by Joe DeVito
“No, sir!” young Jimmy said from aft. “I heard the call to all hands and went and pounded on her door. She’s not there.”
Driscoll clenched his hand on the bracelet. “Search the ship! Turn to, you men! Find Miss Darrow!”
The crew scattered as Driscoll made his way to the island side of the ship, Englehorn and Denham in his wake. Driscoll demanded of the guard amidships, “Have you seen anything? Any natives?”
“No, sir!” the man shot back. “Everything’s been quiet, except for them drums!”
Denham melted into the shadows as Driscoll questioned the other two guards on this side of the ship, only to learn that neither of them had heard anything. Driscoll felt close to snarling in frustration when Denham returned. “She’s not belowdecks, not anywhere.”
Driscoll shook the bracelet in his face. “They got her! They came aboard quiet as devils, and they got her!”
Englehorn put a hand on Driscoll’s shoulder, and in a command sharp as the crack of a gun, he ordered, “Bo’sun, man the boats. A rifle and fifty rounds of ammunition to every man.”
Sound filled the darkness: the boatswain’s whistle, shrill and insistent, the creak and thump of davits, the rattle of arms. Voices, too, not frantic, not frightened, but level and purposeful.
Denham was shaking his head. “They must have come in dugouts. How could they have crossed the bay? Our lookouts would have spotted them!”
“Surface is covered with mist,” Englehorn said. “And what moon there is comes and goes. Mostly goes. Anyway, we don’t have time to find out how they got here. I warned you not to underestimate them.” To Jack, Englehorn added, “Mr. Driscoll, before you get into your boat, make sure the ship has been thoroughly searched. Leave fourteen men on watch, and be sure they’re well armed!”
Driscoll was already on his way.
10
SKULL ISLAND
MARCH 13, 1933
Powerful hands thrust Ann down to the bottom of the dugout. One of her captors had inserted a gag into her mouth, filling her throat and nose with some pungent, numbing compound, bringing tears to her eyes. She couldn’t see a thing, but she felt the dugout leap into motion as paddles bit into the sea. She thrashed wildly, but could send no cry back through the darkness to the Wanderer.
Lying pinioned there, Ann thought back to the moment of her capture, when suffocating, pressing hands had seized her. Her first instinct had been to shout for help, but the gag had been ready and had silenced her as the soundless figures had dropped her over the rail, into other waiting arms in the canoe alongside the ship.
Now Ann felt a greater fear than she had ever even imagined. No book she had ever read, no story she had ever heard, could summon the kind of terror which seized her. She writhed with the feeling that her insulted body was alive with crawling, unmentionable things. The gag kept her from shrieking her fear, but she gasped for breath with grim desperation.
She could hear the swoosh of the paddles and feel the flow of the water through the wooden bottom of the dugout. Her nostrils burned with the hot, musky smell of her kidnappers’ bodies as they feverishly paddled back to shore. When the dugout grated on the sand and her captors jerked her to her feet on the beach, she could not even stand. Her legs, released at last, refused to hold her weight. She felt dizzy, dimly aware that the sharp-tasting mixture that soaked the gag was drugging her.
Wasting no time, two bulking shadows swung her body to their shoulders and raced off through the shadows toward the village, where ruddy torchlight gleamed through the brush. Several times during the course of the flight someone gave a high-pitched command, and Ann felt herself handed over to a new pair of bearers. The third time she heard the voice give the order, Ann’s heart lurched. It was the witch doctor, beyond any doubt. His voice rattled off the incomprehensible island language. Ann could catch only random syllables: Bar-Atu. Kong.
Torches spilled bright light across the ceremonial court before the Wall’s great gate. The tribe stood massed here, just as it had been in the afternoon. The same ordered rows swayed on either side of the skin-covered bridal dais. The same black-furred gorilla men occupied the two front ranks. The king sat on his same tall stand, clad in the same magnificent feathers, grass, and fur. And the witch doctor, leaving Ann’s bearers to stand guard where she had been set down in front of the king, promptly took his own proper position.
The old native woman hovered in the background, supporting herself by leaning on her long staff of curved white bone. With her eyes flashing, she attempted to step forward. Six or eight younger women moved to block her. The old woman’s voice rose as she argued with the witch doctor, gesturing at Ann. Anger writhed on the man’s features, and he drew his hand back as if to strike the woman, but her helpers, or her watchers, immediately intervened to pull her away, all the while making supplicating motions to the king. More than one man discreetly assisted their exit, and they quickly became lost in the throng of worshipers.
Completely ignoring the distraction, the king spread his arms wide, smiling his approval. He barked orders, and two men seized Ann. Though wild with fear, she felt strength slowly returning to her legs. Still, she would have fallen had the men not held her up as they brought her to the privacy of a torchlit hut. Ann looked desperately behind her, seeing the huge figure of the king making his way after her. The crowd quickly parted for him. He stood at the door and summoned the witch doctor. The witch doctor, in his high, querulous voice, shouted orders, and four native women came into the hut. The two male guards left, closing the door behind them.
“Please,” Ann begged. “Please let me go.”
The women closed in, smiling reassuringly. All of them stretched out their hands, seeming eager to touch, to stroke, her golden hair. They murmured to her, soft, encouraging sounds, as they crowned her with flowers, as they tied a floral sash around her waist. One of them knelt before her, lowered her head, and spoke what sounded to Ann like an invocation. She understood nothing but “Kong.”
Two of the women threw the door open, and the others urged Ann forward. The instant she stepped out, the two male guards seized her arms. Ann knew her eyes were wide, and she felt as though she were bordering on shock. Something, the compound on her gag or the cloying scent of the flowers, made her feel strange, distant, floating on the far edge of consciousness. The king held up his staff, and the people fell silent. The guards dragged Ann forward and forced her to kneel where the day before the native girl had knelt, and she heard the king’s voice boom out, “Malem ma pakeno! Kong wa bisa! Koh bisa para Kong!”
As one, the crowd went wild. The guards hauled Ann to her feet, and the throng parted to clear a way for her. Halfway up the broad stone stairs, she saw the bridal dais empty, waiting. She heard a soft voice hiss at her and turned her head to see the old woman. Beside her stood the flower-covered girl of the day before, dressed now as all the other women were dressed. Ann barely recognized her.
The old woman seemed to be trying to tell her something, but what? Hands raised a kind of wooden chalice to her lips, and other hands forced her to tilt her head back. An astringent liquid flowed into her mouth, nearly choking her. She felt herself lifted up onto the dais, but her disorientation grew, blurring everything. Had the old woman tried to signal her not to drink? Ann couldn’t think straight. Her senses seemed sharp enough, but she was aware only of sensation, not of coherent thought. When the drums began, she swayed to their hypnotic beat.
* * *
Ubar-Atu, eldest son of the island’s most revered shaman, shouted his orders with nervous haste. Bar-Atu’s doctrine had been the way of the island for as long as anyone remembered, and the ancient Bar-Atu, though feeble now, brooked no delay in the ceremonies. The moon hid its face tonight, not a good omen. Still, surely such a fine bride, such an unusual woman, would placate the island god.
As the shaman led the ritual, his speed was not due at all to any fear that the Wanderer’s crew would move to rescue the evening’s sacrifice. What filled
him was the fear of Kong. Kong demanded sacrifice four times a year, when the moon and tides were just so, and that time was almost up. The times of the great sacrifice always brought peril. The opening of the doors left them all vulnerable. During the last sacrifice, the followers of that old woman had caused enough of a disturbance to lead to the brink of disaster.
Ubar-Atu did not have time to consider the old woman’s insolence, and he knew that powerful traditions and taboos protected her. Still, he found himself more and more convinced that he would have to stop her, permanently. He finished the final chant, and turned to Bar-Atu. Sweat poured into the old man’s eyes as he waited for the king to give the signal for the sounding of the great drum.
The king stood and raised his staff, and the massed natives began a familiar chant. Their serried ranks swayed the torchlight in a hypnotic rhythm. Trying not to appear rushed, the priest performed his supplicating dance. Once more the gorilla men leaped out from the chanting host. The priest’s eyes kept straying to the servant atop the wall, his club ready. Hurry, hurry. When Kong saw this magnificent sacrifice, the god would show favor to his people, surely.
The king gave the signal, and the great drum sent its deep, echoing boom rolling like thunder over the village, over the forest beyond. Ubar-Atu stepped forward and commanded ten warriors to rush to the two smoothly trimmed beams which held the great gate shut. They laid hands on it and poised expectantly.
Boom!
The crowd moaned. Ann knelt, head thrown back, mouth slightly open, as if only semiconscious.
Boom!
The priest raised his hand, and the men took hold of the beams.
Boom!
The hand swept down, and in a voice that rasped his throat, the priest shouted, “Ndeze!”
* * *
Ann needed no knowledge of the island language to know that the witch doctor had shouted “Open!” The gate tenders, five warriors at each bar, strained and slowly drew the massive wooden bolts back, one from either side. Each bolt gradually slid through massive, time-pitted black sockets in the form of horned saurian skulls, one at the center of each door. Torchlight gleamed on the bars, showing they had been greased. The men drew the heavy wooden beams onto broad support platforms on each side of the gate.
Below them each of two groups of men began to pull the gate open, thirty men hauling on each half. Each door swung with surprising smoothness for something so large. Chattering came from far above, and Ann became aware that other warriors had swarmed up onto the broad top of the Wall. Torches blazed there. The Wall was thick, much thicker than she had thought at first. As the gates opened, she became aware that one of the larger native houses could easily have been built in the space where the great doors hung. The men hauled with desperate speed, as if everything depended on getting the gate open fast.
Ann dimly wondered if the natives feared that rescuers from the Wanderer were on the way. But the thought aroused no hope. Hope had died in her from the moment her first cry had been stifled. Her capture and all that came after was so far removed from anything she had ever experienced or even imagined that she struggled to comprehend. Everyone and everything on the mysterious ancient island had trapped her in some sort of waking nightmare. Suddenly, she heard the king shout, “Ndundo!” Overhead, the great drum thundered again and again, shocking Ann’s tortured attention into focus for a moment. The signal, Driscoll had said. The signal that Kong’s bride was to be offered to the island god. The sacrifice. The sacrifice. She was the sacrifice!
At each blow upon the drum the chanting ceased atop the Wall and throughout the village. The massed ranks on either side of the dais broke. With cries of mingled excitement and apprehension, a good portion of the tribesmen, and the women and children as well, raced toward the Wall. Others stayed in their huts and refused to watch.
“Tasko!” the king shouted.
Now the guards picked Ann up, dais and all, and rushed her through the opening gate. At either side a mass of spear-armed warriors joined them, trotting along with shields held ready, spears pointing forward, toward the dark forest.
“Watu!” the king shouted.
Instantly the gate tenders pushed, nearly closing the gate on the heels of the departing group, leaving a gap so narrow that no more than two men at a time could squeeze back through.
“Ndundo!” the king shouted again, and once more the drummer rolled thunder out to the black wilderness.
High on the Wall the islanders raised their torches, as if for a better view. In the uncertain light, Ann had a confused glimpse of the landscape beyond the Wall. For a space of perhaps thirty yards, the land had been kept clear of brush. In the center of this plain, fifty feet from the Wall, stood a stone altar that looked to Ann as ancient as the Wall it faced. Gray lichen spotted its worn steps. A layer of dark moss covered its platform and soaked up the torches’ light. The bearers carried her up the steps, up perhaps twelve feet from the ground. Two worn pillars, splendidly carved, rose out of the platform a short arm’s width apart.
“Tasko! Tasko!” the king shouted, urgency creeping into his deep voice.
Ann felt her guards lower her to the platform, and hands grasped her arms and hauled her to her feet. Without a word, the men moved her into position between the pillars. Two of them spread her arms while two more tied grass ropes to her wrists, cast loops around the pillars, and drew them tight. Dimly, Ann felt the bite of the ropes, but at a remove, as though she were sedated.
“Ndundo! Ndundo para Kong!” the king’s voice exclaimed, and atop the Wall the drummer roused the deafening thunder once more. Ann had been tied facing the Wall, and by raising her head, she could glimpse the torchbearers standing there on the top. The crowd on the rampart swayed in an insane chant that assaulted Ann’s ears. She had again that strange feeling of heightened senses, the sharp scent of the jungle mingling with the musky aroma of the burning torches.
Thirst abraded her throat. She moaned, helpless, hanging in the grip of her bonds. Her bearers leaped to the ground and, with fearful glances backward, fled. The gate closed so quickly it almost crushed the last one.
Ann stood alone, beyond help, beyond the protection of the Wall. In the dark, not far off, something moved. From the direction of the precipice came a deep, unreal roar which met the roll of the drum and threw it back against the Wall. Again the drum sounded, and louder the approaching roars answered.
The torch-illuminated mob upon the rampart burst into a great cry: “Kong! Kong! Kong!”
Ann had nearly lost consciousness, but some sense of impending fate lifted her eyelids. It was as if she had awakened from a nightmare, and for a moment, she stared about in bewilderment, uncertain of where she was. Now the pain of her bound arms broke on her, and she writhed, trying to ease the bite of the ropes.
Before her, she became conscious of the dark barrier that was the Wall, with its intricate carvings showing in the flickering light of the dancing torches that crowned it. It seemed to her for all the world like a living thing. Behind her she was eerily aware of a sort of emanating heat, and she heard an unutterably deep and gargled sound, like that of a volcano simmering before eruption. And then she saw the shadow. It came from nowhere, cast by moonlight. It spread over the altar, reached the Wall, and rose like a flood about to engulf it. The natives on the Wall suddenly became mute, as though something had overpowered them, something Ann could not see. She strained to turn her head, becoming suddenly, inexplicably lucid. Then, while her eyes widened, the shadow separated itself from the black cloak of the forest and became solidly real against the moonlight.
Enormous eyes blinked up at the packed Wall. Ann’s mind reeled at the sheer size of them, at the size of this creature. Its cry of defiance was nothing short of an explosion; its black furred hands drummed a vast chest, heavily creased and scarred, as if in challenge. In the full glare of the torches, the creature hesitated, stopped, and as though reading the meaning of the thousand hands which gestured from the rampart, turned and looke
d down at the altar. At Ann.
The altar stood twelve feet above ground level, but the enormous eyes looked down at her. With a questioning grunt, the great beast bent over her. High up on the Wall the islanders fell silent, their pointing arms again motionless. The torches seemed frozen, no longer wavering. And then the world moved again, and Ann’s terrified screams spread piercingly into the dead silence. Again and again they rang out as she struggled mightily against her bonds. And then, with a gasping echo that the darkness swiftly swallowed, they fell silent.
Kong jerked back a half step and rumbled angrily. The deep lines and scars about his enormous, hideous face revealed a surprisingly expressive countenance. Although he looked as old as time, his features had an unusual expression of youthful desire. Kong tilted his head, and his great hand reached out tentatively, as though with a will of its own, to touch Ann’s golden crest. His fingers stopped within inches of Ann’s head, and suddenly he reared back, his massive head swiveling to stare up at the Wall in what seemed like deep suspicion. He rose up to his full height and beat his chest with the sound of thunder and claimed his dominance with a deafening roar, as though challenging anyone or anything that dared oppose him. When the crowded natives and all the surroundings remained in subservient silence, and with no sound or further movement from the figure now drooping between the pillars, he renewed his investigation. Ann could stand no more. She felt consciousness fading, and she slipped into a faint.
* * *
Kong’s interest had been aroused by the unusual look of this sacrifice. In clothing, in appearance, she was unlike anything else on the island. From experience, he knew that he could not simply pluck Ann from her bonds without hurting her. The ropes, however, offered no difficulty. The loops about the pillars were knotted in such a way that with a sharp tug they became undone. Once he had pulled them, the strands fell away from Ann’s wrists, and she would have fallen had Kong not supported her with his hand.
