The Predator Read Online Free Page B

his fault. It’s like a seizure!”
    The clerk rubbed his head. “Okay, forget it. Besides, he’s out of here and that’s all I care about.” “He’s what?”
    Jake and I turned fast. But Ax was gone.
    Jake grabbed the bag of stuff and raced after me out into the stream of people.
    Ax was nowhere to be seen.
    But then I looked down at the lower level. There was a crowd of people kind of surging. All movingin the same direction. Like they were running to see something.
    “They’re heading toward the food court,” Jake said.
    “Oh, I have a
very
bad feeling about this,” I said.
    We ran for the escalator. We shoved down it, yelling “excuse me” every two seconds.
    We got to the food court. We wormed our way through a crowd of laughing, giggling, pointing people.
    And there, all alone—because all the sane people had pulled away—was Ax.
    He was racing like some lunatic from table to table, snatching up leftover food and shoving it in his mouth.
    As I watched he grabbed a half-eaten slice of pizza.
    “Taste!” he yelled as he took a huge bite. He threw the rest of the pizza through the air. It just missed the mall cop who was closing in on him.
    Ax couldn’t care less. He had found a piece of Cinnabon. “This was the smell!” he cried. He jammed the roll in his mouth. “Ahhh! Ahhh! Taste! Taste! Wonderful! Ful. Ful.”
    “They
do
make a good sticky bun,” I muttered to Jake.
    “We have to get him out of here,” Jake hissed.
    “Too late. Look! Three more mall cops.” The cops jumped at Ax.
    Ax decided it was a good time to throw the rest of the bun away. It hit the nearest cop in the face.
    “Ax! Run! Run!” I yelled.
    I guess I got through, because Ax ran.
    Unfortunately, he couldn’t run very well in his two-legged human morph.
    So as he ran and stumbled, chased by huffing, puffing mall police, he began to change.

CHAPTER 6
    S top!” a cop yelled. “I am ordering you to halt!”
    But Ax wasn’t interested in halting. He was panicked.
    A woman stepped out of the Body Shop holding a bag full of colorful jars. Ax plowed into her. The bag went flying.
    The stalks began to grow out of the top of his head. The extra eyes appeared on the ends and turned backward to watch the people chasing him.
    Jake and I were two of those people. We were ahead of the cops, but not by much. Fortunately,I guess the cops assumed we were just idiots running along for fun.
    I could hear one of the cops yelling into his walkie-talkie. “Cut him off at the east entrance!”
    Legs began to grow from the chest of Ax’s human morph. His own front legs, small at first, but growing rapidly.
    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