Incendiary

AN: So, Rebecca seems to use/encounter situations involving fire a lot. Molotov cocktails, flame sprays, exploding facilities, etc. So my brain working the way it does, decided, "WHY NOT WRITE ABOUT IT?"

And thus this came into existence. Hope you enjoy and more will come!

Her combat boots make the softest of steps as she slowly treads across the filthy tile of the men's restroom. She can't find the time to be self conscious of the grime encrusting the long abandoned urinals. Her eyes catch her reflection in the mirror and even in the dim light from the sole flickering light bulb she looks more scared than she's ever been.

Billy lopes past with exuberance as he spots something. Rebecca's head inclines as she follows the movement of her partner.

"Should I look away?" A light blush tinges her cheeks as she thinks he might be running to use one of the stalls but she relaxes slightly as the ex-Marine crouches downward to take the cap off the container of kerosene.

He procures from the back pocket of his jeans an empty wine bottle, and Rebecca can't help but steal a brief glance at his well defined backside.

"Too bad there's none of the good stuff left," Billy grumbles as he fishes a small wad of newspaper from his seemingly bottomless pockets and the medic wonders where he got that as well.

"Did you scavenge all this from the train?" She asks and wonders if she should've been more observant in her scouring of the compartments as well. What if by some off chance, there had been weapons on some of the passengers, or spare ammunition? And she had been too frightened to look?

His handcuffs jingle, the only sound in the room apart from water dripping from rusted faucets, as he repeatedly flicks the lighter and swears each time it doesn't light up. "Thought I might find some use out of the stuff so I took it. But maybe I was wrong…"

"Ha!" Billy says in triumph as the small flame finally flickers into existence.

The small sphere of light pulses with life, a small beacon of hope in their miserable situation. Rebecca wonders, as the shadows dance across the wall and Billy dips the newspaper into the kerosene, if she's ever been in a place as dark as this.

"That makes this the second time tonight I got lucky! If we get the hell out of here, Rebecca, remind me to buy a lottery ticket."

Billy stands up from his crouch, wine bottle grasped tightly in his right hand. The rolled up newspaper sticking out is crackling with fire.

Rebecca is about to ask him what he's going to use the molotov cocktail for but the finger he brings to his lips silences any further conversation.

And then they hear it. The sound of flesh popping like bubble wrap that makes Rebecca wretch. The wet, uneven footsteps that shloop across the floor. The leech zombie rounds the corner, it's frame seizing in the reflection of the mirror and the S.T.A.R.S. member fleetingly wonders if she had left the door open.

It's features are roiling, melting away into a monstrous copy of the man whose portrait hung at the top of the stairwell in the foyer.

Rebecca scrambles into firing stance, her feet spread and shoulders locked but before she can squeeze the trigger of her Beretta the leech man is flailing, making an unholy screeching sound as flame consumes it. It's top half breaks and dissolves with a hissing sound, the legs without a torso convulsing and expanding before following suit, sinking towards the floor in a sizzling yellow-brown puddle.

She tries to subdue the slight trembling in her limbs as the acid bubbles on the floor and almost jumps as Billy puts a comforting hand on her shoulder.

"You doing alright, Rebecca?"

Rebecca manages a trembling nod before speaking, "Was discovering that those things are flammable the first lucky thing tonight?" Her mind wanders back to the small fires in the dining cab, the first leech man and the same horrible screeching sound that she had been quick to dismiss as imagination.

"Well, that was one of them," Billy tells her as she places her handgun back in the holster on her hip. He walks forward towards the door of the bathroom without looking back, their terrifying (to Rebecca, at least) encounter forgotten as fast as it had ended.

He turns around as she begins to follow him in earnest, ready to leave this empty room of the facility behind. He looks down and his eyes meet hers as he smiles.

"The first lucky thing? Meeting you."