got food and guns. We should try and find them and make contact?”
“Perhaps,” I said worriedly. “Or perhaps they’re the same group who ambushed the Marstons’ party. We need to take care. Right now I’m almost as worried about other survivors as I am about the revenants themselves.”
I turned the truck away from the town and drove off down a side road, hoping we’d come to some isolated houses or something which my hold even a few supplies. I drove slowly, and was instinctively on edge, my eyes scanning the road ahead for signs of danger. Stan and Gloria were chatting away incessantly in a sort of moronic panic and they were really starting to get on my nerves, but I could not tell them to shut up without losing my temper and now more than ever was the time to keep a cool head. As we drove I saw more dead revenants lying shot by the side of the road, more burnt out cars pushed to one side.
In time I turned off and we entered into a small village. Driving along the main street we came across a pub. I saw that the windows had been boarded up, seemingly recently and I wondered if there might be survivors inside, or if not perhaps there were some supplies. I pulled the truck up into the car park and got out, hammer at the ready. I regarded the building warily and saw some of the barricades seemed to have been torn down, although whether through revenant attack or the machinations of the as yet unseen force could not be told. A few revenants came in to follow us. I turned and regarded them, seeing if I could discern anything from their clothes. But their get up was entirely civilian.

I proceeded to make an inspection of the immediate area.
In the car park of the pub were eight bodies, each shot through the head. We approached and regarded them with trepidation and I saw straight away that the bodies were human, in that they had not had time to turn. “Show me the map,” I ordered. Kit quickly produced it and passed it over, pointing out our position. “Twenty miles from home,” I muttered gravely. “Whoever did this might still be close.”
“This was another group of survivors,” said Kit gravely. “There were only seven of them but they had made it. Until somebody came along and did this.”
“It looks like they put up quite a fight,” said Paul.
“And look at this,” I said as I pointed. “All of them shot then finished off with a bullet to the head so they couldn’t turn. Whoever did this knew exactly what they were doing. It was clinical. It was clever. They’re not dead long either, nor were those cars long burned out. Whoever did this may still be very close indeed.”
At that moment Stan and Gloria let out a cry of panic. I turned around to see a single revenant which now lumbered out of the hedge and lurched towards us and I was struck by the sash it wore around its body and by the militaristic, almost mercenary uniform. I strode forward and swung the hammer hard into its head, felling it with a single blow. Then, when I was sure it was dead for the last time, bent down to inspect its body. “Not long turned by the looks of it,” I mused. “And look at the sash; it appears to have been deliberately sewn on to the green shirt.”
“You mean somebody has actually been making uniforms?” Said Kit with trepidation.
“That’s right,” I said. “And the only reason people wear uniforms is so that they can be singled out by the rest of the crowd. Seems like somebody is trying to mount a more organised fight back, although their true intentions remain to be seen.”

I
now completed a circuit of the pub and noticed that a side door which had previously been boarded up was now split wide open, as if it had been smashed in with a battering ram. I narrowed my eyes and peered inside, seeing nothing but darkness in the pale winter’s light. I snapped my fingers for the flashlight, which Dev quickly passed to me, flicked it on and stepped cautiously inside. I saw at once we were in the kitchen. The stainless steel units were still intact but covered with a thin layer of dust. Looking down I saw several sets of footprints leading to the bar area. The others had followed me inside. I opened up a few cupboards in search of food but there were nothing except indistinguishable mould. I approached the door to the bar and pressed my ear against it but there was no sound. Just then something growled in the dark. I swung my flashlight around but at that moment Stan let out a cry and rushed past me back through the door, knocking the torch out of my hands as he went. The torch clattered to the floor and the beam shone uselessly against the corner of the bar. I dropped to my knees to retrieve it but at that moment a great heavy weight that was akin to a deadweight sack of potatoes landed on top of me and my nostrils were immediately filled with the foul smell of putrefaction. I felt the hammer slip from my hands. I heard cries from the others and I wondered if we had been assailed but at that moment the weight was suddenly lifted off me. I seized up the torch and shone it around in time to see the revenant send Kit flying against the corner. The revenant now advanced upon her. I was up in a moment and raised the torch aloft, charging forwards and leapt upon the revenant’s back, smashing the metal end of the torch hard against its head. The two of us clattered to the floor but the revenant now drew upon its full primeval strength and forced its head and upper body towards me. Suddenly I felt a splash of blood and the revenant went limp. Kit picked up the torch and shone it upon me. Dev stood above both myself and the revenants with a long carving knife that now dripped black blood. “Are you alright?” Kit asked me urgently. “Bitten?”
“Don’t think so,” I replied, getting unsteadily to my feet, taking the torch and spending a good minute checking myself over for signs I might be infected. Fortunately I came back clean.
I bent down and started to examine the revenant. It was male, probably around forty years old when it was alive and quite a substantial weight which went some way to explaining its abnormal strength. “Look at this,” I said at last, pointing the flashlight at a darkened hole to the right of the revenant’s chest. “A bullet wound. Somebody tried to finish this thing off before we got to it.”
“Maybe it doesn’t mean anything,” suggested Paul. “Perhaps the guy tried to finish itself off when he got bitten, or maybe somebody else got bitten, finished it off then turned themselves.”
“Possible,” I acknowledged. “But let’s look around.”

We completed a circuit of the bar and restaurant area but found nothing unusual
except that the place appeared to have been thoroughly looted. In the end there was nothing left to do except return to the truck, emptied handed once more but with a headful of unanswered questions to go with it. Stan and Gloria had locked themselves into the truck. I strode up to the truck and rapped hard upon the window. “Open the fucking door,” I instructed, trying to control my temper. “Open up you fucking cowards or I’ll smash it in, drag you out, shoot you through the kneecaps and leave you for the revenants to pick at.” Maybe I was being too harsh on them. I didn’t care. For now there was nothing for it except to go back to the van and admit defeat. Before doing so we congregated once more in the car park where an urgent discussion took place. As I looked at the sky I could see we only had around ninety minutes of daylight left, too late to go out looking for supplies especially given the scale of the threat we might well be facing.
“We’ve only got food for the next couple of days,” said Kit. “We’ve just sat back recently and enjoyed having moved into the farmhouse. Sure, we’ve been around the houses in our area but that’s hardly going to last us. Last time we went scavenging from house to house we lost a lot of people.”
“We’re going to have to go back to scavenging,” said Paul, sounding deeply downhearted. “But then who knows we won’t run into whoever did this?”
“Starvation rations it is,” I said with a heavy sigh. “It was fool of us to allow us to get this low. We should have come back the following day and looted those cars, then we wouldn’t be in this position.”
“Perhaps we could head for town?” Suggested Dev hopefully. “Find a supermarket or something?”
“Towns are a death-trap,” said Kit.
“They are,” I agreed. “But it won’t be long before we’re too desperate not to do it.”
“Maybe we should go on,” said Kit. “It would be awful to come back empty handed.”
“It’s getting dark,” said Paul. “If there are any enemies about they’ll see our headlights.”
“You’re right,” I acknowledged. “We should head back home. We’ve got information and some idea as to what we’re up against. We’ll have to spend the next few days scavenging closer to home.”
And so we began the long ride home. It felt like a retreat from an invading army, which was exactly what it was in a way. And to think I imagined the revenants would prove our only concern. “This is fucking great,” whinged Stan, his tone the manner of a sulking teenager. “We’ve got nothing. No food and we almost got killed in the process.
“Shut up!” I snapped angrily, my patience snapping at last. “Just shut both your fucking mouths do you hear me? If I have one more self-pitying word out of either of you I’ll let you out of this truck and you can fend for yourselves from hereon in. It’s not like you haven’t leeched off us non-stop from the moment you got here. You were supposed to prove yourselves today but have you done that? Well have you? It was for your sake as well as everyone else because I sure as hell aren’t the only one getting sick to the back teeth of the both of you.”
Stan shrugged and at that moment I noticed her was holding his coat tight. “Just what in the fuck is this?” I demanded, in a mixture of anger and amazement, as I reached into Stan’s coat and snatched the bottle of brandy he had been concealing since we set off back home. “where the fuck did you get this, huh?”
“In the pub,” said Stan weakly. “It’s medicinal. I was going to share it.”
“In the pub?” I repeated in astonishment. “You mean that same pub where you almost got me killed by the fucking revenant?” I would have gone further but at that moment there came a frantic beeping on the horn of Kit’s car and the flashing of lights. I slammed on the brakes of the truck and leapt out of the truck, hammer at the ready.
“It’s a potato field!” Exclaimed Kit, and she was actually smiling which was a rare occurrence for her. “We forgot all about the fields which would have been planted at the start of the year! We can fill up and take what we want and they’ll be even fresher than the ones you found at the supermarket.”
“Of course!” Exclaimed Paul. “The harvest is well overdue now and the potatoes should still be fresh in the ground.”
I knew nothing about farming matters and to be truthful would not have been able to tell a potato plant from a common weed but when I pulled the first plant from the ground and saw the rich crop underneath I needed no more convincing. We pulled the potatoes from the ground with gusto, gathering them up in our arms, stems and all, before dumping them back in the trucks. “Keep the stems as well,” I said with a lopsided smile. “I have a plan for them as well.” It was then I noticed that Stan and Gloria had remained in the truck, even after all I had said to them earlier. “Get out here,” I told them two of them crossly. “Get out there and prove yourselves. Do something useful for once in your lives.”