The Stone Man - A Science Fiction Thriller

by Smitherd, Luke

  “I don’t know,” I muttered back, watching the two soldiers talk. “This is only the first bit. They might even just cart us off for questioning and then take Blondie off to hospital, unless our friend there manages to make enough fuss to get the brass interested.”

  “But all the stuff you said?”

  “Who knows. It worked on him, at least, with Blondie here doing his bit.”

  “Wait until they find out I’m doing it all without moving my lips. Gottle o’ geer, eh?”

  “Not funny.”

  “No. Sorry. Bit hypocritical, that. Sorry. I’m just nervous.”

  “Don’t worry about it. Hold on, they’re coming over.”

  Private Pike, as he now was known, was heading back over with the other soldier, hanging back slightly behind him. The new soldier was slightly older, if not slightly shorter, with dark, Asian looking features. If he outranked the other guy, I didn’t know how to tell, unless carrying a clipboard was a sign of rank. As he got close enough to see Patrick, he stared down at him as he walked in our direction. He didn’t speak until he got to us, and even then he continued to stare down at Patrick, perhaps listening to his Morse code babble.

  “How long has he been like this?” he asked us, without introduction.

  “Since about three hours ago, I think,” I told him.

  “And what caused it?”

  “He tried to run away,” said Paul, wiping his forehead with his forearm. “He has to stay here. And so do we.” The clipboard soldier looked at Paul, as if noticing him for the first time.

  “Names, please?” he said, talking to Paul but addressing us both.

  “Andrew Pointer and Paul Winter,” I said. “We don’t live here though. He does.” I pointed at Patrick. “We came here because he’s important. I can tell you all about it but we have to speak to someone higher up, and we can’t leave.” The clipboard soldier looked up from the clipboard he’d been checking.

  “Neither of you are …” he trailed off as checking his papers, “P. Marshall?”

  “No.”

  The clipboard soldier scribbled something on his sheet with a pen.

  “Okay, Mr. … Pointer? You can tell me all about it, and I’ll pass it on,” he said, turning the top sheet on his clipboard over and holding his pen above the fresh page beneath. I took a deep breath.

  “Sorry, but I can’t. We want to talk to someone higher up. It’s up to you, but I think you haven’t got a huge amount of time to waste. You’ve got about … fifty minutes, I think? Until it gets here? It’d be longer if it was travelling by roads, but as we know, the Stone Man prefers to travel as the crow flies, and I know it’s coming exactly in this direction.” The clipboard soldier stared at me, his face unreadable. The amount of confidence and unflappability spoke volumes; this guy clearly knew what he was doing. The extra experience was all over his face. The younger soldier still hung back behind him, looking at Patrick, when the clipboard soldier spoke.

  “Can I see the camera, please?”

  “You can see it. But I’ll hold it.”

  “I could just take it, you know.”

  “You don’t need to do that. I have copies, anyway,” I lied, holding the camera up to show him the Stone Man picture. He examined it silently for a while, lips pursed, and then scribbled something else on his sheet. He flipped the sheet on top back over, and pointed at the camera.

  “Hold on to that,” he said, and produced a walkie-talkie. “Henderson, report?” There was answering noise on the other end, which clipboard soldier seemed to understand, nodding. “Roger that, evac complete section 347,” he said. “Vehicles one through seven rendezvous at section 348 and vehicle eight stays here with me. Send Branson and Carter over here.” He turned back to us. “Stay here a moment please, sirs, I have a few things to deal with.” He nodded at Private Pike—who saluted and stood to attention—and then walked away, talking into his walkie-talkie as two others soldiers came towards us. He met them halfway and seemed to give instructions, and they then headed over to stand next to Pike as clipboard soldier headed back to one of the trucks. A few awkward moments passed whilst Paul and I stood face to face with them, none of the soldiers saying anything.

  “Are you guarding us, or something?” asked Paul. They didn’t reply. “It’s not Buckingham Palace, boys,” said Paul, leaning back on the floor and propping himself up weakly on his arms. “You can tell us. Plus, I highly doubt you’re gonna shoot a couple of civilians for no reason, eh? We under house arrest now then, or what?”

  “Just bear with us please, sir, and stay where you are,” said Private Pike, but clearly with less confidence than he’d had earlier. He looked sick. I looked down at Paul, who shrugged and patted the ground next to him. Why not, I thought. It was all out of our hands for the time being, and besides, the longer we were here the better. All the time we spent sitting outside Patrick’s house, the Stone Man was drawing ever closer, gaining on us like it had been all afternoon. Not that it was us that it needed to reach. The person with that honour was the gibbering figure to Paul’s right, and he hadn’t asked for any of this.

  I sat down on the concrete driveway—which was warmed perfectly by the summer heat—and lay down flat on my back. Though my whole body was thrumming like a freshly picked guitar string, I was so glad of the break; I had no decisions to make, nowhere to run off to, no one to question. I could just lie here and wait. I looked up at the clouds above me as they slowly drifted overhead, and asked Paul if he was okay.

  “All good,” he said, and the tone of his voice sounded like he felt the same way that I did. Nothing more was needed, and in that manner we passed the next ten minutes or so. Whilst we waited, I heard the army trucks—vehicles one through seven, presumably—drive away, and I thought that was probably a good sign, even if I had no idea what we were waiting for. A helicopter passed very close overhead, right through my sight line, and then hovered in the near distance for a time, giving me the impression of being inspected from afar. Right at that moment, I didn’t care. The chopper then began to set down in whatever nearby area it had been hanging above.

  Shortly after that, we heard the sound of a freshly approaching engine. I sat up, and to my surprise I saw an open-topped jeep heading up the road towards us. I was slightly surprised; I’d only ever seen these in films, in scenes set in military bases or warzones. Seeing one in a reasonably suburban area was out of place to say the least. Seated in the front of it were two figures in military uniform, and seated behind them were two armed military escorts, each carrying an automatic rifle of some sort.

  “Here we go, look,” said Paul, pointing at it as if I hadn’t already noticed. “Looks like we got some bugger’s attention.” I nodded in agreement, and we both struggled to our feet and began to head towards the end of the driveway.

  “Just wait there please, sirs,” said Private Pike, not looking at us directly, and then all three soldiers standing guard saluted the jeep as it drew closer. In the near distance I saw Clipboard Soldier climbing out of the remaining truck, parked now with two rifle bearing soldiers stood at either end.

  The jeep pulled up alongside the end of the driveway, and the soldier in the passenger seat got out, as well as the two armed soldiers in the back. To my surprise, and therefore very probably to the confirmation of my own sexism, the soldier in the passenger seat was a woman. At distance, in baggy uniform with hair either pulled up under her hat or worn short—I couldn’t tell—and without makeup to help determine sex, I hadn’t realised. (Maybe not sexism. Maybe more of a lack of awareness of the levels of equality in the British army.)

  “At ease,” she said, and the soldiers of course did as they were told. She turned to us, and I could see that she was perhaps in her late forties, and the shortest of the military members currently present. Her features were hard-ish, but in the same way that a marathon runner’s would be. Now that she was closer, I could see that her hair was swept back underneath her beret, and that it was brown. Said beret had
a different badge on it than all the others I’d seen, and adding that to the fact that Private Pike and the others had saluted her first—as well having a chauffeured jeep with her own set of guards—suggested to me that this woman was the higher brass that we’d asked to see. Clipboard soldier had arrived by now, saluting and introducing himself.

  “Brigadier Straub, ma’am, I’m Sergeant Craddock. I’m the one who put in the—”

  “Thank you, Sergeant Craddock,” interrupted Brigadier Straub, looking very serious. Her manner was brisk, but not patronising; I got the strong feeling that she was extremely aware of the situation’s time constraints. “These are the two men?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Gentlemen,” she said, extending her hand for me to shake, “I’m Brigadier Straub. I’ve been sent to have a talk with you both about any information you may have regarding the current situation.” She repeated the gesture to Paul, after I’d released her hand. “You’ll have to forgive me if I seem brusque, but time is of the essence and—pardon me for saying so—there is a very good chance that you’re just wasting mine, so I need to get on with this.”

  “We understand that, ma’am,” said Paul, politely, “but if you’ve seen the other guys, the cops and the young fella, or footage of them—I haven’t, but he has—then you’ll know that this guy, unfortunately, is the real deal.” Straub looked down at Patrick for a moment, then nodded, more to herself than to Paul.

  “Yes,” she said, looking back at us, “yes, this is … this is interesting. But again, as I say, we need to get on with things. Shall we go inside and talk, gentlemen? My men will take your friend inside for you; you two don’t look in the best of shape, if you don’t mind me saying so.”

  “He’s not our friend, Brigadier Straub,” I said, shrugging slightly, but realising as I processed her words further that we seemed to have acclimatised slightly to being this close to Patrick. Whether it was prolonged, close range exposure that was helping us to adapt, or just having the last few hours to just sit for a while, I realised in that moment that the physical stress wasn’t quite as bad as it had been. Either that, or we’d just gotten used to it. Even so, we still looked bad enough for her to notice. “We’ve never met him before today, and even then it was brief before … well, before this. But I think it would be better to keep an eye on him, yes.”

  “Agreed,” said Straub, turning to the three soldiers behind her. “Privates, take this man inside and put him in the sitting room. Then you can return to the vehicle and wait for further instructions.” As they got to work, Straub turned back to us and gestured towards the house. “Let’s have us a quick talk then, gents, and I can decide what happens next.”

  ***

  Once we were back in the living room, Patrick was laid out on the carpet; Paul and I sat down on the sofa, whilst Brigadier Straub took the armchair. Two armed soldiers stood quietly by the door, watching us.

  “Right, I’ll get to the point,” said Straub, leaning forward and lacing her fingers together. It was clear already what had helped her to advance so far in the military, overcoming whatever old-school bigotry might have attempted to block her path; she had an air of total confidence and efficiency. Already, she had no doubt that she would get what she wanted from us. She was probably right. “The gentleman in Coventry, the one you saw that first made active physical contact, we refer to as C.I. One, contact incident one. The policemen are referred to as C.I.s Two and Three, and will continue to be so for the time being. Eventually, we’ll release their details, but you know that for now it’s prudent to keep a lid on that side of things. Understand?” We nodded.

  Straub nodded back, then held out a hand.

  “Can I see the camera please?”

  Paul and I exchanged a glance, after which I shrugged and handed it over. What else could I do? The two bruisers with the rifles looked more than capable of dealing with me, and probably with Paul, too. Plus we wanted to get on their good side. Straub took the camera, and had a quick flick through the photos. Everyone was silent whilst she did so. When she finished, she looked up.

  “I’m going to keep this. All right?” It wasn’t said in a threatening or intimidating manner. She was simply doing me the courtesy of the illusion of choice. I nodded again, dumbly. She held it out to one of the soldiers by the door, who took it and pocketed it. “Do you have any other recording equipment about your person? Either of you, camera phones, anything like that?”

  Paul pulled out his old Nokia and showed it to Straub. “This thing doesn’t even take pictures. Look,” he added, turning it to show her the lack of a camera. Straub nodded after a second, seemingly satisfied, and then turned to me. “And you, Mr Pointer? Anything else?” There was something different in her tone and her stare, and as ever, it took me a moment to get it. Then it clicked.

  She knew what I did for a living. They’d already run background checks on the names, and our jobs, and knew there was no way I’d be in a situation like this with just a camera. I considered lying for a second, but I’d already taken too long.

  “You, your bag and your vehicle will be searched later, Mr Pointer,” she said. “Best just be honest.” I sighed heavily, and handed over my iPhone and my Dictaphone. As she passed them to the soldiers, I felt as if she was discarding the best opportunities of my career.

  “Okay,” she said, the previous task already forgotten as she moved onto the next immediately. “What I’d like to happen now is for you two to tell me your story so far, and I need you to keep it under five minutes. That’s very important. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” said Paul.

  “Just Brigadier to civilians,” said Straub, holding up a hand, “I’m not the Queen, but thank you.” It was a lighthearted remark, but her serious expression didn’t change. She had business to take care of. “Right, off you go, and leave nothing out. Don’t worry about anything illegal that might be in there, this is off the record for now. I just need the truth, most importantly.”

  We did as we were told, even though I did most of the talking because Paul didn’t come into proceedings until later on, joining in when he had to explain his side of events before I arrived. Once we got onto the journey to Sheffield, Paul took over, with me adding bits to his story wherever they were appropriate. He was a more natural storyteller, which is embarrassing for a writer to admit. We ended with Patrick making a run for it, and our subsequent failed attempt to take him towards the Stone Man. They didn’t need any details of the time after that; they knew what had happened from there. The whole thing, in our potted version, took only slightly longer than five minutes. Throughout our recap—even during the parts about psychic visions and following an unseen pull across the country to a specific house in Barnsley—Straub’s expression didn’t change. I could imagine how having a good poker face might help in an advanced military career.

  Once we’d finished, Straub leant back, and rested her forearms on the chair’s armrests. She let out a small breath of air, and seemed to be inspecting her knees. We waited patiently, feeling like schoolchildren wondering if It was like that when I got here was a convincing excuse. Eventually, Straub drummed her fingers on the armrest, and then spoke.

  “Here’s the thing,” she said, holding up a hand in a gentle chopping motion from the wrist. “There’s parts of your story that I know are probably true, based on information we have, parts that I don’t know are true but sound as if they add up … and slightly shaky bits that you could well be making up to stay on the inside of an international-level mystery. And no offence to you, Mr Winter and Mr Pointer—”

  “Just Paul and Andy to brigadiers, Brigadier, we’re not royalty,” interrupted Paul, giving her a wink. Straub didn’t smile, but did raise an eyebrow as she continued, and there might have been the briefest of twitches around the corners of her mouth.

  “No offence to you, Mr Winter and Mr Pointer, but the last thing in the world I need right now are unnecessary and untrained civilians that may mean wel
l but who, if they cause something to go wrong, can bring a ton of crap down on me and my superiors. So I need you to convince me of certain things, and quickly. Here’s what I know about your story.” She extended a finger on her left hand, and touched it with the fingertip of her right.

  “Point one,” she said, “about your man here bolting for the street—”

  “Do you know his name?” asked Paul, interrupting again.

  “Yes, if this is his house,” said Straub, and carried on without addressing the subject further. “If you really wanted to know that badly, gentlemen, you could have rooted around for some documents or something of the kind. I assume you didn’t feel the need to know that much.” I bristled slightly at the statement, but she was right; once we knew that he didn’t really know anything, what good would a name have done? We already called him Blondie at the time; that was enough for us. Straub continued talking.

  “He bolted for the street and had some sort of physical attack, and ended up exactly the same as C.I.s One, Two and Three. You may not know this, but I’m told that the speed and unending nature of this speech pattern they’re producing is impossible for the average human, without some sort of thorough cyclical breathing training. It’s used by Gregorian monks and the like for their chanting. Neither any of the C.I.s, or this man here, were the type of people to be involved in that kind of thing, based on what we know. It takes extensive classical training. Regardless, you say that was a result of what happened when he tried to leave the area around the house. Correct?”

  “Correct,” I said. I wondered if this was going to be one of the points she thought was true, or if she was about to try to catch us out on one of the other parts. We hadn’t even told any real lies. Yet.

  “You gave the time of this incident as being approximately sixteen hundred hours?”

  “About 4:00 p.m., yes,” I said, and didn’t know what to make of it when Straub nodded again slowly, not taking her eyes off mine.

  “Something you won’t know is that we’ve been monitoring certain aspects of Caementum since yesterday—”