McKenna didn’t have to say a word. As one, he and Rory began to back away from the windows. Together, they twisted around to flee for the next turn in the corridor, and found the Predator waiting for them. The one from downstairs. The original, the bastard from the jungle, who now wore a borrowed helmet and wanted his original gear back.
Rory practically plowed into the Predator. It swatted him aside and the kid went sliding along the smooth floor. Something skittered out of Rory’s hand, a long black gizmo that McKenna thought looked like a video game controller or a big TV remote. He only got a glimpse of the thing before the Predator shot out a hand and grabbed the chest of his jacket. McKenna threw a punch at its body, and realized his mistake when his fist smashed against armor.
The Predator slammed him against the wall, so damn strong it could have killed him with very little effort. Instead, it cocked its head and seemed to scan him—and McKenna realized that was precisely what the alien was doing. The tech in the helmet must have been searching him for something that it didn’t find. Still holding him against the wall, the Predator turned and fixed its gaze on Rory.
No, McKenna thought.
The Predator’s head twitched, its focus no longer on Rory but on the black gizmo on the floor. It was clear that whatever that thing was, the alien wanted it.
Just take it, McKenna tried to mumble. Just take it and go.
Maybe, if he’d been able to get the words out clearly, the Predator would simply have done as he asked. But then McKenna heard the clicking noise outside the window again. He started to glance that way, and was aware that the Predator was also whipping its head round, alarmed by the sound—but too late. Abruptly the wall erupted, plaster debris flying everywhere, and an impossibly large arm smashed through the hole and reached for the Predator.
Stunned, McKenna dropped to the floor as the Predator let him go and raised its weapon. But before it could fire, the massive arm shot forward and the huge hand on the end of it tore the cannon-like gun from the Predator’s hand and crushed it as if it were cheap tin. Dropping the weapon, the massive arm of the Upgrade Predator swung and swatted the original Predator effortlessly aside. As the Upgrade Predator hauled itself through the hole it had made, and the original Predator scrambled to its feet and rushed forward to confront it, McKenna took his chance and jumped up. Turning away from the Predators, he ran back along the corridor, toward the stairs, scooping up a still-dazed Rory as the howl and clash of the fighting aliens resounded behind him. His only hope was that the creatures would keep one another occupied long enough for him to get his son to safety.
He and Rory clattered down the stairs, McKenna all but carrying his son, taking the steps two at a time. Through the still-drifting murk of debris he saw dark shapes moving up the stairs toward them, and for a moment he faltered, before realizing it was the Loonies, Nebraska at their head.
“Go! Go!” he yelled, waving them back. There followed a Keystone Kops moment, everyone trying to turn at once and head back the way they had come, which would have been comical if it hadn’t been for the dire circumstances. After a few seconds, however, they were all heading in the same direction, Lynch and Coyle leading the way, with McKenna and Rory bringing up the rear, just behind Nebraska and Casey.
They made it into the lobby, and were a few feet from the splintered gap that had once housed a pair of double doors when McKenna became aware of something at his back—a sixth sense kind of feeling, maybe a displacement of air—and turned to see the original Predator (it felt like too much of a sick joke to think of him as the small one) leaping straight down the center of the stairwell.
The creature landed with barely a jolt—indeed, without even bending its knees to absorb the impact of its fall. The Loonies froze, and for what felt like a long moment McKenna and his team stared at the Predator, and the Predator stared back at them.
What is this? McKenna thought. An impasse? Or is it just waiting for us to run, so it can enjoy the thrill of the chase?
So focused was he on the creature that he didn’t notice Rory sidle away from his side. Now, though, he heard him gasp, and turned. His son was a couple of meters away, almost against the right-hand wall, looking at the Predator side-on. Curious, McKenna took a tentative step to his right, and suddenly he saw what Rory was seeing—the whip-like cord, which was wound around the smaller Predator’s neck, stretching up into the dusty shadows.
The Predator hadn’t jumped down the center of the stairwell. He had been pushed or thrown. And he wasn’t standing there staring at them. He was dead.
The Upgrade had hanged him.
Now that McKenna looked more closely, he saw that the Predator’s feet weren’t quite touching the floor. As if the Upgrade was somehow aware that the humans in the lobby below had finally realized the truth, it gave several sharp tugs on the cord around its fellow alien’s neck, making the Predator’s limbs jerk and twitch in a ghoulish dance.
Then it gave a sudden sharp yank rather than a tug, and the cord, which was made of some type of metal, sliced straight through the meat and bone of the smaller Predator’s neck. The creature’s head flew off and hit the floor with a thud, right in front of the Loonies, the neck stump spattering them with green blood as the body dropped to the ground.
That was precisely what was needed to break the spell. As one, the Loonies, McKenna, Rory, and Casey turned and bolted out of the wrecked entranceway.
McKenna yelled, signaling toward the RV, and they all ran in that direction.
All except Rory, that is, who paused to regard the pit bull, which, despite everything, was still hunched down beneath the bleachers, too terrified to move. A thoughtful look crossed Rory’s face, and for a moment it seemed he might even veer off to rescue the frightened dog.
Then McKenna grabbed him roughly enough to make Rory yelp out in pain. “Goddammit,” he said, unable to rein in his exasperation at his son’s lack of urgency, “we have to go!”
He leaped into the RV, all but dragging Rory after him, as Nettles threw himself into the driver’s seat and fired up the engine. McKenna hated to retreat without finishing a job—which, now that he had found Rory, he saw as both ridding the Earth of the alien threat, and gathering enough evidence to expose Traeger and his goons, and clear all their names. Thing was, the Upgrade was more than he had bargained for. If they were going to fight it, they needed a plan, and standing here dying wasn’t anyone’s idea of good strategy.
He didn’t let go of Rory’s arm until the RV’s door was shut behind them and they were heading away from the kill zone, but as soon as he did, the boy crawled under the table of the dinette and curled into a fetal ball. McKenna felt a twinge of guilt and shame at how roughly he had handled his son, but he told himself it was necessary—in this case, rough love might have proved the difference between life and death.
Around him the Loonies were whooping and hollering—more a release of tension than anything else—but they quieted down fast when the Upgrade suddenly appeared behind them, stooping through the shattered doorway and rising to its full height, its massive form spattered in the glowing green blood of its enemy. The Upgrade was clutching the weird remote control doohickey in its taloned paw, and as it watched them go it had a look on its face that McKenna couldn’t help interpreting as a kind of calm contemplation. Perhaps it was something in the creature’s eyes. From this distance, they looked almost human.
He glanced again at Rory, cowering under the table, and couldn’t help but feel a pang of dismay as the boy winced—almost as if he was more terrified of the violence inflicted by his own father than he was of an eleven-foot-tall alien killer with the face of an angry crab.