Ricky Howard was a teenager and Pizza One delivery driver in Gunnison, Colorado, played by Johnny Lewis in Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem. In October 2004 he delivered to classmate Jesse Salinger, was jumped by her boyfriend Dale Collins, and later joined his older brother Dallas Howard through the Xenomorph outbreak that followed a crashed Yautja scout ship. After Jesse died in the hospital hive and a Predalien drove its tail through his shoulder, he reached the roof helicopter with Kelly O'Brien, Dallas, and Molly and survived the nuclear strike that erased the town.
Biography
Earlier Life
Ricky Howard lived in Gunnison with his older brother Dallas and worked delivery for Pizza One while still in high school. Sheriff Eddie Morales later implied he had seen Ricky too often, which fit a teenager already in trouble around town. Unused material deepened that picture: Dallas had taken a prison fall for a crime Ricky committed, and a cut school scene had Ricky punch Dale Collins in a "survival of the fittest" biology class before a suspension.
Pizza One And Jesse
On the October 2004 night the outbreak began, Ricky's delivery run took him to the house of classmate Jesse Salinger, whom he had known since childhood and quietly wanted. Inside, Jesse paid for the order while her boyfriend Dale and his friends mocked Ricky's Pizza One jacket; he answered Dale's Halloween jab, traded a dry line with Jesse about how she picked her boyfriends, then left with the tip. Outside, Dale and the others jumped him, stole his car keys, and threw them down a storm drain before Jesse pulled Dale off.
Ricky got home beaten and angry just as Dallas returned from three years in prison. He reached for a baseball bat to settle with Dale until Dallas stopped him, then told his brother what had happened with the keys. Dallas agreed to help him into the sewer rather than let him walk back into another street fight alone.
Keys And The Sewer
In the storm drains under Gunnison the brothers picked through muck for the keys while something dead hung in the air. Ricky refused to climb out filthy where Jesse might see him, then balked when Dallas told him to dig in the drain himself. Movement on the far side of the channel - later understood as a Chestburster from the growing infestation - spooked them into grabbing the keys and fleeing the tunnels.
That sewer run was Ricky's first brush with the creatures that Facehuggers from the crashed scout ship had seeded among hunters and vagrants under the town. He still treated the night as a keys-and-Jesse problem rather than a town-wide emergency. Only after the pool and the sporting-goods fight would the scale of the Xenomorph outbreak become impossible to ignore.
The School Pool
Jesse, finished with Dale's violence, arranged to meet Ricky at the high-school swimming pool after dark. They talked about how he looked at her in class, kissed in the water, and were interrupted when Dale and his friends arrived to pick another fight. Ricky shoved them into the pool, then an adult Xenomorph in the water killed Dale's friends while Jesse screamed for everyone to get out.
Ricky, Jesse, and Dale escaped the school and ran into the wider blackout that had already hit Gunnison. From that point Ricky moved with the growing survivor group rather than as a delivery kid with a crush. The pool attack ended any chance that the night would stay personal.
Sporting Goods
At a sporting-goods shop Ricky helped load rifles with Jesse while Dallas, Sheriff Morales, Kelly O'Brien, and young Molly joined the armory scramble. Xenomorphs and the cleaner later named Wolf hit the same doors; Dale died when acid burned through his face. Afterward the survivors took a National Guard Stryker from an ambushed unit on Main Street while Morales raised Colonel Stevens on the radio.
Stevens promised an airlift from Gilliam Circle; Kelly called that containment and argued for the hospital helicopter instead. When the group split, Ricky said he was going with his brother and rode with Dallas, Jesse, Kelly, and Molly toward the hospital while Morales led the rest to the circle. That choice put him on the only path that would leave survivors by morning.
Hospital And The Predalien
The hospital had become a hive. Inside, the group agreed that Kelly had to reach the roof because she could fly the helicopter; Wolf's fight with the creatures cut through the same corridors. A shuriken Wolf threw at a Xenomorph pinned Jesse to a wall and killed her; Ricky, shocked and enraged, opened fire on the Yautja.
A Warrior tackled Wolf into an elevator shaft and the cleaner dropped a plasma pistol; immediately afterward the Predalien drove its tail through Ricky's shoulder. Barely able to move, he still made the roof with Dallas, Kelly, and Molly while Dallas scavenged Predator gear to buy time. Kelly got him and Molly into the helicopter as Wolf and the Predalien finished their duel on the same roof.
Final Fate
Kelly flew clear as the F-22 nuclear strike lit Gunnison; the shockwave dropped the helicopter in a forest clearing. Soldiers surrounded the crash site, ordered weapons down, and Dallas demanded a medic for his brother while Kelly pressed Ricky to keep pressure on the wound. Ricky was one of four people known to have survived the wipeout, with Dallas, Kelly, and Molly, and he was still alive as of that October 2004 morning when the army took them into custody.
Personality And Traits
Ricky was impulsive, proud, and quick to swing when Dale pushed him - first with a bat he never got to use, then in the pool, and finally when he attacked Wolf after Jesse died. He also stayed loyal: he went with Dallas toward the hospital instead of Gilliam Circle, and he kept moving after the Predalien wound rather than collapse in the hive. His feelings for Jesse drove half the night's choices, from the sewer crawl to the pool meeting to the rage that nearly got him killed on the hospital floor.
Under pressure he could still joke and still take orders from people who knew more than he did, including Kelly's call on the helicopter and Dallas's lead in the tunnels. By dawn he was no longer the Pizza One teen Dale had mocked; he was one of the four people who walked out of Gunnison alive.
Weapons And Equipment
After the sporting-goods run Ricky carried scavenged firearms with the rest of the survivor group, including an M4A1-pattern carbine and a handgun consistent with a second-generation Glock 17 among the shop stock. He used that kit through the hospital corridors when he fired on Wolf after Jesse's death. On the roof and in the crashed clearing he was too badly wounded to fight; Dallas and Kelly carried the defensive work while he held pressure on the Predalien puncture.
Behind The Scenes
Johnny Lewis played Ricky opposite Steven Pasquale as Dallas under directors Colin and Greg Strause, from a screenplay by Shane Salerno. Early drafts and the brothers' original pitch had the Predalien killing Ricky in the hospital - tearing him apart - until Fox and later test screenings pushed the beat into a severe shoulder wound so he could survive with the others.
Kristen Hager played Jesse, David Paetkau played Dale, and Reiko Aylesworth and Ariel Gade played Kelly and Molly on the escape that closed Ricky's story. The finished film ends with him alive under army custody after the crash, one of four known Gunnison survivors. Lewis later died in 2012 from a head injury; news coverage tied the death to a violent incident in which he was accused of killing his landlady shortly beforehand.
Famous Quotes
- "Hi, Jesse."
- "Yeah, isn't Halloween in October?"
- "Yeah, well, you've always known how to pick 'em, Jess."
- "Give me my keys."
- "Dale Collins and his friends jumped me. They threw my keys in the sewer."
- "So Jesse can see me climb out covered in shit? No, thanks."
- "They're your keys, asshole."
- "You're too stupid to talk, Dale."
- "I'm going with my brother."
- "Jesse!"
Conclusion
Ricky Howard began the October 2004 night as a Pizza One teenager with a crush and a bully problem, and he ended it as one of four people who escaped the nuclear erasure of Gunnison. He recovered his keys from a seeded sewer, lost Jesse in the hospital hive, took a Predalien wound that nearly ended him, and still made the helicopter with Dallas, Kelly, and Molly. The film leaves him wounded but alive under the army perimeter, a civilian survivor of both the Xenomorph outbreak and the cleaner hunt that tried to wipe it away.
Appearances
- Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem (2007)
Tag Categories: Avp Lore | Alien Universe Characters | Predator Universe Characters | Predator Hunt Survivors | Xenomorph Encounter Survivors
