Jack came out of the jungle, seeing Hayes and other sailors standing there. His eyes widened.
“Which way?” he asked.
Hayes stepped nearer to Jack and spoke quietly as he looked around, still getting his bearings. “I have no idea.”
Jack stared at him a moment and then sighed in resignation.
“Great,” Lumpy remarked, overhearing them, “we’re lost.”
Denham and Preston moved along the ridge of the ravine, away from the sailors but not out of sight, to set up the Bell & Howell camera. Thus far in their mad dash through the jungle, there had been only mere moments to stop and catch anything on film, bits and pieces really, and Denham was getting itchy. He felt as though he had a kind of fever about him, a compulsion to really get the camera rolling. This jungle was a primordial wilderness that he had to bring back to the civilized world. It was his duty, really. They’d seen dinosaurs, for Christ’s sake! If he didn’t fully commit Skull Island to film before it was lost to the predations of time, he’d be failing in an obligation to science…and to audiences everywhere, of course.
As they were getting the tripod properly placed, Denham waved to his leading man. “Bruce, over here! I want to get a wide shot of the valley.”
Preston scratched at the back of his neck. He looked at Denham and shrugged. “Carl, shouldn’t we think about conserving film stock? I mean, we’re going to want to finish Miss Darrow’s scenes…when we get her back. So my thought is to save what we have and…temporarily suspend photography.”
Denham gave him a sharp look. “You want me to stop shooting?”
“It’s a plan,” Preston replied carefully. “What do you think?”
“Preston, let me tell you something,” Denham said with a scowl. “All you know about movies, you could stick in a cat’s ass.”
He picked up the tripod and camera and moved uphill a ways, gesturing to Bruce to follow. Herb fell in behind the actor, pausing a moment as he passed Preston.
“You don’t get it, do you, kid?” the camera operator said. “Look at this place! Look at what we’ve got in the can! It’s gold! It’s not about her anymore.”
The words carried enough that Denham caught them and he felt a small twinge of conscience at the truth. He wanted to rescue Ann as much as the next guy, but the glory of what he was capturing on film didn’t really rely on her. Whatever happened to Ann, he would still have his movie.
Denham turned up the slope, climbing higher above the valley below with Bruce and Herb in tow. When he reached the top of the slope, he heard a strange noise off to one side and turned to discover its source.
His eyes widened in amazement, his mouth hanging agape.
Jack knelt on one knee and stared at the soft ground of the slope leading down into the valley. There, plain as day, was the impression of a gigantic footprint.
He didn’t hear Lumpy come up behind him.
“Bloody Nora!” the cook cried.
The rest of the group had already been rising, preparing to continue their pursuit of Ann, and now they responded to Lumpy’s exclamation, quickly gathering around Jack and the print.
“Is that what took Miss Darrow?” Jimmy asked.
“There’s only one creature capable of leaving a footprint that size,” Lumpy said sagely. They all turned to look at him before he continued. “The Abominable Snowman.”
Jack thought the statement amusing—there wasn’t any snow on Skull Island for love or money. Still, a ripple of fear spread through the crowd of superstitious sailors.
“And I, for one, have no desire to meet it face to face,” Lumpy went on. “Believe me, fellas, against something this big, we’ve got no chance.”
Rattled, the sailors began to mutter among themselves. Some of the men obviously agreed, and others even talked about turning back. Hayes pushed through them and knelt beside Jack, examining the print for himself.
“It’s got to be, what, twenty? Twenty-five feet?” the first mate asked.
Anger rippled through Jack as he looked at the man. “Carl saw it,” he said grimly. “Let’s ask him.”
Hayes glanced over his shoulder. “Denham!” When he received no answer, he looked around. “Where’d he go?”
Jack rose and started up the slope, following the path he’d seen the director and his crew take earlier.
“Carl!” he called. But he received no reply.
Denham could barely breathe. His skin prickled all over, not with the heat and humidity or the itch from insect bites, but with the flush of true awe unlike anything he’d ever felt. This was transcendence. This was sublime.
Preston had stayed with the sailors down where they’d emerged from the jungle. Bruce and Herb, however, had followed Denham to the top of the slope that led down into the valley. Denham had set up the camera immediately and now all three of them stared, transfixed, even as Denham cranked the Bell & Howell, capturing the impossible on film.
Ahead of them, a herd of twelve brontosaurs grazed in a wide clearing, long necks swaying as they nibbled the tall grass. Brontos were one of the few dinosaurs Denham was familiar with from museum trips and books, and as a boy he had never quite decided whether he believed in their existence or not. He wanted evidence, wanted to see with his own eyes the same way he strived to bring the wonders of the world to others, so they could see with theirs.
Here was all the evidence he’d ever need.
Denham spoke, his voice low. “Walk forward, Bruce.”
The actor blinked several times, as though waking from a trance. “What?”
“You’re the star of this picture,” Denham reminded him. “Get into character and head towards the animals.”
Nervously, Bruce shuffled forward. “Are you sure about this, Denham? Don’t we have a stand-in for this type of thing?”
Denham sighed, hating having to explain himself. “I need you in the shot, or people will say they’re fake.”
Something moved in his peripheral vision, off to the left of the herd. Denham turned to see what it might have been. Nothing. He brushed it off, assuming the wind had swayed some branches in the trees at the edge of the clearing.
Then the brontosaurs began to stir. Their feet shuffled and their heads rose slightly, as though they were listening for something. They were suddenly edgy and restless, these huge, lumbering animals.
“You’re making them nervous,” Denham whispered harshly, stopping Bruce in his tracks. “No sudden movement.”
The actor shot him a dark look. “I’m not moving.”
A low, rumbling sound began. Denham tensed, glancing around for its source before realizing it came from everywhere. The ground began to tremble. Denham thought for just a heartbeat that it was an earthquake.
Then the brontosaurs turned toward the film crew, on the run.
“Mother of God!” Bruce shouted, and fled back down the slope.
Denham and Herb looked at each other, and the director reached for the camera.
A full-on stampede of dinosaurs was headed this way.
Hayes started the group down the slope into the ravine. Jack wasn’t worried about Carl; he knew the man wouldn’t stray for long and the moment he returned to the place where they’d come out of the jungle, he’d be able to see everyone working their way down into the valley. Carl would catch up easily enough.
Jack wiped a hand across the back of his neck, rubbing at the grime and insect bites there. He grimaced but did not slow, keeping pace with the sailors. Hayes was up ahead. Lumpy and Choy were talking about something in low voices, just behind him.
Without warning, a piece of the cliffside to their left gave way, rocks tumbling down into the ravine. The men got out of the way easily enough. Jack frowned and looked up to the place where the cliff had broken loose, wondering what caused it.
Then the ground began to shake.
The sailors glanced around nervously, most of them watching the cliffs on either side now, wondering how bad the coming rockfall would be and where
they could take cover.
As the crewmen pressed on, passing him by, Jack heard a noise from behind him, and turned to see Bruce Baxter running down the hill, a decidedly un-heroic expression on his face.
“What is it?” Jack asked, as Bruce reached him. “Where’s Carl?”
Bruce slowed down, making an obvious effort to calm himself. “He’s…um, well, he’s up there.” He gestured back up the slope. “Filming.”
There was a slight curve in the slope, and a rise, and the two topographical elements combined to keep the upper portion from view now that they were deeper in the ravine.
A loud roar echoed down toward them.
Bruce bolted like a startled rabbit, sprinting after the sailors. Many of them began to run now as well. The sound of that roar chilled Jack—though it wasn’t the same one they’d heard in the jungle before. But he couldn’t just leave Carl and Herb behind—he started cautiously uphill toward the source of the loud rumbling, a part of him questioning his own sanity as he moved.
The director and his camera operator came toward him over the rise in the slope, running for all they were worth. For a fellow with an artificial leg, Herb was making good speed, keeping up with Carl, practically hopping along. The rumbling grew louder, the ground shaking wildly.
Then Jack saw what they were running from.
A herd of dinosaurs now came over the rise, long necks bobbing up and down as they stampeded right toward him, following Herb and Carl. Jack froze, his heart skipping a beat. But no time for astonishment.
“Holy Christ!” Jack yelled.
Hayes and some of the sailors had hung back as well, wondering what was up. Now the first mate screamed to the rest of them.
“Run!”
As if anyone needed to be told.
Jack was a native New Yorker, played baseball in city parks and stickball in the streets. He had run a lot as a boy, and he wasn’t a kid anymore—yet his body remembered. He was lanky, long-legged, and fleet of foot, and he ran like hell, the wind in his hair, passing by some of the sailors who were rugged but not swift.
Something made him look back, concerned for Carl and the limping Herb. Even as he glanced over his shoulder, he saw Denham trip and fall. The stampede stormed down upon Carl there in the narrow valley. Carl was paralyzed on the spot. He’d been carrying the camera apparatus over his shoulder as he ran and it had gone flying from his grasp as he fell. Now as he started to rise, Jack saw the way Carl seemed mesmerized by the camera.
Fool! Jack thought.
He started back for Carl, even as the man went after his camera, which lay right in the path of the stampede.
“Leave it!” Jack shouted as he got a grip on Carl’s clothes, trying to haul him away, to set him running again.
“No!” Denham snapped.
Carl lunged, got his hands on the equipment, and then he turned, the two old friends running again, side by side now. Carl cradled the camera and tripod in his arms as the brontosaur herd bore down on them from behind. Rocks calved off the cliffs and slid down, crashing nearby. The ground shook like an earthquake—they were nearly thrown from their feet by the tremors of the stampede.
Jack had lost track of everyone now. Herb, Hayes, Jimmy, Bruce, Lumpy, Choy…he was just running. Only Carl’s presence beside him seemed solid and reliable. The rest was a blur.
He glanced over his shoulder again, and he discovered the reason for the stampede. He’d assumed somehow Carl’s filming had set the dinosaurs off, but now he realized that was not the case at all. The brontosaurs were herbivores, eating only plants.
But not all dinosaurs had such a fussy diet.
Sprinting along after the bronto herd, running at speeds that were startling, was another breed entirely, some sort of Hunter-lizards. They were perhaps fifteen feet tall, much smaller than the brontos, but these were predators nevertheless. Huge, gaping jaws, snapping, gnashing, bearing razor teeth. Their upper arms were thin but ended in long talons with wicked looking claws, their lower legs were huge and muscular. Each of the Hunter-lizards had a wide red stripe down the back of their leathery hide.
They were closing in at incredible speed. One of the hunters leaped onto the back of a brontosaur and tore into it with both talons and the hooked claws on its powerful feet. The bronto faltered and slid to one side, crashing into the cliff. Two more of the predators leaped onto the fallen brontosaur, three of them tearing, slaughtering their prey as the rest of the herd streamed past.
Jack’s view of the carnage was suddenly blocked out by a forest of thundering brontosaurus legs as the stampede caught up to them.
Jack and Carl were engulfed by the herd, surrounded by huge legs like giant redwood trees pounding the ground around them. The Hunter-lizards were in amongst them, snapping and snarling at the mammoth legs. Jack had been so terrified, so sure that his life was about to end with a crunch of bone as he was pulped underfoot, that it hadn’t occurred to him that these predators were even more dangerous.
Until one of them noticed him—its eyes narrowed, tracking Jack.
He and Carl had instinctively been trying to move toward the edge of the herd, to escape the stampede, but now Jack grabbed Denham’s arm until his old friend saw what he’d seen. Their only hope of survival was to stay within the stampede, to take their chances with the thundering tree trunk legs of the brontosaurs, so that they could stay out of the flesh eaters’ reach.
Up ahead, in the sea of legs, a sailor tripped and tumbled to the ground and was crushed underfoot.
Others had not yet noticed the predators—Jack saw two sailors jump clear of the stampede only to be set upon and torn apart. Their death cries were drowned out by the thunder of the brontosaurs’ flight.
Now the others saw this new peril, and all were running madly, trying desperately to dodge the stampeding legs of the brontosaurs and the lunging, snapping jaws of the red-striped predators. One of the things still focused on Jack. He saw it eyeing him, but then the writer’s attention was diverted as a huge leg swept toward him that he quickly avoided.
In the same moment, the vicious Hunter-lizard found its opening, darting and weaving in between and ducking under the brontosaurs until it came up right behind Jack. It lunged, jaws snapping inches from his head.
Desperate, with death all around him, there was only one option. He stopped, and slammed his shoulder into the hunter, knocking the slavering dinosaur with its gore-stained teeth under the trampling feet of a brontosaur. Its body was pulped and bones shattered, but Jack was already in motion, dodging again, making sure he didn’t share the thing’s fate.
Jack and Carl had made their way toward the front of the stampede again. Up ahead, along the floor of the valley, Bruce was still sprinting. Somehow he’d managed to stay ahead of the stampede, ahead of the Hunter-lizards, outpacing everything and everyone.
Even as Jack spotted Bruce, one of the predators did too. It darted out past the front of the herd and headed for the actor, powerful legs pistoning, driving it forward with unstoppable force and speed.
Panic swept over Bruce. He brought up the Tommy gun Hayes had given him, bringing the barrel around to aim at the predator…and at the stampede beyond. Jack saw impending disaster.
“No!” he screamed.
Bruce fired, missing the Hunter-lizard, and hit the lead brontosaur in the chest. The massive, lumbering dinosaur collapsed at top speed, tumbling end over end, huge neck and tail thrashing out. The other brontos plowed into it, tripping and rolling.
Jack and the others were caught in the crash, in that massive pile-up of heaving dinosaur flesh. A couple of sailors were crushed as the brontosaurs came down on top of them; one of the flesh eaters was trapped between two brontos that collided, shattering the hunter.
A rock jutted from the path and Jack rolled up against it as brontosaurs crashed and tumbled all around him. Nearby he spotted Carl throwing himself to the ground, wild-eyed as he tried to shield his precious movie camera from harm, willing to sacrifice his own li
fe to keep it intact.
The lunatic.
In the space of seconds, the mighty herd of behemoths was reduced to a vast heap of dead and wounded animals. The Hunter-lizards immediately went to work, leaping onto the brontosaurs and ripping open their fleshy stomachs, snouts darting, stained red with blood and viscera.
Jack crawled past huge, heaving bellies and twitching legs, staggering out of the mountain of flesh, and then turned back quickly at the sound of loud hissing.
One of the predators was climbing over a dead brontosaur, gleaming eyes intently watching Jack. It leaped at him, about to deliver the killing blow. Gunfire ripped the air, riddling the hunter with bullets, and it fell dead at Jack’s feet.
Numb, Jack looked up to see Hayes hurrying toward him, Tommy gun clutched in his hands.
“Go! Go!” Hayes shouted.
He got them all moving up a steep, rocky incline, the survivors slipping and sliding on slimy, moss covered rocks. But Jack didn’t follow—he looked around, panic mounting. Where the hell was Denham now?
“Carl?” he called. “Carl!”
Denham limped from somewhere out of the mound of dead and dying brontosaurs, bloodied and covered in dust. The camera was cradled in his arms. Intact.
Unknown to the director, another of the Hunter-lizards was pacing him. Hayes pulled the trigger and bullets tore it apart. It toppled backward into the wreckage of dead history.
“Run!” Hayes shouted.
Denham needed no further encouragement.
18
DENHAM DIDN’T HAVE A clue what these predator dinosaurs were, but he didn’t want to get a closer look. He’d once seen the skeleton of a Tyrannosaurus rex at a museum, right next to the brontosaur, and these vicious monsters seemed like a cross between a T. rex and a kangaroo, small in comparison, but built for speed, powerful and sleek. Their snouts were thick, their yellow eyes gleaming with cunning and ravenous hunger that he was sure was never sated.
Denham didn’t want to die, but he had to save the camera. Period. Without it, without a record of this place and the extraordinary events that had unfolded on this voyage, he might as well die here on Skull Island. He wouldn’t have a life to go back to, otherwise.
King Kong Page 18
