Disclaimer: The Predator franchise is the property of Twentieth Century Fox and is not being used for financial gain.
Author's Note: This story will make little sense unless you have watched Predator I, and ESPECIALLY PREDATOR II, go rent them at your local video store today:-)
A sea of pitch black greeted Harrigan as he opened his eyes. His first reaction was one of creeping fear, fear of the unknown. Ignoring the churning of his stomach, he tried to shout but found his mouth filled with cloth. He struggled briefly, and somewhere in the back of his mind he realized that he was being restrained by something.
A deep, rumbling chuckle filled the air. Slow, almost melodious, it triggered a memory somewhere in the back of his mind. The low laugh continued for a while, He was certain now that he had heard it before but he couldn't put his finger on it. Foggy pictures of an alley slowly came to focus in his minds-eye, and just before he could tag its owner the laughing stopped, leaving Harrigan once more in total silence.
Whoosh.
The world suddenly ripped back into color, Harrigan had to close his eyes as his mind was assaulted by a wave of new sensations. His eyes adjusted quickly, but not much had changed from the dark void he had just been in. He was tied-up; Harrigan could feel the binds acutely now, almost cutting the circulation from his wrists and ankles. He was bound to a chair, and there was a faint light swinging somewhere from above. The light's dim illumination made everything lying more than three feet away bleak and shadowy. Harrigan saw large dark figures moving slowly back and forth just beyond the scope of his limited vision. Harrigan looked away from the moving forms, and looked closely at his surroundings. Wherever he was it was big, Harrigan guessed that it had to be at least three stories high, and as big as half a city block. He could just make out the silvery hue of an angular staircase.
His view was disrupted as a man circled in front of him, a Jamaican, holding a black hood in his hand. Harrigan tried confronting his captor, demanding to know why he was here, but his words were muffled behind a wad of cloth that had been taped over his mouth.
That dark, low chuckle filled the air again and a throaty voice, with a thick Rastafarian accent, echoed around the building. "Take it off."
Harrigan winced in pain as his gag was quickly torn off his face.
The bulb above him clicked off and for a second the building returned to total darkness. Then a light came on, low and red, it didn't provide much more illumination than the sole bulb had, but details of the entire building were at least partially visible. Harrigan now saw what the swinging masses were. They were beef. Large slabs of meat, cow carcasses, were swaying slowly back and forth, held up on crossbeams by metal cables. It was a slaughterhouse.
"Remember when I talked to you about the otha side?" the thick, gravelly voice came from the shadows in front of him. He strained his eyes, but he found it useless, nothing was distinguishable through the gloom… yet that voice was one Harrigan could not forget.
"You're…"
"Let me see if I can be helpin' your memory." A slight pause, then "There's no stopping what can't be stopped, no killin' what can't be killed…" As the voice went on, there was a movement in the shadows, a figure was slowly moving towards the light. "This is dread mon, truly dread". About five feet away from Harrigan, the glow of the light bulb slowly illuminated the features of the man. Walking with a slight limp, an ivory cobra-headed cane in hand, he came out of the murky blackness. His dreadlocks surrounded his angular face like some strange parody of a crown, slowly swaying back and forth as he walked. His eyes where cold and hard, with an indescribable glint in them which was only accentuated by the murky, red light. Those dark eyes are what brought the man's identity crashing into Harrigan's mind.
King Willey.
Noticing the recognition in Harrigan's face, Willey smirked slightly, a motion that looked grimly macabre in the gloom. "Ahh, you remember now. I be thinkin' we hit you on the head a bit to hard. Wouldn't want you to be too hurt would we."
"But you're…" Harrigan stammered in disbelief.
"Dead?" King Willey laughed again, "Who be tellin you dat mon? Da bones?" once again Willey chuckled.
How the hell was King Willey still alive, and why had he kidnapped him? Harrigan tried frantically to remember his encounter with the King. It had at the height of the LA Ripper's rampage. Harrigan, after the murder of his partner Danny, had been desperate and had sought King Willey out, hoping that he knew something about the murders.
Harrigan immediately knew that Willey had to be a lunatic; as soon as he had asked about the killings, Willey had went off on a tirade about ghosts and the spirit world, claiming that the killer had come from "the Other Side." Harrigan was certain that must have been smoking his own product, or something. But then the next day, it was all over the news: King Willey had been found dead and beheaded in the alley where he had met Harrigan. Harrigan had been called into the county morgue the following week to help identify the body, but then how could King Willey be standing here in front of him?
"I saw your body, I…"
"Tell me Mister Policemon, how do you identify a body that ain't got no head? I be a ghost to your system mon, no fingerprints, no pictures. It was as simple as findin someone to take my place… your friend did the rest."
"What? My friend?"
"Ya mon… your friend from de otha side."
"Man, what the fuck are you talking about? What the hell do you think you're doing?"
King Willey chuckled again, the sound was beginning to get on his nerves and Harrigan had a feeling that Willey knew it. Willey slowly began to walk away from the circle of light afforded by the bulb. "You don't get it do you Mr. Policemon."
Suddenly he spun around, his face was deadly serious now. "Did you ever think about how I ever 'came as powerful as I be? I think not Mr. Policemon… do you be thinkin' that I control the west side because I don't be thinkin' straight? No…you don't be gettin' where I be gettin' by being crazy."
Harrigan had a retort hot on his lips, but Willey kept going on, "Think mon! 1997, that's when all the killin' started. There were three lords on the West Coast, Me, Vascevo, and Cabala. How many be left?
"None…they're all dead."
"No, I'm not. 1997, do you know what be happenin' in '97 Mr. Policemon? I was getting stronger every day, the others they be gettin' afraid. They were joinin' together to stop me, I was loosin' ground. None of dem exist any more. They all be dead…but me."
"What the hell are you getting at."
Willey, spun around again, slowly melding back into the shadows until all that was left of him was a dark silhouette. His voice continued to boom around the slaughterhouse. "IT came to me, I didn't know who it was… or where it was. One day, I be havin' a meetin' and all my guards be killed in front of me. I thought I would die that day, but It didn't want to kill me…just impress me. You see, It wanted something from me.
I don't be knowin' much about it, but It…told me what It wanted, and It was gonna give me what I wanted. It wanted people, people to kill. It wanted times, places, numbers…challenges. I knew how to get what It wanted, and It was going to help me too. You see Mister Policemon, I was a man with many enemies. Now I am a man with few livin' ones."
Harrigan heard the words, but couldn't absorb what King Willey was saying. It sounded like he was saying that the Ripper had come to him…no that what impossible. Willey's voice snapped Harrigan back towards his dark profile. "Do you know why I be tellin' you this mon?"
"Why?"
"Because three months ago, my bodyguards were killed again…right in front of my eyes. It didn't want the same things this time, he told me to give him places, people, challenges…but this time it didn't want the same things as last time."
The voice paused, in the shadows, Harrigan though he saw another silhouette just to the side of the King. The voice boomed again, this time with a strange finality, "It wanted something in return Mister Policemon, it wanted…You."
"Danny boy…" Harrigan heard his own voice, or something that sounded like his voice, echo through the room. He turned, trying to find where the voice came from, but nothing was there. "Do you want some candy?" this time the voice was that of a young child, Harrigan squinted his eyes and continued to look in the direction the voices had come from. He leaned forward in his chair, as much as his bonds would permit, trying to focus on something that he couldn't see. Suddenly there came two yellow flashes, like the eyes of a demon, just inches from Harrigan's face. With a startled scream the Lieutenant tumbled backward, sending his chair toppling to the floor. Twin metal blades materialized above Harrigan's head and came down like twin strikes of lightning. Spreading just before they reached their targets, the blades formed a prison around Harrigan's neck. A deep throaty growl came from the spectral form that hung just above him, and then sparks began to fly. The crackling sound of lightning was soon accompanied by tendrils of light and then it emerged.
Its metal mask devoid of all emotion, lifeless, and scary beyond anything Harrigan had ever seen. Its body covered in a mesh-like fishnet, and its skin was a motley green-brown. It growled again as it leaned closer to Harrigan and the claws retracted. It held its left arm up, next to Harrigan's face. All the way up the elbow, it's arm was metal and it made a strange whirring noise as the metal fingers moved with a deadly yet beautiful grace. Flesh met metal just below the elbow; right where Harrigan had cut the arm off the LA Ripper.
Oh my God. Harrigan's mind was racing: It was the same one. It was the same goddamned alien!
King Willey's voice droned on in the background, Harrigan hardly heard it. "I don't be knowin' what you done to It, but It be wantin' you bad Mr. Policemon, and It's gonna have you."
Harrigan's mind was still swimming, his eyes fixed on the alien creature standing just a few feet away.
"But before we be gettin' to details, I need you to meet another friend of yours."
Agent Samuels, cuts and bruises adorning his blindfolded face, was dragged into the light surrounding Harrigan. A gag was taken out of his mouth, and Samuels began coughing violently.
"Samuels!"
"Harrigan? Harrigan is that you?" A Jamaican standing next to him, violently rammed the but of a rifle into Samuels stomach. Samuels was knocked onto his knees.
Harrigan tensed up, the ropes around his wrists began to cut into his skin, but they didn't give way.
If Willey was afraid that Harrigan might get out, he didn't show it. Instead he kept talking. "Here the rules of the game: You gonna be dropped off somewhere, and we give you a gun. Then It come callin... If you kill It, then you can come back here, your friend will be waitin' for you alive. If it kills you…well he comes back and kills your friend too." A rictus grin spread on Willey's face, "I might be wantin' to say goodbye to him now."
Harrigan's fear had been replaced by rage now, a rage made stronger by the hopelessness that was clawing desperately in Harrigan's gut. "Don't you touch him, you hear me Willey! You touch him and I'll--"
"Be doin
nothin'" King Willey's voice cut Harrigan off like an icy blade, "You call the
police, I be knowin'. You call your friends, I be knowin'. I be watching mon,
it's you and Him, anything else, and your friend be dyin', but not before I
make him wish he was already dead. Understand Mr. Policemon?"
With that, Willey and the Creature turned their backs towards Harrigan and
slowly began to meld away into the shadows until, like the Cheshire Cat, only a
voice remained. "Nothin' left for you here Mr. Policemon…Time to go."
Harrigan didn't have time to scream as a black bag went quickly over his head, plunging the entire world back into darkness.
End of chapter 3