Anything not to think about Skull Island and poor Mike. She remembered so clearly his sweet befuddlement on the day she’d first met him and confused him for Jack. But that memory was scarred now, scribbled over with an image of his dead eyes wide with shock and…what? Sadness? Disappointment, that his life should end like this. Those eyes now haunted her waking hours.
The island had gotten under her skin from the moment she saw it, and that had grown worse when she set foot upon the shore.
Silently, she exhorted Englehorn and his crew to work faster, to do whatever was necessary to get them off the rocks. To get away from this damnable place. The faces of the natives were seared into her brain, of the sailor who’d had his brains dashed out upon some kind of sacrificial stone, of Mike…but perhaps worst of all, the ancient, withered crone with those ugly, gnarled fingers and that crown of bones.
She could not shake from her mind the question of what would have happened if the captain had not come along when he did. Once again she tightened the robe around her, wishing she had something warmer. In her heart, though, she knew it was not just the temperature that made her cold. The worst of the chill was coming from within. She pressed her eyes tightly together.
In her mind, she could still hear that terrible roar from the other side of the wall, deep in the jungle, that echo of her own scream. Her eyes opened. There was no way she was going to be able to sleep tonight, even if they managed to get away from this godforsaken place.
Ann looked down and noticed that her hands were trembling.
Out in the dark, they moved in silence. The waves crashed upon the rocks and the salty spray spattered their lithe bodies, but nothing interrupted the rhythm of their progress. The chanting in the village still resonated in their ears, punctuated by the screams of the girl and the roar of Kong.
They knew what had to be done.
Clutching long, bamboo poles they vaulted from rock to rock over the stormy seas. Effortlessly, in fluid, unhesitating motion, they crossed wider and wider gulfs between the craggy monoliths that jutted from the turgid water. Waves leaped as if to dash them into the sea, but they danced across the rocks, planted the ends of the poles, and sailed through the darkness over the roiling surf.
The ship loomed ahead in the dark, grounded.
Captive prey.
Jack woke to a loud, metallic creak and a hell of a headache, like someone was crushing his skull in a vise. He squinted his eyes tightly closed and softly groaned. For a few seconds he had no idea where he was or what had happened to him. Then he remembered following Denham up through that burial chamber, the village, that bizarre sha-woman, all of it. Mike was dead. At least a couple members of the crew.
And you nearly joined them.
The memory of his fear grew quickly in his heart so that it was as though he was still surrounded by those angry natives with their hate-filled eyes. How had it come to this? How had Denham’s dream led to such a brutal end?
His vision was out of focus. He rolled onto his side and blinked several times, and slowly the world swam back into focus. He was on a bench in the mess room, which made sense, given that the cook was also the ship’s doctor. But if Lumpy had been tending to him, where was the man now?
Where was everyone, for that matter? He had a vague recollection of faces looking down upon him, of being in the whaler as they rowed back here, of voices talking to him and being hoisted up onto the deck of the ship.
Of Ann.
He thought again of the sha-woman, of the way she’d looked at Ann, screamed at her in that accusatory tone, and he remembered the roar from the jungle. Jack had no idea what could create a sound like that, or what the sha-woman had been talking about, and he hoped never to learn.
Ann. He had seen her terror, had tried his best to protect her. Half-conscious though he was, he had seen her when they brought him back to the ship, so he knew she had not been badly hurt. But that did not mean she was coping well with the horror of their experience on the island.
He had to go to her, see how she was.
Once again he tried to force his vision and his thoughts to clear. Just the tiniest motion sent hammer-strikes of pain thudding through his skull. He reached around to touch the back of his head, the point from which the pain radiated, and found something hot and sticky. When he withdrew his hand and glanced down at it, he saw that his fingers glistened with his own blood.
Denham took a swig from his hip flask. The storm battered and crashed outside and the ship swayed. Herb and Preston stood gloomily, watching him as he strode about his cabin, but Denham was having none of that.
“It was close,” he told them, “but we got it. We got away. We have to be grateful for that, gentlemen.”
It was a good thing Englehorn had a change of heart and came along when he did, Denham mused. Talk about divine intervention.
“What about Mike?” Preston asked quietly, face slack, still traumatized. “He didn’t get away. He’s still there.”
“Mike died doing what he believed in!” Denham said sharply. “He did not die for nothing. And I’ll tell you something else, I’m gonna finish this picture. For Mike! We’ll finish it and donate the proceeds to his wife and kids, because that man is a hero and he deserves no less!”
Herb nodded. “Hear, hear!”
The cabin door banged open and a pair of sailors bustled into the room.
“Lighten the ship! Captain’s orders!” snapped the first one. “We’re floating her off the rocks. Everything goes overboard!”
Denham gestured around the cabin with his flask. “Help yourselves, boys.”
One of the sailors picked up a small table, the other a chair, even as more of the crew slipped into the cabin and grabbed hold of other pieces of furniture.
Denham toasted their efforts and glanced at what remained of his film crew. “The sooner we get out of this godawful stinkhole, the better!”
“We got some great stuff though, didn’t we?” Herb said proudly.
“Herbert, we shot Skull Island,” Denham replied, swigging from the flask. “All we have to do is finish up the film with Ann and Bruce, somewhere warm, sunny, and safe.”
He smiled to himself and took another swig. As he did, he glanced around the room and a frown creased his brow.
Something’s not right here…
“Where’s my camera?”
Gone.
He dropped the flask and ran for the door.
Denham hurtled along a corridor, fury and panic warring within him. Up ahead he saw Choy’s head bobbing as the little man ran for the door. A swell rocked the ship and Denham stumbled as he was thrown to the right. He crashed into the wall, spun, and then let the rocking of the ship add to his momentum as he threw himself forward again.
Choy flung open the door with one hand. With the other, he clutched the Bell & Howell movie camera, which he carried on his shoulder like a rifle at arms.
“No!” Denham roared as Choy disappeared.
He reached the door and threw it open, gaining on Choy. The camera bounced on the sailor’s shoulder as he raced for the railing, ready to throw it overboard. Denham’s heart thundered in his chest and he wanted to snap every bone in Choy’s body. His camera was not ballast. They’d be better off throwing all their food stores overboard than the camera—it was their one chance of making a profit off of this voyage.
“Not that!” he shouted at Choy, still in pursuit. “Stop!”
But Choy wasn’t slowing down. Denham, instead, sped up.
The wind whistling around him, a silent figure sailed through the night, steadied upon a bamboo pole he had used to push off from the top of the carved stone head of an ancient god. Little more than a silhouette, darkness against darkness, he dropped down to the deck of the ship, alighting noiselessly. Swiftly he set the pole aside and raced to press himself against a wall, unseen.
There were shouts all around, the crew in a frenzy as the ship rocked in the stormy sea, but no one had noticed the intruder.
Quickly he slid along the wall, creeping along until he came to a door and slipped inside.
Jack staggered onto the deck at the aft end of the ship, skull still splitting. He’d dabbed at the back of his head and the bleeding seemed to have stopped. There was dried blood in his hair but now wasn’t the time to think about it. Nothing mattered until he’d seen Ann, made sure she was all right, and then he’d hunt down Denham and Englehorn and find out what was going on.
Still somewhat disoriented, he couldn’t tell how much of his stumbling was due to the rocking of the sea and how much came from the blow to his head. He felt the ship roll and reached out to clutch the railing to steady himself.
He took a breath and glanced down.
On the deck was a crude necklace of small bones and feathers, with the skull of a tiny monkey as its center piece. A sick feeling churned in his gut and horror swept over him as he bent to snatch it up from the deck, his dizziness worsening.
No, he thought. They can’t be on board. Why would they—
Then the answer struck him, so obvious he felt like a fool. They’d wanted Ann for whatever dark purpose, and been insistent about it.
Jack silently cursed and looked around just in time to see Jimmy running along the deck, intent upon some errand or other. Whatever it was, it was nothing compared to this. Jack grabbed him by the arm as he ran past.
“Where’s Ann?” he demanded.
The boy looked at him, eyes a bit wild. “In her cabin.”
Jack let him go. The boy had duties to attend to. Teeth gritted as he pushed the pain in his skull away, Jack steadied himself by sheer force of will. Sailors continued to scurry all around him, carrying anything that wasn’t vital to their survival and flinging it overboard.
He pushed through them, making his way to the nearest door that would take him belowdecks. Once inside, it was even more crowded in the corridor. He shoved past crewmen, ignoring their shouts and the frantic climate of the moment, trying to get to Ann’s cabin.
Ann sat on her bunk, clutching a blanket in her hands. Her knuckles were white. On the island she had been struck with a terrible foreboding, and now here it was again. Her heart sped up, pulse throbbing in her ears and thudding in her chest. Her throat felt constricted and her lips were dry. She tried to wet them and found them rough. Ann glanced around the room as though the shadows themselves were alive. It was foolish, but she could not escape the terrible dread in the pit of her stomach.
A wave crashed against her window and she spun around in fright, lips pressed tightly together to contain a scream.
She told herself to stop, to take it easy. They would be away from the island soon. But it did nothing to calm her. Ann stood and went to the window to look out at the churning seas. The ship swayed worse than ever, rocking as though the water god Poseidon himself had them in his grip. With a thump and a bang that made her jump, her closet door swung wide and costumes spilled out onto the floor.
For an instant she stared at the closet door swaying back and forth. Then something out of the corner of her eye caught her attention, some small motion. She looked at the door to her cabin…
…and sucked in her breath, eyes widening as she stared in horror at the handle, slowly turning.
The door began to open.
Denham caught up with Choy only a few feet away from the railing. Fueled by panic, the director reached out and grabbed hold of the camera with both hands and tore it from Choy’s grasp, a surge of triumph rising in him. The ship pitched again and he stumbled a bit but managed to stay on his feet, the Bell & Howell safely in his hands. He glared at Choy, about to berate him.
But Choy wasn’t even looking at him. Denham turned to see what had his attention and saw Captain Englehorn striding toward them, face etched with the mad obsession of Ahab.
“Throw that thing overboard before I break your neck!” Englehorn barked. “No more filming. No more pictures. Men have died because of you!”
Denham stared at him, enraged. The man really was mad. Didn’t he realize the camera was the only chance they had of this voyage not being a total and complete failure, an utter disaster?
“Don’t threaten me!” he said. “If you come any closer, I’ll be compelled to defend myself.”
Englehorn lunged for the camera. Denham wrenched himself back, spinning it away from the captain’s grasping hands. Then something just snapped in Englehorn and the man came at Denham, swinging wild, roundhouse punches.
Startled by the man’s crazed fury, Denham staggered backward and lost his footing. As he fell, the camera flew from his hands and slid across the deck.
Denham caught himself with one hand and lurched back to his feet. He turned just as Englehorn came at him again, raising both hands in pugilistic fashion. The captain was thin but well muscled. Denham was not a fighter, though he’d had his share of scraps. But Englehorn was out of control and Denham was both fast and lucky. He swung a left hook into Englehorn’s stomach.
The ship tipped violently on an ocean swell as Englehorn doubled up in pain from the blow. The deck heaved and an enormous wave came up over the railing, washing over the deck and knocking the captain off of his feet.
Denham grabbed the camera. He looked up into the night as the ship twisted upon the rocks and stared into the eyes of one of those carved, ancient gods, which was looking dispassionately down upon them like a Roman emperor overseeing the bloodshed at the forum.
The vessel shuddered and there came a scraping noise of metal upon stone, louder than anything they’d heard thus far. And then the ship began to move.
The Venture floated free of the rocks.
The ship was moving again, but in the wrong direction, the raging seas pushing it even closer to the reef. He looked at Englehorn and saw the same realization in the captain’s eyes.
Englehorn turned and ran for the wheelhouse.
“Start main engines!” he shouted as he ran. “Start main engines!”
The Venture lurched and shook violently, and Jack lost his footing, sprawling onto the floor of the corridor. He reached a hand up to steady himself against the wall, starting to rise. Even as he did he glanced down the length of the corridor and saw the door to Ann’s cabin hanging open, swinging wide.
He hauled himself to his feet and ran the rest of the way, careening off the walls as the ship rolled on the churning sea. Jack grabbed the swinging door and held it open, then staggered inside, carried by the next rise of the ship.
Inside, he froze, staring around in shock. The cabin was abandoned. The privacy curtain by the bunk hung down, torn loose from its hooks. The bedclothes were strewn upon the floor. The chair in front of the vanity had been tipped over, clothes spilled about. Even her hairbrush was on the floor. This wasn’t just from the pummeling of the ocean.
There had been a struggle here.
Ann was gone.
He clutched the primitive necklace tightly in his hand, bones digging into his palm for a moment, then turned and raced from the cabin. He glanced around, mind awhirl. They would have taken her whichever direction they were less likely to run into crewmen. No one was to the left, and he ran that way.
Jack was nearly hyperventilating. He was without thought; he wouldn’t allow himself to think for fear of what would come, and let his legs pump along with his heart.
He went through a door and arrived at the bottom of a set of metal steps. Here lay a dead man, a member of the crew he’d passed a few words with but whose name he did not know. Jack forced himself not to look at the crewman’s face, not to be given pause by his murder. He stepped over the bloody corpse and raced up the stairs.
At the top there was another body that he nearly tripped over. This time he couldn’t help looking down. The pale, bearded features of another crewman, Schlesinger, stared up at him, wide-eyed.
Jack shook it off, thinking only of Ann.
As Englehorn took the wheel, Mr. Hayes took up the helm. The captain felt the familiarity of the wheel in his grasp, and he forc
ed himself to breathe deeply, to calm down. This was where he belonged, up in the wheelhouse at the command of his ship. To hell with the raging seas or the howling wind or that idiot Denham. This was his element.
He aimed the Venture toward a gap in the rocks ahead.
“Half ahead both,” he commanded. “Easy, Mr. Hayes.”
A voice rose to starboard. “Rocks!” cried a helmsman he’d placed on lookout there.
“Hard a port!” Englehorn shouted.
The ship’s prow turned just a few degrees. The sea rose up, propelling her. The Venture plowed between the jagged rocks and then slid into open sea.
A rousing cheer went up from the crew.
Englehorn scanned the waters, tense and on edge. They had approached the island in fog and he wasn’t confident enough of the shoreline to assume they were entirely clear.
“Clear to starboard, captain!” called the helmsman on lookout.
“Clear to port, captain!” shouted Jimmy, down from the crow’s nest for once.
Englehorn allowed himself to exhale. The Venture was his responsibility, and the lives of every member of his crew were in his hands. He had feared the worst but been unwilling to surrender to that fear.
They were free now. Safe.
Time to set a course for home, and to hell with Carl Denham.
“Wheel amidship…full ahead, both engines!” he shouted, and then he turned to his first mate. “Well done, Mr. Hayes.”
But even as the words were out of his mouth they were muffled by another voice, shouting urgently from the deck.
“Stop! Stop! Turn back! We have to turn back!”
Englehorn went out of the wheelhouse, the wind whistling in his ears and whipping at his face. He looked down to the lower deck and saw Jack Driscoll staring intently up at him.
King Kong Page 14
