Alex Scarrow - Time Riders

More of the creatures scrambled up over the truck and on to the cab’s roof. Theyslammed against the wire noisily with their fists, snarling at them through the gaps.

Sal’s legs were being pulled out from beneath her, and through the gaping hole in thewire. ‘He-e-elp me!’

Maddy desperately tried to peel off the long, pale fingers wrapped tightly round her ankles,her legs, her waist. But then found them snatching at her hair, roughlypulling the glasses from her face, attempting to find a firm hold to pull her through aswell.

Sal was all but through the hole now, nothing left but her hands wrapped tightly round thesharp ends of wire. The creatures’ clawed fingers snatched and twisted at hers, tryingto wrench them free as she screamed and screamed and screamed.

Foster aimed the shotgun at the pack of creatures, no longer concerned that Sal might catchsome of the blast. The cross-hatched wire would deflect some of the shotgun’s blast, butmost of it would certainly fly through and inflict damage on their tightly packed bodies.

He fired.

One of the creatures was thrown off the roof of the cab. Others screamed angrily as thescattered pellets from the shotgun cartridge painfully lashed their bare bodies. But theycontinued their eager work, their long claws twisting Sal’s fingers off the wire, one byone, as Maddy desperately punched and scratched and screamed at them.

The last of Sal’s fingers were suddenly wrenched free.

Foster’s eyes met the girl’s for one frozen moment in time. Wide, confused,terrified — her mouth an elongated ‘O’ from which a shrill high-pitched‘ No-o-o-o-o-o-o! ’ erupted like the whistle of asteam train.

The creatures carried her away between them with alarming speed, down over the truck’sshattered windscreen, over the engine hood down on to the road, holding her body aloft betweenthem like some squirming trophy.

She disappeared from view, her thin, desperate, screaming voice fading as they carried herdown the bridge, weaving through the vehicle graveyard back towards Manhattan.

Maddy turned to look at Foster, her pale face frozen with shock and dawning realization ofwhat had just happened.

‘Foster?’ she managed to whisper.

‘We… we have to — ’

‘Foster,’ she said again, unable to say anything else.

‘She’s gone, Madelaine. She’s gone,’ he replied. He tried desperatelyto blank out of his mind the fate that awaited her.

‘We… we h-have to go after her,’ gasped Maddy, already beginning to squirmher way through the hole in the wire.

Foster took a step forward and grabbed her wrist. ‘No! Maddy. No!’

She struggled to pull herself free. ‘We can’t leave her!’ she screamed,tears rolling down her scratched and dirt-smudged cheeks.

A part of him wanted to follow her through, to give chase down the road. If not to rescueSal, then at least to get close enough to take aim and attempt to give the poor child a quickand painless death.

But that would be foolish.

It was obvious to him now. Obvious that those creatures had been biding their time, waitinguntil the three of them were boxed in on the bridge, had dropped their guard and were certainthey were home and dry. They were clever enough to set a trap. What’s more, they musthave known all along where they’d been holed up.

‘Madelaine!’ he snapped as she squirmed in his grasp. ‘They set this up!This was a trap!’

She continued to struggle. In the distance, echoing down the bridge, they heard Sal’sfaint cry, pleading for help once more.

She shuddered, her shoulders shaking convulsively as she sobbed. ‘I’m coming,Sal… I’m coming!’

Foster struggled to pull her back. ‘We have to go, Maddy… There’s nothingwe can do for her.’

‘I’m not leaving her behind!’

Foster grabbed Maddy’s jaw and turned her face to look at him.

‘Come on!’ he snapped. ‘If they get a hold of us too… then it’s all over! Do you understand? It’s all over… foreveryone!’

1957, New York

Bob parked the Kubelwagen down the backstreet as Liam looked out of thewindscreen at the row of brick arches running underneath the Williamsburg Bridge.

‘We’re home,’ said Liam.

‘Incorrect,’ replied Bob. ‘We are back where .We are not yet back when .’

Liam shrugged. It felt like they were almost home, sittingoutside on the kerb looking at the familiar old brickwork. In place of the sliding corrugateddoor were two large wooden doors. Across them both was painted the sign DANG LI POH LAUNDRY. Plumes of steam spouted from a pipe beside thewooden doors out into the cool late-afternoon air.

Bob consulted his internal clock. ‘We have seventeen minutes until the time wespecified for them to open the window.’

Liam leaned forward to look up at the sky. There were more hoverjets circling the skylineabove Manhattan, patrolling in pairs. He wondered if anyone was looking for them yet.

‘You’re right, no time to waste.’

He opened the door and climbed out, adjusting the black uniform and putting the cap on hishead, tugging the peak low to shadow as much of his boyish face as possible.

Bob joined him on the cobbled pavement strewn with rubbish from a kicked-over garbagepail.

Liam rapped his knuckles on the wooden door. He waited anxiously for aminute before rapping again on the wood. A moment later a small service hatch in the left-handdoor slid open and a ruddy-faced oriental man in a white apron peered out.

‘Yeah?’ he snapped irritably before registering the death’s-head insigniaand pitch-black uniforms.

Liam cleared his throat. ‘You will let us in immediately,’ he said, affecting aclipped officious tone.

‘Whuh?… Er… What — what wrong?’

‘We have reason to believe these premises are harbouring a criminal.’

The man’s eyes widened. ‘We not have bad man here!’

‘You will let us enter NOW or I shall have you all arrested.’

The man’s eyes widened still further. ‘I let you in. One moment.’

He slid the hatch closed and then a few seconds later they heard bolts slide and the woodendoor creaked open. The man waved them in.

‘You come in… see. No criminal here.’

Liam and Bob stepped inside and almost immediately felt a fug of warm moist air against theirfaces. The arch was dimly lit by several bulbs dangling from the arched ceiling.

‘You see… no bad man here!’ snapped the Chinese man.

Liam looked around the gloomy interior. There were about a dozen men and women standing overtubs of steaming water, stirring clothes with ladles, scrubbing them with bars of soap. Strungacross the archway were laundry lines from which clothing and bed linen hung to dry.

‘We laundry. Make super-clean for customer,’ the man explained.

‘You will tell your people to leave the building immediately ,’ ordered Liam.

The Chinese man’s eyes narrowed. ‘ Why you want us leave?’

Hmm . He hadn’t actually thought that far ahead. Liamhesitated a moment too long as he struggled to conjure up an answer.

The Chinese man squinted suspiciously. ‘You just boy… not real soldier pig. You steal uniform an’ try rob my laundry!’

Liam stared at him helplessly. ‘Er…’ was all he could manage.

The man continued to glare at him. ‘This is trick . Youleave now!’

Bob stepped in to help Liam out. He reached for the gun in his holster, wrenched it out andaimed it at the man’s forehead in one fast and fluid motion.

‘This is not a trick.’

The man’s suspicious expression was instantly wiped away and replaced with wide-eyedfear as he stared down the barrel of the pistol.