TimeRiders 01 - TimeRiders by Alex Scarrow

Author:Alex Scarrow [Alex Scarrow]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction, Time Travel, 21st Century, United States, Children's Stories, History
ISBN: 0802721729
Google: T7NtOD7Inx4C
Amazon: B005X4E2GG
Publisher: Walker Childrens
Published: 2010-02-04T08:00:00+00:00

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 and groaned 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 a long-dead civilization. She couldn’t begin to imagine what must have happened. The breeze moaned through open windows, a haunting cry like some tormented spirit warning her to leave 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 little backstreet… 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 clattered noisily in the silence. Again she thought she spotted another flash of movement from within the 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 come out after her in pursuit, but too frightened to just walk.

She hummed a tune. A stupid over-cheerful plastic Bollywood song from her mum’s childhood. 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 blasted walls. 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 bald head.

She stopped humming.

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

And it screamed.

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

Sal looked desperately around and saw other pale oval faces, each with dark eyes and toothless bleeding mouths, emerging from hundreds of windows, like termites stirring from a disturbed 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 time ago. And if it happened here, I can well imagine it’s happened everywhere.’ 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 blowing someone up.’

‘I’m afraid that’s us as a species.

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