“Fine,” Jack said. He threw the pike at the newcomer’s feet. “Maybe I had it wrong. Maybe you pay baldy here to poke holes in your attractions.”
“Hey, boss—” Bondy began, but the tall man silenced him with a flick of his hand. He looked down at the pike where sawdust clung the dark fluid coating its point, then up at the rakosh with its dozens of oozing wounds. Color began to darken his cheeks as his head turned slowly toward Bondy.
“You harmed this creature, Mr. Bond?”
The bald man quailed under the scrutiny. “We was only trying to get it to put on more of a show for the customers.”
“And you feel you can get more out of it by mistreating it?”
“We thought—”
“I know what you thought, Mr. Bond. And many of us know how the Man-Shark felt. We’ve all known mistreatment during the course of our lives. We don’t look kindly upon it. You will retire to your quarters immediately and wait for me there.” He gestured to a couple of the freaks—one who looked like an alligator and another who looked like a walking lump of muscle. “See that he gets there and stays there.” Then he returned his attention to Jack. “And what is your interest in this matter?”
“I don’t like bullies,” Jack said. He didn’t have to fake any sincerity for that statement.
“No one does. But why should you be interested in this particular creature? Why should you be here at all?”
“Even a rakosh has a right to die in peace.”
When he saw the boss freeze, Jack knew immediately that he’d made a mistake. The glittering eyes fixed on him.
“What did you say? What did you call it?”
“Nothing,” Jack said.
“No, I heard you. You called it a rakosh.” Oz—Jack assumed it was short for Ozymandias—stepped over to the cage and stared into Scar-lip’s yellow eyes. “So that’s what you are . . . a rakosh. How fascinating!” He turned to the rest of his employees. “It’s all right. You can all go back to bed. I wish to speak to this gentleman before he goes.”
“You didn’t know what it is?” Jack said as the crowd dispersed.
“Not until this moment,” said Oz, continuing to stare at the rakosh. “I thought they were a myth. I found it drifting off Governor’s Island last summer. I’d gone out with a group of souvenir-hunters to look for wreckage from the ship that had exploded and burned the night before. I thought the creature was dead, but when I found it was alive, I had it brought ashore. It looked rather vicious so I put it into a spare cage.”
“Lucky for you.”
The boss smiled. “I should say so. It almost tore the cage apart before it exhausted itself. But since then its health has followed a steady downhill course. We’ve fed it fish, foul, beef, horsemeat, even vegetables—although one look at those teeth and there’s no question that it’s a carnivore—but no matter what we’ve tried, it’s health continues to fail.”
Jack now understood why Scar-lip was dying. Rakoshi required a very specific species of flesh to thrive. And this one wasn’t getting it. Jack had no intention of telling the boss what it was.
“You’re sure it’s a rakosh?”
“Well . . .” Jack said, trying to sound tentative. “I saw a picture of one in a book once. I . . . I think it looked like this. But I’m not sure. I could be wrong.”
“But you’re not,” the boss said, turning and staring hard into his eyes. “I’m certain you’re not.” He laughed. “A rakosh! Wonderful! And it’s mine!”
Jack glanced at Scar-lip’s slouched, wasted form.
Yeah, but not for long.
“You must allow me to reward you for succoring the poor creature, and for identifying it.”
“Not necessary. Just let it die in peace, okay?”
“No one will torment it again, I assure you. I guarantee it.”
“Good enough,” Jack said and turned to leave.
“By the way,” the boss said. “How can I get in touch with you if I wish?”
“You can’t,” Jack called back over his shoulder. And then he ducked under the sidewall and was out in the fresh air again.
Sunday
A quiet, rainy day. Too quiet. After finishing the Sunday Times and the comics from the News, Jack wandered around his apartment, looking for something to do. Business was a little slow this week, so he had no fix-it work to attend to. He’d called Gia but there was nothing happening there. Vicky had a sore throat and Gia wasn’t feeling so hot herself.
Swell.
But maybe that was for the best. It had been a day and a half since he’d last seen Scar-lip. He wondered if the rakosh was still alive.
Only one way to find out.
The crowd was thin. Driving through a downpour to the north shore of Long Island and tramping across a muddy field to see a collection of nature’s mistakes and missteps was not most folks’ idea of a fun Sunday. Not Jack’s either. The air trapped in the sideshow midway was rank, redolent of wet hay and sweaty bodies. Most of those bodies seemed to be clustered around the Man-Shark cage.
Watching the rakosh die?
Jack hurried toward the crowd, thinking how some people would stand around and watch anything, but stopped short when he saw what was in the cage.
It was Scar-lip, all right, but the creature he’d seen thirty-six hours ago had been a pale reflection of this monster. The rakosh rearing up in the cage and rattling the bars was full of vitality and ferocity, had unmarred, glistening blue-black skin, and bright yellow eyes that glowed with a fierce inner light. Jack stood mute and numb on the edge of the crowd. This was a nightmare, one that was beginning to repeat itself. The moribund rakosh was now fiercely alive, and it wanted out!
Suddenly it froze and Jack saw that it was looking his way, its cold yellow eyes fixed on him.
He turned and hurried from the tent. Outside in the rain he asked everyone he met where he could find the boss. Eventually he wound up outside a sleek, medium-sized Airstream. A plate on the aluminum door read O. Prather. He pounded on it.
“Ah!” said Oz as he opened the door and looked down at Jack. “Our friend from the other night. Come in! Have you seen the rakosh? Isn’t it magnificent?”
Jack stepped up and inside, just far enough to get out of the rain that drummed on the trailer’s roof.
“What did you do to it?”
Oz stared at him, genuinely puzzled.
“Why, my good man, I’ve cared for it. I looked up the proper care and feeding of rakoshi in one of my books on Bengali mythology, and acted appropriately.”
Jack felt a chill. He was sure it wasn’t entirely from his soaked clothing.
“What . . . just what did you feed it?”
The boss’s large brown eyes were completely guileless, utterly remorseless.
“Oh, this and that. Whatever the text recommended. You don’t really believe for an instant that I was going to allow that magnificent creature to languish and die of malnutrition, do you? I assume you’re familiar with—”
“I know what a rakosh needs to live!”
“Do you now? Do you know everything about rakoshi?”
“No, of course—”
“Then let’s assume I know more than you. And I tell you now that there is more than one way to keep them healthy. I see no need to discuss it beyond that. Let’s just say that it got exactly what it needed.” He stepped closer to Jack and edged him outside. “Good day, sir.” He closed the door.
Yeah, Jack knew exactly what it needed. He just wondered who’d supplied the meal.
Jack stood there a moment, realizing that a worst-case scenario had come true. But he still had those two cans of gasoline in his trunk. It was time to go back to plan A.
As he turned, he found Hank standing behind him. His nose was fat and discolored; a couple of dark crescents had formed under each eye. The rain darkened his sandy hair, plastering it to his scalp and running down his face. He stared at Jack, his face a mask of rage.
“It’s all your fault!” Hank
said.
“You’re probably right,” Jack said and began walking in the direction of his car. He had no time for this dolt.
“Bondy was my only friend. He got fired because of you.”
Jack stopped, turned.
“Really? When did you see him last?”
“Friday morning—when you got him in trouble.”
A tiny worm began nibbling at Jack’s stomach lining.
“And you never saw him once after that? Not even to say good-bye?”
Hank shook his head. “Uh-uh. The boss kicked him right out. By sun-up he was gone with all his stuff.” Hank’s expression was miserable. “He was the only one around here who liked me. All the freaks and geeks keep to theirselves.”
Jack sighed as he stared at Hank. Well, at least now he knew the source of Scar-lip’s dietary supplement.
No big loss to civilization.
“You don’t need friends like that, kid,” he said and turned away again.
“You’ll pay for it!” Hank screamed into the downpour. “Bondy’ll be back and when he gets here we’ll get even with you. You just wait!”
Don’t hold your breath waiting for him.
He wondered if it would do any good to tell him that Bondy hadn’t been fired; that, in a way, he was still very much with the freak show. But that would only endanger the big dumb kid.
Hank ranted on. “And if he don’t come back, I’ll getcha myself. And that Man-Shark too!”
No you won’t. Because I’m going to get it first.
Jack kept walking, wondering what he could do to kill the time between now and the early hours of the morning.
Monday
Jack returned to the Monroe meadows at around 1:30 A.M. He drove across the grass, intending to pull right up to the tent, duck under the flap, splash Scar-lip with gas, light a match, and send it back to hell.
Jack slewed the Corvair to a halt on the muddy meadow and stared in disbelief at the empty space before his headlights. The tent was gone. Only a single trailer remained behind. Jack got out and pounded on the door until an old geezer in oversized boxer shorts answered.
“What the hell you want?”
“What happened? Where’d they go?”
“You’re a little old to be wantin’ to run off with the circus, ain’t you?”
“Cut the comedy, pal. Where are they?”
“On the road. Makin’ the jump to Jersey. They open in Cape May tomorrow night.”
Jack ran back to his car. Jersey. A couple of possible routes: south to the Verrazano and across Staten Island, or straight back across Manhattan and the GW Bridge into Jersey. Either way, they’d have to wind up southbound on the Garden State Parkway. Jack chose the latter route. It would place him near the top of the state. If he headed south, sooner or later he’d catch up to them.
The Parkway ground to a halt a few miles north of Atlantic City. Jack glanced at his watch: almost 3:30. No such thing as a traffic jam at this hour. Had to be an accident. A State Trooper roaring by with all lights flashing confirmed it. Jack had a bad feeling about the cause of that accident.
Fighting the crawling in his gut, he turned onto the right shoulder and followed the trooper. The cop stopped behind a train of trucks and trailers arrayed along the side of the road. Jack stopped behind him and ran up as he got out of his cruiser.
“Officer, I’m Dr. Jackson, the vet for the show. Were any of the animals hurt?”
“Right now I don’t know any more than you do, Doc. Let’s go see what’s going on.”
Jack’s trooper ran into a fellow fuzz along the way and Jack gleaned from their conversation that one of the trucks carrying the animal cages had gone out of control and skidded off the road. The driver was hurt but all the animals seemed okay.
“I’ll just go on ahead and check on them,” Jack said. The troopers waved him on.
But Jack didn’t get that far. He came upon the boss’s Airstream first. He recognized the man’s tall, ungainly frame in the glow of the headlights.
“It got loose, didn’t it?” Jack said, coming up beside him.
The taller man rotated the upper half of his body and looked at Jack.
“Oh, it’s you. You do get around, don’t you.”
It took most of Jack’s dwindling self-control to keep from decking him right then and there.
“You had to feed it, didn’t you? Had to bring it up to strength. God damn you, you knew the risk you were taking!”
“It was caged with iron bars. You should know that they’re proof against a rakosh. No, there’s a human culprit here. The cage was unlocked. The creature got loose and tried to break through the front wall of the truck into the cab. The driver’s lucky he’s alive.”
“Where’s the rakosh?”
For the first time Jack detected a trace of fear in Oz’s eyes.
“I don’t know.”
“Damn! Where’s Hank?”
“Hank? What would you want with that imbecile?” His eyes narrowed. “Unless—”
“You got it.”
The boss slammed a bony fist into a palm.
“I thought he’d learned his lesson before. Well, he’ll learn it now.” He turned and called into the night. “Everyone—find Hank! Find him and bring him to me at once!”
But no one brought Hank. Hank was nowhere to be found.
“He must have run off when the rakosh got free,” the boss said.
“Or got carried off.”
“There was no blood found anywhere near the truck, so it’s quite likely that the young idiot is still alive.”
It occurred to Jack that Hank might be stupid enough to chase after the rakosh. If he had, he wouldn’t be alive for long.
“We’ve got to find it,” Jack said.
“Nothing I’d like better,” said the boss, “although I have a feeling you’d prefer to see it dead.”
“You’ve got that right.” Jack looked around in the darkness. “Where are we anyway?”
“Southeast New Jersey, on the edge of the Pine Barrens.”
Jack cursed under his breath. The Barrens. Swell. A million or so acres of unsettled land. If the rakosh was loose in there they’d never find it.
“We’re not too far from Leeds Point, you know,” Oz said, pointing east across the road. “The birthplace of the Jersey Devil.”
“Save the history lesson for later,” Jack said. “Are you sending out a search party?”
“No. I can’t risk the men. Besides, we’ve got to be set up in Cape May for a show tonight. But maybe tomorrow—”
“Tomorrow will be too late.” Jack said, turning away.
“Well, you certainly can’t go after a rakosh in the dark.”
“I know,” Jack said through his teeth.
He headed back toward his car, afraid that if he stayed a minute longer he’d break the man’s neck. The traffic was starting to move now, so he drove to Exit 44 and followed the winding back roads through the area. The Parkway seemed to act as a time warp down here. Traveling east he found a nuclear power plant and typically quaint but unquestionably twentieth century towns like Smithville and Leeds Point.
West of the Parkway was wilderness—2,000 square miles of pines, scrub brush, vanished towns, hills, bogs, creeks, all pretty much unchanged in population and level of civilization from the time the Indians had the Americas to themselves. From the Revolutionary days on, it had served as a haven for people who didn’t want to be found. Hessians, Tories, smugglers, Lenape Indians, heretical Amish, escaped cons—at one time or another, they’d all sought shelter in the Pine Barrens.
Now a rakosh was loose in the pines. And if Scar-lip got too much of a head start, it would be lost forever.
Jack drove around until he found an all-night 7-11. He bought half a dozen bottles of Snapple, drank one, then emptied the rest onto the side of the road. He put all the empties into a duffel bag in his trunk. When dawn began to lighten the low overhang of clouds that lidded the area, he took 9 north until
it intersected the Parkway, then got back on southbound until he came to the site of the accident. He pulled off the shoulder onto the grass just past the truck tire ruts. He took one of the gallon cans of gas and placed it in the duffel bag along with some old rags in the trunk. The bottles clinked within as he headed for the trees. It seemed logical Scar-lip would have traveled directly down the slope and into the trees rather than cross the highway.
Jack looked for a break in the brush—a deer path or the like—and found it. The sand was wet. He saw what looked like deer tracks, and more: the deep imprints of big, alien, three-toed feet, and work-boot prints coming after. Scar-lip, with Hank following—obviously behind because the boot prints occasionally stepped on the rakosh tracks.
As soon as he was out of sight of the road Jack filled the Snapple bottles with gas and stuffed their mouths with pieces of rag. Then he began following the tracks.
The trail wound this way and that; the scrawny pines closed in around him as he followed the tracks. He’d gone maybe half a mile when the trail changed.
The otherwise smooth sand was kicked up ferociously for a space of about a dozen feet, ending with two large, oblong gouts of blood, drying thick and brown on the sand, with little droplets of the same speckled around them. A cloud of flies hovered over the spot. A twelve-gauge Mossberg pump action lay in the sand. Jack lifted it and sniffed the barrel. Unfired. Not that firing it would have changed the outcome here.
Only one set of prints led away along the trail—the three-toed kind.
Jack crouched, staring around, listening, looking for signs of movement. Nothing. He glanced at the flies partying on Hank’s blood, then started again down the trail. His foot slipped on something a few feet further on. The sharpened steel rod Bondy had used to torment the rakosh lay half buried in the sand. He switched the duffel bag to his left hand, picked up the rod, and carried it in his right like a spear. He had two weapons now. He felt like an Indian hunter, armed with an iron spear and a container of magic burning liquid.
Half an hour later, as he was stepping over a fallen log in the center of a small clearing, his foot handed on something soft and yielding. Jack glanced down and saw a very dead Hank staring up at him. He let out an involuntary yelp, then whirled and scanned the area for signs of the rakosh. Nothing stirred. He dropped the iron spear and pulled one of his Molatov cocktails from the bag. He held his butane lighter ready before he chanced a closer look at Hank. Dead blue eyes fixed on the overcast sky; the pallor of his bloodless face accentuated the dark rims of his shiners and blended almost perfectly with the sand under his head; his right arm was missing at the shoulder; flies taxied around the stump.
A Soft Barren Aftershock Page 64
