Free The Stone Man - A Science Fiction Thriller by Luke Smitherd Page B

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.
    Anyway. Shaun’s house.
     
    ***
     
    I woke up an hour later, and realised that I’d fallen asleep on the sofa without meaning to. My first thought was to assess how I felt, and to compare it to earlier on the flyover. Was this another blackout like before, or a combination of exhaustion, dehydration and booze? I sat very still for a few seconds, and came to a conclusion; this wasn’t the same as the flyover. This felt different.
    Yes … I knew this feeling from past experience; this was waking up drunk. Not as drunk as I’d been before sleeping, but still decidedly tipsy, nonetheless. I knew the light-headed, slightly headache-y feeling that went with a pause in heavy drinking. I’d always thought of it as the tipping point. One more and you’d be almost instantly on your way, pull up now and you could become kind-of sober, kind-of fast, mentally but not legally. I needed water, I knew that much for certain.
    I struggled to my feet, nearly fell back onto the sofa, then pulled myself upright and took in my surroundings. Shaun’s living room, at least, had the air of a house designed for resale; Magnolia walls, stripped of paper and painted over, with small, carefully placed shelves on the wall bearing miniature coloured candles. A fluffy, single coloured cream rug lay on the red pile carpet, and the too-small floor space housed a three-piece black leather suite, with the armchairs crammed into the corners of the room so that the whole set just fit inside the floor area. The pictures on the walls were canvas frames bearing terrible, colourful acrylic artwork that either Shaun and his wife—I couldn’t remember her name—or a friend had painted. Either that or they had felt sorry for the artist and bought their works out of pity. Behind the sofa, a staircase led to the upper floor. I was never a fan of that kind of thing. Made the whole room feel like a hallway to me, but each to their own.
    I heard noise from the door at the far side of the room, tinny sounds that suggested a TV or a radio, and assumed that was where my hosts were to be found. I headed towards it, feeling unsteady on my feet and becoming more and more aware of the need for some water. As I pushed the door open and found myself in the kitchen, the harsh, unshaded light from the spotlight bulbs hurt my eyes and my head. If the living room was magnolia, the small kitchen was white-white-white, with the odd cheap reflective surface here and there. I didn’t like it; someone was thinking about nothing but the property ladder. The floor was tiled with terracotta-effect squares, and the cupboards were, oddly, as white as the walls. Shaun was sitting at the pine (effect?) four-seater table by the wall, watching the small LCD TV on the countertop, whilst his wife