The Stone Man - A Science Fiction Thriller (12 page)

I had to sit down for a second, genuinely shaken by these possibilities. I thought I was definitely in the right ballpark, if nothing else. I wanted to blurt it all out to Shaun, but not only was he not in the mood, I didn’t think he would have bought it anyway. He just wasn’t the open-minded type.

That sense of urgency, that physical tug, was still ticking away, even though I was no longer looking at the screen. It wasn’t anything to do with visual input, then; something to do with mental focus? Maybe seeing it, and thus giving it my full attention, had strengthened the connection in some way, and now I was thinking about nothing else, keeping the connection strong. No faces this time, though.

I took a deep breath, and began to concentrate as hard as I could on thoughts of the Stone Man, remembering being close to it. I remembered its rough surface and colour, seeing it begin to walk, feeling the deep thuds it created with every step. I tried to relax (difficult with my heart pounding the way it was) and closed my eyes. Shaun didn’t notice a thing, still deep in the paper and probably assuming that I was just taking my time drinking my tea. Slowly, I felt the buzz increase in my scalp and fingers, felt that pull in my head grow … but still no face, not this time. But that pull … a pull towards where?

I leapt out of my seat as I had the revelation, spilling my tea and causing Shaun to jump in surprise.

“Jesus, you scared the crap out of m—” he started but I whirled round to him, cutting him off.

“Shaun, I need a road atlas. D’you have one? It’s important.”

He stared at me for a second, cocking his head with an ‘
Are you kidding me
?’ expression, but then decided questioning it would only keep me hanging around longer.

“Yes, Andy. Yes, I have a road atlas. I have a road atlas for sudden, jumping around emergencies just like this. Drawer on the left, over there. If you decide you want something else, if it’s just possible you could avoid scaring the shit out of me first, that’d be great.” I didn’t reply, and was already making my way to the drawer. My revelation hadn’t been where the pull was drawing me towards, but what I thought the pull might
be
. It wasn’t telling
me
where I was supposed to go … but I thought I was picking up wherever the
Stone Man
was supposed to go. And if connection to the signal, or whatever it was, was just a matter of focus …

I was making a leap, but I didn’t think it was that much of one. I could feel that the pull had a direction, so it surely had to have a source, or a goal. My mind was racing, not stopping to analyse what was going on (extremely rare for me, a sensation that I would have enjoyed if not for being so immersed in what I was doing) as I pulled out the atlas, noticing it was several years out of date. That didn’t matter for what I had in mind. I carried it back to the table and spread it open, turning to the front few pages, where the overview image of the UK was laid out. I took out my iPhone, and swiped across to the compass app, planning to use it for probably the first time ever. I waited until it found north, and turned the map so its northward point matched the same direction as the compass.

I stood up straight, feeling excited, hopeful, and a bit stupid at best. I’d been wrong about
everybody
getting the signal, and it was very possible that I was wrong about this too, but I didn’t think so … not now I could feel the connection like this. It just seemed to make sense.

I closed my eyes again (just as I saw Shaun regarding me suspiciously from the other end of the table) and tried the same focusing trick that I’d used a few moments ago. That electricity in my fingers and scalp intensified, and my heart rate picked up; it was like a first date, that fluttery combination of the mental and physical, but colder, more clinical. Goose bumps broke out on my forearms.
It's working, it's fucking working!

Opening my eyes, and still trying to keep the connection strong, I held my hand out over the map, more excited than I’d ever been in my entire life. This was the stuff of magic,
and I was doing it.
I couldn’t fathom the truth of that, couldn’t begin to comprehend it, and perhaps it was a good job that I didn’t; I would have stayed sitting there all day, stunned by it and not getting to the bottom of what was going on. As it was, I managed to stay focused on the actual job in hand.

Where had Shaun said the Stone Man was? Just past Derby; I held my palm over the corresponding area of the map, trying to link the visual with the mental.
It’s there
, I told myself.
This is the whole country, laid out on the table before you, and the Stone Man is right
there
. You’re looking at it from above, and you can feel the same pull that 
it
does. It’s going north; you know that. But where? How far? Where is it going? Follow the signal. Find the source.

Shaun started to speak, but I shushed him. Right now, I couldn’t care less about pissing him off; this was desperately important. I was full of electricity, and he did not matter. I heard him put his paper down, but he didn’t move. He was not a man that would challenge another, even in his own home.

Slowly, something began to happen. The sensation in my fingertips began to fill my hand, now flowing up past my wrist, my elbow, up to my shoulder. The pull became more physical, stronger,
drawing
me, and in my mind’s eye I saw the Stone Man walking on the map, the map that became lush and three dimensional as the flat blue of colour representing the sea began to churn and flow, the grass covering England blowing in a breeze as the Stone Man made its way north and my mind created a frighteningly vivid picture. It was like watching a film. My body leant forward, pulled towards the map, and the electricity reached my shoulder and the arm attached to it began to travel upwards.

My heart was hammering even harder in my chest, my amazement increasing my excitement as my eyes widened and bulged, but I managed to keep focus; I was locked into something else, and the feed felt so strong that it was almost impossible to lose. It was
in
me. I watched my hand travel, looking possessed—which, in a way, it was—moving upwards along the map, watching it pass Sheffield … and then stop. Dead.

I looked at the area my hand covered; the distance was huge, but I knew the Stone Man was moving in a straight line. Unless there was a sudden detour, I could narrow down its movement horizontally, at least. At some point under my palm (an area that covered, at this scale, hundreds of miles) the Stone Man would apparently stop, but that wasn’t good enough, wasn’t
precise
enough. In a panic now, worried that I might somehow lose it suddenly, I flipped to the index at the back and found Sheffield, trying to maintain the connection’s current level of strength in my mind, even though the visual aid was temporarily gone. I flipped over to the Sheffield page, but I could feel the intensity of the mysterious input begin to drop back down to where it was before, even when I moved my hand up and down across that area.

Over the next few minutes, in a near panic, I tried different pages that showed close-up versions of the areas along the line that my hand had drawn, but I couldn’t get any more of a handle on the signal. I even went back to the original UK map page, and after a minute or two, once I’d achieved the same effect as before—the map coming alive in my mind as I saw the Stone Man’s avatar stomping its way across the UK—I tried using my finger instead of my palm, hoping the smaller area of my fingertip would give me a more accurate result and whittle the options down. It didn’t work; all I found was that the Stone Man's goal was somewhere in or near to Sheffield, my finger simply wavering up and down around the same area that my palm had previously covered. Whatever I was picking up, it couldn’t give me a more accurate reading at this point; perhaps distance was also a factor. Well, that didn’t matter. I, too, would now be going north for certain, and I’d find out firsthand if being any closer made a difference.

My blood rushed in my veins. This was exciting beyond measure (barring the possibility that I was having some sort of mental episode and imagining the whole thing) and in the same moment I realised how long it had been since I was truly, genuinely excited about something before today, let alone to this extent. It had been many years. The thought made me stop for a second.

Excitement, or lack thereof. That may have been down, to a degree, to the way my brain functioned; but I wondered if that knowledge in itself, that awareness of having a different cognitive function, had become a reason to pursue excitement less and less over the years. For some people, knowing that you were a person who found excitement hard to come by would be reason to seek it even more. It occurred to me right then, stood in Shaun’s kitchen, as I watched the steam drift from my mug on the table and up into nothingness, that whilst I believed very strongly in my own convictions and world view, there were some matters in life that I approached in a deeply, tragically incorrect way; in the same moment I realised that I would never truly understand or experience the correct way either. And with that, the process was complete, and my thoughts moved onto the next practical thing to deal with, the next item on the unending list.

First things first; leave.

I closed the atlas, and looked up at Shaun, who was looking at me with a very wary expression. I realised how bizarre the whole experiment I’d just conducted must have looked to him, and briefly made the effort to think of an explanation. I failed.

“Trying a bit of an idea, experimenting with the … y’know …” I made beaming-in gestures with my hands towards my head, and tried cracking an aren’t-I-daft grin. I thought it was an utterly fruitless attempt at making light of it, but Shaun’s mouth actually curled up a bit at the side, forming a smirk.

“Yeah? Any joy?”

“Afraid not, buddy,” I said, quickly swigging a mouthful of tea and then walking to the sink to pour the rest away. “But it was just a crazy idea that I had to try out, then and there, got a bit too excited. Never mind, sorry if I made you jump.” Shaun chuckled slightly at this, and shrugged. I think he could tell that I was preparing to leave. “Anyway,” I said, “I’d best shoot off. Thanks again for putting me up, man, especially when I’d had a skin full. Most people would have brushed their hands of me, but you didn’t, and I needed it. Thank you.” I held out my hand for him to shake, and felt my own words poison my insides a bit. Not just with guilt (although that was still strong) but more at my own two-facedness. If you can’t be true to your own word, then what have you got? Shaun smiled, and stood as he shook my hand.

“No worries, mate, couldn’t leave you out on the streets, could I? You’re not safe for decent people to be around,” he added with a wink and a grin, as he led me towards the living room and the front door. I picked up my laptop bag, slipped on my shoes, and opened the door. The sun was bright again, and it was already getting hot. The day was going to be another scorcher, and I realised that the clothes I was wearing weren’t at their freshest after all the walking and sweating yesterday. If I had a hangover headache, I didn’t notice; the constant pull in my scalp was now drowning it out in some way. This was a good thing. I stepped out onto the front porch, and turned back to face my host. I hated what I had to say—almost felt as if I was mocking him in some manner—but thought it just looked rude if I didn’t.

“Tell Laura thanks too, okay? Sorry I missed her this morning.”

“Will do, buddy,” said Shaun, looking noticeably more relaxed now he knew that he was going to have the house to himself. He probably didn’t get it that often. “Got far to go, have you?” He meant to my fictional mate’s house, and he knew I’d have to walk. I thought about the BMW parked on his drive to my left, and noted that he wasn’t offering a lift. I couldn’t complain—no mistake about that—but it still burned me a little. Normally I’d have tried a little jab to get back at such a slight, but I figured I owed him enough to keep my mouth shut, and far, far more.

“Nah, besides, I could do with the walk actually. Nice to get out in the sun. What are you gonna do with your day off, grab a beer and sit in the garden?”

“Mate, if it stays like this, I think a whole six-pack and a barbecue might be in order!” he said, grinning. “The rest of the world can obsess over walking statues and all that shit; I’m gonna be getting quietly pissed for the rest of the day, and relaxing in the sun. Drink off this hangover. Works for me.” I gave him a thumbs-up and threw him a grin of my own, even if it was false. I did hope he had a relaxing day, though.

“Got it. Do not disturb, eh?”

“Uh huh. No visitors, it’s Shauny time. Have a good ’un, mate.” He raised his hand, and I returned it as he closed the door. I turned and began to walk up the street, pulling my phone out of my pocket and dialling for a taxi. I hoped (correctly, as it turned out) that I could at least get a cab out here, road restrictions or not. I needed to be taken somewhere for a proper breakfast. I cursed myself for not asking if they’d had an iPhone charger in the house; I was down to half battery. As I listened to the phone ringing on the other end of the line, Shaun’s last words came back to me.
No visitors
. That was exactly what I thought I was about to become; a visitor. Because I didn’t think that the face in my vision was random, nor did I think that it was anything other than extremely important in terms of finding out more about the Stone Man. I thought that when and if I got to where the Stone Man was heading—whether it was being called or had been sent, whether it was expected or not—I thought that there would be a person waiting on the other end, and that person would be a man with blonde hair. And I was going to do my damnedest to make sure that I reached him first.