The Last Rakosh

Jack shifted the gas can in his hands and wondered if he was needed here. He’d torch a vital, aggressive, healthy rakosh without a qualm, because he knew if positions were reversed it would tear off his head without a second thought. But it seemed a pretty sure bet that Scar-lip would be history before long. So why endanger the carny folk with a fire?

On the other hand...what if Scar-lip recovered and got free? It was a possibility. And he’d never forgive himself if it came after Vicky again. Jack had damn near died saving Vicky the last time-and he’d been lucky at that. Could he count on that kind of luck again?

Uh-uh. Never count on luck.

He began unscrewing the cap of the gasoline can but stopped when he heard voices... coming this way down the midway. He ducked for the shadows.

“I tell you, Hank,” said a voice that sounded familiar, “you should’ve seen the big wimp this afternoon. Something got it riled. It had the crowd six deep around its cage while it was up.”

Jack recognized the bald-headed ticket seller who’d prodded him back behind the rope this afternoon. The other man with him was taller, younger, but just as beefy, with a full head of sandy hair. He carried a bottle of what looked like cheap wine while the bald one carried a six-foot iron bar, sharpened at one end. Neither of them was walking too steadily.

“Maybe we taught it a good lesson last night, huh, Bondy?” said the one called Hank.

“Just lesson number one,” Bondy said. “The first of many. Yessir, the first of many.”

They stopped before the cage. Bondy took a swig from the bottle and handed it back to Hank.

“Look at it,” Bondy said. “The big blue wimp. Thinks it can just sit around all day and sleep all night. No way, babe! Y’gotta earn your keep, wimp!” He took the sharp end of the iron bar and jabbed it at the rakosh. “Earn it!”

The point pierced Scar-lip’s shoulder. The creature moaned like a cow with laryngitis and rolled away. The bald guy kept jabbing at it, stabbing its back again and again, making it moan while Hank stood by, grinning.

Jack turned and crept off through the shadows. The two carnies had found the only other thing that could harm a rakosh-iron. Fire and iron-they were impervious to everything else. Maybe that was another explanation for Scar-lip’s poor health-caged with iron bars.

As Jack moved away, he heard Hank’s voice rise over the tortured cries of the dying rakosh.

“When’s it gonna be my turn, Bondy? Huh? When’s my turn?”

The hoarse moans followed Jack out into the night. He stowed the can back in the trunk, and got as far as opening the car door. Then he stopped.

“Shit!” he said and pounded the roof of the car. “Shit! Shit! Shit!”

He slammed the door closed and trotted back to the freak show tent, repeating the word all the way.

No stealth this time. He strode directly to the section he’d just left, pulled up the sidewall, and charged inside. Bondy still had the iron pike-or maybe he had it back again. Jack stepped up beside him just as he was preparing for another jab at the trapped, huddled creature. He snatched the pike from his grasp.

“That’s enough, asshole.”

Bondy looked at him wide-eyed, his forehead wrinkling up to where his hairline should have been. Probably no one had talked to him that way in a long, long time.

“Who the fuck are you?”

“Nobody you want to know right now. Maybe you should call it a night.”

Bondy took a swing at Jack’s face. He telegraphed it by baring his teeth. Jack raised the rod between his face and the fist. Bondy screamed as his knuckles smashed against the iron, then did a knock-kneed walk in a circle with the hand jammed between his thighs, groaning in pain.

Suddenly a pair of arms wrapped around Jack’s torso, trapping him in a fleshy vise.

“I got him, Bondy!” Hank’s voice shouted from behind Jack’s left ear. “I got him!”

Twenty feet away, Bondy stopped his dance, looked up, and grinned. As he charged, Jack rammed his head backward, smashing the back of his skull into Hank’s nose. Abruptly he was free. He still held the iron bar, so he angled the blunt end toward the charging Bondy and drove it hard into his solar plexus. The air whooshed out of him and he dropped to his knees with a groan, his face gray-green. Even his scalp looked sick.

Jack glanced up and saw Scar-lip crouched at the front of the cage, gripping the bars, its yellow gaze flicking between him and the groaning Bondy, but lingering on Jack, as if trying to comprehend what he was doing, and why. Tiny rivulets of dark blood trailed down its skin.

Jack whirled the pike 180 degrees and pressed the point against Bondy’s chest.

“What kind of noise am I going to hear when I poke you with this end?”

Behind him Hank’s voice, very nasal now, started shouting.

“Hey, Rube! Hey, Rube!”

As Jack was trying to figure out just what that meant, he gave the kneeling Bondy a poke with the pointed end-not enough to break the skin, but enough to scare him. He howled and fell back on the sawdust, screaming.

“Don’t! Don’t!”