The Stone Man - A Science Fiction Thriller (9 page)

“Look who’s talking,” she said, though her tone sounded as though she was smiling. “You didn’t see us throwing sausages all over the room.” Shaun snorted out a brief laugh on the other side of the table, and then winced and put his arms around his stomach.

“Fair point,” I said, smiling myself, and leant back in my chair a little, trying to get more comfortable. “But ... have you two had already had this, or something? You seemed to say so. And we all just freaked out at the same time, without any kind of stimulus whatsoever. That’s not normal. When did this happen to you last?” Laura lifted her head up, and I could see instantly that she still wasn’t one hundred percent; her previously radiant skin had turned more pale, and the edges of her eyelids were slightly reddened.

“Shaun?” she asked, raising her eyebrows, “Must have been about, when … what do you reckon?” Shaun didn’t say anything, and instead simply shrugged and gently shook his head, looking at her. He then continued to stare back at Laura, still silent, as if waiting for her to continue. It was a little odd, to be honest, but I didn’t have time to ponder this as Laura was already talking again.

“So … when?” she asked him again, cocking her head to one side, an edge creeping into her voice. “Your opinion, please?” Shaun widened his eyes slightly and raised his hands more theatrically.

“I don’t know, do I? What do you think?” he said, chuckling slightly, amused and not seeing his wife’s mild annoyance. I suddenly got the feeling this kind of exchange was nothing new; easygoing Shaun not realising that a ‘whatever you say’ response was not what was being asked for, and then taking the repeated question as one of his wife’s ‘little quirks’. I wish I’d found a way to explain all this to him, later, to say where he was getting it all wrong. But it didn’t work out that way.

Laura’s mouth turned up in a half smile that didn’t reach her eyes, and now it was her turn to shake her head slightly. She looked at her husband for a moment, taking him in, a gesture that was far more telling than she probably realised. Perhaps she wouldn't have exposed it so openly with a stranger there were it not for the recent physical attack that she’d just experienced. Either way, it became suddenly and surprisingly clear from this one exchange that this was a couple with problems that had yet to be discussed. I kept my mouth shut, and waited for one of them to speak.

Laura looked away from Shaun and down at the table before continuing.

“I’d say probably around six tonight. I was in here, and Shaun hadn’t been in long, sitting in the living room in front of the TV. I was on the phone at the time—”

“Wait, you were on the phone at six?” I asked, interrupting. “You had signal? How the hell did you have—”

“Landlines,” Laura said, interrupting me right back. “Some of us still use them, you know. Anyway, I was talking to my sister about the usual crap, people at work, etcetera, and then the world just suddenly seemed to slant sideways and my head instantly started just
killing
, as bad as the worst headache I ever had. She even asked what was wrong on the other end of the line, as I guess she must have heard me moan or something, and then the line went dead. I had to sit down straightaway, and that’s when I heard the thump in the living room.”

“You collapsed, Shaun?” I asked, intrigued. He shook his head.

“No, no,” he said, in his usual, breezy manner, “I actually just came over so sick that I had to lie down, but I was sitting in the armchair and I suddenly just needed to lie flat so badly that I slid out of the chair and onto the floor. I was there for about a minute or two, nauseous as all hell. It was awful.”

“I asked if everything was okay,” continued Laura, “but my head was screaming so much that I couldn’t raise my voice. It was just nuts. When I tried to stand up to go through, it was even worse. So I just waited for it to pass,” she finished, looking at me almost sheepishly.
With good reason
, I thought, but didn’t say so.

“And then, about a minute or two later, it just stopped,” said Shaun, shrugging again, “And I came through here to find Laura crying, and telling me about her head. It was just fucking weird. We thought there was a gas leak or something.” We sat in silence for a second, and then I remembered something Laura had said.

“You were on the phone to your sister? Did you speak to her after you got cut off?” I asked Laura.

“No, but she rang back a couple of minutes later to ask if everything was okay, and I said yeah, I’d just had a hot flush. Seemed stupid to worry her,” said Laura, shrugging slightly herself now.

“No, I mean as in, did she tell you if she’d had any strange sensations herself once the line went dead?” I asked, leaning forward.

“No,” answered Laura, shaking her head again, and looking slightly confused. “I mean … I never thought to ask, either. Why?”

I found myself reluctant to explain my thinking for some reason; whether it was because it was just a theory at this point, and probably a bit of a leap of logic, or whether it was because it was yet another fantastical idea to get one’s head around on a day filled with enough of them to last a lifetime. Whatever the thinking, I didn’t yet want to say to Laura and Shaun that I thought whilst they were getting headaches and nausea on the other side of town—around 6:00 p.m.—I was inexplicably being rendered unconscious on an overpass on the ring road at the same time.

It also seemed to make sense in terms of the severity of the attacks. They were having severe but manageable symptoms the first time, whilst I was knocked out cold, and the second time they were having more of pretty much the same whilst I was having a full-body seizure.
Why
could come later. The thing needed right now was confirmation.

“Do me a favour, will you?” I asked, ignoring the question for now. “Text your sister and ask if she had anything funny happen when she was on the phone to you earlier?”

“Why would she?” asked Laura, but she was already getting up and crossing to the other kitchen worktop where her phone lay. “It was obviously something here that’s setting us off. I mean, it got you, too.”

“Maybe,” I replied, “but I’d just like to check, anyway. Sorry about the mess, by the way,” I said, gesturing to the oil and sausages on the floor. I took a breath, and stood up. “I’ll clean it up. It’s all right, it’s all right,” I added quickly to Shaun, who was starting to protest, “I’m fine, don’t worry. Plus this place looks pretty clean, and those sausages should still be fine after a good frying. I’m still starving.” Shaun chuckled at this, and ran his hands through his hair, pulling a ‘
What a day
!’ face. I was glad of it. The levity of my remarks was purely for their benefit, and for a reason I couldn’t put my finger on, I was beginning to get a real sinking feeling in my stomach. This was something to do with the Stone Man, and I didn’t think it was good. I was almost certain they hadn’t seen the face that I’d seen, either; they would have said so to each other, I thought, and I wasn’t going to mention my own vision to them. I thought that whatever was happening, the difference in our physical symptoms showed that we were experiencing it on a different level. Basically, I didn’t want to sound nuts.

But wasn’t this whole day absolutely insane, crazy beyond all recorded human experience? We’d seen a seemingly living statue start to walk and lay waste to a good portion of a town, a miraculous moving object that was impervious to missile attacks and apparently capable of anchoring its own selective and variable points of gravity. Perhaps that’s why I wasn’t freaking out more after seeing visions in my head, and experiencing simultaneous physical reactions with relative strangers; this day had battered both my and their sense of normality so much that we were more accepting of the bizarre. Even so … there’s only one thing people hear when you talk about seeing visions in your head, and it starts with L and ends in oonybin. It was a step too far, at least for now. I grabbed some kitchen roll and began to wipe up the oil, picking up the scattered sausages and putting them back in the pan on the floor. That much was sincere, at least; I was still going to cook the goddamn sausages.

“It’s just an idea I’ve had, that’s all,” I said, as I got to work. “Let’s just see what she says, and then I’ll have a better idea. You two might be right, anyway. It might be something in the house.”

“Really, really bloody weird though,” said Shaun, scratching his cheek. “It was a bit odd before, but you freaking out on the floor like that … man. You all right now, babe?” he asked Laura, who nodded without looking up, concentrating on her phone.

“Mm, fine,” she said. Shaun gave me a conspiratorial nod;
all sorted
. He had no idea, and again, it was such a shame—he was a good guy, Shaun, and anyone who met him could see it—but it wasn’t my place to say anything, nor did I have the tools to fix such things. And besides, I thought to myself at the time, it’s nothing that isn’t fixable. He’d learn. He’d have to eventually. So I dismissed it, and smiled back, picking up the pan and putting it back on the stove.

Just as I was about to ask if she’d had a response, Laura’s phone beeped, signalling a reply from the sister in question. I turned from the stove (after setting the much-desired sausages on the go) and waited to see what had been sent. Laura’s eyebrows raised as she read.

“She s-a-a-a-y-s …” said Laura, finishing reading the whole thing before she relayed the message, “
Yeah, had a bit of a funny turn when you hung up actually, thought I was getting one of my migraines but not quite as bad, why do you ask, worrying about phone cancers again LOL
.” She paused for a long time, staring at the phone, and then started to speak and stopped, thinking of something else. She pointed the phone at me. “Something happened to you too, didn’t it? Earlier, I mean?” she said, wagging the phone slightly and narrowing her eyes. Shaun looked from her to me.

“I think so,” I admitted, and turned back to the pan, which had begun to sizzle. The meat smell started to drift up, and it was incredible. “I had a bit of a worse one earlier, round about the same time you did. Would you say your attacks earlier were worse?”

“I would,” said Shaun, “I thought I was going to throw up for definite. I did this time too but … not as bad, I’d say.”

“Where does your sister live?” I asked, turning over my left shoulder to direct the question to Laura.

“Derby,” she said, quietly. No one said anything for a moment, the sizzle of the pan starting to drown out the buzz from the TV as we all considered the same thing.

Derby. That was over fifty miles away.

“Could just be a coincidence,” said Shaun, hopefully. “Laura’s always getting her migraines, at least one a day … or when she’s feeling as if she hasn’t had enough attention,” he added, with a small chuckle in my direction. I thought that wasn’t a good idea on his part—saying such things within his wife’s earshot—and pretended that I hadn’t noticed.

“Yes, Shaun, but I think you’ll agree that it’s not very often I have them synchronised with my sister, or even that I get bad headaches at all,” snapped Laura, glaring at Shaun, and then addressing me. “What are you getting at, Andy? You obviously have some sort of idea. You’ll have to help me out here, I’m not really used to having physical episodes whilst someone I barely know is having a fit on my kitchen floor.” A little harsh, I thought, and now it seemed that I was getting feedback grief from Shaun’s clueless behaviour. I had to smooth them both over, if for no other reason than I was in no state to be dealing with any aggro right now.

“Lau
ra
—” said Shaun, beginning to admonish her, but I cut him off.

“No, she’s right, I’m being a little mysterious and it’s not necessary. Sorry, I wasn’t in the best state even before that little episode.” That was true, but I wasn’t any worse for it. In fact, strangely, it felt like nothing had even happened; already it felt like something I’d dreamt, especially with that face materialising in my mind ... a face I couldn’t seem to stop thinking about, even if I tried to focus on something else, like dealing with Shaun and Laura.

“No, no, sorry, I didn’t mean it to come out like that—” Laura began, but I held up a hand.

“No offence taken at all. I think—and call me daft—it’s something to do with that statue thing. Hear me out,” I said, trying to cut off the ridicule before it started as I turned over a sausage. I then realised that the pair of them hadn’t even
started
to speak. They were listening, like schoolchildren presented with something of actual interest. I continued.

“Think about it. We’ve seen it do some unbelievable things already, and one or two things that I’m not even sure are physically possible. So it’s not out of the range of possibility that it can do
other
things that we haven’t really noticed yet.” I took a deep breath, and turned the remaining sausages, which continued to sizzle tantalizingly. “I think … I think it’s sending out some kind of signal. Or maybe receiving one that we’re getting feedback from.”