The Stone Man - A Science Fiction Thriller

by Smitherd, Luke

  —The NBC team adapting my draft into a more suitable TV format. I am then flown back to the UK to shoot on location. David stays with me throughout the whole process, as does Bryan. I like Bryan, but I can’t relax with the guy; I strongly suspect he wouldn’t give me the time of day if I wasn’t of use to him. David is just cold, his lined faced always stern. I try to place an exact age on him. I think fifty-five. We’re granted exclusive access to the damage sites for filming. The many ruined areas of Coventry are still guarded by police, to ward off sightseers and memorabilia hunters whilst the city is being repaired. The government are done taking their samples too. It feels strange being back, like stepping into a past dream. It’s only been a week, but it feels like months since I was last in Coventry. The city is already rebuilding, but the end is a long way off. Flattened again, as it was in wartime, and having to rebuild for a second time. It isn’t fair.

  —Reporting to camera, walking past the various sites, giving not only my own ‘personal’ account but also passing on news information about the local riots and movement of people. I find that I have a knack for it, surprisingly, and start to relax into the role, becoming confident.

  —Having a trailer. Starting to drink more. Loving every minute of it but still seeing Patrick’s face at night. I think about calling Paul. I don’t.

  —Being finished three days later, and flying straight back to the US for a round of media appearances—Oprah, Letterman—whilst the final report is quickly edited. Again I have to follow carefully drafted responses, this time by the NBC producers, so as not to blow any material in the upcoming show. The interview questions are vetted beforehand and edited. I don’t feel much like a reporter at all. David now heads back to the UK, after telling me that they’ll be in touch when necessary, and I am then alone for the first time since my press conference prep. He gives me another new phone with location tracking built into it, telling it to keep it on me at all times. I think the Blackberry might already have it, but I assume this one has the same but with bells on; I don’t think he means it just has conventional GPS.

  —A parcel arriving from Paul. It’s a present; a new Dictaphone. The one I’m using as I tell this story, in fact. It comes with a note. To replace the old one … and to get it all out if you need to. I appreciate the thought.

  —Calling the Times from my hotel to offer a piece on the growth of nostalgia cinema. They’re excited—my name already carries weight—and they offer good money. The New York Times offers more. I start to make notes for the article. The TV special broadcasts, and the ratings are through the roof, topping the last record-breaking Superbowl. I think about buying a house, but then wonder where I’d buy it. America? I like it there. The money arrives in my account. My wealth is official.

  —Flying home to the UK for a break whilst I finish the New York Times piece. I stay at the Savoy. The NY Times publishes my work to some minor fanfare, and it’s noted in media outlets that it’s my first report since the Stone Man. There are a few dissenting voices, asking why my work is now a big deal when before, I couldn’t get anything into the nationals. These voices hurt.

  —Receiving an invite for a big Samsung product launch in New York. I take it up, and contact David to inform him that I’ll be out of the country.

  —Flying back to the States (business class, again, as I AM now a multimillionaire, something I actually keep forgetting, forcing myself to look at the pricier options on menus as I don’t fully realise that I can afford them) and having two weeks that I don’t really remember very much about. Bryan calls with the best prices on the book offers, and they’re good. He says we’ve kept the movie rights in all potential deals. I decide to get started, but first I ring the New York Times again about another story, perhaps something about the current nature of celebrity. They want it, but the offer is less than before. I wonder if it’s the subject matter, or my own celebrity appeal already starting to slip. I write the article, realising now is the time to begin to cement myself as a writer, and that I have to try to get the book finished.

  —Finding that Paul has rang my Blackberry, but I’ve missed the call. He hasn’t left a message.

  —Being asked to come back to the UK by Boldfield for some more tests. Nothing severe, I’m told. I’m put in a room and asked to listen to some frequencies, and then am bombarded by what I assume are X-rays as they’re all stood behind a thick screen whilst it happens. They tell me it’s safe, and I don’t really have any choice but to believe them.

  —Bryan constantly ringing about the book deal progress, as well as giving me invites to one soiree after another in the States. I fly back, and have another crazy, shameful few weeks. I get laid, repeatedly, and at a calibre I never would have imagined. The men at these affairs are all sycophants trying to kiss my arse, or posers trying to outdo me, but I don’t care. The attention is nice in any aspect, and to my amazement I’m not finding myself trying to avoid it, not trying to shy away from it like normal because I don’t have to try for the first time in my life, I can behave how I like and they’re doing all the work. There’s no pressure. Plus, no matter what, I am made for life. I avoid the drugs—the last thing I need is an out-of-control habit to push me over the edge—but I do drink a lot. A photo of me falling out of a nightclub ends up on the cover of nearly every paper worldwide. It doesn’t affect anything—if anything else, it helps—but it’s embarrassing.

  —The New York Times printing my new piece. I don’t think of another one after all; I’m having a good time and have a book to write. I’ve already made good progress.

  —Deciding I need to get it finished quick, or I’m going to be forgotten. Knowing I need to detox. I fly to the Bahamas and rent a room in a ludicrously expensive and famous private retreat for celebrities. I live off flavoured water and salad, and the weight I’ve gained in the last two months starts to drop off. I write, I relax. The weeks pass, and I feel a tension that I didn’t really know was there start to fade. I realise that the nightmares have stopped.

  —Calling Paul.

  “Hey, Andy! Wondered if I was going to hear from you! How’s things in the world of celebrity?” He sounds pleased to hear me, but his voice is slightly thick, as if he has a cold. He still sounds tired.

  “Well, I’m calling from a hotel in the Bahamas, so it can’t be that bad.”

  “Poor sod. When you could be in sunny Sheffield. Or Cov.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure I’ll get over the delightful climate here and beautiful beaches. Someone has to do it.”

  We exchange pleasantries, each catching up on what the other has been doing in the meantime; the paycheque from the government has come through for him, and it’s good. He and his wife have used it to start up a side business—catering—ran by her, and the early signs are promising. He’s told her the whole story, and she’s kept it quiet. Work is going well, and their finances are good to great, and look to stay that way. His tone is light, but hollow. It’s a front, and a very weak one. This is not the same man that I met in Sheffield. Again, I find myself wondering what is wrong with me; how I am so unscathed emotionally by what happened to that man in the street as he screamed before my eyes. I tell Paul that if ever he needs money—a lot of money—he only needs to ask, and it will be given. I surprise myself by telling him that he can have half, anytime he wants it. He goes quiet at this, and makes a quiet thinking noise. He then thanks me.

  “I’ll keep that in mind, Andy. You never know, do you … principles are good and all, and right now I don’t need it, but when the moment comes, who knows. Who knows.”

  He goes quiet, and I wonder what to say. He speaks first, though.

  “How’ve you been sleeping?” The question speaks volumes.

  I say not bad, better now. I ask him about his sleep. He sighs, and there is hidden pain in it.

  “Not good, mate, not good. Pretty terrible, really. When the lights go out … can’t drop off. And when I do, half the time I have the same dream. I see it again. Boom, just like tha
t.” He pauses for a long time, and when he speaks again, he’s almost whispering, the truth behind the upbeat lie coming out.

  “Sometimes … sometimes it’s me.”

  I don’t ask if It is Patrick, or the Stone Man.

  —Finishing the book and sending it to the publishing editor, after receiving approval from David, of course. Flying back to New York at the publisher’s expense. I have a few days drinking and ass-kissing with the New York literary set, then I get to work on the edits that I’ve been given by the publishers. There are a few more parties in the meantime, but I’m relatively careful. More sex, but easy on the booze. The book launch is going to be on October 7th, with all the accompanying fanfare, and I want to be on top form for it. This is when I’ll be catapulted to a solid position of respect, cemented as a writer and not as a grim reality show celebrity.

  -October 2nd, the day that it all comes to a shrieking end. The day that the Stone Man comes back.

  ***

  I could tell that something was wrong from the moment I woke up. At first, I thought I was still drunk, but realised quickly that this was a different feeling. Familiar, but unrecognisable through my sleep haze. I checked the clock: 23:07. I’d only been asleep for an hour. Last night had ended extremely early indeed for me, I dimly remembered, although it had been a pretty early start as well; six o’clock dinner reservations, celebrating someone else’s book launch, a member of the squawking, butt-kissing literary party pack that I barely knew. I hadn’t felt comfortable at all, spending the alternating between restlessness, irritability and even dizziness. Eventually I’d made my excuses and arrived home around 9:00 p.m., and out of frustration and petulance I’d given up on the day and taken a Xanax, managing to pass out. That made it even more odd; I should have been asleep for hours. How the hell was I awake already?

  I staggered to the bathroom, my silk boxers feeling weird around my legs and groin. I’d bought them as an indulgence, and had regretted it all of the previous day. I’d spent too long in opulent surroundings, had been spoilt by the world of New York’s finest hotels. Even now, if I threw open the expensive floor-to-ceiling drapes, the view from my current room would be breathtaking.

  The thick shag pile carpet felt thick and warm under my feet, a sensation then replaced by the smooth but equally warm bathroom tiles (heated from underneath, of course). I pissed in the toilet and rested my head against the wall, regretting another drinking session surrounded by wannabe social climbers. I tried to remember what the hell I’d been drinking, and wondered how whatever it was had managed to get me into this messy state so quickly. As my mind slowly awoke, I remembered the answer.

  Orange juice.

  I’d had a night off the sauce. So what the hell was this? Why was my head buzzing so much, when all I’d had was vitamin C? The tugging sensation was in my skull, my teeth, my skin—

  I was suddenly very, very awake, and as I jerked upright I felt the resulting head rush hit me, hard. I managed to grab the sink as I started to go dizzy, and took a moment to let myself settle. My equilibrium eventually did, if not my nerves, and I half-ran, half-stumbled back into the bedroom and turned on the TV. What time was it again? Eleven p.m.-ish local time. That meant it was … my brain struggled to work properly, but I dragged the answer out. Around 4:00 a.m. in the UK. Sunday morning here … but just early enough on a Saturday night for people to see it, for clubbers staggering home to know that it was there and start a full-scale panic. An hour or two later, and maybe it could have been kept quiet for a bit longer. CCTV cameras could have picked it up, then the authorities could have been quietly informed. Then the security logistics could have begun with just that bit more of a head start, instead of being one step behind the panic from the very beginning. A few lives could have been saved. Slim chances of all that, but even so …

  With a shaking hand, I pressed the power button on the remote. Of course, it was being broadcast live from the scene. I’d just had time to hope it had arrived somewhere else, but somehow I already knew that it wouldn’t have. The blue strip lighting in the floor was the giveaway. Without a doubt, the scene before me was Millennium Place. This was the start of what would become known as the Second Arrival.

  As it stood there, bathed both by floodlight and the headlights of the military jeeps and APCs parked impotently around it, I thought that it looked just as solid, real, and implacable as before. The Stone Man had come back.

  I actually let out a little cry of dismay, and in that moment everything that had happened in the last three months felt somehow lessened, suddenly diminishing into an alcohol-fuelled fever dream. Seeing the Stone Man like this again, viewed at a distance, it was almost as if I expected Patrick to be brought forward once more, drooling and gibbering, for his date with grim destiny. The Stone Man was here, and someone was going to die. Die horribly, and without dignity.

  That was besides all the others that would be killed either in crushes, panic or religious disputes. I thought that they would have started already, and as I then wondered crazily what the Internet would make of it, I realised that my phone was switched off. Fuck. How long had the Stone Man been here?

  And how was the pull here already? It hadn’t been until the morning after the Stone Man had turned up when I first felt it before, and I’d been through two physical episodes before that. Could it be I was now conditioned somehow, finding the pull more quickly and easily now I’d been tuned to it once already? My mind whirled.

  I dived over to the bed in a panic, where I’d left my government-issue phone on the nightstand. It wasn’t a model I’d ever seen before. I’d been given one, a small grey box as basic and functional as a phone from the early 1990s, only smaller. It was heavy, though. No camera, no Internet, but it had a startlingly long battery life, often lasting six days (helped by the fact that it was never used) but that came with a downside; it was often very easy to take charging it for granted. So far, I’d let it die twice, but after receiving no reprimands from David (or any other government spooks; I was still convinced that he was one), I thought I’d gotten away with it. However, I’d let it happen for a third time last night. As a result, I’d set it charging when I got home, but in my distracted, irritated state I’d forgotten to turn it on whilst it did so.

  I watched it boot up, breathing hard and willing it to switch on faster. The old-school green screen appeared, and the moment that it registered a signal, a text alert pinged into life. Voicemail. Wincing, I rang it; there were twenty-six messages.

  First up was Straub, pointlessly telling me to turn my bastard phone on. Then David, telling me to stay put as soon as I switch my phone on. Paul, ringing from a military base, saying that he’d been picked up already and that they’d scared his Mrs half to death, almost kicking the bloody door down, and wanting to know where I was. Straub again, now repeating what David had said. Bryan, telling me to say nothing to anyone, and to keep a low profile until I was picked up. David repeating his earlier message. Straub, audio cutting in halfway through a conversation that she was having with someone else in the room and then saying no, it’s his sodding answer phone again. David—

  A beep interrupted my thoughts, cutting in over the current message playing. I looked at the screen, which was now telling me that I had an incoming call. David. I answered.

  “Hello?” I said, breathlessly.

  “He’s here, he’s here!” shouted David, sounding astonished and talking to someone else, and for a second I thought he was talking about the Stone Man. I then realised he was alerting people around him to the fact that I was on finally on the phone. He then addressed me. “Thank God you’ve finally turned your fucking phone on. You were given that for a reason. I’ve been calling you nonstop for the last two hours.”

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” I said frantically, muting the TV via the remote and already looking around for my clothes. “I’m in New York, I’m at the—”

  “We know, we know, it came up the minute you turned your phone on,” he said,
cutting me off with the voice of an extremely stressed man. “Stay put. There’ll be a chopper arriving on the roof in ten minutes. Paul is already here, but we’re behind the clock. He says he can feel the target, but he can’t pinpoint the fucker without you, which rogers us entirely. Based on our previous intel, Caementum started walking within two hours last time. That time is now up, even before we have you in the air and on the way back to the UK. We have no route, no path to evacuate, and it’s about to start smashing its way in a straight line. People are going to fucking die because you had to have an early night.” My mouth gaped at this, half of me wanting to say how fucking dare you and the other wanting to curl into a ball and die myself. The responsibility was mind-blowing. I’d been asleep five minutes ago, I reminded myself, desperately searching for a way out. Could this just be a bad dream? David was talking again already.

  “Just bring a UK map up on your laptop and get on with your fucking magic trick. I’ll wait,” David snapped. I mumbled something dumbly in response, dropped the phone onto the bed, and ran over to my laptop that was charging away on the table. Of course, I never allowed that thing to run out of juice. A few seconds later and Google Maps was up onscreen, showing me a full image of my home country, one large enough to work with thanks to the seventeen-inch screen. Even in my current state of panic, I was confident that this would do. The image was just to help me focus, after all, to ease the connection and to help me visualise … but even as I raised my hand to the picture, I knew that something was different, and not because of the medium I was using. The pull was back, and deep in my skin and bones and blood, but something was missing. What was it?

  I tried to focus harder, to get my mojo back, but after several minutes I had gotten nowhere. I felt cold, and something felt like it had begun to loosen in my bowels. I wanted to vomit. I couldn’t make the connection, and horribly, I thought I knew why.

  I was too far away.