F. Paul Wilson - Quick Fixes - Tales of Repairman Jack

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, grabbed the shaft and tossed it into the pines. Jack was left flat on his back with a slavering, three hundred pound inhuman killing machine towering over him. He tried to roll to his feet but the rakosh caught him with its foot and pinned him to the sand. Jack struggled to slip free but Scar lip increased the pressure until Jack thought his ribs would cave in. He popped the Semmerling into is hand – useless, but all he had left. And no way was he going out with a fully loaded pistol. As he stopped struggling and readied to fire, the pressure from the foot eased. He lay still and it let up completely, although the foot remained on his chest.

Jack looked up at Scar lip and met the creature’s yellow eyes. It gave one more thrust against his chest with its foot, then backed off a couple of steps.

Slowly, hesitantly, Jack sat up. Was this some sort of game?

But rakoshi didn’t play games. They killed and ate and killed again.

Scar lip backed off another step and pointed down the trail Jack had come.

No. This couldn’t be. It was letting him go. Why? Because Jack had stopped Bondy from tormenting it? Not possible. Rakoshi knew nothing about fair play, about debts or gratitude. Those were human emotions and –

Then Jack remembered that Scar lip was part human. Kusum had been its father. It carried some of Kusum in it.

Jack got to his feet and edged toward the trail, always keeping his face toward the rakosh, unable to quite believe this, afraid that if he turned his back on the creature it would strike. Much as he hated to leave the rakosh alive and free here in the wild, he didn’t see that he had much choice. He’d been beaten. The foot on the chest had signaled that. He had no weapons left, and he was certainly no match one on one.

So it was time to go. He took to the trail. One last look over his shoulder before the pines and brush obscured the clearing showed the rakosh standing alone on the sand, surveying its new domain.

*

Jack got lost on the way out. The trail forked here and there and he couldn’t be sure of the sun’s position through the cloud cover. His release by Scar lip had left him bewildered and a little dazed, neither of which had helped his concentration. But the extra hour of walking gave him time to think about his next move. He felt an obligation to let people know that there was something very dangerous prowling the Pine Barrens. He couldn’t go public with the story, and who’d believe him anyway?

He heard voices up ahead and hurried toward them. The brush opened up and he found himself facing a worn two lane blacktop. A couple of Jeep Cherokees were parked on the shoulder. Four men, thirty to forty in age, were busily loading their shotguns, slipping into their day glo orange vests. Their equipment was expensive, top of the line. Their weapons were Remingtons and Berettas. Gentlemen sportsmen, out for the kill.

Jack asked which way to the Parkway and they pointed off to the left. A guy with a dainty goatee gave him a disdainful up and down.

“You could get killed walking through the woods like that, my friend,” he said. “It’s deer season. Someone might pop you if you aren’t wearing colors.”

“I’ll be sticking to the road from here on,” Jack said. He hesitated. He felt he owed these guys a warning. “Maybe you fellows ought to think twice about going in there today.”

“Shit,” said a skinny one with glasses. “You’re not one of those animal rights creeps are you?”

The air suddenly bristled with hostility.

“I’m not any kind of creep, pal ,” Jack said through his teeth and took faint satisfaction in seeing the skinny guy step back and tighten his grip on his shotgun. “I’m just telling you that there’s something real mean in there.”

“Like what?” said the goatee, grinning. “The Jersey Devil?”

“No. But it’s not some defenseless herbivore that’s going to lay down and die when you empty a couple of shells at it. You’re not the top of the food chain in there, guys.”

“We can handle it,” said the skinny one.

“Really?” Jack said. “When did you ever hunt something that posed the slightest threat to you? I’m warning you, there’s something in there that fights back and I doubt any of your type can handle that.”

“What’s this?” said the third hunter. “A new tactic? Scare us off with spook stories? It won’t work.”

The fourth hunter hefted a shiny new Remington over under.

“The Jersey Devil! I want one! Wouldn’t that be some head to hang over the fireplace?”

As they laughed and slapped each other high fives, Jack shrugged and walked away. He’d tried.

Hunting season. He had to smile. Scar lip’s presence in the Pine Barrens gave the term a new twist. He wondered how these mighty hunters would react when they learned that the season was open on them .

And he wondered if there was any truth to those old tales of the Jersey Devil. Probably hadn’t been a real Jersey Devil before. But there was now.

introduction to “Home Repairs”

Richard Chizmar had asked me for a crime story for an anthology he was editing called Cold Blood . So in May of 1990, a few weeks after finishing “The Last Rakosh,” I began work on a Jack story with the working title of "Domestic Problem." I ended up calling it…

Home Repairs

The developer didn’t look like Donald Trump.

He was older, for one thing – mid fifties, at least – and fat and balding to boot. And nowhere near as rich. One of the biggest land developers on Long Island, as he was overly fond of saying. Rich, but not Trump rich.

And he was sweating. Jack wondered if Donald Trump sweated. The Donald might perspire, but Jack couldn’t imagine him sweating.

This guy’s name was Oscar Schaffer and he was upset about the meeting place.

“I expected we’d hold this conversation in a more private venue,” he said

Jack watched him pull a white handkerchief from his pocket and blot the moisture from a forehead that went on almost forever. Supposedly Schaffer had started out as a construction worker who’d got into contracting and then had gone on to make a mint in custom homes. Despite occasional words like venue, his speech still carried echoes of the streets. He carried a handkerchief too. Jack couldn’t think of anyone he knew who carried a handkerchief – who owned a handkerchief.

“This is private,” Jack said, glancing at the empty booths and tables around them. “Julio’s isn’t a breakfast place.” Voices drifted over from the bar area on the far side of the six foot divider topped with dead plants. “Unless you drink your breakfast.”

Julio came strutting around the partition carrying a coffee pot. His short, forty year old frame was grotesquely muscled under his tight, sleeveless shirt. He was freshly shaven, his mustache trimmed to a line, drafting pencil thin, his wavy hair was slicked back. He reeked of some new brand of cologne, more cloying than usual.

Jack coughed as the little man refilled his cup and poured one for Schaffer without asking.

“God, Julio. What is that?”

“The smell? It’s brand new. Called Midnight .”

“Maybe that’s when you’re supposed to wear it.”

He grinned. “Naw. Chicks love it, man.”

Only if they’ve spent the day in a chicken coop, Jack thought but kept it to himself.

“Is that decaf?” Schaffer asked. “I only drink decaf.”

“Don’t have any,” Julio said as he finished pouring. He strutted back to the bar.