Global Cooling (The Time Bubble Book 2)

by Jason Ayres

  When I awoke, I made my way back to St Ives, only to find that somehow I had lost four months of my life. Where I was during that time, I am afraid to say I have no memory. I am assuming some kind soul must have looked after me, so whoever you are, all I can say is thank-you.”

  Doctors who examined Mr O’Neill could find no sign of any physical trauma and concluded that the only explanation was that he must have suffered some form of stress-induced amnesia. Clearly he must have been living somewhere during these past four months but exactly where seems set to remain a mystery.

  It is not the first such mystery of its type in these parts, according to one elderly resident we spoke to in Zennor, who did not wish to be identified. She claimed that shortly after returning from the Second World War, her father had vanished in similar circumstances for over two months.

  This area of coastline has long been the subject of myths and legends, most notably the well-known local tale of the Mermaid of Zennor involving the disappearance of local lad Matthew Trewella. Could it be that the mermaid has returned?

  Josh was extremely interested in what he had just read. For years he had been searching for such a story and now here it was right in front of him.

  The large, oak-panelled door opened and Alice came into the room. Josh jumped up excitedly, newspaper in hand. “Look at this!” he exclaimed.

  “Whoa, steady on,” she said. “What is it?”

  “Just read it,” he insisted.

  She read through the article. He could barely wait for her to finish so he could say what he wanted to say. “You realise what this could mean, don’t you?”

  “I think I do,” she replied. She knew all about The Time Bubble. Josh had told her all about his and Charlie’s teenage adventures not long after they had started dating. She was sceptical at first but after they’d had dinner with Kaylee and Charlie who’d told their side of the story, she’d accepted that however far-fetched it seemed, it might well be true.

  “It could be a new Time Bubble,” he said. “I think we need to get down there and check it out. Fancy a dirty weekend in Cornwall?”

  “You’re on,” she replied.

  =============================

  Dan and Ryan were spending the afternoon round at Ryan’s house. Ryan still lived at home with his parents, but they had gone away for the weekend so Ryan had asked Dan to come round and keep him company.

  Dan had finished work at 2pm and had nothing better to do, so they were up in Ryan’s bedroom playing on the PS6. Despite Ryan being 28 years old, his room could easily have been mistaken for a teenager’s.

  There were clothes strewn everywhere, posters on the walls from various action movies, and piles of magazines everywhere. These were a mixture of traditional top-shelf filth, ever popular despite the proliferation of online pornography, and a collection of gun enthusiast magazines.

  Right now, Dan and Ryan were playing a particularly bloodthirsty game which consisted primarily of killing as many people as violently as possible with an array of extremely heavy artillery.

  Ryan laughed as he machine-gunned a group of people standing at a bus stop, watching as the blood and gore splattered all around him. The latest console’s 3D holographic effects were the most advanced yet. Ryan really felt like he was there, killing the people in real life and it felt good.

  Dan was equally hooked, taking out his frustrations with real life on the game. “Die, bitch whore!” he shouted as he pumped several rounds of bullets into the head of a prostitute loitering outside a railway station. “She looked a bit like that bitch Lauren,” he added.

  There had been countless campaigns to get such games banned over the years, but the manufacturers argued that as long as they came with an 18 certificate, there was not a problem. There was no evidence, they said, that playing such games inspired copycat behaviour in real life.

  “Get the pregnant woman in the stomach!” exclaimed Dan. “I’ll go for the pushchair.”

  Many people considered such games sick and that only those with a sick mind would play them. Looking at the way Ryan and Dan were enjoying slaughtering the town’s residents, they might well have had a point.

  They got to the end of the level. Ryan paused the game and turned to Dan. “So, you enjoyed that then?” he asked, seeking approval as ever.

  “It was awesome, mate. Quality entertainment!” replied Dan.

  “Well, in that case, I’ve got something else you might be interested in. I’ve been meaning to show you these for a while but I wanted to wait until my parents were away.”

  Ryan walked over to the built-in wardrobe doors and opened them up. He took out a large, padlocked wooden box, produced a key from his pocket, and began to open it up. “Take a look at this,” he said.

  Dan looked inside, and even he was a little shocked by what he saw. The box was full of guns, at least half a dozen different types, along with several boxes of ammunition.

  “Oh my God, Ryan, where did you get this lot?”

  “I built them myself,” replied Ryan, proudly. “It’s easy enough with the latest 3D printers. Then I painted them all to the exact specifications of the original designs. You can hardly tell the difference.”

  “Isn’t this illegal?” asked Dan. Not that things being illegal had ever stopped Dan doing anything.

  “Oh, totally,” replied Ryan. “But as long as nobody knows they are here, where’s the problem?”

  “Do they actually work?” asked Dan.

  “Absolutely,” said Ryan. “I’ve tested most of them. I had to take them out into the countryside, though, they are pretty noisy. You can try one if you like.”

  “Now?” asked Dan.

  “Why not?” replied Ryan. He took two of the guns from the box and a couple of boxes of ammunition. “We’ll drive over to that abandoned Army base just outside town. It’s deserted and no one will hear us there.”

  Dan felt strangely excited. He’d never held a real gun before, let alone fired one. Ryan passed one of the guns across to him and he held it. It felt good.

  =============================

  After leaving the pub, Kaylee had gone back home to find Charlie waiting for her. They had planned to leave mid-afternoon, but Kaylee needed to see Hannah before she went.

  As she walked through the streets under grey-leaden skies, she drew her thick, woollen coat ever more tightly around herself.

  The temperature had been falling throughout the day and it was barely above freezing now. She could see her breath in front of her and quickened her pace, wanting to get back in the warm as soon as possible.

  When she got to Hannah’s house, Hannah was helping Jess with her homework at the kitchen table. She let Kaylee in and put the kettle on.

  “I could do with a brew,” remarked Kaylee. “It’s freezing out there!”

  “Is it going to snow, Kaylee?” asked Jess. “Miss Phillips at school says it might. I want to build a snowman.”

  Despite being nine years old, Jess had never experienced the childhood joy of building a snowman. The warm weather of the past decade had more or less rendered snow a thing of the past in Southern England.

  “It certainly looks that way, Jess,” replied Kaylee. “And I don’t want to put a dampener on your plans, but it’s that which I’ve come to talk about,” she said.

  “Go on,” said Hannah. “It’s quite nice having our own personal weather expert as a best friend.” Her light-hearted tone became more serious as she noticed the look on Kaylee’s face. “What’s up?”

  “Hannah, I’m really concerned about what’s happening to the climate. Have you seen the news today?”

  “I haven’t had time,” replied Hannah. “I only got in from work an hour ago and then I had to pick up Jess.”

  “You’ve heard about the cold weather coming down from the North Pole, though?”

  “I could hardly miss it – it’s been all over the news for days, not to mention being the main topic of conversation at work today. We’ve got e
veryone on alert ready to deal with any traffic problems. But it’s just a cold snap, isn’t it? There’s nothing really to be afraid of. I thought most of the dust from the asteroid strike had cleared now. It’s certainly been a lot sunnier the last couple of weeks.”

  “The damage has been done already,” said Kaylee. “The Arctic sea ice didn’t melt this summer, and there’s still a freeing mass of air sitting over the pole. That air is currently sinking rapidly south, and as the winter approaches it can only get worse. Put the TV on and you’ll see.”

  Hannah and Kaylee left Jess in the kitchen and went through to the lounge. Hannah switched the TV over to the news channel. The image on the screen was of cars abandoned on a snowbound road. They listened intently to what the announcer was saying:

  “At least twelve inches of snow have fallen across the Scottish Highlands and most roads in the area are impassable. Routes in and out of Inverness are completely blocked by snow, whilst further south, a severe accident has closed the M8 westbound between Edinburgh and Glasgow after at least six inches of snow fell in less than twelve hours.

  Police are unable to say when it will reopen. They are also advising the public in Scotland not to travel unless absolutely necessary.

  In the meantime, severe weather warnings have been issued for the whole of the UK for snow. The Met Office has upgraded these from Amber to Red status, the highest level of alert following the latest forecast.”

  “How long have you known about this?” asked Hannah.

  “At least a week,” replied Kaylee. “But we didn’t think it was going to be this bad at first. Every time we’ve updated the forecast since then, it’s looked worse.”

  “I bet you’ll be glad to be getting away from it, won’t you?” asked Hannah. “I wish I was going on holiday.”

  “The thing is,” said Kaylee, “if it’s as bad as our worst-case scenario, we might stay in Fuerteventura. We might not have any choice.”

  “And what about us?” asked Hannah. “Are we in any danger?”

  “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. I really think you should think about leaving and getting to somewhere warmer. Maybe get out of England altogether for the winter.”

  “I can’t possibly do that, for all sorts of reasons,” replied Hannah. “For a start, there’s my job. If things are going to get tough here, then I’m going to have my work cut out. Then there’s Jess of course, I can’t justify taking her out of school and spiriting her away halfway across the world.”

  “If things get bad, there may not be any school,” said Kaylee. “You know how quick they are to close the place when there are even a couple of flakes of snow.”

  “And there’s something else, too, another reason why I couldn’t leave even if I wanted to.” She paused and then said just one word: “Peter”.

  They both knew that Peter was due to return for good from The Time Bubble on 11th January. There was no way Hannah was not going to be around to greet him on that day after she had waited for so long.

  “I thought you might say that,” said Kaylee. “So I think you should do everything you can to be prepared for the worst.”

  “Stockpiling food?” asked Hannah.

  “Not just that,” said Kaylee. “You need to imagine a worst-case scenario where you’ve no electricity, no gas, no water and no fuel, and prepare for it. It could make the difference between life and death.”

  Hannah glanced back towards the kitchen door. She hoped Jess couldn’t hear all of this. She let what Kaylee had said sink in for a moment, and then she had a flash of inspiration. “Gran’s farmhouse!” she said.

  Hannah’s grandmother had died a couple of months previously. She had lived most of her life in a small cottage that had originally been part of a farmhouse, about half a mile outside the town. It hadn’t been a working farmhouse for decades, but they still referred to it as such.

  Responsibility for selling the cottage had fallen to Hannah, but so far, in the depressed economy and housing market, there hadn’t been any takers.

  She had thought about moving in there herself but had dismissed the idea because of the difficulty of getting Jess to and from school. Now it was lying empty.

  “It would be an ideal place in an emergency,” said Hannah. “For a start, it’s got two open fireplaces downstairs. Not only that, she had an Aga, all powered from an oil tank outside. She used that for all her cooking and for heating the radiators as well. It’s all completely self-contained.”

  “I think it would be well worth paying a visit over there this weekend,” said Kaylee. “And stock the place up with as much food, candles, soap and all the other things you might need should you find yourself snowed in for a few weeks.”

  “Thanks, Kaylee,” replied Hannah. “What would I do without you?”

  “Just look after yourself and Jess,” replied Kaylee. “I’ll call you when we get to Fuerteventura to find out how things are.”

  Hannah was worried by all that had been said, but at least now Kaylee had given her the heads-up she could prepare.

  “Come on, Jess,” she called to the kitchen. “We’re going shopping.”

  The three of them left together. Hannah dropped Kaylee off at home, and she and Jess headed to the out-of-town superstore. Friday night wasn’t an ideal time to be going shopping at the best of times. She just hoped not everybody had had the same idea as her.

  Chapter Twelve – 20th October 2029 (6.30am)

  A shrill beeping awoke Kaylee from her sleep as the travel alarm clock by her bedside table went off. Charlie was snoring next to her and she nudged him awake.

  Their journey down to Gatwick the previous evening had gone without a hitch. By 7.00pm they were booked in and ready to sample the hotel restaurant. It was pretty standard stuff for an airport hotel. Ever the health-conscious one, she’d opted for a chicken Caesar salad, whereas Charlie had pushed the boat out and gone for a steak and chips washed down with a bottle of red wine. They were on holiday after all, as he’d said.

  “I’m parched,” croaked Charlie, who was feeling a little dehydrated from the effects of the red wine.

  “I told you drinking that whole bottle was a bad idea,” remarked Kaylee. She took the kettle from the tray beside the bed and walked across to the en suite bathroom to fill it.

  The hotel room was the standard shape both were more than familiar with from business trips. The bathroom was on the left side, just after the door, with the wardrobes on the other side. The kettle was on a small tray on a desk next to the ever-present trouser press which neither of them had ever used.

  “Yeah, that’s been happening a lot lately,” said Charlie. “Still, if you will go getting yourself pregnant.”

  “I think you had more than a little bit to do with that,” replied Kaylee.

  “Speaking of which,” said Charlie, “have we got time now?”

  “There’ll be plenty of time for that when we get to Fuerteventura,” she said. “We’ve got to check in at seven.”

  She crossed to the far side of the room again and opened the curtains. It was still dark outside but she could see through the yellow glow of the street lamps that thick snow was falling. This didn’t come as any surprise to Kaylee, she’d been expecting it.

  She glanced down from their first-floor window and saw that the ground was already covered. From this height she couldn’t see exactly how deep it was but it looked like a good, thick covering.

  “It’s getting pretty heavy out there,” she said. “I hope they are keeping the runways clear.”

  Gatwick had expanded, a new runway being opened in the early 2020s. It was now handling over a million passengers every week.

  “Good job we booked this hotel,” said Charlie. “It would have been a nightmare trying to drive down here this morning through all that.”

  They dressed quickly, downed a quick cup of cheap, hotel room coffee, and headed across to the airport. They’d had the foresight to check their suitcases in the previous evening so w
ere travelling fairly light, which was just as well in the conditions.

  Once they got outside for the brief walk across the road, they could feel how much the temperature had fallen overnight. It was definitely below freezing now and the snow was soft underfoot. It must have been at least three inches deep and it was settling fast.

  When they made it into the terminal building, they were confronted by bad news. Charlie scanned the boards for their flight, scheduled for 9.00am. The dreaded word “DELAYED” was displayed next to it. In fact it was displayed next to nearly all of the flights.

  “I don’t like the look of this,” said Charlie. “Let’s try and find out what’s happening.”

  They walked across to the information desk, around which an irate crowd of frustrated travellers was already gathering.

  =============================

  Back in Oxford, Josh and Alice were having a little more success with their travel plans. The snow was falling there, too, but the trains were still running. Neither of them drove.

  Having studied, lived and worked in the centre of Oxford since he was eighteen, Josh had never bothered to learn, and Alice only had a provisional licence. In this case it was probably just as well. The roads did not look good.

  They’d boarded a train for Reading at 8.51am and were now travelling southwards. The snow was not quite as bad as at Gatwick, but they could see from the windows that it was settling quite quickly on the fields as they passed by.

  The train was fairly quiet and they had a table to themselves. It was the weekend and not many people travelled this early in the day on a Saturday. They sat opposite each other next to the window, watching the snow coming down outside.

  “Do you think I should have brought some warmer clothes?” asked Alice. She was wearing a dark maroon jacket, jeans and trainers – warm enough for the average winter day, but possibly a little on the light side for a day like this.

  “We can always get whatever we need when we get down there,” said Josh. He had a thicker winter jacket and a woolly hat. “You can always borrow my hat if you get chilly later,” he said.