PREDATOR IF IT BLEEDS

by Bryan Thomas Schmidt

  With a howl of pure animal joy, the monster came at him, driving in toward Fix’s left side, confident that its opponent was crippled.

  Fix knew that there was a time for playing the game Chiba wanted him to play, and there was a time to fight for his life. For his kids.

  He accepted the rush and then shifted left, pivoting to kick at the monster’s knee, but then launching a series of blows with his right. With his dominant, much faster right. He’d underused it all through the fight, training the monster to regard him as a left-dominant counter-fighter. Schooling it for this moment.

  The creature was tough but it was also strangely naïve. It bought the fiction and had built its strategy around it. And now Fix made him pay for that lack of perception.

  As the Nightmare Kid slashed, Fix leaned out of the strike path and hammered its forearm with two punishing blows to the point where the muscles stretched thinnest behind the wrist. Then he stamped on its foot, grinding hard to break bones, then he headbutted it, accepting a deep cut on his own forehead to break one of the mandibles. He grabbed with his bad left hand, needing only a marginal grip, and hit the monster with a series of brutal, full-speed snap punches to throat, groin, eyes, throat, heart, throat, temple, and throat. Then he sidestepped, cocked his right leg, and heel-kicked the same point on the thigh he’d been hammering since the fight started. The creature went down and Fix shifted behind him and was one micro-second away from grabbing its head to try and snap the thing’s neck when the wall behind the fighters’ bleachers exploded.

  The force plucked Fix and the Nightmare Kid up and hurled them into the audience, chased by a storm cloud of flaming debris and bleeding body parts. Fix hit two people in the face and heard necks snap as he fell.

  He landed badly and lay there, nearly unconscious, blinking through blood and smoke and madness, taking in what happened next in haphazard images.

  There were flashes of red lightning. Or… laser pulse blasts? Something like that. Fix fought for consciousness. People screamed and fell. When a red blast caught someone, they simply flew apart. Customers trampled each other, clawing and fighting, kicking, and biting to escape.

  Someone yelled, “It’s the police!”

  But that was stupid. It was wrong. Hurt as he was, Fix knew that. The police used machine guns and lead bullets, even out here. And they used high-intensity gas guns for microgravity EVA fights. Who the hell used pulse guns outside of deep-sea mining?

  * * *

  Chiba was banging on the button for his private elevator, his face pale with panic, eyes wide. He had a pistol in his hand. His guards were battering at the crowd, using the shock rods to keep them away from the elevator door.

  Some of the fighters—those few who had survived the explosion—had grabbed chairs, fallen shock rods or anything else they could grab and were crowding toward whatever had breached the wall. Fix saw them fall.

  One.

  By one.

  By one.

  One of them—Helga, the trollish woman—had a big commando knife, God only knew where she’d gotten it, and with a furious battlefield shriek dove into the smoke.

  A moment later she came out again.

  But Fix could not at first understand what he was seeing.

  Helga hung writhing in the air, her body torn and bloody, dangling in the smoke like a puppet on broken strings.

  And then it emerged.

  Just like in his dream, a thing appeared out of nowhere. There was a shimmer in the troubled air and suddenly a form took shape. Monstrous, unnatural, armed, and armored. It held Helga up and now Fix could see that three steel claws had been thrust entirely through her body and the bloody tips stood out from between her shoulder blades. The creature wore the same kind of helmet that the Nightmare Kid had worn when Fix first saw him. The pale flesh of its body was covered in the same netting, but instead of a simple pair of trunks it wore complex armor, hung and fitted with exotic weapons. Knives and guns and other things Fix could not begin to identify.

  The monster was huge. Much bigger than the creature Fix had fought. At least a foot taller and half again as broad in the shoulders. The brute peered at Helga, seeming to take note of her musculature, her scars. It made a series of weird clicks, sounds nearly lost beneath the screaming, and then it flung Helga away. Her dying screams chased her across the pentangle and she landed with a bone-breaking thud five feet from where Fix lay, the knife still in her hand, its blade smeared with green.

  Fix tried to get up, tried to reach for that blade.

  Then a shape pushed itself up from beneath a pile of debris and corpses. The Nightmare Kid, bleeding bright green blood, wild-eyed, furious. It looked down at Fix and hissed at him, the three remaining mandible spikes twitching, claws flexing. It took one threatening step toward its enemy and then it stopped and wheeled, looking first toward the much larger killer who was now tearing into the remaining fighters, and then at Chiba, who was crowding into the elevator with his men. The door wouldn’t close, though, because of all the people trying to claw their way in.

  The Nightmare Kid howled in fury, and all of its rage, all of its hatred shifted from Fix to Chiba. It bolted toward the elevator, slashing people apart even as they fought to get out of its way.

  Fix struggled to his feet just as the smaller of the two monsters smashed its way through the crowd and into the elevator. The doors closed behind it and Fix had a brief view of electronic flashes from the shock rods and a spray of bright red blood.

  The larger monster was killing its way across the floor. The remaining guards rallied and attacked it with shock rods, and for a moment they seemed to drive it back, though at the cost of many of their own lives.

  And in a moment of sudden crystal clarity, Fix put the pieces to all of this together.

  The nickname Chiba had given to the alien—the Nightmare Kid—might have been more apt than he knew. From the size of the newcomer, and the superb combat skills it demonstrated, and the comparatively smaller size and more naïve skills of the Nightmare Kid, Fix realized that he had been fighting just that. A kid. A younger, less experienced, less dangerous version of the true nightmare that was slaughtering the most skilled fighters in the solar system. This creature—mother or father—had come looking for its kid. It had attacked a whole space station full of people to protect its own.

  And now that kid was fighting for its life, either in the elevator or in Chiba’s office. Fighting against armed killers and the brutish champion sumo wrestler. The kid was outnumbered, outgunned, and—because of the last few seconds of the fight—injured.

  Before he knew he was going to do it, Fix was up and running, his fatigue forgotten, his pain channeled into some other part of his brain. He grabbed the knife and used it to cut his way to the elevator controls. The customers, already hurt and shocked and frightened by the last onslaught, and by what was happening in the area, gave way, cursing and weeping. And dying.

  The elevator opened and Fix stepped inside and punched the button for the office. The walls of the lift were smeared with human and alien blood, and three of the six security men lay in broken heaps on the floor.

  Below, even through the doors and distance, he could hear the frustrated roar of the thing’s parent. Had it seen its child escape? Was it losing this fight to save it?

  No way to tell.

  Then the elevator shuddered as something struck the frame. A blast or a fist?

  The door pinged open and Fix jumped out and to one side, narrowly evading the swing of a shock rod. He ducked low and cut high and the guard sagged back as blood erupted from his upper thigh and groin.

  Across the room Chiba was fighting the Nightmare Kid. Fighting, and winning. The young alien had taken a lot of damage in the elevator fight and was barely able to stand, and Chiba, for all his size, was a champion and a killer. He battered the alien with one after the other of devastating blows. Even so, the kid kept fighting. It was clear it was never going to stop fighting. Maybe it was the thing’s natur
e, maybe its culture. Whatever. It was losing the fight that would kill it, but it was going to make Chiba earn that victory.

  The two remaining guards were torn—help their boss or stop Fix?

  They split the difference. One of them rushed over and jabbed the Nightmare Kid with his shock rod, which made the creature stagger down to hands and knees. Chiba used that moment to lunge toward a gun safe bolted to the wall and begin punching a code.

  The other guard rushed at Fix, jabbing with the shock rod as he circled for the best angle. Fix had no armor and a metal knife. Not good odds against a professional with an electric weapon. They dueled and darted and Fix saw his moment. The guard tried for a long reach, leaning into it with too much weight on his lead leg. Fix collapsed beneath the glowing end of the rod and stamped out at the man’s shin. The guard fell hard and Fix caught him, rolled with him, rolled atop him, and drove the point of the knife through the guard’s right eye socket.

  He looked up to see Chiba whip the door of the safe open and pull out a heavy caliber navy automatic. He leveled the weapon at Fix and pulled the trigger.

  At the exact moment the elevator door exploded inward. Fix, sprawled on the floor, felt the steel door whistle overhead and saw it smash Chiba’s desk to pieces.

  Then the larger alien jumped out of the shattered elevator shaft. It was covered with bleeding cuts and one eye was swollen shut. Some of its weapons were smashed and melted from multiple impacts of the shock rods. Its hands and chest and thighs were soaked with bright red human blood.

  Chiba shoved the remaining guard toward the alien, wrapped a powerful arm around the smaller alien’s throat and jammed the barrel against the Nightmare Kid’s head.

  “No!” roared the sumo champion.

  The moment froze.

  The big alien stood there, panting with exertion and pain, glaring at the humans in the room. The smaller alien hissed but did not struggle to break free.

  The guard gaped in naked terror, his confidence in his shock rod gone.

  Fix was on the floor, ten feet from Chiba, two feet from the guard, six yards from the big alien.

  He read the scene, read the moment. He understood because understanding the nuances of combat was who and what he was.

  He had kids at home that he knew he would never see again. The insurance was there, though. They would be taken care of. It hurt so bad to think that he would never see them again, but at least he hadn’t failed them.

  So he did what any father would do.

  He swept the foot of the remaining guard and while every eye went to that man falling, Fix threw his knife.

  He did not throw it at the guard, or at the big alien, or at Chiba, who was too well hidden behind his inhuman shield.

  No, he threw the knife to the Nightmare Kid.

  The young alien caught it, twisted, biting down on the gun arm of the distracted Chiba and then turning more and using that knife. Using it with the ferocity of a warrior; using it with the precision of a butcher.

  No, of a hunter.

  Gutting, ending, emptying, destroying.

  Chiba tried to scream but there was not enough of his throat left for that. There was no air in his ruptured lungs. There was nothing left of him or for him, and the alien stepped aside to let the heavy body fall.

  The guard flung his weapon away, got to his knees and begged for mercy that was not his. Fix slapped away the pleading hands and chopped him across the throat.

  Then he fell back onto the floor, spent. Nearly gone.

  The big alien crossed the room in a few long strides. He stepped over Fix without even looking at him, grabbed the younger alien, slapped him hard across the mouth, once, twice, hitting him so hard the lights flickered in the Nightmare Kid’s eyes. Then the big alien gave the younger one a single, fierce hug and shoved him roughly away, adding one more slap for emphasis.

  The younger alien staggered, swayed, but stayed on his feet. He held the bloody knife up and hissed. The bigger alien looked at it, at the blood, and nodded.

  Fix watched in horrified fascination as the younger alien rolled Chiba onto his stomach, slit him from crown to anus, tore open the fatty flesh and with a savage grunt tore the entire spine and skull out of the sumo champion’s body. It was disgusting and it was terrifying. The Nightmare Kid stood there, panting, admiring his trophy. Then they turned and looked down at Fix.

  There was absolutely nothing Fix could do. He had barely outfought the younger one and the adult was so far beyond his skill as to be absurd. This was where he, too, would die.

  The big alien studied Fix for a long time. It looked over his head at what was left of Chiba, then at the knife its child held, and at the trophy, then back to Fix.

  It gave him a single, small nod.

  After a moment, Fix returned the nod.

  Warrior to warrior. Parent to parent.

  He lay there and watched the aliens move to the elevator shaft and then jump down to where the sound of screams could still be heard.

  It took Fix a long time to get to his feet.

  It took him nearly an hour to figure out how to open Chiba’s safe. As it turned out it was a biometric scan. A full palm print was all it took, and the aliens had left Chiba’s hands nicely intact.

  He stood for even longer in front of the open safe.

  Smiling.

  AUTHOR BIOGRAPHIES

  BRYAN THOMAS SCHMIDT (Editor and Co-Author “Drug War”) is a Hugo-nominated editor and author. His anthologies include Shattered Shields with Jennifer Brozek, Mission: Tomorrow, Galactic Games, Little Green Men—Attack! with Robin Wayne Bailey, Joe Ledger: Unstoppable with Jonathan Maberry, Monster Hunter Files with Larry Correia, Infinite Stars, and Predator: If It Bleeds. His debut novel, The Worker Prince, achieved Honorable Mention on Barnes & Noble’s Year’s Best SF of 2011. It is followed by two sequels in the Saga of Davi Rhii space opera trilogy. His short fiction includes stories in The X-Files, Predator, Larry Correia’s Monster Hunter International, Joe Ledger, and Decipher’s WARS, along with original fiction. He also edited The Martian by Andy Weir, amongst other novels. His work has been published by St. Martin’s Press, Titan Books, Baen, and more. He lives in Ottawa, KS. Find him online as BryanThomasS at both Twitter and Facebook or via his website and blog at www.bryanthomasschmidt.net.

  TIM LEBBON (“Devil Dogs”) is a New York Times bestselling writer with over thirty novels published to date, as well as dozens of novellas and hundreds of short stories. Recent releases include The Silence, The Hunt, The Family Man, and The Rage War trilogy (licensed Alien and Predator novels). Forthcoming novels include the Relics trilogy and Blood of the Four (with Christopher Golden). He has won four British Fantasy Awards, a Bram Stoker Award, and a Scribe Award, and been shortlisted for World Fantasy and Shirley Jackson awards. A movie of his story Pay the Ghost, starring Nicolas Cage, was released in 2015, and other projects in development include My Haunted House, Playtime (with Stephen Volk), and Exorcising Angels (with Simon Clark). Find out more: www.timlebbon.net.

  JEREMY ROBINSON (aka: Jeremy Bishop and Jeremiah Knight, “Stonewall’s Last Stand”) is the international bestselling author of more than fifty thriller, horror, science fiction, fantasy and action-adventure novels and novellas including Apocalypse Machine, Hunger, Island 731, SecondWorld, and the Jack Sigler thriller series, which is currently in development to be released as a major motion picture. His bestselling kaiju novels, Project Nemesis and Island 731, have been adapted as comic book series from American Gothic Press/Famous Monsters of Filmland. His novels have been translated into thirteen languages. He lives in New Hampshire with his wife and three children. For the latest news about his novels, comics, movies and TV projects, and the Beware of Monsters podcast, discussing all things monstrous, visit www.bewareofmonsters.com.

  Prior to working full-time as a freelance writer, STEVE PERRY (“Rematch”) worked as a swimming instructor, lifeguard, assembler of toys, clerk in a hotel gift shop and car rental agency, aluminum salesman, m
artial art instructor, private detective, and physician’s assistant.

  Perry has written sixty-odd novels and scores of short stories. He has written books in the Star Wars, Aliens, Predator, Indiana Jones, and Conan universes. He was a collaborator on the New York Times bestselling Tom Clancy’s Net Force series. Other writing credits include articles, reviews, and essays, animated teleplays, and several unproduced movie scripts. One of his teleplays for Batman: The Animated Series was an Emmy Award nominee for Outstanding Writing.

  He is a practitioner of the Indonesian martial art pentjak silat, and plays blues and geezer rock on the tenor ukulele.

  WESTON OCHSE (“May Blood Pave My Way Home”) is a former intelligence officer and special operations soldier who has engaged enemy combatants, terrorists, narco smugglers, and human traffickers. His personal war stories include performing humanitarian operations over Bangladesh, being deployed to Afghanistan, and a near miss being cannibalized in Papua New Guinea. His fiction and non-fiction has been praised by USA Today, The Atlantic, New York Post, Financial Times (London), and Publishers Weekly. The American Library Association labeled him one of the Major Horror Authors of the 21st Century. His work has also won the Bram Stoker Award, been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, and won multiple New Mexico-Arizona Book Awards. A writer of more than 26 books in multiple genres, his military supernatural series SEAL Team 666 has been optioned to be a movie starring Dwayne Johnson. His military sci-fi series, which starts with Grunt Life, has been praised for its PTSD-positive depiction of soldiers at peace and at war.

  PETER J. WACKS (“Storm Blood”) is a cross-genre writer and world traveler. In his spare time he enjoys Scotch, beer, swords, magic, and absurdist philosophy. Over the course of his life he has worked across the creative fields, and in the pursuit of character research has done side jobs ranging from I.T. break-fix to private detective. You can find him online on both Twitter and Facebook, where he occasionally pops in to crack jokes about the state of the world. Or if you just want to stalk him a little you can go to www.peterjwacks.net.