Кристофер Голден - The Predator - The Official Movie Novelization

Then he turned and hurried after the others, leaving Coyle and Baxley behind.

Alone, Coyle and Baxley looked at each other. Both were relaxed, both breathing deeply and evenly.

Then a faint rustle in the bushes nearby caused them both to jerk up their guns and spin round.

After a moment, Baxley frowned and lowered his gun. “Calm down,” he said to Coyle.

Coyle looked indignant. “ Me calm down? Sure, thanks… twitchy .”

“Just don’t shoot me, fucker,” Baxley muttered.

They began to walk back along the trail. As soon as it widened out, Coyle raised his weapon and let loose a burst of gunfire, strafing the foliage in front of them, shredding leaves and branches.

“Hey, asshole!” he hollered into the darkness. “What’s the difference between a golf ball and a G-spot?”

Baxley shot him an incredulous look. “You’re telling it a joke?”

Coyle shrugged. “If he laughs it’ll give away his position.”

“That’s the dumbest thing I ever—”

Before he could finish his sentence, the tree closest to him exploded. There was a blast of heat and light, and the thing simply shattered into pieces as though struck by lightning.

The two of them ducked, Baxley letting out an involuntary yelp as splinters showered over him. The echoes of the blast were still fading when another sound replaced it—a deep, booming, otherworldly laugh that reverberated through the jungle.

Baxley and Coyle looked at each other. They both recognized that laugh. Distorted though it was, it was Traeger’s laugh, mocking and without humor.

And I didn’t even get to the punchline , Coyle thought.

Then, yelling in defiance, both men raised their guns and let fly, blitzing the jungle with bullets. After five seconds they stopped, and then, in silent agreement, they turned and ran as fast as they could, back along the trail, toward the choke point, jumping over logs and crashing through bushes.

“Come and get us, motherfucker! This way!” Baxley yelled gleefully.

Just ahead of him he heard Coyle shrieking with laughter.

After maybe seventy meters, the choke hole widened out into a clearing. It was here that the hunted were hoping to become the hunters. With their trap hastily set, they scrambled for cover, diving behind trees and bushes, hoping against hope that their desperate counter-attack against a creature that was faster, stronger, technologically superior, and infinitely more vicious than they were would end this nightmare once and for all.

Typically, McKenna and Nebraska were the last to seek shelter. As the whoops of Coyle and Baxley grew louder, McKenna hurried across the clearing, and Nebraska followed, though not before kicking a little more dirt over the string of claymore mines they were all hoping would turn the Upgrade into dog food. Nebraska jumped over a boulder directly opposite the arch of tree branches that formed the clearing’s entrance, and crouched behind it, his shoulder pressed up against its rough stone surface. Peering over the top of the boulder, he took a last look around, like a party organizer checking the final details before the arrival of the special guest. In the darkness and the drifting jungle mist he caught glimpses of mercs and Loonies, what little light there was flashing on the barrels of their guns, and glinting in their eyes. Over to his left, he could just about make out Casey crouched next to Traeger, who seemed to be fiddling with that weird alien cannon he was wearing on his shoulder. Sensing Nebraska’s gaze, Casey glanced across at him and gave him a hopeful thumbs-up. He nodded back at her.

Then he faced front again. From the sounds of it, Coyle and Baxley were almost here. The party was about to begin.

Still whooping and yelling—not only a lure for the Upgrade, but also a release of tension and a sheer primal expression of joy at still being alive—Coyle and Baxley burst into the clearing.

“ Contaaaaccct! ” Baxley yelled, then he and Coyle were leaping through the air like a pair of Olympic long jumpers, clearing the strings of explosives that had been set up across the ground in front of them and threaded into the tree branches above their heads. They hit the ground, rolled like experts, and within a split second were up on their feet again, heading for cover, arms swinging, legs pumping. They ran either side of a big tree and met up again behind it, panting and sweating.

Suddenly, Baxley started grinning, then chuckling to himself. Coyle raised his eyebrows.

“Shit, man… your joke,” Baxley explained. “I just got it. A guy might actually look for a golf ball.”

“Come on,” Casey murmured, “come on.”

It had only been twenty seconds, maybe less, since Baxley and Coyle had entered the arena, but in this situation twenty seconds seemed like a loooong time. The jungle was full of night sounds—rustles and birdcalls and the ripple of leaves in the wind. Casey could feel her heart thumping at the base of her throat, could smell Traeger’s sweat, and feel the sharp edge of something in the CIA agent’s duffel bag—possibly the Predator mask—pressing against her leg. She glanced up, hoping the Upgrade hadn’t outmaneuvered them, that it wasn’t even now up there in the blackness of the trees above their heads, lowering itself down to snatch its prey, silent as a spider on a thread of silk…

She heard someone gasp, and her eyes immediately seemed to refocus, to sharpen. There . A suggestion of movement at the entrance to the clearing. A shimmer. She held her breath, sensed Traeger tense beside her.

And then, just like that, the Upgrade stepped into the clearing, ducking under the archway of branches, rising to its full height.

Even now, its cloaked form a rippling, shimmering mass of forest come alive, Casey found the alien both impressively beautiful and utterly terrifying. It was like something from folklore. A demon warrior. A perfect killing machine. Relentless and unstoppable. When it moved into the kill zone and got itself blown into chunks of unrecognizable meat, she knew she’d feel a pang of genuine sorrow and regret. And yet right now she wanted that to happen more than anything else in the world.

Two more steps , she thought. Two more steps and all this will be over . But the Upgrade wasn’t moving. Shit. Clearly it could sense something. Suspected a trap. Although it was cloaked, she could discern its movements—its head jerking bird-like as it surveyed its surroundings. Could it see the string of claymore mines in the dirt? The pack of explosives attached to tree branches above its head, wired to blow the instant it walked underneath? It was dark, but what if the alien had night vision? What if—

Abruptly, the Upgrade decloaked.

Now it stood there at the entrance to the clearing in all its glory. A defiant gesture. A mocking gesture. It cocked its head at them, and although its expression was impossible to read, Casey guessed it was chiding them, expressing a kind of mock-disappointment at how pathetic they were, how unworthy they were as opponents.

“No… no… no…” murmured Traeger beside her, weariness and despair in his voice.

She glanced at Nebraska. He was clutching his gun in both hands, half-raising it, and she wondered how much longer it would be before this turned into a straight-out firefight. Maybe if Traeger took the initiative, fired his shoulder cannon, caught the Upgrade by surprise—

But it was the Upgrade who took the initiative. Almost before she realized that the alien had moved, it raised a hand, fired something from its wrist gauntlet, something that flashed in the meager light. A blade.