Mike hesitated, then nodded. “Right. And we might as well grab everything we meant to take with us, looking for natives. We may not be back this way.”
“At least now we won’t have to carry the lieutenant around, too,” Sanford said, suddenly appearing from behind them.
Pike actually pointed his weapon at the man. “Then why don’t I shoot your sorry ass? Just one more the rest of us won’t have to carry!”
Sanford looked at Mike. “Are you going to let him kill me?”
“Why not? You obviously conked out on guard, and it cost us a man.”
Sanford shrugged. “So? I dozed off a couple minutes and the fire went out. All the crawlies were gone by then. But I was awake again for a while, watching the big lizards before they hit the camp. Come on, I’ll show you.”
“If you saw them, why didn’t you warn us?” Frazee demanded.
Sanford turned to him. “Because they would’ve heard me shout or seen me move and they would’ve killed me.”
“You’re a coward,” Pike seethed.
“Yes I am,” Sanford agreed. “A live coward.”
Nev Garza’s body had been dug up and eaten. Practically all that was left were shreds of his flight coveralls and shoes. The only bones that remained were mere splintered fragments.
“Holy shit,” Pike breathed, glaring over at Sanford. “Maybe it’s time you told us exactly what you saw.”
Sanford nodded at Mike. “Like he said. Big lizards that spent as much time upright as they did on all fours. I’d been over this way,” he glanced back at Mike, “taking my nap, when I heard them digging and snuffling. Then crunching. I don’t know what color they are but there was still enough moon that I saw their shape—and what they can do with their teeth—real well.”
Mike turned to the others. “Anybody ever hear of lizards around here walking on two legs?”
“Lizards don’t do that anywhere,” Frazee said, a shiver in his voice.
“Maybe they’re some sort missing link between dinosaurs and alligators, or something,” Pike suggested.”
Frazee rolled his eyes. “And the Dutch have been hiding them all this time? They had to know they were here, and somebody would’ve blown. It would’ve been all over the papers.”
“Maybe the natives didn’t tell them,” Mike murmured, thoughts racing.
“Or they are the natives,” Frazee rejoined, actually mirroring Mike’s real thoughts. Ever since that damn squall, things had been screwy. It didn’t shoot them down, the Japanese did that, but its effects on them and the plane’s instruments, and Frazee’s comments about the radio traffic were resurfacing in his mind.
“So…what? Real dinosaurs? Now we’re on Skull Island or some shit, and King Kong’s real too?” Pike berated Frazee. “No way, kid. You read too many of those weird books and magazines. Aren’t the Japs enough for you?”
Sanford chuckled, a little hysterically it seemed, all his former bluster gone. “You know, if the kid’s right, there aren’t any Japs here either.”
Mike looked at his three men. Sanford remained useless but the other two were sound. And all were his responsibility, more than ever before. The things Sanford described, that Mike himself had seen, gave him the creeps far more than he could possibly admit. Still, the original plan seemed the only option.
“Okay, like I said, we gather our supplies and head out, weapons ready, after those things that took Mr. Wheeler,” Mike instructed, then looked at Frazee. “Sooner or later, we’re bound to run into a village, with people, and we’ll get a boat from them.”
“That’s crazy!” Sanford objected. “I told you what I saw,” he gestured at the shreds of cloth, the shoes, and the bone fragments. “You’ve seen what they did. And you want to follow them? No thanks! Not me!”
“Okay, Sanford, do what you want,” Mike said as he turned away. “You can go with us or stay here by yourself. I don’t really care. I wonder who’ll get you first, though, the lizards or the Japs?”
“If there are Japs,” Frazee muttered, barely audible, as he and Pike stepped past Sanford. After a moment, Sanford followed.
With all the blood and ground disturbance, the trail the intruders made in the jungle was impossible to miss, leading roughly in an east, northeasterly direction. Staying on it at a relatively brisk pace was hot, grueling, and exhausting, however, and thirst was becoming a problem as they all sweated precious moisture at an alarming rate. It stood to reason the near daily rains, if nothing else, would deposit plenty of fresh water on the island, but all they had for now were a couple packs of emergency tins in Pike’s and Frazee’s care, in addition to what was in their canteens. Sanford had drained his the previous night and begged the others to share without avail. They were already nearly done in by the time Mike had led them barely two miles, constantly stooping and squirming through and around the mangrove-like roots of unusual trees. And though Mike kept his Springfield up and at the ready, it was impossible for him, or any of them, to pay as much attention to their surroundings as they should.
That’s how they wound up nearly face to face with two other “lizards,” quite different from those they’d been pursuing. They were bigger, for one thing. If the others were almost as large as a man, these stood more than eight feet tall and might’ve been twenty feet long from their viciously grinning, blood-smeared jaws to the tips of their feathery tails. Both had what looked like fur, whitish on the belly, and elsewhere a mottled black and tan. Only one wore a colorful, feathery crest, flaring tall down the center of its head. That one advanced several paces, vomiting a thunderous, bugling roar, while the first seized a morsel from the underbrush and stood with the half-eaten, bloody form of what could only have been Lieutenant Wheeler. These larger creatures had robbed the smaller ones of their meal.
“Oh, you bastards!” Pike exclaimed, and before Mike could stop the other man, instantly suspecting the animal was making a defensively aggressive demonstration—like a bear, perhaps—Pike stepped past him and hosed the monster with his Thompson on full auto. The entire twenty round magazine made a clattering reply to the creature’s challenge and a wild pattern of bloody spots exploded a downy white cloud in front of the thing’s chest. Mike saw no choice but to fire as well, and sent a comparatively much more powerful .30-06 bullet down the beast’s throat. It might’ve dismissed the .45ACP from the Tommy gun as little more than the nuisance of thorns or sharp, broken branches that annoyed it every day, but the pain Mike’s Springfield inflicted was on a different level entirely, and that made it mad.
“Run!” Mike shouted to the others as he worked the bolt to chamber another round. The monster charged. Mike fired again, and turning to flee with the rest, he saw Pike still standing, fumbling with another magazine.
“Forget that! C’mon!”
AMM3c Jed Pike paid no attention, and as soon as the magazine was secure, he pointed his muzzle right at the thing’s face and held the trigger back—as the terrible, serrated jaws closed on him. Even over Pikes screams, Mike heard the Thompson spit its last round inside the monster’s mouth. He ran.
The expected pursuit wasn’t long in coming, though it seemed somewhat hesitant at first. Perhaps the crested beast—Mike still couldn’t bring himself to call it a ‘dinosaur,’ despite what his eyes had seen—was hurt worse than it appeared. Or maybe it merely took the time to finish eating Pike before it and the other monster—Mike assumed it was its mate—came after them. He caught up with Frazee, though, and was surprised to see Sanford, wide-eyed and gasping, still in company with the young radioman. Of course, it was clear by now that Frazee’s Thompson wouldn’t be any more effective than Pike’s against creatures as large as those they just saw, but it was better than Sanford’s pistol for other things. And not expecting “other things” equally or more dangerous than those already encountered now seemed even less reasonable than the idea of being attacked by dinosaurs once had.
Mike was breathing hard from his run, the humid air drowning his lungs, and shook
his head when Frazee asked about Pike. “Didn’t make it,” he wheezed. “Honest to God, I don’t know if he was so mad at what happened to Mr. Wheeler that his mind just flipped the ‘fight no matter what’ switch, or he was just too scared to run. I’m chalking it up to him sacrificing himself for us, so let’s get the hell out of here.”
“Which way?” Frazee asked anxiously. Snapping limbs and heavy footfalls, accompanied by gurgling, huffing sounds were growing closer.
“We have to get off this trail,” Mike told him. “Get into the thick stuff and make it harder for them to chase us.”
“And harder for us to put distance between us,” Sanford snapped.
Mike sighed. “They’ll catch us in no time if we go back the way we came. But do what you want. Go back to the plane.”
“Maybe we should,” Sanford shot back. “There’s machine guns there. One of the fifties in the waist would make short work of those lizards.”
Frazee looked surprised. “You know, Mr. Hayes, that’s not such a bad idea.” He shook his head. “But only if we had just a few of those things to worry about. This island’s probably crawling with them—and other stuff. We need a boat.”
“Yeah,” Mike agreed, “and back to the plane or not, we have to get off the main trail first.” The monsters were audibly closer now. “They can step over stuff we have to crawl through.” He pointed southeast. “It’s thicker that way. Let’s get a move on.”
Struggling and gasping through the dense trees and entangling roots, they gained a little on their pursuers. They never lost them though, and it became clear the monsters were trailing them by scent—an odor growing ever sharper as they sweated. But they began to smell things too. Frazee claimed he caught a tantalizing hint of woodsmoke. Mike didn’t smell it at first, but soon he did, mixed with the aroma of cooking meat as well. He was sure.
The pursuit was too, and made a redoubled effort to catch them before they reached its source. That implied they generally avoided whoever was making the smoke, and maybe even feared them. Panting and blowing, Mike, Frazee, and Sanford managed to quicken their pace. Utterly unexpectedly, they suddenly flailed their way into a broad clearing around a very strange village, and all they could do for a moment was suck air and blink under the bright, hot sun, as details sank in. A great, dense stockade of sharpened, outward-facing tree trunks surrounded a cluster of wood and thatch habitations high above the ground, supported by sturdy, sometimes still living tree trunks themselves. With all the dangerous creatures around, the arrangement struck Mike as eminently sensible. A hunting roar behind them pushed them forward, and Mike hoped the people here were friendly—and wouldn’t be annoyed by the large, hungry guests they were bringing. Thoughts like that quickly vanished when he finally glimpsed the inhabitants they were hurrying toward.
“Now I know we aren’t where we thought we were,” Frazee said, freezing in place.
“God damn!” Sanford cried. “They’re not even people! What the hell? They look like monkeys—or upright cats . .!”
He was right, in a sense. The beings rushing to gather on the other side of the stockade to stare—many holding slender spears much longer than they were tall—did look like monkeys, or cats…or neither one, exactly. Their ears and faces were vaguely feline, though their eyes were disproportionately large. Tails curling up from behind light leather kilts might’ve looked more like those of monkeys than cats, but their physiques weren’t like either. In that specific respect, standing quite erect, they were shaped exactly like short, dark-furred humans, down to the naked breasts of the females. Even as the monsters crashed closer in the jungle, the…cat people jabbered excitedly among themselves, less concerned about the threat as astonished by the apparent novelty of the human aviators.
Sanford whirled angrily toward Mike. “Just where the hell did you and Wheeler bring us?”
“Panaitan Island, as far as I know!” There were a pair of roars, as if of exultant discovery behind them, and one of the huge, furry reptiles—the wounded male—burst into the clearing. Immediately, a dozen or more cat people, all with spears, even the females, sprang out through the gaps in the stockade and rushed past the three men to confront it. In no way did they threaten the men—they actually ignored them now—but Sanford pointed his pistol at any who came too close.
“Put that away!” Mike ordered.
A seeping, damaged eye seemed the only serious injury the men had inflicted on the stalking monster, and it didn’t appear particularly alarmed by the long spears of the cat people warriors—until they started ferociously stabbing at it. Infuriated, it sprinted toward them, snapping razor-lined jaws at tormentors darting nimbly aside. Excited, trilling cries evidently signaled a retreat, and the cat people surged back around the humans, urging them into the enclosure past the stockade. Sanford balked, shaking off the pressing hands, but even he retreated when the hot breath of the monster gusted down the back of his neck.
The ground seemed to shake like it would from a mild earthquake, and the monster voiced an ear-piercing squeal of agony. Mike turned to see that, in its obsessive fury stirred by bullet wounds and then deliberately whipped to a heat too hot to contain by the relentless spear-thrusts, the deadly beast had deeply impaled itself on one of the massive stockade spikes. Blood spewed out in torrents to spatter on the ground, and with a final feeble screech, the monster shuddered and died. Its mate replied with a roar of its own, but it didn’t advance from the jungle. All they could see was its vicious head peering at them through the trees.
Without a single word of command, cat people swarmed the dead monster with blades of volcanic glass, cutting through its tough, downy hide to remove the flesh beneath. This was something they obviously did fairly often. An unarmed group of cat people had collected to study the castaways, staring and blinking rapidly as they spoke to each other in a language unlike anything Mike ever heard. He sensed no malevolence in their manner, just cheerful fascination. In spite of everything, for the first time since Lieutenant Wheeler told him to land their shot-up plane in the surf, he felt himself start to relax. He didn’t know what was going on—and that something profound had happened to them, apparently in that weird squall, no longer seemed debatable—but even if giant lizards…dinosaurs…somehow hid in remote places of the world, these people weren’t hiding. Their village was open to the sky and aerial observation, and millions of people lived on Java, practically a canoe ride away. Mike decided to worry about the implications of that later, and returned the very human grin of a perhaps somewhat aged cat person—judging only by the white fur on his face—who was suddenly gazing up at him. He chittered something unintelligible and Mike spoke back, and it seemed the cat man was actually delighted that neither had the slightest idea what the other was saying. Frazee appeared increasingly comfortable too, laughing when a small female groped the back of his flight coveralls as if feeling for a tail.
Only Sanford remained visibly ill at ease, even hostile toward these small, strange beings who’d almost certainly saved their lives. He kept slapping their probing hands away, and Mike noticed his pistol was still out. “Put that thing away, Sanford!” Mike ordered. “If I have to tell you again, I’ll take it away from you.”
“Why don’t you try?” Sanford asked tensely, waving the gun. “Look, damn it, things are too weird here, and I just want out, see? I didn’t sign up for any of this shit. Not giant man-eating lizards, talking monkeys, or even the Japs. They can have this dump, and the whole damn Pacific, for all I care. I just want to go back to the plane—like you said—where there’s real guns to kill the lizards,” he gestured around, “and any of these spooky monkeys that come around, too.” Mike noted the village elder—whatever he was—didn’t fear the pistol. Maybe he didn’t know what it was. But he’d picked up on the friction among his guests.
“We’re not shooting any of these folks,” Mike said carefully. “And what’ll going to the plane accomplish, besides getting the guns? We still don’t have a boat and we’ll just
starve or get eaten, without help.”
Sanford pointed his pistol at the elder, who looked at it curiously. Mike stiffened, slightly raising the muzzle of his Springfield, but there were too many cat people surrounding them. His bullet would certainly kill Sanford, but probably someone behind him as well. “Maybe they have boats,” Sanford snapped, using the pistol to poke the elder in the chest. He recognized that for the indignity it was, if not the threat, and many of the villagers tensed. “Even if they don’t,” Sanford continued, “we’ve got inflatable rafts in the plane. They’ll get us to Java. I don’t care where we go after that, or even if the Japs take me prisoner. I’d rather take my chances with them than this damn island!”
“You don’t need Frazee or me to raft across to Java,” Mike told him, “and I don’t want to get caught by the Japs,” he added, though like even Sanford said that morning, he wasn’t sure there were any Japanese anymore.
“You expect me to row all the way over there by myself?” Sanford sneered. “And what if the current takes me out of sight of land? I’m no navigator.”
“Tough. If you want to go, go. But we’re staying here.”
Something happened behind Sanford’s eyes and they took on a new, hard, ruthlessness that Mike had never seen as he flipped the .45’s thumb safety off with an audible click. “Fine,” he said, “then I’ll just have to fix it so they won’t let you.”
“No!” Mike shouted, lunging forward, but Frazee was faster. He wouldn’t shoot either, but he slammed Sanford back with the heavy Thompson before the sailor’s finger jerked the trigger. Frazee cried out and the natives drew back from the loud shot in alarm. Sanford disentangled himself from the collapsing radioman and fired at Mike, who was now aiming back, but there were still too many natives behind his target. Too many behind Mike, too. Sanford’s bullet missed him, but hit the young female who’d been making Frazee laugh.
“Shit!” Mike almost screeched in furious frustration, still unable to safely fire while Sanford spun and sprinted away, shooting another cat person in front of him who blocked a portion of the village and the far palisade beyond. “I’m coming for you, you murdering bastard!” Mike bellowed after the man. He barely heard the hollered “Good!” over the sudden uproar in the village. Mike didn’t understand the high-pitched shouting, of course, but it was evident the natives were very angry and afraid. Some were mad at him, and seized him roughly as he tried to go to Frazee. The elder intervened. He could have no idea what caused the explosion of violence, but seeing what the thing Sanford pointed at him did, he quickly understood Mike and Frazee had protected him, and tried to protect others. With a few yipping words, Mike was released and villagers raced to inspect their fallen people and the moaning radioman.
To Slip the Surly Bonds Page 17
