Repairman Jack [03]-Conspiracies by F. Paul Wilson Read Free Book Online Page A

abomination.
    I'm in the dark up here, he tells himself, forcing calm. I'm on the far side of this steel mesh. If I don't breathe, don't blink, it won't see me. It'll move on.
    Finally, it happens, just as he hoped. The creature lowers its head and looks around, indecisive. It turns, but as it starts to move away, Jack sees something falling through the mesh of his perch. Something small ... globular ... red.
    A drop of his blood.
    He watches in horror as the ruby bead drifts like a snowflake toward the rakosh's head, splatters against its snout. He cannot move as a dark tongue snakes from a lipless mouth and licks the smear, leaving no trace.
    What happens next is blurred: a hiss, the flash of bared teeth, a three-taloned hand thrusting up, bursting through the steel mesh as if it were window screen, grabbing Jack's bloody hand and yanking it down through the opening. Jack cries out in terror and pain as his right shoulder slams against the mesh. He tries to wrench his hand free but the rakosh's grip is like a steel band.
    And then he feels something writhe against his hand, something cool and wet, with the texture of raw liver.
    Jack looks down and sees the rakosh licking the blood off his hand. Flooded with revulsion, he tries to grab the slimy tongue, to rip the damn thing out of the creature's head, but it's too slippery.
    And then he sees other forms emerging from the shadows, converging from both ends of the catwalk below. More rakoshi. They begin to fight over his hand, baring their fangs and snapping at each other. The tugging on his arm grows increasingly fierce until Jack begins to fear they'll rip his arm out of its socket.
    Then one of the creatures rears up and bites into Jack's forearm. He screams with the blinding agony of razor teeth slicing through skin and muscle, crunching through bone, and then it's gone—the lower half of his forearm, his hand, his wrist, all gone—and the rakoshi are lifting their heads and opening their cavernous maws to lap the crimson rain spewing from the stump.
    Helpless, his consciousness fading, Jack watches his life draining away ...
    No!"
    Jack sat up in bed, gripping his right arm. He fumbled for the switch on the bedside lamp and turned it. Relief washed through him as he checked his hand—still there, with all five fingers.
    And the fingertips—no bleeding. Same with the sheets—no bloodstains.
    He flopped back, gasping. God, what a nightmare. So real. He hadn't dreamed about those demons since ... must have been sometime late last year that he'd stopped having rakoshi-mares. What had brought one on tonight? Melanie's painting had been in the dream. Had that triggered it? Why? How? He didn't remember seeing anything in it to remind him of those creatures.
    He rolled out of bed and padded to the front room. Everything was as he'd left it. He took some comfort from the familiarity of the crowded shelves, but he knew he wasn't going to have an easy time getting back to sleep.
    He held up his hand and wiggled the fingers, just to be sure. He could almost feel a phantom ache in the bones above the wrist where they'd been bitten off in the dream. That shouldn't be. And then he remembered other mangled limbs, plastic limbs—the left arms of little Melanie's Ehler's dolls. Had seeing them been the trigger for losing his hand in the dream?
    Sure. Jack could buy that. But why the rakoshi? Why should they return to haunt him now?
    He headed for the kitchen. He needed a beer.

WEDNESDAY

1

    Still frazzled from last night's dream and his fragmented sleep, Jack struggled out of bed late and checked his voice mail while he nuked a pint of water for coffee. He found two messages waiting: the first was from his father. He groaned when he heard it: "Jack? Jack? Are you there? You're never home. This is Dad. Please give me a call back. I want to discuss some travel plans."
    Travel plans ... he knew what that was about. Last fall Jack had promised to visit his father in Florida. Here it was