THE LAST GATEKEEPER

Man Eaters III

            You will die tonight, Crow thought as the twilight he’d fought in descended into the pitch black of night. He could feel his blood draining from his arms and his mind going pale. Cold air drifted across his skin and the others drew closer, he could tell, not with his ears which were beginning to fail but with his eyes which glimpsed the flame light against the stone before he inevitably slipped into unconsciousness.

            Weaver was the first around the turn and the first to stumble over Crow, whom was slumped against the stone with a thick layer of blood that seemed like a blanket. Weaver thought he was dead and glanced at the others as they came around.

            “God, is he dead?” Ellis asked and Weaver shrugged.

            “I just found him,” He responded blankly, trying to add comedy to the situation. There was none. Fiona and Frederick both crouched to his aid where they examined him.

            “Keep searching for Jack!” Fiona yelled and began to check Crow’s pulse. It was faint. She knew that Crow had felt the disease because the hunter had blood stains from his nose and eyes.

            “What’s wrong with him?” Frederick asked and Fiona gripped his arm. It was really his bicep and Frederick almost tried to tear away.

            “Listen, he’s got a non-contagious version of The Disease.” And at the words The Disease, Frederick stumbled back and scuttled away! “Frederick!” She called but he was gone. “Coward.” She muttered to herself and began helping Crow’s wounds. By the end of it all, he’d look like a mummy.

            She was dumbfounded, in Duns Ford she’d been a medic to runny noses and coughs but now, she glanced at Crow’s forearms bleeding out onto the rocks. She herself was knelt in a pool of blood. Fiona took the remaining linen to bandage his right arm and tore from her calf’s leggings to bandage his left arms. He’d gone pale during the process and now she really didn’t know what to do. Crow was out dead and she had no light to observe his wounds, she recalled the countless Akira Crystals in Arkon and cursed. She moved the hunter’s head with his chin to observe the blood draining out of his nose, his eyes, his mouth and his ears.

            “Bag” Crow murmured and Fiona shot back, she’d known he was out and he’d just spoke. She glared at him, squinting her eyes, maybe Fiona had just imagined it, maybe he wasn- “Grey” He whispered again, through barely parted lips with a barely audible voice. She was amazed for a moment and then went to her bag and looked for something grey. She suddenly recalled the grey mixture Crow and Frederick had traded, but she didn’t have it.

            “I don’t have it, Crow.” She said and then watched as an agonized word escaped his mouth again.

            “Baag.” He groaned this time.

            “What? I looked in the bag!” She said suddenly frustrated. I’m probably talking to some half hallucinating half real Crow that’s going to die in the next few hours, she thought to herself. And then he said it again.

            “Baaagh” This word didn’t even sound like Bag but she recognized it because that’s what he was saying. She glanced at his dying body and then saw the strap across his chest. Bag.

            She took it off of him and found the grey bottle. “What do I do with it?” She asked and watched as Crow rolled his eyes and painfully licked his upper lip. She moved towards him fast and was about to give him it when he grunted loud and with a specific urgency.

            One. He mouthed but didn’t actually say. Fiona looked distastefully at the half full bottle of grey that Frederick had bargained for when Jack was so wounded, what in the hell was it? She nodded and tipped one small drop between Crow’s parted chap lips. He nodded to her and she sat back and watched Crow.