The Predator: The Official Movie Novelization

4

Casey Brackett sometimes wondered why she did this to herself. On a beautiful day when she had no classes to teach, she could have done anything with her time. Her mother would have told her to find a boyfriend, because her mother had grown up as part of a generation that believed a woman needed a man in her life for security or a solid foundation or something. Casey didn’t mind the occasional man, but her mother’s attitude drove her nuts. She didn’t need a boyfriend… although she wouldn’t have minded an outing now and then with a circle of friends.

She didn’t have a circle. Laid out on a graph, her friends would have been more of a connect-the-dots. There were days this felt unfortunate, but when she was being honest with herself, Casey had to admit it was her own doing. After all, she didn’t really like people very much. Which was why, on this beautiful day, she was sat on a bench in a dog park just outside Johns Hopkins, Maryland, red-penciling papers from college students who were never as smart as she wanted them to be. She went through a lot of red pencils.

The papers were on her lap, the red pencil in her right hand. In her left, she held a braid of leashes belonging to her stupid, beautiful, goofy dogs. They were ordinarily very well behaved, which often lulled her into thinking that she could bring them down to the dog park and get some correcting done. Then one or more of them would start acting like a lunatic or begging for her attention, and she’d remember how she’d promised herself the last time that she wouldn’t fool herself like this again.

But it was a gorgeous day—and she did need to get her correcting done.

The eruption of urgent barking sounded like Casey herself, the day she’d reamed out the sacker at the grocery store for putting a jug of orange juice into a bag on top of a fresh loaf of bread. She knew that bark the same way a mother knew her baby’s cry, and her head snapped up in irritation.

“Summer! Stop it!” she snapped. “That’s not yours. Does it look like it’s yours?”

The dog barked twice at the toy she’d been trying to steal, and then darted away, but not without casting a rueful glance at Casey. She could be trouble, that one. Sometimes she would gather up the unattended toys at the dog park and piss on them, to claim them for herself. Marking her stolen territory like a furry conqueror with a fetish. Then there was the time she’d bitten the handsome firefighter who’d been working up his nerve to ask for Casey’s number. She’d given the guy her number for all the wrong reasons, thinking he’d call to make her pay for whatever shots or stitches he might need, but he’d never called. She’d been both relieved and disappointed.

As her red pencil hovered over the paper on top of the stack on her lap, a jogger ran by with his own dog on a leash. The guy slowed down. Even in her peripheral vision, Casey saw the way he craned his neck to get a better look at her.

Fantastic, she thought.

The rubbernecker backtracked, dog in tow, and jogged in place beside her. She wondered if he had any idea how much of a cliché he was in that moment, or if he would care.

“How’s it goin’?” he said, toweling his neck.

Another dog yelp came from across the park. Casey glanced over, rolling her eyes. “Teddy! Knock it off! You can see she doesn’t like that!”

The dog bolted across the park toward her, tearing up grass as he ran. Sometimes she thought the big stinker misbehaved just so she would admonish him. He rushed over and put his muzzle onto her lap, rustling her papers. Casey smiled, caressing one of his floppy ears, knowing it would calm him down. Teddy was a scoundrel, but sweet nonetheless.

The jogger stood watching this exchange, apparently unaware how intrusive it was.

“Seen you around here,” he said, extending his hand. “Doug Amaturo.” He scratched the ears of his well-groomed, designer dog, as if to mimic her interaction with Teddy. “This is Barkolepsy. She has a… sleeping thing. She’s a lab—”

“Labradoodle,” Casey said, frowning as she studied the dog. “Hypoallergenic cross between a poodle and a Labrador.”

Gathering her papers, she stood up abruptly and began to walk. The guy—Doug—trailed after her persistently.

“Right. That’s right,” he said, eager to please. “Are you a breeder?”

Casey shook her head, hating that the guy had diverted the conversation to his dog, the oldest trick in the book, and it had worked.

“Science professor,” she said. “Berkeley.”

He tried not to look intimidated. “What do you teach?”

Casey heaved a breath, wondering why men did this. Why push it so far that she would have to be blunt with him? Was Doug Amaturo really that oblivious, or did he think persistence would break down the walls of her disinterest? Would his approach have been different if he’d first spotted her teaching her self-defense students or practicing at the shooting range?

“Evolutionary biology,” she said. “The science of how creatures change. Adapt.”

Doug nodded thoughtfully. “You mean, like… how a man changes when he meets an attractive woman?”

Casey grinned. Someone who knew her well would have known to take a few steps back at the sight of that grin.

“It’s funny, you know? Darwin thought it was about agility, intelligence… but nowadays? You just have to be a rich, fat, white guy.”

“I…” Doug started, and then he blinked, as if realizing for the first time that maybe his presumed charms were not working on her. “What?”

“Now, drop a CEO into the Serengeti? Only question is, what color animal shits him out twenty-four hours later? The Serengeti, probably be a jackal… reddish tan. Jackals? Eat fuckin’ anything.”

Doug visibly gulped. She saw his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed.

“Um, I don’t wanna hold you up, so…” he murmured, and then he bolted, labradoodle hurrying to keep pace with him.

Casey watched him go, reaching into her jacket to fish out a silver flask. She opened it and took a swig.

“Doctor Brackett?”

Casey turned to see three men in dark business suits regarding her. They stood tall, not exactly ready for a fight, but ready for trouble. Immediately she thought of federal agents. Or somebody’s expensive bodyguards. Then she spotted the fancy sedan idling at the curb and the government license plate on the back, and she knew her first guess had been on the mark.

“I understand you enjoy stargazing,” said the agent who’d spoken.

Casey flinched. Her thoughts flickered. She’d heard the words before, but never expected to hear them again.

“My men will take care of your dogs,” the lead agent said. “Would you come with me, please?”

Rattled, and hating to show it, she let them take her paperwork and the leashes she’d been holding, and then allowed them to lead her to the sedan.

Moments later, she was climbing into the back of the car, glancing out the window at her dogs as the car pulled away.

“Dog person, huh?” the agent said.

Casey took a breath, trying to settle down. “They don’t judge you. They don’t lie. No hidden agendas. Love you or tear your throat out. I kind of have to respect that.”

The agent handed her a file. “How are you with higher forms of life?”

“I wasn’t aware there were any,” she replied, trying to keep her shit together.

The file bore the eagle-and-shield insignia of the Central Intelligence Agency. Casey opened it and studied the top sheet:

Casey frowned. Her throat went dry as she flipped through the file. An eight-by-ten photo of someone named Quinn McKenna was the first in a series of photos. She saw a debris field and her heart raced with excitement. The next photo showed what appeared to be a spacecraft, not very large, surely not capable of interstellar travel. Some kind of sub-transport vessel, ship to ship? Ship to surface?

Then she flipped to the next photo and her heart froze in her chest. She sucked in a sharp breath, unable to process for a few seconds. This was a satellite photo, shot through the upper limbs of trees. No spacecraft debris in this photo. No charred spacecraft.

The picture was blurry, but she knew what she was looking at.

A humanoid figure. Whatever had been inside that spacecraft.

Casey Brackett forgot all about her dogs.