The Last Hour of Gann by R. Lee Smith Page B

other side.
    “Are you crazy?” Crandall hissed, jumping to snatch the flashlight away.
    Scott simply pointed back at the Pioneer , which was no longer going like a Roman candle but still glowed out strong like the dying ember she supposed it was.
    “They can see us,” said Scott. “Furthermore, the wind is blowing right across us and down this hill, so they can smell us too. As long as they can already see us and smell us, I’d just as soon see what’s out there, especially if it’s thinking about coming up here.”
    He put out his hand. After a second or two, Crandall gave him his flashlight. Scott switched it on and aimed it back down the ridge.
    Amber couldn’t help herself. She limped over and looked with him.
    “Go sit down, Miss Bierce,” he told her, sweeping the light back and forth over the dark water that was down there—the lake Nicci had mentioned—either looking for whales or having trouble remembering where the shoreline was. Although honestly, one was as sensible as the other. There was no law saying alien whales couldn’t roar and she sure as hell didn’t know where the shoreline was.
    She needed to start making peace with this idiot.
    “What do you think we should do?” she asked.
    He gave her a long, narrow stare that faded out at the end into uncertainty before making a few more passes over the lake. He finally found the bank, but between them and it, the grassy slope seemed entirely empty. “I…I don’t know. What do you think?”
    “ Whatever it was, it seems to have moved on. But if there’s mud down there—”
    “Yeah, there is. We checked it out earlier. I almost lost my boot.”
    “Then it might have left footprints. They won’t tell us much, but we can at least get an idea of size.”
    “Good point.” He gave the grass one more sweep with the flashlight and then nodded—a firm, commanding nod. “Okay, Bierce. You’re back on the team.”
    She opened her mouth to point out that, as far as she was concerned, she’d never been off the team, but mutely closed it again. Just like when Nicci had come shuffling back with her half-hearted, “I didn’t mean it, Amber. You know that,” Amber just nodded and kept her fat mouth shut.
    “Listen up!” Scott was saying, now oblivious to her and her status on the ‘team’. “We’re going to go down and check it out. Now we’re not going to go look for it,” he said as people began to rumble out their first startled mob-protests. “We just want to look at the mud and see if it left any footprints.”
    The rumbling died down.
    “I’m not saying everyone has to come along,” Scott continued. “But if there are prints, I think we’d all probably feel better for knowing exactly what they look like. And if there aren’t, I’d personally feel better knowing that you all saw there was nothing instead of me just saying it and you all thinking I’m covering something up.”
    “Don’t be paranoid, man,” said Dag, patting his shoulder.
    “I’m not, I’m just being careful.”
    “Plus, I’d really like it if we all stayed together,” said Eric, switching on his own flashlight and coming to stand at Scott’s side. “So let’s do this smart, people. Stay calm, get your boots on, find yourself a buddy and stick close to someone with a light.”
    And the Fleetmen were the ones with the lights. The four Fleetmen…and Scott, of course. His own little army. And she had to remind herself all over again to be nice.
    She limped back to her blanket, which was weighted down at one end by her duffel bag and at the other by her boots but was still flapping and crinkling like crazy in the middle. She rolled it up, packed it away, put on her boots, and then, for no real reason, picked up her duffel bag and slung it over her shoulder.
    “What are you doing?” as ked Nicci, alarmed, as if the idea to carry all her shit around with her at all times were a direct order she’d been caught disobeying.
    “I just don’t want it to