Wilson, Paul - The Tomb (Repairman Jack)

As the struggles of the creatures brought groups of them near, Jack began backing down the passageway to the forward hold. A trio of rakoshi, locked in combat, black blood gushing from their wounds, blundered into the passage. Jack sprayed them with the flamethrower, sending them reeling away, then turned and ran.

Before entering the forward hold, he directed a tight stream of flaming napalm ahead of him—first high to drive away any rakoshi lurking outside the end of the passage, then low along the floor to clear the small ones from his path. Putting his head down he charged through the hold along the flaming strip, feeling like a jet cruising along an illuminated runway. At its end he leaped up on the platform and stabbed the Up button.

As the elevator began to rise, Jack tried to put Vicky down on the planking but she wouldn't let go. Her hands were locked onto the fabric of his shirt in a death grip. He was weak and exhausted, but he’d carry her the rest of the way if that was what she needed.

With his free hand he reached into the crate and armed and set the rest of the bombs for 3:45—less than twenty minutes away.

Rakoshi began to pour into the forward hold through both the port and starboard entries. When they saw the platform rising, they charged it.

"They're coming for me, Jack!" Vicky screamed. "Don't let them get me!"

"Everything's okay, Vicks," he said as soothingly as he could.

He sent out a fiery stream that caught a dozen of the creatures in the front rank, then he kept the rest of them at bay with well-placed bursts of flame.

When the elevator platform was finally out of range of a rakosh's leap, Jack allowed himself to relax. He dropped to his knees and waited for the platform to reach the top.

Suddenly a rakosh broke free from the crowd and hurtled forward. Startled, Jack rose and pointed the discharge tube in its direction.

"That's the one that brought me here!" Vicky cried.

Jack recognized the rakosh: Scar-lip, making a last ditch effort to get at Vicky.

Jack's finger tightened on the trigger, then he saw that the creature was going to fall short. Its talons narrowly missed the platform but must have caught onto the undercarriage, for the elevator lurched and screeched on its tracks, then continued to rise.

Jack didn't know if the rakosh was clinging to the undercarriage or whether it had fallen off into the elevator well below. Wasn't about to peer over the edge to find out—might lose his face if the rakosh was hanging there.

He carried Vicky to the rear corner of the platform and waited there with the discharge tube trained on the edge of the platform. If the rakosh showed its face he'd burn its head off.

But it didn't appear. And when the elevator stopped at the top of its track, Jack pulled Vicky's hands free to allow her to go up the ladder ahead of him. As they separated, something fell out of the folds of her damp nightgown.

Kusum's necklace.

"Here, Vicks," he said, reaching to clasp it around her neck. "Wear this. It'll—"

"No!" she cried in a shrill voice, pushing his hands away. "I don't like it."

"Please, Vicks. Look—I'm wearing one."

“ No!”

She started up the ladder. Jack stuffed the necklace into his pocket and watched her go, continually glancing toward the edge of the platform. The poor kid was frightened of everything now—almost as frightened of the necklace as the rakoshi. He wondered if she'd ever get over this.

Jack waited until Vicky had climbed through the little entry hatch, then he followed, keeping his eyes on the edge of the platform until he reached the top of the ladder. Quickly, almost frantically, he squeezed through into the salty night air.

Vicky grabbed his hand. "Where do we go now, Jack? I can't swim!"

"You don't have to, Vicks," he whispered. Why am I whispering? "I brought us a boat."

He led her by the hand along the starboard gunwale to the gangway. When she saw the rubber raft below, she needed no further guidance—she let go of his hand and hurried down the steps.

Jack glanced back over the deck and froze. He’d caught a blur of movement out of the corner of his eye—a shadow had moved near the kingpost standing between the two holds. Or had it? His nerves were frayed to the breaking point. He was ready to see a rakosh in every shadow.

He followed Vicky down the steps. When he reached bottom he turned and sprayed the top half of the gangway with flame, then arched the stream over the gunwale onto the deck. He kept the flame flowing, swinging it back and forth until the discharge tube coughed and jerked in his hands. The flame sputtered and died. Only carbon dioxide hissed through the tube. No more napalm.

He loosened the harness, a job he’d begun in the aft hold, and shrugged off the tanks and their appendages, dropping them on the last step of the burning gangway. Better to let it go up with the ship than be found floating in the bay. Then he untied the nylon hawser and pushed off.

Made it!

A wonderful feeling—he and Vicky were alive and off the freighter. Only moments ago he’d been ready to give up hope.

But they weren't safe yet. They had to be far from the ship, preferably on shore, when those bombs went off.

Jack grabbed the oars and began to row, watching the freighter recede into the dark. Manhattan waited behind him, drawing nearer with every stroke. Gia and Abe wouldn’t be visible for a while yet. Vicky crouched in the stern of the raft, her head swiveling between the freighter and land. He couldn’t wait to reunite her with Gia.

Jack rowed harder. The effort caused him pain, but surprisingly little. He should have been in agony from the deep wound behind his left shoulder, from the innumerable lacerations all over his body, and from the pockets where the teeth of the savage little rakoshi had torn away the skin. He felt weak from fatigue and blood loss, but he should have lost more—he should have been in near shock. The necklace truly seemed to have healing powers.

But could it really keep you young? And let you grow old if it were removed? That could be why Kolabati had refused to lend it to him when they were trapped in the pilot's cabin. Could Kolabati be slowly turning into an old hag back in his apartment right now? He remembered how Ron Daniels, the mugger, had sworn he hadn't rolled an old lady the night before. Perhaps that explained much of Kolabati's passion for him: It wasn't her grandmother's necklace he’d returned—it was her own.

He took a hand off an oar to reach up and touch the necklace. It might not be a bad thing to keep around. You never knew when you might—

A splash over by the freighter.

"What was that?" Jack asked Vicky. "Did you see anything?”

He could see her shake her head in the darkness. "Maybe it was a fish."

"Maybe."

Jack didn't know of any fish in Upper New York Bay big enough to make a splash like that. Maybe the flamethrower had fallen off the gangway. That would explain the splash nicely. But try as he might, Jack could not entirely buy that.

A cold clump of dread sprang up between his shoulders and began to spread.

He rowed even harder.

37

Gia couldn't keep her hands still. They seemed to move of their own accord, clasping together and unclasping, clenching and unclenching, running over her face, hugging her, climbing in and out of her pockets. She was certain she’d go stark raving mad if something didn't happen soon. Jack had been gone forever. How long did they expect her to stand around and do nothing while Vicky was missing?

He pacing had worn a path in the sand along the bulkhead; now she simply stood and stared out at the freighter. It had been a shadow all along, but a few moments ago it began to burn—at least part of it. A line of flame had zigzagged along the hull from the deck level almost down to the water. Abe had said it looked like Jack's flamethrower at work, but he didn't know what he was up to. Through the binoculars it looked like a burning gangway and the best he could guess was that Jack was, in effect, burning a bridge behind him.