Matthew Reilly: Hell Island

“Yeah, heard about that,” Mother said. “Charming.”

“And then they turned on you,” Schofield said.

“And then they turned on us. The most unexpected thing of all. While we were looking the other way, observing the exercise, they sent a sub-team to take this tower. Took us by surprise. They’re smart, tactical. They out-thought us and now they own this ship and the island. Marines, welcome to the end of your lives.”

“We’re not dead yet,” Schofield said.

“Oh, yes you are. You’re completely screwed,” Pennebaker said. “You have to understand: you can’t beat these things. They are stronger than you are. They are faster. Christ, they’ve been bred to fight for longer, to stay awake for ninety-six hours at a time—four days—so if they don’t kill you straight away, they’ll just wait you out and get you later, like they did with the last few regular Marines. Add to that, their technological advantages—Signet-5 radio-locaters, surgically-implanted digital headsets—and your headstones are practically engraved. These things are the evolution of the modern soldier, Captain, and they’re so damned good, even their makers couldn’t control them.”

Mother shook her head. “How do you geniuses manage to keep doing things like this—?”

Without warning, a voice exploded in Schofield’s earpiece: Astro’s voice.

“Oh God no, we missed them! Shit! Captain! Duck!”

Standing with his back to the main hangar, Schofield didn’t turn to verify Astro’s warning.

He just obeyed, trusting his man, and dived to the floor—a bare instant before a black man-sized creature came swooping in over his head and slammed to the floor right where he’d been standing.

Had Schofield remained standing for even a nanosecond longer, the K-Bar knife in the creature’s hand would have slashed his throat.

The creature now stood before him and for the briefest of moments Schofield got a look at it.

It was indeed an ape, perhaps five-and-a-half feet tall, with straggly black hair. But this was no ordinary jungle gorilla. It wore a lightweight helmet, from the front of which hung an orange visor that covered the animal’s eyes. On the helmet’s rear were some stubby antennas. Kevlar body armor covered its chest and shoulders. Wrist guards protected its arms. And in a holster on its back was a modified M-4.

Goddamn.

But that was all Schofield got to see, for right then the ape bared its jaws and launched itself at him—just as it was shot to bits, about a million bits, as Mother and Hulk nailed it with their MP-7s.

Then Astro yelled: “Marines! Look sharp! They’re not coming in via the catwalk! They’re coming at you from across the ceiling!”

Only now did Schofield stand and spin to check the ceiling of the hangar near his tower.

Coming across it, using the complex array of pipes, lights, pulleys and rails that lined the hangar’s ceiling, was a phalanx of about forty black gorillas, all dressed like the dead one and moving across the super-high ceiling with ease.

And then Schofield’s horror became complete as the nearest ape—hanging upside-down from three of its four limbs, raised its free hand, leveled an M-4 at the tower and opened fire.

THE APES moved across the ceiling with incredible speed, clambering across it faster than a human could run across land. And the fact that they were more than a hundred feet off the floor didn’t seem to faze them at all.

Schofield’s Marines opened fire and the first three gorillas dropped off the ceiling in explosions of blood, shrieking.

But the others just kept on coming, firing as they advanced.

The man beside Schofield, a young private known as Cheese, was hit square in the face and thrown backwards. Another Marine was hit in the chest and flopped to the floor.

Then the force of apes split and started to fan out around the tower, like an ocean wave washing around a rock.

Mother was busy unleashing a withering volley of fire at three of the incoming beasts when a fourth ape landed with a thud on the open window-ledge of the tower right next to her and threw itself at her from the side.

Ape and Marine went sprawling across the floor, struggling violently, desperately. Since both had lost their guns in the tumble, this would be the worst kind of battle: hand-to-hand, to the death.

Now Mother was strong but the ape was stronger and it quickly got the upper hand, head butting her hard and then throwing her against a nearby table. With a roar, the ape hurled itself at her, aiming its bared teeth at her nose…

…only to catch one of Mother’s grenades in its mouth. Mother had whipped it around and jammed it into the creature’s jaws.

“Get a taste of this,” she said, releasing the spoon and rolling away a second before the gorilla’s head simply exploded, transforming instantly into a shower of red spray.

The force of gorillas was now converging on the high tower from all sides, raining automatic fire on the Marines inside it—who returned that fire with interest.

Then the gorillas started leaping en masse down onto the tower’s observation platform—in one instance, four of them crash-tackled one of Schofield’s Marines, taking him down with their bare hands. One gorilla was ripped to shreds by the Marine’s final spray of fire, but the rest got him. The hapless man fell screaming, covered by the frenzied apes.

Given the gorillas’ suicidal frontal-assault strategy, their numbers dropped fast. Forty had quickly become twenty, but even then the numbers game was still in their favor: Schofield’s ten-man Marine team was now down to seven, three on the tower, plus the four over on the catwalk supplying cover fire.

“Marines!” Schofield called. “Get off this tower! Back to the catwalk! Now!”

He began to retreat—pushing Zak Pennebaker in front of him—loosing three shots as he did so, dropping three gorillas that had just landed inside the tower. But the three apes didn’t die; they clawed after him despite their wounds and it took six more shots to neutralize them all.

A gurgled scream as the Marine beside Schofield was shot in the throat. He fell, and even though he was already mortally wounded, two gorillas descended on him with a fury, firing their guns into his body, tearing at his face with their hands.

Jesus… Schofield’s eyes went wide.

Of the six Marines who had stepped onto the tower, only he and Mother remained.

They retreated, with Pennebaker between them, back across the gangway-bridge to the long north-south catwalk, chased by the twenty gorillas.

Once on the catwalk, Schofield checked his options. The gorillas, still using the pipe-riddled ceiling as their means of travel, were angling toward the south end of the catwalk, leaving Schofield with only one choice.

“North,” he ordered. “To the bow! Go!”

The six remaining Marines—Schofield, Mother, Astro, Sanchez, Bigfoot and Hulk—charged along the catwalk, heading forward, their boots clanging on the walkway.

Seconds later, the gorillas arrived at the catwalk and started their pursuit, exchanging fire with the last man in the Marine squad, Sanchez.

The catwalk ended at an immense steel wall that bisected the hangar deck. The enormous hangar stretched for nearly the full length of the ship, but it was cut in the middle by this watertight wall, so if the carrier ever flooded, only one hangar bay would be lost.