Flash Flood
Authors: Chris Ryan
Tags: #Children's Books, #Action & Adventure, #Teen & Young Adult, #Literature & Fiction, #Survival Stories, #Children's eBooks
CHRIS RYAN
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Version 1.0
Epub ISBN 9781409098225
FLASH FLOOD
A RED FOX BOOK 978 0 099 48863 7
First published in Great Britain by Red Fox,
an imprint of Random House Children’s Books
This edition published 2006
9 10
Copyright © Chris Ryan, 2006
The right of Chris Ryan to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
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Set in Sabon
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Cox & Wyman, Reading, RG1 8EX
n moments the water had covered the square of green grass in front of the entrance to the ArBonCo Centre. It crept over the road, choking an excavator so that it stalled with its arm poised in the air like a yellow claw. It gushed down the steps of the ArBonCo Centre and filled the sunken stepped area in front of the glass doors like a swimming pool.
On Ben’s headphones the music continued. The radio station seemed unaware of the catastrophe. He took the phones out of his ears.
The noise from outside was deafening. There was a loud roar like an earthquake as the water slammed into the sides of buildings. Very faintly Ben could hear other noises too; the faintest of sounds that he thought might be screams.
Looking across the river, he saw that, over on the north bank, the road was invisible. The river was twice as wide as it had been, bordered now by the rows of buildings opposite. And still the water continued to rise …
Also by Chris Ryan:
The Alpha Force Series
SURVIVAL
RAT-CATCHER
DESERT PURSUIT
HOSTAGE
RED CENTRE
HUNTED
BLOOD MONEY
FAULT LINE
BLACK GOLD
UNTOUCHABLE
Coming soon:
A second Code Red Adventure
WILDFIRE
‘I know you’re probably sick of environmentalists like me banging on about global warming. The sea level rising and all that rubbish. But think of it this way. You know the Thames Barrier? You know that without it a lot of central London would be under water? Well, in twenty-five years’ time, if you don’t build a much bigger Thames Barrier, London will be under water anyway. That’s what rising sea levels mean.
‘Twenty-five years; it’s not long, is it? Or, if you’re really unlucky with the weather, it could be twenty-five minutes.’
Dr Bel Kelland, environmentalist,
News Focus
, August 2006
‘This is crap, this train,’ said the youth with the pierced eyebrow, and kicked the door next to his seat. It was one of the old-type trains with doors that slam shut, and when he kicked it the window rattled.
A woman sitting on the end of the row with a leather holdall on her knee jumped at the sound and looked annoyed. The youth’s two friends, both wearing hoodies and a variety of face piercings, saw her reaction and snorted with laughter. They were about sixteen, they were bored, and they were determined to make everyone else suffer too.
Like everyone else in the carriage, Ben and Rachel
tried to ignore them. The train journey was unpleasant enough as it was. Ever since they had got on at their home town of Macclesfield in Cheshire it had been stop-start all the way. Now it was stop. Heavy rain had caused flooding and signal failures. The carriage smelled of wet raincoats and damp seats; the floor was wet from dripping umbrellas. Some people were wearing wellington boots. You could hardly believe it was the first week of August.
Everyone was fed up, wondering when the train was going to move again. Ben Tracey – dark blond hair, thoughtful face, thirteen years old but looked older – was going to London to spend the day with his mother. His parents were separated and he didn’t get to see his mother very often because she travelled a lot. Twenty-two-year-old Rachel, his next-door neighbour, was fully made up and dressed much more smartly than Ben. She was accompanying him as far as Milton Keynes, where she had a job interview. She’d already had to phone to tell them she’d be late. Everyone in the carriage was sitting and gritting their teeth, or looking out at the relentless rain, which lashed the windows like a storm at sea.
‘I said this train’s
crap
,’ said Pierced Eyebrow, and kicked the door again. This time he kicked harder and the window slipped down in the frame. Water dribbled in through the gap and down the window, leaving streaks in the black grime and pooling on the dirty floor.
His two friends laughed. ‘Hey, man, you’ve broken it.’ One of them scratched his nose, making the piercing he’d got there jiggle up and down. He noticed the woman with the holdall looking at it distastefully. He stuck his finger into the nostril and waggled the stud from inside like someone making a teddy bear wave. ‘Hey, Grandma, do you like my piercing?’
She looked pointedly the other way, out of the window.
Pierced Eyebrow fished in his pocket. He brought out a marker pen and wrote an unreadable signature in big letters on the glass, then sat back grinning.