Maybe After Tomorrow (Hatchetfield)

Prologue

One key went into a lock, was twisted, then harshly grabbed away. This was repeated with three others before Professor Henry Hidgens hurriedly pushed down the handle of his front door and ran outside.
     The black sky hung heavily over him, the sparse mist of the winter night occasionally sending a shiver through him. After a long, uncomfortable walk through streets topped with inconveniently placed ice and frost, he froze in place. An icy chill engulfed his body as he stared wide-eyed at the streets littered with bodies.
     With no idea about who was alive and who was dead, he searched the pavement for any sign of a familiar face. However, he soon regretted that when he did find one.
     "Emma," he whispered as he softly cradled her jaw with his hand, kneeling beside her. Shakily, he held two fingers to her neck, letting out a long sigh of relief when he felt a pulse.
     Quickly, he stood up, pulling her arm around his neck and carrying her back to his house.
     After laying her down on a bed in one of his many guest rooms, he found a car with a key in the ignition and drove it to the place where he found Emma. He recognised the people lying next to her as Tom Houston, a teacher at the school he used to work at and Becky Barnes, his high school girlfriend. He guessed that the blond boy clutching at Tom's leg must be his and Jane's son, Tim. He hadn't seen Tim since the day Jane and Tom brought him into the school on Tom's first day back at work just weeks after he was born. He had been so small and innocent back then.
     He piled them into the car before going back to find Lex Foster lying on the ground with her boyfriend, Ethan Green, and her sister Hannah lying between them as if they had been trying to protect her. He then realised what they had been protecting her from when he saw all of the jagged, almost other-worldly seeming rocks scattered around the street. Almost like pieces of a meteor. That would explain the crash that drew him out of the comfort of his office (which was not messy, just organised in an unusual way) into the cold and dark.
     After getting them into the car, he found Bill Woodward and his daughter Alice and, much to his dismay, Ted Spankoffski. Against his better judgement, he decided not to leave Ted and got them all into the car, really hoping none of them woke up before he could get them to the house or they would all be squished up against one another.
     He realised taking Ted might annoy everyone since he wasn't known for being liked, but he had to save as many people as he could. And he intended to start with the people he recognised, coming back for the others later. He needed some sort of system.
     But that plan went out the window when a rock fell, just missing his head. Assuming it was a one off, he started to look for Paul, knowing that Emma would be desperate to see him when she woke up, but another rock cut his search short.
     A relentless stream of rocks followed him back to the car, which he drove manically back to his house and parked under the shelter.
     He did debate going back to look for Paul, but he knew he'd be no use to anyone dead. So, instead, he got everybody into a room, keeping Tim, Tom and Becky together and Lex, Ethan and Hannah together so that if the kids woke up they would be around people they knew.
     And then he had to go to bed. Carrying all those bodies into his house had been exhausting.

~

(A/N: I'm enjoying this story a lot so far oml also this chapter would be set on the 30th of November which is my dog's birthday. Not relevant to anything lol just felt like saying that)