Time Riders

CHAPTER 50

2001, New York

Sal was afraid. Very afraid.

She looked up at the dark, silent, blasted structures around her. Tall ruins that creaked andgroaned while skeins of dust chased like fleeting ghosts through them.

Times Square was no longer Times Square — it was a tomb, the crumbling relic of along-dead civilization. She couldn’t begin to imagine what must have happened. Thebreeze moaned through open windows, a haunting cry like some tormented spirit warning her toleave now and not delay a moment longer.

She decided that was probably good advice and turned to head back to the field office,wondering for a moment if the bridge and the archway beneath it, their littlebackstreet… was actually still there.

As she turned, she saw something move.

The faintest flash of something pale flitting from one dark window to another.

Just a bit of rubbish… that’s all.

She picked her way quickly across the rubble, kicking stones that clacked and clatterednoisily in the silence. Again she thought she spotted another flash of movement from withinthe darkened bowels of one of the buildings.

A pale oval… with two dark holes that studied her intently for the briefest moment,then disappeared into the gloomy interior.

I’m not alone.

She picked up her pace, not wanting to run in case it encouraged whatever was inside to comeout after her in pursuit, but too frightened to just walk.

She hummed a tune. A stupid over-cheerful plastic Bollywood song from her mum’schildhood. One of those tunes you can never get out of your head once it gets in.

She clattered her way across Times Square, her humming echoing off dark scorched and blastedwalls. She was passing the rusting skeleton of a vehicle, on to what had once been Broadway,when a creature emerged several dozen yards in front of her.

It stopped and stared at her with deep, dark, soulless eyes set in a pallid ash-grey baldhead.

She stopped humming.

It reminded her of a creature she’d once seen in an old movie from way back, a moviewith elves and dwarves and magical rings. One of the creatures she remembered in particular,though, was called Gollum. The thing standing in front of herreminded her of that. It stared at her, motionless. Its mouth finally opened to reveal bloodygums and one or two ragged teeth.

And it screamed.

The scream echoed off the tall ruins and was soon joined by other shrill voices joiningin.

Sal looked desperately around and saw other pale oval faces, each with dark eyes andtoothless bleeding mouths, emerging from hundreds of windows, like termites stirring from adisturbed nest.

And she screamed along with them.

Foster joined Maddy outside, surveying the broken and blasted city.‘Complete devastation,’ he whispered. ‘Something happened here a long timeago. And if it happened here, I can well imagine it’s happenedeverywhere.’ He looked at Maddy. ‘Perhaps some sort of a nuclear war?’

She nodded. ‘Oh God, what is it with mankind? Never happy unless it’s blowingsomeone up.’

‘I’m afraid that’s us as a species.’

Isn’t it just, she mused. Sometimes she felt disgusted tobe human.

‘Sal’s out there,’ said Foster quietly.

She looked at him. ‘She’ll be terrified. And she may have difficulty finding herway back. That’s a very different-looking landscape out there.’

‘I’ll just grab some things,’ he said, ducking back under the shutter.

A few minutes later he emerged from beneath the shutter door with a couple of flashlights, abottle of water and a shotgun in the crook of his arm.

Her eyes widened at the sight of it. ‘You think we’re going to needit?’

‘Best to be prepared, eh?’

She swallowed nervously then nodded. ‘OK. Let’s go find her.’