The Stone Man - A Science Fiction Thriller (23 page)

Still nothing in response from the soldier ... but I thought that was still a good thing. “I’m telling you all this to convince you that
the man who owns this house
is what the Stone Man is heading for. He’s what it’s all about. And my friend and I … we’re connected into all of this as well. But we need to explain this to the guy in charge. Because none of us can leave yet, you see. That’s the important thing.” Before he could dismiss these last parts, the biggest, hardest to swallow bits with the potential to convince him that this was bullshit after all, I turned back to the house and cupped my hands to my mouth. “
Paul!
”

On cue, Paul emerged in the doorframe, filling it dramatically, and looking even bigger with Patrick slung over his left shoulder in a fireman’s carry. Paul carried Patrick across the driveway to where I and the soldier were standing. Again, it wouldn’t have been hard for him normally; Paul was very strong and Patrick’s frame was light. But in his current state, just standing up was hard enough for Paul, so carrying Patrick like this was a real chore. The soldier watched, mouth slightly open, but his hand didn’t stray back to his sidearm. Both of his hands hung at his sides as he tried to figure this out. Paul reached us, and nodded at the soldier.

“Private Pike,” Paul grunted by way of a brisk greeting, and lowered Patrick to the floor. I could have smashed Paul in the balls again quite happily for that one, then and there, watching him smirk ever so slightly as he straightened up and then dropped down to one knee to get his breath. The back of his clothes were soaked with sweat. Fortunately, the soldier didn’t hear it, staring wide-eyed at the sight of Patrick’s strung-out form. In the evening light, the clear deterioration of the man would have been enough to make someone pause at the sight of him; shadows and lines taking on even harsher tones in the long light of an early summer evening. But now, there were extras; the near-white pallor his skin had taken on since his failed attempt to flee, along with the dilated pupils and the frankly inhuman sounding stream of letters that flowed from his lips (so fast and unending, yet so clipped and pronounced that he sounded like the world’s greatest speed talker) made him grotesque. It made him look alien.

That did it. The soldier backed away slowly, without seeming to realise he was doing it. A moment later when another soldier called to him, presumably to ask what was taking so long, he quickly turned to look in their direction, then back at us.

“Stay here,” he said, looking pale now himself, and with a last, almost frightened look at me, he scurried over the road to his colleague and began talking rapidly out of earshot.

“Think you pulled it off?” muttered Paul out of the corner of his mouth, looking up at me from his kneeling position. His breathing was a little easier, but his forehead was still beaded with sweat.

“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.”