John Ridley: What Fire Cannot Burn

Moving off the thought, moving back to what's what: "How do you want to play things?"

"Knock, see who's home,"

"A guy who can kill freaks, and we're just

going to-"

"We're two regular normal humans coming around to ask questions. He lets us in, we look around, see what we're dealing with."

"Because as psychos go he's one of the nice ones. He's got manners and all that."

"You're the one getting antsy."

"You're not?"

Raddatz, a smirk. Appreciative. He asked: "No one answers, are you ready to go in?" "Whatever's next, I'm good for it." "You'd really like my wife."

The third knock on the door got the same response as Raddatz's first two. None. Except for the bark of the dog on the inside of the house.

The shades were drawn. Raddatz and Eddi couldn't see Inside, couldn't see what kind of dog if. was. The barking, its low octave, said it was sizable. Ill tempered. Pit or English bull terrier. Rottweiler.

The situation-the two of them standing around in plain sight for a returning Carlin should he be out-was less than good.

Raddatz pointed that out to Eddi.

Eddi agreed. Asked: "So?"

"I'd say bust In. Except for the dog."

"Not a problem." Eddi unholstered her gun.

"You are not going to shoot a dog."

"It's just a dog."

"You are not going to shoot a damn-"

"For Christ's sake, I get you've gone soft for freaks. It's a dog!"

Holding up a finger, slowing Eddi down: "That dog didn't do anything to anybody. It's got nothing to do with the job."

"You want in the house?"

Raddatz took a moment. Pressed his face to the front window, juked to see what little he could see past a slit in the shade. What he could see: straight through the house to a back door. "Break open the back door. The thing comes out around back, we head in the front."

"Nuts."

The two stood around awhile. Long enough Eddi got that Raddatz wasn't altering his position on things.

Eddi: "Freaking nuts."

"We knocked. A couple of times. If Carlin's here, he already knows we're looking for him. What happens next happens on the other side of this door, and I'm not letting a dog keep me from getting to it."

Shaking her head: "Easier just to shoot it."

"Never had a dog, have you?"

"Never."

"Talk to me after you've had one." "I'll go around back, make the run." "I'm missing my hand, not my legs. I can make the run."

"You can make the run like an old guy. I'll do it."

As she was heading around to the back of the house, as she was trudging around junk, Raddatz said to Eddi's

I'll make the run. That's what she'd told Raddatz. But Eddi hadn't factored in, hadn't even considered… how fast do dogs really run? They were tight on turns. They had, after all, four-wheel steering, so to speak. And Carlin had a yard full of shit. Crossing through the yard, Eddi saw the junk was pipes and rusted chairs, discarded appliances. A lawn mower that had given up the fight against grass that was wild with weeds and uncontrolled growth and ultimately very little grass. Eddi had to pick her way through all that to get to the rear door. There would be no time to step careful on the way back around.

Just pop the glass, open the door…

Yeah. Sure.

Her right hand brushed the butt of Soledad's bolstered piece. Its action echoing her true belief: It'd be so much easier to…

Eddi's hand quit its fantasizing, picked up a ruler-length, pipe from Carlin's junglized yard-She schooled herself: Pop the glass, clean the frame real quick so you don't slash yourself to the bone reaching in, flip the lock. Hopefully lock and not locks. Open the door. Run. Well, dodge all the crap in the yard and run.

The simple plan was getting amended by the second.

She couldn't see into the house from the back door any better than she could from the front. But what she could hear was Raddatz pounding on the front door, distracting the dog. The dog barking.

The fact that their operation thus far came down to them playing head games on a dog…

With the pipe Eddi popped the glass…

Raddatz, she thought, better have that front door open.

"Raddatz," she yelled.

Eddi swirled the pipe over the wood frame, cleaned it of glass. Hand in, she reached around and threw the dead bolt.

Already there was the scratch of claws on linoleum. The dog wasn't barking, it was snarling.

"Raaaddatz!"

Door open. Run.

Down the porch to the weeds.

Behind her the dog crashed the door.

An obstacle course lay ahead of Eddi. The pipes, the equipment, the mower, lawn chairs, a legless table… more shit than she could remember. More junk than she could easily navigate.

Not the dog.

The dog wasn't having any trouble, not from the sound of its growl. The thunder-yeah, the rhythm-of thudding paws on dry earth that was like a coke-high drum solo done up midconcert Keith Moon-style. It was gaining by the millisecond. Eddi's estimation of distance would have to rely on audible approximation. No way she was turning around. No way-no matter that she thought, honest-to-God thought, she could feel the dog's breath on her ankles-was she turning for a look. Pillar of salt? Piece of meat. Assume it's right there, she told herself. She told herself to run her ass off like the animal's right there. That, and keep from getting snagged on the mower or the lawn chairs or the pipes or the-

A hot hurt to her lower leg. She'd cut too close to something and it'd cut back. She was thinking when she should be running and moving and dodging. She wanted to think about something, forget the pain in her leg: the dog. Think about how bad that would hurt. How bad would a mauling hurt? Think about that, and book.

There was Soledad's gun…

No time to pull, to turn, to take aim.

More fire to her leg.

The dog?

The dog was still chasing, closing.

Phantom pain she was feeling. Or maybe another jagged laceration. Worry about it later. Once in the house or tomorrow or anytime, Eddi told herself, when she wasn't getting chased.

The porch.

Eddi grabbed right hand to railing, let centripetal force swing her. Went up the stairs, dived for die threshold like a wideout stretching to make the goal line. She crossed it.

"Close the fucking-"

Raddatz was already on it. Eddi heard the door slam shut, the lock get. thrown. Raddatz wasn't taking chances. Eddi lay, sucked air.

"Should've let me shoot it."

Eddi lay, looked at her leg. Fabric of her pant torn. Flesh of her ankle rent.

"Should've-"

"Heard you."

Hand out, Raddatz helped heft Eddi up, Eddi went to the door, peeled back the blind, looked to the dog jumping up, at the window. Throwing foamy spit at the window. A beast. It was much more beast than domesticated animal. Guessing as much as she knew for certain: It looked like a mastiff. It looked like how she'd imagined one of the hounds of the

Baskervilles when she'd discovered reading could actually be fun, not just a chore, back in her senior year of high school. Snout bleeding from where it tried to get through the pane Raddatz had shattered to do the B and E. That was its freshest wound. Flesh a jigsaw of scars except where its fur was bare to the skin from lashings, from burnings, from beatings. The sadistic fuck. Carlin didn't have Ramona to slug around anymore. He'd gotten himself a new whipping horse.

Jumping. Snarling, no matter its slashed snout.

"The dog," Eddi said as it did all it could to get through the door to kill her, "that thing was bred for hating." She felt sorry she hadn't killed it. She felt like she oughta put it out of its misery.

"Come on," Raddatz said to her. "Come on."

From her holster Eddi took Soledad's appropriated gun, flicked the safety off. Unlike just about every other gun in the world, the piece audibly confirmed it was hot.