The Predator (4 page)

He was slowing down as his human legs began to change. The knees were reversing direction. His spine elongated into the beginnings of a tail.

That’s when the screaming started.

“Ahhh! Ahhhhh!”

“What is it? What
is
it?”

People were screaming and running and dropping their bags as they caught a glimpse of the nightmare creature Ax had become. Half human, half Andalite. A fluid, shifting mess of half-formed features.

I couldn’t blame them. I felt like screaming myself.

We were getting near the exit, racing past the shoe repair place.

Suddenly, Ax fell forward, tangled up in his own mutating legs. He skidded down the polished marble floor.

Most of the crowd had been left behind, but the mall police were still with us.

“You kids get out of the way!” one of them yelled at us. “This guy could be dangerous.”

Ax sprang up. He was much more sure of himself, now that he was on his four Andalite hooves. The morph was almost entirely complete. His mouth was gone. His extra eyes were in place. His two arms and four legs were fully formed.

Then, at the very last, the tail appeared.

It was then that I heard the nearest mall cop, in an awed, frightened whisper, say, “Andalite!”

I quickly turned and looked at him. Only a Controller would recognize an Andalite.

The Controller cop drew his gun from his holster.

“RUN!” I yelled at Ax.

The Controller stood between Ax and the door. Big mistake. The Andalite tail flashed, faster than my eyes could follow. The cop’s gun went flying through the air. He clutched at a hand that was red with blood.

Out the door we blew, running for our lives.

Sirens!

“Those are real cops coming,” I said. “Not mall rent-a-cops!”

Ax demanded, reverting to thought-speak.

“Oh,
now
he wants advice?!” I looked around frantically. The bus was not going to be an option. The mall cops poured from the glass doors. The city police screamed toward us in their black-and-whites.

All we could do was run. So we ran. Up rows of
parked cars. Two kids and a guy who did not belong on this planet.

“The grocery store!” Jake yelled.

“What?” I gasped. I was getting tired.

“In there!” he pointed. It was the grocery store across the parking lot. It was the only way we could go.

Police cars screeched to a halt all around us. “Freeze!”

“I don’t think so,” I said.

We jetted through the big glass doors of the supermarket at a full, panicked run. I halfway expected to hear guns firing and bullets whizzing.

“Jake!” I yelled. “Help me here!” I had an idea for slowing down our pursuers. I grabbed a big row of parked grocery carts and shoved them back toward the doors. Jake grabbed on and helped.

Then we were off and running again, with Ax skittering shakily on the slippery floor and banging into groceries. Cans of olives and tomatoes crashed behind him.

Customers screamed and crashed their carts into each other.

“It’s a monster! Mommy, it’s a monster!” some little kid yelled.

“It’s just a pretend monster,” his mother said. Yeah. A pretend monster. Right.

Then I saw our way out. It was at the end of the aisle. But I needed some time. I needed to get everyone out of our way. We couldn’t have witnesses.

“There’s a bomb!” I screamed, at the top of my lungs. “BOMB!”

“What?” Jake demanded.

“There’s a bomb! A bomb in the store! Run! Run! Everyone out! A BOMB!”

“What are you doing?!” Jake yelled.

“The cops have the place surrounded. There’s only one way out,” I snapped. I pointed.

I pointed at the live lobster tank at the end of the aisle by the seafood counter.

“Oh, no,” Jake groaned.

“Oh, yes.” I grinned.

The shoppers were running in panic, either from the supposed bomb or just from Ax. But the carts in the doorway and the people shoving to escape slowed the cops down for a precious few moments.

I had a feeling the Controller cops were making sure that no real cops came in after us. They wanted us for themselves. With no human witnesses.

“Let’s go for a swim,” I said.

It was a big lobster tank, fortunately. I hoisted myself up the side and climbed in. Jake was right behind me. We grabbed a lobster each, and threw one to Ax, too.

It was not easy “acquiring” the lobster. It took concentration. And all I could think was that there were an awful lot of cops outside the store, probably getting ready to rush in. And they would all have guns.

The lobster went limp and passive, the way animals do when you acquire them.

I dropped him back in the water. We stripped off our outer clothes and shoes and stuffed them, along with the Radio Shack bag, in a trash can.

Ax had already begun to morph. Jake and I waited till he had shrunk a little and then hauled him into the tank with us.

He was already hard, like armor, and his arms had begun to split open and swell.

Then I began the morph.

I’ve been afraid a lot since we became Animorphs. But I have not gotten used to it. And I can tell you, I was so scared my bones were rattling.

At any second they were going to rush in.

At any moment they were going to catch us half-morphed.

I looked over at Jake. His eyes were gone, replaced by little black BBs.

“Ewww.”

As I watched, eight spindly, blue, insectlike legs erupted from his chest.

“Aaaaahhh!” I yelped in shock.

Jake’s face seemed to open up, to split open into a complex mess of valves. I think I would have thrown up, seeing that. Except that I, also, no longer had a mouth.

At that very moment, I felt antennae explode from my forehead like impossibly long spears.

I was shrinking as I morphed, falling, falling, falling down into the water, which had been around my thighs and was now around my neck.

I had the terrifying sensation of knowing that all the bones inside my body were dissolving, as a hard, fingernail-like crust covered me all over.

My human body was melting away.

My human vision was fading. I could no longer see the way a human sees.

Which was a good thing. Because I really did not want to see what I was becoming.

I
think I might have just started screaming and never stopped. But I no longer had a mouth, or throat, or vocal cords capable of making sounds.

I had four sets of legs. I had two huge pincers. I could see them, kind of. They were a fractured image in my lobster eyes. I couldn’t see much of the rest of me. But I could see other lobsters in the water.

I was very frightened.

Eat.

Eat.

Kill and eat.

The lobster brain surfaced suddenly, bubbling up within my human awareness. It had two thoughts.

Eat.

Eat.

Kill and eat.

I was getting input from senses I couldn’t begin to understand. My extraordinarily long antennae felt water temperature, and water current, and vibration. But I didn’t know what any of it meant.

My eyes were almost useless at first. They showed fractured, incredible images, with none of the colors I knew.

I could see my pincers out in front of me. I could see my antennae. And behind me I could see a curved, brownish-blue surface, with humps and bumps on it.

My body! I
realized with a sickening sensation. That was my back. My hard shell.

I could not look down and see my belly, or the hairy swimmerets scurrying away, back beneath my tail. I could not see my eight spiderlike legs, but I could feel as they propelled me suddenly, scrabbling along the glass bottom of the tank.

I called out.

he said. He sounded shaky. Which was fine, because I was on the verge of crying. If lobsters could cry.

I agreed. It was good being able to talk to him. I mean, you’d think you were losing your mind otherwise.

Jake called.

Ax answered.

I said.

Ax said wonderingly.

I said.

Jake said.

I saw a lobster close by.

The left pincer did not move. I realized this lobster had a rubber band around his pincer. None of us had rubber bands. Rubber bands were not a part of the lobster DNA.

I saw a lobster to my left, unbanded. And another behind him. That was the three of us. There were half a dozen rubber-banded lobsters floating or just sitting.

I said.

Jake said.

Ax commented.

I said.

Ax said.

I saw him opening and closing them.

Jake said.

Ax said.

I was surprised.

Jake said.

I said.

According to Ax, an hour had passed when it happened.

I felt a strange disturbance in the water. Something large had splashed in. I sensed something above me.

Before I could think or react, I felt pressure on my shell.

I was rising rapidly through the water, being lifted.

Sudden shock!

I was out of the water.

Dryness. Heat. My antennae waved wildly as I tried to understand. My eyes registered nothing but bright light and huge, indistinct shadows.

Something large closed my right pincer forcibly. I could not open it. Then my left.

Rubber bands! I couldn’t see them in this waterless environment. I was nearly blind. But I knew what had happened.

Someone had picked me up and rubber-banded my pincers.

Then I was tumbling, sliding, rubbing against things I could tell were other lobsters.

Something very cold dropped on me and slithered around my body.

Ice?

I felt a sensation of swinging back and forth for a while, like being on a swing.

I said.

Jake said.

The ice seemed to be making me sleepy. Or not exactly sleepy, just slow. Sluggish.

I guess I kind of zoned out for a while. I didn’t know for how long, until I became suddenly alert and heard Ax’s drowsy voice in my head saying,

That jolted me. I was not about to spend the rest of my life trapped as a lobster.

out
of this morph, I don’t care who sees,> I yelled.

Jake said.

I said. I tried to look around, but my antennae felt nothing in the air. And my eyes only saw meaningless, blurry gray forms.

I focused on demorphing. I wondered if I could close my human eyes when Jake started to reappear. I really did not want to watch Jake and Ax demorph. Once had been enough. I would already have nightmares for a month.

I said. I began the change.

But just then I again felt the sensation of pressure on my shell. My pincers came free. Someone, or something, had removed the rubber bands.

And suddenly I felt a warmth billowing up around me.

Steam.