Free Quick Fixes: Tales of Repairman Jack by F. Paul Wilson Page A

Jack’s direction. Then it closed its eyes and let the arm dangle again. It didn’t seem to have strength for anything more.
    Jack stopped and stared at the creature. And somehow he knew.
    It’s dying.
    He stood there a long time and watched Scar lip doze in its cage. Was it sick or had it simply reached the end of its days? What was the life span of a rakosh, anyway? He shifted the gas cans in his hands and realized he couldn’t do it. He could torch a vital, aggressive, healthy rakosh without a qualm, because he knew if positions were reversed it would tear off his head in a second and devour his remains. But there didn’t seem to be any question that Scar lip would be history before too long. So what was the use? Why endanger the carny folk unnecessarily with a fire?
    Suddenly he heard voices down the midway. He ducked in the other direction, into 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 peeked out and recognized the bald headed roustabout who’d prodded him back behind the rope this afternoon. He had another man with him, taller, younger, but just as beefy, with a full head of sandy hair. He carried a bottle of what looked like bourbon 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 Hank.
    “ Just lesson number one. The first of many. 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 blue wimp. Thinks it can just sit around all day and sleep all night. No way, babe! You got to 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 while Hank stood by, grinning.
    Jack turned and crept off through the shadows. The two roustabouts had found the only other thing that could harm a rakosh – iron. Fire and iron. The creatures were impervious to everything else. 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 cans back in the trunk, and got as far as opening the door car door. And then he knew he couldn’t leave.
    “ Shit!” he said and pounded the roof of the Corvair. “Shit! Shit! Shit! ”
    He slammed the door closed and ran back to the freak show tent, repeating the word all the way.
    No stealth this time. He ran 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 with a wide eyed, shocked expression, his forehead wrinkling up to and beyond 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 metal, 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