The Nightmare Read online

  Paul Blum

  NASEN House, 4/5 Amber Business Village, Amber Close,

  Amington, Tamworth, Staffordshire B77 4RP

  Rising Stars UK Ltd.

  22 Grafton Street, London W1S 4EX

  www.risingstars-uk.com

  Text © Rising Stars UK Ltd.

  The right of Paul Blum to be identified as the author of this work has

  been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Design and

  Patents Act, 1988.

  First print edition published 2010.

  This electronic edition published 2010.

  Cover design: pentacorbig

  Illustrator: Chris King, Illustration Ltd

  Photos: Alamy

  Text design and typesetting: pentacorbig/Clive Sutherland

  Publisher: Gill Budgell

  Editorial consultants: Lorraine Petersen and Dee Reid

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored

  in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic,

  mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior

  permission of Rising Stars UK Ltd.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

  A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN: 978-0-85769-315-0

  CONTENTS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  THE CRASH

  The Crash happened in 2021. Alien spaceships crash-landed on Earth. Now the aliens rule the world. They have changed shape so they look like people. People call the aliens The Enemy. Since The Crash, people are afraid. They don’t know who is an Enemy and who is a friend.

  An organisation called The Firm keeps order on the streets. The Firm keeps people safe from Enemy attacks — or do they?

  People are going missing and the Earth is becoming colder and darker all the time. A new ice age is coming…

  ABOUT MATT MERTON

  Matt Merton works for The Firm. He often works with Dexter. Their job is to find and kill The Enemy. They use Truth Sticks to do this.

  But Matt has problems. He has lost some of his memory and cannot answer some big questions.

  Where has Jane, his girlfriend, gone?

  How did he get his job with The Firm?

  Matt thinks The Firm is on the side of good. But he is not sure …

  CHAPTER 1

  It was the middle of the night. Matt Merton woke up with a start. He was having a nightmare. His face was covered in sweat. The sheet and the pillows were soaking too.

  Matt got out of bed and went into the kitchen. He tried to make himself a coffee but his hands were shaking.

  Matt had seen Dexter and The Firm kill a town full of people. The Firm didn’t know Matt had seen the attack. Now Matt knew The Firm were helping aliens to take over the world. The Firm still thought he was working for them, but Matt was just trying to find Jane, his girlfriend, before they did.

  ‘I am sure the answer to what is going on is in my nightmares,’ thought Matt. ‘The Firm is trying to take over the world but what can I do to stop them? If only I could find Jane,’ thought Matt. ‘She would know what to do.’

  Matt looked out of the window. It was still snowing. Since The Crash it was always winter and never summer.

  Since The Crash, the ice was getting thicker every day. Everybody believed a new ice age was coming. The world’s fuel supply had nearly run out, so how would they keep warm? What would they eat? No wonder Matt couldn’t sleep.

  Matt tried to sort things out in his head. He knew that his partner in The Firm, Dexter, wanted him dead. So far Matt had managed to stay alive, but it was only a matter of time. He knew The Firm wanted to find his girlfriend, Jane. But why? Why did The Firm need Jane?

  ‘I must find Jane before they do,’ thought Matt, staring at his cold cup of coffee. ‘If I find her I am sure I will get my memory back.’ If only he could remember his life before The Firm…

  Suddenly Matt could see pictures in his head. The nightmare was coming back to him! Perhaps if he could remember the nightmare he would remember what he was doing on the night of The Crash.

  ‘If I can remember what I was doing in those few hours, I may be able to work out where Jane has gone,’ he said to himself.

  Matt rubbed his tired eyes. ‘What a night it was,’ he remembered. There was fire and smoke everywhere. Buildings fell and the sky was black. When all the noise and confusion stopped there was no sign of Jane.

  Matt went to his computer. He began to type.

  Matt worked for hours at the keyboard. The words just flowed into his head.

  CHAPTER 2

  My Nightmare

  It was a normal Saturday night. I was at a party, dancing with Jane. She was smiling and happy. Then we were looking out of the window. There were lights everywhere and spaceships filled the sky. The music was drowned out by the noise of their engines.

  At first, everybody was excited as well as a bit scared. It seemed like a great adventure was starting. But then people began to point and scream. The spaceships were firing their laser guns at the houses. There was fire everywhere. Then an explosion blew out all the windows and it went dark.

  The next thing I remember was lying in the darkness. I couldn’t move my legs. The walls had fallen in and I was trapped.

  The aliens found me but they did not kill me. They must have saved my life. The aliens took me to their spaceship. They lined us all up in a great big hall. We had been saved from the fire burning in the city. We were all young men and women. All of us were fit and strong, but we were very scared. At first we thought they were going to kill us. But we began to relax when they gave us food and water, and new clothes.

  Finally, they took our photographs and made ID cards for us. They seemed to know our names already. From then on they called us ‘The Firm’. They treated us well and made us take vitamin pills every day. They trained us to work for them.

  As he remembered his nightmare Matt remembered what The Firm had trained them to do.

  Every day the aliens told us the same thing.

  ‘You must go to the city. You must kill the very young and the very old. They are not part of our plan. There will be less food when the ice age returns. Those who cannot work for us must die.’

  Those had been the exact words. They sent a chill down Matt’s back when he looked at them on his screen.

  As they spoke, the aliens’ faces had changed until they looked human too. They grew arms and legs and soon it was impossible to tell them apart from the people who lived in the city.

  Matt stared at the screen. His memory had come back! Now he remembered the most important order the aliens had given.

  ‘Anyone who resists our orders will be killed. You will use the Truth Stick to do this. The Enemy must die so that we can rule the world.’

  How many times had Matt Merton carried out that order? He started to shake as he realised the truth. He had been killing human beings. The ‘vitamin pills’ the aliens had given him to take were drugs to stop him asking questions. They had kept him under their control.

  Matt looked in the mirror. He put his head in his hands. He could remember everything. He felt so ashamed.

  ‘I wonder if Jane knows what I’ve turned into,’ he said to himself. ‘If she knows what I’ve done I can’t blame her for staying away. She must think I am evil.’

  Then a dreadful thought came to Matt. What if he had killed Jane, on the orders of The Firm? Matt put his head in his hands and wept.

  Could he trust his memory? Was this really just a nightmare? Or was he a traitor who had killed his own kind?

  Matt wiped his eyes. He had to face some hard facts. On the night of The Crash, Matt had joined The Firm. That night, freedom had ended all over the world. And Matt had helped that to happen. Now he had to put it right.

  CHAPTER 3

  Early in the morning, Matt went to the cafe.

  ‘You’re up early,’ said Sam. ‘You look really tired. Can I get you a coffee?’

  ‘Thanks, Sam,’ said Matt. ‘I really need it this morning.’

  ‘With an extra shot?’ asked Sam.

  ‘Yes, and extra hot,’ said Matt. ‘It’s colder than ever today.’

  ‘It’s getting colder all the time,’ said Sam. ‘Hardly anybody comes in here anymore. That’s why I started selling two breakfasts for the price of one.’

  ‘I thought you just sold coffee,’ Matt replied. ‘There won’t be anything left to cook with soon, Sam. A new ice age can’t be that far off now. What are we going to eat? How are we going to keep warm?’

  ‘I can always rely on you to cheer up all my customers with your happy talk,’ said Sam.

  Matt smiled as he looked around the cafe. It was completely empty. ‘It looks like your breakfast offer isn’t working, Sam. It’s only you and me as usual. At least I’m not upsetting anyone. I must be your best customer!’

  Sam laughed. ‘You’re my only customer, Matt,’ said Sam.

  Matt took his coffee and went for a walk. He had a lot of thinking to do.

  Matt could try to forget his nightmare. But he couldn’t forget Jane. If he left The Firm he would never find her. He had to stay and face what he had done. He had to find a way of putting it right, before it was too late.

  QUIZ

  1. Why did Matt Merton wake up in the middle of the night?

  2. Why couldn’t Matt make his coffee?

  3. What was happening to th
e world’s food supply?

  4. What night was Matt dreaming about?

  5. Where did Matt last see Jane?

  6. What did the spaceships do?

  7. Who saved Matt’s life?

  8. Where was Matt taken?

  9. What did the aliens call the young men and women?

  10. What orders did the aliens give?

  GLOSSARY

  own kind — fellow human beings

  traitor — someone who betrays the side they

  are on

  under their control — having no choice and

  being made to do something

  vitamin pills — tablets to keep someone healthy

  ANSWERS

  1. He was having a nightmare

  2. His hands were shaking

  3. It was running out

  4. The night of The Crash

  5. At a party

  6. Fired lasers at the city

  7. The aliens

  8. An alien spaceship

  9. The Firm

  10. Go to the city, kill the young and the old

  Available in bookshops or from risingstars-uk.com

  For more information call 0800 091 1602

 

 

  Paul Blum, The Nightmare

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