The Stone Man - A Science Fiction Thriller (54 page)

Paul nodded to himself, and knew the voice was right, knew its words were true and wise, but those words didn’t change anything. His heart still pounded like it was going to burst in his chest, and his breathing, now restored, continued in and out of him in ragged gasps.

The Stone Man had reached the doorway now, and Paul now noticed that at some point, several of the soldiers flanking the walls had broken away from the lines and were now clustered around each of the giant sliding doors either side of the entrance. The hurried nature of the construction had meant that motorised doors hadn’t been installed. As the Stone Man passed through the entrance, its surface brightened, caught by the bright interior ceiling lights; the effect was startling, looking as if it had become more powerful, lit from within somehow, now that it was within reach of its prey. Wide-eyed, Paul caught the faces of the personnel within the hallway, soldiers and civilians alike. All had paled slightly, or stood with their mouths agape.

Once the Stone Man had moved ten feet farther inside the structure, the doors began to slide inwards as the soldiers pushed. For the first time since its appearance, Paul looked away from the Stone Man and looked at the landscape outside, a task made more difficult now by the fact that the Stone Man was directly in his path, taking up more of his line of sight. Even though the view beyond the doors was grey, cold, and unwelcoming, Paul watched his view of it shrink to a sliver as the doors slid home, and felt a fresh surge of desperation. He didn’t know when, if ever, he would see it again, and as the doors banged to and the soldiers began to bolt them shut, the feeling of loss became a certainty. If being brought into the hall had been like being dragged underground, the sound of the closing doors was like the first shovelful of earth landing on top of his coffin.

“Stand by.”

The voice came over the radio, and Paul wasn’t sure if it was Straub’s. The Stone Man had closed the space between them considerably, becoming immense in Paul’s sight line, and the only way Paul could tell the difference now between the heavy thuds of the Stone Man’s approach and the hammer blows of his own heart was the sheer speed of the latter.

The size of the Stone Man was mind blowing. At this range Paul was able, despite himself, to marvel again at the fluidity of its movements, the way such immense, heavy stone limbs could hinge and flex upon themselves like rubber, free of creases and join-lines. It was magic made solid, dark magic, evil intent given physical form.

Is it though? Is it not just doing its job?

The Stone Man was now within fifty feet of the jeep, and Paul realised his fingers had buried themselves in his seat padding up to the second knuckle. His right heel began to kick against the rubber mat in the footwell.

Forty feet.
With bulging eyes, Paul glanced at the soldier in the driver’s seat, who was sitting and staring stoically ahead, the only evidence of his own discomfiture being the two lines of sweat than ran down the side of his face. He held the radio to his ear with one hand, waiting for the order. Paul wanted to scream
NOW
at him, and only managed to not do so through sheer force of will. They had to run this. He had to let them.

Thirty feet.

“Stand by.”

Paul’s kicking heel became a stamping gesture, his foot looking for an accelerator that wasn’t there.

Twenty feet.

It’s too big to be real. This can’t be real. This whole thing is a nightmare. This whole thing has been one long fever dream. I’m in a coma, I’m already dead, OH GOD GET ME OUT OF HERE—

Ten feet.

“Clearance.”

“Roger,” replied the soldier, in a thinner voice than his facial expression would have led one to expect, and pressed his foot onto the accelerator as he turned the wheel. The jeep’s engine gently roared, and the vehicle swung out and to the left, away from the Stone Man’s path and towards the yellow plastic strip that ran along the floor upon the western side of the hall. Paul had been right about them operating well within the barrier limits; the strips that ran in a square around the hall were only roughly one hundred feet apart in both directions. Once the jeep reached the strip—the time it took to do so was almost two seconds—the driver drove them quickly along its length. Paul’s head swung wildly behind him, watching the Stone Man; was it still moving? With the bouncing, rapid movement of the jeep, he couldn’t quite tell. The driver swung them around, the jeep spraying earth from the dirt floor as it did so, ending up facing the south wall, but already the driver was reversing quickly in the opposite direction. The jeep backed neatly into the northwest corner, and stopped. The whole procedure had taken less than five seconds.

Paul let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding, giving a small moan of both relief and despair as he did so. The first part—the very first time—had now worked. Even though everyone had expected it to, the temporary relief was immense. But what would happen now? All eyes were on the Stone Man.

It was already beginning to turn, its right shoulder leading its body, the head staring straight ahead as it did so. There was no sense of urgency, or of recalculation in its movements. It was simply continuing to follow, and Paul felt a brief, infinitesimal flicker of hope.

That’s it,
he surprised himself by thinking.
This way.

Once it had completed its relatively slow about-face, the Stone Man recommenced walking again, this time heading towards the northwest corner of the yellow square where the jeep waited. Paul’s hope and confidence immediately died a harsh death, so much so that he briefly wondered if the fear, the intense anxiety and desperation, weren’t projected from the thing at close range in a similar way as they had been from wherever the Stone Man came from in the days before its arrival; the same intense fear that he and Andy had broken the circuit of when they locked in—

Is that its insurance policy?
Paul wondered.
Is that how it makes sure that its targets charge into the barrier once it gets close? If Andy and I hadn’t locked in before they got here, if that hadn’t somehow broken the effect, would I be going insane with the urge to run by now, as opposed to just shitting myself?

It was a thought he didn’t have time to ponder further, as it was nearly time to move again. The countdown came over the radio once more, verbally closing the distance as the Stone Man did so physically. Paul had visions of those arms suddenly extending longer, reaching from its body—just as its chest cavity had when it took Patrick—and plucking Paul from the jeep, the handcuffs around his ankles gouging into his bones until the chains holding them snapped, and then Paul would be drawn towards the Stone Man, where its chest would begin to open once more and Paul would be turned in the air, his spine now exposed—

Ten feet.

“Clearance.”

The engine rumbled again, and Paul felt his blood run cold for only a millisecond as the tyres spun helplessly in place, before catching hold and propelling the jeep away to the Stone Man’s right this time, running along the eastern wall before turning and parking in the southeast corner.

They all watched, everyone in the hall, as the Stone Man went through the same procedure once more—the slow turn over the same shoulder—as it prepared for another approach. This time hope flared brighter in Paul’s heart, but even with that feeling came balance.

It was working. They’d have to see, they’d have to give it time, but it was working … yet if it
stayed
working … could he ever get used to this? He didn’t know, but if he’d been right all along, he would simply have to.

It’s not programmed for this,
he’d said to Straub, in his frantic, desperate explanation.
I don’t think this is in any of its presets or whatever. They obviously know us to an extent, know our base urges and instincts, maybe because they think in a similar way in some respects, I don’t bloody know. But I think with them ... that’s it. They operate in straight lines.

The Stone Man completed its half-circle, and was beginning to head towards them once more.

Look at the way the Stone Men operate,
he’d said.
They think route one, the simplest procedure, as time taken doesn’t bother them, right? They don’t bother with contingencies, because for them, the logical solution should work every time. That’s why they just build the unstoppable creature and set the bugger off, waiting for the results because, as far as they’re concerned, that should take care of everything. But, if we don’t run blindly into the barrier … they don’t know what to do.

The rhythmic pounding through the floor, like the ticking of the second hand on the universe’s biggest clock, shaving away precious, precious time with every step.

So what happens if we don’t run? What does it do? If nothing else, Straub, you need to know that. But regardless ... if you’re ever going to have a chance to beat these things, you need time as well. Time to study them, time to try out more of your crap on them without having to worry about innocent civilians and falling buildings. Right? So what if, and I know this is just a bullshit theory, but at the same time we’ve seen nothing to suggest that it’s got anything else in its bag,
but ...
what if all it can do is pursue? What if we just keep the fucker moving, and chasing, indefinitely? Hell, what if we do that and after a while, after weeks or months, the bastard just runs out of juice? There’s so much we could learn, and being totally honest, it might mean you find something out that can save my bloody life, or it breaks down before it can get me. So, what I’m saying is, if I can find out how big the barrier is, and if it’s big enough to work …

“Clearance.”
Paul’s hand gripped the door handle as the jeep lurched again. He didn’t know it then, but that hand movement was something that, in time, would become as automatic as breathing.

… why don’t we just let it chase me for as long as we can?

As the jeep swung out to the left again, and Paul’s premature conviction that his plan might bear some kind of fruit grew, he also had a sudden, clear, but fleeting thought. It was pushed away almost as soon as it arrived—he didn’t really have any choice now, regardless—but part of it still caught in his mind, and over the many months ahead it would grow steadily, causing him greater and greater unease.

In that moment, he’d briefly seen the plan working, and what it might mean if he really could be kept moving indefinitely. Being here in the hall, doing circuits of this tiny space in Sheffield for the foreseeable future, with no idea of how long that might be. Paul knew that there were three possible-to-likely outcomes to all of it: either they stopped the Stone Man, or it stopped itself, or they eventually decided to pull the plug on the whole thing and shoot him in the head. He was prepared for any of those, he thought, or at least as much as anyone could be.

But there was a slim chance of a less likely, fourth outcome.

For some reason, he couldn’t decide how he felt about the possibility; because if it remained in their interests to keep him alive, they would do so, with the experiment continuing in that tiny, windowless, sightless place. An experiment that could potentially run for years, if they saw fit, with no end in sight. And Paul didn’t know how long that would be bearable, and then thought of the alternative, and decided that the alternative would always be worse, of course it would. But he looked at the walls, and the closed doors, and the approaching Stone Man, and knew that it was all because of his choices; then he had to remind himself again that the alternative would always be worse, always be worse. It was a thought process that would go around in circles in his mind many times, reaching the same conclusion with less and less conviction in the years to come, but for now Paul’s fingers gripped the door handle tighter; the Jeep swung, and began to back into the opposite corner once again.

***

They said I should record something on this. I don’t know what the bloody hell they expect me to say.

Testing.
Testing. One, two. Hello. Hel-LO.

Part of the therapy, allegedly, helping me to externalise, I think he said, but it all sounds like bullshit to me. Personally, I think they just want it for future reference, part of the big picture or whatever. It’s not for my benefit, that’s for sure. I don’t think they’re really too bothered about my mental health, and I don’t think they really ever have been, to be honest. As long as I can follow instructions, I don’t think they’d give a monkey’s arse if they found me shitting into my hand and wiping it on the wall.