The Last Rakosh

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.

As the rakosh shied away from the flames, Jack pulled out a third cocktail. His heart stuttered, his hand shook, and he’d just lit the fuse when he sensed something hurtling toward him through dimness, close, too close. Ducked but not soon enough. The twirling remnant of Hank’s arm hit him square in the face.

Coughing in revulsion as he sprawled back, Jack felt the third cocktail slip from his fingers. He turned and dived and rolled. He was clear when it exploded, but he kept rolling because it had landed on the shoulder bag. He felt a blast of heat as his last Molotov went up.

As soon as the initial explosion of flame subsided, Scar-lip charged across the clearing. Jack was still on his back in the sand. Instinct prompted his hand toward the P-98 but he knew bullets were useless. Spotted the iron spear beside him, grabbed it, swung it around so the butt was in the dirt and the point toward the onrushing rakosh. His mind flashed back to his apartment rooftop last summer when Scar-lip’s mother was trying to kill him, when he had run her through. That had only slowed her then, but this was iron. Maybe this time....

He steadied the point and braced for the impact.

The impact came, but not the one he’d expected. In one fluid motion, Scar-lip swerved and batted the spear aside, sending it sailing away through the air toward the oak. Jack was left flat on his back with a slavering, three- hundred-pound inhuman killing machine towering over him. Tried to roll to his feet but the rakosh caught him with its foot and pinned him to the sand. As Jack struggled to slip free, Scar-lip increased the pressure, eliciting live wires of agony from his cracking ribs. Stretched to reach the P-98. Spitballs would probably damage a rakosh as much as .22s, but that was all he had left. And no way was he going out with a fully loaded pistol. Maybe if he went for the eyes...

But before he could pull the pistol free of his warm-up pocket, he saw Scar-lip raise its right hand, spread the three talons wide, then drive them toward his throat.

No time to prepare, no room to dodge, he simply cried out in terror in what he was sure would be the last second of his life.

But the impact was not the sharp tearing pain of a spike ramming through his flesh. Instead he choked as the talons speared the sand to either side and the web between them closed off his wind. The pressure eased from his chest but the talons tightened, encircling his throat as he struggled for air. And then Jack felt himself yanked from the sand and held aloft, kicking and twisting in the silent air, flailing ineffectually at the flint-muscled arm that gripped him like a vise. The popping of the vertebral joints in his neck sounded like explosions, the cartilage in his larynx whined under the unremitting pressure as the rakosh shook him like an abusive parent with a baby who had cried once too often, and all the while his lungs pleaded, screamed for air.

His limbs quickly grew heavy, the oxygen-starved muscles weakening until he could no longer lift his arms. Black spots flashed and floated in the space between him and Scar-lip as his panicked brain’s clawhold on consciousness began to falter. Life...he could feel his life slipping away, the universe fading to gray...and he was floating...gliding aloft toward-

-a jarring impact, sand in his face, in his mouth, but air too, good Christ, air!

He lay gasping, gulping, coughing, retching, but breathing, and slowly light seeped back to his brain, life to his limbs.

Jack lifted his head, looked around. Scar-lip not in sight. Rolled over, looked up. Scar-lip nowhere.

Slowly, hesitantly, he raised himself on his elbows, amazed to be alive. But how long would that last? So weak. And God, he hurt.

Looked around again. Blinked. Alone in the clearing.

What was going on here? Was the rakosh hiding, waiting to pop out again and start playing with him like a cat with a captured mouse?

He struggled to his knees but stopped there until the pounding in his head eased. Looked around once more, baffled. Still no sign of Scar-lip.

What the hell?

Cautiously Jack rose to his feet and braced for a dark shape to hurtle from the brush and finish him off.

Nothing moved. The rakosh was gone.

Why? Nothing here to frighten it off, and it sure as hell wasn’t turning vegetarian, because Hank’s arm, the one Scar-lip had thrown at Jack, was missing.

Jack turned in a slow circle. Why didn’t it kill me?

Because he’d stopped Bondy and Hank from torturing it? Not possible. A rakosh was a killing machine. What would it know about fair play, about debts or gratitude? Those were human emotions and-

Then Jack remembered that Scar-lip was part human. Kusum Bahkti had been its father. It carried some of Kusum in it and, despite some major leaks in his skylights, Kusum had been a stand-up guy.

Was that it? If so, the Otherness probably wanted to disown Scar-lip. But its daddy might be proud.

Jack’s instincts were howling for him to go-now. But he held back. He’d come here to finish this, and he’d failed. Utterly. The rakosh was back to full strength and roaming free in the trackless barrens.

But maybe it was finished-at least between Scar-lip and him. Maybe the last rakosh was somebody else’s problem now. Not that he could do anything about Scar-lip anyway. As much as he hated to leave a rakosh alive and free here in the wild, he didn’t see that he had much choice. He’d been beaten. Worse than beaten: he’d been hammered flat and kicked aside like an old tin can. He had no useful weapons left, and Scar-lip had made it clear that Jack was no match one on one.

Time to call it quits. At least for today. But he couldn’t let it go, not without one last shot.

“Listen,” he shouted, wondering if the creature could hear him, and how much it would understand. “I guess we’re even. We’ll leave it this way. For now. But if you ever threaten me or mine again, I’ll be back. And I won’t be carrying Snapple bottles.”

Jack began to edge toward the trail, but kept his face to the clearing, still unable to quite believe this, afraid if he turned his back the creature would rise out of the sand and strike.