Last Stand

He had been running since before dawn, his wound stabbing his side with pain. At the start, she had not been too much for him. But, now with the pack and gun, her weight dragged him down. Pain and fear blinded him. His neural blockers had been shattered by the fall. The implants were now just useless weight without the external “brains”. The full brunt of the pain hit him for the first time in years. He couldn’t see the path he ran on, the thousand yard drop to left, or the cliff wall to his right. All he saw, all he knew was the savages behind him, and the girl in his arms.

    “Put me down. I can walk. At least rest for a moment.” She said. Rest? It was what? Three miles to the clearing? Maybe a few seconds.

     He groaned as he set her on her feet next to a rock and realized that he couldn’t pick her back up. This was it.

“Let me see it.” She said.

    “No,” He eased himself onto the rock and looked down the steep mountainous path. “You’d better, ungh… go on. They’ll be here soon.” Fear flashed across her face and she looked like she would love to get up and run with all her might, but she didn’t. He unslung the gun, charged a HE round, and lowered himself behind the rock, staining the ground with his bodily fluids. Somewhere a lark sang. She sat on her heels and watched him miserably.

    “Absolutely not! We will go on. You just need a rest.” The soothing tones mixed with hysteria and panic washed over him. He pushed the pack, stained and sticky with his blood, between the rock and the void on his right. His belly hurt and every time he moved, it sent stabbing, throbbing pain up to his heart and spine.

    “You have to keep going.” He stopped and coughed. Blood and phlegm splattered across the rock. “In three miles you will reach the clearing. In an hour or so,” he broke off to breath. “A lift ship is landing there. You must get in... Argh!” He pushed the gun in between the rock and the pack, breathing harder, nearly choking on phlegm.

    “No, I’m not going to le…”

    “GO NOW!” His draconian shout sliced into her scared and panicked voice. It echoed in the silence. Then in a softer voice, “please.” She wept.

    “Goodbye, I-I love you.” He stared down the path, eyes hard. His open wound stained the dust.

    “Goodbye,” the word caressed her as she turned and hobbled up the path.

    Later, the lift ship buzzed the path, taking tri-d images and thermo imaging recordings. She looked down, her wound now attended to. Below hordes of savages shook their fists at the strange bird. Beyond, his body, still behind the rock, lay pierced with bright painted and feathered shafts. And, beyond that, the path and void wall were strewn with corpses, like some horrid mockery of a defenestration.

© 2015 Jim Conbee

E-mail: Jim Conbee

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