(Author's Note: thank you for the amazing feedback on chapter one, I'm rewriting parts of it now! I hope you enjoy chapter two, and meeting one of my favourite characters in the story, the stubborn Aubrey! I hope the dual-narrative structure isn't too confusing!)

2. The Hospital

The last thing Aubrey Ernest remembered was the screams.

They echoed behind her eyelids, panicked, high-pitched, cut short by the sudden grinding crunch of metal. For a moment, she was still inside the car, strapped in the passenger seat, reaching out for Macey. Her fingers curled tightly around the door handle, bracing for a second impact, but it never came. The screams simply faded away, and slowly, she managed to open her eyes. There was no glass, no smoke, no crumpled Toyota, just a blinding white light coming from above, haloed in a ring of grime.

She must be in the hospital. The thought came sluggishly as she groggily regained consciousness. Macey had crashed the car, that much she remembered, but everything else was scattered and lost. She tried to grab at the memories, but she couldn’t grasp onto anything. What had they hit? Another car? A tree? A person? They’d been driving out by Brockenhurst, so surely she’d be at Lymington or Southampton General. She knew those hospitals well. Too well, with their endless waiting rooms plastered in children’s characters, the metallic tang in the air, the nasty vending machine coffee her mum used to buy. This didn’t look like either of them.

It was way too silent. Her ears strained for the usual hospital chorus, the sounds she’d learned to half-ignore over the years: the steady beep of the machines, gurney wheels squeaking on the linoleum floor, the mechanical rasp of the ventilator. None of it came. Just the low, insectile buzz of the ceiling lights.

She tried to sit up, instinctively pushing up with her arms, but her wrists buckled underneath her and she slipped back down onto the bed. There was an IV line in her arm. The sight of it made her stomach churn. She hated cannulas. Without thinking, she ripped it out. There was a sharp sting, then a hot trickle of blood, but she barely registered it. The quicker it was out, the better. She let it drop to the floor with a soft clatter, then tried again to sit up. 

‘Hello?’ she croaked, her throat dry and hoarse. The word broke apart into something closer to a gargle. She tried to move her legs. Nothing. She tried again, but they wouldn’t move. She tore the blanket off and stared at them, hiding beneath the light blue hospital gown she was wearing. No matter how hard she willed them to move, they stayed heavy, distant, like they belonged to someone else. Her toes wouldn’t even wiggle. Balling her hand into a fist, she raised her arm and then slammed it down on her right thigh.

No flinch. No pain. 

With shaking hands, she picked up one leg and dragged it to the side of the bed, then did the same with the other. It felt like lifting sacks of flour. Then, elbows locked, jaw clenched, she attempted to push herself up onto her feet. Her arms trembled under the strain, only managing to lift herself an inch or so before she flopped back onto the bed. 

Her breath quickened. The crash couldn’t have been that bad, could it? Not bad enough to take everything from her? She’d broken a leg before, mountain biking in Ceredigion with her dad, and that had been bad enough. Ten weeks of itchy plaster, and four whole months off football.

This was worse. This was unthinkable. She had to be able to walk. She took a deep breath in and then pushed herself up again, ignoring the sharp pain that suddenly shot up her spine. Her hands clawed at the mattress as she forced herself upright until her body was vertical.

Then, she let go.

Her legs buckled instantly. She hit the floor hard, slamming her chin against the metal railing of the bed next to her as she fell. No scream came out when she opened her mouth, and she refused to let the tears escape her eyes. Aubrey Ernest did not cry. Not over a boy, not over a death, and certainly not over a stupid car crash. 

‘Oh my goodness!’ came a high-pitched shriek from across the room, followed by soft footsteps. ‘You’re awake!’

‘Get off,’ Aubrey sulked, trying to pull herself up. ‘I’m fine, my legs are just asleep.’

‘Oh dear,’ the voice said. Aubrey looked up. A young nurse in white scrubs was standing over her with her hands on her hips. There was a walkie-talkie in her right hand that she placed down on the other bed. ‘I’m Lottie,’ she added, crouching down. ‘Don’t worry, you’re not the first one to end up on the floor, but you are the only one who’s woken up and immediately tried to take a Sunday afternoon stroll.’

Aubrey scowled. ‘My legs are fine. They just need a minute to wake up.’

‘Oh, honey,’ Lottie placed a hand on Aubrey’s shoulder. Then, gently but firmly, she said, ‘Your legs aren’t sleeping. They won’t wake up. You’ve had a spinal injury.’

Too quickly, Aubrey responded. ‘The crash wasn’t that bad.’

‘You were in a crash?’ Lottie’s eyes widened, and she pulled a notepad and pen out of her trouser pockets. ‘Can you tell me exactly what happened?’

‘Aren’t you supposed to know that?’ Aubrey scoffed. She pushed herself up with her arms, up into a sitting position. She tried again to stand, but after a few seconds her shoulders burned, her wrists slipped, and she sagged with a gasp back onto the linoleum. 

Lottie threaded each arm under Aubrey’s armpits and hauled her up onto the bed. It was only then that Aubrey noticed how young Lottie looked. In fact, she didn’t look much older than Aubrey herself. Maybe fifteen or sixteen. There were huge, dark circles under her eyes. 

‘You’re not a real nurse, are you?’ Aubrey said, squinting.

‘I’m sorry,’ Lottie said. ‘We’ve had to improvise since…’

‘Since what?’

‘Oh, God. I’m sorry. I haven’t had to do this yet. You were the only coma patient and–’ 

‘Coma?’ Aubrey interrupted, her voice sharp. ‘I was in a coma? For how long?’

Lottie winced. ‘About three months, maybe more. We couldn’t find your chart. You didn’t even have a wristband. You were ventilated when we first found you, and when the generators died, you kept breathing on your own. The backup generator kicked in, but we needed the ventilator for another patient. I’ve just been managing what I could. Fluids, hygiene, and turning you over so you didn’t get sores. The catheter, too.’

Aubrey stared at her like she’d grown another head. ‘Since what started? What are you talking about?’

Lottie looked down at her hands, then around the room, as if hoping someone else might appear and do this part for her. ‘Since the adults changed,’ she finally replied. Her eyes darted back and forth, like she was trying to remember a script. ‘A meteor, or an asteroid, hit central London in June. It lit up the whole sky in red and orange clouds. It shut down all the transport. Lots of people were injured. People were panicking. Thought it was a terrorist attack. And then…’

She paused, picking at the seam of her sleeve. 

‘Then what?’

‘Then people started to get sick.’

‘A disease?’ Aubrey asked. ‘There was a pandemic? Like COVID?’

Lottie shook her head. ‘It only affected the adults. I’m sorry. It’s hard to explain. I should get Ravi.’ 

‘Tell me,’ Aubrey said, impatiently. 

‘Like I said, it came in the meteor. It changed them, the adults. It doesn’t affect kids. Anyone under eighteen, give or take. It takes over their brain. Makes them angry, aggressive. We call them Crawlers. Others call them Invaders.’ Lottie stopped and took a shaky breath in. ‘They like to… eat us.’

‘Right,’ Aubrey said, a laugh escaping her lips before she could stop it. ‘This is insane. I want to see my cousin. I want to go home!’

Lottie bit her lip, then crept over to the window on the far side of the room and opened up the curtains. ‘I’m sorry, hun, but you’re not going anywhere.’

She pushed the bed over to the window and helped Aubrey sit up more.

Outside, the sun was golden, shining through office blocks and hitting the pavement below in long, clean stripes of light. Cars were parked haphazardly on the road, and rubbish was strewn across the pavement. Then she saw them. People were congregating in the middle of the street, a dozen, maybe more. Their skin was a pale, chalky white, stretched thin over sharp ribs and protruding spines, every joint and bone stark beneath the surface like something half-starved or half-dead. At first, Aubrey thought they were just sitting there, but as her eyes adjusted, she realised they were moving. Crawling. On all fours. Their limbs jerked out at odd angles, heads snapping up and down like they were scenting the air. One of them stopped suddenly and its whole body spasmed with a violent shudder before it scuttled sideways, disappearing into the shadow of a building like a cockroach. 

‘Holy crap,’ she said, unable to look away. ‘We’re in The Walking Dead.’

Suddenly, Lottie’s walkie-talkie crackled to life. ‘Brontë, this is the Doctor. CryCast going live on ninety-four point five, I repeat, ninety-four point five, over.’

Lottie perked up, running over and grabbing the walkie. ‘Copy that, Doctor. I’m with our sleeper. She’s awake, over.’

Aubrey Ernest stared out the window. The world didn’t care that she’d slept through the apocalypse, and neither did her stubborn, useless legs.