Кристофер Голден - The Predator - The Official Movie Novelization

McKenna felt a chill trickle down his spine. He cleared his throat. “Should I be worried?”

“Probably,” Nebraska replied grimly. He stood up, tossing the butt of his cigarette to one side, then tapped at his scar with a smile and pointed to Heaven. “God wouldn’t take me neither.”

McKenna expected him to walk away, but Nebraska stood for a moment, contemplating his new friend, as if debating whether to reveal more devastating truths. Finally, he seemed to decide, but what he said surprised McKenna—surprised him and moved him.

“I got your back, Chief.”

The constant noise in the lot had been getting to Nettles, and now the sound of a biker noisily revving his engine only a few feet away managed to fray his last few nerves.

Scowling, he said, “You mind keeping it down?”

The biker shot him an incredulous look. “You gonna make me, fairy boy?”

Nettles jumped to his feet and started toward him. “Am I gonna make you Fairy Boy? How would that work? Do I, like, give you powers? A wand? I’m confused.”

The biker strode to meet him, full of rage and swagger and a history that doubtless included a hundred such encounters, all of them ending the same way. Nettles relished that moment, the instant when the guy’s confidence suffused him the way all the best emotions did—love, fury… humiliation.

Nettles shot out a hand with such fluidity that anyone looking on would have seen the motion as almost casual. The biker wouldn’t have agreed—not when he staggered, gasping, and crumpled to the ground.

Standing in front of a vending machine, McKenna saw the exchange and shook his head. Great. Just fucking great. What did these guys not understand about the need to keep a low profile? He banged the machine with his fist. Bizarrely, and without warning, a paper cup dropped down and started filling with coffee. McKenna stared at the cup a moment—he hadn’t put any money in yet—and decided to take this as a good omen.

Nettles could take care of himself, right?

He sure as hell hoped so.

Nebraska walked by, headed for the motel room, and with a last glance toward Nettles, McKenna followed. Nebraska knocked at the door, a prearranged signal of two short, three long knocks, and Coyle yanked it open almost immediately.

“Good timing,” Coyle said, glancing from Nebraska to McKenna before he stepped back to let them in.

McKenna understood his urgency the moment they entered. On the bed, the woman had turned over and seemed to be stirring. Baxley and Lynch were gathered by the bed of their sleeping Snow White with the air of expectant fathers. She stirred again, moaned a bit, and Nebraska moved in as well. He held up his hands as if she were already awake, like she might try to bolt and he wanted to calm her before she hurt herself.

“Easy,” Nebraska told the others. “She’s gonna open her eyes, buncha motherfuckers hovering, she might be coming in hot.”

“Got it,” Coyle said, nodding anxiously, eyes even crazier than usual. “Chill.”

McKenna frowned as he noticed a dinner tray on a stand that had been set up next to the bed. A tiny cup of coffee, a troll doll, a postcard, a drawing of a shopping cart, a foil unicorn. Like offerings to the God of Idiots.

“What is this shit, exactly?” McKenna asked.

Baxley looked sheepish. “We wanted to make her feel comfortable. When she wakes up. The postcard’s from me, the unicorn’s from Nettles—”

McKenna raised a hand to cut him off, nodding as if Baxley’s explanation actually made sense. In a way, he guessed, it did. The Loonies were like some Dr. Moreau combination of children and feral cats, wild but aware of the weird allure of domesticity.

Casey moaned softly as she clawed her way back to the surface of the deep black pool into which she’d fallen. The dead time between the tranquilizer taking effect and her return to consciousness seemed like both an instant and an eternity. She tried to open her eyes for what seemed like the hundredth time, and this time managed it, light suddenly flooding in between her lids.

“Mornin’, sunshine,” said a voice.

That’s not my name , she thought groggily. But when she tried to communicate the fact, it came out as: “I wish people’d stop calling me that.”

All at once, it occurred to her to wonder who had spoken. The last time she had heard a human voice it had come from a man who was about to kill her. The adrenaline that flooded through her at the memory enabled her to open her eyes wide, to half sit up. She saw faces. Men’s faces. They didn’t look like doctors. In fact, each of them looked crazy in one way or another.

Her gaze shifted instinctively to her left, looking for an escape route. She didn’t spot one immediately, but what she did spot was almost as good. Bounding out of bed, she grabbed the Remington shotgun, which was propped against a chair beside the bed, on which sat a tray piled with various bits of junk—a troll doll, a foil unicorn, other stuff. Whirling round, she leveled the gun shakily at the group of men. Her eyes were wide and her breath came in ragged sips as she studied them, maybe trying to decide who to shoot first if anyone made a move.

The men didn’t look scared. In fact, they looked impressed by her moves—and in her present befuddled state that confused her a little. One of the men—sandy hair, handsome, maybe the least crazy looking of the bunch—stepped forward, his hands raised to show he was unarmed.

“Relax,” he said soothingly. “We’re the good guys.”

She sneered at him. Backing away, she fumbled in her pants pocket while still trying to keep the shotgun pointed in their vicinity, then started to look panicked. Frantically she patted her other pockets.

“Looking for this?” asked the handsome guy mildly.

She glanced up. He was holding the pulverized remains of her cell phone in his hand, an expression of apology on his face.

Before she could speak, he said, “They know who you are, lady. And they can trace phones.”

Casey gaped at him. “Are you insane?”

The men—all except for the handsome guy—seemed to take her question literally. They shuffled embarrassedly and started casting glances at each other. Some shrugged, others raised their eyebrows.

One of them said, “Maybe.”

“A little,” amended a scruffy guy in a baseball cap, holding his thumb and forefinger an inch apart to demonstrate.

Yet another of the men, a tall, bald, bearded guy, stared into space and murmured, “I dunno… probably.”

Casey narrowed her eyes, clearly uncertain whether they were making fun of her or not.

One thing she was certain of, though, was that fearsome as these men looked, they meant her no harm. If they had, she was sure she’d have known about it by now. Indeed, now that she really thought about it, the most likely scenario was that they’d rescued her from the Project: Stargazer compound and had been protecting her ever since.

Unless, of course, they were desperate prisoners and she was their hostage. But again, that didn’t really ring true. Their body language was wrong for a start.

Deciding to test her theory, she leaned the Remington against the wall and made for the door. She was reaching for the handle when the handsome guy barked, “They were gonna put a bullet in your head back there.”

Now Casey stopped and glanced back at him, torn by indecision. She’d already guessed the reason for her ex-employers’ sudden change of attitude toward her: it was either because she’d seen too much, or because of the vial she’d taken. But, ever the scientist, she couldn’t help wondering how these guys fit into the equation, and what they knew that she didn’t. She cocked an eyebrow, and the handsome guy said, “You’re expendable. Just like the rest of us.”