So I watched the movie and was soooo inspired to write a story of what happened afterwards. So, this takes place after the Predator movie. The movie was awesome btw. If you haven't seen it I command you to see it!
Anyway if you have then you know that at the end the two survivors, Isabelle and Royce, see more chutes coming down and are still stuck on the planet, here's the next generation of the hunted…dun dun…DUNNN!
I had the feeling of being watched while she was walking home from the shooting range. The wind tousled through my French braided hair and caused chill bumps to form on my arms and back. I had this feeling for quite some time. Every since I had gotten back from her latest assignment in fact she had inhibited the odd feeling of a pair of eyes watching me.
I pushed the anonymous feeling aside and trudged along. Pulling my fur coat hood closer I cursed at the confounded weather for lowering on the exact day I returned from the Blackwater Headquarters. The freezing wind whipped past my face in icy strands that numbed my cheeks and caused me to squint. My boots clomped on the concrete sidewalk that echoed in the eerie silence of the night. As people of the small town retired to their homes the area was blanketed in an unnerving hush. Lights in the homes blinked out as the citizens lay down to sleep. I savored the small moments of town life. I knew that in less than two weeks I would have to return.
I was a mercenary. My team and I worked for the highest bidder and for nothing less. No matter the mess no matter the danger they were called to do the dirty work. Right now my manager had given her the promised time off. We got two weeks every three months. There hardly was ever times to relax with my job. They were constantly hired by the government for small military operations. We were the front line, the grunts, but the money was well worth it.
My house was only a few blocks further. It was strange that I would buy a two story house for the small time I was allowed to relieve herself of my job. The killing, I looked at my hands and inwardly shuddered. How much blood has been shed by those hands? I couldn't even count. It didn't matter it wasn't supposed to matter. Then why did it constantly bother me? I shifted the pack full of my personal weapons on my back. The shooting range, which I was ordered to attend at least once a day, was the place where I kept my skills sharpened. I was always required to keep my skills sharp, even on off days.
I yawned and rubbed the back of her aching neck through deep brown hair. Only a few years left and my contract would be fulfilled and I would be allowed to leave the Blackwater Mercenary hell pit. My mind danced with dreams of a better life without the killing and the long demands of my time. I was so distracted with those thoughts that's he didn't see the bright light in time to do anything about it. Before I knew it everything went black .
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My mind whirled with confusion and tiptoed on the border between reality and dream land. Only the sound of rushing wind and the feel of my body being pulled down jerked me awake. I wanted to scream when I realized I was in free fall. There were white clouds all around me and beneath me. How the hell did I get here? The questions echoed in my brain like a storm cloud but I shut them away for now. Save those for when I hit the ground. If I hit it alive. The pack of weapons were still attached to my back but there was also something else, a backpack of some sort. I felt black dots dance in front of her vision. I would have to pull the shoot quick before the G force caused me to black out. On the right shoulder strap was a button and I pressed it furiously. Nothing happened and Taryn began to panic.
The clouds broke and I could see a vast green carpet of jungle beneath me. It got closer and I felt the gravity begin to take hold of my consciousness. Just when I thought I was going to die the button on my shoulder beeped and my body was jerked upright when the shoot that had been contained in my backpack opened. My dark hair flew all about my face in a frenzy as I tried to breathe normally. I have had this training and the key was not to panic or that would mean death. All I could do was stare helplessly as I plummeted toward the jungle.
Vines and branches scraped at my face as I futilely tried to void them away with my arms. My shoot caught on a tree not ten feet from the ground and I felt her whole body jerk again to a halt. Pain coursed through my shoulders and head. The flashes of light against my vision hadn't ceased yet as they played with my mind. Minutes passed and when I regained myself and my eyes could see again I found I was in a steamy jungle. It was hot, too hot, and it caused sweat beads to drape down my skin. Birds cried off somewhere far away, reminded me I probably wasn't alone.
I squirmed around until I pulled my knife free of my backpack and skyrocketed toward the ground when I cut the strap loose. My head struck a log and I yelped with pain. The earth beneath me was cool against the scorching heat of the sun. The trees far above my head danced in sync with the wind. I saw the hole in the treetops that I had entered through and saw two more dots coming toward me. My blue eyes widened when I saw that they were more shoots with people attached to them. Picking up my pack I hid behind a rotting log until they landed with a loud thud. One was a man and one was a woman, wait a second, I recognized them. One was Cara and the other was Robert. They were both members of their mercenary team.
Cara was the first one up, her furious green eyes darted in every direction along with her sniper rifle. Cara was the hotheaded one of the bunch. She was tall and built like a mercenary. Her red hair, which was tied back in a messy braid frizzed out in all directions. She was the sniper of the bunch and did the duty of taking the enemy out from a safe distance. Robert was their captain, their leader on the job. He was the heavy duty fighter and always carried around that giant shotgun of his along with his M 16. Robert was fearless. No matter the danger he found one way or another to complete a mission despite the losses. It was the money that mattered to him.
"Who is that!" Cara had heard me looking around and I ducked. Cara was known to fire before knowing who the enemy was. "I swear to fucking god you better show yourself or I'll blow a hole in your-"
I raised up a hand in a symbol for peace and slowly stood up, "Cara it's me".
"Taryn?" both Robert and Cara said in unison and lowered their weapons.
"Jesus fucking christ kid you almost got yourself killed" Robert said none to happily.
"Taryn what the fuck is going on? Where are we?" Cara was spinning in circles while looking around at the jungle.
I laid my pack on the ground and began taking out my supplies. I was lucky I was walking home from the shooting range when I was captured. Hopefully I remembered to bring my training clothes with me. "I have no idea" I squinted as the sun peeked through the trees. I had a AK47, long hunting knife, and two dual pistols and one 6x12 scope, six magazines for the AK and ten for the dual pistols.
"What's the last thing you remember?" Robert interrogated and sat down on a nearby root.
"I was walking home from the shooting range and I was just about to go into my house when I saw a bright light and-"
"-and then you were falling out of the sky" Cara hissed between her teeth and balled her fist up, "the same thing happened to us. We were in the middle of a mission at the Hutan base when me and Robert were knocked clean out after seeing a bright light".
Taryn quickly changed from my T shirt and jeans into my training clothes which consisted of, fingerless gloves, black tank top, vest to go over it, camouflage shorts and black combat boots. After getting dressed I strapped the pistols in place along with the AK 47 across my back. I didn't mind Robert or Cara watching me since we all change together at the base anyways.
"So we're here". Robert muttered shifting some gritty black dirt in his hands while he surveyed the surroundings. "Where exactly is here?"
"The Amazon?" I ventured.
"No" said Cara shaking her frizzy hair. Her hands were gripped tight on her sniper rifle, "it's way too hot for that".
"I've been in a lot of damn jungles" Robert grunted, looking around. "This doesn't look like any of them. The landscaping is foreign and judging by the temperature we have to be somewhere along the equator".
"What the hell does it matter!" Cara hissed and stabbed the but of her gun into the ground, "we have to find out who threw us out of a god damn plane! I'll fuckin skewer the bastards if I find them".
I propped my foot up on a root of a tree and peered about into the thick foliage of the jungle. The place had a ghostly feel to it. A bad feeling started spurring in the pit of my gut. When you're a mercenary and you're dropped off in the middle of nowhere many times you start to trust your gut feelings. "Do you think it was the spec ops in North Korea? We were the ones responsible for the disruption of their plans".
"You honestly think North Korea was responsible for THIS? If they were then we would be dead already not dropped off in the middle of a jungle" Robert chuckled sarcastically, "we sure pissed them off enough".
"North Korea is just a bunch of dumb asses!" Cara spat, "they wouldn't waste their time on us like this. There are plenty of Blackwater mercenaries that could easily take our place".
I sighed and pushed the stray, sweaty strands of hair away from my forehead, "well this isn't helping us at all. I say we find some high ground and see if we can spot a town before it gets dark".
Robert grunted and spat into the dirt, "I fuckin hate this place already", he mumbled then shrugged. "I don't see anything else we can do".
"Then let's get moving" I rubbed my shoulders and glanced about nervously, "this place gives me the creeps".
We walked for hours and the jungle never seemed to change, just tall trees and spacious underbrush. Once or twice we passed wicked looking bushes. They were poisonous, I knew that for a fact. When you're training on operations in the jungle you learn to identify what's poisonous and what's not. The hours passed and the heat never changed. Beads of uncomfortable sweat had trickled down my forehead and neck, soaking it's way into my clothes. The fact that we were traveling uphill didn't help at all but I've done worse. We were constantly on the look out. Roberts eyes darted in all directions, watchful and fearless. Cara constantly had a twitch on her trigger finger. Every movement and every sound seemed to bother her. I was almost the same. My knuckles were white from the death grip I had on my weapon, someone had brought us here, but why? Were the rest of the team here?
"Fuck shit what the hell!", both Cara and me nearly shot off our weapons when Robert halted us with his words. We had worked our way into a clearing in the forest. The knee-length grass brushed up against my bare legs. I really wish I had trained in pants instead. When I saw what was slumped in the midst of the clearing I nearly shot off anyway.
It was a man, a dead man I could tell that much from the stench, he was slumped over in a sitting position with a hole blown through his back and slit across his throat. I had seen a lot of dead people in my days but something about this one actually terrified me. The way his face was perhaps. It was frozen in a screaming expression with his mouth open and milky, dead eyes rolled to the back of his head. He wore a basic marine uniform but he had many striped suggesting he was of high rank. His hair was long and clung in clots around his scarred face. There were flies hovering around the corpse in a sickening manner.
Robert stepped closer and kneeled down with his face grim in concentration, he was looking at the wounds.
"Who the hell is it?" Cara asked taking a position to his right, but her gun was pointed into the woods. I was on the left doing the same thing, a reasonable precaution.
"I don't know" The captain grumbled, "he isn't wearing a tag. His throats been clean cut open and the wound through his chest seems to be inflicted by a gun".
"A PSG1 sniper rifle" Cara corrects, "high tech gadget".
I shift uneasily and glance back at then, "it looks like he's been dead for weeks".
"He has" said Robert, "he must have been stranded here too, like us".
My mind went dark as I glanced at the body then to the woods, "I don't like the way he's positioned. It's almost like a trap".
Robert chewed in thought for a moment and walked over to the edge of the clearing, "a trap for someone else perhaps. There are old footprints over here, weeks old". Me and Cara joined him, feeling much better about not being out in the open.
"One bullet shell" Cara picked it up, "yep PSG1 rifle, never doubted it" She looked back at the corpse, "so someone shot at him? Why?"
"It's not important" Robert dismissed and shifted his shotgun in his hand. "These prints and that body is weeks old. Whoever was here is not anymore or I would have seen more tracks. It was friendly fire anyway, I saw his boots and they're basic marine boots along with these". He pointed to the pair that faded off toward the woods. "I can't make out the others but for whatever reason they shot at their own guy it must have been a good one. Perhaps he was suffering who knows".
"Then let's keep going to higher ground. I don't like being exposed like this" Cara hissed nervously. Without waiting for us she trudged on. Me and Robert followed after giving each other assuring glances. I had always trusted Robert. He made the perfect leader and had the perfect attitude for one too. He wasn't a crazy killer but he was an efficient one. When one of us screwed up he silently made us pay for it with sweat, plenty of blood and no tears. It was how we were as good as we are now. He was intimidating too, not just in words but in looks. The man was at least six and a half feet with trunks for arms and legs full of scars that had their own stories. One scar ran from the right side of his skull down to his jaw. His dark black hair was shaved short and his beard was neatly trimmed to his face. It was his eyes that scared people the most. They were dark and depthless. Like death.
"Something's not right Taryn", he whispered in my direction as we trudged behind the fiery headed sniper in front of us.
I gave him a worried glance and tensed up, "what?" I never misjudged his instincts.
He pointed up to the sky where the sun was directly in the middle of and poked it's hot rays through the canopy, "the sun hasn't moved since we've been here".
Lovely ending no? I would LOVVVVVVVEEEEEEE reviews!