John Ridley: What Fire Cannot Burn

None of them.

Keep running. Keep…

Climb!

Up, over a chain-link fence and then… Keep running.

Never mind the hurt, the bum. Keep running.

Jesus.

Diane.

He thought of, Anson thought of… Jesus.

Light.

Anson saw the light. Too late. Anson turned, but the light was on him. The light and the wail of an air horn. They were from the Gold Line, the light rail that cut from Pasadena to Downtown. Anson was standing dead in its path.

The train's horn shrieked.

That was what, a warning? Useless. The train was rolling too fast to stop. Anson was too tired to move. Too beat to care.

This was going to hurt.

And then came the impact: the grille, the steel of the engine slamming into Anson, picking Anson up and launching Anson's body.

And then there was a moment, the pain so intense if. didn't exist. It was off the agony scale. Anson's mind could not quantify it. The sensation did not register. Not immediately. Later Anson's head would find a way to process the hit, and the hit would hurt.

Later.

Now…

There was a moment when Anson was sailing in the air. Sailing.

Flying.

And in the moment Anson thought, he thought: If there was a superhuman ability to possess, this, the ability to traverse without effort and with dispatch from one point to another, was the one to own. Anson thought: If he could truly fly on his own and unaided by a speeding train, he would not be here. He would be passing easily to Diane. He would go to her and take her in his arms, and together they'd sail away… God, Styx. When was the last time he'd… They'd sail to somewhere that people who were different and those who loved them weren't hated and hunted like rabid dogs. Wherever that mythical land was.

And then Anson's brain finished its processing. His receptors kicked in and he hurt like the devil. But even the devil didn't know hurt as detailed as when Anson took to the ground landing at sixty-plus mph. Skipping a couple of times, skipping along, whipping and twisting along. Clothes shorn on coarse earth. The repeated, repeated, repeated slap of flesh on road until there was a sound. The sound of an animal begging to be put down.

A few seconds or so. A few seconds. Then Anson realized the sound was his own putrid screaming. One more lesson In a night of learning. Being invulnerable ain't shit against hurting.

What Anson didn't hear was the sound of the train braking. It kept hard-rolling, the engineer not wanting to have to go through due process and the form filing for hitting whatever it was he'd hit. If he kept on for Union Station, pretended like nothing had happened, well… maybe he'd just hit a bum. That was the same as nothing happening.

LA. Even through the hurt of getting hit, Anson thought: Goddamn LA.

And Anson straggled up to his feet. Gingerly. Then he reminded himself, had to actually remind himself he was indestructible. He was not hurt. Not truly hurt. No need to be ginger. It was time, again, to run.

Run to…

Where would he run that It hadn't already demonstrated It would follow?

Run to the police? If they saved Anson from It, who'd save Anson from the police?

Home?

Diane? Run to her? Bring It to her?

No.

Run to where?

Tungsten. Anson thought of Tungsten. Anson used to want to be: Tungsten, same as just about every metanormal- before San Francisco- dreamed of taking their gift and being something more than normal. Doing something beyond regular. Acting like a hero.

Tungsten had been KIA by King of Pain. King of Pain had previously, in one of those used-to-be-common battles between the supergood and the superevil, put the otherwise indestructible Tungsten in a coma for five months.

Didn't matter.

To Tungsten it didn't matter. When it came time to square off with King of Pain again, he stood his ground. Knowing King of Pain had the ability to take his life, Tungsten didn't run.

Heroes don't run.

No more running.

No equivocation in what Anson told himself, ordered himself to do: no more running. No matter the outcome might, be same as with Tungsten, Anson would stand. Anson would fight It.

I will be, Anson said in his head, something more than human.

A trick of the moonlight. Clouds cleared the sky. Up the street darkness seemed to part.

Coincidental. It was coming.

I feel no pain, Anson told himself. I cannot die. I am more than human.

The caller ID on her integrated cordless phone/digital answering machine that had every advanced feature except the one that allowed Soledad to walk more than five feet from the base unit while talking on the phone said it was Soledad's parents calling.

She didn't pick up. Wasn't Sunday. Wasn't the day Soledad had designated in her mind and by habit as being the day to talk with her folks. Sit on the phone while they talked at her.

She let the phone ring itself out, was through the door by the time the answering machine picked up and her mom started asking of Soledad's empty joint: "Are you there? Sweetie, it's Mom. Are you home?"

Melrose to Robertson. Down to Third, over into BH. That was the route Soledad was going to run. A five-mile loop. Same one, with slight variation, she ran the four days out of seven she did road work. Not too many places m LA offered decent scenery and a fair lack of traffic. The city was built for driving. Health nuts be damned. Soledad had found a course, and she stuck to it. Some Hybrid on her iPod to speed the miles along. The sun was, as always, up there. The heat from the endless pavement, the smog; they'd mix for a physically taxing workout. A good workout.

Some sweat and ache to wear away that nagging, fucking… Death. Death was nagging Soledad. Shouldn't be. She'd gotten over, thought she'd gotten over, Death a long time ago. The day of San Francisco: Soledad, her family, were supposed to be in the city when a battle between the superhero Pharos and the supervillain Bludlust turned half the town and most of its citizens to slag and ash. But Soledad, her family, weren't there. They are alive. Alive, Soledad figured, on borrowed time. So what was Death..

Left on Robertson…

When Soledad was already dead? Should already be dead? That kind of thinking had kept company with Soledad, given comfort to Soledad as she jobbed her way through the LAPD academy, worked a beat, SPU and MTac without so much as getting sweaty palms. Not once.

Until…

Right on Third.

And a thought came to Soledad, came like a frank observation that, being objective, was separate from her own thinking.

The thought: Know what you're scared of?

What?

You've been hanging around Vin. You're attracted to Vin. But you're scared you don't really care for Vin.

Endorphins pumping in Soledad. Runner's high coming on.

A high coming on.

Stupid, Soledad told herself. Losing herself in natural bliss, she told herself the thought was stupid. Why would it matter if she-

You don't care for Yin. Used to hate Vin. So you're scared Vin's just a bounce-back thing. You're scared 'cause if he is, then who you really love, who you're still in love with, what's really giving you unease-

No! It wasn't qualms or questions or misgivings on the ways of her heart. It was Death. Soledad felt Death creeping close and, yeah, it scared her because she didn't… she wasn't afraid of losing her life. She didn't want to lose the life she could have with Vin. Vin. Vin she loved, she told herself. And told herself. She could deal with Death and falling for a guy she used to hate. What she couldn't deal with- A horn.

Soledad looked as she ran out onto Ivy. Looked too late. As she saw the massive front end of the Ford Expedition bearing on her, she thought: I hate SUVs.