King Kong

by Christopher Golden

  Jack paused and looked at Carl, who stood frozen, staring at the swamp, camera still whirring.

  They trudged on. Once more they had entered thick jungle, and the underbrush was like barbed wire, branches and thorns tugging at them as they made their way through. Hayes kept his eyes out for more signs of the passing of the giant ape or whatever it was that had taken Miss Darrow. He was sure he was headed in the right direction. The largest of the hills and mountains that rose up from the heart of the volcanic island were still ahead, and he navigated by line of sight now.

  His clothes were nearly dry, but they were stiff and clung uncomfortably. From the moment they’d set off to rescue Miss Darrow, he’d been thinking of the war, but now it was on his mind more than ever. Slogging through trenches and across battlefields, waiting for the next explosion or attack, the next horror to present itself.

  There was only one thing to be done in such situations.

  Continue onward.

  The men followed in line, strung out behind him. Hayes ducked beneath a hanging vine and pushed through some dense undergrowth. He glanced back and saw the men in glimpses through the thick, damp green of the jungle.

  Something moved, up ahead.

  Hayes had no time to react as a streak of gray and red burst from the undergrowth, jaws open wide, tail whipping behind it. It leaped at him, and in a fraction of a moment, the space between heartbeats, he knew he was dead.

  A gunshot punctured the air, stopped the vicious dinosaur dead in its tracks, and it crashed to the ground at Hayes’s feet, lifeless and bleeding.

  Hayes stared at the thing’s lower legs, at the single toe on each foot that was like a gaffing hook and would have torn him open from gullet to groin. He felt cold inside.

  Hayes turned and saw Jimmy standing a few feet away, gun in his hands, looking quite proud of himself.

  That was all he needed, Jimmy getting overconfident and getting himself killed.

  “Don’t go thinking you’re so smart,” Hayes told the boy. “Just because you got off a lucky shot.”

  Jimmy scowled. “There’s no danger of that.”

  Hayes glanced at a couple of the sailors coming up behind him. “Kids,” he said. “They grow up too fast. You listen to him and he knows it all.”

  The words made Jimmy drop his gaze to the jungle floor. “I know you don’t think much of me,” the kid said quietly. “I know I won’t ever measure up. That’s about it.”

  Jimmy turned and walked off, shoulders squared. Hayes could only watch him go, a sick feeling in his stomach, knowing he should call Jimmy back, try to explain, but unable to find his voice, or the words.

  Lumpy watched the exchange between Mr. Hayes and the kid. He caught only some of the words, but the expression on Jimmy’s face as he stormed off was clear enough.

  The kid paused to steam for a minute and Lumpy stepped up beside him. When Jimmy looked at him, Lumpy made a point of glancing at Hayes. He nodded in the first mate’s direction.

  “You’re lucky,” Lumpy said. “I never had that.”

  Jimmy looked at him, confused.

  “A father who cares,” Lumpy went on. “He thinks of you like a son, you know. He loves you, Jimmy…Gawd knows why.”

  Jimmy flinched, taken aback. The kid wanted so badly to be a man that he mistook Hayes’s concern for a lack of faith in him. Kids could be blind like that. Lumpy’d seen it a million times.

  Doesn’t have a clue how lucky he is, Lumpy thought.

  Having said his piece, Lumpy walked on, Jimmy staring after him.

  20

  ANN HAD ENTERED A kind of fugue state, where the world blurred around her. Her senses were acute, on alert for possible threats from the jungle, but the details were lost to her. All she knew was the ache in her legs from trudging through the jungle, the trickle of sweat upon her brow and chest, the itch of insect bites on her arms, and the need to keep moving. In the back of her mind she knew that she might have gauged her direction incorrectly, might not be heading back toward the shore and the Venture at all, but she would not allow this thought to fully form. If she had, despair would have utterly defeated her.

  She kept on. Many times she heard things scurrying through the branches overhead, or crunching through the underbrush nearby, and she froze and waited until the sounds had faded.

  In time, with the sun making a humid oven of the jungle, she came to a ridge overlooking a valley. The line of the ridge seemed to follow her general direction and so she stayed along it rather than descending into the new terrain of the valley.

  In a small glade Ann found a rocky outcropping, the stone face covered with moss, and a small rivulet of fresh water running down from a spring somewhere higher on the mountain. With her hands cupped, she caught a few drops, and only when she drank the cool water did she realize how parched her throat was. Ann stayed until her thirst was quenched, and when she moved on her legs felt all the more sluggish for the rest.

  But she continued, forging her own path through the jungle. Once again the details blurred around her as she focused only on watching and listening for any sign of danger.

  A sound. She froze and cocked her head, listening, even before she understood what it was she had heard. Then she spun around, pulse quickening with equal parts hope and fear. The sound was unmistakable. Footsteps, coming through the dense jungle.

  Jack?

  She started moving toward the approaching footsteps, trying to fight against the hope that rose in her, afraid to believe that they may have stayed behind and found her at last.

  Jack signaled for the group to freeze. His own heartbeat thrummed in his ears from exertion. The other members of the search party—the survivors—saw the tension in him, saw that he was listening for something, and remained absolutely silent.

  Then they all heard what brought Jack to a stop. There was a crunching noise in the jungle, footsteps, something moving toward them through the brush at a run. Tired and tense with fear, several sailors brought Tommy guns up to their shoulders and aimed into the thick of the foliage, tracking the sound of the approaching runner.

  Ann hurried through the dense brush of the jungle, still following the ridge above the valley. Water from another stream coming down the mountain had turned a patch of ground to mud and she fell when her heel struck it, her foot slipping out from under her. She tumbled down a muddy hill, careening through trees, fell over a log, and crashed into a thicket of palms.

  Jack saw Lumpy cock his gun, saw his finger twitch by the trigger and the anxious fright in his eyes, and he knew what was about to happen. Fear and exhaustion had made them all skittish and dull. Lumpy aimed at the jungle, directly at the sound coming their way.

  A loud crash, just to the left. Lumpy swung the barrel of his gun, tracking the sound. Panic surged through Jack.

  “No!” Jack shouted.

  Lumpy pulled the trigger, firing a burst of bullets into the trees. Jack stared, gape-mouthed, wondering if he was due a miracle, if somehow those rounds—so many and so tightly grouped—could have missed their mark.

  For a moment, silence reigned. The jungle itself went quiet for a single beat, and then from the brush came the thud of a falling body. Jack felt an icy chill come up from deep within. Carl and Hayes and Jimmy and the others all glanced at one another and then looked at Jack, only now realizing why he had wanted Lumpy to hold off.

  Tentatively, Jack pushed through the undergrowth and the others joined him. Choy, Lumpy, and Carl were right with him as he entered a small clearing. Hayes, Preston, Jimmy and another sailor followed. A couple of them hung back, still on guard.

  On the ground in the clearing was a large, flightless bird, thrashing around in pain, wounded by Lumpy’s attack. Lumpy walked over to the wounded creature and fired a round into its head. The bird went still.

  The men stared at it numbly, but without comment. Jack registered how strange their silence was, how quickly they’d all come to accept the impossible in this place. Nothing shocked them
, now.

  One by one, they moved off into the jungle, following Hayes. Jack hesitated only briefly before setting off after them.

  As Ann picked herself up from the nasty spill, seemingly none the worse for wear, she glanced out over the valley and saw in the distance a plume of smoke rising into the sky. It was difficult to judge accurately, but she gauged it to be at least four miles away. The sight heartened her. She had been headed in the right direction after all.

  She hesitated, wanting to keep trekking toward that smoke. But those sounds in the jungle could be Jack and the others. Ann stood very still and listened, tilting her head to peer into the brush. The footsteps were getting closer and closer, but a tremor passed through her now. The snapping of branches and the weight of those steps concerned her.

  No, she thought. Too heavy. Not Jack.

  Quickly, she ducked behind a thick tree and peered around the trunk just in time to see a dinosaur step into the glade ahead. It was smaller than the others she’d seen, perhaps only eight feet high, but the predatory grace of its movement and the size of its jaws left her no doubt it was a carnivore. And hungry.

  The dinosaur paused as though it had sensed her. In all her life Ann had never really prayed. The way she’d been raised was that the only prayers that did not go unanswered were the ones she tended to herself. But now, almost unconsciously, she let her thoughts go to prayers for salvation.

  The carnivore twitched its nostrils, trying to catch a scent. Ann peeked out from behind the tree, but then something shifted behind her, a twig snapped, and she spun to see a second predator emerging from the trees just a few feet away.

  Adrenaline surged through her and Ann bolted. The plume of smoke from the village—from the wall—was directly ahead. She ran right past the dinosaur in the glade and leaped over a fallen tree, crashing into the undergrowth. The two monsters pursued, jaws gnashing as they dashed through the jungle.

  The glade opened just ahead and a huge tree towered above Ann. At its base it opened into a tangled root system that was above ground and exposed. Desperate, Ann ran for it. In the back of her mind she’d been hoping for an easy tree to climb, as the dinosaurs would be unable to follow, but they were gaining on her, right behind her now, and this was better.

  One of the carnivores lunged. Ann glanced back, saw it coming for her, and threw herself forward as its jaws snapped above her head. With a grunt she struck the ground, rolled forward, and scrambled into a hollow under the huge rotten tree.

  Frantic, the carnivores clawed at the tree, trying to get at her. Ann lay beneath the roots and pulled her arms and legs tight around her, gripped by terror as they dug and tore. She tried not to imagine what they would do if they could reach her. All she could see from her hiding place was their legs and slavering snouts as they rammed their jaws into the narrow gap.

  Then the legs of one of her pursuers lifted right off the ground, its taloned feet thrashing in mid-air. The second carnivore turned and fled into the jungle. Stunned, and horrified by the dawning realization of what this new development entailed, Ann watched the twitching legs of the first dinosaur shudder and flail. The sound of bone crunching, then the carnivore’s legs spasmed and went limp.

  This was the nature of Skull Island, then. No matter how vicious and brutal a predator was, behind the next tree or over the next hill was something far worse. Ann lay completely still. She heard something breathing heavily and a low rumbling, but could see nothing of the thing yet, though it was inches from her hiding place. If she could only remain still, it might go away. The blood of the small dinosaur it had killed might block her own scent.

  Or so she hoped.

  There was a tickle on her bare leg—something was crawling on her flesh. She twitched. Slowly, she turned and peered into the hole behind and below her, at the base of the rotted tree, inside the exposed roots. Long, segmented legs covered with coarse hair probed from a hole, slowly uncurling, finding a foothold on her skin. Its size was impossible—the legs were two feet long at least—but it was a spider, a huge thing that lived here in the darkness.

  In utter panic, revulsion prickling her skin, Ann scrambled away from the spider and rolled out the other side of the tree. She was about to sprint toward the thickest part of the jungle, when she looked up. The spider was the least of her troubles.

  Towering above her with the dead carnivore hanging limply from its huge jaws was a gigantic dinosaur, nearly as large as Kong himself. Its mottled, leathery flesh dripped with the blood of its fresh kill. Tiny arms seemed almost useless, but its massive, muscular legs and thick tail were formidable. She had seen drawings of dinosaurs like this in magazines and newspapers. They called the Tyrannosaurus rex the king of dinosaurs, but this thing was even bigger than the bones she’d seen in a museum. All she could think was that this was the T. rex’s evolutionary counterpart in this living hell.

  With its huge head, those rows of dagger teeth, and killer, gaping jaws, this thing was something even worse than historians had ever imagined. Not a T. rex, then, but more vicious. And voracious, with those gnashing jaws.

  V. rex? Ann thought, and it seemed as good a name as any.

  Ann fled. The dead carnivore dropped to the ground and the V. rex crashed after her. It did not roar, did not grunt, it simply came on, silent and hungry, a killing and eating machine. She raced through the jungle, dodging trees, leaping over fallen logs, smashing through bushes, but she knew escaping this thing was hopeless. If she climbed a tree, it would tear her from the branches; if she hid beneath something, the dinosaur would knock her shelter down.

  The V. rex pounded in pursuit. Close, now, too close. She had been in the presence of death before, had seen dead men and women, had lost friends to its cold clutches, but her own death had never been so intimate and near. Ann felt its hot, sour breath blowing on the back of her neck. The huge jaws of the beast were open just inches from her head.

  Her chest ached, her lungs burning, heart about to burst, but she knew she had only the smallest effort left to give before she would simply collapse and it would be upon her, those teeth tearing her flesh. Ann looked for any escape. She spotted a fallen tree that jutted out over a small cliff and scrambled onto it, clinging onto the mossy log and crawling toward the end. The V. rex could not follow her without falling over the edge of the cliff to the sharp rocks below.

  With an almost delicate movement, the V. rex nudged the log with its massive head, causing it to lurch. Ann let out a small shriek and clung desperately to the log as the huge, slavering dinosaur pushed harder, knocking the log sideways to the ground. Ann fell, twisting away from the log. She screamed as the V. rex positioned its head for the final lunge, gaping jaws opening impossibly wide.

  A familiar bellow thundered through the jungle.

  From the trees, Kong charged.

  The V. rex turned and attacked, the two monstrosities colliding at full speed. Kong swung his fist, pummeling the V. rex’s head, knocking it to the ground. Ann threw herself against a tree as the dinosaur crashed onto the ground beside her. Savage with fury, Kong leaped onto the carnivore, gigantic fist rising and falling as he pounded the V. rex.

  Ann was awash in conflicting emotions. Kong had come to her rescue. Death had been so close. She had imagined herself bitten, flesh torn, ripped apart, and Kong was protecting her from that. But even if he destroyed the V. rex, once he had his hands on her, she would never reach that plume of smoke on the horizon, never get back to the beach, never see Jack or home again.

  She watched as Kong hammered at the V. rex. Then, suddenly, a second V. rex burst from the jungle into the glade, responding to the roars of the first. It charged in a single, swift motion, and its jaws snapped down on Kong’s arm. Ann flinched, fresh terror filling her, and she decided Kong was her only hope now. Her only choice.

  Kong roared, ripping his arm free just as a third V. rex strode into the clearing. The first V. rex scrambled back to its feet with a roar. It shook its head and blood showered from its
snout, though its own or its recent kill’s Ann had no idea.

  When Kong reached for her and plucked her from the ground, she went willingly, relieved. He held her protectively as he braced himself for attack. The three dinosaurs circled around him. Ann shuddered, staring out from Kong’s grip at the gnashing teeth and gleaming yellow eyes of the dinosaurs.

  They lunged, as if in response to some silent signal—all three of them moved in on Kong. His free arm was like a battering ram, hammering at the creatures as they tried to pluck Ann from his grasp, or to tear into his flesh. He fought on all three fronts, spinning, swinging, cracking bone and breaking teeth off in his own flesh. Again and again he transferred her from one hand to the other as the dinosaurs snapped at her heels.

  He moved her again, now holding her in his foot to free up both hands to deal with the dinosaurs’ onslaught. Ann screamed over and over, and then her throat was so raw she could not scream any more.

  Kong wrapped an arm around one carnivore’s neck, twisting hard and falling back, flipping it onto the ground. With a roar, eyes wide with primal fury, Kong drove a second V. rex to the ground and then he was down, crushing his weight upon it. For just a moment, he had to let Ann free to defend himself against the third as it came at him. Kong batted it away.

  Ann rolled across the ground and climbed to her feet, surrounded by this war of gargantuan horrors. Then one of the V. rexes dove for her, dodging, running past Kong. The gorilla brought his fist down on its head and it staggered away. The melee thundered all around her.

  With a swift, decisive action, Kong tore a jagged tree trunk out of the ground and rammed it into the mouth of the nearest V. rex, shoving it so deep that it burst out of the back of the dinosaur’s head.

  As the second V. rex fell upon him, Kong locked his arm around its neck and twisted, hauling it off its feet, flipping its body in the air. Ann gasped as Kong suddenly reversed direction, breaking its back with a sickening crunch.