Burnt Road: Dante

by Neal, Toby

  Melody’s head lolled against his shoulder as he held her tight, hurrying down the stairs to the first floor, where the puppies gamboled around the backpacks they’d set down. He didn’t want any of them in this polluted place.

  “Come!” Dante commanded. To his surprise, the dogs galloped after him as he pushed the door open.

  Dante carried Melody out into the small front yard, where a crabapple tree provided an umbrella of shade on a silky scrap of lawn. The place must be watered on a timer.

  He squatted and lowered her to the carpet of green grass, and the puppies promptly began licking her face and arms. Melody was pale, her mouth slack. He felt for a pulse in her neck. It was slow, but steady. She’d fainted, likely from dehydration after their long hike.

  Dante returned to the house and brought the backpacks outside. He pulled out a towel, and, pouring water from one of the canteens onto it, he wiped Melody’s face, arms, and neck.

  She came around, eyelids fluttering. Dante lifted her up against him, pouring water into her mouth until she choked and fought. “Get off of me!”

  Dante took the canteen away and sipped from it, watching her as she sat up and pulled the puppies in close, kissing them and smoothing them as their little tails wagged. Dante poured some water into the little tin pot that was part of his camping gear, and the puppies lapped happily.

  “You are dehydrated. Too much sun,” Dante got up. “Stay here and rest. I will go burn the town.”

  Melody ignored him, keeping her attention on the dogs, but she did take the canteen he set beside her, and drank from it. He stood, looking down at her.

  “I don’t like to leave you unprotected.” Dante bent and pulled the small Colt six-shot backup out of his ankle holster. “You keep this. Shoot anyone who seems hostile.”

  Melody took the little nickel-plated pistol. Her hands were shaking, her eyes down. Dante turned to leave and Melody spoke, her voice a whisper. “I can’t believe you killed that man.”

  Dante turned back to her. “He was dying. He asked me to kill him. I helped him.”

  “How could you shoot a sick, unarmed man in his bed?” Melody’s eyes were brimming with tears as she stared up at him. They looked so big and green, like the pond at the Haven, deep and mysterious. Dante couldn’t look at them for more than a few seconds or he would drown.

  “I hate shooting. I’d never fire a weapon if it wasn’t necessary.” Dante struggled to make Melody understand how deeply he disliked guns. “I don’t even like shooter games, like Halo. The sound. It hurts me. And the act.”

  “You don’t think it hurt that man a lot more?” Melody ducked her head, pressing her face into Barkley’s soft coat. “He was helpless.” Her voice was soft, yet it stung Dante, clawing at his interior.

  Melody could not be reasoned with right now. She was dehydrated and in shock from all they had seen. He would give her time to calm down and think logically.

  “Here is the safety.” Dante pointed at the tiny metal switch on the side. “Flick that before you shoot, or nothing will happen. It’s loaded with six rounds.”

  Melody tucked the pistol into her pocket but would not look at him.

  “I will come back with a vehicle and pick you up once the fire is going.” Dante kept his voice flat and calm, so hopefully she would be calm, too.

  Melody just kissed Abigail’s head.

  The familiar abyss of rejection and abandonment yawned before Dante.

  It was always better not to care about others, because he inevitably screwed things up. The people he dared to like ended up leaving him, after saying awful things about how uncaring he was. Dante straightened up and strode off.

  Melody was upset. And it was upsetting, all the things they had been through today. He felt exhausted on a profound level already, and still had so much work to do to get the fire going.

  As rejuvenated as he had been after that first kiss, he was drained now. She made him Superman, and she was kryptonite, too.

  Dante filled the sturdy old Bronco he chose for their departure with all the gas he could round up. He moved the supplies they’d collected into the car, and even found a foam camping mattress they could sleep on in the back; that is, if Melody would allow him near her again.

  So much for his hopes of flying.

  After parking the truck safely on the edge of town, Dante jogged back to the pile of accelerant they’d collected and went to the first house on Main Street. He pulled down a linen curtain and ripped off a swath, tying it over his nose and mouth to screen out the smell. Dante sprinkled kerosene on the porch and tossed it inside the open door of the building. The powerful odor of the accelerant warred with the reek of death.

  Glancing up, he saw Melody holding a can of kerosene at the house across the street, similarly masked.

  Good. She was up and moving again, and it was good to have help with this terrible task. Tearing down what so many hands had built and treasured over the years, even in the form of this humble town, weighed on Dante’s soul as much as pulling the trigger on that sick man.

  Perhaps he could just have turned his back and dragged Melody down the stairs, but how was that kind? The man was suffering—dying—and it would have taken hours more for him to finally pass.

  He had begged for death.

  Melody would get over the things that had happened today, or she would not. Dante was who he was, and it was perhaps better for her to know that now. And it was better for him to know she was an emotion-driven creature with an illogical need to help, and bury, and feed, and adopt.

  The flames spread quickly in the still-warm desert breeze whisking down Main Street. Dante and Melody were like the Pied Pipers of fire as they walked down the road, lighting each building in turn.

  They reached the house with the crabapple tree where the whining puppies were tied to the backpacks with a piece of clothesline. Melody, holding the line, hefted her backpack. “Let’s go.”

  Dante picked up his pack. “This way.” He led Melody to where he had parked the Bronco. “It is not as good as the Escalade, but it is better than walking.”

  Melody nodded, and put the puppies inside the truck. She turned with her hand still on the door, and looked back at the town.

  Flames rose fifty feet in the air as the fire spread. It was a truly impressive sight, but wasted time and energy.

  Dante got into the driver’s seat and turned to Melody, looking at a spot off her left shoulder. “I burned the town because you wanted the bodies to be disposed of.” Dante needed her to understand this. “I do not see the point of doing that. Perhaps someone could come along and clean up later and live here, and now there is nothing. And it took a lot of effort and time. I am tired now.”

  “I know you don’t understand,” Melody voice was low. “But trust me.” She turned and looked at him, her eyes intent, wanting him to understand. “It is the right thing. The humane thing.” Melody clasped her hands in her lap and Dante wished she were holding his hand now, like she had before he shot that man, linking her fingers with his and keeping him close. “And I’m sorry I asked you to do something you didn’t want to do.”

  “Did you drink all the water? I don’t want you dehydrated.”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.” Satisfied, Dante turned the key. The Bronco’s rumbling engine was a long way from the Escalade’s smooth purr. There was no air conditioning and the radio was only static, but it was still quicker and more comfortable than walking.

  Two hours later, they switched drivers as Dante was nodding with tiredness. They reached a range of foothills, and the cool air woke him.

  His body had cramped from sleeping curled into the corner of the passenger seat, and Melody was wilting at the wheel. They had hardly spoken in all that time, and Dante felt himself settling back into familiar self-contained isolation, as if his brief awakening under her lips and hands had never taken place.

  Dante pointed to a county park sign. “There should be water and somewhere to get clean ov
er there.”

  Melody turned off the two-lane highway, bumping along an unkempt road through a gulch that dead-ended at a canyon. A beautiful green river wended through it, widening to form a pool with a sandy beach. Melody brought the Bronco as close to the water as she could, up under some mesquite trees. “Oh, that looks heavenly. I can’t wait to get in.”

  The clear water, sparkling in late afternoon sun, did look inviting. High, multicolored stone banks, empty picnic tables, and even two portable toilets gave the park a vacation feel, as if the things they’d seen and passed through were a nightmare, and this was a dream.

  Dante got out of the Bronco. “I will let you have privacy to bathe.”

  Melody didn’t seem to be paying any attention. She was too busy peeling off her clothing and jogging toward the water, the puppies bouncing and barking in her wake.

  Dante stood beside his door, transfixed by the sight of her running naked into the water. Those long legs, round breasts, smooth curves, golden skin and shining hair completed a picture of his ideal woman, natural and free.

  Melody dove in and Dante swallowed, turned away, and struggled to walk normally with the terrible burden of his erection.

  He needed to bathe, too, but it would have to be a long way from this woman who already had him cranked so tight he couldn’t stand it.

  Dante opened the back hatch and found his towel and camp soap. He headed for the pretty stream that fed into the pond area. He would get the stink of death and the road off him and leave Melody alone, the way she obviously wanted to be.

  And he would be alone, as he always was.

  Chapter Eight

  Melody

  Melody floated under the surface of the cool water, listening to the steady beat of her heart. With her eyes closed and body suspended, she began to feel an unwinding.

  That many hours in the car and all the overwhelming stress were just too much for her to handle. Breaking the surface, she took in a deep lungful of fresh air.

  Still afloat on her back, Melody stared up at the blue sky. Canyon walls, streaked with orange and red, beautiful and solid, surrounded the eddy. Encircled by large boulders, the calm pool of water was a little slice of paradise.

  The puppies yapped from the shore, the sound distorted by the water. Melody closed her eyes again. In a moment, she would go and get her soap and really clean herself, but for now it was important to meditate.

  It was her practice to meditate twenty minutes in the morning, and again in the evening. Usually, she performed at least an hour of yoga each day and surfed every chance she got. Depending on her schedule, Melody met with her personal trainer three days a week and boxed, partly for protection but also because there was no better way to tone her body.

  Her trainer, Daniel, crossed her mind. Was he sick, or dead?

  Melody pushed the thought gently away, bringing her focus back to her breathing, back to the sounds of the water against her ears, back to the moment.

  Her heart rate steady, breath even and mind stilled, Melody swam back to shore to get her soap. She washed, the white suds drifting away, traveling across the pond, being slowly pulled downstream.

  Where was Dante? Melody scanned the shore. Pale sand and rocks ringed the emerald water, shaded by the high walls of the canyon. Maybe Dante had walked further down the river for some privacy.

  His blank expression as he shot that poor, helpless man, filled her mind’s eye. He was like Spock, and what would Spock have done? He would’ve saved them from infection, eased the man’s pain, and done something that most people would not consider but that was the logical answer.

  It was still hard for Melody to accept.

  She walked out of the water and toweled herself, feeling irritation tighten her chest again.

  She needed her yoga practice.

  Melody laid out her towel and started with downward-facing dog, as she always did. The pose was a great way to get in touch with what was going on with her body. Hamstrings tight, neck pinched, brow furrowed.

  Melody consciously released it all, pulling her shoulder blades down her back, raising her sit bones, and grounding her hands and toes into the earth.

  For the first two years she lived in LA, Melody taught a yoga class as a way to help pay the bills. The images of some of her regular students passed across her mind. Where were they now? Dead? Suffocated by Scorch Flu or killed by the violence left in its wake?

  Melody lowered herself down to the towel, arching her back and lifting her face toward the sun, allowing her thoughts to float by—not holding onto any of them—just acknowledging them as they crossed her consciousness. She performed the brief routine that was as ingrained in her body as her mother’s touch. Yoga had been one of the things that helped her recover after the rape.

  It was something she always returned to now, a safe place to be inside her body, to recognize that it belonged to her and that she was connected to everything. All matter on the planet was the same vibrating atoms.

  Melody ended her practice sitting tall, her legs in lotus pose, hands touching at her chest. Bowing her forehead to her fingers, Melody felt gratitude for the will and the ability to practice yoga. Raising her head slowly, she opened her eyes and took in her surroundings.

  The cool green water swirling slowly in the pool, the high canyon walls steep and undulating around her, the puppies sleeping, cuddling close to each other, their snores even and adorable; it was all beautiful.

  Melody dressed in a fresh pair of shorts and a tank top.

  Where was Dante?

  There was still an upset deep in her center, and now she recognized it. Melody needed sexual release. It was a part of her practice to self-gratify, but not knowing where Dante was, Melody felt uncomfortable with the idea of touching herself. She was not afraid that he would see—that thought was actually pretty hot—but nervous that seeing her would freak him out.

  As if conjured from her imagination, Dante came up the river, walking along the rocky shore. He was wearing dark jeans rolled up to his calves, and his chest was bare. His refined, sculpted body was on full display. The way he moved fascinated Melody: confident, and yet with a layer of insecurity, a man who knew his place in the world, but was not yet comfortable in it. His shoulders leaned forward a little. Years at a computer would do that to a person, but the strength in his core held him upright.

  Dante was a ball of contradictions that Melody wanted to unravel, despite her fear. Because she was afraid of him. It was scary to be attracted to a man who could kill with so little expression. He’d said that shooting bothered him, but not that killing did.

  Melody had realized on their drive as Dante slept in the passenger seat, his thick lashes fanned over his cheeks and his fists balled even as he rested, that she wanted him badly. Every time she glanced over at him, her gaze wanted to stay on him: the graceful arc of his spine, the hard curve of his shoulder, the supple round of his buttocks. Everything about him was physically attractive, and it must be such a burden to him. He was clearly oblivious to his looks and their effect on others.

  And it wasn’t just his beauty, though that was part of it for an aesthete like Melody. She was also drawn to his intelligence, courage and resourcefulness.

  Here was a man who could not see the simple things that Melody took for granted, could not understand the subtleties of emotion that she had spent her entire adult life studying, and yet he was successful. Successful in the old world of making money and building a life, and successful in this new world: willing to do whatever needed to be done to survive and overcome, however ugly.

  He was a good man, a man worth the effort it would take to understand.

  Dante didn’t look at Melody until he was almost standing over her and then he just flicked a glance at her, a shimmer of gold.

  He knew she was upset. He could recognize that at least, but had no idea how to make it better.

  It was Melody’s job to make it better for herself. She couldn’t blame Dante for the emotions th
at she experienced. No one could control them but her. That was an important lesson she had learned through the horror of her rape. The invasion of her body had happened; it was a fact. The way Melody felt about it, the way she let it affect the rest of her life was entirely up to her.

  Dante had killed that man; it was a fact. The way Melody responded to what had happened was also up to her.

  “Come, sit with me.” Melody patted the towel beside her. Dante settled next to her, the smell of peppermint soap wafting off of him. His long curls were pushed behind his ears, dripping onto his shoulders. Crystal droplets slid down his chiseled chest. Melody wanted to lick them off; she wanted to lick every part of his exquisite body.

  And why shouldn’t she? Why shouldn’t they seize every moment they had left and enjoy it?

  “You have a curve in your back from all your time in front of the computer.”

  Dante nodded, his gaze on the water. “Yes. I perform strengthening exercises for my upper spine, but it appears to be unavoidable.”

  “We all bend to time eventually.”

  “That’s dark.”

  “Well, I’m sorry I can’t be bubbly all the time.” Melody’s emotions welled up in her again. How disappointing. He wanted her to be an actress, just like everyone else.

  Melody moved to stand, get some distance, take a walk and get her center back. Clearly, she wasn’t as calm as she had thought. But as she stood, Dante’s hand flashed out, grabbing onto her forearm. “Who said you had to be bubbly? You are perfect the way you are.”

  It sounded like he might hurt the person who’d asked that of her, and his tone reminded Melody that he would burn down a town, kill men, do anything and everything she wanted or needed.

  She must be careful what she wished for around her Spock.

  Dante’s grip on her arm was strong, but it wasn’t that he was holding her there; he was inviting her to stay, to be there with him, in this space. He wasn’t asking her to be bubbly or different. Dante accepted her, and he didn’t want her to leave.

  Melody settled back onto the towel, sitting closer to him, so that her shoulder brushed his bare arm. She wanted to touch him, to softly run her fingers over his cheek, to feel his skin under hers. She wanted Dante to touch her the way she wanted, and Melody to touch him the way he craved—to accept him the way he accepted her. She wanted to learn every urge and desire of his, explore him, and decipher him.