Living Stones

Prologue

The Lonely Rock Quarry in upstate New Hampshire was quiet. The cool late autumn breeze slid down the rocky hill side and into the major part of the quarry. Seth Greene lay on his back looking up at the stars that sparkled overhead. He loved working the night shift at the quarry. It was a great place to think and when it was his lunch shift he could enjoy the stars and nobody would yell at him. Even being almost fifty-three he still acted like a child when he saw the stars over his head as he ate his tuna salad sandwich. He had just finished his last chip when he heard the soft whistle signaling the end of lunch and he rolled to his feet. With a sigh he closed his lunch box, grabbed his hard hat that sat next to him and headed for his locker.

"Tuna salad again?" Seth coworker and best friend Floyd Kinkel asked and Seth nodded. "Man if my wife gave me tuna salad sandwiches everyday for lunch I'd go insane."

"Well, my wife doesn't make my lunch. I do." Seth said calmly. "She's super busy with the grand-kids." Floyd nodded silently and walked out of the break-room leaving Seth to close his locker place the work issued hard hat and walked outside.

~Living Stones~

"Floyd! Easy does it!" Seth yelled waving his hands back as Floyd backed up the collection truck and stopped when Seth crossed his wrists together signaling for Floyd to stop.

"Alright dump her out!" Seth screamed stepping to his side and lifted his hat slightly to wipe the sweat from his forehead. The trucks engine roared as Floyd stuck his head out and watched as the back end lifted upward spilling large rocks to fall with loud clattering chunks onto a conveyor and slowly made its way to the main factory that was used to crush and make into large stone tiles.

"Alright, Floyd my turn!" Seth said and watched as Floyd climbed out of the truck and Seth made his way inside.

"Head to site B!" Floyd yelled over the conveyor and truck engine. "That's the stones the client wants!"

Seth nodded as he understood and drove the large truck down the bumpy roads until he arrived at the designated site. Seth loved this job as it require him to just sit in the truck while the back was filled with the rocks. He closed his eyes listening to the loud bangs as the rocks fell on the metal frame. Two loud honks woke him up signaling his truck bed was full and Seth backed up expertly maneuvering through the many large piles of rocks.

But as he reached to the drop site he saw that Floyd wasn't moving to help him reach the conveyor. Seth applied the breaks and honked a few times to see if Floyd was playing around with him. When he wouldn't move at the loud horn, Seth put the vehicle in park and got out to see why Floyd was acting like he was frozen solid. As Seth made his way to Floyd he noticed that several other coworkers were also frozen in place each in a different position. But everyone of them had a look of pure terror froze in place.

Seth gently touched Floyd's body and saw his clothes were the same. Warm and scratchy but his body was cold, not ice cold but stone cold. Seth looked behind him as a loud crash of rocks falling on top of one another came from to the right. He flipped around when the trucks engine soon died and there wasn't any sound what so ever, except for footsteps making their way towards him. Light footsteps like a woman's. He thought hard. There were only a couple of woman who worked this job but they were usually working in the mornings.

He slowly turned around and stared at the woman who wore deep dark sunglasses. "Can I help you miss?" Seth asked as he slowly walked up to her. Her head snapped in his direction and he thought she was trying to smell him. Seth remembered when he was a child and his dad had taken him and his two older brothers hunting that a wolf who hadn't seen them began to smell like this woman was doing. He saw that same excitement he saw in that wolf so many years ago in the face of that woman.

He fell backwards on a stone that had rolled off the conveyor and landed heavy on his back his eyes loosing focus and sending him into a world of black and silence.

~Living Stones~

Seth awoke a few hours later as he could hear the morning horn signaling the end of the night shift making the fifty-three year old sit up gasping. He was scared when he noticed Floyd and all the other frozen coworkers were gone leaving nothing just an empty wasteland. Seth's hard hat was still on his head as he had sat up and there was no sign of anyone being there. He climbed to his knees and his body was shaking with fear.

"Seth?!" Seth turned around seeing his boss come running towards him looking furious. "What in the Hell are you doing laying on the job?!" He barked even when he could easily have whispered as there wasn't any sound around them.

"Some...someone was here last night. A woman. She was...was smelling me." Seth's boss, Drew Lonely, sighed and pinched the top of his nose while his other hand rested heavily on his side. "Mr. Lonely?" He gently said his voice cracking under the pressure of everything that had happened to him that night. "You got to believe me someone came here...everyone was frozen."

"Seth, I do believe you." Seth sighed in relief. "That is why I'm not going to fire you for sleeping on the job. You will instead be suspended for a week just so that I can find out what the hell had happened." Drew Lonely turned on his heel and headed for his main office just outside the quarry. Seth lowered his head in shame as he was now sent home on suspension from work.

As Seth walked away from the quarry feeling heavy hearted that something like this happened to him a squirrel from the nearby trees ran and perched on top a pile of stones. The squirrel ate joyously at a pine nut it had found when something made it stop. A woman with dark colored hair sauntered towards it and bent down the squirrel followed staring at the woman's dark green eyes. Before it just froze solid the nut still up to its mouth it's tiny beedy eyes staring blankly at nothing anymore. The woman smiled as she picked up the small frozen rodent and walked over towards the edge of the quarry tossing the squirrel high in the air before catching it.