What's left (残り物)

26. Heart shaped box

Gray

The dust and dirt now all settled down, no longer hiding the sun. I push the shopping cart for Boris as he decides to lead us forward. The casters swiveling on the ground are still easier to push rather than nothing. The shopping cart and cloth tarp covering underneath the large caliber mount in front of the pushing bar hides a few more things inside that i didn't notice before. One being a car battery accompanied by a set of car cables. I can only wonder what they're for. Theres a creek in the distance. Under a bridge and by a bed of rocks. The wheels glide across the grass underneath me. Grass green but only as a facade to cover up what disgusting filth begs it's existence. The rot only begs grass to cover up it's mistakes. To smooth over it with a glossy covering and then forget there was anything there in the first place. It's how nature reclaims what it once owned.
I stop the cart next to the rocks.
"I'll get a fire starting for the water to boil."
Boris planned ahead of time as I can tell.
My eye wonders and...a glimpse of some dark shape. The shape...the shape of a too familiar hybrid staring unmoving with only white specks to mark eyes. All glaring at me with no emotion. A stare of a predator not moving from the sight of its prey. Not moving to startle it. I would think I was staring at a picture if the creek wasn't flowing. It's rocky riverbed shimmering. The shape remaining still if only to stare at me. Not a sound. Not a blink. Blink fucker! FUCKING BLINK!
"BORIS!"
"What?!"
And it was gone. It didn't move. I thought I kept my eye on it. I thought it wouldn't move. I don't even know if it moved. It was only a break in a second when I looked away and back again. So quick that I didn't even notice I had looked away to Boris until it was too late. Not even a full second. Not even half of that. Yet it's not there anymore. Not even a sound.
"I thought I saw something across the river."
"You could just be going loopy." He cackles as if he was part hyena. A cackle that erupts into a fit of laughter. It shakes me to the core. They stare down back at me slowly coming closer with a mania in their eyes. "But if you alert me to anything like that again that turns out to be nothing. I will personally..." His eyes don't unlock from mine not letting them go. He doesn't blink. He only stares with bloodshot eyes. "...personally make sure that the next meal you have is your own tongue."

That statement evoked a sense of dread in me. He wasn't serious, right? I hope he wasn't serious. He couldn't be serious. He could. He would. He was. Was there some tension that I wasn't aware of that was between us? I had to know. Boris was siphoning some of the river water into a metal jerry can in the shopping cart. Certainly we weren't going to drink it straight from the river. 

"Boris."

"Yeeeeeees?" a long drawn out response

"Can you catch me up more on what's happened before I was asleep?"

"Such assss?"

"Just anything. It's too quiet."

"Alright I suppose I can start with most of the history that people have told me. Apparently the government...TULIP...as you know it was suffering the effects of many different catastrophes. Some of which were more catastrophic than others but eventually led to the fall of the whole thing. People looted some places. Some bombs were dropped. Zombie virus. Isolation failed. some more bombs. Bandits. Tribes. Some scientist grouping together trying to undo the damage for some hope of recovery. I don't know what happened to those scientist. The original TULIP seems to still have a breath of life in it. Some new life came out of somewhere. New forms of life that aren't human, hybrid, cyborg, or infected. Speaking of infected. I think the infected population has actually dwindled a lot. Maybe they're all dying of starvation somehow. I guess that's some good news, but there's still humans themselves to be wary of. Bandits, thieves, murderers....cannibals. They all pose a threat. I'm not sure about you, but I really don't like the feeling of possibly being a corpse that's eaten by vultures or any desperate survivor. I suppose it is still better than being eaten alive, however. How about you Gray? Is there some awful fate you fear?"

The question pierces me. Like some sort of horrible prying eye looking into a keyhole. 

"I don't think I'd enjoy being eaten by infected."

"Is that all? Surely you have to have some much sicker imagination. Surely there's something that would just..." They lean in whispering as they lock my eyes with theirs.

"...get underneath your skin."

My composure hopefully isn't failing me. Everything they say sends some awful predatory feeling seeping into every crack of my psyche. It seeps in cascading my brain with all the manners of horrible thoughts about what they possibly have in store. 

"I don't think burning would go very well."

"Burning is pretty awful I've heard. Every nerve firing off sending every manner of pain coursing through your body as you watch your own flesh shrivel into a charred black mass. Mhmmmm now that's certainly an awful way to go."

They stifle a giggle. I don't even know what sort of sick bastard knows these things, but they're one of them. I don't know who to trust more TULIP or him. I've already established that I'm no longer TULIP property and I don't plan on becoming property again, and Boris is something else entirely. Uncanny to say the least. Disturbing to put it more so. They're more than likely just messing with me by trying to creep me out. Some sort of sick entertainment for the both of us. It has been a long trip that isn't even halfway done yet. This has to be it....

right?