by Tim Lebbon
* * *
Conrad knew what would happen next. A year ago he’d have done the same. But this was not a war, and this was not an enemy. At least, nothing like any enemy man had faced before. He didn’t know what this was. But he had to put the fear and confusion in the background if they were going to get past this moment in one piece.
Packard and the rest of his Sky Devils went into combat mode.
The colonel shouted from his Huey, “Fox Six on guard! Fox Five is down, Fox Four is down! Respond, Fox Three!”
Conrad saw several Hueys scatter and twist like panicked birds, their pilots taking classic evasive manoeuvres. Trouble was, no one knew exactly what they were trying to evade, or what that giant thing was going to do next.
As Cole dropped into formation with the other Sky Devils and flew towards the towering beast, the creature seemed to rise and rise, so high that it eventually blocked out the sun.
“What the hell is that?” Mills asked, saying what everyone else was thinking. None of them knew. None of them could know.
It’s a gorilla, Conrad thought, but to say those words would be to admit a staggering, impossible truth.
They were closer to the behemoth now, and Conrad began to appreciate its true size and power. It was a mass of muscle and anger, fury emanating from it in waves, and why not? They had been bombing its territory, after all. As they approached, it threw the wrecked helicopter aside like a child discarding a broken toy.
Then it turned to face them.
“Shut up and fire!” Packard ordered. Even through the radio, Conrad could hear the sounds of door machine-guns being cocked and readied for the attack.
He pushed past Weaver, feeling able to take action at last, shoving aside the disbelief and letting his survival instinct engage. It had brought him through many situations, mostly whole. He had to trust it now.
At the cockpit he started to shout, “Don’t engage! Pull out! Tell everyone to pull out!”
“Ignore that man!” Packard shouted. “We’re going in to rescue our downed men, and we need cover.”
Conrad leaned between the pilot and co-pilot and searched down towards the crash site. A Huey hovered, a man lowered down on a rope. He dropped the last few feet and raced towards the crashed chopper.
“Move fast!” Packard called. “Hurry.”
“Yeah, hurry,” Conrad said quietly, because he’d already seen what was about to happen.
The giant beast seemed to crumble like a falling cliff as it bent down low and brought its fisted right hand down onto the crashed copter, the survivors, and the man who’d gone to rescue them.
He’d seen many men killed before, but never wiped from existence like that. Crushed to a smear. Swept away with a flick of a hand.
“Fox Leader to Group,” Packard’s voice came, low and steady. “Cleared hot. Fire at will. I say again… fire at will!” A pause, and then behind his own firing weapons they heard Packard mutter, “You son of a bitch.”
The open radio channels were suddenly filled with the rat-rat-rat of heavy machine-gun fire as the .50s opened up. Hueys swung into attack, and Conrad had to grip the seat backs as his own aircraft swung down and around, door gunner opening up.
He looked back at Weaver. She had her left hand wrapped in a ceiling strap, right hand nursing the camera as she clicked off photos. She caught his eye and stared, wide-eyed. Neither of them knew what to say, even if they could hear each other above the cacophony.
Conrad turned around again, just in time to see the beast leap aside from the gunfire, agile and fast considering its unbelievable size.
“Colonel, pull left, we’re going to—” someone shouted, and then two Hueys attacking from different directions struck each other a glancing blow. These were experienced, battle-hardened pilots, but the situation had stolen their caution and concentration.
“The colonel’s going down!” Slivko shouted.
Conrad could only watch in horror as Packard’s Huey span lazily groundwards. It smashed through a copse of trees and hit the ground, rolling and bursting into flames. He wasn’t sure anyone could have survived that. He wasn’t sure it mattered.
The huge beast was running, several survivors from the first crash site sprinting ahead of it. It leapt onto the first chopper brought down and stamped, moved back, smashed its fisted hands down. The Huey exploded, scattering burning debris. If the giant did feel any pain, it only served it enrage it even more.
It roared at the sky, and it might have been thunder splitting the air asunder.
“Give it all you’ve got!” Slivko shouted. Theirs and another Huey closed formation and unleashed all their firepower, bullets and tracers tracking across the monster’s furry hide. The gunners shifted their aims across its chest and neck and up towards its face, blooms of blood opening all across its body.
Drawing its attention.
The beast swung both hands at the ground, fingers splayed now, and Conrad saw what was about to happen.
“Slivko, pull back!” he shouted, but too late.
A hail of rocks, soil, and broken trees were flung skyward at the two attacking choppers, rising in a spreading cloud that quickly enveloped the helicopters. They struck the fuselage, rattling like bullets, and exploded into shards as they entered the rotor space. Ricochets cracked the windshield and zinged through the open door, scoring a bloody line across the back of Conrad’s hand.
Something else hit the rotors.
None of them could know who it was. The body was diced in a second, bloody innards, bones, and flesh scraps splattering across the cracked windshield. A spray of blood splashed through the broken glass and spattered across the instrument panel and Slivko’s chest.
Their chopper banked away, warning sounds chiming as their rotors started to fail and power dropped.
“Brace!” Slivko shouted. He looked back over his shoulder at Weaver and Conrad. “We’re going down.”
Conrad dropped back into his seat and struggled with his belt. He was breathing hard, and with every blink he remembered that other chopper crash. This would be different. If even one of them survived the crash, the thing they’d made furious would ensure that their survival did not last for long.
Weaver clasped his hand, and he was grateful. Whether it was her need or his, they gave each other comfort.
“Fox Three going down!” Slivko shouted into his headpiece. “Getting as far away as I can,” he said quieter.
The engines were sputtering, and through the blood-smeared windshield Conrad saw a tree-covered hillside approaching. The pilot somehow nursed the stricken aircraft over the ridge, landing gear slicing through the canopy. He could smell the fresh tang of torn leaves.
“LZ ahead,” Slivko said. “If we can just…”
Tree limbs smacked at the Huey, as determined to bring it down as a giant’s hand. A branch slapped through the open door and scored Conrad’s thigh. He and Weaver leaned forward, heads down and hands wrapped around their head, and he tried to remain loose as he braced for impact.
It was like flying into a wall. Breath was knocked from him, his insides mixed and stirred, straps tugging so hard against his stomach that he vomited, once and hard. The world exploded around him, and Conrad had the very definite sense of everything coming apart. In that moment he thought of Jenny, the little dead girl, and was glad that her death had been instant. At least she had been spared the sense of unravelling he was feeling at that moment.
Blood splashed across his face, warm, sticky, rank. And not his own.
ELEVEN
Mills could see the chaos around him and he knew what they had to do. Packard was down, Slivko was down, and the thing they’d awoken was running amok. This was not a fight they could win.
“Take evasive action!” he shouted into the radio.
Chapman’s Sea Stallion drifted into view alongside. The bigger aircraft was carrying much of their ordnance, and Mills wished they could use it now. He looked across and saw Chapman, and the two men swapped a glance that reg
istered their disbelief at what was happening. Among it all, it was the loss of Packard that had hit Mills the hardest. The colonel had always been there, solid and indestructible. Seeing him go down had been like hearing God was dead.
Just as Mills was about to talk to Chapman, the monster leapt a hundred feet from the ground and grabbed the Sea Stallion’s tail. It clasped hard and pulled the aircraft down as it fell, shaking it, and the helicopter’s rotors slashed through its hand and arm. Bright red blood sprayed across the sky like an early sunset.
Got you! Mills thought, relishing the idea that the beast was in pain. But it shook the Sea Stallion as it let go, hard, rupturing the fuselage and throwing it high into a spinning, helpless course…
…directly towards Mills’s Huey.
“Look out!” he shouted. Even though Cole had already seen and was trying to lift them above the spinning Sea Stallion, its rotors caught their Huey directly amidships. Metal screeched. Their door gunner was slashed in two. Reles was thrown from the far side of the chopper and out into open air, falling just as quickly as them.
Mills closed his eyes as they crashed down into the tree canopy of this damned island.
* * *
Packard had never lost a chopper before. He’d been shot up, had a bird stall on him but landed safely, and had even flown home with his co-pilot and two passengers blasted to pieces by a lucky shot from an enemy RPG.
This had always been his nightmare, and the greatest nightmare for any airman was being burnt alive.
He was hanging upside down. His co-pilot, Nova, moaned somewhere to his left, but Packard couldn’t see him. There was too much blood in his eyes, and branches and leaves had intruded into the cockpit of the downed Huey. He assessed his wounds, hoping that he’d find nothing that might cripple his escape. His shoulders both hurt like a bitch, but that was okay, he could still flex and move them. He was bumped and bruised all over, and he felt blood running up into his nose from his mouth. He spat a thick wad of blood and phlegm. He’d bitten his tongue on impact, but he was pretty sure he hadn’t lost any of it.
The smell of burning singed through the blood. Aviation fuel had a very specific stench, and he could smell that, too. Once the flames reached the spilled fuel, he was done for. He reached for his sidearm, comforted that he could touch it. He only hoped he wouldn’t have to use it.
The radio crackled, reminding him of the chaos he was only a small part of. It was Chapman’s voice.
“Fox Six losing fuel! Tail rotor assembly’s cracked and failing, nominal control… trying for north end of the island…”
Packard reached for the harness release, but there was a heavy splintered branch in the way. He crawled his hand around his hip instead, plucking the combat knife from his belt.
He heard the soft whomps! of flames taking hold.
Nova groaned some more.
“Anyone alive back there?” he shouted. It hurt his chest, but he liked the sound of his own voice. He sounded in control.
No reply from behind. His gunner was unconscious, dead, or gone completely.
Packard worked his knife out from its sheath, turning it so that it rested against the harness across his chest and hips. He started to saw in short, hard slashes.
When the harness parted he tucked in his head, dropping and landing on his shoulders, rolling, emerging from the Huey’s wreck, sheathing the knife and rushing around to the other side.
“Nova, I got you,” he said, reaching in and taking the co-pilot’s hand. He was still alive, but badly hurt. If he could only get him out, maybe he’d be able to administer some first aid.
He squeezed his hand.
Then he was ripped away as the Huey was hauled skyward by the giant beast, debris raining down on and around Packard. He shielded his face then looked up again, just in time to see the mountainous monster flinging the stricken Huey into the air, watching it spin, then punching it hard with one closed fist. It disappeared from view, and moments later landed some distance away and exploded.
Packard drew his pistol and started firing. It was like shooting into a black hole.
The thing looked down at him and caught his eye. Packard’s finger froze on the trigger.
Machine-gun fire rattled across the monster’s face, flicking thick fur and spattering blood into the air. The operation’s single Chinook was roaring in, its familiar wacka-wacka sound a strange comfort. It was a heavy, slow-moving bird, carrying two jeeps and other equipment. Surely too large for the monster to take down.
Packard felt a sense of doom closing around him. Unreality bit in, and he looked around at the strange jungle, trees cracked and shattered by the crashed Huey he could no longer see. It was as if he’d been dropped here into a nightmare, and the glimpses he caught of surviving helicopters, the sounds of machine-gun fire, the roar of the beast, were all snippets of his damaged mind.
He shook his head and slapped himself across the face. Blood smeared his hand. That was real, and the lives of his men were real, too. Those that the animal had not yet killed.
That thing’s no animal, he thought. That beast is something else.
With one giant leap the monster closed the distance between it and the attacking Chinook. The ground shook as it landed, and it clapped its huge hands together, fingers splayed and palms closing on the Chinook’s top and bottom. Rotors sliced into its arms and hands and it roared, the sound echoing in the Chinook’s destruction. The big aircraft’s back was broken, and the beast clasped the two halves and smashed them together, threw them to the ground, trampled them underfoot.
Packard watched aghast. If he remembers me… he thought. If he comes back…
Packard did something he had never done before in his life. He started running from the enemy. Not because he was scared, but because he wanted so much to live.
To fight another day.
* * *
Conrad surfaced. Maybe he’d been knocked unconscious, or more likely he’d just blanked at the moment of impact, his body and mind protecting him from the trauma. He needed to be back. He had to be fully functional, all there, and ready for anything. For a brief, ridiculous moment, he wondered whether it had all been a terrible dream.
Then he smelled smoke and someone started coughing.
“You okay?” he croaked. He tried to look at Weaver but his eyes stung from the smoke. He wanted her to answer. He tasted blood, instinct told him it wasn’t his, and he wanted her to answer!
“Weaver!” he said, louder. He reached for her, hand closing on her thigh. She was still seated beside him, still strapped in.
“I’m okay. I think.”
Conrad rubbed blood and smoke from his eyes and released his straps. He looked across at the other door. The door gunner was gone, as was the .50 machine gun. A smear of blood was all that was left behind.
“Slivko, stay where you are,” Conrad said, not knowing if either of the pilots were even still alive. “We’ve come to rest in the trees.”
Weaver was trying her straps but they were stuck fast. Conrad didn’t want to waste any time. He whipped out his combat knife, leaned across her body and cut her safety belt. They edged together towards the door, then started clambering down. They were only ten feet above the jungle floor, the Huey suspended almost level on two trees that had splintered and cracked beneath its weight. They had likely saved it from a harder impact.
As they reached the ground Conrad sniffed. No spilled aviation fuel, at least not yet. He called up to the cockpit.
“Slivko! How’s the pilot?”
“Dead.”
“Can you get free?”
There was no answer.
“Slivko!” Weaver called.
Slivko’s face appeared through the pilot’s-side doorframe. He looked down, both terrified and elated at being alive.
“Down here,” Conrad said. “We’ve got to go.”
Conrad had survived the crash, and with solid ground beneath his feet once more, so came a sense of control. Ridiculous a
s it seemed—with dozens probably dead, and every aircraft seemingly taken out by the monster—he felt completely at ease once again. In the air, his destiny was in another’s hands. Here and now, he was his own man.
It was time to see just what the hell was going on.
Slivko started shimmying down the broken tree. He was covered in blood.
“Help him down,” Conrad said to Weaver. “I need to get to higher ground.”
“What? Really?”
“I won’t be long.” He took one step, then she grabbed his arm.
“Conrad…” Everything she wanted to say was in her eyes, but there was no time right then. Disbelief, shock, grief could come later.
Terror, too.
“I know,” he said. She nodded and let go, and he stalked off through the trees, dropping down into one of the huge depressions left by the beast’s foot. He paced across it and clambered out the other side, smelling something distinctly animal. Like wet dog, unwashed for some time. A heavy, damp, almost overpowering aroma. Unwashed gorilla feet, he thought, and he had to suppress a giggle.
There was blood, too, spattered across the ground and the leaves of surrounding undergrowth. Lots of blood. No wonder that thing was pissed.
Conrad ran, following rising ground where he could, pushing his way through dense undergrowth. His senses were alert, and he realised without pausing that he did not recognise some of the plant species around him. He’d served in jungles on three continents, but this was like no jungle he’d ever seen before. Creepers and vines hung from large trees. Wide swathes of heavy leaves hampered his movement, the rubbery growths slick to the touch. Parasitic flowers blossomed from low-hanging branches. It was beautiful, but also disconcerting.
He came to a steeper slope and began climbing. He rushed, fearing he didn’t have much time, driving himself hard and fast even though exhaustion already threatened. Adrenalin kept him moving. He was used to the pain of exertion, and he relished it—it made him feel alive.
So many of the soldiers and civilians he’d left Athena with were not.
As he approached a ridge line, he reached a much steeper piece of ground. Too sheer to scramble, the rock surface too obscured by undergrowth to climb, he had to hold onto plants and creepers and haul himself upward. He continued moving quickly, arms burning as he hung on, legs screaming, adrenalin pumping. He might not have much time, and—
