For one thing, the arrogant bastard was probably planning on some kind of one-on-one duel, a "test of wills," all that macho crap. Why else would it have warned him with the gadget on his neck? That was bluster, a challenge, an invitation to come out and fight like a man. It wanted to prove how tough it was in a fair fight.
Schaefer wasn't worried about proving his manhood; he just wanted the thing dead.
The best way to do that, he figured, would be to come up behind it and blow its head off. With that in mind he was circling around, trying to come at it in a contracting spiral; it would know he was getting closer, but with any luck it wouldn't know which direction he was in.
"You want a mono a mano, creep?" he muttered to himself. "That it? Hand to hand, may the best man win? Well, fuck that, you can just kiss my. . ."
Blue-white fire exploded from a tree behind him, turning the forest darkness to bleached-out chaos. The roar echoed through the darkness beyond.
"Wha . . ." Schaefer whirled. "Shit!" He dropped, diving behind the nearest available plant life.
The thing fired again; this time Schaefer saw the flash as he dived, saw the charge, whatever it was, coming in; the instant he touched dirt, he flung himself aside.
The blast tore through another tree; for a moment it hung, suspended by the tangle of vines and branches, then it sagged and toppled.
By the time the echoes of the initial explosion had faded, and well before the shattered tree thumped into the surrounding jungle, Schaefer had taken cover behind a low ridge of stone that thrust up through the undergrowth.
"So much for mano a mano," he muttered, annoyed at himself for making assumptions about what the thing wanted.
But on the other hand, that first shot hadn't been anywhere near him-a warning shot, he guessed. The bastard did want the hunt and the kill to be a challenge.
The second shot had been serious, though. The hunter wasn't going to be obsessive about making things hard on itself.
And that shot had been damn close, despite the darkness. Could the thing see in the dark? Was it using infrared or some other sort of high-tech stuff to aim?
Another shower of blue-white fireworks blossomed up from the other side of the rocks.
"Okay, that's two," Schaefer said. "My turn!"
He jumped up, shotgun ready, and cut loose, spraying slugs at the point those blasts had come from. He couldn't aim properly in the dark, not. with the risk of incoming fire, but he'd gotten a pretty fair idea where that last fireball had come from.
The roar of the gun on full auto was deafening, and its flash lit the jungle a sick yellow-green.
Schaefer was aiming at the crotch of a tree, but he realized he couldn't see anything there but flying wood chips and leaf fragments as his slugs tore through the greenery.
He released the trigger and dived sideways, looking for cover.
His hearing was no use to him; his ears were ringing from the shotgun's thunderous report, and he cursed himself for not considering that when he chose his weapons. His eyes were slowly adjusting to the darkness again, now that no weapons were flashing; he crept forward through the underbrush.
He didn't hear any movement-but his ears weren't working. He couldn't see anything moving, either, but it was fucking dark. The monster might be right on top of him, and he wouldn't know it-or it might be back in its tree.
It wasn't shooting at him, though.
Had he hit the thing, knocked it right out of that tree? Killed it, or at least wounded it?
Or was it hiding somewhere? Had it dived for shelter in time?
Could it dive out of a tree that high without injury? Schaefer knew that he couldn't have.
But the creature was bigger and stronger and faster than he was.
He couldn't tell if he had hit it, so he decided to take the battle to it, to try to take the initiative. Shotgun in one hand, assault rifle in the other, he charged out of concealment toward the tree.
Bad move.
He didn't even see what hit him.
He didn't understand that; how could he not see something that big, even in the jungle dark, if it was close enough to hit him? His ears were still out, but his eyes were okay, weren't they?
But he didn't see it just something slammed him across the chest and he went over backward, weapons flying.
He landed rolling, he had enough self-control for that, and he came up with a grenade in his hand.
Something shimmered faintly in the moonlight, and he pulled the pin, but then he held the grenade, trying to see his target before he threw
It wasn't the creature he had fought in New York, with its yellowish skin; that would have shown up at this distance. Instead, there was something green and black and hard to see even though it was only a few yards away...
Camouflage. That damned perfect camouflage. It was the same creature. The size was right.
He threw the grenade.
The thing dived aside in plenty of time-he couldn't really see it, but he could make out the faintest flicker of movement, like leaves in the wind; he'd forgotten how fast it was. Dodging grenades was easy for it, Schaefer thought as he flattened, covering his eyes against the grenade's flash to preserve his night vision.
What little hearing had returned was gone again, and the ringing in his ears was an entire carillon; shredded bark and leaves and dirt showered over him.
The instant the debris stopped falling, Schaefer lifted his head, scanning the jungle quickly. The bastard had been moving that way...
Blue sparks were crawling through the darkness, ten feet away; ribbons of electricity were twisting around a dark outline, and the whole thing flickered like a TV screen in a thunderstorm, sometimes the green-and-black section of jungle, sometimes something else.
It was moving closer.
And then it flashed once, and the flickering was gone, and the creature he had fought in New York was standing there over him, looking down at him.
It had replaced its mask, he saw-maybe it needed it to breathe.
It had maybe changed its clothes, too-Schaefer hadn't gotten a really good look at it in his few seconds in that dim fifth-floor room, and he wasn't exactly studying its qualifications for Mr. Blackwell's list now, either, but some of the details seemed a bit different.
For one thing, something was dripping from its arm, something greenish yellow that glowed like liquid neon; either the shotgun or a grenade fragment had hit something wet.
And the grenade must have taken out the camouflage-as he had guessed, it wasn't just face paint and fancy clothes, but some kind of electronic gadget, practically an invisibility screen.
If that worked as well with asphalt and concrete as it did with trees and vines . . . Schaefer understood now how the thing had been able to move through New York so easily without ever being spotted.
And if that glowing stuff was the creature's blood, and not just the equivalent of hydraulic fluid for its gadgets, Schaefer thought, it was hurt. If it could bleed, it could die.
He came up fast, as fast as he could, combat knife in his hand, and the blade punched through the thing's mesh and into its grayish flesh.
"This is for Dutch!" Schaefer shouted.
The sound was muffled; his hearing was still shot.
The creature roared in pain, and that, too, was dull, almost inaudible. Before Schaefer could even think about dodging, its foot came up and kicked him away, hard. The knife stayed in its side.
Schaefer guessed that the bastard hadn't expected anything like that.
He had it figured; this thing chased and killed people for the sport, like a big-game hunter. It didn't expect to get hurt. The game was supposed to struggle, but it wasn't supposed to fight back; to the creature, people were prey, not competition.
So he'd surprised it.
But the surprise was all done now. When he landed, he scrambled up and headed away from the thing; he couldn't fight it on even terms, not even with a knife in its side. He'd lost both his guns; the monster
hadn't, it still had that weird little cannon on its shoulder, the one that had blown holes through the walls back in New York and had chopped down trees here in the jungle.
Schaefer thought it wouldn't want to use the cannon, not at close range-that wouldn't be sporting. But if he came at it again, while it was wounded, it might decide to play it safe and blow him away.
So he ran and hoped that the thing would be too busy with the knife wound to come after him right away.
He figured that while it was distracted, he could get back to the mules and put together enough firepower to handle the son of a bitch-even with the auto shotgun gone, there was plenty more in that case from Hanson at the DEA.
Then his foot slipped, and he caught himself at the last second.
He'd lost track of where he was, which way he was going, and had just come within inches of charging right off a cliff into the river.
"Oh, shit!" he said, and he still couldn't hear his own voice.
And before he could step back, the thing's claw closed on his head from behind, its fingers over his eyes, the long black talons digging into his cheeks.
He hadn't heard a thing, hadn't known it was there. Even without its invisibility gadget, it was better at concealment than it had any right to be.
It picked him up, lifted him up by that grip on his head, and for a moment Schaefer dangled as helplessly as a puppy; then it flung him against the nearest tree.
He landed hard and sat, stunned and unable to move, as the thing marched up to him.
He looked up at it and spat, still defiant despite his helplessness.
"You ought to tell your hairdresser," he wheezed as he saw the black, banded tendrils dangling down either side of the creature's head swaying and catching the moonlight, "that Rasta shit's been out of style for years."
He didn't know whether he had actually spoken aloud or not; his ears were still out.
Then the thing reached down for him, and Schaefer flung his hand up, grabbing the bottom of its mask.
After all, it had almost worked in New York.
This time, though, the mask didn't come free. It twisted, and the thing stepped back to straighten it, stepped away from Schaefer, and he had the second or two he needed to recover his wits.
Schaefer rolled and grabbed up a fallen branch as thick as his own leg. He came up swinging and caught the creature solidly on the side of the head with the limb, twisting the mask back out of line.
The blow would have killed a man, but this bastard didn't even stagger. It just flung up an arm to ward Schaefer off and turned away, using its other hand to straighten the crooked helmet.
It was standing on the edge of the cliff, facing away from him, partially blinded and thoroughly distracted, its camouflage still not working, and Schaefer knew this had to be the best shot he would ever have, maybe his last shot; he lowered his makeshift club into a spear and charged.
The wood splintered with the impact, and Schaefer was knocked backward; the creature tottered, swayed, and then fell over the brink.
Schaefer's hearing was beginning to return, finally-enough that he heard the sound of the impact.
At first he thought his ears were still fucked up somehow, because it wasn't a thud, like a body hitting the ground; it was a crunch.
He waited, dazed, for the creature to climb back up.
When it didn't, he crept forward and peered over the edge, half expecting a blue-white fireball to take his head off at any minute, or a claw to grab his face.
Nothing hit him; nothing moved.
The creature was lying there motionless, sprawled across the trunk of a fallen tree, with a big smear of that yellow-green goop across its chest, glowing in the darkness and lighting the scene.
And thrusting up from the center of that luminous smear was a pointed, broken-off tree branch that had punched right through the bastard.
That didn't necessarily mean the fight was over, Schaefer tried to tell himself. Maybe that wasn't where the creature's heart was. Maybe it was not just bigger and stronger than anything human, but tougher in ways Schaefer couldn't even imagine. Maybe there were still some surprises in it.
But maybe not.
To Schaefer, the thing looked deader than hell.
* * *
19
The guide was sitting on a tree root beside the fire, waiting.
He wasn't really sure just what he was waiting for, dawn, perhaps?
Not for Schaefer, certainly; Schaefer wouldn't be coming back.
He supposed he might hear a scream.
He hoped not, though. This whole assignment was bad enough without that.
He looked around the campsite once again, his hands nervously checking his pockets and belt to make sure he had no weapons, nothing that could be mistaken for a weapon. If he stayed unarmed, he should be all right.
The thing that had killed all those men eight years ago had let the woman with them go, because she wasn't armed. And they'd told him that the one that had slaughtered all those cops in New York had left that one cop, Salvati, alive, because he wasn't armed.
The guide did not want to be armed.
He didn't have so much as a pocketknife, which had made it a little tricky to keep the fire going, but he had managed it-and he had been careful never to pick up anything that was burning, as a brand could be a weapon.
He suspected there were more weapons in Schaefer's baggage, which was one reason he never touched it, never even considered searching it or pilfering anything.
If a jaguar or a snake attacked him, he'd have to rely on his bare hands-but it was worth the risk.
Leaves rustled, and he looked up warily.
Something was approaching, something that walked upright, a dark shadow against the moonlight; he froze.
It stepped out into the circle of firelight, and he recognized Schaefer.
Detective Schaefer, alive and with all his limbs intact.
The guide's jaw dropped.
"Shit, you're alive!" he said. He saw the gun Schaefer was carrying, and that was another shock-Schaefer was alive, and armed. "But what about the . . . I mean . . ."
The only possible explanation sank in.
"Oh, my God!" he said.
He sprang up as Schaefer dropped the gun and settled heavily against a tree.
"Ummm . . . ," Schaefer said wearily, "is it my imagination, or is your English suddenly improving?"
"Laugh it up, Schaefer," the guide said as he threw open the leather flap on one of his saddlebags and pulled up a telescoping antenna. "Christ, I don't believe this."
Schaefer sprawled comfortably and watched, amused, as the guide worked controls.
A crackle of white noise came from the saddlebag, and then an electronic voice said, "This is Capa-Alpha, over."
The guide picked up a microphone and said, "Capa-Alpha, this is Decoy-Niner. Get me the CO-now."
He waited, staring at Schaefer.
"You really did it, didn't you?" he asked quietly. "You killed it."
Schaefer smiled and nodded.
Maybe, Schaefer thought, he could get some answers now. Maybe he could get an explanation as to what the hell was going on, what that thing was he'd killed, what had happened to Dutch, all of it.
Or maybe not, but what the hell, he'd got it, he'd beat it, and it wasn't going to leave any more flayed corpses hanging from the rafters in New York, not in Schaefer's city.
Somewhere off the coast a radioman told General Philips, "Sir, I'm getting a signal from Decoy-Niner-says he wants to talk to you."
Philips nodded unhappily; he'd been expecting this call, but not looking forward to it. He crossed the room and picked up the mike.
"This is Philips, Niner," he said wearily. "Prepare whatever's left of Schaefer's body for transport back to the States, and . . ."
The speaker crackled, interrupting him.
"Sir, you don't understand," Decoy-Niner's voice said. "Schaefer's alive. He killed it. Repeat, Schaefer's still alive!"
In the jungle, in the little ring of firelight, Schaefer smiled and threw his guide a sardonic salute.
The guide stood by the placid mule, staring at Schaefer, the microphone in his hand.
"Oh, my God," Philips whispered. He went pale.
Another one of the creatures had died. Last time that had meant a miniature nuke took out a chunk of jungle, but this time it wasn't just one lone hunter-the things were all over New York.
Anything might happen now.
"Stand by, Niner," he said. He turned. "Perkins," he shouted, "radio Washington, scramble everything-we're going on full combat alert. And get me the President-the shit's about to hit the fan!"
Perkins hurried, and Philips tried to think.
One of the things was dead but there hadn't been any blast. Dutch had described how the one he had killed had done something with the device it wore on its left wrist, and that that had caused the explosion-perhaps this one hadn't had time to set the device before it died?
But, then, it was still lying out there in the jungle somewhere, with all that alien technology, just waiting to be found ....
"General," someone called, "we have a report from the radar analysts-they're picking up activity of some kind."
"Shit," Philips said. He looked down at his hand and realized he was still holding the butt of a cigar; he stubbed it out and tossed it away in disgust.
Was it starting already? Did the things know about the death? Were they already preparing their retaliation?
What would happen if Philips could get his men to the corpse before the aliens could collect their fallen comrade?
Was it worth the risk?
"The President, sir," Perkins said.
"Damn," Philips said. "Get me those radar men-I'll want to talk to them as soon as the President hangs up." He picked up the microphone.
"Sir," he said, "I'm afraid I have bad news."
He explained the situation quickly; the President had been briefed before, of course, and he followed the explanation readily.
"You know the situation better than I do, General," he said. "I'll trust your judgment on this, but you know my position. We can't afford to fight; we can't afford to come out in the open. I don't like appeasement any more than you do, but in this case I don't think we can afford anything else-so give them what they need to keep them happy"
Watt-Evans, Lawrence - Predator 01 Page 12
