Burnt Road: Dante

by Neal, Toby

  They advanced cautiously. The sound of the river grew louder, and Cash felt his own thirst rising. From Tiny’s panting, the big bear dog was eager for the water as well, but there was nothing to be gained by a rush forward. Water attracted everything in a forest.

  Cash held Tiny’s collar and peered around a huge pine at the riverbank.

  A woman knelt by the water’s edge. Large and sturdy, she was clad in a filthy, blood-spattered white dress. She scooped handfuls of water into her mouth like she was dying of thirst, and hell, she might be. There were no weapons on her person or the stony streambed. The skirt was tucked up around heavy, shapely, creamy thighs. She looked like she hadn't seen the sun in months, and her head was completely shorn, the stubble a silvery-white. At the back of her head was a red, angry wound.

  Cash pulled his spyglass out of his pocket and opened it, squinting at the back of her head through the monoscope.

  Burned onto the woman’s scalp was the bloody shape of a swastika.

  Cash’s skin crawled at the sight and he put the spyglass away. The woman was a skinhead, one of those fanatical cultists that were being blamed, and lauded by some, for spreading the Scorch Flu.

  Tiny started forward, clearly eager to make the woman's acquaintance, but Cash pulled her back.

  Skinheads were like cockroaches; there was never only one of them.

  “Come, girl.”

  But Tiny whined, clearly reluctant. He wondered at her persistence. Tiny was a loyal and protective dog, but for some reason she was really interested in this woman.

  Suddenly Tiny’s ruff rose and the whine turned to a growl, a deep rumble that he felt through his hand on her collar.

  Directly ahead of the woman, across the stream, a wolf had appeared; in the way of its species, it seemed to have formed out of mist and shadow.

  The woman froze, a handful of water halfway to her mouth.

  Cash read intent to attack in the wolf’s lowered head, bristling ruff, and stiff, stalking stride.

  And he read terror in the woman's stillness, followed by a sudden backward movement as she threw herself to the side, scrambling to her feet, a cue for the wolf’s forward rush into the water.

  Tiny yanked out of Cash’s hand with a growl and barreled forward. The animals met and clashed midstream. A furious, snarling battle ensued, water flying in all directions, but the wolf couldn’t get a purchase on Tiny’s thick, loose ruff. Her breed specialized in fighting off other predators. Tiny would even take on a bear if Cash let her. She’d already scared off several that they’d come across.

  The wolf broke away, with Tiny in pursuit, streaking back the way it had come.

  His eyes on the confrontation between the animals, Cash stepped out from behind the tree and the woman ran right into him, hitting him with a solid smack. Cash’s breath gusted out as he captured her by the elbows.

  The woman screamed, the high thin wail of a rabbit caught in the jaws of a fox. She fought him, lashing out with feet and hands, no direction to it, nothing but panic and the will to escape in her mindless, terrified struggle.

  “Hey, calm down!”

  She hit him in the groin with her knee, and he doubled over, nausea swamping him as she wrenched out of his grip and careened away into the forest.

  Cash clutched his throbbing manhood, shaking his head ruefully. Oldest trick in the book, and he’d forgotten all his martial arts training and let her nail him. He was disarmed by a stunning pair of huge blue-green eyes. Her face was something he wanted to keep looking at, but all he’d had was a glimpse: those eyes. That skin. Her lush pink mouth, open on a scream.

  She was a terrified creature fighting for her life, skinhead or not.

  Cash watched as she disappeared into the trees, her footfalls thumping, a last flutter of white skirt marking her trail.

  His body burned where she had touched him: those full breasts pressed against his chest; that creamy skin under his hand; the solid feel of her pelvis against his.

  Everywhere she touched felt like he’d been branded.

  Cash shook his head again, straightening up cautiously. The blow she’d struck wasn’t terminal to the future generations of misbehaving Lucianos that he was determined not to father, but he obviously hadn’t had sex in a while if a chubby skinhead woman with a swastika on her scalp made such an impression.

  And she was unforgettable.

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