Stray
Chapter 3
'South East' turns out to be a broken down bridge and a stranded camper. As they near the site, Flak sees a pit where a fire had been. There's no fire now. No smoke. Just charred wood and the remains of a meal, a brahmin carcass, partially roasted. What a waste. The raider is right. Whoever was here is now long gone. On his left, the raider is a heavy, warm weight by his side, leaning on him and swaying with each step he takes.
Flak directs them to the camper. Its white body seems to glow in the dark. They both duck their heads to enter it. Inside, there's nothing but a battered old mattress. Flak drops the raider on it as carefully as he can. When the man lands, he exhales a soft, relieved sigh that makes Flak pause. He looks down at the man underneath him. The frown is still there on his face, pulling his brows down, but Flak can't read that gaze. From below, the raider stares up at him. His lips part, like he's about to say something - but no sound escapes. All of a sudden, his eyes widen. The raider freezes. What the hell? Like a crippled radroach, fast and uncontrollable, the raider scoots over to the back wall and hisses something at Flak.
"What?" Flak asks, confused.
"Get down, bleeder." The raider doesn't give him a chance to respond. He yanks Flak down by his wrist. Flak lands in a heap in front of him, already reaching for the pistol in his holster. No ammo. The raider barks at him. "Don't fuckin' move." His eyes are glinting in the light. "You're gonna get us killed." He's peering out the open doorway past Flak. What's out there? Flak moves so that he can peer outside too. There's nothing there. From here, he sees the fire pit, the brahmin carcass still on the stakes, and other miscellaneous junk that litter the ground. There's nothi-
Something growls. Flak turns around to face the sound. It's just next to them, through the metal of the camper. Something disturbs the loose gravel on the ground, clicking, like claws on stone. Following the sound as it moves by the camper, Flak can hear deep rumbling. Something lumbers by the window of the camper. Something large. It blocks the light as it passes. Flak sees the creature's shiny black fur. Yao guai.
Dammit. Flak takes a sharp inhale. He doesn't move. Letting his eyes track the yao guai's progress, he sees the black mass halt at the entrance. He curses inwardly at the doorless doorway. Fucking door. The yao guai sniffs at the ground. Then it lifts its snout to sniff the steps leading inside the camper.
Can it smell them? It knows they're there doesn't it? It growls again, placing its paw on the camper's first step. Flak holds his breath. There's no way in hell they're going to make out of here alive with almost nothing – no. Not nothing. When Flak reaches for his left boot, the raider grabs his arm. Flak faces him. Piercing eyes order him not to move. Those eyes are clearer now, closer too. Outside, the yao guai whines. Flak looks over his shoulder at it and gets stunned by the sight.
The yao guai stretches up to its full height; it's like a black, furry, impenetrable wall. Raising its head, it pops its jaw open and makes a loud guttural, huffing sound. Is that a battle cry? It drops on all fours again, dust billowing around it - and then it plods away from the camper. It lumbers to the abandoned brahmin carcass that's hanging over the dead fire. It paws at it. Sniffs it. With strength, it swipes at it. The stakes snap in half and the carcass rolls on the ground some metres away. The yao guai proceeds to rip the brahmin apart with its teeth and claws. Fucking hell.
Flak feels the tension drain out of his body. Reminding himself to take a breath, he inhales and stills. He can feel the raider's warm breath rushing across his collarbone, blowing the loose strands of his hair from his face. His tight grip is still around Flak's forearm, fingertips digging into flesh. Facing the raider, Flak sees that he has his eyes shut and he's taking shallow breaths. Drops of sweat dot his forehead. Flak moves away, taking his arm back. It makes the raider's eyes spring open. The dilation in his pupils isn't as bad as it was just now. Flak can tell that the raider is already starting to feel the full pain not fogged down by the Med-X. He leans his head against the wall and just watches Flak with that unreadable, almost curious gaze. Flak hears a low contented animalistic sound from outside. A snuffle. A chomp. A loud gulp.
"You said 'safe place'," Flak accuses, keeping his voice soft so that the beast outside doesn't hear him. The raider curls his upper lip in something that resembles a smile but isn't.
"We ain't dead yet, are we?" The smirk, smile, whatever that splits his face widens. It makes him look halfway human, less of an animal. The raider squints. Rolling his head along the wall, the faint moonlight slides over his neck, his Adam's apple. It slopes along the bleached hair and shines off the patches of scalp where the hair's been shaved off. The raider licks his lips. They're dry. Chapped. "Guais come round at night."
"Sonuvabitch," Flak curses under his breath. The raider makes a noise that means the same thing. "Is it," Flak gestures at the yao guai that's now fingerpainting with the brahmin's innards. "It's not gonna come after us, right?"
"You gotta use your ears more, bleeder," the raider replies in that biting tone. The implication that Flak doesn't use his ears rides just underneath the statement. Flak feels the urge to punch him but he doesn't. Throwing his legs out in front of him, Flak crosses them at the ankles. He taps his toes at the hard shape that's in his left boot, just to check that it's still there.
"Truce stays," he announces. The raider snorts in response, lips holding its sneer, a tip of a sharp canine poking the lower lip. He shuts his eyes and his breathing evens out.
In the quiet, Flak watches the yao guai tear the meat apart, its front paws holding the carcass down. The brahmin watches him back with two pairs of dead eyes.