Matthew Reilly: Hell Island

It may surprise some people, but of all the books I’ve written, Hell Island has been the most rewarding. Allow me to explain.

As many readers will notice immediately, it is a lot shorter than my other novels. But there’s a reason for this.

Hell Island was originally written for an Australian Government initiative called Books Alive, the objective of which was to get Australians into bookstores and reading more. I was approached to write a short novel, no longer than 110 pages, that would be given away to Australians for free for a month. I thought this was a fantastic idea and jumped at the chance.

I wrote Hell Island .

More than that, I set out to write 110 pages of the most kick-butt, over-the-top, blindingly fast action I could. It’s not often you get a chance to show your stuff to the general population for free, so I seized the opportunity with both hands.

Anyway, the initiative was a roaring success, with over a quarter of a million copies of Hell Island given away. (While Australian readers received the book for free, within days of its release, copies of the book found their way onto eBay, where Aussies were selling them to my American fans for fifty bucks!)

In the time since Hell Island ’s original release, though, something strange has happened.

When I do book signings, I often ask my readers, “So, which was the first book of mine that you read?” The most common replies used to be Ice Station or Contest .

But these days, it’s Hell Island .

And I think the reason is: It’s short.

My books have a huge success rate with getting reluctant readers (especially teenage boys) into reading. And when you offer a reluctant reader a short novel, they think: Okay, it’s only 110 pages, I can manage that.

And since Hell Island is a non-stop rampage of all-out action from start to finish—with special forces soldiers going up against an unstoppable and pitiless enemy—the reluctant reader gets into it, enjoys it, and goes on to try a full-length novel. And thus a new reader is created. This is why Hell Island has been so rewarding for me.

Hell Island was an absolute blast to write and the response to it has exceeded my wildest expectations—so much so, in fact, that I’ve actually written another short novel recently.

But that’s enough from me. Now, on with the show…

THE LAST MAN STANDING TERRIFIED, WOUNDED and now out of ammo, Lieutenant Rick “Razor” Haynes staggered down the tight passageway, blood pouring from a gunshot wound to his left thigh, scratch-marks crisscrossing his face.

He panted as he moved, gasping for breath. He was the last one left, the last member of his entire Marine force still alive.

He could hear them behind him.

Grunting, growling.

Stalking him, hunting him down.

They knew they had him—knew he was out of ammunition, out of contact with base, and out of comrades-in-arms.

The passageway through which he was fleeing was long and straight, barely wide enough for his shoulders. It had gray steel walls studded with rivets—the kind you find on a military vessel, a warship.

Wincing in agony, Haynes arrived at a bulkhead doorway and fell clumsily through it, landing in a stateroom. He reached up and pulled the heavy steel door shut behind him.

The door closed and he spun the flywheel.

A second later, the great steel door shuddered violently, pounded from the other side.

His face covered in sweat, Haynes breathed deeply, glad for the brief reprieve.

He’d seen what they had done to his teammates, and been horrified.

No soldier deserved to die that way, or to have his body desecrated in such a manner. It was beyond ruthless what they’d done to his men.

That said, the way they had systematically overcome his force of six hundred United States Marines had been tactically brilliant.

At one point during his escape from the hangar deck, Haynes figured he’d end his own life before they caught him. Now, without any bullets, he couldn’t even do that.

A grunt disturbed him.

It had come from nearby. From the darkness on the other side of the stateroom.

Haynes snapped to look up—

—just as a shape came rushing out of the darkness, a dark hairy shape, man-sized, screaming a fierce high-pitched shriek, like the cry of a deranged chimpanzee.

Only this was no chimpanzee.

It slammed into Haynes, ramming him back against the door. His head hit the steel door hard, the blow stunning him but not knocking him out.

And as he slumped to the floor and saw the creature draw a glistening long-bladed K-Bar knife from its sheath, Haynes wished it had knocked him unconscious, because then he wouldn’t have to witness what it did to him next…

The death-scream of Razor Haynes echoed out from the aircraft carrier.

It would not be heard by a single friendly soul.

For this carrier was a long way from anywhere, docked at an old World War II refueling station in the middle of the Pacific, a station attached to a small island that had curiously ceased to appear on maps after the Americans had taken it by force from the Japanese in 1943.

Once known as Grant Island, it was a thousand kilometers south of the Bering Strait and five hundred from its nearest island neighbor. In the war it had seen fierce fighting as the Americans had wrested it—and its highly-prized airfield—from a suicidal Japanese garrison.

Because of the ferocity of the fighting and the heavy losses incurred there, Grant Island was given another name by the U.S. Marines who’d fought there.

They called it Hell Island.

AIRSPACE OVER THE PACIFIC OCEAN

1500 HOURS, 1 AUGUST

The vicious-looking aircraft shot across the sky at near supersonic speed.

It was a modified Hercules cargo plane, known as an MC-130 “Combat Talon,” the delivery vehicle of choice for U.S. Special Forces units.

This Combat Talon stayed high, very high, it was as if it was trying to avoid being seen by radar systems down at sea level. This was unusual, because there was nothing down there—according to the maps, the nearest land in this part of the Pacific was an atoll 500 klicks to the east.

Then the rear loading ramp of the Combat Talon rumbled open and several dozen tiny figures issued out from it in rapid sequence, spreading out into the sky behind the soaring plane.

The forty-strong flock of paratroopers plummeted to earth, men in high-altitude jumpsuits—full-face breathing masks; streamlined black bodysuits. They angled their bodies downward as they fell, so that they flew head-first, their masks pointed into the onrushing wind, becoming human spears, freefalling with serious intent.