The Time Bubble Box Set

by Jason Ayres

  “I thought you might say that,” said Kaylee. “So I think you should do everything you can to be prepared for the worst.”

  “Stockpiling food?” asked Hannah.

  “Not just that,” said Kaylee. “You need to imagine a worst-case scenario where you’ve no electricity, no gas, no water and no fuel, and prepare for it. It could make the difference between life and death.”

  Hannah glanced back towards the kitchen door. She hoped Jess couldn’t hear all of this. She let what Kaylee had said sink in for a moment, and then she had a flash of inspiration. “Gran’s farmhouse!” she said.

  Hannah’s grandmother had died a couple of months previously. She had lived most of her life in a small cottage that had originally been part of a farmhouse, about half a mile outside the town. It hadn’t been a working farmhouse for decades, but they still referred to it as such.

  Responsibility for selling the cottage had fallen to Hannah, but so far, in the depressed economy and housing market, there hadn’t been any takers.

  She had thought about moving in there herself but had dismissed the idea because of the difficulty of getting Jess to and from school. Now it was lying empty.

  “It would be an ideal place in an emergency,” said Hannah. “For a start, it’s got two open fireplaces downstairs. Not only that, she had an Aga, all powered from an oil tank outside. She used that for all her cooking and for heating the radiators as well. It’s all completely self-contained.”

  “I think it would be well worth paying a visit over there this weekend,” said Kaylee. “And stock the place up with as much food, candles, soap and all the other things you might need should you find yourself snowed in for a few weeks.”

  “Thanks, Kaylee,” replied Hannah. “What would I do without you?”

  “Just look after yourself and Jess,” replied Kaylee. “I’ll call you when we get to Fuerteventura to find out how things are.”

  Hannah was worried by all that had been said, but at least now Kaylee had given her the heads-up she could prepare.

  “Come on, Jess,” she called to the kitchen. “We’re going shopping.”

  The three of them left together. Hannah dropped Kaylee off at home, and she and Jess headed to the out-of-town superstore. Friday night wasn’t an ideal time to be going shopping at the best of times. She just hoped not everybody had had the same idea as her.

  Chapter Twelve

  A shrill beeping awoke Kaylee from her sleep as the travel alarm clock by her bedside table went off. Charlie was snoring next to her and she nudged him awake.

  Their journey down to Gatwick the previous evening had gone without a hitch. By 7.00pm they were booked in and ready to sample the hotel restaurant. It was pretty standard stuff for an airport hotel. Ever the health-conscious one, she’d opted for a chicken Caesar salad, whereas Charlie had pushed the boat out and gone for a steak and chips washed down with a bottle of red wine. They were on holiday after all, as he’d said.

  “I’m parched,” croaked Charlie, who was feeling a little dehydrated from the effects of the red wine.

  “I told you drinking that whole bottle was a bad idea,” remarked Kaylee. She took the kettle from the tray beside the bed and walked across to the en suite bathroom to fill it.

  The hotel room was the standard shape both were more than familiar with from business trips. The bathroom was on the left side, just after the door, with the wardrobes on the other side. The kettle was on a small tray on a desk next to the ever-present trouser press which neither of them had ever used.

  “Yeah, that’s been happening a lot lately,” said Charlie. “Still, if you will go getting yourself pregnant.”

  “I think you had more than a little bit to do with that,” replied Kaylee.

  “Speaking of which,” said Charlie, “have we got time now?”

  “There’ll be plenty of time for that when we get to Fuerteventura,” she said. “We’ve got to check in at seven.”

  She crossed to the far side of the room again and opened the curtains. It was still dark outside but she could see through the yellow glow of the street lamps that thick snow was falling. This didn’t come as any surprise to Kaylee, she’d been expecting it.

  She glanced down from their first-floor window and saw that the ground was already covered. From this height she couldn’t see exactly how deep it was but it looked like a good, thick covering.

  “It’s getting pretty heavy out there,” she said. “I hope they are keeping the runways clear.”

  Gatwick had expanded, a new runway being opened in the early 2020s. It was now handling over a million passengers every week.

  “Good job we booked this hotel,” said Charlie. “It would have been a nightmare trying to drive down here this morning through all that.”

  They dressed quickly, downed a quick cup of cheap, hotel room coffee, and headed across to the airport. They’d had the foresight to check their suitcases in the previous evening so were travelling fairly light, which was just as well in the conditions.

  Once they got outside for the brief walk across the road, they could feel how much the temperature had fallen overnight. It was definitely below freezing now and the snow was soft underfoot. It must have been at least three inches deep and it was settling fast.

  When they made it into the terminal building, they were confronted by bad news. Charlie scanned the boards for their flight, scheduled for 9.00am. The dreaded word “DELAYED” was displayed next to it. In fact it was displayed next to nearly all of the flights.

  “I don’t like the look of this,” said Charlie. “Let’s try and find out what’s happening.”

  They walked across to the information desk, around which an irate crowd of frustrated travellers was already gathering.

  =============================

  Back in Oxford, Josh and Alice were having a little more success with their travel plans. The snow was falling there, too, but the trains were still running. Neither of them drove.

  Having studied, lived and worked in the centre of Oxford since he was eighteen, Josh had never bothered to learn, and Alice only had a provisional licence. In this case it was probably just as well. The roads did not look good.

  They’d boarded a train for Reading at 8.51am and were now travelling southwards. The snow was not quite as bad as at Gatwick, but they could see from the windows that it was settling quite quickly on the fields as they passed by.

  The train was fairly quiet and they had a table to themselves. It was the weekend and not many people travelled this early in the day on a Saturday. They sat opposite each other next to the window, watching the snow coming down outside.

  “Do you think I should have brought some warmer clothes?” asked Alice. She was wearing a dark maroon jacket, jeans and trainers – warm enough for the average winter day, but possibly a little on the light side for a day like this.

  “We can always get whatever we need when we get down there,” said Josh. He had a thicker winter jacket and a woolly hat. “You can always borrow my hat if you get chilly later,” he said.

  “And they say the age of chivalry is dead,” joked Alice.

  It was only a short hop on the train down to Reading. They were travelling light, just a couple of overnight bags each. In his coat pocket Josh was carrying the most important item of all: the tachyometer, a small wand-like device he and Professor Hamilton had developed together.

  Josh had already had confirmation that it worked when he’d visited the railway tunnel where they’d found the first Time Bubble. Now he was armed and ready to find a new one.

  The train pulled into Reading on time, and they made their way across the station to the next platform where they were to board the train that they hoped would take them all the way to West Cornwall.

  =============================

  Hannah hadn’t needed an alarm clock to wake her that Saturday morning. It was a little after 8am when Jessica had come bounding into her room full of excitement. “Mummy, Mummy, it’s
snowed!” she cried. “Can I go out and make a snowman?”

  Hannah had shielded her daughter from the worst details of what Kaylee had told her. If the outlook was indeed as bleak as she had painted, there was no need to worry the girl yet. She would let her have some fun while she could. “Of course,” she said. “Let’s get some breakfast and then I’ll come out and help you.”

  The previous evening Hannah and Jess had gone to the superstore as per Kaylee’s suggestion and filled up two trolleys with everything they could possibly need to see them through several weeks of bad weather. It hadn’t been easy. Lots of other people had had the same idea and the store was more packed than she’d ever seen it.

  Some of the shelves were already empty. Most of the branded lines of baked beans and soup were long gone. There were a few dented budget tins left, and thankfully a fair bit of tinned fruit and veg so she grabbed as much as she could fit in her trolley.

  Things got pretty heated at times, and she witnessed a few incidents of trolley rage. Tempers were indeed becoming frayed. She thought about intervening but not only was she off duty, she also wanted to shield Jess from any confrontations.

  Mindful of what Kaylee had said, she had also stocked up on plenty of matches, candles, soap and drinks. She thought about stockpiling some bottled water but in the end decided against it. It would just take up too much space in the trolley that could be allocated to other things. Besides, if things got so cold that the pipes froze, she could always melt some snow.

  After they’d left the supermarket she went to the large DIY store next door. There she purchased a Calor gas stove, portable heater and some gas canisters.

  She couldn’t afford to take any chances. There was no way of knowing how much oil was left in her grandmother’s tank: what was certain was that it was not going to last forever.

  Thankfully, when they got to the cottage she was pleased to see that the electronic meter for the tank showed that it was holding almost a thousand litres.

  Jess had questioned why they were doing all this, but Hannah explained it away by saying that they were going to use the cottage to have a little holiday at half-term. All they were doing now was getting it stocked up and ready in advance.

  Jess was quite excited by this prospect. She’d enjoyed playing in the woods close to the cottage before her great-grandmother had died and was looking forward to spending some time there again.

  In the meantime, Jess had her heart set on some fun in the snow. They ate breakfast quickly, wrapped themselves up in their warmest clothes, and headed into the back garden. There were at least four inches of snow on the ground and it was still coming down. If there was trouble ahead, mused Hannah, it could wait. Today would be about having fun.

  =============================

  Dan had been enjoying a different kind of fun. The previous evening, he and Ryan had gone up to the long abandoned Army base just outside the town. There had been a garrison stationed there until about fifteen years ago. Since then, the buildings had fallen into disuse.

  Although not in use, the land still belonged to the M.O.D. and there were “KEEP OUT” signs all around it. The main entrance was guarded by ten-foot-high solid iron gates, and there were fences of the same height, covered with barbed wire, surrounding the whole base.

  This wasn’t an obstacle to Dan and Ryan. A large hole had been gouged in the fence at some point in the last few years by teenagers using the base as a smoking and drinking den, and it had never been repaired.

  Ryan showed Dan around the site. The buildings were dismal, cold and empty. What had served as the main mess hall was now littered with empty lager cans, used condoms and all manner of other litter. In another room, which housed a large generator, long silent, rats scurried away when Ryan opened the door. The room was full of rat droppings.

  But what they’d really come for was the firing range. The camp had been used primarily for training, and the outside range was full of metal dummies of enemy soldiers with targets on their heads and chests.

  “Now we can play for real,” Ryan had said.

  Despite the freezing cold weather, Dan felt a strange sense of warmth as he held the gun in his hands. Ryan showed him how to load it and prepare it, and soon he was holding it in his hands, lining up one of the targets.

  He squeezed the trigger and the gun fired. He was quite taken aback by the strength of the recoil, not something he’d expected. The sound of the explosion was also incredibly loud and hurt his eardrums. His aim was good, though.

  “Awesome!” exclaimed Ryan. “You totally blew his head off!”

  When it got dark, they’d taken the guns back to Ryan’s house and then gone down to the Red Lion to watch the Friday night live football match. This season the Premiership had been staging a live game every Friday night, and tonight it was Newcastle United at home to Liverpool.

  Dan may have been barred from attending football matches but it didn’t stop him watching the games in the pub. If things didn’t go the way he wanted, particularly in England games, it wasn’t unusual for him to take it out on someone in a drunken rage. But the regulars were able to breathe easy on this occasion. When Dan and Ryan got to the pub it was to find that the match had been abandoned due to the weather.

  So instead they’d decided to get drunk and try and pull some women. As Dan now awoke, midway through Saturday morning, he tried to piece together the details of what had happened.

  He had a vague memory of going into the town’s only nightclub and propositioning one of the barmaids, but that was about all. There was no one in bed with him now, but then there very rarely was.

  He desperately needed the toilet, so he hauled himself out of bed and immediately stepped in something wet and cold. There was a half-eaten kebab on the floor next to the bed. He groaned with the pain of his hangover, went for a piss, rinsed his foot under the tap, and came back into the bedroom.

  He looked out of the window to see thick snow falling. He decided to write the day off as a bad loss, got back into bed, and went back to sleep.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Charlie and Kaylee were going nowhere fast. They had spent the entire morning in Gatwick Airport seeing their flight being put back again and again. Now they were seeing the dreaded word “CANCELLED” on the board.

  An announcement came across the PA system. “Due to the inclement weather conditions, we regret to announce that all outgoing flights for the remainder of today have been cancelled.”

  There was a collective groan from the thousands of disgruntled passengers milling around the departure lounge. This had become an all too familiar situation at the airport over the last six months.

  The passengers were now faced with a choice – stay and hope to get a flight the next day, or give up, go home, and try and claim the cost of the flights back on the insurance. This was assuming, of course, that they’d been lucky enough to insure with a company that would pay out under such circumstances. The endless cancellations over the past six months had led many to hurriedly amend their terms and conditions. Others had simply gone bust.

  Kaylee was in no doubt what they needed to do. “We have to get out of here,” she said.

  “And go where?” asked Charlie. “Back home?”

  “It’s not our best option,” replied Kaylee. “If they can’t keep the runways here clear of snow, what are the roads going to be like?”

  The restless passengers were already beginning to disperse. Some were heading towards the on-site railway station to try and get on the Gatwick Express. Others were heading back outside to the car parks.

  “What about our luggage. How are we going to get that back?” asked Charlie.

  “I don’t know,” said Kaylee. “We might have to leave it. Let’s go and see how things are outside.”

  They joined the large crowd of people heading for the exits and walked across the road back to the hotel. Thankfully the snow had stopped for the time being, but there were a good few inches covering the ground.
About thirty yards ahead of them, an elderly lady slipped and fell. Those around her were quick to help her up.

  Charlie instinctively gripped Kaylee’s hand tightly as they crossed the road to protect his pregnant wife and their child. A few cars were attempting to drive along the road outside the front of the terminal building, but were sliding around all over the place.

  They had difficulty finding their car in the car park due to the coating of thick snow, which took some time to clear off. There was a fair amount piled up around the wheels, too, which Charlie did his best to clear with his bare hands.

  Once inside, the first thing Charlie did was to flick on the window heaters. The second was to turn on the radio. An announcer was giving an update on the latest situation.

  “The worst of the weather has hit the north of the country. Police are advising people not to travel under any circumstances. All major routes north of Birmingham are currently closed due to the snow. In the south, the M40 is closed northbound beyond High Wycombe following a multi-vehicle accident.

  The M25, M2, M3, M4 and M5 all remain open, but traffic is very slow-moving. Police are advising against any travel on these routes, particularly with more snow forecast for this evening.

  A number of rail routes have also been closed due to the snow, and many flights have been cancelled. Gatwick, Heathrow and Stansted are currently handling incoming flights only. It is advised that anyone planning to travel should check online for more information. Cross-channel ferries remain open for the time being, but traffic routes to and from the ports are being disrupted due to the snow.”

  “Well, that settles one thing, then,” said Charlie. “The M40’s blocked so we can’t go home.”

  “And we can’t stay here forever,” said Kaylee. “So we need a plan C.”

  “Well,” said Charlie. “From everything you’ve told me, I think we need to get out of the country as soon as possible. We are away from home, we haven’t got any luggage, so effectively we’ve got the clothes we are wearing and that’s all. What we do have is nearly 1000 euros in cash, our passports and personal effects. And the credit card, of course.”