New World: Nick Smith Book one (Nick Smith Series 1)

by Stephen Birch

  Dan hung his head. ‘Sorry Nick. Do you think they’ll go now?’

  ‘You’ve spooked them. They should take off, but that’s not my worry. There could be others around here, and if there are you’ve just told them that there are girls here and idiot nearby.’ Nick looked about. He was pretty certain that the services were empty at the moment, but he wasn’t so sure about the surrounding area. Those men from yesterday might still be around somewhere. He had always made sure to stay quiet and leave no trace. It was a habit already well formed before the change and sound travelled a very long way these days.

  ‘Now we do need to get back into the woods. So it’s plan A Danny boy!

  ‘What is plan A?’

  ‘Well it was your plan! Sneak out the back, circle round in the woods and get back to camp.’

  ‘What about the girls?’

  ‘What about them?’ Nick stood up slowly. Keeping low, he backed away from the window area. ‘Come on let’s go.’

  ‘But they might get hurt. Someone might come. I thought we could say hello to the girls.’ Dan was still crouching down in front by the window. He looked across the sunny car park at the big 4 by 4. It was just sitting there now with the engine running. ‘They are still there,’ Dan told him.

  ‘I can see that boy!’

  ‘I think we should go out and say hello. It’s only girls. If someone else comes you could sort them out. Like you did yesterday with them others.’ Dan backed away from the window slowly until he was beside Nick.

  ‘Yeah, well yesterday was a one off and I certainly don’t need a gaggle of girls around.’ Nick turned away.

  Without thinking Dan suddenly grabbed the back of nicks t-shirt. He was about to plead with him once more but before he could even get a breath in to speak Nick reacted with incredible speed. He spun in place and swept Dan’s arm away with his left arm, then using the momentum of his spin, he then thrust out with his right hand. The shove to Dan’s chest knocked him over backwards.

  ‘Ow!’ Dan complained. ‘Why did you do that?’

  Nick down looked at the boy sitting there and calmed himself. ‘I’m sorry boy, it was just a reflex. Come on. Get up.’

  ‘You hurt me.’

  ‘Yes, but you’re lucky. It was a trained reflex caught at the last second. You could have been really hurt.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Dan said sulkily, getting back to his feet.

  All of a sudden Nick slumped. What had he been thinking? He stared hard at the boy. ‘That’s just one of the problems being around other people. Now when somebody grabs me from behind I might hesitate. That hesitation could get me, and anyone else with me killed. It’s one of the reasons that I’m better off alone boy.’ Nick pointed over towards the car, ‘Why don’t you go and see the girls. I suspect they will probably let you go with them.’

  He then turned away from Dan once more and walked towards the back of the services.

  Chapter five

  Dan watched Nick disappear towards the back of the services then he brushed himself down and straightened his t-shirt. For the first time he noticed how really dirty and torn it was. He remembered shopping in the abandoned millets where he had found the t-shirt along all the other stuff that he had packed into his bag. That thought reminded him that the bag was now hidden near Nick’s camp.

  The millets shop was back in the town near where he lived. Where he had lived, he corrected himself. That was before the flu. He forced himself to stop thinking about that. About his mum and dad. About their last hours of sweating and crying while the flu killed them. He forced himself to think about what he was going to do now. Nick had told him that he should go and see the girls. That they might let him go with them. He knew that Nick didn’t want him around. Why would he?

  A feeling of hopelessness flowed through Dan once again as he stood there. Despair and fear controlled his life now, but he pulled his hands through his long blonde hair and realised that he would have to do something. He would have to start changing. He would have to get tougher, like Nick. Well maybe Nick had helped him with that. Maybe he could learn to be like him. I will have to, he thought. If I’m going to have to live like this always. He thought about trying to find his bag where it was hidden near Nick’s camp. But he knew that he wouldn’t know his way back there. He also knew that it was a bag full of crap stuff anyway. He would get some better stuff. Some stuff like Nick had, and a great big knife.

  He went over to the doors. The car was still there.

  ‘Wait! I saw movement!’ Beth pressed the button to open her window again. She put her hand up to shield her eyes from the sun and squinted across at the glass front of the services.

  ‘Where mum?’ Sammy was really worried now.

  ‘In the services near the door. Someone is moving. I can see someone in a blue t shirt.’

  ‘Oh my god, let’s go mum quick. Let’s go now!’

  Kay looked over at the service area as well, but although she was also scared, she said nothing as she chewed at a nail and watched the door to the services swing open.

  ‘He’s coming out!’ Beth had almost shouted the words, but she calmed herself quickly. Now that he was outside Beth could see that it was just a boy. He began to walk slowly over to them. The sun was blinding her a little but she could see that he held his empty hands up in the air. He was ragged and dirty, with longish, blonde hair but he walked straight and his expression was serious. Beth was torn between the urge to drive off and the urge to speak to someone. He might know something. He might have some information about what was going on. This was the first person that they had come across, and he did look harmless. He also looked a bit upset.

  ‘That’s close enough!’ she suddenly shouted as the boy got to about twenty feet away, and she was amazed to see the boy flinch and stop. In the back, the girls were frozen into silence. They were just waiting now.

  ‘Sorry,’ Dan called over. ‘I just wanted to say hello.’

  ‘Are you on your own?’ Beth asked harshly. Too harshly she thought as he flinched again, but she then thought, no, I can never be too harsh anymore. The world is a different place now.

  ‘I am now.’

  ‘I have a gun,’ Beth lied. ‘I will shoot you if you come any closer.’

  ‘Oh no! Please don’t shoot me!’ Dan froze. ‘I only wanted to say hello.’

  The boy’s obvious fear softened Beth a little. ‘What’s your name?’ she asked him.

  ‘Daniel,’ he stammered, then added, ‘Dan.’

  ‘Well hello Dan. It’s nice to meet you. Is there anyone else here?’

  ‘No,’ Dan told her. ‘Well I don’t think so anyway. Oh, apart from Nick. He was here but now he’s gone back to his camp. You don’t have to worry about him though unless you upset him. You won’t upset him though because he’s gone. He went out the back and he has gone back to his camp. That’s where my stuff is but I don’t know the way back.’

  ‘What?’ Beth asked, shaking her head, confused by the boys rambling.

  ‘He won’t come back. He doesn’t like people very much.’

  ‘Ok-right.’ Beth paused to think. ‘There’s just you here and another man called Nick, who has gone?’

  ‘Yeah. Well there was some men back over that way yesterday. They tried to beat me up but Nick saved me.’

  ‘Ok, so we’ve got you here. A man called Nick somewhere near here,’ Beth said. ‘And some other men who tried to beat you up back over that way.’

  ‘Yeah, but they’re all gone now and it’s just me,’ Dan told her.

  ‘Ok Dan,’ she said. ‘You’ve said hello. What do you want to do now then? Why did you come out?’

  ‘Talk to you maybe,’ he said hesitantly. ‘I haven’t seen any women or girls since my mum died. Well not alive anyway. I’ve seen lots of dead ones.’

  Sammy suddenly let out a shriek in the back and Kay froze, then Sammy shouted at him. ‘Go away!’ she told him. ‘We don’t want to talk to you.’ Then she said, ‘drive mum! Please driv
e before he does something. This is weird. He’s weird and we have to go now.’

  ‘Quiet down please Sammy,’ Beth told her calmly. ‘Stop getting yourself into such a state. I want to ask him some questions first.’ Then to the boy she said, ‘where did you come from Dan? Was it north or south from here? How many men tried to beat you up?’

  ‘This is pointless mum! He’s an idiot!’ Sammy shouted again.

  Dan glanced at the blonde haired young girl in the back nervously before he answered.

  ‘There were three of them but Nick busted one of their legs. So only two of them can walk now.’

  ‘And you haven’t seen them since?’

  ‘No. I try to avoid people. Get clever, get yourself some kit and avoid people. That’s what Nick says. I try to avoid people anyway. It’s normally gangs, and they just want to beat people up, apart from Nick and he just wants to be on his own.’

  ‘See! He’s mad. Please mum,’ Sammy pleaded again.

  ‘Is this Nick a nice man?’ Beth asked Dan.

  Dan hesitated before answering. ‘I think he’s nice sometimes, but he doesn’t want anything from anyone, so you don’t have to worry about him. Unless you bother him that is. He won’t come here now anyway. He was going. We don’t have to worry about him,’ Dan repeated. ‘We won’t see him anymore. Well,’ he amended, ‘I won’t see him anymore and you’ve never seen him anyway.’ As he said it Dan realised that he was very sad about that.

  ‘He doesn’t sound very nice to me at all,’ Beth said, frowning.

  ‘He did save me from the men yesterday,’ Dan told her. Something inside of him felt the need to defend Nick from this woman.

  ‘Then he left you!’ Beth pointed out. ‘But as you say, he’s gone and you think there’s no one else around.’

  ‘I think there’s no one else around here,’ Dan confirmed to her. ‘I don’t think there’s many people around anywhere anymore. Some days its felt like I’m the only one left.’

  ‘Yes. We’ve felt like that too.’

  ‘See. I knew everyone else wasn’t dead!’ Kay piped up. ‘Can we get out now mum? I didn’t finish my wee.’

  Beth smiled slightly as she saw Dan relax a little when he glanced at Kay.

  Dan sighed. He liked the girl with the dark brown hair and big brown eyes. She was very pretty. He then became embarrassed and looked down, then he looked back at the woman. ‘Can I put my arms down now because they’re really aching,’ he asked her.

  Beth nodded. She thought herself a good judge of people and she could see no harm in the boy. In fact he seemed a bit slow minded in her opinion. It could be a trap though she thought, but it didn’t seem like it. She made a decision and then turned off the engine. They needed to eat something at least before they moved on. She pushed open the car door then stepped out into the sunshine and onto the dirty tarmac. Keeping an eye on the boy and the surrounding area, she stretched her back. All the while keeping her right hand in her pocket and pointing her finger, as if she held a gun in there. It wouldn’t have fooled many people but she was thought it might fool him.

  ‘Go and finish your wee Kay,’ Beth said. ‘Sammy, you get the food box out. Let’s have something to eat.’ She looked at the boy again. ‘You sit down,’ she told him, and he slumped to the ground. ‘And remember, I’ll shoot you if you make one wrong move.’

  Dan looked at her and smiled shyly, ‘I saw that in a film once,’ he said. ‘It’s only your finger. I’m not that stupid.’

  ‘Ok, you got me on that one, but I’ll still kill you,’ she said as Dan leant back on the tarmac, but she smiled at him and the tension was relieved.

  Kay came back from the woods and Sammy put down the food box, looking across at the boy lying there.

  ‘I still don’t trust him,’ she told them, scowling. Then she knelt down and opened the box.

  ‘The services. Hah! Fancy a cup of coffee and a donut?’

  Bill was in no mood for his brother’s sense of humour. He kept quiet and looked out of the window as they passed the one mile to the services sign.

  ‘Maybe a full English. What do you think?’

  ‘Shut it Jeff. You’re not funny. Slow down a bit. Let’s go in nice and slow.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Think fuck-head. There could be someone in there. Maybe there’s a gang holding out there or something. Go in slow and easy Jeff. There’s no fucking Costa Coffee waiting for you I can tell you that and no fucking Full English breakfast either.’

  ‘You don’t say,’ Jeff answered sarcastically, as he weaved through the cars. But he stayed quiet at least and slowed down as they hit the slip road.

  They both saw the group of people at the same time. Jeff smiled, but Bill just started to get very tense.

  ‘Stop here Jeff,’ he told his brother. ‘I don’t want you to cause any more trouble.’

  ‘No!’ Jeff grinned nastily. ‘I want to go say hi.’ He reached back with his left arm as he drove and grabbed his aluminium baseball bat from behind his seat.

  ‘Not this time Jeff,’ Bill told him. ‘Look it’s just a woman and some kids.’ They were close now and Bill watched as they scrambled up and into a 4 by 4. Well the three girls did anyway. For some reason the boy with them just stood there frozen. Jeff put his foot down hard and the car leapt forward shoving Bill back into his seat. The boy just about jumped out of the way and Jeff cut in front of the other car just as it started to pull off. There was a bump as the door on Bill’s side was dented and then both cars stalled.

  ‘Hah! We’ve got ‘em stuck.’ Jeff threw open his door and jumped out, swinging the bat. Bill quickly found that he was stuck as well. His door was jammed up tight against the front of the other car. He could clearly see the frightened faces of the woman and the two girls. Not again, he thought as he started to climb awkwardly across the front seats to get out, then he heard a shout.

  It was the boy. ‘Leave them alone!’

  Bill was still clambering over the seats and he was wedged in by the steering wheel. At six feet, three inches and weighing about twenty stone, he didn’t find clambering very easy. So he was still stuck in the car when he heard the clunk of Jeff’s bat. Shit, he thought, here we go again. He finally pulled himself out of the car and then looked at the boy lying unconscious on the ground.

  Jeff was smiling and swinging the bat around. ‘He attacked me Bill,’ he said, then he shrugged his massive shoulders. ‘What could I do? I was just defending myself. You just can’t trust anyone these days. With that he swung the bat again. This time it was at the side window of the woman’s car. There was a deafening smash as the glass exploded, showering the girls inside the car. The woman’s hands came off the steering wheel to protect her face.

  Bill quickly made a grab for the bat but Jeff pulled it back.

  ‘Oh no Bill,’ he said, still smiling. ‘You’ll have to go and get your own bat.’

  ‘Stop it Jeff! Please just stop it for a second. Come on.’ He was trying to calm his brother but he knew there was really no chance of that now. Jeff swung the bat again and the back window went. Screams erupted from inside the car and they seemed to fuel his brother’s efforts. He swung the bat again. This time into the rear car door, denting it with a crunch, then he stopped suddenly and stepped back a pace. The girl’s screams continued from the back of the car but the front door had opened and the woman slowly stepped out. There was a small amount of blood on her face from the shattered glass, but she didn’t look scared. Bill couldn’t believe it, but she actually looked angry. The screams from the car stopped abruptly and the sudden quiet felt strange after all the noise.

  Bill studied the scene. The woman wasn’t tall, she had long blonde hair, big tits and she was slim round the waist. Nice curves, he thought. She was wearing a vest top, black leggings and knee length black boots. They were scuffed slightly. It seemed that Jeff had taken it all in as well and his brother was confused. The woman wasn’t acting her part as far as Jeff was concerned. He was big. Taller
than Bill by another inch, and although he didn’t carry as much weight as Bill he still weighed in at eighteen stone of pure muscle. He was used to people being scared of him. This odd behaviour, combined with the fact that she was a good looking woman had unsettled his brother. Bill jumped quickly into the opportunity.

  ‘Hello lady,’ he said quietly into the sudden silence. She turned to look at him. ‘Don’t mind my brother.’ He smiled at her. ‘He just gets over excited. He’s had too much sugar this morning.’ She opened her mouth to say something but Bill quickly interrupted her. ‘He’s had his fun now.’ He knew that he had to keep this low key now and try to get Jeff calmed down. He hoped they had some alcohol.

  When they had been kids everyone had said that Bill’s older brother had ADHD, but to Bill he was just a crazy fucking bastard. The only thing that seemed to calm him down was booze.

  ‘Jeff,’ Bill said, moving between his brother and the woman. ‘Why don’t we let the girls calm down a bit hey?’ He smiled at his brother. Jeff’s mouth was still hanging open and the bat was hanging by his side. ‘Do you think there’s anything worth nicking from the services?’ he asked, trying to distract him.

  ‘What!’ Jeff demanded.

  ‘The services, that’s why we came in here, remember?’

  ‘Yeah, the services.’

  Bill shuddered. Jeff was always like this. He was just so fucking unpredictable. He slowly turned back to face the woman.

  ‘My name’s Bill,’ he introduced himself. ‘This madman is my older brother Jeff. Say hello to the nice lady Jeff.’

  ‘Fuck off!’

  ‘Come on Jeff that’s not very nice,’ he said over his shoulder.

  ‘What the fuck do you care? You don’t know them.’ Jeff was staring hard at the woman now. He was overcoming his initial reaction. ‘You’re always trying to stop my fuckin’ fun lately.’