Alex Scarrow - Time Riders

A dozen yards away several drums of fuel were lined up and a soldier stood beside themwaiting for the order to douse the exhibits and set them on fire.

‘My God… they’re going to burn it all,’ he whispered.

‘It is logical,’ replied Bob. ‘Kramer wishes not to be located by anyfuture agency operatives. No history will mean no reference points.’

‘I hope to God they haven’t made a start on the things storeddown in the basement.’ Liam cast a sideways glance at Bob. ‘How long have we gotleft before your brain explodes?’

Bob’s cool eyes narrowed. ‘Two hours and fifty-three minutes. We have little timeto waste.’

Liam realized he was trembling from head to foot, and cursed the fact that he looked soyoung. Perhaps the SS uniform he was wearing would be intimidating enough to ensure none ofthe workers nor any soldiers they might encounter would dare to look too closely at him, dareto question why someone so young should have an officer’s rank.

‘We must proceed,’ rumbled Bob.

‘You’re right.’ He puffed out nervous breath. ‘Bob, you go tell thosesoldiers we have come directly on Kramer’s orders to supervise the job.’

‘Yes.’

‘And tell them we will be inspecting the basement area.’

‘Yes.’

Bob climbed out of the automobile with Liam following in his wake.

Oh boy… this better work.

2001, New York

They almost didn’t find the museum. It was just another dusty grey shell of abuilding amid a landscape of them: jagged walls of crumbling masonry and cracked marble.

‘That’s it? Are you sure?’

Foster nodded. ‘As best I can tell… that’s what was once the museum.’He looked up at the sun, faint and sick, hiding behind scudding clouds. It was high in thesky. ‘We’ve only got an afternoon of daylight left. Come on.’

As the three of them made their way up the rubble-covered steps and into the museum’smain entrance, Sal spotted a pale face observing them from behind the rusting hulk of a caracross the street.

‘Look!’ she gasped. ‘They’ve been following us!’

‘I never doubted that,’ said Foster.

‘But they’re getting braver,’ added Maddy. ‘Fire off a shot to scarethem away.’

Foster racked the shotgun and aimed it at the sky. But then he stopped.

‘Actually, no. Probably best I conserve the ammo for when we really need it.’

The girls looked uncomfortably at each other.

‘Come on, let’s get this done,’ he said, leading the way over the rubble and stepping into the gloomy, cavernous interior of themuseum.

Maddy snapped on her torch, Foster another. Their twin beams picked form out of the darkness.Twisted beams of metal, dust-covered masonry, the scorched and charred remains of a grandwoodwork staircase across the way.

‘Where’s the big dinosaur skeleton?’ asked Sal.

‘The museum must have been emptied before their nuclear war.’

‘I suppose it makes sense,’ said Maddy, her soft voice echoing around the insideof the entrance hall. ‘If back in ’57 people knew a nuclear exchange was on thehorizon, they’d have moved all the valuables to special nuclear bunkers and stuff,right? Do you think they’d have taken everything? Those guest books too?’

‘We’ll have to see. Where did that guard say they stored them?’

‘I think he said they stored them down in the museum’s basement. Some sort of anarchive down there.’

Foster panned his torch across the floor. There were doorways leading to other wings of themuseum, but he knew where the basement doors were; he’d visited this place often enoughover the years when not busy saving history.

‘Follow me. Up ahead on the right there’s a double door that leads down to thebasement.’

Maddy followed him as he stepped lightly across the dusty marble floor. Sal cast one lastglance over her shoulder at the outline of the front doorway, expecting to see the hunchedsilhouette of one of the creatures curiously peeking in.

She turned back to see Maddy and Foster a dozen yards ahead. ‘Hey, wait for me,’she whispered.

Foster’s torchlight picked out a faded sign on double doors: TOSTORAGE BASEMENT: STAFF ACCESS ONLY. He pushed against them, andwith the gritty sound of rubble and debris being pushed across the floor on the far side, theystiffly yielded.

He poked his head and torch through the gap. There was a stairwell beyond. He pushed againstthe doors until they were open enough to squeeze through and stepped inside. His torch pickedout smooth concrete walls and steps leading down.

‘Come on,’ he said.

Maddy reached out for Sal’s hand and could feel it trembling uncontrollably.‘Hey, it’s OK, Sal. Just down here, we’ll get what we’re after and beback home again,’ she whispered.

‘I… I can’t go underground again… I can’t,’ she hissed inreply.

Understandable really. The sensation of feeling trapped, cornered — especially aftertheir run-in on the subway. Maddy wasn’t too keen either.

‘I’m not going to leave you alone up here. Come on,Sal. We’ll be quick.’

Sal gritted her teeth.

‘O-OK.’

They made their way slowly down the stairs, finally joining Foster at the bottom. He wasplaying his torch around the entrance to the large basement floor beyond the stairwell. Unlikeabove, the floor wasn’t thick with piles of rubble and debris, but instead coated in asilt-like carpet of fine dust. Across the floor and along the walls lined with racks and racksof empty shelves was a thick layer of decades’ worth of dust.

Foster turned to look at the girls. ‘There’s nothing here. It’s gone. Allgone.’

1957, New York

The museum worker led Bob and Liam down the steps.

‘So we store them down here,’ he spoke slowly, ‘along with all the othervaluable things due to be destroyed ,’ he added, his voicebarely managing to conceal the bitter hatred he obviously felt towards the pair of them.

They followed him down the last few steps and into the basement where Liam could see endlesscrates and boxes stacked tidily across the floor, grouped in orderly categories, silentlyawaiting their turn to be carried out and tossed on to the bonfire outside.

Liam studied the man’s face and all of a sudden realized there was something familiarabout it. He was good with faces.

How can I possibly know him?

‘So.’ The worker looked up at them with an expression that told him he’dhappily stab them to death if he thought he could get away with it. ‘You need me foranything else?’

Bob dutifully faked not being able to understand him. It was Liam who was going to pretend tospeak barely passable English. ‘ Ja . Ve are seeking…zerr visitorrs’ guest book.’

The worker’s eyebrows lifted curiously. ‘You want the guestbooks ?’

‘ Ja!Das ist corrrect.’

He shrugged. An odd request. He gestured for them to follow him.

He led the way along a passageway between shelves that ran from the floorto the ceiling. Twenty yards down, the worker stopped, pulled a short stepladder out of a nookand climbed it to the top.

‘They’re all kept up here,’ he said, patting a cardboard box.

‘Verry good,’ said Liam with a clipped, emotionless accent.

‘You want me to get them down for you?’ the man asked.

‘ Ja . Get zzzem down.’

The man pulled out the box, unleashing a small shower of dust motes. ‘All in here,going all the way back to 1869. But…’ he added with contempt, ‘I supposethis’ll be going up in smoke along with everything else, I guess.’

Liam cocked his head. There was something about the worker’s voice too that was vaguelyfamiliar.