The Stone Man - A Science Fiction Thriller (28 page)

One of Patrick’s attendants picked up his walkie-talkie and listened to it, then returned a message of his own. At this point the distant noises seemed to be fairly constant; smaller crunches and bangs, with only the larger, booming sounds—buildings collapsing, presumably—standing out in the silence. The soldiers in the line stood firm, staring straight ahead, but the soldiers with Patrick—who had been given more free rein, I assumed—looked in the distance of the sounds. There was the loudest bang yet, loud enough for me to wince (I’ve always been protective of my hearing) and Patrick’s attendants exchanged words, shifting on their feet. I wondered if that movement was from nerves. I’d have been nervous if I were in their shoes, although terrified would have been more appropriate. The only thing in the same league as being the bait was being the guy
holding
the bait. I looked around for Straub, and saw her standing farther back in the tent, overseeing the largest workstation with her two superiors and giving out orders. She looked very tense, nervous herself even; she stood bent at the waist, getting a closer look at the monitors with one hand on the back of the chair in front of her, but still seeming utterly in control. She was a professional. There was another deafening bang, and then we were inside two minutes.

“This is it,”
whispered a voice in my ear, and I jumped slightly. Paul was looking at me, wide eyed; those child eyes were back, but this time they weren’t excited. They were scared, but not for Paul Winter’s well-being. My own heart was racing beyond measure now as well, almost like it had during the crazy, lightning adrenaline that we’d been subjected to before Patrick’s collapse and subsequent removal. I could do nothing but nod at Paul, and show him my own shaking hand. There was another explosive crash, and suddenly I was blinded by dust.

It was strange, because the dust was everywhere and yet it didn’t seem to be getting into my eyes. It cleared as I moved through it, and then I was out, and could see another house in front of me, getting closer. I wasn’t slowing down either, and it became clear I was going to hit it. Now these few seconds had passed, I’d had time to come to my senses and realise that something had happened, that I wasn’t in the command tent at all somehow, but back on the streets we’d driven through earlier today. As I crossed the street, still aiming at the house ahead, close enough now to be inside its shadow, I realised that I was back inside the Stone Man, looking out, and even through the shock of that revelation I heard a familiar sound. No, not a familiar sound; a familiar
rhythm
. A low level, pulsing staccato rhythm, like Morse code being played on a down-tuned bass guitar. As I smashed through the fence around the back garden, in my panic I wildly wondered how I hadn’t heard that when I’d been inside the Stone Man before, and why I could hear it now, but already I was abandoning that thought in my desperation to get out, to get back in my own, and with that I was suddenly looking through a plastic screen once more.

I just had time to get over my second, disoriented shock inside thirty seconds, and to gulp some air frantically into my lungs as I opened my mouth to say
It’s here, it’s coming through now
but suddenly there was no need. With a crash of shocking volume and a huge final burst of smoke, the Stone Man smashed its way through the house at the bottom of the street, and began its final unstoppable journey towards us.

***

In my previous career—that of a nobody reporter—I’d taken a lot of eyewitness accounts, covering everything from minor public brawls to full-on explosions (the best being at a chemical factory in Dudley). The most common phrase, the one that I heard time and again was
It all happened so fast
, even when the actual incident in question wasn’t that fast at all.

I never really understood what they meant until it was all over that day; standing as I was in the dark sunset of a summer evening in Yorkshire and wondering what the hell had just happened. I knew even then that it hadn’t actually happened very fast at all; the Stone Man had come up the road at its own steady walking pace, and everything
else
had happened reasonably slowly. But when I think about the actual key events, they seem to play out in my mind in such a chaotic, haphazard manner that they feel like they must have been over in seconds. I asked Paul about it later, and he said he remembered them the same way.

In reality, it had probably taken around two to three minutes, and all the actual chaos, the confusion and the shouting, came afterwards as the military tried to save the day, to do anything to respond. But they were far too late.

I haven’t talked about any of this—I certainly haven’t described it in detail—since the day it happened. This will be extremely difficult, and believe me, if I hadn’t worked my way through half of this fucking mini bar I wouldn’t be talking about it now. But I said I would. I have to finish the job. I have to finish the job.

Some nights I still see that street. I can see it through the plastic shield. And whilst in some dreams you’re powerless to stop things from happening, this isn’t a dream. It’s a memory, and I’m no more capable of doing anything about it today than I was then.

***

Even at such a great distance—farther than the length of a football pitch—it was incredible to see. Somehow, you still got an impression of its weight; whether that was from the cracks that appeared in the concrete under its feet, or from the heft of its body as it moved, I couldn’t say, but to see that
density
, to know it was heavy stone that weighed so much and yet it was somehow bending and folding and travelling like it was made of rubber … it was simply incredible to watch. All over again, I was awestruck, and Paul even more so; I heard him gasp for breath, and I realised that this was the first time Paul had seen the Stone Man anywhere except on the TV.

“Fucking
hell
,” he breathed, his face pale and his mouth open.

As the Stone Man continued on its slow, inexorable way up the street, we could see it leaving a steady stream of dust behind itself, powder and debris that blew off its shoulders, leftovers of the house that it had just destroyed. I saw this and had a fresh revelation; despite muddy fields, the oil of destroyed cars, the rubble and plaster of demolished buildings and even the white hot fragments of exploded metal from items of various military ordnance, nothing had permanently stuck to the Stone Man. How the hell did any of that
not
stick to stone?

It would have been so easy to say its movements were robotic, when attributed to a humanoid shape with no facial features, but the fact was the Stone Man was far too smooth in its gait to be described in such a manner. It moved
fluidly
, yet it was solid and ponderous at the same time. Everything about it, from its size to its movement, said
relentless
. Unstoppable. It was awe-inspiring, and terrifying at the same time.

I snapped out of my open-mouthed trance, and tried to figure out if it was heading directly for Patrick. The Stone Man was not, of course, following the line of the street. It had come through the house at a slight angle to us, and I felt a lightning flash of excitement as it became obvious where it was aiming. It was still heading for Patrick’s house, and not Patrick himself. Paul tapped me on the shoulder, and pointed frantically at the house. I nodded equally frantically, letting him know that I’d seen it. Shortly, I knew, we were going to get some answers. It was electrifying.

I suddenly realised Straub and her two superiors had moved, and were now stood a few feet to our left. They were of course watching the scene as well, with Straub listening to information from her walkie-talkie, and occasionally calling over her shoulder to someone at one of the nearer consoles, asking for reports on temperature, distance, rad count, and the like. I don’t know what they were hoping to find. She turned to Paul and me.

“This is it,” she said, and even the unshakeable woman looked nervous now, or as nervous as I thought Straub let herself get when in uniform. Her voice was slightly breathless. “You two have been pretty quiet, but if you ever had a time to shine, it’s now. Anything to report?”

Paul and I exchanged a glance, but it was Paul who spoke first.

“Nothing here,” he said, shaking his head, still wide-eyed. “The pull hasn’t even changed, and I half-expected that it would.”

“The what?” said Straub, looking irritated for some reason.

“The pull, you know, the … feeling, the thing that drew us here,” answered Paul. Straub nodded, and turned to me.

“You?”

“I don’t know,” I said, not taking my eyes off the Stone Man. “Just now … I was in it as it came through that house. I didn’t even try to see where it was this time, I was just suddenly
in
there. I don’t know if it’s because now the thing’s this close, and the shock of the noise startled me—”

“What?” interrupted Paul, but Straub flapped a hand at him and he shut up.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” she snapped, looking furious now.

“It literally
just happened
!” I protested, “I mean, about thirty seconds ago, and then it was coming towards—”

“Right, right, shut up,” she said, speaking rapidly. Her two superiors looked at me sternly as she spoke. “Did you get anything
new
from it?”

“Well … well no,” I said, exasperated, turning to her but looking quickly over my shoulder through the plastic screen. The Stone Man had halved the distance between us by now, and seemed frighteningly large and solid; even the cracks in the floor beneath its feet had, to my eyes, taken on a more ominous appearance. Someone called out a distance from one of the workstations, and Straub quickly spoke into her walkie-talkie, telling two men to stand by. I didn’t get their names, but I could see it was the two soldiers stood with Patrick by the way that they both responded into their walkie-talkies, and then looked again towards the Stone Man. According to the workstation people, it was 150 metres away from Patrick, but it was still heading towards the house. All signs so far suggested that it was going to totally pass him by. Then Straub was talking to me again.

“Anything at all? Anything
different?
” she urged, now quickly looking between me and the approaching Stone Man. The clear tension in her body seemed to make mine worse, as anything that made someone like Straub go into action mode meant it was time for someone like me to start running for the hills. But it wasn’t me that had to be frightened. It was the poor abandoned bastard out there.

Regardless, I forced my racing mind under control and tried to think, which wasn’t easy with three high-ranking members of the military standing in front of me, demanding answers, whilst an impossible stone juggernaut headed up the street.
Anything different?
Actually ... there had been, hadn’t there? That sound. That rhythm that had been quietly been playing. Was that even relevant? What the hell would that tell them? My thoughts were interrupted by a feeling that was beginning beneath my feet, one that Paul felt as well as he grabbed my shoulder in surprise. The big man’s grip was painfully tight, and I realised that he was as electrified as I was.

My brain broke my shock by reminding me where I’d felt this in my feet before. Millennium Place. It was the vibrations in the floor caused by the Stone Man’s feet striking the concrete. The call came out across the tent again.

“One hundred ten feet and closing.”

“Well, this ... well it might be nothing,” I said, babbling slightly, “but there was like a, like a … quiet rhythm in there. It was very small, but it was there.” Straub held up her hand, snapping her fingers over and over frantically and impatiently. A balding man in a shirt and tie tore himself reluctantly away from his station and hustled over, a younger woman in a lab coat trailing behind him. His face was flushed, either from the excitement of the situation or with annoyance at being called away in the middle of things.

“A rhythm,” snapped Straub quickly, addressing this new man without taking her eyes off me, “does that match up with anything? A rhythm from Caementum.” The balding man looked suddenly exasperated, looking between Straub and me, back and forth, and then at the Stone Man drawing closer and closer to the house.

“Well!” he started, and then shook his head quickly, calming himself. Even in my own shaken state, I recognized this action. This was the response of a man under intense stress who, at the worst possible moment, has been asked a question by someone who not only wants immediate answers, but wants them to a stupid question … and the person asking is your boss. “It, it, it … it depends entirely on the rhythm
itself
, doesn’t it? I mean, technically the rad count produces a rhythm, but it’s holding steady now and I’d never say it was particularly rhythmic, it’s too inconsistent. Brigadier Straub, I’m extremely sorry, but unless you have something more definite this really is the worst time—”