Beneath the Neon Moon by Theda Black

flies and his dad screeched like demented things.
    His dad looked at him, saw the startled, ridiculous hilarity written over all over his face, and then he laughed too, eyes crinkling at the corners, dark hair with more iron showing in it every day curling over his collar and swinging over his forehead. He bent over and thwacked himself on the knee.
    The next night his dad went out, just like always. No big deal. He just never came back.
    Zach awakened the morning after his dad left with a case of the flu that got worse as the day went on. By the time evening came around he was sweating buckets, then freezing, out of his head with fever. He huddled up on the squeaky, narrow bed and tried to wait it out.
    Things got foggy after that, and he didn't know how long it took for the fever to break, but when it did it left his head with an odd, floating feeling. He was weak, his mouth as dry as a ball of cotton. He worried fretfully about his dad. It felt like he'd been gone a long time.
    The next morning Zach finally felt up to heating some chicken noodle soup on the stove. Afterward he managed a shower by sitting on the cheap plastic floor of the stall and letting the water do most of the work. He dressed in a baggy T-shirt and some jogging shorts and went back to bed.
    The landlord came knocking in the late afternoon hours. He stood in the doorway, shirt too tight over his stomach and bald head sweating, arm propped on the door jam. He told Zach his dad had been killed—shot right outside of the Lobster Bar. Nobody knew exactly what had happened. The local who'd shot him was so drunk he barely remembered getting into the argument in the first place. The landlord said that the cops had tried knocking at Zach's door after it happened, looking for someone to tell, but Zach had been so out of it he hadn't heard. The landlord figured he'd already skipped out and was surprised to find him still there.
    He was awful sorry about Zach's dad, but he had to have the rent, couldn't afford to run a charity. Couldn't be helped.
    One thing led to another, which was how Zach came to be introduced to sex—legs weak and trembling, heart numb and scared out of his mind while the landlord bent him over the couch and took it out in pay.
    Even though it hurt like hell he didn't cry. He saved that for later in the evening. He walked to the bar where his dad had died, stood under the glow of the red neon lobster on the sign above and sobbed until he felt hollow and more alone than he'd ever felt in his life.
    Like now.
    Zach woke up, his cheek pressed against Mal's shoulder, blinking into the slanting light coming through the window. His father had been a drunk who'd left him alone as a kid way too much, but he remembered little things, happy moments together, too. 
    He remembered walking on the beach with his dad, splashing through the waves at the water's edge. He'd had a bad cut on his foot and his dad had told him the salt was good for it.
    He remembered his dad kissing the top of his head, sometimes.
    He missed him. He guessed no one else ever did, wasn't sure if he was even supposed to miss someone who failed so terribly in his responsibilities and hurt his son so badly, leaving him hungry and alone and much too young to know what to do about any of it. But his father was dead and gone now, no responsibilities left toward his son, and it freed Zach to remember the good things.
    His dad was all he had for seventeen years, and it hadn't been all he needed but it had been enough.
    He knew one thing. His father would never have wanted him to die like this, alone in the dark, in blood and in agony.
    Mal's fingers rubbed the back of his neck, rhythmic and soothing. Mal's breath was warm against his skin. "Don't forget me," Zach whispered and felt him nod, felt Mal's lips press against his neck.

 
     
     
     
     
    Chapter 11
     
     
     
    T HE SUN PUNCHED in low, dim and red through the window before Mal started losing ground. He fought for every inch