Predator voice mimicry

Schaefer crept forward, placing one foot in front of the other with all the stealth and skill of a Sioux scout. Suddenly he would stop and strain to listen, trying to place the direction of the frightening scrape of the alien’s spurs. The sound reverberated off the granite walls, so he couldn’t pin it down enough to fire at it. Nervously he looked around in a full circle, uncertain where to move next. Then, unbelievably, he heard the whisper of a human voice softly echoing among the rocks. It was Anna. “Look out . . . behind you,” came the warning, almost seductive in its intimacy.

  Schaefer spun about, his breath catching as the words drifted to him. Wide-eyed and straining every tendon and muscle he waited for the voice again but heard nothing—just the distant muted flow of the river and the hissing and popping of the dying fire above. As the flames dwindled, the shadows grew longer and darker with every minute.

  Then Anna’s voice again. “Look out, Major . . . behind you!”

  Schaefer swiveled in place. “Anna?” he whispered back. It was almost pathetic, the need he felt just then to make contact with somebody human. Trancelike, he moved toward the sound.

  In a shallow cave among the rocks, not more than twenty feet from Schaefer, the alien mimicked the girl again. “Over here. I know the way out!”

  Numbly Schaefer followed the bait, closer and closer. But as he moved in a kind of dream state something made him pause at the sound of more familiar voices. “Dillon, over here,” came the voice of Mac, and Mac was dead.

  Bolting awake with horror Schaefer backed quickly into a narrow tuck between a boulder and the high sheer wall of the amphitheater. His feet moved lightly as he went into a bowman’s crouch, the shadow-light deepening with the dying fire above, till he almost seemed like something ancient painted on the rock. Bow drawn, trapped against the rock, he heard the scraping sound of the predator once again. The noise came from the right, then shifted back to the left, then right again. The major didn’t know where to shoot and began to sweat with panic.

   The Predator (1987 novelization), chapter 16