The Last Hour of Gann

by R. Lee Smith

  “This is not the time for this, goddammit!” she hissed. “How stupid are you to pick a fucking fight right now? Give me that and go back to the others!”

  She made a grab for the flashlight.

  He hit her with it.

  She didn’t see it coming until it was too late. Even when he drew back his arm, she thought he was just being his usual snotty self and playing a grossly mistimed game of keep-away when in fact he was winding up for his swing. Impact came as a sensation of amazing heat all down the left side of her face and a ringing in her head. Through that, she heard a cracking sound—my skull O god he broke my skull open—and felt an insignificant little burn across her ear.

  She went down with a caw, arms and legs outflung in shock, executing a near-perfect belly flop right on the ground. Rocks caught her at the hip, thigh, left arm, and the mother of them all in the stomach. She rolled onto her side, choking and grabbing at her middle with one arm, clutching at the side of her head with the other, terrified that she would feel the hot jelly of her own brains squeezing up through her fingers. But there was nothing, nothing but hair.

  Scott was looking into the broken head of the flashlight. It was still shining, but the face-cap had cracked and the lens was missing, which made the light dimmer as it underlit Scott’s frowning face. “You broke it,” he said accusingly, as something huge slipped out of the blackness behind him and into the beam of that weak, yellow light.

  She wanted to call it an ostrich, because that was the only frame of reference her stunned brain had to give her, but it bore no more true resemblance to one than a saoq to a deer or a corroki to an armadillo. She wasn’t even sure she could call it a bird. What her eyes wanted to perceive as feathers clearly weren’t; what it had were flat, wedge-shaped plates thrust out from its body, rattling like wind in dry branches when it saw them. It walked on two muscular legs and had five toes each, the middle toe twice as long as the others and bent backwards so as to rest the massive length of its scythe-like talon on its ankle. Its arms were long and ridiculously skinny, terminating not in a hand but only a single blunt claw, with thousands of those plates—long and thin and tapered to points—sprouting from it to make wings. Its neck was long, but very thick and the head that sat atop it was huge and blocky, with a wide, hooked beak that opened now for a deafening, extremely unfunny, goose-like honk.

  Scott jumped and turned around. He screamed as Amber heaved herself onto her feet with her spear in both hands. It was a perfectly glorious B-movie scream and the only reason Amber didn’t join him in it was because her stomach and head hurt so fucking much.

  The bird opened its wings and shook them, stalking forward with its head low and canted on its side. Amber swung her spear, making just one slapdash attempt to scare it off, but she knew it wouldn’t be scared and it wasn’t.

  It lowered its head and charged.

  “Run!” Amber rasped, lunging to meet it.

  Scott stood there and screamed again.

  The bird jumped, both legs folding up and two middle toes slicing out. Amber grabbed Scott’s shirt and pulled as hard as she could while throwing herself forward.

  Scott’s scream yelped itself off when he hit the ground, a split-second before Amber drove the point of her spear into the bird’s breast. She heard fabric tear, felt a pulling sensation, and even though she could see it had snagged her shirt and nothing more, she still thought, ‘That’s it, I’ve just been disemboweled,’ and actually heard Meoraq telling her she was dead. Then she was wrenched violently to one side by the spear going crazy in her hands. She lost her footing, but held onto the spear, and was dragged painfully in a wide arc as the bird spun, trying to free itself.

  Then it saw her at the end of the spear.

  ‘You know,’ Amber told herself in a remarkably mild inner voice. ‘It’s never quick when a person goes out this way. You’re always alive when they eat you.’

  It lunged, shoving her ahead of it, and its beak clopped shut on empty air where she had been. It tried again, this time with a short running start that pushed Amber through the mud and grass until her butt hit a rock and the unexpected leverage combined with the bird’s momentum pushed the spear in further.

  It shrieked, staggering and kicking at her. She fell back but never lost her grip, keeping the spear between them as its talon slashed through her shirt. In seconds, she was wearing nothing but two sleeves, three buttons and some shreds.

  It couldn’t reach her. But only just.

  Amber burst out laughing. It was sort of an hysterical sound, but honestly, it was funny. If she let go of the spear, the bird would kill her. If she stuck the spear in any deeper, the bird would kill her. Damned if you do, little girl, and damned if you don’t.

  The bird let out another of those ear-splitting shrieks, which was easily identifiable, now that it was happening at arm’s reach and not off in the dark somewhere, as the sound of a very pissed off bird and not a mortally wounded one. It didn’t even seem to care that it had a spear stuck in it, only that the tasty bag of meat dangling off the end of it remained just out of reach. The bird lunged at her in a beak-snapping frenzy and Amber felt the spear go in a little deeper and catch again. The bird recoiled, thrashing and kicking and beating at her with its wings, which felt a lot like getting horse-whipped with a bag of broken glass. Her arms went numb before she could even process the pain; the spear slipped out of her hands and she spun through the air and fell on her face.

  Well, motherfuck.

  Amber flung herself on her back in the perfectly ludicrous hope of fending off the monstrous beak that probably would not kill her right away, and got hit in the face with about a quart of hot blood.

  ‘Mine?’ she had time to think dizzily and then the bird’s head and about two-thirds of its neck fell to the ground next to her. Some disgusting little tubey bit lapped up against her cheek like an overenthusiastic puppy’s tongue.

  And Meoraq’s hand came down to grab her by the remains of her shirt and haul her to her feet.

  “You idiot,” he said.

  Amber let out a whooping cry of relief so violent it was nearly orgasmic and threw her arms around him.

  He recoiled, his already hard-feeling body turning at once to stiff-backed stone, but then clumsily raised a hand and patted her twice on the back. Just twice. There-there.

  His obvious discomfort did more than any word of reassurance could have to clarify her mind. Amber let go of him and backed away. Scott’s flashlight was lying on the ground. She picked it up and fussed with it, feeling stupid. “Sorry,” she mumbled.

  Meoraq grunted, avoiding her eyes, and moved past her to pull her spear out of the bird’s breast. It wouldn’t come easily, even for him. She heard bones snap as he wrenched the haft and finally got it out. Those little scalloped tips he’d put on it…They’d gotten stuck in the bird’s breastbones somehow.

  “If I’d been using my old spear, I’d have been killed,” Amber realized, unaware she spoke aloud.

  “All things follow God’s ultimate plan,” said Meoraq, inspecting the tip. He gave it back to her. “He must have known you were fool enough to do this.”

  Her blush deepened. “Were there only these two?”

  “Three. A mated pair and this, their young one.”

  “Their young…? This is a chick?”

  He looked at her, at it, at her again. “Half a year. Near its fullest weight, but inexperienced. Its parents were the hunters here. It came stupidly in where it was not prepared to be,” he added, aiming a scowl at her. “And now it is dead.”

  That stung. “I’m okay.”

  His scowl deepened. “A more experienced tachuqi would have bitten through your spear in one moment and had your belly opened in the next.” He started to gesture at her stomach, then executed a lizardly double-take as he saw it for himself.

  “I’m okay,” said Amber again. She clutched at the hanging tatters of the lower part of her shirt and pulled them aside to show him her unscratched stomac
h. “It only got my shirt. See, it never actually touched—”

  His head cocked. He sheathed his sword, took the flashlight, and aimed it at her stomach. Yellow flared to life in the black of his throat. “Who did this?” he asked quietly.

  Amber looked down. She’d fallen on the mother of all rocks; now she had the mother of all bruises coming in to prove it. “Oh,” she said. “I fell on a rock.”

  He looked at her.

  “A big one,” she said lamely and tried to cover herself.

  Meoraq caught a fistful of shirt-strips and yanked them aside, tearing them even more.

  “Is everyone okay?” she asked.

  He grunted in the affirmative, now running the flashlight slowly up her body.

  “Even Scott?” she asked, looking around. They appeared to be alone.

  “Lamentably.” The light was on her face now. “How did this happen?”

  “I fell down,” Amber said again. “Are you sure? Where is he?”

  “At the fire with the others. Hold still.” His fingers probed at the side of her head and came away with a small shard of plastic. He studied it in the dim beam of the flashlight, scowling. “So far as I know, you were the only one fool enough to try to chase down a tachuqi in the dark. What is this?”

  “Did you actually see him there or is that just where he ought to be?”

  “Why do you care where S’kot is?”

  “I just want to make sure he got back okay. He was here,” she said reluctantly as his head tipped to a curious but menacing angle. “He was with me when the bird attacked us, but I kind of…lost track of him.”

  Meoraq’s head slowly straightened. He stared at her for a long time as yellow began to lighten up his throat again. Then he looked down at the piece of plastic he’d taken from her hair. Slowly, very slowly, he turned the flashlight over and looked at the broken lens.

  “It’s not what you’re thinking,” Amber said hastily, but of course it was.

  He didn’t bother arguing with her. Without a word, he turned around and walked back to camp.

  Walked fast. His weight was forward, balanced on his toes like a predator, and halfway there, he threw the flashlight violently away and yanked his sword off his back.

  “Oh God,” said Amber, following him, and began to run.

  He got there before she did and stopped, sweeping his head left and right as he searched the camp for his prey. “S’kot!” he bellowed. “Stand and be judged or die on the ground like the animal you are!”

  Amber grabbed at his arm, even as some part of her remarked that this was a very stupid thing to do to a lizard this angry. He didn’t shake her off, but it didn’t slow him down either; he dragged her along without any acknowledgement of her presence whatsoever as Scott darted around to the far side of the fire, shouting, “Whatever she told you, she’s lying! I never touched her!”

  “Jesus, Bierce,” said Crandall, staring at her. “What did you do now?”

  “You dare to call yourself the leader of these people?” Meoraq started left around the fire, then right as Scott continued to evade him, then noticed Amber. He plucked her off him with a hiss, and then leapt right through the fire to grab Scott by his shirt. “You looked me in the face and swore you did not know where she was!”

  “I didn’t!”

  “You were with her!” Meoraq gave him a shake that made Scott’s feet lose contact with the ground. “You abandoned her!”

  “It was dark! I didn’t see which way I came!”

  Meoraq loomed over him, his sword high and poised to fall. His breath steamed out of him against Scott’s face like smoke from a dragon’s mouth. Scott himself did not appear to be breathing at all.

  Meoraq’s sword rose higher—

  People made all the same gasping/screaming sounds they make watching racecars crash or kids fall out of Ferris wheels, and Amber lunged forward yet again, even knowing she was too late, but shouting for him to stop anyway.

  —and sheathed it.

  “She asked for you,” Meoraq said, shoving Scott away with a look of contempt. “She wanted to know if you were safe.”

  He walked away. Still prowling. Still furious.

  “Where are you going?” Amber asked weakly.

  “To get the meat!” he spat, not looking at her. His neck was bright, bright yellow. “Stay here, all of you!”

  Then he was gone. And everyone was looking at her.

  “Are you okay?” Nicci asked finally.

  “So that’s how it is!” Scott shrilled out before anyone else could speak. He slapped at his shirt to straighten it, his face wild and eyes glassy. “That’s you, huh?”

  “Me?” Amber looked at him disbelievingly. “What the hell are you pissed off about? I didn’t do anyth—”

  “You stole my flashlight! Huh? How about that?”

  “What?”

  “You stole it and you go running off! You endanger all of us!”

  She tried to say another what? but could only mouth it, so great was her astonishment at this attack.

  “I have to go chasing after you! I have to try to bring you back when you knew, you knew, we were all supposed to stay together!”

  “I—”

  “And you call that bird-thing!”

  “What?!”

  “Okay, easy,” said Eric, raising his hands. “No one called it, that’s just crazy.”

  “She called it!” Scott insisted, pointing at her hard enough to make his arm quake as violently as his voice. “She called it by tromping around out in the grass where she knew she wasn’t supposed to be! She admitted it! She made herself a target and then she brought them all back here!”

  “They were already coming here!” Amber told them. “They saw the fi—”

  “And she pushed me down!” Scott shouted. “Yeah! Huh? How’s that for heroic? When it jumped out at us, you pushed me in front of it!”

  “I pulled you out of the way, you liar!”

  “Nuh-uh! No, you didn’t! You pushed me, see?”

  And he held out a pair of scraped palms to prove it, while she stood there bruised from head to fucking toe, so dumbfounded by the enormity of this lie that she could not even breathe.

  “Okay, everybody. Calm down.” Eric gripped Scott’s shoulder and turned a stern eye on Amber. “I think maybe you’d better apologize.”

  She gaped at him. “For what?!”

  He nodded as if that were the reaction he’d expected and, while disappointing, it was not unmanageable. He said, “Then I think you’d better take a walk right now. I think maybe the rest of us need to talk.”

  Amber opened her mouth, but it was Maria, of all people, who suddenly said, “Oh my God, enough already!”

  Eric flushed. The mob-mutters that had been rising now subsided. People shuffled back, some looking very vaguely ashamed, but most still glaring.

  Maria was glaring, too, but at Eric. “I don’t like her either,” she was saying, “but don’t you stand there acting like you believe his playground pushed-me bullshit story!”

  Amber stared at them, dimly aware that her mouth was still open, and saw only mob-faces staring back at her.

  “Okay, let’s not go making this any worse,” Eric murmured, taking Maria’s arm.

  “Baby, I love you, but grow some balls. Maybe we couldn’t see him, but for Christ’s sake, look at her! We all know who got pushed down!”

  Her chest hurt. She realized she was holding her breath and made herself start again. The first few came out too rough and too ragged. Too close to tears. She looked down at herself in a torpor of confusion and saw the bright magenta color of her bruise through the shreds of her shirt. She had blisters on her hands coming in from trying to hold on to her spear when it was stuck in the bird. The fight itself felt bizarrely like it had never happened and never stopped at the same time.

  “She had it coming,” Scott mumbled, trying to finger-comb his hair into place. “She stole my flashlight. And she broke it.”

  “
On what, her face?” Maria demanded, advancing on him. “Hey, you know what? She’s a bitch and it’s okay to hate her, but you are a lying, cowardly little coil of dogshit and you are not doing yourself any favors tonight.”

  Scott shut his mouth tight and shifted his sullen stare to Eric.

  “All right, baby, that’s enough,” said Eric. This time, when he took Maria’s arm, she sniffed but let it stay. “Everybody’s emotions are running high. You’re not helping. The lizard wants to cook, so let’s…let’s just give him some space and everybody try to settle down and get some sleep.”

  The mob began to thin out, muttering and throwing mistrustful glances over many shoulders as it left Amber behind.

  ‘What about my apology?’ Amber wanted to say, wanted to scream. She didn’t.

  ‘I don’t care,’ she told herself, but the tears were still there, stinging at her eyes.

  …it’s okay to hate her.

  ‘But she used to like me,’ she thought, staring into the fire. ‘She used to say I saved her. She used to say I pulled her from the ship when it was burning. She used to…’

  “Amber?”

  “Bring your blanket over here somewhere, Nicci,” she said, and was proud of how level and unaffected her voice sounded. “Nothing else is going to happen tonight, but just for my peace of mind, you know?”

  “Well…I think I’m going to go sleep in the tent with Lani and Sabrina and, you know, the other girls. Is that okay?”

  Amber looked up. “You’re going to the Resource Tent? Why?”

  “It’s not…you know, what they were saying. It’s just…” Nicci looked away and then fiddled with the hem of her shirt a little and looked back at her. “I don’t want to be alone right now, okay?”

  “Yeah, I understand. Of course it’s okay. You don’t need to ask permission,” she added, even managing a little laugh. She felt like throwing up, as much as she knew that would hurt her already aching guts. “Sleep wherever you want, just as long as you get some rest, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  The wind gusted, covering the little sound of Nicci walking away. A short time later, another fire was struck out past Scott’s tent. She could see people moving around it, some bedding down, others standing close and talking. Looking at her.