The Stone Man - A Science Fiction Thriller (7 page)

I stopped and dropped my head to my knees, both to gasp in more air and as a gesture of extreme frustration and disappointment. The camera stills would have to do, and I would have to hope for the best, but at the same time I was also gutted at the unfairness of it all. I’d been there at the start. I was one of the first to see it, and the only one of those who were there to properly follow it. Now I was playing catch up with everybody else. Why the fuck had I passed out? At least if it had been my fault I could have
accepted
it as being my fault, but this was just ridiculously unfair. Another potential career break, foiled by the Fates. I stood there, gasping in air, and felt the sweat pouring down my back and legs. To say the least, I was pissed off.

“Fuuuuuuckkkk!”
I screamed to the sky, catching only the briefest and mildest of attention from those around me; I would not have been the only person they had seen screaming or cursing in dismay that day, and many of those people would have had better reasons than I did. I was in the middle of an urban residential area now, rows of terraced houses with a fresh gap on either side where one home on each row had been demolished. Several cars were crushed, and one was somehow on fire; I didn’t know if that was the Stone Man’s doing or some local chavs trying to get in on the action. The sun had dropped even farther in the sky by now, and the light had dropped to dusk level, but I could still very easily see the various people stood in small clusters in the street as they frantically swapped witness accounts and discussed theories. Only one ambulance was here, its crew ferrying someone across the street on a gurney, breathing through an oxygen mask. The flaming car made the place feel even more like a warzone.

As I stood there, angry and wondering what to do next, the injustice of the situation hit me afresh, and as I balled up my fists I looked for something to throw. Perfectly, a foot or two away from me, there were some bricks lying on the kerb, formerly part of the now-ruined garden wall behind them. I seized one and, without really thinking, threw it straight through the cracked windscreen of a nearby partially flattened car. It obliterated the glass with a deeply satisfying smash. The satisfaction only lasted for a moment, however, as a kid across the street pointed my actions out to one of his friends. The friend looked at the windscreen, looked at me, then immediately flew towards the nearest house shouting
DAD! DAD!
I decided it was time to get out of there as quickly as possible. Summoning the last reserves of energy I had, I sprinted off down the street.

***

Once I was at a comfortable distance from my previous position, I found myself in a similar street with a convenience store on the corner. It had a small wall outside, which to my exhausted, embarrassed body looked like a heavenly place to rest after buying a much-needed drink. I was, by now, ridiculously thirsty. I definitely had cash on me—I’d been aware of my wallet banging against my hip with every jogging step—so I went inside. The place was clean, small, and wonderfully cool thanks to the air-conditioning. The young Asian guy behind the counter briefly turned and nodded as I entered, then went back to staring at the TV on the wall, which was of course showing the news. You can probably guess what the story was.

 I was still not even close to being over losing the biggest break of my career (this despite having long ago learned an almost unhealthy level of cynicism where my career was concerned) and seeing the distant helicopter images on the screen stung me deeply, but I pushed those thoughts aside and asked the shop assistant if he could turn the sound up. Like everyone, regardless of anything else, I wanted to know what the hell was going on. I’d tried my phone repeatedly during my run, and every time the result was the same. Dead network. Even now I wonder if someone had seen to that, and that maybe it wasn’t because of frantic callers jamming the network. I don’t know. I’m generally a lot more suspicious of that kind of thing these days, since I saw the way they handled things after the Second Arrival. The guy behind the counter didn’t take his eyes off the screen, or even acknowledge that I’d spoken, but he did pick up the remote and increase the volume.

The image was distant but unmistakable. In the centre of the screen, the Stone Man could clearly be seen making its way across a field. By the looks of the area, it seemed that my roughly-six-miles-ahead prediction was about right; the Stone Man seemed to be some way out of central Coventry by now, heading across rural land that the TV confirmed would lead into Nuneaton. It was bizarre, seeing the Stone Man relentlessly plough onward via the tiny TV screen, after seeing its miraculous walking up close. As we watched, it smashed effortlessly through a large fence, and then the shot cut to footage of a crushed JCB excavator in an urban setting. Apparently, they’d tried to pick the Stone Man up in the scoop. It hadn’t worked; it was evident from the way the JCB was flattened into the ground, scoop and all, that the Stone Man had been somehow too heavy (how much could a JCB lift? Surely the Stone Man wasn’t that heavy; surely pavement couldn’t support that kind of weight without shattering entirely?) or had basically walked straight up and over the machine. I leaned on the metal counter as the report continued, thoughts of tiredness or thirst temporarily forgotten. Across the bottom of the screen there was a tracker bar, relaying snippets of the media frenzy that had begun whilst I was sleeping through what would soon become the biggest news event of the decade, and would later become the biggest occurrence in human history. But even I had temporarily stopped thinking about my own heartbreaking career miss; the revelations in the report were just too big to let me dwell on such things.

The military had apparently calculated its trajectory, and (although they were currently keeping its actual estimated path secret from the media so as to avert panic in the areas the Stone Man was heading for) police were evacuating populated areas in its immediate line of approach with, they said, an extremely large window of time to clear further areas should the need arise. The relatively low speed at which the statue (they called it a statue; this lasted until I cemented the Stone Man name with the media) was moving, they said, allowed for plenty of time to react for any changes in trajectory, and to ‘allow for any necessary further evacuations should our preventative measures, currently being implemented, fail at this point in time’. These were all quotes from earlier statements by various authorities. No interviews were being granted. These quotes were taken before the first ‘preventative measure’ had been implemented. As it then turned out, the timing of my arrival at the shop couldn’t have been any better.

Later, I would see the whole footage from the actual fighter jet’s camera, but on that day all I had was the video that was being shown to the rest of the world; from the TV’s speakers I heard the sudden roar of fighter jets as they performed their first pass at breathtaking speed (loud even over the sound of the news helicopter’s rotors, a roar even at such great distance). Obviously the government were taking this extremely seriously; they’d hadn’t wasted time in despatching the air force. Immediately after the scream of the jets, there was the near-simultaneous boom of the just-launched Hellfire missiles as they ploughed into the Stone Man’s back, exploding with a devastating flash and an eruption of earth and debris that suddenly obscured the Stone Man from view.

Both myself and the Asian guy behind the counter jumped. This feed was live now, and the attack—presumably the first ‘preventative measure’—had been unannounced. Neither of us said anything, and so we stood in silence as we stared at the cloud of vaporised earth that hung in the air where the Stone Man had been. We waited for it to clear, wondering if there would be nothing left but a pile of rubble, or a still-standing Stone Man. Before the cloud dissipated, we had our answer; the Stone Man became visible as it walked out from behind the haze of dirt, still travelling at the same pace, apparently completely unhindered by the strike. It didn’t even appear marked, other than the bits of earth and grass that stuck to its back, blending in nicely with the plaster dust that still adorned its surface here and there. Neither of us seemed to notice the reporter’s frantic commentary. We were too stunned, or at least I was. This was starting to look more serious than anyone had previously thought.

Without taking my eyes off the screen, I fumbled around with my right hand until I found the handle to open the fridge next to the counter. I grabbed the first can I could find, pulled it out, and reached into my pocket with my left hand to fish out a coin. I put it on the counter with no idea what denomination it was; the shop assistant picked it up and put it on top of the cash register without a word. He hadn’t taken his eyes off the screen either. I popped the can’s ring pull and took a swig. It was fucking Dr Pepper. It would have to do.

The tracker across the bottom of the screen changed, and now it showed a statement from the US. The Americans wanted to know what the UK’s next response was going to be to contain ‘this threat’, and offered their assistance and support, as well as echoing the UK government’s request for whichever individual or group was behind this to come forward and make themselves known. Pointless grandstanding from the Yanks, but it brought on that sinking feeling yet again; that sensation of somehow
knowing
that this was the beginning of something very big, and very bad. I started to glance around the store. I decided that I wasn’t going anywhere for a while, and, thirst now quenched, I wanted a proper goddamn drink.

As I looked on the shelf just above and to the left of the counter, where the harder stuff lay, I noticed the footage on the TV had changed. Presumably due to a temporary lack of action on the live feed, the news had switched to a quick recap montage of the story so far, presumably for people coming to it fresh. A lot of it was footage I had seen firsthand; grainy footage of the Stone Man walking through the transport museum (another fist of bitter resentment slammed into my guts) followed by shots of the aftermath of its journey through the post office depot and the car hire company. Then there were shots of other damage it had caused. That was when I nearly fainted all over again, and this time I would actually know the reason. Shock. My knees actually started to buckle, but I grabbed the counter to support myself, making the shop assistant jump again.

Given the rough direction that I knew the Stone Man to be taking, I’m amazed when I look back on it that I hadn’t even considered the possibility. I’m a pessimist at the best of times, and this was a worst-case scenario that even the average man in the street might have thought about, given all that was going on around him ... but it hadn’t even crossed my mind.

The TV was showing footage (clearly taken by a professional news crew this time) of another flattened apartment block. It was a far bigger one this time, many floors high. The destruction, according to the reporter, was total, due to bad dumb luck. The Stone Man had happened to not only strike the eastern wall, but continue directly along and through it, utterly removing any support for the eastern side of the building. It had taken twenty minutes to fall fully, and incredibly, the handful of people inside at the time (most of them elderly) had been evacuated during this period by fire crews, but the building itself was no more. The shot, taken from behind a line of police tape, showed the faint remaining haze of dust and plaster hanging in the air. The familiar betting shop was visible next door, and the edge of the Dominos outlet next to that was also just in shot.

That had been my apartment building. I was now homeless. It was not the last thing that the Stone Man’s arrival meant I would lose.

***

Chapter Two: A Kind Gesture and a Betrayal, A Very Different Kind of Broadcast, Andy Heads North, And Paul Shakes Hands

*** 

I remember the arsehole laughing. He actually laughed when I told him that had been my home.
Unlucky mate!
Son of a bitch. I was almost too shocked to say anything, but then he took down the bottle of Sambuca from the shelf and handed it to me, still chuckling, and said that it was on the house. I was still so shocked and confused, both by what I had seen and his reaction, that I dumbly took the bottle from him and staggered out of the shop without a word.

I stood in the street with the sun now nearly completely below the horizon, trying to work out both what was happening and where I was so that I could get back to where my building had been. I don’t know why I wanted to go back. I just did. Some kind of dumb hope that I might be able to salvage something from the utter wreckage maybe, or perhaps just a need to see it for myself so I knew that it was really gone. At this stage I wasn’t thinking about insurance or possessions. That would come shortly after. Right now I just wanted to get back.

In absolutely typical fashion, now that I no longer wanted to get hold of anyone in the media, I found that my phone’s network was suddenly stable again. All of the few local friends that I had lived in the suburbs of the city, and mostly behind the starting point of the Stone Man’s path, so they would be safe. My parents had both died some years back, so I didn’t have to worry about calling them. Perhaps some people would be concerned about me, given that they may have seen the ruin of my apartment building thanks to national TV, but at that time I didn’t give a shit. I just wanted to get back, and phone signal meant that I could use the GPS and map function on the device.

A quick check showed that I was almost an hour’s walk away from home. I was very tired, and it would soon be fully dark, but I figured that I had a bottle of booze and some music on my phone; the two combined would keep me nice and numb, so that I didn’t have to try to comprehend how much I’d lost in the space of just a few short hours. Plus, walking was easy to deal with. Pick the feet up, put them down. That would be something to focus on. It would do. I unscrewed the cap on the Sambuca, put my headphones in my ears and began to walk, slack faced and wide eyed.

The streets were fairly deserted now. Most people were presumably indoors, glued to their TVs to follow the Stone Man’s progress. Indeed, why should they not be? When had there ever been such a genuine marvel portrayed live on TV for all the world? A real-deal, miraculous, tangible thing of wonder not provided by CGI or puppetry, but by something far, far more magical; a mysterious, unknown creator. The only thing in this world more irresistible to human beings than greed is curiosity, and the need to know the answers. I was no different. I simply had concerns of a more practical nature to deal with at that point, as I staggered, rather tipsily, through the streets of Coventry. Passing cars, too, were few in number, both due to the TV attraction at home and the scare factor of the earlier traffic chaos. The city seemed to have a settled feel to it as the night fell; although there had been destruction and death on a scale not seen since the wartime bombings, and the fact that Coventry had been at the very heart of an event that held worldwide fascination, the initial impact of it was over. For those with still-standing homes, the aftermath could be dealt with and cleaned up tomorrow. The people wanted to rest. I knew the feeling. Every time thoughts tried to push in (
what about clothes? What about ID? What about the computer? What about the TV? What about
) I simply took another swig.

Eventually, I reached my street, lit only by streetlights now. I could see the police cars, and the floodlights, and the large crowd gathered around the police line. Even at a distance, I could hear the walkie-talkies buzzing back and forth as the tired rescue crews picked through the rubble. Ambulance crews dealt with the minor injuries of the people that had been waiting until the few critical cases had been shipped out to the hospital. As I drew closer, on unsteady feet, I began to actually realise the stupidity of what I was doing. Yes, I needed to see it, needed to see the ruin for myself, but on a practical basis, what the hell did I hope to achieve here? I could see enough even from the end of the street. My home was gone. I was lucky that it had been such a warm day; the way things were looking, I had no choice but to sleep in an alleyway that night, unless I could get hold of someone who’d put me up. My phone still had signal, so I stood at the back of the crowd of gawkers, swaying gently back and forth, as I went through my phone book to see who would have the privilege of putting my drunken ass up until morning.

After five tries at getting hold of five different people, a pattern was clearly emerging. Everyone’s line was going straight to answer phone. Even now, other people, normal people, had loved ones to call, families to check on, friends to ring and gossip with, people that they hadn’t yet called for their opinion. I would have exhausted all of my close-enough contacts within an hour of the story first breaking, had I not been in hot pursuit. This realisation made me pause for a moment, and a sadness washed over me that was far greater than any feeling I’d had about the destruction of my flat. I can remember that moment very clearly, for some reason. That’s the funny thing about people like me; so much can happen and not cause our emotional tripwire to even slightly vibrate, and yet discovering that five people’s phones are engaged can send us into paroxysms of despair and self-pity. But then, I’ve never had a problem generating
self
-pity.

As I stood, shoulders slumped and eyes beginning to water, part of my brain was registering that there was something I should be paying attention to. I just didn’t know what. I looked up, and then heard it clearly.

“Andy? It’s Andy, isn’t it?”

Someone was calling from the back of the gathered crowd; a man’s voice, although I couldn’t make out his features or even his body shape; from here, the people were silhouetted into one black blob against the glare of the police lights. I watched as a figure broke away from the mob, one hand now raised to catch my attention more clearly.

“Andy? It’s me, Shaun, Phil’s mate?” Straightaway, before I could see him fully, I realised who this man was, and at the same time felt a pang of fear for someone else.
Phil
. Phil, my flatmate, and his visiting brother. I hadn’t even thought about the two of them. Shaun must have seen it in my face, as he held up his hands quickly to placate me, drawing closer.

“No, no, don’t panic; it’s okay, they’re fine. They were here about an hour ago, I was talking to them, they’re both fine. They’d gone out to have a look at the damage, just being nosy. You’ve only just missed them, they’ve gone to a B and B for the night,” Shaun finished, smiling as he lowered his hands.

I remembered Shaun well. Nice guy. He’d been round the flat a few times; he was a workmate of Phil’s who happened to live nearby. He was a few years younger than me, only just into his thirties, and still in enviably good shape. He hadn’t long been married, and I’d met his wife briefly too; gorgeous. It wasn’t surprising, as Shaun was good looking and outgoing. By rights I should have hated his guts, but the fact was that the man was just naturally likeable. Shaun held out his hand, smiling with sympathetic eyes as he stood in his beach shorts and T-shirt, a still-capped beer in his pocket. I took his hand and shook it.

“Glad to see you’re all right,” he said. “We were wondering what the hell had happened to you. Phil tried to call you a few times earlier, and all he was getting was your answer phone. We didn’t think you’d been in there, as you were out when they left and the fire crews had managed to check a few flats before it came down, yours included. But still …” he shrugged. “Send the guy a text though, eh? Let him know you’re okay.”

“I will,” I replied, and meant it, but I didn’t think Phil would be too worried. We liked each other, but we weren’t close. “I’ve had no signal for most of the day, to be honest, but I don’t think I’m the only one.”

“No, everyone here’s been saying the same thing. Did you … did you have anything in there that was important?” Shaun asked, wincing theatrically.

“Nope. Laptop here in my bag, phone here, everything else was just clothes, food, a few pictures,” I said, slurring my words now and waving it off with a flapping, uncoordinated hand. “I’m not the sentimental type. I had contents insurance, but I don’t know where the hell this fits into the policy. You want some of this?” I asked, offering the bottle of Sambuca. Shaun looked at it, thrust towards his face as it was, and started to refuse, then suddenly raised his eyebrows and took the bottle, unscrewing the top.

“Yeah, sod it. Listen, have you got a place to stay tonight?” Shaun asked, taking a swig. He screwed his face up slightly at the aftertaste, and continued. “I offered Phil and his brother the spare bed and the sofa but they didn’t want to impose. Stupid if you ask me, the offer was there, but hey. Anyway, leaves more room for you. You want it? If you don’t mind me saying so man, you look like hell. Rough day?” I took the bottle as he offered it back, and considered the question.

“Yep. My house fell down,” I said, and started to take a swig, but suddenly burst out laughing and sprayed Sambuca everywhere. Shaun laughed too, but not as hard, and wiped the spat-out booze off the side of his face.

“Okay, okay, stupid question,” he said. “But look man, come stay at mine, the missus won’t mind and we’ll get some proper food in you, and some hot tea. You look like you could, y’know, do with leaving off that for an hour or so,” he finished, pointing at the bottle. He handed me back the cap, and I screwed it on.

“Thanks, Shaun. Thank you,” I said, meaning it and suddenly feeling emotional again. “That’s a very, very kind offer of you … from you … of you. Of you. Okay,” I finished, taking a deep breath and standing upright, looking around. A moment passed, and Shaun didn’t seem to know what to say next. Nor did I, really.

“Okay, well … well, let’s go!” he finished, with a forced, breezy air (possibly regretting his decision, and I wouldn’t have blamed him if he did) and turned slightly, a gesture meant for me to follow. I looked down at the floor and gave him a thumbs-up, suddenly dizzy, but kept my shit together long enough to make it down the road with him, heading round the corner and into Shaun’s terraced house. I collapsed onto the sofa, and he went off to explain to his wife what I was doing in the living room with my filthy shoes on.

I just remembered, actually; thinking about that bit with the jets and the missiles has reminded me. I saw footage later, much later, of them trying something that I’d wondered would work; nets. Not to stop the Stone Man—even at the time they’d realised that trying that would be laughable—but to lift it up. The idea went round very quickly that, yes, obviously it couldn’t be destroyed, but if it could be
lifted,
removed from the ground, then any further progression would be impossible. But, as with many things regarding the Stone Man, the result was baffling. They couldn’t pick it up. They’d laid an immense steel-cabled net, attached to four choppers, one on each corner, and placed the whole thing in its path (another field if I remember right) and waited. Once the Stone Man had stepped onto the net, the choppers had taken off … and yet the Stone Man had just carried on walking. The net had gone taut, and yet the part of it that had been under the Stone Man’s foot at any single time remained anchored to the earth. As the Stone Man stepped forward onto the next part of the net (obviously raised up at an angle due to the upward pull of the choppers) that part went down under the Stone Man’s heel also, actually dragging the choppers slightly downward with it. The bit that the Stone Man had just stepped off sprung upwards, taut as a drum. The really, really crazy thing, that they still don’t understand even now, is that apparently it was nothing to do with weight.

I remember seeing a show on TV talking about that exact same day; apparently the amount of weight it would take to hold down four choppers of that model (whatever the hell it was) especially when placed onto a point the size of the Stone Man’s foot, would have left a small impact crater under each footstep many feet deep. I don’t remember the numbers. But the marks left on the field were, whilst still much deeper than that of a normal man, only several inches deep. Obviously, no civilians knew anything about this until later, when the footage came to light, but at the time the military and government absolutely freaked out. Even after all the staggering destruction and ease with which the Stone Man had flattened entire buildings, it was still at least vaguely within the realm of our understanding; we understood physics, and the laws of greater forces acting upon solid objects. Walls collapse, buildings fall down. Everything the Stone Man had done so far obeyed those laws, even though we had only vague ideas how such a creature, or machine, could be created to carry these actions out with such force. But this was the first sign that we really were unquestionably dealing with something far, far beyond our understanding; at this point, the men and women at the top started to become very, very afraid. Later, the rest of the world would catch up. But that was later.