Day of the Predator - Alex Scarrow [106]
‘It’s slowing him down,’ said Edward. ‘His ankle.’
‘I know, I know, but we can’t let the others get too far ahead.’
Around their campfire last night the discussion had turned to why those creatures hadn’t attacked them again, instead choosing to discreetly follow them at a distance. The conclusion they’d come to was that they were playing a tactical game, waiting for the group to become spread out enough to be able to pick them off one at a time. This morning as they’d made their way across the rest of the plain towards the last stretch of the journey, down into the jungle valley, they’d been almost comically bunched up.
But now, hacking their way through dense foliage, the group was getting dangerously strung out.
‘Come on, Edward, help me get him up.’
It was then that Kelly caught a glimpse through a gap in the leaves of some dark form fifty yards below them.
‘Oh Jesus,’ he hissed. ‘I saw something back there!’
‘What?’
‘Just … just …. there’s no one else behind us, is there?’
Edward shook his head.
Kelly saw it again, a dark form hurrying between the trunks of two trees, then dropping down out of sight. ‘Oh my God! They’re down there!’
Howard was on his feet again.
‘Go! Go!’ snapped Kelly. ‘I’ll watch our backs!’
Edward and Howard stumbled forward again, Kelly reversing uphill, keeping his eyes on the downhill as he fumbled his way after them. Again, he saw it. Closer now, the flicker of dark olive skin, leaping between the gaps in the leaves. More than one of them, and moving so terrifyingly quietly. More worryingly … they didn’t seem to care that they were being seen.
Oh no.
Now they were in the jungle they were closing the gap.
I’m not going to outrun them.
He realized he stood a far better chance squaring up to them, perhaps even skewering one of them on the end of his spear. Maybe another kill would buy them another day of caution, enough time to get back over that river to the camp.
‘Come on,’ he hissed. ‘I know you’re down there!’
He heard Edward calling down. ‘Mr Kelly?’
‘Go!’ he shouted. ‘I’m just coming!’
The sound of the two boys’ clumsy staggering slowly receded from him until all he could hear was the occasional snap of a branch echoing off the tall stout trunks of the canopy trees.
‘Come on!’ he whispered again. He was surprised that it wasn’t abject terror he was feeling right now, but anger. Rage. He wanted to grab one of those scrawny things and rip its ridiculous marrow-shaped head off. His throat filled with a dry laugh.
Who do you think you are – Tarzan?
A far cry from his normal life: PR guy, meeting and greeting visitors with his cheesy tanned smile and his nice linen suit and expensive polo shirt. Right now, standing legs apart in trousers ripped off at the knees to make shorts, bare-chested, revealing a pale torso tufted with silver-grey hair and drooping man-boobs that spoke of a lapsed gym membership … right now he felt like that commando character in the film his sons liked, the one with the alien with a crab face and dreadlocks.
Oh yeah, he was ready for them.
‘Come on … you want some of me? Then COME ON!’
As if in answer, in the stillness of the jungle around him, he heard a soft, high-pitched voice.
‘… Come … on …’
Then ahead of him, as if it had appeared like the Cheshire Cat, only yellow eyes first instead of a big grin, there stood one of the creatures, a dozen yards downhill of him, cocking its head and studying him intently.
Kelly took several steps downhill, lunging with the tip of his spear. ‘Yeah? So that’s what you things look like up close.’
It recoiled at the sight of the spear, ducking back into a patch of waxy leaves, only to emerge again a moment later.
‘Oh yeah! I can kill you with this spear,’ muttered Kelly triumphantly. The spear seemed to be warding off the creature, its yellow eyes warily locked on the sharpened tip of