The Predator

by Christopher Golden

  Then he ran.

  * * *

  The two-way radio squawked. Nettles was back in the RV, monitoring local police chatter. Now his voice burst in from the static.

  “McKenna, you hearing this?” he barked.

  He must’ve put his two-way up to the police scanner, because McKenna and Casey heard the crackling voice come through, but it sounded like it was coming from deep inside a well.

  “…got a male juvenile, ten to twelve years old,” the officer was saying. “Ran right in front of my car, now moving east on Woodruff.”

  McKenna swore, spun the wheel, and turned the car into a squealing, smoking one-eighty. Emily wouldn’t thank him later for the rubber he’d left back on the road, but the officer had spotted what could well have been Rory, and she wasn’t going to give a shit about her tires if he could get their boy back in one piece.

  “Repeat,” the voice on the police scanner said. “Moving east on Woodruff.”

  Stay alive, kid, McKenna thought. Whatever just blew up, stay the hell alive.

  “Nebraska,” he barked into his radio. “You got wheels?”

  * * *

  Janice Pelham had joined the Neighborhood Watch out of civic duty. She wasn’t a cop, not quite, but as a security officer she had been deputized to perform certain functions in conjunction with the police. She also had a sweet ride and a uniform that her boyfriend Elwin loved her to wear at home, and she didn’t mind at all.

  In the three years since she’d started this job, she’d mostly dealt with burglary, vandalism, and illegal parking, plus some domestic disturbances that had required the police to step in. Now she stared at the front of the house whose front door had been vaporized and realized that this job might be dangerous, that even though she wasn’t a real cop, she could still be killed doing it, even in a neighborhood like this one.

  The kid had bolted, but she’d radioed it in. The real police could track him down. She wanted to get home to Elwin and take the uniform off—and not in the fun way they both preferred. Janice was thinking about taking it off and never putting it on again.

  She turned and started back toward her patrol car— and froze.

  “Where’s my fucking car?”

  * * *

  Nebraska Williams held onto the wheel as he blasted the stolen Neighborhood Watch patrol car around a corner. The tires shrieked. He had the flashers turning, strobing red light and pale shadows all over the lawns and houses. Parents and kids had scrambled out of the street when the explosion had erupted, and now they mostly stared from front lawns or had gone indoors, where they peered out of windows. Trick or treat had ended abruptly this year, but the kiddies in McKenna’s neighborhood would never forget it.

  When McKenna’s question came through, he snatched up the two-way from the seat and thumbed the button.

  “I got wheels,” he said, and grinned. “Something flashy.” Then he dropped the humor, was suddenly all business again. “Kid’s spooked, he’s rabbiting. Talk to me. Where’s he gonna feel safe? Where’s someplace he knows?”

  * * *

  Huffing, heart thundering in his chest, Rory raced across the middle school baseball field. His thoughts were beginning to return to their orderly nature as he went back through the events of the previous minutes. He had killed a man, but he told himself that he couldn’t be held responsible… that he didn’t hold himself responsible.

  Dad, he thought.

  But no. He couldn’t be blamed either. Even though his father had sent the helmet and gauntlet, he hadn’t expected the package to fall into his son’s hands. Not even the manufacturer of the technology—whom Rory assumed must be some nation’s military, some corporation that specialized in finding inventive ways to murder people on battlefields—could really be said to be responsible. They had all had a part to play in the death of the stoner and the destruction of his front door—Rory, his dad, the military, the postal worker, E.J., Derek, and the stoner prick who’d thrown a rotten apple at a kid.

  But when it came right down to it, when you reached the end of the long rope of cause and effect, only one sure and solid fact remained: a man was dead. And despite everything, Rory still felt like it was his fault, and although he didn’t process emotions the way other people did, he thought he might cry.

  He reached the scoreboard and found the niche he had used several times to hide from the bullies. In the darkness there, he cowered and tried to catch his breath. He knew he ought to run home, but the police would be looking for him. They hadn’t seen his face, but if anyone talked to E.J. or Derek, they would figure out pretty quickly that they were looking for Rory McKenna and then the cops would be at his house and his mother would know what he had done… and that was the worst part. The idea that his mother would learn that he had killed someone, even if it really wasn’t his fault, even if it was just the stupid fucking helmet… Rory loved his mother more than anything. She understood him like nobody else ever would and he knew that. If his mom cried or screamed or felt horror or disgust because of him…

  In the niche beneath the scoreboard, he kept trying to catch his breath, wondering how all this had happened.

  Am I going to jail?

  “Dad,” he whispered in the darkness. “Where are you?”

  A low growl replied from the shadows. Rory froze, turning slowly to see a flash of canine eyes in the dark. A dog—a big damn dog—ready to bite his face off. Still winded, he knew he should run, but knew he wouldn’t get far before it caught him.

  The dog shifted and some of the starlight bled in, letting him see the silhouette of its head. He recognized it immediately—Bugsy, the damn pit bull that menaced him every fucking day on his way home from school. It growled again, low, quieter this time… and moved closer.

  Then the pit bull dropped its head and let its tongue loll out. It moved even nearer to him and nudged him with its huge, heavy head. Rory furrowed his brow in confusion. Tentatively, he reached out… and petted the pit bull’s head. To his surprise, the dog didn’t flinch. Instead, it lifted its eyes and looked at him, and a sound came from its chest that was different from a growl. A friendly, contented sound. Rory petted the dog again, smiling in amazement at the sudden sweetness of the dog that had so terrified him.

  “Good boy,” he said quietly.

  All at once the dog froze. Its lips peeled back in a snarl that grew into a new growl and it backed away from Rory. For a moment, he didn’t notice that the dog wasn’t growling at him, and then he saw its eyes and realized something else had spooked it. Something behind him.

  Slowly, Rory turned… to see a very different sort of dog.

  Ice filled his gut. For the first time, he understood how someone could piss their pants from fear. He didn’t—but it was a very near thing.

  This dog was no pit bull. It wasn’t any kind of dog Rory had ever seen before. In fact, one glance at its massive haunches and the insectoid mandibles that clicked and stretched open across its face, and he knew it wasn’t a dog at all. Rory had been brilliant since birth. He knew more about biology than ninety-nine percent of the adults he’d met, including every science teacher who’d ever tried to teach him. Whatever this monster-dog was, it hadn’t been born on Earth.

  Alien, he thought breathlessly. Or genetically engineered. Or both.

  The monster-dog snarled, its intent viciously clear. Its mandibles snapped open and shut and it advanced a single step. The pit bull whimpered and backed further away. For a moment Rory hoped, perhaps unkindly, that the monster would chase the ordinary dog. Unfortunately, it seemed only to have eyes for Rory.

  He backed away, up the dugout steps and onto the field, keeping the monster-dog in his sights… and then he heard a voice behind him.

  “Kid. Walk to me. Slowly.”

  Rory turned to see a security guard standing about ten meters away, armed only with a flashlight and a nightstick. The guy, stuffed into his uniform, was overweight and over fifty, but at least he was brave. Nine out of ten guys in his p
osition would most likely have locked themselves in their nice warm office and called the cops.

  “Shhh,” the guy said, as if Rory was causing a commotion instead of just standing there. “Come on, now…”

  Rory was about to obey—though he wasn’t sure what good it would do—when he noticed something that the security guard hadn’t. Movement in the shadows under the bleachers. The stealthy movement of something big and predatory inching forward, readying itself to spring.

  Before Rory could shout a warning—before he could even open his mouth—there was a blur of movement, and suddenly the security guard was on his back, arms outflung, nightstick and flashlight spinning away into the grass on either side of him. And there was something on his chest—a second alien animal, just as big, and just as mean-looking, as the first. Lowering its hideous face, all stretched-out mandibles and rows and rows of shark-like teeth, the creature bit into the security guard’s shoulder and throat. It ripped a chunk away, as easily as Rory would take a bite out of a cupcake.

  Until that moment, the guard had been screaming, howling in a voice that was hideously high-pitched for a man of his size and age, but as soon as the monster snapped back its head with a sizeable piece of him between its jaws, he stopped. Now there was blood, a shockingly vast amount of blood, that gushed from the hole in the man’s body, and kept gushing, spreading out through the grass like an oil spill through the sea, a dark, gleaming purple in the meager light.

  Rory was frozen by the sight of all that blood. He’d once seen a bird, standing on a wall as a cat stalked toward it, and he’d wondered why that bird didn’t just fly away. Now he knew.

  I’m going to die, he thought with utter crystal clarity. I’m going to die just like that man on the ground.

  At first, when he heard the screech, he thought it was the attack cry of the other monster rushing in for the kill. But then he realized it was coming from the opposite direction, and turned his head to see his mother’s Subaru barreling across the grass. Its engine roaring, the car smashed right through the scoreboard. Shrapnel sprayed across the ball field as the car accelerated straight for one of the monster-dogs, smashing into it and sending it flying through the air.

  Even before it had landed, the Subaru had slewed to a halt on the grass. The doors burst open and two people leapt out. In the light of the moon and stars, and the glow from the Subaru’s headlights, Rory recognized the car’s driver immediately.

  Dad?

  * * *

  McKenna and Casey jumped out of the Subaru, weapons leveled at the Predator dogs. He pulled the trigger, blazing shot after shot across the baseball field. The alien hound darted to the left, staying ahead of his aim. McKenna swore loudly, heard Casey doing the same, but then he heard another engine roar and had to throw up a hand to shield his eyes from the brightness of blazing headlights.

  The RV hurtled across the field from one direction. McKenna spun to see another vehicle—the patrol car Nebraska had hijacked—sailing over the grass from the other edge of the baseball diamond. Behind the wheel of the patrol car, Nebraska aimed the vehicle directly for the chain link fence lining the diamond and slammed through it with a clang. The fence furled up in either direction, springing back as if it had been waiting years for someone to crash through it.

  The patrol car fishtailed onto the field. Nebraska flung open the door and dove out, rolling on the grass and leaping to his feet, gun in hand, without even slowing the car down. The vehicle kept rolling.

  The RV slewed to a ragged halt, tearing up the turf, and the rest of the Loonies piled out, laden with all the weapons they’d acquired from the RV’s owner in the parking lot of the Iron Horse Motel.

  “Three o’clock!” McKenna shouted, gesturing toward one of the Predator dogs, which had started across the field along the same path Rory had taken. “Ten o’clock!”

  It was all the Loonies needed. McKenna clocked everyone’s locations, kept Rory in mind, made sure his back was to Casey but also checked to be certain she could handle herself. A hailstorm of artillery tore up the field as they opened fire on the Predator dogs. McKenna saw bullets strike home, saw chunks of flesh and blood spray, though just as often the bullets seemed to do little more than nudge the monsters. The Predator dogs kept moving, but at least now they were distracted by their attackers—the focus off Rory.

  McKenna ran toward his son, and Casey backed him up.

  Still pale with shock, Rory called out to him, more out of curiosity than fear. That was Rory. McKenna packed away any regret or shame he had about his past with the boy, or about putting him in danger. Rory stood frozen on the grass and McKenna raced toward him.

  Then he saw one of the beasts make a beeline for Nebraska, snarling, those hideous pincers around its mouth snapping. Its intent was clear.

  “Casey!” he snapped, gesturing for her to grab Rory.

  “I’ve got him!” she called.

  McKenna barely knew the women, but he trusted the confidence with which she carried herself. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Casey scoop Rory up into her arms. For half a second, it looked as if Rory might fight her. There was a real dog on the field, a terrified-looking pit bull, and Rory seemed to want to save the mutt.

  Then there was no more time for distraction. McKenna had run almost into the path of the Predator dog as it raced toward Nebraska. Now he faced the beast, swung his M4 and pulled the trigger, unloading. Bullets tore the ground, pounded the monstrosity, smashed the air and his eardrums. The alien creature staggered and McKenna thought maybe, just maybe, he’d kill the damn thing. Then he clicked on an empty chamber.

  Oh shit.

  Out of ammo, with the creature ten feet away.

  McKenna turned and bolted for the bleachers. Off to his right, he saw Nebraska struggling to load a 40mm recoilless grenade launcher and his eyes lit up.

  “Umm… Gaylord?” he called.

  The man jacked the round into the barrel and snapped it shut. “I thought I told you,” he said, as he tossed the grenade launcher fifteen feet into McKenna’s waiting hands. “Call me Nebraska.”

  McKenna caught the weapon on the run. The Predator dog slavered and snarled as it chased him— both man and alien hound knowing he had no chance of outrunning death. McKenna reached the bleachers and hurled himself between two crossbars. He hit the ground, rolled, and turned as he rose. The bleachers slowed the beast just half a step—it was enough. McKenna jammed the massive gun between the monster’s mandibles, shoved it down the dog’s throat, and pulled the trigger.

  A muted fwumpp came from within the Predator dog. Its eyes went wide and then it buckled, toppling to the ground in a wet slap of flesh on cold earth. Dead.

  A snarl made McKenna whip around. He’d been so focused on this fucker trying to kill him that he’d forgotten the other one. The background noise of gunfire and the shouts of his men had receded in the intensity of the moment, the urgency of trying not to die. Now he heard the chuffing of the other hound’s breath and felt the ground thump under its tread. It leaped over the corpse of its dead companion and lunged toward the opening beneath the bleachers.

  Nebraska Williams appeared as if by magic, a bolt gun in his hand. With a single motion, he brought the bolt gun up and shot the second monster point blank in the skull. The bolt impaled its forehead. For a moment, McKenna thought it hadn’t made a difference, that the Predator dog would still rip his throat out. Then it wavered, listed, and started walking in a lazy circle as if it sought a comfortable place to lie down.

  “You’ve gotta be kidding,” McKenna muttered.

  The thing had taken a bolt through the skull and it wasn’t dead. No longer a threat, for sure, but still alive.

  He glanced at Nebraska in astonishment.

  Nebraska shrugged. “Goddamn space aliens.”

  16

  The RV revved onto the street between the baseball field and the school. McKenna had lost track of who was behind the wheel now. All he could think to do was get to the vehicle. Th
e Loonies ran in formation, boots pounding dirt, weapons clanking. They were following his orders now, but he didn’t have to order them to withdraw. There was no telling how many of those Predator dogs might be prowling around the neighborhood in search of Rory—or rather, in search of the helmet and gauntlet that, as far as McKenna knew, were still in his possession.

  “Dad?” Rory said.

  He glanced down, satisfied himself that Rory was running alongside him. Casey had put the kid down. She’d shot at the creatures herself, had carried Rory, helped to save his life. She might be a scientist, but she had proven to be just as formidable as he’d suspected from the moment he’d seen her chasing the Predator.

  “You’re okay, kid,” Casey said now, speaking up when McKenna failed to.

  “I’ve got you, Rory,” he added belatedly.

  “What are they?” Rory asked, as they all crowded through the broken fence and raced toward the RV.

  McKenna began to answer, but then he heard Lynch start in on a string of terrified profanities. The Loonies all pulled up short, bringing their weapons to bear. McKenna looked up to see the Predator itself, standing on top of the RV, waiting for them.

  Casey said McKenna’s name, very quietly.

  Rory took a step backward.

  McKenna took aim. But the Predator was all business. It fired a single shot that obliterated a lamppost at the edge of the ball field, purely to show them all what it could do to them if it chose to. The lamppost melted and exploded, all at the same time. Whatever the weapon was, nobody wanted it aimed at them.

  The Predator signaled to them, gesturing for them all to lower their weapons. Several of the men glanced at McKenna, ready to follow his lead. If he started shooting, or gave the order, they would open fire. They had seen what the Predator’s weaponry could do, but they had all had their chance to opt out of this fight and instead they had committed themselves to combat. None of these men were backing out now.

  McKenna opened his mouth to issue an order—

  Rory bolted for the school, the only shelter nearby.