small and defeated. ‘What… what is it, Foster?’
‘Right here!’ said Foster. ‘They’re right here! Right inside thearchway! The co-ordinates… they’re saving us as much power asthey can. Opening the window right here — that might just conserve enough power for usto bring them
She smiled weakly.
He got up out of his seat to join Maddy at the table. On his way over he pulled the door tothe back room shut, reducing the deafening rattling chug of the generator, clearly strugglingon the last dregs of fuel, to a muted background rumble.
He sat down heavily in an armchair beside her. ‘It’s almost over,Madelaine.’
‘It’s over for Sal,’ she replied.
‘Not necessarily.’
She looked up at him. ‘How do you mean?’
He rubbed his face tiredly. ‘Time travel is very muddy stuff… It’s anunpredictable science. If Liam and Bob can go back and fix things second time round, then,it’s possible… just
She sat up. ‘Do you think so?’
‘It’s possible… just that.’
She grasped his hand. ‘Poor Sal.’ Tears cleaned fresh tracks down hergrime-covered cheeks. ‘I can’t bear to think what… what — ’
‘Then
‘Foster.’
He stopped talking. Maddy’s head was cocked, her eyes narrowed, squinting as shelistened to something. ‘Did you hear that?’
‘Hear what?’
‘I thought I heard…’
Then he heard it himself — something moving in the backstreetoutside. The skittering of a loose chunk of rubble kicked carelessly across the ash anddust-covered cobblestones. The light brush of
Their eyes met and both knew what it meant.
‘They’ve found us, haven’t they?’ whispered Maddy.
‘I think so.’
The tapping on the shutter door suddenly became a frustrated bang. Maddy jerked in her seatand whimpered.
‘They’re trying to find a way in,’ said Foster.
‘Can’t we open the displacement window right now?’
He looked anxiously across the floor at the row of LEDs on the time machine, eleven of themblinking together… awaiting a twelfth to turn green.
‘Not yet… we open it too soon and we could blow this one chance.’
Scratching. He could hear a scratching… scraping noise.
Maddy held her breath, listening to the soft noise slowly growing louder, more intense.‘What’re they doing?’
‘I don’t know.’
But he did.
He looked again at the LEDs, willing that last one to flicker over to green.
They both heard the clatter of a brick falling to the ground outside. ‘Oh Godno!’ Maddy hissed. ‘They’re coming through the walls!’
Foster reached for the shotgun on the table. Maddy snapped on a torch and studied the wallsfor a sign of their handiwork. Her breath rattled and fluttered noisily in the quietstillness.
‘I… I don’t want to go like… like S-Sal.’
‘Don’t worry,’ he said, panning a second torch along the base of the archwalls, ‘I won’t let them take us. I promise you that.’
His beam passed over a small mound of dry grey powder on the floor.
‘There!’
She moved her beam over to the pale dust, then worked it up the wall until she glimpsed ahairline crack of daylight and a solitary brick shuffling in the wall, dislodging morecrumbling mortar on to the ground.
‘Oh my God… you see that?’
‘Yes,’ Foster replied. Getting to his feet and stepping across the floor towardsthe front wall, he aimed his gun at the loose brick. The brick fidgeted again and thenshuffled inward, falling on to the floor with a heavy thud. Foster glimpsed one of theboiled-fish eyes through the hole left behind… and fired.
They heard a high-pitched scream and anguished cries of rage outside. The scratchingintensified, now coming from several other places along the wall.
‘Oh God, Foster!.. It’s everywhere! It’s — ’
There was a bang and the sound of something heavy clattering on to the floor in the backroom.
‘Jesus!’ snapped Foster. ‘They’re in!’ He ran across the floorand quickly rammed home a locking bolt on the sliding door.
‘
‘They were distracting us at the front, meanwhile working on the brick walls at theback.’ His eyes locked on hers. ‘They’re in the back room!’
There was a heavy thud against the sliding door, leaving a bulge in the thin metal sheeting.The hinges anchored to the old brick wall rattled loosely and rust-coloured brick dustcascaded down.
Maddy screamed.
Another heavy thud left another jagged dent.
‘This door isn’t going to take too much more of that,’ shouted Foster.
‘Oh God, no! Foster! I don’t want to die like this!’
He looked again at the charge display, cursing that last red LED.
‘W-what… what if we open the window now? Foster? Can we?’
He grimaced as the door rattled again from another blow and more brick dust settled on hishead and shoulders. Through the thin metal door he could hear them, whimpering, crying andsnarling… frustrated by this last obstacle.
‘Foster? Now! Open the window now!’
‘OK… it’s got to be nearly there. Near enough.’
He handed her the gun and shifted to one side so that she could replace his weight againstthe door.
‘Hold this as long as you can. If they break through, you’ve got nine shots left.Do you understand?’
She nodded. ‘I understand… seven for t-them… a-and — ’
‘That’s right.’ He smiled grimly. ‘Two for us.’
Another heavy thud. The top hinge rattled loose from the brick wall, showering Maddy withgrit and dust.
Foster grasped her hand tightly and squeezed, then he scrambled across the floor towards thecomputer terminals, quickly opening up the interface dialogue box with the time machine andtapping in the co-ordinates on the keyboard.
The door rattled from another heavy blow and the second hinge, halfway down the door, lurchedoff the wall, showering her again.
‘Foster!
He scanned the numbers he’d typed, checking them against Liam’suntidily scrawled figures.
