The Predator

by Christopher Golden

  Casey shrugged apologetically. “I’m just telling you what’s in the file.”

  The guy with the tattooed arms put a hand on McKenna’s shoulder and fixed Casey with his own imposing glare. “How about you tell us what you were doing at a secret base full of private soldiers? Mercs,” he said accusingly.

  “It was a CIA cover,” said Casey.

  Speaking for the first time since she had revealed to him what was in his file, McKenna said in a strangled voice, “It said ‘flaky’?”

  Casey glanced at him, but continued with her explanation. “I’m an evolutionary biologist. I was on call in a case of… contact.”

  McKenna paced up and down to release the tension inside him while the guys all took turns staring at each other, weighing the meaning of her words. Finally, McKenna halted, exhaling raggedly. They were all dancing around the truth, her unsure what they knew, them treating her the same way. But out there was an alien psychopath who’d murdered McKenna’s men and a whole shit-ton of Traeger’s people as well. There were people who’d known this secret for what seemed to be a long time, and who were clearly prepared to kill all of them to make sure it stayed a secret.

  If Casey was in this with them now, there was no more room for secrecy. She could see that McKenna felt the same way. He was studying her face, assessing her. She wondered whether she ought to say it out loud—that she was prepared to go out on a limb and trust them. That if they wanted to stay alive they had to trust one another.

  Before she could, McKenna spoke the words that were in her mind. “Look. If we want to keep breathing, we’ve gotta find this thing. Expose it. We all agreed?”

  A look went around the motel room, a bonding moment. They were all exiles, the perfect scapegoats for whatever the government and their black box UFO research group decided to pin on them. Everyone nodded. They were all in.

  “Good,” McKenna said, turning to Casey. “First things first. What is it?”

  “The Predator? Well… it has human DNA, for one thing.”

  “What the fuck?” said a guy with a brooding expression, who so far hadn’t spoken. “Human—”

  “That’s not all,” Casey went on. “I was there when it escaped. I think it was looking for something.”

  She saw the blood drain from McKenna’s face.

  “Its equipment,” he muttered.

  Suddenly, all eyes were on him. “I took it so I’d have evidence. Oh, shit…” All at once he looked antsy, as though his skin was crawling with the need to move. “I think I know where it’s going.”

  He glanced at the tattooed guy, who nodded and went to the door. By the time he had opened it, McKenna had fallen in behind him. Casey could see that right outside the room, a small, tough-looking guy had set up a poker game with a bunch of bikers.

  “How good’s your hand?” tattooed guy asked.

  The small guy glanced around at his buddies. “It’s poker. I don’t think I’m supposed to say… but good, yeah.”

  “We got Indian Scout bikes,” tattooed guy said, then pointed to the Winnebago. “We want that RV.”

  “And some guns,” McKenna prompted.

  “Hmm? Oh…” Tattooed guy raised his voice. “And some guns,” he echoed.

  14

  Rory liked candy, of course—mostly things made of chocolate. People who gave candy corn or jawbreakers simply didn’t understand the allure of trick or treat, but they weren’t the worst offenders. Folks who took it upon themselves to issue a silent condemnation of everything good about Halloween—the Stillsons, for instance, who gave out toothbrushes last year and Halloween-themed pencils the year before—were the enemy of all that was good and joyful about childhood. Rory’s neuro-diversity might make it hard for him to pick up social cues, but wandering around in spooky costumes and getting free candy had never been something he had to struggle to understand.

  There were some real assholes in the neighborhood, shitheads like Tom Kelly and Dom Cortez, who would vandalize an old woman’s electric scooter if she’d just sit still long enough. Why those pricks hadn’t ever hit the Stillsons’ house with a hundred dozen eggs some Halloween night was a mystery Rory didn’t think anyone would ever solve.

  Not that he supported vandalism. But still… toothbrushes? For trick or treat?

  He’d gone upstairs to use the bathroom, had a bowl of spaghetti his mother had foisted on him, and then retreated to the basement again. Now he sat staring at the shoddy Frankenstein mask his mom had brought home and tried to decide what to do. He loved her so much and he knew that she loved him and just wanted what was best for him, but the truth was that she didn’t always know what was best—and neither did Rory. They were both learning, and that always made the decisions and the conversations difficult.

  Trick or treat meant chocolate, yes. But what he loved about it most was the anonymity. He could go from house to house and mostly manage to avoid being recognized. The social encounters of the evening were so deeply ritualized that nobody expected any further interaction beyond the ringing of the doorbell, the chorusing of “trick or treat,” and the grateful acceptance of proffered candy. Rory understood this exchange. It didn’t require him to parse words, to search for hidden meanings, to gauge someone’s tone of voice—all strategies his therapist had taught him that took enormous effort and focus.

  Halloween meant he could be anything or anyone, that people would see only the mask. As much as he struggled with the word normal, and knew that being on the spectrum was not at all unusual, every year he went out trick-or-treating and felt like he’d been suffocating all year and he’d finally learned how to breathe properly.

  And yet… Halloween also made him sad. That was the awful part, the double-edged sword of it all. While he was out collecting candy, out among the people who had no diversity in their neuro and didn’t embrace it in others, he felt good. Happy. But at some point, either when he’d arrive back home or shortly before, he would begin to think about the mask and be forced to acknowledge that people were treating him normally because they didn’t know it was Rory McKenna behind that mask. They hadn’t had a conversation with him, only engaged in the ritual. The mask made them more comfortable than Rory himself would have, because they didn’t have to make an effort with the mask.

  He pondered all of this as he picked up the Frankenstein’s monster mask and poked his finger through the eyeholes. At the same time, he wondered how many people would be giving away Hershey chocolate. Hershey chocolate and Reese’s Cups were his favorites. He liked the neighbors who allowed him to choose from their candy bowl instead of choosing for him. Usually he came home with about forty percent candy he would eat, and his mother would complain for a week about her lack of self-control as she ate the other sixty percent.

  The thought made him smile. Mom liked Baby Ruths the best, which was funny, because from his observations in overhearing the conversations of his classmates and other kids in the neighborhood, nobody liked Baby Ruths the best aside from Emily McKenna.

  Amid these thoughts, Rory paused, a frown creasing his forehead. He turned to glance at the small box window, high up on the basement wall. A scratching at the window made him cock his head. He heard a snuffling noise, like a big dog might be right outside, sniffing and scraping at the ground. He remembered the pit bull from earlier and wondered if it might be the same dog.

  The sound moved off and after a few seconds, he couldn’t hear it anymore.

  Rory turned his attention back to the Frankenstein mask. Unimpressed, he tossed it onto the table. After all, it wasn’t the only mask he’d gotten that day.

  * * *

  Emily stood at the sink with the water running. The bowl from Rory’s pasta was in her hand, but her mind had wandered a moment, as it often did. He seemed happy tonight—the prospect of chocolate usually accomplished that—but she always felt nervous about him trick-or-treating without her. Emily knew there were kids at school and in the neighborhood who were less than kind to Rory. There had been ins
tances of outright bullying. He tried to put on a brave face, or hide the hurt from her, but even with the difficulty that sometimes came with deciphering his feelings, a mother knew. But Rory had a lot of heart and no one could deny he was brilliant—he would have to make his way in the world without his mother around. He had to learn to negotiate the social landscape in a way he could manage for himself, for a lifetime.

  She sighed and rinsed the red sauce out of his bowl.

  A creak on the floor behind her nearly made her drop the bowl, and she swung round. Had she heard the back door click shut? Placing the clean bowl in the drainer by the sink, she grabbed a dish towel and started for the kitchen door, wondering if Rory had gone outside.

  The doorbell rang. She frowned—it must be that time already, but it felt to her as if the kids showed up earlier and earlier every year. She tossed the dishtowel onto the counter. She grabbed the bowl of candy as she made her way through the foyer to open the front door.

  The men on her front steps weren’t there for candy.

  In the center, there stood a handsome guy in a dark suit. He flashed a brilliant smile at the same time as he brandished an ID badge. Armed men flanked him on both sides and Emily wondered how many more there might be, out there in the dark on a street where hundreds of kids were about to go door-to-door.

  “Mrs. McKenna?” the suit said. “Can we have a word?”

  She squinted at his badge. Last name TRAEGER.

  “Let me guess,” she sighed. “He’s done something crazy.”

  That smile again. “Why would you say that?”

  Emily silently cursed her husband—ex-husband— whatever he was to her now. “Because the look on your face says he’s not dead, and yet here you fucking are.”

  Agent Traeger’s gaze shifted past her. Emily glanced over her shoulder and saw that he was eyeing Quinn’s gun case.

  “Those are his,” she explained. “He’s a hunter.”

  Traeger nodded sagely. “Shot a buck when I was six.”

  Good for you, Emily wanted to say. Get off my stoop.

  Instead, she mirrored his sage nod. “Our son never took to it. He’s more a ‘rescue bugs’ guy. He actually burns ants he thinks might hurt other ants. And sports… forget it.” She frowned as a memory touched her. “His dad did teach him to slide, though.”

  “Slide?”

  “Baseball,” Emily explained. “Didn’t go well.”

  “Your son. Where is he?” Traeger asked.

  “Around here somewhere.” She narrowed her eyes. “Why?”

  “Mind if we speak with him?”

  Emily shifted her body slightly, almost unconsciously. Smiling secret agent man and a bunch of black-clad fuckers with guns wanted to talk to her boy? Instinct kicked in, and she couldn’t help the way every muscle twitched, wanting to put herself between these guns and her son.

  “Why the hell would you want to do that?”

  Traeger arched a questioning eyebrow. “Just being thorough, ma’am.”

  Emily inhaled slowly, running scenarios through her head. These guys weren’t here because Quinn McKenna had won a medal. They were here because he’d done something he shouldn’t have done, and it wasn’t the first time. What worried her was the biggest question of all—if they were here looking for him, that meant the army didn’t know the whereabouts of one of its Rangers, so where the hell had Quinn gone? In some ways, that question worried her more than what he might have done.

  “Fine,” she said, then pointed at the armed men behind Traeger. “But they stay out here.”

  “Agreed,” Traeger said, stepping over her threshold.

  Emily let him pass, then paused to take in the expressionless, black-clad men on her stoop. “It’s Halloween, boys.” She handed the candy bowl to the soldier nearest her. “If kids show up at my door and you scare the shit out of them, at least give them some candy while you’re at it.”

  The soldier seemed about to argue. One of the others gave her a “Yes, ma’am,” and gestured for the rest to spread out. The one with the candy seemed to sigh and resign himself to trick or treat duty. He slung his gun across his back.

  Satisfied for the moment, thinking the kids would assume the soldier was in costume, Emily led Traeger through the kitchen and down into the basement.

  “Rory, honey?” she said as she descended the steps.

  Silence from the basement. She heard his absence, felt it, even before she reached the bottom step and glanced around. Behind her, Traeger scanned the basement and then looked back up the steps.

  “That’s weird,” Emily said, but already her mind was going back to the moment while she was washing the dishes, right before Traeger had rung her doorbell. The floor had creaked. The back door had clicked. In the moment, she had thought she might be imagining it. Now… “If he’s not in his room—and he’s not—he’s always here. He said he was going trick-or-treating, but…”

  Her words trailed off as she caught sight of the Frankenstein mask. And then the pirate mask. Both costumes she’d bought him were here, scattered on his worktable and laid across a chair. Her frown deepened.

  If Rory had gone trick-or-treating, why would he leave his costume behind?

  * * *

  McKenna felt like a fool hiding in the bushes outside his own damn house, but he knew Emily and Rory might be in danger and he wanted to make certain he didn’t make it worse. He and the Loonies were gathered in the bushes across the street, with a parabolic microphone that had been with all the weapons in the gun dealer’s RV. They’d set up surveillance only twenty minutes before Traeger had rolled in with his team, and now they sat and listened to every word Traeger and Emily said.

  Beside him, Nebraska held the parabolic mic and glanced at him. “You think this guy’s low enough to hurt your family?”

  “Under the right circumstances,” McKenna said, “I think so, yeah. I don’t trust that smile of his. He thinks he’s charming; I think he’s a sociopath. But if the Predator shows up, I don’t mind Traeger and his men providing some cover—”

  “You mean cannon fodder,” Lynch interrupted.

  “If they buy me time to get Emily and Rory somewhere safe, I’ll be glad they’re here,” McKenna said.

  “You really think the Predator’s showing up here?” Nebraska asked.

  McKenna thought about the jungle, and about the gauntlet and helmet. He’d hoped they would be at the post office, but a small fear had niggled at the back of his mind—the fear that he hadn’t paid for his post office box, and when he’d checked on it and learned the truth, confirmed that the package had been taken here…

  “I do, yeah.”

  Nebraska grinned. “Good. Saves us the trouble of hunting it down.”

  * * *

  Rory had never owned anything this cool in his entire life. He knew he shouldn’t have taken it, knew that his father probably shouldn’t have taken it from wherever he’d gotten it. He was smart enough to know an Army Ranger didn’t pack something like this up in a tiny Mexican town and ship it to his private post office box without risking some serious trouble. Which meant that as soon as his father found out it was in Rory’s possession… it would no longer be in Rory’s possession. But while it was, the helmet was so damn cool.

  The gauntlet remained on his wrist. The helmet was too big and bobbled as he walked, and he stumbled over a curb here and there and trampled Mrs. Markowitz’s bushes, but he could not make himself care. He was surrounded by kids in costumes and their parents, but he felt as if he was isolated—not the way he usually felt alone, but in a good way. Crazy good.

  The helmet had an interior display. The eyepieces showed human heat signatures in every direction. The tech left Rory almost breathless, giddy with excitement. He knew he might never get to wear it again, and certainly not with so many people around—it’d look weird on any other night of the year. But tonight, everyone looked weird. The DiMarinos had set up their usual haunted house in the garage. The Khans had the inflatable scr
een out front showing It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown on a loop. Steve Bronson always set up a scarecrow at the end of the driveway, tied to the lamppost, with a speaker inside so that he could talk to the trick-or-treaters in a spooky voice and make it seem like the scarecrow was alive. Autumn leaves skittered along the street. Kids screamed happily. At Cheryl Gorman’s house, her drunken boyfriend had a toy chainsaw that made very real-sounding noises, and he chased teenagers down the street in a Leatherface mask. Cheryl and her boyfriend were alcoholics, but on Halloween, everyone pretended to ignore that sorry fact.

  Rory loved it all.

  It felt to him as if he was seeing his entire neighborhood for the very first time.

  Like an alien, just setting foot on Earth.

  * * *

  Casey sat inside the RV with the guy they called Nettles— the one who had made her the foil unicorn, which she had now tucked into her pack, because she found it kind of cute. She wasn’t sure if Nettles was his real name, or a nickname because he got under everyone’s skin. She studied his tattoos while he blathered on, but after a minute or two she pulled her attention back to the task at hand—trying to figure out what the federal government had up their sneaky, stupid sleeve.

  She peered into the portable microscope, which had been set up on the RV’s dinette table. The vial she’d stolen from Stargazer sat on the counter beside her. She had some of the liquid from it on a slide. The microscope wasn’t of the quality she would have preferred, but it was all she had to work with. Under the circumstances, she was glad to have it.

  Adjusting the focus, she gazed at the smear of liquid, then pulled back from the microscope and blinked, incredulous. “Jesus. It’s like a… supermatrix of trihydroxy and amino acids.”

  Nettles perked up expectantly. “Does that mean we smoke it or snort it?”

  Casey glanced at the vial, talking to herself as much as to Nettles. “If I’m right… and I hope I’m not… it means they’re trying to upgrade themselves.”

  Holy shit. She could barely believe she’d just uttered those words. It spooked her badly. Shaken, trying to tell herself she must be wrong but knowing she wasn’t, she picked up the two-way and keyed it.