(I know some of you were hoping for some more action this chapter; upon my re-edit, I'll be changing a lot of the pacing, but for now I'm sorry you'll have to put up with more of Aubrey moaning)

4. The Hospital

Lottie didn’t return after the mysterious walkie-talkie message. She’d dashed off pretty suddenly, leaving Aubrey staring out of the window until the sun dipped behind the tall buildings and the sky went dark. The things, the Crawlers, had stayed milling in the street below for a good few hours, then split up and crawled away in different directions. Several of them had scampered off together, like they were chasing something. They were worse than any zombie Aubrey had seen on TV or in the movies. Traces of their old lives clung to their rotting flesh: long hair, a tattoo, an earring. One of them still had clothes on. A purple fleece and pink slippers. She looked fresher than the others, her skin still a glistening pink instead of a slimy grey. She looked like a mum. Someone’s mum. 

She tried to ignore thinking about her parents. About Macey. But the thought of them crawling around in the gutters and the dumpsters down there made her sick. 

Though she tried to fight the sleep, she wasn’t strong enough. The crash came back to her in hot flashes throughout the night: the blinding sunlight ahead of them, Macey’s fingers tapping the steering wheel in rhythm with Taylor Swift, their awful harmonies sung so loud they could barely hear the music. Then the panicking, the beeping, the swerving, the crashing. She turned to Macey in the driver's seat, but she wasn’t there.

A crawler snarled back at her, snapping her awake. 

‘Morning, my lovely,’ Lottie said as she pushed open the doors to the empty ward. ‘Sorry I left you last night. Things are a bit hectic around here.’

Her bed had been wheeled away from the window in her sleep, and now a wheelchair sat next to it. Aubrey glared groggily at the wheelchair. She pinched the skin on her legs. ‘I play football. I can walk, you just need to let me try again.’ She picked up her left leg and tried to drag it off the bed like yesterday, but Lottie stopped her.

‘You can try again, but not right now.’ Lottie said gently, moving her leg back. ‘I’d rather not pick your chin off the floor like yesterday.’

‘Am I paralysed?’ she asked, a wobble in her voice. ‘Like, forever?’

Lottie gulped. ‘You’d have to ask Ravi, I’m sorry.’ 

‘Go get him, then.’

‘I can’t, he’s ever so busy doing his morning rounds.’ Lottie walked over to the chair and gave it a playful push. It was an ugly thing. The black frame had been scuffed, one footrest was missing, and there were deep scratches along the arms. Something sticky clung to the right handlebar. Aubrey stared at it like it might bite her.

‘Oh, do give it a chance, dear,’ Lottie said. ‘I cleaned the seat.’

There was no way she’d get into the chair by herself. Wasn’t there supposed to be some sort of transfer disk, the plastic thing you slide under a person and slide them onto the chair? She remembered that from an episode of some old soap she used to watch with her mum on Friday evenings. Fish and chips for dinner, crap telly on, her mum would have a glass of wine – no, no, she couldn’t think about that. Not now. Now she had to be strong, and get out of this dump.

‘Can you... Help me?’ she asked, trying to sound normal.

Lottie gave a gentle nod and began lifting her under the arms. Being picked up off the floor last night was bad enough, but this was worse than expected. She’d never realised how heavy her own body was. Lottie guided her into the chair, limbs flopping, legs dragging behind her. It felt undignified; less like a human and more like a sack of laundry. The seat was slightly too small for her, and the armrests dug into her side.

‘It’s only temporary, I swear.’ Lottie said as she adjusted the brake. ‘We have a better chair, and when little Marnie’s broken foot is healed, you can have it.’

Aubrey didn’t answer. Surely she deserved the chair more, seeing as she was most likely paralysed, much worse than a poxy broken foot.

‘Ready for a little tour of the hospital?’ Lottie asked.

‘Don’t really have a choice, do I?’

Lottie pushed the chair out of the doors and they rolled down the corridor together in silence, aside from the squeaking of the wheels every few metres. The hospital looked deserted. Several of the wards were boarded up or had big signs saying ‘DO NOT ENTER’ pinned to the door. There were spools of unravelled bandages strung along the floor and empty crisp packets and bloody footprints, and a God awful smell coming from the toilets.  

‘I’ll take you to the canteen, that’s where everyone hangs out,’ Lottie said, turning a corner. They passed the stairs, where two boys in white coats were fiddling with an old radio. ‘They’re trying to fix it so we can listen to the CryCast again. It cut out last night.’

‘CryCast?’

‘It’s how we get news now. There’s a guy who does a broadcast each night. He often changes the frequency in case the Crawlers hear it.’

‘They can understand us?’

Lottie rounded another corner. ‘Well, we don’t know, but it’s best not to take chances any more. Ravi thinks they’re learning from us.’

‘So what news does this guy have to tell? Is he an adult?’ Aubrey asked, hoping maybe there might be some sort of order, some sort of responsible grown-up still alive out there.

‘Oh, no, he’s a teenager, like us. And he gives updates on all sorts of things really, like what roads are clear from crawlers and what directions the hordes are headed. Mainly he’s just trying to reunite friends and family. People will go to the safe space, and then he broadcasts their name and who they’re looking for.’

‘Have you heard the name Macey? Macey Ernest-White?’

‘Sorry, like I said, it cut out last night,’ Lottie said as they finally reached the canteen. She pushed Aubrey through the double doors, revealing a messy and cramped hall that looked more like a refugee camp than a hospital. Someone had strung fairy lights across the ceiling, presumably in an attempt to make it look homey, but it looked like something out of Stranger Things. A long table in the middle had been turned into a kind of supply depot, scattered with everything from cutlery to weapons. About a dozen or so kids were milling around, some eating slop from chipped bowls, others playing with a deck of tattered cards. A girl in a wheelchair, Marnie, presumably, was staring solemnly out the window. A toddler sat on the floor, stacking plastic cups while a lanky girl in a hoodie read aloud from a dog-eared book. 

Heads turned as Aubrey entered, their tired eyes trained on her. They looked like orphans. They looked like actors, cast to play street waifs in a production of Oliver Twist. This whole set-up seemed like a movie set. Or like a dream. She hoped she was still in the coma and this was her mind punishing her for every terrible thing she’d ever thought, said, or let happen in her entire life. But if it was real, it might also be a punishment from God, for not believing in him, for not praying at school when they were supposed to. 

‘This is our sleeper from ward six,’ Lottie announced, disrupting her thoughts. ‘Everyone, meet Aubrey.’

There was a moment of silence, then a few awkward waves. One of the boys playing cards stood up and walked over from the back of the room. He looked maybe seventeen, with messy dark hair, a long white jacket, and a strange, closed expression that made him hard to read. He smiled and offered a hand that Aubrey was reluctant to take. When she did, she found it cold.

‘I’m the Doctor, but you can call me Ravi,’ he smiled, shaking her hand. ‘I’m in charge around here. I do hope Lottie’s been keeping you… comfortable.’

‘She has,’ Aubrey said cautiously. She couldn’t put her finger on what, but there was just something about Ravi that she didn’t like. His tone, his demeanour, even his eyes; they just all seemed fake. Detached. He weirdly reminded her of Macey.

‘Good,’ he said, a little too brightly. ‘We’ll leave you here to get settled in, and then we’ll see about starting some physio for you.’ He turned around and gestured at the girl in the hoodie. ‘Neus, why don’t you fetch some food for our guest and show her to a bed?’

What sort of a name was Neus? Spanish? The girl put down the book and stood up, revealing a pale, gaunt face with angular cheeks. She didn’t look Spanish. She nodded, barely looking at Ravi, keeping her eyes on the floor.

‘Great, I’ll leave you to it. Come on, Lottie, work’s waiting!’

Ravi strolled out of the room, hands in his pockets. Lottie scurried along behind him, leaving Aubrey idling in the wheelchair. When the doors swung closed, a murmur of chatter resumed, and Neus looked less worried.

‘You hungry?’ the girl asked. There was a hint of northern in her accent, but Aubrey couldn’t place where. ‘We don’t have much choice.’

Without asking, Neus pushed the wheelchair towards the metal serving hatch in the wall on the left side of the room, weaving around tables and the occasional camp bed. That was strange, surely; the hospital had enough free wards for everyone to have their own bed. So why were some kids camping in here? Aubrey could barely see over the counter at the hatch, having to strain her neck to see the spotty teenage boy who was standing behind it. He scooped up some gruel and plopped it into a bowl, then held it out awkwardly, leaning over the counter to hand it down to her. It was probably porridge, but the gloopy consistency made it look like some sort of oaty slime.

Neus rolled the chair over to a table and parked it. ‘You need anything else, just ask me. Books, paper, pens, hair and skincare, whatever it is, I can get it. I can do a run into town later. You look like you could do with some new clothes.’

‘You go out there? With those things crawling everywhere?’ Aubrey said, poking at the sludge in the bowl. 

‘Yeah, that’s my job. I know the safe routes now. I’m skinny, as you can tell, so I can slip through windows. The hospital had been ransacked pretty badly by the time Ravi took over, so we have to go out to get food.’

‘How did Ravi get in charge?’

‘His dad was a doctor here, a surgeon. Um, so, like exactly how much has Lottie told you about what happened?’ Neus asked, itching at her face with a pale and slender finger.

‘Not much,’ Aubrey said through a mouthful of the gruel, which tasted pretty much as awful as it looked. ‘She said there was some sort of meteor crash and all the adults got infected with some disease that turns them into those things outside. And that for some miracle reason it doesn’t affect kids. Just the basics, y’know.’ 

‘Right, okay, so she skipped all the gritty details, of course she did,’ Neus laughed nervously, pushing her hoodie sleeves up. Her forearms were littered with deep, old scars. ‘I’ll fill you in, if you want. About the hospital, at least.’

‘Go ahead,’ Aubrey grumbled. ‘Seems I missed out on the best bits, being in a coma and all.’

‘Look, it’s… You didn’t have to go through it. I’m not trying to downplay your injuries and your coma or nothing, but the rest of us had to live through it. You might actually be the only person who didn’t live through it and is still, well, living.’ Neus laughed. ‘I was already in the hospital. Ravi’s Dad was the one looking after me. I was on a drip and all this stuff, very dramatic. Anyway,’ she said, clearing her throat, clearly not wanting to talk about that bit. ‘It started pretty slow. This isn’t a big hospital, y’know, so we were okay. The infection was just a story on the news. Like COVID. My parents decided to come and basically camp out next to my bedside; I think they thought I was gonna die. But then people started going rabid, crazy. They started clearing out the big city hospitals, turning them into quarantine stations. Before then, we’d been fine here, just watching it on the telly. But then Daddy just had to nip out to have a ciggie and get attacked by some rando. Of course, yep, it was my dear old dad who brought the infection into the hospital. It all went to shit pretty quickly. Most people ran, but a lot of us couldn’t. I watched kids I knew get torn into pieces.’

Neus continued, her voice lower now. ‘The doctors tried to help at first, tried to fight it. Ravi’s dad was one of them, doing all this research, which he probably wasn’t even qualified to do. Ravi claims even he was helping out. But no one understood what it was. We still don’t. Basically, the infection doesn’t spread like a normal virus. It’s like… like something gets inside them. Some people call it a parasite. Some think it must be alien. Others, ahem, not me, but others, think it’s not even alive at all, more like… a signal. From the crash site, controlling them.’

Aubrey blinked. ‘A signal?’

Neus nodded slowly, tapping a finger to her temple. ‘You’d have to ask some of the boys. They said it’s something that, like, rewires them, makes the Crawlers violent, animalistic. But they’re not stupid. They’re not ill, not mentally. Some of them think. They stalk. They mimic.’ She looked around, ensuring no one else was listening. ‘I shouldn’t be telling you this. Ravi’s been studying them. He thinks they’re evolving.’

Aubrey didn’t know what to say. Her mouth was dry, her thoughts jumbling in ways that made no sense. She wanted to ask more, to dig deeper, but her voice caught in her throat. Instead, she just stared at Neus, trying to read her expression, trying to tell if she was exaggerating, lying, or just scared.

‘Look,’ Neus said quietly, ‘you’ll be okay here if you keep your head down. Lottie’s great, and the other kids are alright. Ravi… he’s smart. He’s not bad, but-’ she glanced around, making sure no one was listening. ‘He doesn’t really care about us. You can tell. We’re all just a bit of a ‘hindrance’ to his ‘research’, apparently,’ she said with air quotes.

‘Is that why you’re sleeping on the floor, in here? Seemed like there were plenty of other rooms.’

Neus shrugged. ‘He has his favourites.’

Aubrey planted her hands on the wheels of the chair and tried rolling herself back for the first time. It was harder than it looked. Her arms were still weak, her balance was off, and the chair’s left wheel stuck slightly with every turn, so when she rolled backwards, she backed straight into another table. But she did it. Slowly, shakily, she moved herself. 

‘Where are you going?’ Neus leapt up. ‘We’re supposed to get you a bed next.’

‘If the floor is good enough for you, then it is for me,’ she replied, gaining momentum. ‘I want to talk to Ravi.’

‘Didn’t you listen?’ Neus frowned, trailing after her. ‘He’ll just fob you off. He’s busy. Always is.’

‘Didn’t seem busy when he was playing cards just now,’ she replied. ‘I just want to see what kind of person puts himself in charge of all this.’ As the words left her mouth, a small, uneasy part of her wondered if she might regret it. But this was a new world, and perhaps she had to be someone new. Less like Aubrey, more like Macey. She rolled forward, determined to gain some sort of power in this place.