Alex Scarrow - Time Riders

‘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.’

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 and when 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.’