Plague Of The Revenants by Edward Chilvers Page B

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.”
    I took up the hammer, strode towards the car doors and opened them up quickly, brandishing the hammer in my hand. If a revenant stuck its filthy rotting head out I did not leave it a fraction of a second before painting its brains across the dashboard. At one point a revenant lunged over the cars and slid towards me, landing on a heap on the floor the other side. I leapt nimbly over the bonnets and brought the hammer crashing down upon its skull. Paul and Kit went in next, helping themselves and loading any goods they found on to the truck. I was right. These cars were better prepared than the ones we had seen crashed in the ditch. Sometimes I caught Kit watching me as I despatched the beasts and I could have sworn there was horror in her eyes. That was too bad. If we both survived long enough to work together she would see me do far worse than that. I didn’t bother with the revenants that were stuck. We steered clear of them as much as possible and I only dealt with them if they started to climb over the bonnets. I was more concerned about their ungodly moans which were disconcerting at the best of times. Here and there we saw the signs of struggle. We saw windows that had been caved in, blood all over the road, even a severed limb in places. On one or two cars I actually saw bullet holes. Each car told its own little story, but there was no time for that right now.
    Kit and Paul came out with rucksacks and bags. There was no time to check these just yet. They went straight into the back of the truck. We worked fast but we were careful too. Unfortunately I saw no opportunity to take one of the vehicles to replace the one lost the previous day. What with the modern electronics the batteries on most of them had long since worn down and besides, they were packed in far too close to be turned around. I saw several revenants stumbling amongst the cars and I did not doubt there would also be some crawlers ready to reach up and grab our legs given half the chance. I warned the others accordingly and at the same time kept my eyes peeled and struck only when there was imminent danger. I was more concerned about the noise they