Alien apocalypse. It's stupid when you say it out loud, a Hollywood blockbuster scenario that exists only to entertain. The aliens fly here in saucer-shaped ships but, after raining down destruction on the Earth, they are destroyed or otherwise defeated by plucky human heroes. But that's where Hollywood gets it wrong. When the aliens really came, the plucky human heroes never stood a chance.

*

The M275 motorway is a huge stretch of sun-baked concrete, glittering with the humped shapes of hundreds of crashed cars. They look like an army of dead beetles. It's easier to think of them as beetles because then I don't have to think about all the people who died inside them.

My little sister, Lola, tugs my hand, gazing up at me with huge eyes. "Maddy, are we going the right way?"

I smile back at her, even though she can't see it through the strip of cloth tied across my mouth and nose. "Don't you trust your big sis?"

Her small hand tightens around mine, so trusting that it makes my heart ache. Before the Others came, the biggest decisions I had to make were what outfit to wear, or whether or not my hair looked good. I wasn't in charge of keeping both me and Lola alive.

Reflexively I glance up at the sky, scanning the bright blue spread for the greenish glow of the mothership. It makes me sick to think how excited the world was when we saw the first satellite pictures of that spaceship. If we'd known then what we know now...the thought dies in my head. It probably wouldn't have changed a thing. Even if we'd known the Others did not come in peace, we still couldn't have prepared for the devastating attacks they launched upon our planet. The attacks that left the world in ruins.

First there was the massive electromagnetic pulse that ripped across the Earth a few days after the mothership was first spotted, obliterating anything that ran on electricity, batteries, or an engine. Our dad's plane was one of many to come down, dropping out of the sky and killing him, along with half a million other people worldwide. At least he died quickly.

The 2nd Wave came shortly afterwards, the Others generating colossal tsunamis that smashed into every coastline across the globe. California, Washington, London, Sydney, Hong Kong - just washed away like toys. That was when Mum died, swept away in a raging torrent of water while Lola and I clung to a rooftop and prayed.

I thought things couldn't get worse than that.

But that was before the 3rd Wave.

That was before the plague.

The car ahead of us is skewed across the road, its doors hanging open. A bloated body is slumped over the dashboard, flies buzzing like a black halo around its head. I try to position myself between Lola and the car so she doesn't have to see inside, but it's a pointless gesture - she's already seen too much death and suffering. And there are so many bodies on this stretch of road that I can never hope to keep her from seeing all of them.

"Are we nearly there yet?" Lola asks.

I shade my eyes with my hand, gazing down the motorway. Above the sun-gleaming roofs of so many cars, birds wheel in huge flocks, swooping down and pecking at the buffet of the dead. I can't think how far Gunwharf is from this road - I've only been there in a car before, and every time I was glued to my phone while Mum drove. But I don't think we have much further to go.

"Sure we are, kiddo," I say, injecting false cheer into my voice. It's taken us more than a day to get this far, though I'm sure it used to be about twenty minutes in the car. But it's hot out here, and we have very little food or water. Lola often wants to stop for breaks, and I'm not going to deny her that. And then there's the matter of navigating the myriad stalled and crashed cars. It's no wonder progress is slow.

Lola abruptly stops walking. "I'm thirsty," she announces.

I fish the water bottle from my rucksack. There's barely any left in it, just a mouthful or two. I'll let Lola have it all. Once we reach Gunwharf I'll be able to refill it. At least, I hope I will.

Back in Havant, the little town where Lola and I came from, a handful of people who survived the 1st and 2nd Wave had started to congregate, trying to organise some sort of shanty-town amid the ruins. Gradually other survivors trickled in, some bringing news of what was happening in the world. Most of it sailed over my head - horror stories of death and destruction - until one man claimed he'd heard of a refugee camp set up in what was left of Gunwharf Quays. Initially I was reluctant to up and leave. The Others' attacks shattered the rules of our civilisation along with everything else, and it wasn't uncommon now to see savage gangs roving the streets, taking advantage of the world's new state of lawlessness.

But once the plague started spreading bloody fingers through the world, I was left with no choice. We couldn't stay in Havant; it wasn't safe there anymore. The people who'd survived with us had one by one succumbed to the disease: fever boiling their brains; blood leaking from every opening on their body; violently throwing up the lining of their stomachs.

I've heard that some people survive it, but I've never seen it happen.

Heading for a possible refugee camp is a long shot, especially considering that Gunwharf itself is a waterfront hub. When the 2nd Wave hit, most people who lived there and the surrounding Portsmouth area would have been washed away like so many others. But I can't afford not to take the chance, not if it means protecting Lola. She's all I have left, and I'll die before I let anything happen to her.

Lola hands the water bottle back to me, empty now, and I place it in my rucksack. My own throat prickles with thirst, my tongue feeling like a hunk of sandpaper. But I can cope with it, as long is Lola is okay.

We carry on down the road. The sounds of the world before - the roar of cars, the hum of streetlights, the occasional surge of a plane overhead - are all gone now, wiped out during the devastating EMP that was the 1st Wave. The world now dances to a different tune - the constant buzz of flies, and the cry of birds feasting on the dead. Somewhere in the distance, smoke twists into black shapes on the air. I don't know where it's coming from, but there are fires everywhere now. It's the only way to dispose of the dead.

A body blocks the road ahead, bloated and burst open under the sun. There's no way I can keep Lola from seeing that. All I can do is hold her hand, letting her know that I'm not going to let anything happen to her.

"Look up at the sky, Lola. Don't look at it," I say. I have to say 'it' because the body is too rotted for me to know if it's male or female.

As we step over the body, I follow my own advice, tilting my head skywards so I don't have to see what lies at my feet. This close to a corpse I find myself holding my breath, terrified that the plague is going to work its way through my makeshift mask, slither down my throat and poison my whole body.

People are calling it the Red Death. It's swift, incurable, and lethal. If what the other survivors have told me is true, then thousands are dying every day, millions even. It makes me think of that first plague that ravaged the world, the infamous Black Death. If History class taught me right, that pandemic killed between seventy-five and two hundred million people. The Red Death makes that number look puny. Some people are blaming unsanitary conditions for the rise and spread of the plague, believing it's come about because of the countless bodies rotting in the sun, but I know better. Poor conditions might have enabled the devastating spread of the Black Death, but this is the Red Death, and it makes any other pandemic look like a case of the flu. This plague has been engineered by the Others, even if everyone else hasn't realised it yet. It's the 3rd Wave, the latest attack designed to wipe out humankind, and it's more calculatedly savage than either of the previous Waves. That scares me because I can't imagine what will come next. And something will come next; I can feel it. The alien scum haven't finished with us yet.

"Hello? Is someone there?" A voice coming from up ahead makes me freeze. Dread churns in my stomach. While I know that someone from a gang is hardly going to be calling hello like this, I can't shake my cautiousness regarding other people. There's nothing to protect us from the savage side of human nature any more.

Lola looks up at me, her eyes questioning. Her hand feels so small in mine, and I instinctively tighten my fingers around hers.

"Stay behind me," I tell her.

The voice comes again, weaker, more strained. Whoever's calling, they're not far away. I approach the voice, Lola walking behind me, her hands on my hips. It makes it harder for me to move with her clinging onto me like that, but I'll never tell her to let go. It's too easy for people to let go in this world.

Rounding the crumpled bonnet of another car, I finally spot the speaker. It's a woman, sitting in the road next to a battered minivan with all its doors hanging open. She'd holding a small body in her hands, a little girl in a blood-stained dress. Another dead child is crumpled like a broken doll on the road beside her.

"Help me," the woman whispers, stretching out a hand.

But I stay back.

Her lips are swollen and cracked, blood dribbling from her gums. It's almost black against the pallor of her skin. Her eyes are bloodshot, haunted hollows in the ghastly mask of her face.

She has the plague.

The woman's hand hangs in midair, blood caked on the tips of her fingers. "Please help me," she whispers, and more blood dribbles down her lips. "My children..."

Her children are already dead. Maybe she doesn't realise it yet. The Red Death takes the mind as well as the body, turning the human brain into a fevered husk of madness and violence. Whatever the case, we can't help her.

Lola peeps around my hip. "Can we help her, Maddy?"

I put my hand on her shoulder, holding her back. "No, she's sick."

I can't see Lola's mouth behind the rag tied across her face, but I think her lips are trembling. This isn't the first time I've refused to let her help someone she thinks needs it. But Lola doesn't understand. She doesn't understand that if we catch the Red Death we will die, horribly. She can't seem to grasp that this plague is ripping through the world's population with a speed and fatality rate beyond anything we've ever seen before. That's why we're heading towards Gunwharf and the hope of a refugee camp. The rags I've tied around our mouths and noses aren't enough to keep the plague out, not indefinitely. We need help.

The woman tries to climb to her feet, still cradling the body of her child, but her legs give out and she collapses back onto the road. Her knees are cut and bleeding, and I wonder how many times she's tried to get up.

"Come on, Lola," I say, skirting around the woman. She's too weak to crawl after us. I hate myself for leaving her here, unable to get away from the bodies of her children, but there's nothing I can do to help her. And I'm not risking Lola's life on a lost cause.

Lola doesn't say anything as we make our way down the road, but she looks back, her eyes brimming with tears. The woman is crying now, bloody tears that leak down her face. Her cries echo on this desolate stretch of road, populated by the dead.

*

We have to stop twice more before we reach the Portsmouth High Street. Lola complains about being thirsty but there's no water left to give her. Any shops that survived the 2nd Wave have long since been ransacked by desperate survivors. I feed her the last bit of cereal bar from the bottom of the rucksack, ignoring my own hunger pangs.

I almost don't recognise the High Street now. Before the Waves, before the Others were anything but CGI on the cinema screen, the street was a thriving sprawl of shops and cafes, crammed with people. Now it's a debris-littered warzone. There are bodies here too, fat and ripe under the sun. This is where I used to come shopping with my friends. They're probably all dead now.

As we pick our way through the obstacle course of the High Street, I notice the M sign from a nearby McDonalds, dangling like a yellow anchor from a stripped-bare tree. Another tree displays clothes that would previously have hung on racks in nearby shops, now flapping in the breeze like ragged sails. They must have been swept out when the water swept in. It looks like some macabre art project.

Lola stays close to me the whole time, clutching my hand. Walking down this street is worse than traversing the motorway; at least there the cars formed a shield that kept us from seeing some of the carnage. Here the death and destruction is displayed in all its bloody glory. There's no avoiding it, and nowhere else to look.

We walk under the train bridge, under the railway tracks that used to shuttle trains to and from Gunwharf, and into the smaller stretch of street where most of the clubs and bars are clustered. On my right, the vast neoclassical structure of Portsmouth Guildhall rises proud above the ruin of the city.

I pause, wondering if maybe we should forget the refugee camp and instead take shelter in the Guildhall. It's large enough to house thousands of people, and sturdy enough to have survived the tsunamis. From where I'm standing I can see only minor damage to the many pillars that form the front of the building, and the two stone lions lying on their slab-shaped plinths at the top of the pyramidal steps. Inside, the building is probably undamaged. There might even be food there.

But is the possibility of food and water worth delaying the possibility of a refugee camp?

I dither, scanning the buildings around me. On the other side of the Guildhall, the Portsmouth Civic Offices are just wave-battered husks, their glass fronts shattered. Some of the glass still litters the ground, shimmering shards that reflect back the sun. In front of the offices, the statue of Queen Victoria has toppled from its plinth and now lies on its back, gazing forlornly up at the sky. The Guildhall is the only thing that looks like it held fast against the onslaught of water. If we're going to shelter anywhere, it should be in there.

But before I can make the decision, a gaggle of shapes appears at the top of the stone steps leading up to the Guildhall's entrance. My blood freezes. They're not sick; they're moving with too much ease, no signs of fever or disease wracking their bodies. Seeing people alive and healthy during this age of terror should be heartening, but all I can think about is that if they want to hurt us, no one can stop them. There's nothing to protect the ordinary person anymore.

"Maddy?" Lola says, staring up at the people.

My eyes scan them, counting seven in total. There's no way we can fight that many off if they decide to attack. One of them steps forward, lifting an arm in our direction. He looks like someone's dad, middle-aged and with streaks of grey starting to cut through his beard, but I don't trust him. I don't trust anyone.

The man starts down the steps towards us, and the other people quickly follow him. Something about the way they move, purposefully, as one body, makes me think of a formation of soldiers converging on a target.

Fear spools in my stomach, icy-cold. "Run, Lola," I whisper. "And don't look back."

The man shouts something after us as we break into a run, but I don't hear what it is, and I'm not looking back. I should never have stopped here. The plan was always to get to Gunwharf and the refugee camp, and all I've done by dithering in front of the Guildhall is let other people know we're here. Maybe they think we have food or water in my rucksack. Maybe they're looking for other people to join their gang. Or maybe they've all gone mad in the aftermath of the first 3 Waves, and they're planning to use us as some sort of sick entertainment. Whatever the reason, I'm not hanging around to find out.

I pull Lola along with me, squeezing her hand so tightly I'm probably hurting her. But I don't dare let go. I'm terrified that if I do, she'll slip and fall. Her little hand will be pulled away from mine and I'll never get her back. I have to keep holding onto her.

We flee around the side of the huge Guildhall building, and dodge a cluster of crashed cars that form a sculpture of twisted metal in the middle of the road. Gunwharf isn't far away now; we'll be there in a few minutes if we don't slow down.

The blood is drumming so loud in my ears that I can't tell if anyone is chasing us or not. But I don't dare turn around. I have to believe that the slap slap slap of my feet and Lola's are the only sounds around us, and the only breathing is coming from our lungs. There's no one behind us.

Ahead of us, the entrance to Gunwharf jiggles up and down in my vision as I keep running. The smoke I glimpsed on the motorway is coming from inside the quays, thick greasy plumes twisting on the air.

I hesitate, my feet skidding to a stop. I wasn't expecting to see smoke here. Lola stops with me, her breath rushing in and out of her small lungs. I throw a glance over my shoulder but the street behind us is deserted; no one was chasing us. There's a funny sick feeling in the pit of my stomach, the fear that something is wrong. But we've come this far, we can't turn back now, especially not when we need food and water.

"Are we here?" Lola asks.

I take a deep breath. "Yeah, kiddo. We're here."

A few metres ahead of us, at the junction of Park Road and Saint Georges Road, is Vernon Gate, the historic entrance to Gunwharf Quays. Hundreds of years ago, this was the first main ordnance yard for the Royal Navy, and the gate - a beautiful redbrick structure complete with a small turreted watchtower - is one of the remaining original buildings. I look at it and want to feel hope, but there's only that sick feeling inside me.

But there's no turning back now. Keeping tight hold of Lola's hand, I cross the road at the traffic lights, heading for Vernon Gate. As soon as we walk under that historical arch and into the quays, I realise I've made a terrible mistake.

_______

I once heard a writer say, "I love it when the world ends.' A strange sentiment, true, but less puzzling for the readers and writers of fiction. Without people embracing post-apocalyptic visions, we wouldn't have such books as the starkly savage, brutally beautiful, The 5th Wave. And we couldn't then see these wonderful books achieve new life on the cinema screen. Thanks to Sony Pictures, we will be seeing RickYancey's vision of a brutal alien invasion come to life on the big screen in January 2016. I wrote this story, Red Death, to show a snapshot of life during the terrifying 3rd Wave. Until the film comes out, I hope this story satisfies all the 5th Wave fans out there.