Time Riders

CHAPTER 57

2001, New York subway

Foster’s torch probed the darkness of the subway station. The beam picked outthe glint of twin metal rail tracks to their left over the edge of the platform and theglimmer of pools of stagnant water between them.

Further along the tracks Sal could see an old pram lying on its side, half in, half out ofthe water.

They could hear skittering sounds along the rails, in, around and under the rotting woodensleepers; the pattering of little vermin feet and the steady metronome-like drip, drip,drip of moisture from the curved tunnel roof above them echoed through thestation.

Along the tiled walls of the station’s platform Sal was fascinated by long-fadedadvertisement billboards. She passed by the faded image of a happy family gathered around atraditional oak kitchen table, all smiling, with well-scrubbed rosy cheeks, enjoying all thepleasures a tin of Colonel Johnston’s Oatmeal Cookies couldoffer.

‘What’re you expecting to find down here?’ asked Maddy.

Even though she spoke in little more than a tremulous whisper, her voice seemed to echoendlessly down the station’s walls and curved ceiling and off into the dark tunnelbeyond.

‘An emergency storeroom of some sort,’ whispered Foster. ‘I rememberreading that most of New York’s subway stations had back-up generatorsinstalled during the Second World War. Hopefully we’ll find one and, along with it, somecontainers of fuel.’ Foster looked back at them. ‘I know. It’s a longshot.’

‘I never knew they had an underground system back then,’ said Sal.

‘Yeah, of course they did,’ said Maddy. ‘I did a school project on the NewYork subway once. They started digging out the tunnels as early as 1904, I think.’

Foster nodded. ‘That’s right. Brought in Irish workers by the tens of thousandsto work on it…’ Foster was about to say more, but stopped himself.

So far, mercifully, they’d yet to encounter a single one of those creatures.They’d come across signs of them on the streets above: clusters of small bones, ratcarcasses, remains of cats and even dog carcasses. And of course, more ominously, here andthere discarded piles of larger bones, sometimes carefully stacked or arranged by size. Salfound that even more unsettling — the thought of several of those creatures sitting downand carefully sorting through the bones of someone they’d eaten.

She shuddered.

On 5thAvenue she thought she’d seen a pale face peeking out at her beforeit dipped back into the dark shadows beyond a department-store window frame. And on Broadway,the faintest slither of movement among some storefront mannequins, their plastic scorchedblack in places, fingers and thumbs little more than melted stubs. But she was prepared tobelieve she was mistaken. Preferred to believe that, in fact.

Mind you, if those things were really there, watching from the darkness, then at least theywere keeping their distance, still very much wary of Foster’s gun. She wondered, though,how long that would last. How long before insatiable hunger for theircomparatively plump, well-fed bodies would overcome their caution.

‘Up ahead,’ whispered Foster. ‘Look!’ He swung his torch along to theend of the platform, to a small door with a faded STAFFROOMsign on it. Beneath that another sign warned of an electrical hazard.

He picked up the pace, his shoes clacking along the platformsurface, kicking aside several fallen tiles that clattered noisily across the platform, overthe edge and sploshed into the puddles of water below. Sal cringed as the noise echoedinterminably down the tunnel.

Foster reached for the handle and tried it, rattling it hard. It came off in his hand amid ashower of rust flakes.

‘Oh, that’s just great,’ he snapped.

‘Let me have a go,’ said Maddy.

She lifted a booted leg and kicked the door by the rusted stub of the handle. With a sharpcrack, the door rattled inwards on its hinges, shards of rusted lock and splinters of woodcascading to the floor.

Foster waved a cloud of dust away from his face. ‘Shall we?’

‘Age before beauty,’ said Maddy.

He replied with a thin smile and the flicker of a wiry eyebrow, then stepped into the roombeyond, swinging his torch quickly from side to side, the light picking out surfaces coveredin half a century of dust.

Maddy stepped in behind him while Sal cast one last glance over her shoulder at the emptyplatform behind, now robbed of the light from Foster’s torch as he made his way furtherinside.

She hurried in after them.

Foster panned the flashlight around slowly. She could see a table and chairs in the middle ofa small room. Several enamel mugs were on the table, along with a yellow tattered and faded copy of TheNew York Times opened on the funnies page and dotted with ratdroppings. On the walls were coat hooks, lockers and pin-ups of beautiful movie stars,forgotten faces her mum and dad might have once been able to put a name to.

‘It looks untouched since… well… since whatever happened, happened,’said Maddy.

Foster nodded. ‘Doomsday.’

He stepped over to the table and shone his torch down on the newspaper. ‘Wednesday,thirteenth of March 1957.’ He looked up at them. ‘I was never that keen onWednesdays.’

Maddy snorted. Sal smiled, comforted by his lame attempt to lighten the mood. She leaned overthe paper, scanning the headlines.

Terrorists Continue Attacks On Resettlement Camps

Teacher Arrested For Teaching Pre-unity History

Fuhrer Absent at Unity Day Parade — Rumours Of IllHealth

‘Superman’ Just A Myth Spread By Troublemakers

At the far end of the room was a door with another electrical hazard warning screwed on toit. Below that, another sign read AUTHORIZED ACCESS ONLY.

‘Maybe we’ll find something useful in there,’ said Foster. He steppedaround the table and tried the door handle. This time it opened without putting up a fight,although the hinges creaked drily. He pushed it open and flicked his torch from side to sidein the dark void beyond.

‘See anything?’ asked Maddy.

‘I see shelves both sides… I see coils of cable… some tools…oh.’

Silence.

‘What is it?’ asked Sal.

‘Yeah,’ Maddy chorused more loudly. ‘What have you got?’

‘Just a second,’ said Foster, stepping further inside. He let the door go behind him. Maddy grabbed it before it could slam with a loudbang.

‘Foster?’

Over Maddy’s shoulder Sal could see his silhouette inside, dancing shadows, the flickerof reflected light off dust-covered pipe conduits suspended from a claustrophobic low ceiling.He paced down a narrow walkway flanked on either side by racks of floor-to-ceilingshelves.

‘Useful supplies in here. Just taking a look. You stay there,’ he called back. Hemade his way down to the end of the racks of shelves then turned right, slipping out ofview.

Sal wanted to call to him to come back, to say that they should all remain close together.But she didn’t. Maddy was right there next to her.

Light flickered over the tops of the shelves and shadows danced across the low ceiling as hemoved around the end of the shelves and out of sight. They could hear his feet tapping andscraping across the cold concrete floor.

‘Come on, Foster. Is there anything we can use in there, or not?’ Maddy calledout.

The sound of movement stopped and the torchlight hovered where it was for a while.‘Just a sec,’ he replied.

Foster was taking his time. ‘What’s he doing?’ Sal whispered.

‘Checking something out, I guess.’

Sal bit her lip, trying to keep her cool.

That’s right. He’s just round the corner, not far. No needto panic, Saleena Vikram.

However, right then it occurred to her that the only gun they hadwas round the corner with him. What if those things were back in that tunnel leading out ofthe station, watching patiently from the shadows? Perhaps waiting, perhaps growing bolder witheach passing second. They might be on the platform, approaching the door tothe staffroom right now, standing just outside and curious to see what was going on inside.Curious to see how close they could get without being spotted.

She glanced back anxiously over her shoulder at the small room. It wasalmost pitch black now. She could just about make out the square edge of the table from whatlittle light was reaching them from Foster’s bobbing torch, a faint glint from one ofthe mugs. One or two of the chairs were visible. But nothing else. She turned back to see howthe old man was doing.

‘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.’