Free New Title 1 by F. Paul Wilson

THE LAST RAKOSH

    1
    "I don’t know about this," Gia said as they stood outside the entrance to the main tent. A faded red-and-yellow banner flapped in the breeze.
    THE OZYMANDIAS PRATHER ODDITY EMPORIUM
    Jack checked out the sparse queue passing through the entrance: A varied crew running the gamut from middle-class folk who looked like they’d just come from church to Goth types in full black regalia. But nobody looked threatening.
    "What’s wrong?"
    "It looks like some sort of freak show." She glanced quickly at Vicky, then at Jack. "I just don’t know."
    Her meaning was clear.
    "Truth is, I’m having second thoughts myself."
    "You?" Gia’s faint, pale eyebrows lifted. "If the most politically incorrect man I know is hesitating, we’d better turn around and go home."
    Jack had seen a flyer for the show and thought this might be a unique experience for Vicks, an exhibit of weird objects and odd people doing strange tricks—sort of like a bunch of Letterman’s "Stupid People Tricks" under one roof. But he didn’t want to take an eight-year-old girl to a freak show. The very idea of deformed people putting themselves on display repulsed him. It was demeaning, and people who paid to gawk seemed to come off as demeaned as the freaks on display. Maybe more so. He didn’t want to be one of them.
    "Go home?" Vicky said. "I thought we came out to see the show."
    "I know, Vicky," Gia began, "but it’s just that—"
    "You said we were going!" Her voice started pitching toward a whine. She turned to Jack with a hurt look. "Jack, you said! You said we were gonna see neat stuff!"
    Vicky was very good with that look. She knew it wielded almost limitless power over Jack.
    "You might be scared by some of the things in there," he told her.
    "You promised, Jack!"
    He hadn’t actually promised, not in so many words, but the implication had been there. He looked to Gia for help, but she seemed to be waiting for him to make a decision.
    "Well," he said to Gia, "I think she’ll be all right." When Gia’s eyebrows lifted again, he added, "Hey, I figure after what she went through last summer, nothing in there’s going to scare her."
    Gia sighed. "Good point."
    Jack led them to the ticket booth where he forked over a twenty.
    "One adult, two children, please."
    The guy in the booth, a beefy type sporting a straw boater, looked around.
    "I see two adults and one kid."
    "Yeah, but I’m a kid at heart."
    "Funny."
    With no hint of a smile, Mr. Ticket slid two adults and one child plus change across the tray.
    Inside, the show seemed pretty shabby and Jack wondered if they’d been had. Everything looked so worn, from the signs above the booths to the poles supporting the canvas. Glance up and it was immediately apparent from the sunlight leaking through the canvas that the Oddity Emporium was in dire need of new tents. He wondered what they did when it rained. Thunderstorms were predicted for later. Jack was glad they’d be out of here and on their way back home long before.
    As they strolled along, Jack tried to classify the Ozymandias Prather Oddity Emporium. Yeah, a freak show in some ways, but in many ways not.
    First off, Jack had never seen freaks like some of these. Sure, they had the World’s Fattest Man, a giant billed as the World’s Tallest Man, two sisters with undersized heads who sang in piercing falsetto harmony—nothing so special about them.
    Then they came to the others.
    By definition freaks were supposed to be strange, but these folk went beyond strange into the positively alien. The Alligator Boy, the Bird Man with flapping feathered wings . . .
    "Did you see the Snake Man back there?" Gia whispered as they trailed behind the utterly enthralled Vicky.
    Jack nodded. These "freaks" were so alien they couldn’t be real human beings.
    "Got to be a fake," he said. "Make up and prosthetics."
    "That’s what I thought, but I couldn’t see where the real him ended and the fake began. And did you see the way he used