by Neal, Toby
“Please,” Dante’s voice was tight as if he was in pain. Melody turned back to him. “Don’t go in. Just hand it to the boy. I don’t want you to get sick.”
Melody warred with herself. She wanted to go in and nurse those sick people. Every instinct in her body told her to spare this boy witnessing his parents’ deaths. She could tend to them and save him from the memories. But she also needed to honor Dante’s request. They belonged to each other, so her decisions were no longer entirely her own.
The boy came out of the tent and she turned to him.
“I’m Melody and this is Dante.”
He nodded. “I’m Paul.”
Dante gasped quietly and Melody turned to him. His eyes were burning golden embers. Paul was Dante’s father’s name.
Paul held his hand out for the canteen, and Melody passed it to him. “Your friend, Dante, is right. You shouldn’t come in. No sense in exposing you.” He shook his head, looking down at his feet. They were much larger than his height would suggest. This boy would probably grow into a big man, and soon.
“Okay,” Melody looked down. “I hate not helping you, though.”
“I’ll gather wood.” Dante gestured toward the small fire that burned in a ring of stones nearby. “Melody will get some food going.”
Paul nodded and returned to the tent.
Melody busied herself heating a couple of cans of beans and a can of chicken broth. Hopefully it could bring Paul’s parents some relief.
As she crouched in front of the fire, poking the hot coals with a stick and arranging them under her pots, she could see into the tent through the screens.
The coughing had quieted. Maybe the water helped. Paul was crouched next to a figure, and Melody saw a hand raise. The woman stroked her son’s face. “I’m so proud of you,” Melody heard her whisper, her voice hoarse. Paul clutched her hand in both of his and pressed it to his face. “I love you,” were his mother’s last words, and then her hand dropped.
Paul grabbed her hand, crushing it to his chest. “Mom!” His voice was a wounded cry.
Melody felt tears flowing down her face. She was watching a movie, a devastating tableau, and she was frozen, unable to look away or to help.
Paul sobbed, his thin shoulders shaking as he lowered his head to his mother’s chest.
She was gone.
His father’s hand reached out, pulling at the hem of the boy’s shirt. Paul turned to his Dad and grasped his hand. “I love you,” his father wheezed.
“Dad, Mom is…”
“I know. I’ll be with her soon. You be brave. Survive. Be a good man, the man I know you are. This world needs good men, son.” His voice was cut off by more coughing.
Dante’s hand on Melody’s shoulder startled her. “The beans are bubbling.” His voice was low.
She removed the pot from the heat as Dante crouched down next to her, his gaze on the tent where a lantern burned, illuminating the interior as the world outside fell into darkness.
“His mother just died.” Melody’s voice was a rasp of pain. She wanted Dante to hold her. She needed to feel his strong chest, hear his heart beating. But she held herself still, away from him, offering him the space he needed.
But what about her needs?
Right now they were secondary. Melody needed to be strong for Dante. She looked up at the tent again as the coughing stopped. Paul’s head bowed and a wrenching sob tore through the night.
His father was gone, too.
Paul was an orphan.
Melody’s heart beat faster, her throat was tight and her hands clenched. They couldn’t leave this boy out here alone. She looked over at Dante, and his eyes were locked on the tent where Paul’s frail figure shook with sobs as he held his father’s body.
* * *
Night fell, thick and dark, the moon and stars dimmed by a mourner’s veil of thin clouds. Melody lay next to Dante, the quiet breathing of the horses close, the blanket wrapped tight around her, the puppies snoring between them.
Paul’s crying had stopped but he was still in the tent. Melody wanted to go in and bring him out, but Dante had stopped her, a firm hand on her arm. “Give him space.”
Space.
Melody sighed as she stared up at the cosmos. The rasp of the tent’s zipper drew her attention as Paul stepped out into the night and took a deep breath.
Dante sat up and gestured to a pile of blankets he’d made for the boy on the far side of the fire. Barkley got up and ran to Paul’s feet, jumping at him, mouthing his shoelaces.
He stared down at the little dog. “He likes to be picked up.” Dante informed him.
Paul crouched down and scooped the puppy into his arms, then sat on the pile of blankets.
“We will help you bury them,” Dante promised.
Paul’s face hid in a shadow as he stroked Barkley.
“I don’t have a shovel.” His voice was low, quiet and flat.
“That’s okay,” Dante nodded reassuringly, “I do.”
A high-pitched howl broke through the quiet, and the horses whinnied nervously. “Coyotes,” Paul said. “We should continue a good fire to keep them away.” He looked up, the flames reflecting in his dark eyes. “There is danger everywhere.”
Melody shivered and moved closer to Dante. They had to stay together. The three of them, armed, could survive with the puppies and horses. But would Dante agree to bring Paul with them?
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Dante
Paul seemed to have fallen into a daze, staring into the fire. His hands continually stroked the puppy, but he made no move to lie down. Dante walked over and squatted beside him with the excuse of poking the flame from a different angle.
“You look tired. Do you want to go to sleep?
“No. I can’t stand to think of Mom and Dad lying there in the tent, dead.” Paul’s voice was low, and his words stark. A shiver ran through Dante. He felt the boy’s pain almost as a stench that adhered to his skin, a terrible sensation. He was changing about emotions. He perceived them now, almost too well.
“Do you think you could sleep if we buried them now?”
The boy nodded his head slowly. “Maybe.”
“OK, then. We will get to work.” Dante stood and walked over to the horses. He had already hobbled and untacked them, leaving the saddles leaning up against a tree. He untied the folding shovel attached to his saddle and walked to an open space between the mesquite trees.
“Hopefully there aren’t too many roots here. Melody, you and Paul find some heavy, sharp sticks. I’ll loosen the soil with the shovel and you two can break the dirt up and pull it out of the hole. There are a lot of rocks around and we can make a pile of them on top.”
The digging took well over an hour. They were lucky not to encounter too many rocks or roots, and were able to get down about eighteen inches. The exertion, in the cool night air lit by the moon and the fire, felt good to Dante.
When they were nearly done, Dante spoke to Paul. “Maybe you can bring your parents out in their sleeping bags. Melody and I should not touch the bodies, but you are probably immune. Ten percent of the population has a natural immunity to Scorch Flu.”
“I wish I weren’t immune. I wish I was dead with them.” Paul dusted off his hands and went back inside the tent. There was nothing to say to such stark grief, and Dante didn’t try to find words.
Melody brought her heavy stick down on the loosened soil. Dante loved that she was not afraid to get her hands dirty. She did whatever needed to be done no matter how difficult or disgusting. He remembered how she had hauled the first two bodies, those men he had killed their first morning together, over to the sandy grave he’d dug. That day seemed like a lifetime ago.
“We have to take him with us.” Melody’s voice was a hoarse whisper.
Dante nodded. “Of course. We can’t leave him here.”
“I love you.” Melody, on her knees, looking up at him with love in her eyes.
The sight of her beauti
ful, flushed face with her mouth slightly open, hair mussed and eyes shining, brought back erotic memories. Looking down at her, Dante got hard for the first time since the attack.
He smiled. “I love you, too.”
And I’m going to love you like there’s no tomorrow, because there might not be.
Paul pulled the bodies out, encased in their sleeping bags, one by one. The kid was wiry but strong. When Melody offered to help by holding the fabric of the sleeping bag with something she could discard, he scowled. “No.”
Paul pulled the bodies of his dead parents gently into the hole. The two bundled figures lay face to face. Dante blinked stinging eyes and Melody cried silently as Paul took the shovel and filled in the grave himself.
He let them help pile rocks on the bodies and accepted the water Melody offered him to drink and pour over his hands to clean them.
“Do you want to say a prayer?” Dante asked.
“No. But you can.” Paul bowed his head and clasped his hands together.
Dante recited the Twenty-Third Psalm, as he had at that other grave. He wished he knew more Psalms so he could vary them.
“Thank you.” Paul’s voice was warm. “My mom liked that one.”
“I can sing,” Melody offered. She cleared her throat, and sang “Blackbird” by the Beatles. Her voice wobbled, but Dante had never heard anything so beautiful.
Finished with the cruel task, they returned to the fire and ate the beans and drank the broth. Paul ate ravenously, and when his portion was gone, he set his bowl on the ground and lay down on the bed Dante had made for him. Both puppies snuggled close, whimpering and licking, and Paul put his arms around them. The three settled quietly under the blanket.
Dante put another log on the fire. Then he picked up his and Melody’s bedrolls, and reached out to take her hand. “Let’s go into the trees. I’d like a little more privacy.”
“Yes. Me, too.”
Desire and determination quickened Dante’s steps as he led Melody deeper into the mesquite grove. He’d found an ideal spot; it was within earshot of the camp, but far enough away for privacy—something they’d have to consider now that Paul had joined them.
Dante and Melody had another person to care for now. Though Paul seemed capable and strong, he was still a child, and he was their responsibility. The knowledge felt surprisingly good.
They’d added a Boy Scout to their little family of horses and dogs.
Melody’s hand in his felt good, too. Dante squeezed her fingers, and she squeezed back.
Three mesquite trees, growing closely together, formed a shelter of interwoven branches. Dante rolled out the thin polyester sleeping bags they’d taken from the dude ranch onto the ground, and started unzipping them.
“I want to sleep in the same bag with you,” he told Melody. “Let’s get these things connected.”
Melody giggled as they fumbled with the zippers. “This sure is romantic, Dante.”
“The best I could do, given our situation.”
“And I’d have settled for a lot less.” He heard the smile in her voice.
They got the bags zipped together and spread out. The stress and exhaustion from the day’s events vanished as Dante and Melody stripped off their clothes. The sensation of cold air on his skin raised goose bumps and Dante shivered, but once inside the bag, he was safe and warm with his beautiful Melody. Now he focused on her, drawing her into his arms.
“Let me make love to you,” Dante whispered into the fragrant warmth of Melody’s neck.
“Yes, please,” Melody responded, raising her arms above her head in a gesture of trust and submission.
Moonlight filtered through the leaves, but Dante didn’t need it to fill his mind’s eye with Melody’s beauty. The erection brought on by the sight of her on her knees surged back to fill him with urgency as he stroked and kissed her, holding her hands above her head, rough in his need and desperation.
Melody kindled immediately, arching against him, her breathy sighs answering “yes, yes, yes,” to every place he touched her. But she didn’t try to touch him back, and for that he was glad. He needed to be in charge right now.
Dante caressed and tasted her round, sweet breasts, exploring them with his teeth, tongue, lips and hands until she tossed and begged. Then he reached down to touch her hot, melting core. Moments later, with his hand between her legs and his mouth on hers, Melody came apart in his arms.
Dante touched her tenderly as she returned to him, dropping a necklace of kisses around her collarbones even as he throbbed, painfully hard, against her sleek thigh. She opened her legs in wordless invitation and he nudged at her entrance, his whole body taut and vibrating.
“I don’t have any condoms.”
“I’ve had the shot. I’m good for a while,” Melody whispered back. “I want you. I need you. Please, Dante.”
Her husky plea sent blood surging to his groin as she lowered her hands to encircle his neck.
Melody was touching him, and it felt so good.
He needed no further encouragement to rise above her, leaning down to cover her mouth with his. Dante drove into her slick, tight heat with one long stroke that wrung a moan from both of them.
Again and again Dante plunged into her, taking her with all the passion and love that had been walled up by the attack.
Melody’s hips bucked up to meet him stroke for stroke. Her hands clasped his shoulders, his arms, and his butt as their bodies dueled over who could give and receive the most pleasure. They kissed and caressed: smooth meeting rough, hard meeting soft, tough meeting tender.
They tipped over together into bliss, wrapped around each other so tightly that Dante wasn’t sure where he ended and she began, and it didn’t matter.
* * *
Dante woke to the dim pewter of a chilly new day, surrounded by the most delicious smells: Melody and sex. Their breath had made ice crystals form on the reddish branches above their cozy nest.
They wouldn’t have long to be alone together.
Dante reached outside of the sleeping bag for his jeans, the same jeans he’d worn at the model home on that day that now seemed like a year ago. He fumbled in the pocket and turned back.
Melody had woken and her eyes were shadowed and dark in the dim light, her skin a gleaming pearl, warm and silky.
“Morning,” she whispered. “You’re up early.”
“I wanted to give you something while we still had privacy.” Dante held the braided copper ring he’d made in the living room of that model home outside of Las Vegas. His stomach churned. He was afraid to ask her to wear the ring as a symbol of being his, and he would never tell her that it was his absorption in the task of making it that had led to his capture. He couldn’t look at her as he extended his hand, his gaze on the Celtic knot he’d woven to decorate the band. “I made this for you, to replace the ring you lost.”
* * *
Melody
Melody stared at the ring with a beautiful copper knot centerpiece.
The sweet, rich musk they’d made together lingered all around her, perfuming their hideaway. Melody’s face was flushed from Dante’s kisses, her center sore from his possession.
Was he proposing marriage?
Did it matter? What was marriage in this new world, anyway, but a commitment to a life-long partnership, just as it had been before Scorch Flu.
Melody wanted that with Dante. She couldn’t imagine being with another man, and her stomach hollowed at the mere thought of losing him.
The sun crested the mountains to the east and hit the humble copper ring, making it shine diamond bright. A giggle bubbled up. Melody fought it, tried to tighten her throat, but the laughter emerged, a bark and a cough, then a fit of pure delight. Tears welled in her eyes as her body shook with glee.
Dante lowered the ring, his hand trembling, his eyes downcast.
Melody looked up at him as she dug her teeth into her lip, stifling her giggles. Her fingers encircled his wrist, covering the sl
owly fading ligature marks. “You’ve made me so happy that I can’t contain it.”
Dante’s brow slowly relaxed. “I forgot. You laugh when you’re happy. You do want the ring?”
“Yes, Dante, I want it very much.” Melody leaned over, pressing her lips to Dante’s. He was sexy, beautiful, and all hers. “I want you very much.”
How did she get to be so lucky?
She sat back and held out her left hand for Dante to place the ring on her finger. He looked at her hand for a long moment, then up at her face. His golden-brown eyes were the color of dark honey.
“What’s wrong?” Melody’s heart stuttered. Was he changing his mind? Maybe he had not been proposing. Oh, God, what if she’d misunderstood?
Her face heated with embarrassment.
Dante smiled. He took her hand, his touch light. “Melody Parker, thank you for being mine.” His voice was a deep baritone. She’d never heard it quite like that before—so rich, so full, so confident. He slid the ring on and it fit perfectly, the weight a welcome grounding. He kissed her fingers. Melody touched Dante’s cheek with her other hand, and he raised those gorgeous eyes to hers.
“I love you,” she whispered.
“I love you, too.”
Melody laughed.
“What’s so funny?” Dante asked into the soft hollow of Melody’s neck, his breath tickling her all the way down to her toes. There was a relaxation in him that hadn’t been there since the attack.
“Just me being happy again.” She kissed his forehead.
Dante sat up, propping himself on an elbow, his expression turning serious. “We need to get back to Paul.”
Paul.
That poor, brave, tough kid.
Melody took a deep breath, the knowledge of their responsibility immense. They’d never met his parents, but seeing Paul’s mother stroke his cheek, Melody imagined the heartbreak she must have felt leaving him alone in this terribly dangerous world. “I’m worried about him.”
“Me, too.”
Dante kissed her collarbones and rolled away to dress. They returned to the fire holding hands. Paul was up, a pot bubbling over the fire, the puppies close by.
