The Last Rakosh

Jack noticed a tension in Gia’s smile and thought he knew why. The mimicked voice was too much like Vicky’s-pitch and timbre, all perfect down to the subtlest nuance. If Jack had been facing away, he wouldn’t have had the slightest doubt that Vicky had spoken.

Amazing, but creepy too.

“You’re very good,” Gia said.

“I’m not very good,” he replied in a perfect imitation of Gia’s voice. “I’m the best. And your voice is as beautiful as you are.”

Gia flushed. “Why, thank you.”

The midget turned to Jack, still speaking in Gia’s voice: “And you, sir- Mr. Strong Silent Type. Care to say anything?”

“Yoo doorty rat!” Jack said in his best imitation of a bad comic imitating James Cagney. “Yoo killed my brutha!”

Gia burst out laughing. “God, Jack, that’s awful!”

“A W. C. Fields fan!” the little man cried with a mischievous wink. “I have an old recording of one of his stage acts! Want to hear?”

Without waiting for a reply, Sir Echo began to mimic the record, and a chill ran through Jack as he realized that the little man was faithfully reproducing not only the voice, but the pops and cracks of the scratched vinyl as well.

“Marvelous, my good man!” Jack said in a W.C. Fields imitation as bad as his Cagney. “But now we must take our leave. We’re off to Philadelphia, you know.”

“You should stick to your own voice,” Gia said as Jack guided her away from the booth.

Jack didn’t tell her that something in a pre-rational corner of his brain had been afraid to let the midget hear his natural voice. Probably the same something that made jungle tribal folk shun a camera for fear it would steal their souls.

“Look!” Vicky said, pointing to the far end of the midway. “Cotton candy! Can I have some?”

“Sure,” Gia said. “You go ahead and pick the color and we’ll be right there.”

Jack smiled as he watched her go. Always good to give Vicky a head start if decisions such as shape and color were involved. She agonized over those sorts of minutiae.

As they passed a booth with a green-skinned fellow billed as “The Man from Mars,” Gia took Jack’s hand.

“Vicky seems to be having a great time.” She leaned against him. “And to tell the truth, I’m kind of enjoying this myself.”

Jack was about to reply when a child’s scream pierced them, froze them.

Jack looked at Gia and saw the panic in her eyes. It came again, unquestionably Vicky’s voice, high-pitched, quavering with terror.

Jack was already moving toward the sound, traveling as fast as the crowd would permit, bumping and pushing those he couldn’t slide past. But where was she? She’d been moving ahead of them down the midway only a moment ago. How far could she have gone in less than a minute?

Then he spotted her skinny eight-year-old form darting toward him, her face a strained mask of white, her blue eyes wide with fear. When she saw him she burst into tears and held out her arms as she stumbled toward him. Her voice was a shriek.

“Jack! Jack! It’s back! It’s gonna get me again!”

She leaped and he caught her, holding her tight as she quaked with fear.

“What is it, Vicks? What’s the matter?”

“The monster! The monster that took me to the boat! It’s here! Don’t let it get me!”

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” he said soothingly in her ear. “No one can hurt you when I’m around.”

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Gia hurrying toward them. He gently peeled Vicky off and transferred her to her mother. Vicky immediately wrapped her arms and legs around Gia.

Gia’s expression fluctuated between fear and anger. “My God, what happened?”

“I think she believes she saw a rakosh.”

Gia’s eyes widened. “But that’s-”

“Impossible. Right. But maybe she saw something that looks like one.”

“No!” Vicky cried from where her face was buried against her mother’s neck. “It’s the one that took me! I know it is!”

“Okay, Vicks.” Jack gave her trembling back a gentle rub. “I’ll check it out.” He nodded to Gia. “Why don’t you take her outside.”

“We’re on our way. After what I’ve seen here, I wouldn’t be half surprised if she was right.”

Jack watched Gia slip through the crowd, holding her daughter tight against her. When they were out of sight he turned and headed in the direction Vicky had come.

Wouldn’t be half surprised myself, he thought.

Not that there was a single chance in hell of one of Kusum’s rakoshi being alive. They’d all died last summer in the water between Governor’s Island and the Battery. He’d seen to that. His incendiary bombs had crisped them in the hold of the ship that housed them. One of them did make it to shore, the one he’d dubbed Scar-lip, but it had swum back out into the burning water and never returned.

The rakoshi were dead. All of them. The species was extinct.