King Kong

by Christopher Golden

Kong carried her through the jungle, and everything blurred past her eyes so quickly that she had to close her eyes or she would have vomited. With her legs and her head exposed, she keenly felt their vulnerability. If he struck her against a rock or a tree, she would be broken, or even killed.

  For a short time Ann attempted to imagine herself somewhere else, anywhere but in the madness of her predicament. But she smelled the hot, earthy scent of the gorilla and heard the locomotive sound of his grunting, and she could not transport her mind elsewhere.

  Her terror had been assimilated—fear ran in her blood now, made up the stuff of her flesh and bones. It whipped into a frenzy in her mind, a storm of thought and instinct, but little by little Ann pushed it down. If she couldn’t think straight, she was dead.

  Kong’s leathery fingers loosened slightly and she drew a wonderful sip of air, and her mind cleared just a bit. She looked around in the darkness as he slowed and saw shafts of moonlight playing across the faces of grotesque statues set into a mossy cliff up ahead.

  What’s he doing? she wondered. There was obvious intent to his actions, if he hadn’t killed her already. This was a path he had traveled before. Huge as he was, he was not a demon or a creature of myth. Kong might be monstrous, but he was no monster. He was simply an animal.

  She wondered if there were others. The terror racing through her veins grew even worse as she imagined entire jungles filled with gigantic gorillas. But there had to be more than just the one. That wall was centuries old and Kong couldn’t possibly have lived that long. There had to have been others before him, and it only made sense to think there were more now. God help me.

  So where’s he taking you?

  And beneath that, another question was niggling at her brain. Even as Kong carried her through the jungle, sometimes hanging her down low and other times holding her clenched in his fist, pressed greedily close to his chest like something precious, she couldn’t escape it.

  What had Kong—and his ancestors—done with the others that had been given up to them from that altar?

  The cliffs loomed up ahead, lit by the moon, and Kong came to a small plateau below them. His grip on Ann tightened and she felt the bones in her chest once again grind together. She grunted, eyes welling with the pain. A fresh wave of fear coursed through her.

  Ann pressed her eyes tightly closed and images of her life in New York flashed across her mind. Of the vaudeville stage and her whole family there. Of her tiny apartment, of music and dancing, of the laughter of an audience. She’d thought Denham’s crazy dream a grand adventure.

  Now it had become a living nightmare.

  Ann dangled in the great ape’s hand as he climbed, fearful for the first time that he would simply drop her and she would plummet to her death. Almost at the same moment, Kong reached the top of the plateau, clutching her tightly, and he stopped.

  Ann’s heart seemed to skip every other beat and in her mind she could hear a tiny voice repeating no, no, no.

  Kong squatted, lifting her up to study her in the moonlight. For the first time she was able to get a clear view of his face at rest. He was very old…far older than she had imagined…and now she saw even more clearly the terrible scars upon his face. Whatever else lived in this jungle, it was clear that Kong had fought to survive the long years of his life. One of his eyelids was badly mangled and his jaw was crooked, which caused one of his huge, yellowed lower incisors to jut up, over his upper lip.

  He stared at Ann and she was rigid with fear of what would come next. She dared not move, but her breath came in rapid little gasps of air.

  With a single, fluid motion, Kong swung her upside down. Ann tried to scream but no sound would come out. He shook her violently, her limbs flying round as though she were a rag doll. The ceremonial necklace the islanders had put around her neck fell to the ground below and as she watched it fall, watched it strike the earth, she heard a clink of bone upon bone and saw that dozens of other necklaces littered the clearing atop the plateau.

  And amidst the necklaces, larger bones. Skulls. Human remains. This was it, then, the fate of those who’d been offered up to Kong in the past. Brought here and killed, crushed to death or battered against the ground.

  A whimper rose up in the back of Ann’s throat and escaped her lips.

  Kong lifted her up and studied her again, lips curling in a slow, guttural snarl. She could only stare into those enormous eyes.

  His grip tightened in the moment before he would kill her.

  Then the snarl began to slacken, the eyes to widen slightly in what might have been curiosity or confusion.

  Kong hesitated, grip loosening slightly.

  In Ann’s heart, terror gave way to instinct, to self-preservation. Kong’s fingers opened just slightly as though he wanted to examine her more closely. She threw herself from his grasp, dropped a dozen feet and landed at his feet, falling and rolling amongst grinning human skulls, shattered rib cages, and scattered bones.

  She leaped to her feet and ran like hell.

  Kong rose up with a roar of surprise and fury that shook the trees, leaves falling and night birds fluttering up into the sky. Ann did not turn to look back, fleeing into the deepest part of the jungle, wanting to get lost, to be hidden from her captor.

  Desperate, she pushed through dense undergrowth, threw herself over fallen logs and through tangled vines. Her heart was hammering, but this was a different kind of exhilaration. The fear was still there, but there was hope now as well.

  From behind her she heard the crash of trees falling and Kong smashing through the undergrowth, splintering branches and tearing vines down, plowing down small trees.

  She stole a glance back, and in that instant went over the edge of a small slope, losing her footing. Ann fell, rolling through the foliage.

  From the distance she heard the sound of gunshots puncturing the night. She was up in an instant and running in the direction of the shots, and now she could hear more gunfire and shouting voices.

  Jack. He and the others had come for her.

  “Help me!” she called out, so they could find her by her voice. “Help!”

  Though he’d tried to hide it even from himself, Jack had feared the worst. The moment he heard Ann’s screams off in the jungle, it was as though he came alive again.

  “Ann!” he shouted.

  He took off, running through the jungle toward the sound. Hayes, Denham, and the others all followed, shouting after him, some of them calling out for Ann. Jack barged through tangled vegetation, passing between two huge stone columns, now covered with moss. He’d no idea what they had once supported and didn’t give it a second thought.

  An enraged roar echoed through the jungle.

  Once again, he shouted her name.

  Hope sparked in Ann’s heart as she heard Jack calling for her. She pushed herself through the dense jungle and the dark of night, lit only by streaks of moonlight slipping through the canopy high above. The pounding of Kong’s pursuit shook the ground.

  “Here! Over here!” she called.

  A tree crashed through the jungle off to one side and she darted in the other direction, going down another slope, leaping and rolling almost blindly in the near dark. Up ahead, a rock jutted up at an angle almost like the prow of a ship and she ran onto it, trying to get a view of the mist-shrouded valley below.

  “Jack!” she cried, and her voice echoed back from the night and the mist.

  Then, close by, she heard the sound of snapping twigs. Slowly, she turned and peered into the jungle.

  “Jack?”

  From the darkness above, with astonishing agility and grace, Kong swung down from the trees and scooped her off the rock. Ann barely had time to cry out as he carried her off, moving with eerie quiet, deeper into the dark heart of the island.

  Ann’s scream resounded through the jungle. But despite its intensity, it meant Ann was alive. Jack had heard her voice, calling his name. He was never turning back.

  The entire search
party picked up speed, moving through tangled vines that hung down all around them. Moments later they emerged from the densest part of the jungle to find the glimmer of dawn on the horizon. In the depths of the jungle it was still dark as night, but morning light touched the top of the low plateau where they came out of the foliage.

  In the clearing, they found piles of human bones.

  It was a killing ground.

  The men spread out to search the carnage. Jack used the toe of his boot to kick aside several necklaces of shells and bones and carved wooden trinkets. Most were faded with age.

  But one of them looked quite new.

  He bent to pick it up and found a lock of blond hair still tangled within the strands.

  Ann.

  But she was not here. The gorilla, or whatever Denham had seen—whatever it was that they’d heard roaring—had not killed her. Yet. There was still time.

  “Christ, it’s a bleedin’ boneyard!” Lumpy said as he stared around at the human remains. “They’ve been ripped from limb to limb.”

  “Ann!” Jack called into the jungle, even as dawn’s light spread fingers of morning in amongst the trees.

  He looked over at Denham, but Carl wasn’t paying any attention to anyone at all, nor to the bones. Instead, he was looking at a huge gash in the forest where trees had been knocked down, trunks splintered, and the web of vines had been torn away.

  Something had smashed a path through the jungle, here. Something huge.

  “What took her, Carl?” Jack asked, walking up behind him.

  Denham hesitated before answering. “I told you it was dark.”

  Jack stared at him. Carl was a friend, maybe one of his best friends. But just then he wanted to break the man’s jaw. “I know you’re lying. I just don’t understand why.”

  Hayes felt a chill up his spine as he stared at the human remains strewn across the clearing. He’d seen death up close, seen men massacred in war, but still there was something haunting about this scene. Brutal and gruesome.

  The sailors in his charge were wandering about a bit aimlessly, waiting for orders. They were going to keep after Miss Darrow, but this had given them all pause, seeing the potential savagery of the thing they were chasing.

  Hayes prepared to give the word, he did a mental head count of the men he’d brought with him. One of the sailors, short and slight, was turned away from him, a woolen hat pulled down over his head.

  Hayes’s stomach gave a sick twist.

  He marched over to the sailor, who’d stepped away from the grisly remains, and batted the hat off of his head. The sailor whirled, eyes wide with surprise and alarm.

  “Just keep walking, Mr. Hayes. Pretend you didn’t see me.”

  “Jesus, Jimmy!” Hayes snatched the gun from his hands.

  “I need that!” the kid said, defiant.

  “I’m not giving you a gun,” Hayes snapped.

  “You were younger than me when they gave you one!”

  Hayes shot him a withering glare. “You’re not in the army. I was trained…I had a drill sergeant!”

  Jimmy narrowed his eyes. “I got a drill sergeant. He orders me around all the time!”

  Hayes stared at him a moment and then exhaled, all the tension going out of him. He was afraid for the kid, but what else could he do? He handed the gun back, holding Jimmy’s gaze fiercely.

  “Don’t make me regret it,” Hayes said.

  “I just wanna help bring her back,” Jimmy said.

  Before Hayes could reply, Carl Denham strode over to them.

  “That’s what we all want, kid,” Denham said.

  The other sailors had gathered around, along with the actor, Baxter, and the fellow from Denham’s crew.

  “Ain’t gonna be much to bring back, if you ask me,” Lumpy said.

  From the edge of the clearing, away from the rest, Jack Driscoll glared at Lumpy. “No one asked you.”

  “Come on, fellas,” Denham said, looking around at them all. “We all want the same thing. To see Miss Darrow’s safe return.” He shot a look at Driscoll. “Isn’t that why we’re here?”

  Something was going on with Denham and Driscoll, just as Hayes had earlier suspected. But as long as it didn’t interfere with the search party, it wasn’t his problem.

  “You heard the man,” Hayes said to his sailors. “Get moving!”

  Giving the kid one last, cautionary look, Hayes tossed him the gun he’d taken away. Jimmy caught it, surprise on his face. But before he could say any more, Hayes was already moving.

  There was no turning back now.

  Not for any of them.

  17

  AS THE MORNING WORE on and the search party continued slogging through the rough jungle terrain, Jack knew that the sailors’ nerves were fraying. They were all on edge after the grounding of the Venture, the efforts to get it off the reef, and then Ann’s abduction, now followed by a night without any sleep and the terrors they’d encountered in the tangled interior of Skull Island. With the arrival of the morning, the temperature had risen twenty degrees or more, and the jungle was humid and filled with annoying insects that buzzed around their heads and bit at bare flesh.

  Though the sailors and the film crew talked to one another about the island and the creatures—the dinosaurs especially—that they’d run across, they studiously avoided discussing Ann, and their chances of catching up with her. They’d all heard her screams and her shouts for Jack. With the sun climbing toward noon, their conversation grew more and more sparse until they were hiking through the jungle in grim silence.

  Hayes led them, as he’d done from the outset, and his ability to track the monster that had taken Ann was impressive. From the killing ground they’d stumbled upon, he’d unerringly followed the pattern of broken branches and felled trees.

  After their disagreement, Jimmy followed close behind Hayes, but the first mate seemed to ignore his presence.

  Dread hung heavy upon Jack and in time he found he could not bear it in silence any longer.

  He caught up with Hayes. “What do you think? About Ann?”

  “You mean do I think she’s dead?”

  Jack flinched at the question…then again, as gunfire erupted behind them. Hayes, Jack, and Jimmy all spun around, guns at the ready, to find Lumpy shooting wildly at a creature that seemed to fly or leap in amongst the trees. The other sailors raised their weapons as well, ready to fire, but instead just stood and stared at the thing. It took Jack a second to realize that despite being the size of an average dog, it was some sort of huge insect.

  He understood the revulsion etched in Lumpy’s features, and the gunfire as well.

  Hayes took two threatening steps toward Lumpy. “Conserve your ammunition!” he growled.

  Lumpy shot him a petulant look, then glanced back into the jungle. The bug thing was gone. Hayes set off and once again they were on their way. Jack kept stride with the first mate, with Jimmy just behind them. Hayes’s words had made Jack curious. He had been concerned about Lumpy drawing attention, but Hayes had only been worried about the cook wasting bullets.

  “You were in the army?” Jack asked, watching him.

  Before Hayes could respond, Jimmy piped up. “The Harlem Hell-Fighters!”

  Hayes gave Jimmy an irritated frown, then turned back to Jack. “369th Infantry.”

  “Mr. Hayes led the charge across the Rhine,” Jimmy added proudly. “The 369th was the first U.S. division into France. They saw continuous battle for one hundred and ninety-one days, longer than anyone—”

  “Zip it, Jimmy!” Hayes barked.

  Jimmy fell back, eyes downcast, obviously smarting.

  Jack studied Hayes again. His skin gleamed like polished ebony whenever they would pass through a shaft of sunlight coming through the jungle canopy, but his expression was grim. Always grim.

  “369th, huh? What did they give you guys, the Congressional Medal of Honor?”

  Hayes glanced at him for a long moment before replying. “The
French gave us the Croix de Guerre.” A pause. “You didn’t give us a goddamn thing.”

  Troubled, Jack looked away. Hayes was a good man, smart and fearless. His unit had been vital to the war effort in Europe, but they’d been ignored because of the color of their skin. Jack was embarrassed for his country…and his race. If he’d been writing for the papers, it would have been a story he had to tell. But writing about it would have made the unpleasantness of it somehow more bearable—perhaps it was better to have to hold onto that story instead of setting it down.

  “We’ll find her,” Hayes added a moment later, his tone softened.

  Hopeful, Jack turned to him, but the look in the first mate’s eyes was cold and hard.

  “Alive or dead,” he said, “you bring them back.”

  The gun was light as a feather in Ben Hayes’s hands. Trekking through dangerous territory like this, it felt a part of him, just the way it had when he’d faced the German infantry across blood-soaked turf. The jungle was nothing like the battlefield he’d known, but with the murderous things that lived on this island, it was quite a lot like war.

  He was wary as they emerged from the thick jungle at the edge of a ravine. The sun beat down on him and he wiped away the trickles of sweat that beaded up on his skin. The jungle had been sticky and humid with very little breeze, and though there was a light wind here, without the shade it was an inferno.

  The terrain ahead sloped down into a ravine. It was too narrow to be considered a valley, less than seventy-five feet across, and the sheer cliffs that rose up on either side made it the perfect place for an ambush. But of course the enemies they faced in the jungle wouldn’t be lying in wait for them. As much as his instincts told him the ravine was far too exposed, he knew that here, if anything was going to try to eat them, at least they’d see it coming.

  He silently hoped he wasn’t leading them all to their doom.

  Hayes paused at the top of the slope as the others filtered out of the jungle. Lumpy stumbled out from the trees, feet sliding on vines, hunched over by a fit of hacking and spitting, his smoker’s cough ravaging his lungs.