The Resurgence

By Marcella Denise Spencer

"…and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes in divers places…"

 

Colleen Davenport knew the end was near.  But not now, surely?  Now that she's found her dream job in London.  Now that she's gotten over her last relationship... Now the dead rise?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Marcella Denise Spencer
• Release date: Dec 19, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201538347

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The Resurgence is a work of fiction.  Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.  Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

2021 Hamitic Press

...and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes in divers places...

––––––––

Colleen Davenport knew the end was near.  But not now, surely?  Now that she’s found her dream job in London.  Now that she’s gotten over her last relationship... Now the dead rise?

***

Miles Alvingham had had quite enough, thank you.  He could not bear living in London another day.  He looked out at the city of his birth, the capital he’d once loved, where the rise in crime kept the police sirens sounding more than usual.  Emergency vehicle lights flashing through his bedroom’s venetian blinds kept waking him up.  Boarded storefronts, and many restaurants, his favorite pub included, were still closed.

His predecessors would normally come to London at this time of year for the Season. Three months of parties, soirées and balls that culminated in June, when they’d return to Weddlefield Manor in Shropshire.

This summer when Miles left London for the country, he wasn’t coming back. 

Somewhere in the last few years—the exact date he could not be certain—he had agreed with his mother’s thinking that his ancestral home was just a pile.  His title, elitist.  His history, one of excessive privilege.  Some of that was true, but he was grateful that he had that pile to go to now. 

His mother thought his keeping the estate was selfish; it should be opened to the world. But Miles was more of a traditionalist like his late father.  If he could afford to keep it his private home, he would do so. 

The pandemic had proven that he did not need to be in the office every day, and he certainly didn’t need to live in London.  All he needed was an internet connection at Weddlefield Manor.

Since the lockdowns, he had been spending more and more time at the Manor.  Creating a modern office space, doing small DIY projects, which he loved, and relishing the open spaces.

It took three weeks to pack up his London flat and move.  Now at sunset, Miles walked up the Manor’s circular cobbled driveway and looked up at the front façade of the house.  Built in the seventeenth century by the first earl of Weddlefield, the thirty-room mansion stood three levels high.  In the upper level were two attics, and rooms crammed with Holland covered furniture.  It seemed that every new lady of the house felt the need to update the furnishings.

Weddlefield Manor had a long, wide gallery where large, gilded portraits lined the wall.  Miles used to sit there on rainy days making up stories about his ancestors.  When he walked the corridor as a young adult, he gave his austere ancestors nary a glance. 

One dowager, clad in a purple gown and with a large amethyst stone necklace around her neck, appeared to look down her long nose at those who passed her portrait.  Her cheeks were heavily rouged, her high hair powdered.  This