Sticks And Stones

Check had the stone and Flint had the stick.

Check didn’t know how he was to use the stone to kill Flint. Was he to throw it? Launch it at Flint’s head? Well, at least he was not alone; Flint didn’t know how to use the stick. He knew that.  

Check wondered if he would he find Flint first as he ambled along the moonlit streets, keeping his bare feet silent on the stones and the rubble-strewn floor, crouching up against the corpses of empty buildings, their rearing terrifying edifices fighting one another for control of the skyline.

What if Flint worked out how to use the stick before he worked out how to use the stone? The sudden thought sent a deluge of anxiety and fear into the pit of his stomach and he dropped, back flat against the nearest wall. Scrunching up his eyes, Check thought he saw the dark figure to emerge from the blackness, stick raised, a blood-curdling howl of fury sounding his last moments. But it was just a phantom.

The dark figure did not come. He was safe. He looked down at the rough grey stone in his hand. He still wasn’t sure how to use it, maybe once, long ago, he would have had the natural instincts necessary to know how to use, some baser knowledge built into him but those times had long past. Once, not so long ago he would have had the means to find out how to use it, to access information and ploys, methods and meanings in an instant but that time was gone as well.

It was just him and Flint, left to reckon the world.

He stood looking up to the sky as he did so, the moon was a hoarse blue, lonely and stranded in a starless sky.

If it shone a little brighter he would see Flint, instead of this monstrous blackness,  this endless dark. But the moon just sat there and looked upon him as he stalked forward, stone in hand, moving amongst the shell of a great ruined hall.

He knew it was a hall but he didn’t know why or how he knew. He knew it was large, or must have been large once because of what he saw but he did not know what it would have been used for.

Check crouched behind a wall, the exposed brick and plaster in amongst the scarred partition crumbled as he leant against it, listening.

Would Flint be around here? Did he have time to learn how to use the stone? If Flint was gone for some time, a longer time than had just past, would Check be able to learn how the stone could be used? He looked down at it again, the rough, uneven rock was warm in his sweaty palms and its featureless surface seemed to glower at him, berating his lack of knowledge.

If he threw the stone he would learn to throw it hard enough, surely hard enough, to crack Flint and his shapely head, rent open his cranium, to dislodge his brain and end it all.

He grasped the stone tightly, he would do it, he would learn right now. He stood again, grim rubble under his toes squeaking as he hefted the stone, drawing his arm back ready to pelt it into the darkness.

But what if he lost it? He let his arm fall, the stone still grasped in one hand. Then what? He would be without a stone. But would that matter? Flint didn’t know how to use the stick. But what if he learnt? He could learn and he, Check would be without a stone and defenceless.

He sat back down. His thoughts ablaze with fear, his eyes darting about the open streets. He would have to sit here and wait. But wait for what?

There came a sudden rustling, a jarring of feet on wood and broken glass and shattered rock. It was him, it was Flint, he was here, he had the stick and he knew how to use it. He would reign down pain and death in short, harsh blows until the breathing stopped, Check was sure of it.

He sucked in one gasp of air, clung to the rock and launched himself forward, running in and out of the rubble, through the debris and the mess of material adorning the wide streets, his feet slapping freely on the ground as he sprinted away, cold dark air in his lungs, the night taking his hair.

Check definitely heard something crashing after him. He did not have to look round to see if it was Flint or not, who else could it be? Who else was there? What else was there? Just him and the stick that was all, that was it.

He heard Flint power through the skeletons of shops, jump over the visages of old benches and after him, his hot breath stalking the air, his vile speed eating up the distance between them.

He was definitely getting closer, closer and closer to Check. If he was running this hard after him surely he had worked out how to use the stick? He had gained the knowledge, worked it out in amongst the mass of destruction, sitting in the dark for time uncounted, waiting, learning, knowing.

Check darted through an empty doorway, the building that once stood around it now gone, blown away by some seismic colossus long before him.

Bare feet grappled with strewn glass and debris, with the torn-up pages of a thousand unknown books, crackling like dry leaves underfoot. It was a race between two barbarous creatures dashing over broken land in a world torn apart and Check knew not where or why he was doing it.

Up ahead he saw the dark outline of trees, their mighty bows in amongst the darkness, standing guard over a meandering path into nothing.

His feet hit grass and soft springy ground, his toes thanked him as they tasted soil.

He could go here. Here was the place to go, he could rest in the bosom of this oceanic wilderness, hide in amongst the woodland, flee from Flint. Maybe here he would find the time to discover the secrets of the rock, the means to use his weapon, to kill Flint.

But Flint had followed him and, as the light of the moon faded in the trees, the sound of his thundering footsteps, the large striding moves that brought them painstakingly closer together, grew louder and louder.

Check was in amongst the trees now, harsh bark and soft moss brushed by him as he raced onwards, feeling sharp elastic branches pawing at his legs. A thicket of bushes stood in amongst the willowy figures up ahead and he decided that in amongst the green expanse would be his place of learning.

The undergrowth came up to meet him with a bang of soft earth and leafy glades. He felt the cool dirt around his feet and the smells harass his nostrils as he hit the ground, his body hugging the turf. He heard the footsteps trawl past him, felt the feet thump the floor, half the speed of his squalid, ragged heart that beat staccato music against his eardrums.

Flint had walked away from him into the dark.

He had outmanoeuvred him. Beat the stick-holder and now he had only to learn about the stone, its secrets, its powers, its uses.

He could hear Flint way off slashing through the trees and bushes, snapping branches and twigs, racking up the dry, dead leaves, every sound building into a deluge of noise.

Check crawled away. The blank moon illuminated a small clearing up ahead, a two-metre widespread of grass, mingled with leaves and crowded by pines, their branches lifting in the light breeze.

Check sat cross-legged.

Once upon a time he would have been able to find out how to use the stone through something else. Something he couldn’t remember.

He looked at the stone and screwed up his face. How could he learn? Why couldn’t he just know? Know the secrets of the stone and its delicate powers. The unknown unfettered things it could do, the waves it could make, the lives it could change.

Suddenly Check patted down his pockets, sticking one hand and then another into the confined space and searching with his fingers. There had been something in their once that had helped him, long ago. He was sure of it. An all answering, almighty thing, it knew how to help and now it was not there.

He squeezed the stone.

He could throw it. He had thought about throwing it. Just once, if that didn’t work he could try something else.

But his thoughts were broken by a far off wail. The drone of a siren deafened the ruined city and the trees, the undergrowth, the clearing. It was everywhere at once. The noise drowned and defused all around it, burying the world in a shriek.

Check fell to the floor, eyes clenched, hands on ears. Everything in him wishing the sound away.

He didn’t even notice the stone fall into the soft grass, roll amongst the green dew and settle quietly, hidden beneath the surface of the broken leaves below his feet.

The noise stopped abruptly, leaving behind an echo of high pitched residue.

And it was gone. The rock was no longer there grasped between his fingers, it had gone.

He scrambled to his feet, eyes darting left and right, raking the soft ground. No. Not now. It could not be.

He fell again, on hands and knees he searched. Check searched and searched, scrapping, scratching at the ground, crying as he went, hot tears spilling onto his cheeks, his knees muddy on the turf. It had gone and he would never again find it.

There was a rustling. A sound of branches moved aside, their sinews straining.

Flint had come. Check spun around, his palms still fixed to the ground his face contorted with horror as the savage features of Flint seemed to melt out of the blackness. His empty eyes stared, his angled mouth leered, his hulking, unnaturally large hands grasped the stick.

He had worked it out. He knew how to use the stick, how to wield it, he had worked it out.

“No.” Check’s voice was broken and strained. A thousand screams and pleas for life condensed into one fearful word.

“No.”

Flint advanced. The stick clutched in his hand. He had the same white-knuckled grip Check had used to grasp the stone.

Check backed away, hands running backwards. The night moon stared down at him, the thin light mocking, the clearing growing smaller as Flint’s form engulfed it, turning the space into an enclosure, a pen for animals, a confined room for his imprisonment and his death.

“No…”

Then he felt it. A hard, cold stone, a rough edge touching the forefinger of his right hand. The stone. Check turned, blindly snatched at the grass, pulling green blades from the earth as he ripped away the stone, clutching it in his mud streaked hand. He stood.

Flint stopped and they faced each other.

Check lifted the rock, clutched in his claw-like fist, brandished like a great weapon.

Flint lifted the stick, a slender knotted branch, a sword in the future of the world.

“Do you know…?” Flint’s voice came in flaccid pants, his heavy breathing carrying forth the ultimate question.

Check pursed his lips, looked down at the rock. It caught the moonlight and he scowled as he remembered his lack of knowledge.

“No.”

Flint shook his head.

“Me neither.”

Flint blinked stupidly and scowled.

Check did not move. He only surveyed his adversary. Time passed. It was a lot or little. Neither knew or had the means to measure it. But it was at the end of that time that Flint held out the stick offering it to Check.

He took it numbly and offered Flint the rock. He took it.

They both turned, their separate paths opening before them.

Now Check had the stick and Flint had the stone.