Time Riders

CHAPTER 80

2001, New York

Sal’s arms and legs thrashed manically in their grasp. ‘Oh God no!He-e-elp me! Help me!’

Foster shouldered his shotgun but realized he couldn’t fire for fear of hitting Sal.Maddy rushed forward and began kicking, punching and scratching the arms pulling at Sal.Through the cross-hatch of rusting wire, he could see a pack of half a dozen of the creaturesfighting each other to get a grip on her. They were standing on the roof of a truck’scab; the large hole in the rusting wire, he guessed, had been made recently, perhaps only inthe last half an hour.

It was a trap.

He realized some of the creatures must have rushed ahead, must have known they were headingthis way, must have known they crossed the bridge using the raised pedestrian walkway.They’d found a place they could reach up to, they’d made a hole in the wire…and waited.

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’sall over! Do you understand? It’s all over… foreveryone!’