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

by Stephen Birch

  ‘How’d you know that?’ Dan frowned.

  ‘It’s what I’d do if I thought someone might try to kill me in my sleep.’

  ‘Oh.’ Dan frowned at Nick again.

  ‘Don’t worry. He’s safe for now. I’m going outside for a while. I need to be on my own.’ Nick started towards the doors. Dan made as if to follow. ‘Stay with the others Dan, ‘Nick said over his shoulder.

  ‘Are you coming back?’

  ‘I probably will. I’ve been doing some stupid things lately.’ Then he was gone, out into the dark and Dan missed him already.

  Beth watched Nick as he walked away from the boy. She also noticed the way Dan was watching him. ‘Dan,’ she said quietly. As he turned to look at her, she noticed that his long blonde hair framed a handsome, if sad young face. ‘We’ve all had a long hard day Dan. Why don’t you come over here and sit with me?’ She watched as Dan wandered over and sat down a few feet from her. Just out of reach. ‘I don’t bite you know,’ She told him, smiling.

  ‘I’m really tired now,’ Dan told her. ‘Can I use one of your blankets please?’

  ‘Of course you can.’ She pointed at the two that were left. ‘You help yourself.’

  Dan stood, picked up a blue a red chequered blanket and unfolded it on the floor a little bit away from where the girls were sleeping. He then laid down on it and he was asleep in seconds. Beth watched him for a while as his face softened into sleep and his breathing slowed down. She then looked at the girls. They were still fast asleep so she stood up and picked her way slowly across the rubbish strewn floor of the services and then out of the broken doors.

  Nick knew it was the woman coming out by the sound of her footsteps. He was sitting on a low wall, looking up at the stars and wondering if anyone else was going to drive into the services tonight. He was aware that the other gang could be still around somewhere, but it had been a weird day and he wouldn’t have been surprised if a coach party of old age pensioners turned up.

  He let her get close before turning his head towards her. He hadn’t been paying much attention to her before, but now he noticed that she was nice to look at. She was also smiling!

  ‘Are you ok? She asked him. ‘How’s your head?’

  ‘Can’t you sleep?’ he asked back.

  ‘I’ve not tried yet,’ she replied, sitting on the wall beside him. It made him feel a bit uncomfortable with her being that close. He fidgeted then shuffled away a little bit. It left a small gap between them. ‘Another one who thinks that I’ll bite,’ she said.

  ‘It’s not your bite I’m worried about,’ he replied, smiling and trying to relax. ‘It’s that wicked punch of yours.’

  ‘Very funny.’

  ‘I’m not really that comfortable around people,’ he admitted to her, with a serious expression on his face.

  ‘Really? You keep that well hidden,’ she told him sarcastically, but she smiled at the same time so that he knew it was a joke.

  He looked at her and then looked away.

  ‘I’ve been on my own for a long time.’ He looked up at the stars again. ‘A long time even before the change.’

  ‘Is that what you call it? The change? ‘She tilted her head to look up at the stars. ‘It makes everything seem insignificant doesn’t it? Looking up at all that space. Seeing all that endless space, with an endless amount of stars, and us on just on one small planet around one star. Makes you feel very small looking up at all that.’ She turned to look at him. ‘It seems to make anything we do seem pointless.’

  Nick turned and looked at her intensely. ‘That’s exactly how I’ve started to feel too!’ he said. ‘It doesn’t really matter what we do.’ We’re all just a random mixture of molecules on a spinning ball in all that space.’

  Beth noticed that his face and voice had become animated for the first time since she had seen him.

  ‘If this whole stinking planet blew up right now, what difference would it make? All of that!’ He pointed up into the air. ‘It would still be there! It wouldn’t even notice.’ He stared back up into space.

  Beth studied him for a second thinking, then she said, ‘you’ve got it all wrong Nick.’

  ‘What?’ He turned quickly to face her. He was frowning now.

  ‘Who cares what space thinks Nick? Even if it did think. Which it obviously doesn’t. Who cares if we are just a random mixture of molecules? Which we might not be!’ She turned herself around on the wall so that she was sitting astride it, facing him. ‘I am alive. My children are alive. We are all individual living beings. We all have our own thoughts and dreams-Why do you call it the change?’ She asked suddenly.

  ‘Huh?’ Nick was getting confused. Talking to this woman was very confusing.

  ‘You called it the change. Why?’

  ‘Obviously because.’ He paused for a second then said, ‘it all changed!’ He shrugged at her.

  ‘Millions of people died because of a virus. I have watched my parents and my friends die in front of my eyes. For two months now we have been too terrified to leave our house, but in the end we had to leave because we were starving to death. We set off not knowing what we would find. Who we would find, but we had no choice. We are completely terrified. My children.’ She paused to wipe her eyes. When did she start crying? ‘My girls have seen horrendous things. Things no one should ever have to see. One of them has been hurt. Hurt trying to protect me from a monster. They are asleep in there now, but what will they wake up to?’

  There was something that Nick had learned at a very early age, and that was when you should fight and when you should run away. This was one time when he knew he was going to lose and he knew that he should run now.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘It’s just what I called it to myself.’ He saw that she was crying again. Why did she have to keep doing that? Feelings that he thought he had shut down years ago were beginning to rise inside him again.

  ‘Oh Nick.’ She wiped her eyes and took a deep breath. ‘You are more than just random molecules. We all are. Who gives a fuck what space thinks? I thought that we were going to be killed today. We would probably be dead by now.’ She paused. ‘Or worse, but you saved us. You saved all of us and here I am sitting here trying to bring you back alive.’ She stood up. ‘I’m going to try and get some sleep now. Good night Nick.’ Beth started to walk back towards the building then she turned. ‘Will Jeff come back?’ she asked him.

  Nick shook his head. ‘Not for a long while. Don’t worry.’ He thought it best not to mention the other lot.

  ‘Ok.’ She studied his face for a few seconds. ‘Night then.’

  And Nick watched her go. It was only after thinking about it for a few seconds that he realised that he actually missed her being there.

  Chapter ten

  Nick stayed outside staring up at the stars for a while longer. Although he was tired and his head ached he knew that he wouldn’t get much sleep tonight. His thoughts were churning around inside his head. What did she mean? Bring him back alive. He was alive. Every morning when he woke up and breathed in the smell of the woods around him he felt alive. He considered just walking off back to his campsite, but then he delayed that decision by convincing himself that it would be better to wait for morning. What he would do then, he didn’t know. He stood up and walked back inside.

  Beth, the two girls and Dan were lying on blankets on the floor close up together. Bill had gone off somewhere else to sleep. Bloody typical, he thought as he settled himself into a chair. No one on guard! You won’t be able to sleep now anyway, he told himself. He then let himself relax a bit as he watched the others sleeping. ‘Ok. Well you lot have a nice sleep,’ he said quietly. ‘Nobody’s going to hurt you while I’m here.’

  He wasn’t aware that Beth was still awake and that when she heard him say that she finally felt herself relax a bit for the first time in weeks.

  Morning comes early at this time of year so it was only a few hours before Nick saw the grey light of predawn start to wake the worl
d up. He looked at his watch. It was a simple but robust manual wind up watch with a black leather strap. It showed the time at four thirty two. He gave it twelve winds then slowly stood up. His lower back was stiff and aching from sitting in the chair but as usual he ignored the pain and walked outside. He could hear the birds waking up but apart from that it was all was very quiet.

  If he had been back at his camp he would have been preparing tea right now, or most likely still asleep. He remembered the tea bags and the large cooking pot that Dan and he had found yesterday. He had left them in the woods. Was that only yesterday? All of his decisions had been easy ones a couple of days ago. How could things change so quickly? He pushed the questions and answers to the back of his mind. It was cooler now in the predawn. Most of the heat from the previous day had been drawn back up into the sky overnight.

  He pulled off his green shirt and threw it on the wall. The cool air on his bare skin felt good. He stood there for a while as he settled himself, then he began to slowly stretch out the muscles in his shoulders, back and legs. He had his three knives and pouches on a thick leather belt around his waist. The longer one was a large hunting knife. The smaller one was for preparing game and other food and there was his throwing knife. He shook his arms and legs out, removing the tension from them before performing a few random kicks and punches to warm up. The long knife slapped against his leg but he ignored it. It would be pointless training without its weight, when in a real situation he would have it there. After warming his muscles up he dropped down and did a hundred fast push-ups, followed by one hundred fast squat jumps. Now that he was warm and the stiffness in his back had eased off he began to leap, kick and punch at imaginary enemies. Spinning, ducking and moving, always in perfect balance.

  Beth came awake as soon as Nick started to move about. She didn’t move herself, but just watched as he checked the time and then walked outside. It was just beginning to get light and she wondered where he was going. Was he going to leave them now? She looked at the others. They were all still sleeping soundly so she carefully got up to follow him. She stopped just inside the doors though as she saw him begin to take off his shirt, his upper body was brown and lean, with well-defined muscles. He also had various tattoos on his arms and back. She became so engrossed in watching him carry out his training that she failed to notice as Bill came up behind her.

  He startled her by placing a huge hand on her shoulder. She turned her head quickly then relaxed when he smiled. His face looked even worse today. He took his hand from her shoulder and beckoned her away from the doors. She turned and followed him back over to where the others were now beginning to wake up. She noticed that it was Kay as usual who woke up last, rubbing her eyes and yawning.

  ‘Do we have any breakfast mum?’ she asked yawning again.

  Beth smiled. The world might have ended but Kay would never change.

  ‘We’ll find something darling.’ She looked at Sammy. ‘How are you feeling this morning?’

  ‘Actually!’ Sammy told her mum. ‘I hurt all over. I don’t think I can move,’ she said as she stood up, not seeming to notice the contradiction. Beth smiled thinking that her daughter would be fine. Moody as usual but fine.

  ‘When Nick’s finished dancing about out there it would be nice if we could sit down and talk about what we are going to do now,’ Bill grumbled.

  He reminded Beth of a big old bear, she thought. She then thought of Nick jumping and spinning outside. Now he was more like a panther. A bear and a panther. Good protection for me and my girls. She smiled again as Dan stood up and stretched.

  ‘Where’s Nick?’ he asked, looking worried.

  ‘He’s just outside Dan. Don’t worry. I have a feeling that he’ll be back any second now,’ Beth told him, and it was true. He was.

  Chapter eleven

  Before the pandemic Bournemouth was a place of picturesque beaches, hotels, and exclusive bars and clubs. It had been a very popular holiday destination. It was traditionally a retirement town but the clean sandy beaches that stretched for seven miles along the south Dorset coastline had made it one of the largest tourist resorts in Britain.

  Bournemouth was also home to a burgeoning number of students who had attended Bournemouth University. All this meant that around two hundred thousand people were in Bournemouth and the surrounding area at the time of the virus.

  After the riots and craziness had calmed down most of the survivors had eventually made their way down to the town centre and over the past two months they had begun to organise themselves into a community. The leader of this growing community was the former planning officer of Bournemouth town council. His name was David Dean and David, being the only surviving council member was the natural choice at the time to lead this new community.

  He had organised the people and moved them into a large hotel on West Cliff. They had removed all of the dead and cleaned everything up. Like a lot of large hotels this one had its own secondary supply electricity generator which ran on diesel. So as long as they could keep finding diesel they would have electricity.

  They had kept going so far by salvaging from the hundreds of hotels, shops, and bars in the town and even from the farms in the area. Teams of men left each day on salvaging missions, keeping in touch using a radio system taken from a local taxi firm. The central control was at the hotel and it was manned twenty four hours a day. The main objective of these salvaging missions was to collect food, water, fuel and weapons, along with anything else that they thought might be useful for the growing community. Their secondary objective was to provide a ring of security in Bournemouth to protect the community. They were also there to help anyone who wanted to join them to find their way in.

  Unfortunately though, thought David not all of the people that were brought in appreciated their good luck. Like today when Brett had brought in the young woman. She had not been very happy at all. Especially after watching Brett beat her boyfriend to death with his bare hands. The situation at present meant that the men in the community outnumbered the women. This had led to some quite violent confrontations, so absolutely all female visitors to Bournemouth were warmly welcomed to join their community. Sometimes they were too warmly welcomed.

  David sighed and leant back into his chair. He really didn’t know how he was going to deal with this latest problem. Brett was way out of control now. He was so far out of control that he had become a massive liability and a real threat to their existence. At the beginning Brett had been a valuable asset. The people were scared and quick to anger. There had been a lot of violent confrontations. Over food, accommodation and of course, the ladies. Brett’s huge strength and violent reputation had helped David to control these situations, but lately it had begun to seem as if the tail was wagging the dog. Brett had gathered around him a lot of the more aggressive members of the community. They seemed to listen only to him, and he told them only what they wanted to hear.

  Killing that boy though was a terrible thing. He had guessed that Brett was out there encouraging the women to join their community and discouraging the men. That could be the only explanation as to why they seemed to get more women joining them now than men. But he’d had no idea how bad the situation was until they had brought this latest girl in. She had been kicking and screaming and accusing them all of murder and kidnapping. It had caused a major upset in the community. The majority of the people here were good people. He knew that he would somehow have to find a way to deal with Brett. This situation just couldn’t be left to go on for much longer.

  At that moment Brett was sitting in the hotel restaurant. Dinner had finished long ago but he was still there surrounded by his cronies, drinking and laughing as he retold the story.

  To most of the community he was known as Brett the bully but to Brett’s following of the more aggressive element he was known as the “Sergeant.” Brett had told everybody that he had been a sergeant in the army. But he had actually been dishonourably discharged from the army as a private soldier. T
hat was three years ago and he had been discharged for bullying and aggravated assault. He was a big and violent man though and he had kept himself extremely fit. After leaving the army his natural talents had led him into the unlicensed boxing trade. He also used to work the doors of the town’s most popular night clubs so he had made quite a reputation for himself in Bournemouth over the years.

  ‘Thought he was tough that one Sergeant, didn’t he?’ Alex, the youngest member of his five man team piped up. Alex was a tall skinny lad, with a long mean and nasty streak. He had only been recently admitted onto Brett’s salvaging team.

  ‘Shut it Lexy!’ Mervin told him harshly. He was a big lump of a man with ginger hair and he thought of himself as Brett’s second in command. He had thought about asking the Sergeant if he could be called Corporal, but so far he hadn’t had the nerve. He had never been in the army and he knew that the Sergeant was very proud of his service to his country and of his rank.

  ‘Yeah shut it!’ a couple of the others muttered. ‘New boy!’

  ‘No, let him speak,’ Brett told them all smiling, enjoying the praise. ‘He’s a part of the A team now, and anyway he’s only telling the truth. That guy did think he was tough and he did stand up for his woman, like a real man should. Gotta give him that. He had balls, offering to go one on one with me for the girl. We was gonna kill him anyway but he didn’t know that did he? Haha.’ They all laughed along with him. ‘Gotta give him that he had fuckin’ balls didn’t he? Until I kicked ‘em right up into his stomach.’ They all fell about laughing at that as Brett stood up. ‘Ok girls it’s time for me to get some shut eye. Got an early start again in the morning.’

  Most of them got up as Brett did and they went off to their rooms, some of them still laughing. They were happy. They enjoyed their new way of life.