The Predator

by Christopher Golden

  “Why not?” the other merc replied, so reasonable, so personable. They had a golf date, these two assholes.

  McKenna coughed up ropey strands of blood. “You know what burns me up…” he managed. “You never even… read my file. Did you?”

  The mercs traded amused glances.

  “What makes you think that?” the gunman asked, voice thick with condescension.

  “’Cause you’re making plans for tomorrow,” McKenna said.

  The mercs laughed, thinking about their tee time.

  “Worst part,” McKenna went on, “is you making me lie to my son. I really don’t like to do that.”

  The second merc snickered. “What lie did you tell him?”

  “That I wouldn’t enjoy this,” McKenna grunted.

  His hand darted out, snatched the first guy’s forearm. Using his other hand for leverage, he twisted, put his weight behind it, and snapped the asshole’s forearm with a satisfyingly audible crack that echoed like a gunshot across the holding pen. He liberated the gun from the merc’s flopping hand and pressed it to his eye, then pulled the trigger. Muffled by eyeball and brain and skull and hair as it exited the back of the guy’s head, it didn’t sound much like a gunshot at all.

  The dead merc dropped with a thud as McKenna stood and leveled the gun at the second merc, who froze, staring at him, trying to figure out how the hell a guy who’d looked halfway dead could move so fast.

  * * *

  On the other side of the holding pen, Nebraska, his hands tied behind his back, snorted up a mouthful of blood and phlegm and spat it into the straw. His body was throbbing from the beating he’d taken, but it was all just bumps and bruises. He was pretty sure nothing was broken.

  He’d heard the helicopter taking off, and not much since. He’d been left unguarded—surely it was too much to hope that Traeger and his goons had lost interest in them and headed off to pastures new? If Nebraska were in Traeger’s position, he certainly wouldn’t be leaving any loose ends behind. The thought had barely formed in his mind when the door of the holding pen opened, framing a black-clad merc.

  Me and my big mouth.

  Then the man stumbled forward, going down on one knee. Nebraska was about to hit him with a quip—What’s this? A proposal or an execution?— when he saw that behind the merc was McKenna, looking a little worse for wear, but pointing a gun at the guy’s head.

  “Untie him,” McKenna said, nudging his prisoner with the gun.

  The merc scrambled to his feet and obeyed, making quick work of it despite his trembling hands.

  “They have Rory,” McKenna explained, then frowned as Nebraska rose to his feet with a groan. “Shit, they rough you up?”

  Nebraska rubbed his wrists, which were chafed and bleeding. “Whatever. Done worse to myself back in the day. I was the kinda drunk who thought the fastest way down a long flight of stairs was to just relax.” He nodded at the remaining merc. “What about him?”

  Three seconds later, the merc’s face had left a permanent impression in the barn’s outer wall. Streaking the wall with blood, the merc slid down to thump to the ground like a discarded laundry bag.

  Nebraska winced. “That’s what I get for asking dumb questions.”

  * * *

  When the gun barrel prodded the back of Casey’s skull, she closed her eyes tight and waited to die. Her heart beat loud in her ears and she found herself remembering the first time she’d ever looked through a decent telescope. Her pulse had quickened then, too, and her imagination had been set afire. All her hopes and ambitions had been born in that moment, and now she was going to die because of them.

  Not only that, she was going to die on her ass, wrists handcuffed to a chair. Somehow that bothered her more than the concept of death itself. If she had to die, she wanted to do it standing up.

  She felt the gun barrel twitch against her head. No bullet followed. Her guard had paused at the sound of heavy footfalls in the corridor, clumping noises approaching. They had an intruder.

  “Who goes there?” her guard demanded, his voice tight. Maybe he was wondering who to shoot first, or whether he needed her alive, so he could use her for a shield.

  The intruder poked his head around the corner, and Casey heard the thin intake of air as the guard started shitting his pants, albeit metaphorically.

  Standing there, in the shadows, massive shoulders hunched and mandibles clicking, was the Predator dog with the bolt through its skull. It was a big, dumb, snuffling, drooling brute—it was even wagging its tail, for Christ’s sake! But the guard didn’t know that the creature had been tamed by the cranial trauma that the bolt gun had inflicted.

  In fact, the guard was making little squeaking, mewling noises now, clearly unsure whether to shoot at the thing and provoke it or just stay still in the hope it would go away.

  Casey saw what the Predator dog was carrying in its mouth before the guard did—the grenade from the clearing, which the dumb monster had leaped into the ditch to fetch and had now finally brought back to continue its game. Still lashing its tail from side to side, the beast trotted happily toward her and dropped the grenade into her lap.

  She heard the guard mutter something about Jesus as she snatched up the grenade, lurched from the chair, pulled the pin with her teeth and spun toward him. The guard’s eyes went wide and he tried to take aim with his gun, but she was too close and he was too distracted, both by the grenade and the Predator dog, and he could only fumble with the barrel as she jerked her handcuffed wrist, whipping the thin wooden chair up at him. The impact caused the gun to go off, the report echoing off the walls and making the Predator dog whine. Before he could fire off another shot, Casey put the grenade down the front of the guard’s shirt and turned toward the railing of the loft, dragging the chair behind her. She knew the guard wouldn’t have time to shoot at her if he wanted to live.

  As she leaped, the chair smashed against the railing and she had a flicker of a moment to fear she’d be snagged on it. Then she plummeted to the floor of the barn, hit the ground and rolled as the chair shattered on impact beside her.

  Overhead, the loft exploded. Her ears buzzed, felt like they were stuffed with cotton. From the corner of her eye she saw another merc rushing at her and she pistoned to her feet, swinging the remains of the broken chair around on the handcuff chain in a single, swift motion. The shattered wood smashed the merc in the skull, nearly taking his face off. Blood sprayed out in an arc and spattered the ground as he fell.

  More blood showered down from above, in a cloud of dust and dry wall and straw from the explosion in the loft. Casey staggered away, her ears still ringing. As the smoke cleared, she saw the Predator dog clumping down the steps from the loft, totally unscathed. He had something else in his mandibles this time and he dropped his new toy at her feet, still interested in fetch.

  Casey had no desire to pick this new toy up, though. It was the scorched head of the guard who’d just been blown to pieces.

  Hot bile burned up the back of Casey’s throat, but she managed not to puke. As she fought the urge, her ringing ears caught the sound of muffled boot steps approaching on the double. She lifted her cuffed wrist, ready to use the remains of the chair on its chain as an improvised weapon a second time. But then she saw McKenna and Nebraska hustle around the corner, both looking like they’d just survived a gang war. They were both armed, both breathing heavily.

  “Hey,” McKenna said, almost casually. “Can I interest you in getting the fuck out of here?”

  Casey grinned, breathless. “‘Getting the fuck out of here’ is my middle name.”

  McKenna shot a sidelong glance at Nebraska. “And I thought ‘Gaylord’ was bad.”

  They started to head out, then abruptly McKenna halted, grimaced, clutched his abdomen.

  “Oh boy,” he muttered.

  Casey looked at him in concern. “What?”

  “Must be the coffee,” McKenna said apologetically. “Uh… excuse me.”

  He bolted,
disappearing around the corner, heading toward the barn’s exit door.

  Casey turned to Nebraska, bewildered. “Where’s he going?”

  Nebraska smiled and raised an eyebrow. “I think he’s about to give us a tactical advantage.”

  20

  Five minutes later McKenna was back, looking washed-out, sweaty, but no longer in gastric distress. Clearly embarrassed by what had just happened, he looked at Casey and said without preamble, “Doc, if what you’re saying is true, my son’s headed for a spaceship, and so is a ten-foot monster.”

  “Eleven,” Nebraska corrected, and shrugged. “I used to be a contractor. Got an eye for measurements.”

  McKenna scowled at the irrelevancy. Sensing his agitation, Casey laid a reassuring hand on his arm. “Hey,” she murmured. “We’ll get him back.”

  McKenna looked anguished. “He’s just a kid, he can’t—”

  “He’s not just a kid,” she interrupted firmly. “He’s a chess prodigy with an eidetic memory who decrypted Predator language. He’ll be fine.”

  McKenna nodded, though not entirely convincingly, and they went outside. Looking at the RV, McKenna knew it wasn’t going to get them anywhere—not without being picked up fast. As soon as someone bothered to check on the dead bastards back at the barn, they’d put a BOLO out on the vehicle. McKenna knew they needed new transport, and hopefully the rest of the Loonies were on to that. His main priority right now, though, was to make sure they had enough firepower to survive the mission before them.

  Together, he and Nebraska went through the RV, stuffing backpacks with as much ordnance as they could carry. A dozen ways to kill people—anyone who tried to get between McKenna and his son—went into those backpacks. Thanks to the lunatic gun seller who’d stocked up the RV in the first place, they also had earwig comms units, and McKenna grabbed them so they could all be linked up, whatever happened from here on in.

  They had just finished loading up when a new sound made them all freeze, a whirring from over the trees. Another damn helicopter. McKenna drew a gun and glanced at Nebraska.

  “Traeger coming back?” Nebraska asked.

  If it is, McKenna thought, then this time there will be a firefight. All three of them hurried out of the RV and into the soft light of daybreak. They stared into the dawn sky and McKenna’s jaw dropped.

  “Is that… pink?” Nebraska asked in a strained voice.

  It was. And what was more, it had the Victoria’s Secret logo emblazoned proudly on the side.

  “Jesus tap-dancing Christ,” McKenna said slowly.

  “That what you asked for?” Nebraska asked, as Casey laughed.

  McKenna shrugged. “It’ll do.”

  By now the chopper had descended enough that McKenna could make out Nettles in the pilot’s seat, and Coyle waving merrily at them from the side hatch. Despite himself, a grin spread across his face as he hurried toward the helicopter. He heard Nebraska whooping behind him as the rotors slowed. The tall grass in the field bent and waved, and the door popped open and now McKenna could see Baxley and Lynch in there with Nettles and Coyle. If he’d thought these bastards were crazy before they’d somehow managed to steal a Victoria’s Secret helicopter, he thought they were twice as crazy now, but he loved the hell out of them for it.

  Yes, they needed transport. But they also needed to be inconspicuous. Flying around in this thing in broad daylight was a terrible idea, but it was still better than sitting on their asses in the middle of a grassy field without any way of going after Rory.

  Carrying backpacks full of weaponry, McKenna, Casey, and Nebraska climbed into the helicopter, enduring the welcoming cheers and the cocky grins of the Loonies, and moments later they were lifting off. McKenna looked down at the RV and the field and the barn that had been the last place he’d seen Rory. He promised himself it would not be his final memory of his son.

  “Very inconspicuous,” he yelled, over the roar of the chopper.

  “We had to kill seven Victoria’s Secret models,” Coyle said proudly.

  Casey’s face went white. “Tell me you’re joking.”

  “I’m joking,” Coyle replied, horrified that she’d taken him seriously. “I’d sooner piss on the Mona Lisa.”

  Nettles throttled up and the chopper took on speed, careening across the sky. The landscape rushed past below as McKenna turned to Nettles.

  “Anything on board we can use?”

  Nettles shrugged. “We got some low-grade pyro and about three dozen promotional tote bags.”

  Nebraska held up a tube of exfoliating gel. “Yeah, Predators hate this shit.”

  Baxley edged over to McKenna. Almost matter-of-factly, as if he was asking where they were going to stop for lunch, he said, “Cap, we gonna die, you think? Just curious.”

  Hearing him, Nettles chipped in from the pilot’s seat. “Yeah, we’re dealing with a hybrid…”

  “That thing,” Coyle called. “It’s a fucking survival machine.”

  Despite their casual bravado, McKenna could tell that the men were jittery, nervous, that they needed a pep talk. Looking at Baxley, but addressing them all, he said, “You. Yesterday you were on a prison bus, barking to yourself. Now you got a gun in your hand. Who’s the fucking survivor? Huh?”

  Baxley nodded enthusiastically: Hell, yeah.

  Glancing at Nebraska, McKenna continued, “We put bullets in our head and walk to the fucking hospital. That’s who we are.”

  Nebraska grinned.

  “So, when it comes to standing on the right side of the dirt?” Now McKenna looked at each of them in turn. “That motherfucker ain’t got shit on us.”

  The Loonies whooped, punched the air. When the sound had died down, McKenna turned back to Baxley.

  “And yes,” he said decisively. “We may die.”

  The men laughed and cheered all over again. Baxley grinned. “Thanks. Just checking.”

  “Nettles,” McKenna said. “We got a twenty?”

  “I can follow their chopper,” Nettles replied. “I just need to lock in on its frequency.”

  Casey’s brow furrowed. McKenna followed her gaze as she leaned over to look out the window.

  “Or,” she said, “we can just follow that thing.”

  Far below the chopper, they could all see the Predator dog hauling ass across country roads and farmland.

  * * *

  The forest pressed in on all sides. The only light came from the headlamps of the military jeep, which seemed to give the looming vegetation a jolting, shadowy life as the vehicle lurched in and out of ruts in the makeshift road.

  Rory had been dozing, but now he was awake. Sitting in the back of the jeep, he alternated his gaze between the back of Traeger’s head, poking above the seat in front, and the chiaroscuro of white, pitted tree trunks and flat, pale, spade-shaped leaves embedded within a blackness so profound it was like a vacuum.

  Beside Rory sat Sapir, Traeger’s aide, who hadn’t acknowledged him once throughout the entire day-long journey. Rory wondered where they were, and where they were going, but he didn’t ask—he wasn’t that sort of kid. He shifted his position slightly when the jeep slowed, so he could peer between the two front seats.

  He saw temporary floodlights on metal tripods illuminating a row of sawhorses, beyond which a couple of lowboy tractor trailers were parked nose to tail at the side of the road. The temporary barricade was guarded by soldiers in black, like the ones at the barn. Rory counted four of them, their weapons leveled. A fifth approached them. Traeger wound down his window and brandished his ID.

  “You mind telling the Wild Bunch to chill out?” he barked.

  Rory’s mom had once referred to his dad as an alpha male, and so Rory had read up about them. He had learned enough to know that Traeger was one too—or at least, that he tried to be. Rory wasn’t sure, though, whether it was the CIA man himself or just his job that made the soldier cower a little, and nod, and scurry away to obey his superior’s orders.

  After a moment,
the sawhorses were pulled aside and the jeep drove through, and at a command from Traeger pulled into the side of the dirt road, just in front of the tractor trailers.

  Traeger got out and motioned that Rory should do so too. The vegetation was pressing so close to the door on Rory’s side, though, that he had to wait until Sapir had vacated the jeep before he could scramble across the seat and exit on the same side.

  The air smelled green and hot and damp. Rory saw Sapir wipe sweat from his brow with a handkerchief that he produced from his pocket. Traeger, on the other hand, looked as cool as ever. He marched off, indicating that they should follow him.

  Rory was surprised when they left the road and plunged into the jungle. A route had been marked with arc lamps, but it was still a little tricky picking their way down the side of a ravine thick with undergrowth and dotted with dark rocks that pushed up out of the carpet of verdant green like the humped backs of whales.

  Soon they came to an area where the ground was a sea of black mud, which formed a track as wide as a highway through the surrounding vegetation. There was a strange smell, like the ghost of an oil drum fire, and although it was hard to tell in the dark, Rory thought the vegetation on either side of them looked scorched, blackened. He imagined men coming through here armed with flamethrowers, using fire to blast a route through the jungle. But when, after another five minutes of walking, they came to a clearing, surrounded by temporary stadium lights, he saw that what had burned its way through the jungle was nothing so mundane as a few flamethrowers.

  Immediately he thought of the map he had drawn in the warmth and safety of his basement den at home, and knew exactly where he was. He was at the crash site of the ship that the Predator—the one that had been killed by the Upgrade—had used to reach Earth.

  Even though the ship was broken and spattered with charred, pulped jungle debris, it was still a thing of beauty. Rory gazed up at it in awe, admiring its sleek lines, its economical, streamlined shape.

  They had arrived here just in time. A squad of soldiers was unrolling a huge tarpaulin, and even as Rory watched they began to haul it over the ship, presumably to conceal it from potential rubberneckers who might be peering down from passing aircraft.