The Last Rakosh

Jack stiffened as he saw a light-make that two lights-moving along the treetops to the west...heading his way. At first he thought it might be a plane or helicopter, but the lights were mismatched in size and maintained no fixed relationship to each other. His second thought was UFOs, but these didn’t appear to be objects at all. They looked like globules of light...light and nothing more.

He’d heard of these things but had never seen one...the Pineys called them pine lights but no one knew what they were. Jack didn’t want to find out and would have preferred to see them heading elsewhere. They weren’t traveling a straight line-the smaller one would dart left and right, and even the larger one meandered a little. But no question about it: those two glowing blobs were heading his way.

They slowed as they reached the clearing and Jack got a closer look at them. He didn’t like what he saw. One was basketball size, the other maybe a bit larger than a softball. Light shouldn’t form into a ball; it wasn’t right. Something unhealthy about the pale green color too.

Jack cringed as they came straight for the tree, fearing they were going to touch him-something about them made his skin crawl-but they split within half a dozen feet of the branches. He heard a high-pitched hum and felt his skin tingle as they skirted his perch to the north and south. They paired up again on the far side but instead of moving on, spiraled down toward the clearing.

Jack craned his neck to see where they’ were going. Toward Hank’s body? No, that was on the north side of the tree. They were moving the other way.

He watched them hover over an empty patch of sand, then begin to chase each other in a tight circle-slowly at first, then with increasing speed until they blurred into a glowing ring, an unholy halo of wan green light, moving faster and faster, the centrifugal force of their rising speed widening the ring until they shot off into the night, racing back toward the west where they’d come from.

Good riddance. The whole episode had lasted perhaps a minute, but left him unsettled. Wondered if this happened every night, or if Scar-lip’s presence had anything to do with it.

And speaking of Scar-lip...

Checked the clearing as best he could through the intervening foliage, but still nothing stirred.

Tried to settle down again and make plans for sunrise....

7

Jack didn’t wait for full light. The stars had begun to fade around four-thirty. By five, although still probably half an hour before the sun officially rose, the pewter sky was bright enough for him to feel comfortable quitting the Tarzan scene and heading back to earth.

Stiff and sore, he eased himself toward the ground, continually checking the clearing-still empty except for Hank. Soon as he hit the sand he opened the Snapple bottles and stuffed their mouths with rag. He kept one in hand and held the lighter ready.

The plan was simple: Start at Hank’s corpse and follow Scar-lip’s footprints from there. He’d keep it up as long as he could. Didn’t know how long he could go without food and water, but he’d give it his best shot. Right now what he wanted most was a cup of coffee.

As he approached the corpse, he noticed that the pinelands insects hadn’t been idle: flies taxied around Hank’s head while ants partied in the throat wound and shoulder stump. The thought of burying him crossed Jack’s mind, but he had neither the time nor the tools.

A noise behind him. Jack whirled. Put down the bag and thumbed the flint wheel on the butane lighter as he scanned the clearing in the pallid predawn light.

There...on the far side, the spot where the pine lights had done their little dervish a couple of hours ago, a patch of sand, moving, shifting, rising. No, not sand. This was very big and very dark.

Scar-lip.

Jack took an involuntary step back, then held his ground. The rakosh wasn’t moving; it simply stood there, maybe thirty feet away, where it had buried itself for the night. Hank’s arm dangled from its three-fingered right hand; Scar-lip held it casually, like a lollipop. The upper half of the arm had been stripped of its flesh; sand coated the pink bone.

Jack felt his gut tighten, his heart turning in overdrive. Here was his chance. He lit the tail on the cocktail and stepped over the shoulder bag, straddling it. Slowly he bent, pulled out a second bomb, and lit it from the first.

Had to get this right the first time. He knew from past encounters how quick and agile these creatures were in spite of their mass. But he also knew that all he had to do was hit it with one of these flaming babies and it would all be over.

With no warning and as little wind-up as he dared, he tossed the Molotov in his right hand. The rakosh ducked away, as expected, but Jack was ready with the other.. .gave it a left-handed heave, leading the rakosh, trying to catch it on the run. Both missed. The first landed in an explosion of flame, but the second skidded on the sand and lay there intact, its fuse dead, smothered.