Кристофер Голден - The Predator - The Official Movie Novelization

“You mean cannon fodder,” Lynch interrupted.

“If they buy me time to get Emily and Rory somewhere safe, I’ll be glad they’re here,” McKenna said.

“You really think the Predator’s showing up here?” Nebraska asked.

McKenna thought about the jungle, and about the gauntlet and helmet. He’d hoped they would be at the post office, but a small fear had niggled at the back of his mind—the fear that he hadn’t paid for his post office box, and when he’d checked on it and learned the truth, confirmed that the package had been taken here…

“I do, yeah.”

Nebraska grinned. “Good. Saves us the trouble of hunting it down.”

Rory had never owned anything this cool in his entire life. He knew he shouldn’t have taken it, knew that his father probably shouldn’t have taken it from wherever he’d gotten it. He was smart enough to know an Army Ranger didn’t pack something like this up in a tiny Mexican town and ship it to his private post office box without risking some serious trouble. Which meant that as soon as his father found out it was in Rory’s possession… it would no longer be in Rory’s possession. But while it was, the helmet was so damn cool.

The gauntlet remained on his wrist. The helmet was too big and bobbled as he walked, and he stumbled over a curb here and there and trampled Mrs. Markowitz’s bushes, but he could not make himself care. He was surrounded by kids in costumes and their parents, but he felt as if he was isolated—not the way he usually felt alone, but in a good way. Crazy good.

The helmet had an interior display. The eyepieces showed human heat signatures in every direction. The tech left Rory almost breathless, giddy with excitement. He knew he might never get to wear it again, and certainly not with so many people around—it’d look weird on any other night of the year. But tonight, everyone looked weird. The DiMarinos had set up their usual haunted house in the garage. The Khans had the inflatable screen out front showing It’s the Great Pumpkin , Charlie Brown on a loop. Steve Bronson always set up a scarecrow at the end of the driveway, tied to the lamppost, with a speaker inside so that he could talk to the trick-or-treaters in a spooky voice and make it seem like the scarecrow was alive. Autumn leaves skittered along the street. Kids screamed happily. At Cheryl Gorman’s house, her drunken boyfriend had a toy chainsaw that made very real-sounding noises, and he chased teenagers down the street in a Leatherface mask. Cheryl and her boyfriend were alcoholics, but on Halloween, everyone pretended to ignore that sorry fact.

Rory loved it all.

It felt to him as if he was seeing his entire neighborhood for the very first time.

Like an alien, just setting foot on Earth.

Casey sat inside the RV with the guy they called Nettles—the one who had made her the foil unicorn, which she had now tucked into her pack, because she found it kind of cute. She wasn’t sure if Nettles was his real name, or a nickname because he got under everyone’s skin. She studied his tattoos while he blathered on, but after a minute or two she pulled her attention back to the task at hand—trying to figure out what the federal government had up their sneaky, stupid sleeve.

She peered into the portable microscope, which had been set up on the RV’s dinette table. The vial she’d stolen from Stargazer sat on the counter beside her. She had some of the liquid from it on a slide. The microscope wasn’t of the quality she would have preferred, but it was all she had to work with. Under the circumstances, she was glad to have it.

Adjusting the focus, she gazed at the smear of liquid, then pulled back from the microscope and blinked, incredulous. “Jesus. It’s like a… supermatrix of trihydroxy and amino acids.”

Nettles perked up expectantly. “Does that mean we smoke it or snort it?”

Casey glanced at the vial, talking to herself as much as to Nettles. “If I’m right… and I hope I’m not… it means they’re trying to upgrade themselves.”

Holy shit. She could barely believe she’d just uttered those words. It spooked her badly. Shaken, trying to tell herself she must be wrong but knowing she wasn’t, she picked up the two-way and keyed it.

“McKenna?” she said, after a small burst of static. “I’ve found something.”

The implications of Casey’s discovery echoing in his head, McKenna burst through the front door of the house that hadn’t felt like home for a long time. Heart thundering, he scanned the entryway and the short hall before he even let himself acknowledge Emily’s presence. She’d frozen when he whipped the door open and now she glared at him, her expression worthy of Medusa.

“Hi, honey, you’re home,” she said.

A beat went by, a breath, and then she glanced pointedly at the shotgun in his hand. McKenna had barely remembered that he carried the weapon and he didn’t have time to explain or apologize for it now.

“Where’s Rory?”

“Oh, I get it,” Emily said, falling into the old rhythm of their relationship, the familiar tone. “You think you can just waltz in here and—”

“I asked you a question.”

She leaned toward the stairwell, put her hand on the banister. “Agent Traeger, he’s in here!”

McKenna narrowed his eyes. “Nice try.” He tapped his earbud. “I was listening. Oh, and, ‘He’s done something crazy?’ Thanks for that.”

“What was I supposed to say?”

“How about, ‘Is my ex-husband all right?’ Normal families ask that.”

“There’s your answer.”

“Emily, now’s not the time,” McKenna said, thinking, as if the shotgun shouldn’t have told you all you needed to know . “Where’s Rory?”

Her mask slipped, and she revealed how worried Traeger’s visit had made her. She had loved him once, McKenna knew that, and maybe she still cared about him, but nothing mattered to her—to either of them—more than Rory. That maternal terror filled her eyes now and she turned to look back toward the kitchen.

“He’s not in his room. He was in the basement earlier,” she said. “I bought him two different Halloween costumes, but he went out without either of them. I think he’s trick-or-treating, but I have no idea what he’s wearing. Maybe last year’s outfit.”

McKenna moved past her, headed for the kitchen. “He’s spending a lot of time in the basement lately?”

“He always does,” Emily said, following him.

“I mean the last couple of days. More than usual?”

“I guess. Maybe.”

The basement door stood open. McKenna double-timed it down the steps and scanned the room, Rory’s worktable, his posters, the computer screens still open, ready for him to re-engage with the video games he’d been playing. Then he spotted a parcel on the floor next to the table and he rushed over to it. He could almost smell the dust from the tiny Mexican village on the box, and when he picked it up, the return label confirmed its origin.

He shook the box, but the weight alone told him it was empty.

“Shit!” he said as he tossed it aside.

Emily had paused on the steps. Now she descended two more stairs. “What? So he ordered some video games.”

“No, no, no, no,” McKenna said as he rifled through Rory’s things, checking under discarded sweatshirts and behind a stack of books and inside a chest that had once held toys. When he spoke again, it was a low rasp, mostly to himself. “The whole fucking reason I sent it to a PO box was so I wouldn’t put you in danger! Goddamnit!”

He spun around and stared at Emily. “We need to find him. Now!”

McKenna bolted, passing her on the stairs.