The Last Rakosh

“You’re not seriously thinking of going after it.”

Jack shrugged. “Know somebody who’ll do it for me?”

“May I ask why?” Oz said.

“Take too long to tell. Let’s just leave it that Scar-lip and I go back a ways, and we’ve got some unfinished business.”

Oz stared at him a moment, then turned and began walking back toward his trailer.

“Come with me. Perhaps I can help.”

Jack doubted that, but followed and waited outside as Oz rummaged within his trailer. Finally he emerged holding something that looked like a Gameboy. He tapped a series of buttons, eliciting a beep, then handed it to Jack.

“This will lead you to the rakosh.”

Jack checked out the thing: a small screen with a blip of green light blinking slowly in one corner. He rotated his body and the blip moved.

“This is the rakosh? What’d you do- rig it with a Lojack?”

“In a way. I have electronic tell-tales on our animals. Occasionally one gets loose and I’ve found this to be an excellent way to track them. Most of them are irreplaceable.”

“Yeah. Not too many two-headed goats wandering around.”

“Correct. The range is only two miles, however. As you can see, the creature is still within range, but may not be for long. Operation is simple: Your position is center screen; if the blip is left of center, the creature is to the left of you; below center, it’s behind you, and so on. You track it by proceeding in whatever direction moves the blip closer to the center of the screen. When it reaches dead center, you’ll have found your rakosh. Or rather, it will have found you.”

Jack swiveled back and forth until the locator blip was at the top of the faintly glowing screen. He looked up and found himself facing the shadowy mass of trees west of the Parkway. Just as he’d feared: Scar-lip was in the pines.

But this’ll help me find it, he thought.

And then something occurred to him.

“You’re being awfully helpful.”

“Not at all. My sole concern is for the rakosh.”

“But you know I’m going to kill it if I find it.”

‘Try to kill it. The pines are full of deer and other game, but the rakosh can’t use them for food. As you know, it eats only one thing.”

Now Jack understood. “And you think by giving me this locator, you’re sending it a care package, so to speak.”

Oz inclined his head. “So to speak.”

“We shall see, Mr. Prather. We shall see.”

“On the contrary, I doubt anyone will ever see you again.”

“I’m not suicidal, trust me on that.”

“But you can’t believe you can take on a rakosh single-handed and survive.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time.”

Jack headed for his car, relishing the look of concern on Oz’s face before he’d turned away. Had he sounded confident enough? Good act. Because he was feeling anything but.

Jack hurried to the food area and bought half a dozen bottles of Snapple, plus an Atlantic City souvenir T- shirt, a ciggy lighter, and a newspaper. Then he moved his car to a far corner of the rest area by the RIDESHARE INFO sign and emptied the Snapple bottles onto the asphalt.

Shame to waste the stuff but it seemed Snapple was about the only thing that came in glass bottles these days.

He pulled a glasscutter from his burglary kit and began scoring the flanks of the bottles. A trick he’d learned from an old revolutionary. Upped the chances these babies would shatter on contact.

He began tearing up the shirt. Then he opened the trunk and fished out the gas can and a flashlight. He filled the bottles with gas and recapped them.

He gently placed the six gasoline-filled bottles into a canvas shoulder bag and worked sections of newspaper between them to keep them from clinking, then threw the pieces of T-shirt on top.

6

Jack trained his flashlight beam on the scrub at the base of the slope. He’d crossed the southbound lanes and trotted down to the 51.3 mile marker and stopped at the tree line. He was looking for broken branches and found them. Lots of them. Something big had torn through here not long ago.

He stepped through and followed the path of destruction. When he was sure he was out of sight of the highway, he stopped and pulled out the electronic locator. He was facing west and the blip was at the top edge of the screen. Had to move. Scar-lip was almost out of range.

He pressed forward until he came to a narrow path. A deer trail, most likely.

Flashed his beam down and saw what looked like deer tracks in the damp sand, but they weren’t alone: 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.

What’s Hank thinking? Jack wondered. That he’s got a gun and maybe he learned how to hunt when he was a kid, so that makes him a match for the Sharkman?

Maybe he wasn’t thinking. Maybe a belly full of Mad Dog had convinced him he could handle the equivalent of taking on a great white with a penknife in a sea of ink.

Jack began following the deer trail, keeping one eye on the locator and turning his flashlight beam on and off every so often to check the ground. Scrub pines closed in, forming a twenty- to thirty-foot wall around him, arching their branches over the trail, allowing only an occasional glimpse of the starlit sky.

Quiet. Just the sound of insects and the branches brushing against his clothes. Jack hated the great outdoors. Give him a city with cars and buses and honking cabs, with pavements and right angles and subways rumbling beneath his feet. And best of all-streetlights. It wasn’t just dark out here, it was dark.

His adrenaline was up but despite the alien surroundings, he felt curiously relaxed. The locator gave him a buffer zone of safety. He knew where Scar-lip was and didn’t have to worry about it jumping out of the bushes at any second and tearing into him. But he did have to worry about Hank. An armed drunk in the woods could be a danger to anything that moved. Didn’t want to be mistaken for Scar-lip.

The trail wound this way and that, briefly meandering north and south, but taking him generally westward. Jack moved as fast as the circumstances allowed, making his best time along the occasional brief straightaway.

The green blip that was Scar-lip gradually moved nearer and nearer the center of the locator screen. Looked like the creature had stopped moving.

Why? Resting? Or waiting?

He guesstimated he was about a quarter mile from the rakosh when a gun report somewhere ahead brought him up short. Sounded like a shotgun. There it was again. And again.

And then a scream of fear and mortal agony echoed through the trees, rising toward a shriek that cut off sharply before it peaked.

Silence.

Jack had thought the woods quiet before, but now even the insects had shut up. He waited for other sounds. None came. And the blip on the locator showed no movement.

That pretty much told the story: Scar-lip had sensed it was being followed so it hunkered down and waited. Who comes along but one of the guys who used it as a pincushion when it was caged. Chomp-chomp, crunch- crunch, good-bye, Hank.

Jack’s tongue was dry as felt. That could have-most likely would have- been him if he’d gone after Scar-lip