John Ridley: Those Who Walk in Darkness

The thing's arm twisted away from Yar, gave its full attention to Soledad. Through the heat-distorted air, on the creature's face, Soledad could make out a jacked smile. It was there for just a second before being washed away by the flames the thing sent for her.

"How's dis, bitch? I'ma 'bout ta break me off my burnin' foot in yo ass!"

Soledad turned and curled and took the flames like a fist to the back. They batted her against a vertical, forcing the air from her body. Good thing. A breath in, and she would have sucked fire; she would have fried herself from the inside out. Bad as the hit hurt, it saved her life.

Vision blurred, head throbbing. Soledad sank to the floor, couldn't help herself from going down. She tried to lift herself, then sank again. Pain was the motivator to stay where she was. Brilliant pain. Arm burning. The Nomex uniforms were fire-retardant, not fireproof, and not fire-anything against muties. She slapped the flames dead, then stared at charred fabric. Except it wasn't charred fabric. It was burned flesh beginning to boil and blister.

Soledad felt like she was swimming: light, buoyant, moving through a viscid fluid. She felt all that, and her burnt arm felt cool.

Shock. Coming on fast.

Soledad's empty hand groped for the Benelli but stayed empty.

Yarborough, still down. Still immobile.

Where was Bo? Where was Reese?

Soledad managed to get her head up. Coming toward her through dutch-angled vision was the thing. The floor sizzled where it stepped.

Soledad's long-standing fear, her cop nightmare: to be incapacitated by a perp, unable to run, unable to hide… a weapon touching-close but too far away to be of any use, she'd be unable to do anything but lie and watch Death take a stroll for her. It was a weak and helpless and frightening scenario, and she was staring right at it.

"What's da matter, ya bitchass skeez?" Slow burn to its voice. All of it burned slow. "Ain't got nothin' more ta show me?"

A hard struggle got Soledad nowhere near up to her feet.

"I'll show ya, sumthin'. Ya wanna see sum shit?"

The thing stopped moving. It stood over Yarborough. Its hand glowed, gathering heat and flame, ready to send it pouring over the cop. Ready to kill him.

"Too easy!" Soledad screaming, swooning with disorientation. "Kill a guy who can't fight?" Felt like she wanted to fall. Still on the floor, and she felt like… "You're the goddamn bitch, you two-dollar whore!" Burned, weaponless, weak; big talk, that's all she had.

Nothing. For a second, nothing.

Then the glow from the thing's hand spread over his body. He went hot with excitement as much as fire.

"Skeez got sumthin' after all. I'm gonna light you up. I'm gonna light up yo pussy!"

The man of fire stalked for Soledad, but took its time about it, each step prolonged for its max pleasure: the anticipation of the kill. Foreplay, then death.

Soledad felt the thing approaching, felt the heat of it pressing toward her more than she could see it. One eye was swelling shut, the other collecting the blood that ran from her head. A weak arm feebled for her back, for the pack she had attached there. Didn't have the strength to pull it free.

"How you want it, girl? Which hole you want it in?"

The heat, oppressive, burning oxygen and passing Soledad out. At least, she thought, she wouldn't be conscious for her own end. Through a curtain of blood she saw the thing's fiery hand reaching for her. It was an unnatural wonder. It was the last thing she'd ever see.

Blue, moving fast. Reese, throwing herself at the mutie, knocking it from Soledad's path.

Soledad rolled, scrambled for the cover of one of the verticals. The stay of execution injecting her with enough fight to keep alive.

Reese, on the floor; wounded animal sounds. The side of her body she'd slammed against the thing was black with burns.

Reese down. Yar down. Bo gone.

Time. It was only a matter of how much—a minute, a few seconds—before that thing killed them all.

Hand alive with desperation, Soledad pulled the pack from her back, worked the zipper. Inside: a gun.

The freak, only dazed by the open-field tackle, got its bearings, moved for Reese. "Bitch, I wasn't tryin' ta fuck wit you. Ain't nobody told you ta come in here an' git wit my shit. You better axe sumbody!"

No hesitation this time. The thing's hand to the chestplate of

Reese's body armor. A second later: a horrible sizzle, the smell of burnt meat.

From Reese, screams. Spastic jerking and twitching against the pain, and screams.

Shaky hands, Soledad fumbled for the clips in the pack. Which color, her mind unable to lock thoughts. Which color? Which— Red, the red clip. Grabbed it, she slid it into the back of the gun.

One deep breath.

Soledad stood, came into the open.

The thing rose to meet her.

Reese's body kept flopping around over the wood.

"Oh, now bitch wants sumthin'. You gonna play me like dat wit yo little bitchass gat. Let's get it on, girl. Bring it da fuck on!"

Yeah. Let's bring it on.

Soledad took aim with her piece. The DTT raced up, then locked.

The thing burned bright, ready to spatter fire. Ready to kill.

How do you shoot something like that? How do you use a bullet against a thing that can melt lead?

Soledad squeezed the trigger. No hammer fell. Just the same, her weapon spat. The slugs—four fired in instantaneous succession— touched air, then went white hot. They stayed white-hot as they cut through the freak's flames, hit it in the chest, tore it open. They were white-hot as they ripped and shredded flesh and muscle, broke bone and turned it into shrapnel, wounding from the inside outward. The slugs were just as hot when they opened four jagged defects in the freak's back and kept on going.

Phosphorous bullets. Soledad had answered a question with a question: How do you melt what's already on fire?

The thing stood unbelieving. Blood, like streams of lava, leaking from the tunnels Soledad had laced through its chest. It stood for a moment… stood… its light and fire dimmed. Then the thing went down felled-timber hard.

Quiet.

Soledad limped for the body, not having known until that moment she'd done damage to her leg. The pain of a twisted knee subordinate to that of smoldering flesh.

Step, drag. Step, drag.

Soledad stood over the pyro. She venom-dripped words down at its empty eyes. "Who's the bitch now? You bleed. Fucked-up-looking and hot, but you bleed."

Eulogy over.

Soledad turned for Reese. Reese's body. In the center of her chest, where her armor was melted away, was a burned-out crater. Cooked meat hanging off the bone.

"God…" Soledad lowered herself, repulsed by Reese's wound but unable to look away from it. Her hand out toward it to… to what? To touch it? Tend to it? What was the point? Nothing she could do. Not one—

A gurgle. A spasm from the body.

Soledad sprang back.

Reese in a death prattle… and then something else. A breath. Short, shallow, but a breath.

"Ten-thirty-three!" Soledad yelled, not knowing she was yelling. Not even sure if there was anyone to hear her. "Officer down! I need a rush on a bus at this loca—"

Real quick her words got choked out. Her throat was on fire. A painful jerk of her head to the side, through the corner of her eye: It was alive; the thing, the human flame. Alive just enough to ignite its hand, take Soledad by the neck and sear her skin.

"… Youse sumthin', girl. " Slurred words of the dying, but dying slow enough to drag Soledad with it. "Truth: youse the only bitch man enough ta be wit all da shit. Truth. It's da truth dat sets ya free, an' revelation is comin'. Come here, bitch, an' kiss me good-bye."

The thing worked up half a smile and got ready to end Soledad's life—choke it from her, squeeze it, burn it from her. One way or the other, kill her.