by Alex Scarrow
‘Up ahead,’ whispered Foster. ‘Look!’ He swung his torch along to theend of the platform, to a small door with a faded STAFFROOMsign on it. Beneath that another sign warned of an electrical hazard.
He picked up the pace, his shoes clacking along the platformsurface, kicking aside several fallen tiles that clattered noisily across the platform, overthe edge and sploshed into the puddles of water below. Sal cringed as the noise echoedinterminably down the tunnel.
Foster reached for the handle and tried it, rattling it hard. It came off in his hand amid ashower of rust flakes.
‘Oh, that’s just great,’ he snapped.
‘Let me have a go,’ said Maddy.
She lifted a booted leg and kicked the door by the rusted stub of the handle. With a sharpcrack, the door rattled inwards on its hinges, shards of rusted lock and splinters of woodcascading to the floor.
Foster waved a cloud of dust away from his face. ‘Shall we?’
‘Age before beauty,’ said Maddy.
He replied with a thin smile and the flicker of a wiry eyebrow, then stepped into the roombeyond, swinging his torch quickly from side to side, the light picking out surfaces coveredin half a century of dust.
Maddy stepped in behind him while Sal cast one last glance over her shoulder at the emptyplatform behind, now robbed of the light from Foster’s torch as he made his way furtherinside.
She hurried in after them.
Foster panned the flashlight around slowly. She could see a table and chairs in the middle ofa small room. Several enamel mugs were on the table, along with a yellow tattered and faded copy of TheNew York Times opened on the funnies page and dotted with ratdroppings. On the walls were coat hooks, lockers and pin-ups of beautiful movie stars,forgotten faces her mum and dad might have once been able to put a name to.
‘It looks untouched since… well… since whatever happened, happened,’said Maddy.
Foster nodded. ‘Doomsday.’
He stepped over to the table and shone his torch down on the newspaper. ‘Wednesday,thirteenth of March 1957.’ He looked up at them. ‘I was never that keen onWednesdays.’
Maddy snorted. Sal smiled, comforted by his lame attempt to lighten the mood. She leaned overthe paper, scanning the headlines.
Terrorists Continue Attacks On Resettlement Camps
Teacher Arrested For Teaching Pre-unity History
Fuhrer Absent at Unity Day Parade — Rumours Of IllHealth
‘Superman’ Just A Myth Spread By Troublemakers
At the far end of the room was a door with another electrical hazard warning screwed on toit. Below that, another sign read AUTHORIZED ACCESS ONLY.
‘Maybe we’ll find something useful in there,’ said Foster. He steppedaround the table and tried the door handle. This time it opened without putting up a fight,although the hinges creaked drily. He pushed it open and flicked his torch from side to sidein the dark void beyond.
‘See anything?’ asked Maddy.
‘I see shelves both sides… I see coils of cable… some tools…oh.’
Silence.
‘What is it?’ asked Sal.
‘Yeah,’ Maddy chorused more loudly. ‘What have you got?’
‘Just a second,’ said Foster, stepping further inside. He let the door go behind him. Maddy grabbed it before it could slam with a loudbang.
‘Foster?’
Over Maddy’s shoulder Sal could see his silhouette inside, dancing shadows, the flickerof reflected light off dust-covered pipe conduits suspended from a claustrophobic low ceiling.He paced down a narrow walkway flanked on either side by racks of floor-to-ceilingshelves.
‘Useful supplies in here. Just taking a look. You stay there,’ he called back. Hemade his way down to the end of the racks of shelves then turned right, slipping out ofview.
Sal wanted to call to him to come back, to say that they should all remain close together.But she didn’t. Maddy was right there next to her.
Light flickered over the tops of the shelves and shadows danced across the low ceiling as hemoved around the end of the shelves and out of sight. They could hear his feet tapping andscraping across the cold concrete floor.
‘Come on, Foster. Is there anything we can use in there, or not?’ Maddy calledout.
The sound of movement stopped and the torchlight hovered where it was for a while.‘Just a sec,’ he replied.
Foster was taking his time. ‘What’s he doing?’ Sal whispered.
‘Checking something out, I guess.’
Sal bit her lip, trying to keep her cool.
That’s right. He’s just round the corner, not far. No needto panic, Saleena Vikram.
However, right then it occurred to her that the only gun they hadwas round the corner with him. What if those things were back in that tunnel leading out ofthe station, watching patiently from the shadows? Perhaps waiting, perhaps growing bolder witheach passing second. They might be on the platform, approaching the door tothe staffroom right now, standing just outside and curious to see what was going on inside.Curious to see how close they could get without being spotted.
She glanced back anxiously over her shoulder at the small room. It wasalmost pitch black now. She could just about make out the square edge of the table from whatlittle light was reaching them from Foster’s bobbing torch, a faint glint from one ofthe mugs. One or two of the chairs were visible. But nothing else. She turned back to see howthe old man was doing.
‘Foster?’ called Maddy, quieter now. ‘You gonna tell us what you gotthere?’
The shards of light on the ceiling shifted slightly in response. Then they heard movement,footsteps across the floor and the shadows danced once more. He was on his way back to jointhem.
‘You find anything?’ called out Maddy.
A beam of light emerged around the end of the long racks of shelves, flashing into theirfaces as it approached them.
‘Foster?’
‘We’re in luck,’ his gruff voice replied. ‘There’s a generatorin the back… hopefully we’ll find some fuel somewhere on these shelves-’
His voice cut off suddenly.
He’s seen something.
Sal felt her blood run cold.
Something behind me?
Quickly she turned round to look back over her shoulder again and saw two pale eyes. Milkyboiled-fish eyes in a ghostly face, just a few feet away, rounding the end of the table andgliding rapidly towards her.
‘GET DOWN!’ shouted Foster.
Maddy reacted instinctively, stepping to one side and pulling Sal with her.
The small room was filled with the deafening boom of Foster’s shotgun. In theflickering instant of muzzle-flash she saw a freeze-frame image of one of the mutants as itrose up from a low stealthy crouch, one long thin arm reaching out towards her, only inchesfrom where she’d been standing. Behind it were a dozen more of them, caught in the flashas they were filing in through the open door to the staffroom, rounding the table and closingin on them.
Darkness.
She heard something tumble on to the table and thrash noisily for a moment. Then theskittering of a host of panicked feet, the heavy clatter of a mug as it dropped and bounced,squeals of terror and snarls of frustration.
BANG!
Another blinding moment of muzzle-flash, a glimpse of a creature sprawled across the table,still twitching, a dark almost black jagged hole in its chest and a slick of liquid poolingbeneath it. By the door a tangled nest of pale limbs and skeletal torsos pressing through thenarrow doorframe. All of them trying to escape through the doorway at once.
And then dark again.
She heard the slap of bare feet fading as the creatures fled down the platform, mewling,crying with both anger and fear as they retreated.
Then silence except for the rasping sound of her and Maddy’s breath, the distantrepetitive drip of moisture from somewhere above and the sound of an enamel mug rolling backand forth across the floor.
‘Oh my God,’ exhaled Maddy.
‘That was close,’ said Foster. The torch was on the floor at his feet. He’ddropped it in the panic. He bent down and picked it up, panning it quickly across them.
‘You — you two all right?’ he puffed.
‘Yes,’ said Sal, her voice robbed of everything but a whisper.
Maddy’s eyes met hers. ‘They were right behind us! I mean,’ she gasped forair, ‘I mean they were right behind us!’
‘We best get a move on,’ said Foster quickly. ‘They may well comeback.’
CHAPTER 58
2001, New York subway
They found what they were looking for in a locked storage cupboard towards the backof the storeroom: three large metal drums of diesel fuel that sloshed encouragingly as Maddystruggled to ease them out on to the floor.
‘They’re way too heavy. I can barely move them, let alone carry one all the wayback to our archway,’ she said.
Foster pulled a face. ‘You’re right.’ He considered the problem, his eyesdarting along the storage shelves for inspiration. ‘All right then, we can pour the fuelinto a load of smaller containers that we could carry between us.’
‘But how much will we need?’
The truth was he didn’t know. He’d never used the generator, never needed to sofar. Last time it had been checked out it had chugged away quite happily for a few minutes. Ifhe knew something about diesel generators, if he was a mechanic, he could have probably madean educated guess as to how much fuel they were going to need.
Thing was… what he did know was that the time-displacement machinery was going to needto charge itself up before they could use it. Since the power had been cut for quite a fewhours now the charge would be flat. It was probably going to need the generator running adozen, maybe twenty-four hours before they’d be able to do anything. He had no idea at all how much fuel they needed for that. Probably quite a lot.
The girls were looking at him, hoping he had an answer.
Come on… think. How much will we need?
That depended on what the plan of action was. As it stood, they needed to transmit a messagethrough time to Bob to arrange a new return window. Where andwhen they opened the window were factors that would decide justhow much of a charge the displacement machinery needed.
And even if they did manage to get Liam and Bob back they’d need enough energy to sendthem back to the correct time and place to try to fix history.
There were too many variables for Foster to work out precisely how much fuel they needed.
‘Foster? How much do we need?’ asked Maddy again.
‘As much as we can carry,’ he replied. And if that wasn’t enough, theywould have to come back down here and get some more. A prospect he wasn’t too happyabout, and the girls most certainly wouldn’t be.
He looked around. There were half a dozen jerry cans further along the bottom shelf. If theyemptied those out and filled them up with diesel, then between them they’d be carryingtwelve gallons of fuel.
Enough?
It would have to be.
‘See those jerry cans?’ he said, pointing towards them. ‘We’re goingto fill them all up. That’ll give us twelve gallons.’
‘That going to be enough?’
Maybe. I hope so.
‘Foster?’
‘Sure,’ he replied. ‘That’ll do us fine.’
Maddy nodded, satisfied for the moment with his answer.
‘The next thing we’re going to have to figure out,though,’ he added, ‘is how we’re going to carry those jerry cans back home.Filled, they’re going to be very heavy. We’ll have to take them between us, one ata time. That’s six journeys.’
Sal turned to them both. ‘Hang on, I’ve got an idea.’
They emerged up the stairs from the subway station. Between them they lifted thepram laden with sloshing cans of fuel up off the last few steps and on to the rubble-strewnpavement. The pram’s large old-fashioned spoked wheels coped far better with the rubbleand debris than some shopping trolley with tiny little castor wheels would have.
It was getting dark. Foster had intended for them to be back at base safe and sound beforetoo much of the pallid grey daylight had gone from the sky. But things had taken them longerthan expected.
Never mind. They were above ground now, and even though dusk was settling across the lifelesscity, the three of them felt happier out in the open than they had down below. They eased thepram through the cluttered street, feeling those eyes upon their backs… watching andwaiting.
‘We’ll be back home soon,’ said Foster quietly.
Sal nodded. It wasn’t too far now. Just down East 14th Street, a right on to 4th Avenueall the way down to Delancey Street, then left over the bridge and home.
Maddy grinned anxiously.
‘Just takin’ the little ol’ baby out for a stroll down the avenue,’she muttered with a shaky sing-song tone. ‘Uh-huh… Just minding our business andheading home. Oh yes indeedy.’ Her eyes darted from one darkwindow to another.
‘How about we do those things quietly?’ said Foster.
Maddy giggled, then shut up.
Nerves.
The wheels rattled noisily over a scattering of rubble.
‘I reckon we’re being watched anyway, Foster,’ she replied quietly.‘Might as well make ’em think we’re not scared.’
Foster nodded. Maybe she’s got a point.
‘Well, a good day’s work, I think,’ he announced loudly. ‘I got afeeling that the worst of this is over.’
Sal looked up at him. ‘Do you think so?’
‘Sure. We’ll get this lot back. I’ll crank up the generator, get thingscharging up. We’ll have a nice hot cup of coffee whilst we wait. How does thatsound?’
‘Wonderful,’ she replied.
‘How long will it take until we can try bringing them back?’ asked Maddy.
Foster made a show of shrugging casually. His eyes, though, were on the lengthening eveningshadows on either side of the street. ‘I’d say about twenty-four hours until wecan actually try opening up a portal.’
‘Twenty-four hours!’ Maddy’s voice bounced off the nearest walls andrippled off down the deserted ruins of East 14th Street.
‘But — ’ he smiled — ‘the good news is that we should be able totransmit a message through to the support unit and Liam much sooner.’
‘Bob,’ said Sal. ‘That’s what we agreed to call him.’
‘Yes, I’m sorry… Bob.’
‘So, how does that transmitting-messages-through-time thing work exactly?’
‘I’m no physicist, Madelaine, so don’t start throwing questions at me. Butthe explanation I was given is that it’s all to do with tachyon particles. They’reparticles of matter that can travel faster than light and thus are able to travel throughtime. If we aim them at roughly where we expect Liam and Bob to be, then Bob’s on-board hardware will detect them and decode the message.’
‘But they can’t send a message back to us?’
Foster shook his head. ‘No. The particles can only travel back through time, notforward.’ He snapped his torch on, throwing a cone of light down the darkening street.‘We know they’re somewhere around Washington, so we’ll aim the tachyon arrayin that general direction.’
‘It doesn’t need to be that precise, then,’ said Sal, ‘you know,aiming the signal?’
‘Well, the more precisely you can aim the particles, the fewer particles you need tosend, which means you need less energy. If we knew exactly wherethey were standing, it would take a lot less energy. So, if we keep the message nice and shortand spread the beam wide… it amounts to just about the same power burn.’
Maddy nodded. ‘I think I get it. It’d cost the same energy if we had a longermessage but used a narrower beam.’
‘You got it.’
They walked in silence for a little while, accompanied only by the sloshing of the jerry cansin the pram and the clatter of its wheels over the rubble-strewn pavement.
‘I hope
Liam’s all right,’ said Sal. ‘I know it’s been only afew days since he went back, but it feels like he’s been gone for ages.’
‘He has… from his point of view nearly six months has passed.’
She frowned. ‘That’s just so weird.’
They walked in silence for a while as she struggled with the idea that Liam’sexperience of this crisis had stretched over nearly half a year. ‘So… so how longhave you been a TimeRider?’ asked Sal. ‘You’repretty old, so I guess you must have been doing it for a while?’
‘Long enough, Sal,’ he replied, ‘long enough.’
‘Does it all make sense to you, yet?’
Foster shook his head and snorted dismissively. ‘Does it heck. It still messes with mymind.’
CHAPTER 59
1957, Prison Camp 79, New Jersey
Liam was exhausted. Barely an hour into the morning shift digging the ditchalongside the camp’s wire perimeter and he felt drained, barely able to lift his spade.Nearly six months of poor food, little more than a starvation diet, had left him feeling weakand unable to sustain any sort of physical exertion for long.
He leaned on the spade, trying to catch his breath, giving his aching muscles a moment torecover. Sweat rolled down the small of his back, soaking his shirt. Clouds of his hot breathpuffed out into the crisp winter air in front of him.
‘You better not let Kohl see you,’ whispered Wallace in the ditch beside him.
Kohl was one of the more ruthless guards. Last week he’d pulled a man from thedefensive ditches being dug around the camp and beaten him repeatedly with the butt of hispulse carbine for stopping and taking a rest. News was the man had died later on from hisinjuries.
It was from one of the guards that Liam had learned why they weredigging these defensive ditches around the wire-fence perimeter. There’d been someraids, successful raids, by a small band of resistance fighters. Several camps had beenoverrun, the prisoners freed and most of the soldiers who’d been guarding them killed.There was a rumour spreading among the guards that these fighters were being led by somedemonic entity. There were varying descriptions of this thing; some of theguards who’d survived described a giant, eight or nine feet tall, with the horns of adevil protruding from its head. Another eye-witness described this demon as being made ofiron, yet able to move at a terrifying speed with the agility of a tiger.
