Predator spear through jugular

Pulling out his combat knife Billy grasped the medicine bag around his neck and yanked it free. Then he twisted it around the hilt of the knife, binding the two together. He raised his head and closed his eyes as if in a trance and began a low mournful chant.

Schaefer and the others had been busy scrambling to the other side of the river, and they didn’t notice that Billy had stayed behind consumed in ritual. The major labored up the opposite riverbank, Ramirez still on his back, before he turned and saw the Indian.

“Oh, Christ,” he uttered. Then he shouted. “Billy!” But the Indian didn’t hear a thing as he faced due north, the direction of the oncoming predator, knife raised like a holy sword. “Billy!” Schaefer called out again, but it was useless. Billy was as beyond the earth now as the alien.

The major hefted Ramirez higher onto his back and hauled up the hill. Anna waited at the top. Billy was crouching low now on the opposite bank, his knife extended in a fighting position.

Schaefer scrambled up the last of the slope, bringing the wounded Ramirez to relative safety at the top of the ridge overlooking the river. Just as he gently lowered the Chicano to the ground and drew down his rifle he heard a long piercing scream from the north bank of the wide river. It was Billy Sole’s final stand. The alien had taken him in a flash, its weapon slicing through the Indian’s jugular and then zigzagging down his chest and belly like a mockery of some tribal blessing.

The loyal scout hadn’t the ghost of a chance, armed as he was with nothing more than a hunting knife and a thousand faded years of Indian heritage. Schaefer spun around helplessly at the sound of Billy’s cry, too late and too far away to help him. Ramirez, Billy’s most loyal friend, struggled to cock his rifle, but even as he went through the motions he had an aching dread that he’d never fight again.

Before the Chicano could release a single round the alien’s deadly weapon shot up the hill toward him like a laser, the impact hurling him backward. The spearhead lodged in his neck, pinning him to the ground as if he were a butterfly frozen in a collector’s display. Spouts of blood gushed from the mortal wound—it seemed impossible he could still bleed after the grave wound he’d received before—and his legs and arms twitched hideously in the seconds before death brought release.

   The Predator (1987 novelization), chapter 15