As they neared the top of the houses, they could see huge piles of snow on the roofs. As the piles continued to grow, some of the roofs collapsed, causing the houses below to disintegrate into debris. In just a short time, the sheet beneath the family had risen to chimney level. Around them, on houses that had withstood the crush, the chimneys began to detach themselves, and disintegrate in a streak across what was now ground level.
Now, they could see across their town. There was little left except a smattering of treetops, the odd church spire and the tall buildings of the business district, with their hated 2040s architecture.
The pace quickened. With less to get in the way, the sheet below them rose, flattened and hardened, gobbling up the few remaining remnants of human civilisation. The last to disappear was perhaps the oldest part of town, the cross on a spire on the top of a hill.
Time appeared to return to normal, and they found themselves facing the same scene as at the start.
Zak slouched, with his arms folded. ‘What a load of rubbish!’ he declared.
‘It’s not rubbish Zak,’ said Dad. ‘It has happened many times before, and it will happen again.’
‘But how can this be Dad?’ said Skye. ‘We’ve been taught that the world has been getting warmer for a hundred years, and that the last few years are just a blip.’
‘For a long time scientists did believe it was a blip,’ said Dad. ‘There are several forces that battle to pull the climate between hot and cold, and they had predicted that for the next hundred years also, the forces bringing heat would dominate. But we’ve now had ten successive years of cold winters, and the effects of that alone seem to be triggering a runaway freeze.’
‘But the snow melts in the summer,’ said Zak, ‘so how can it build up like this?’
‘The new predictions state that it will get a lot colder. The winters will become longer, and it will get harder to clear the ice. When we give up trying, we’ll be overrun in a matter of years.’
‘Well,’ said Zak, feeling a bit fazed, ‘you must regret building the swimming pool now.’
