Predator marathon

 The alien tossed Ramirez’s body aside as if it were a bag of trash. It was determined and focused now, all its otherworldly hunter’s tactics and cunning raw and ready. The raging water posed no obstacle to the creature, and it sailed across like a hydroplane, barely breaking the surface even where it was five feet deep. As it arrived at the north bank of the river it churned up rocks and dirt with its spurs as it strode to Billy’s body. It bent and began to pull the Indian apart, its narrow yellow optic nerve centers pulsing as it searched out the fading heat patterns of Billy’s cooling organs.

  Huddled among the rocks Schaefer only realized now that he’d been wounded. The force that had ripped the gun from his grip as the diamond head of the alien’s spear shattered the rifle had gone on to slash deeply through Schaefer’s shoulder, laying open the flesh almost to the bone. With his gun broken and useless, the major saw no alternative but to make a break down the canyon in the wake of the girl and run for his life.

  Dutch wasn’t accustomed to any sort of retreat, let alone running like a helpless fugitive headlong down a mountain, but he saw no other choice. Getting away was all he could think to do. Then if by some miracle he got clear, maybe he could buy a little time to regroup and make a final stab at fighting back. He barreled out of the rocks, ran through a tunnel of trees and past the sprung trap, and scrambled over the lip of the canyon and onto the steep downhill trail. He leaped over a fallen log, stumbled, struggled to his feet—running now on pure pounding adrenaline, his wounded shoulder oozing blood and stinging with a painful burn. His eyes were red and glazed with terror, he who had never feared anything in his life. Behind him he could hear the crunch of the alien’s feet breaking twigs and crushing gravel as it jogged along in his wake.

  Schaefer imagined that he could hear, almost feel the alien’s heavy breath on him. The heat and panic and the steep trail had made him light-headed. He had to see how close the enemy was, so he turned his head without slowing his pace and saw the creature steadily bearing down the slope, Billy’s heart and brain bloody in either hand. Schaefer had a wild desperate look of hope on his face as he saw a few more yards between them than he’d anticipated. Even as he turned back, ducking an overhanging limb and racing on, he didn’t seem to realize that the alien was enjoying the chase—savoring the final confrontation with the leader.

  As Schaefer felt the alien closing the space he ran like a madman, crazy to find a position from which to fight and knowing in his heart that the jungle would give no quarter to an unarmed man. He was losing ground and knew it. A shot of pain flashed through his shoulder, and for a moment he thought it was the alien’s weapon entering him again. He looked up into the muggy birdless sky as if to rage a final goodbye to the world in which he had lived as a warrior.

  Then by some queer glitch of fate the ground beneath him collapsed, and he disappeared from sight.

  In a shower of leaves Schaefer crashed through the trees at a blind cliff edge, freefalling into space. He’d crossed an overhang of turf that looked secure but was only a thin layer of roots and moss that balanced above the canyon floor a hundred feet below. With a sickening crash he hit the top branches of a tall fir, then fell again through one canopy after another, desperately grabbing for limbs and branches to break his fall.

  Finally he dropped to the floor layer of vegetation, his chest catching on the wide lower limb of a cottonwood, the impact knocking him near unconscious. Head whirling, vision blurred as if drugged, he teetered a few long agonizing seconds on the limb, then slid free, his numb fingers digging fruitlessly into the bark as he fell another ten feet to the swift churning river below.

  He struggled to stay afloat, but the task was nearly impossible between the roar of the rapids and the weight of his soaked boots and clothing. As he was driven under by the force of the water he had the sudden lucid presence of mind to reach down and untie one boot, then the other, as he somersaulted along the savage bottom rocks. He kicked the boots free, and the thirty-pound advantage allowed him to struggle to the surface, where he ripped off his mottled shirt and pants and began to swim for shore, stroking furiously with his one good arm.

  The alien peered over the edge of the cliff where Schaefer had fallen. It hesitated only a moment to lay aside the relics of the holy man. Then it dived over the edge as if it still harbored within it the glory of the hawk. It tore through the thick canopies of branches, agile and quick, bounding from limb to limb, soaring across twenty yards of space till it reached the low-hanging branch of a sycamore next to the river. It scanned the near jungle with its heat vision, seeking the telling yellow-red patterns that always revealed the frail form of man. But no man was there.

Schaefer was well downstream now, caught in a swirl of white water a mile from where the alien poised itself. As the major struggled toward shore he was helpless as a baby, totally at the mercy of cross currents and rapids which pulled him farther and farther till he was finally sucked into an undertow and hurled over a thirty-foot falls, plummeting down and driven deep underwater by the thundering force of the river.

  Seconds later, in the wide pool at the base of the falls, the deafening explosion of currents was behind him, Schaefer rolled at the bottom of the pool, his mind spinning in confusion, unaware of where he was or how to reach air. By the last stroke of his luck the opposing currents gently propelled him to the surface, just in time to take a feeble breath. He was nearly finished, his energy sapped. But the surface water was sweet and reviving, and a few strokes with his good arm brought him into the shallows where he was at last able to grip his toes in the muddy riverbed.

  As he tried to stand he pitched forward headlong into the gray muck by the riverbank. Then, with a final heave that drained the last shred of force he could muster, he crawled gasping and panting onto a sheltered mud overhang, settling into the tentacled root system of a dead tree, his body completely covered in thick gray sludge. He was fully primeval now, like the deepest beasts of the forest.

  Nearly unconscious but still alert to his enemy, he raised his head and looked through glazed eyes to the opposite side of the river, scanning the bank. Seeing no sign of the alien he collapsed in relief, his eyes roiling up into his head as the waves of fatigue and pain took over. His last delirious thought was that he’d escaped, though just now in his battered state it was an escape that seemed strangely like death.

  But the moment the major relaxed and was about to slip into unconsciousness he heard a shattering splash in the pool below the falls. The alien had leaped from the branches of an overhanging tree and landed on Schaefer’s side of the river, throwing up a muddy wave that washed onto the major’s feet. But even the reserve adrenaline was gone now. Dutch couldn’t move a muscle as he saw the huge creature stand, water shimmering on its glowing body, its skin tone and texture swirling gray and brown and green in an attempt to match the surrounding river foliage. The glaring yellow orbs stared directly at the spot where Schaefer lay helplessly trapped in the tangle of roots.

   The Predator (1987 novelization), chapter 15