Tim Lebbon - Kong - Skull Island

“The colonel’s going down!” Slivko shouted.

Conrad could only watch in horror as Packard’s Huey span lazily groundwards. It smashed through a copse of trees and hit the ground, rolling and bursting into flames. He wasn’t sure anyone could have survived that. He wasn’t sure it mattered.

The huge beast was running, several survivors from the first crash site sprinting ahead of it. It leapt onto the first chopper brought down and stamped, moved back, smashed its fisted hands down. The Huey exploded, scattering burning debris. If the giant did feel any pain, it only served it enrage it even more.

It roared at the sky, and it might have been thunder splitting the air asunder.

“Give it all you’ve got!” Slivko shouted. Theirs and another Huey closed formation and unleashed all their firepower, bullets and tracers tracking across the monster’s furry hide. The gunners shifted their aims across its chest and neck and up towards its face, blooms of blood opening all across its body.

Drawing its attention.

The beast swung both hands at the ground, fingers splayed now, and Conrad saw what was about to happen.

“Slivko, pull back!” he shouted, but too late.

A hail of rocks, soil, and broken trees were flung skyward at the two attacking choppers, rising in a spreading cloud that quickly enveloped the helicopters. They struck the fuselage, rattling like bullets, and exploded into shards as they entered the rotor space. Ricochets cracked the windshield and zinged through the open door, scoring a bloody line across the back of Conrad’s hand.

Something else hit the rotors.

None of them could know who it was. The body was diced in a second, bloody innards, bones, and flesh scraps splattering across the cracked windshield. A spray of blood splashed through the broken glass and spattered across the instrument panel and Slivko’s chest.

Their chopper banked away, warning sounds chiming as their rotors started to fail and power dropped.

“Brace!” Slivko shouted. He looked back over his shoulder at Weaver and Conrad. “We’re going down.”

Conrad dropped back into his seat and struggled with his belt. He was breathing hard, and with every blink he remembered that other chopper crash. This would be different. If even one of them survived the crash, the thing they’d made furious would ensure that their survival did not last for long.

Weaver clasped his hand, and he was grateful. Whether it was her need or his, they gave each other comfort.

“Fox Three going down!” Slivko shouted into his headpiece. “Getting as far away as I can,” he said quieter.

The engines were sputtering, and through the blood-smeared windshield Conrad saw a tree-covered hillside approaching. The pilot somehow nursed the stricken aircraft over the ridge, landing gear slicing through the canopy. He could smell the fresh tang of torn leaves.

“LZ ahead,” Slivko said. “If we can just…”

Tree limbs smacked at the Huey, as determined to bring it down as a giant’s hand. A branch slapped through the open door and scored Conrad’s thigh. He and Weaver leaned forward, heads down and hands wrapped around their head, and he tried to remain loose as he braced for impact.

It was like flying into a wall. Breath was knocked from him, his insides mixed and stirred, straps tugging so hard against his stomach that he vomited, once and hard. The world exploded around him, and Conrad had the very definite sense of everything coming apart. In that moment he thought of Jenny, the little dead girl, and was glad that her death had been instant. At least she had been spared the sense of unravelling he was feeling at that moment.

Blood splashed across his face, warm, sticky, rank. And not his own.

Mills could see the chaos around him and he knew what they had to do. Packard was down, Slivko was down, and the thing they’d awoken was running amok. This was not a fight they could win.

“Take evasive action!” he shouted into the radio.

Chapman’s Sea Stallion drifted into view alongside. The bigger aircraft was carrying much of their ordnance, and Mills wished they could use it now. He looked across and saw Chapman, and the two men swapped a glance that registered their disbelief at what was happening. Among it all, it was the loss of Packard that had hit Mills the hardest. The colonel had always been there, solid and indestructible. Seeing him go down had been like hearing God was dead.

Just as Mills was about to talk to Chapman, the monster leapt a hundred feet from the ground and grabbed the Sea Stallion’s tail. It clasped hard and pulled the aircraft down as it fell, shaking it, and the helicopter’s rotors slashed through its hand and arm. Bright red blood sprayed across the sky like an early sunset.

Got you! Mills thought, relishing the idea that the beast was in pain. But it shook the Sea Stallion as it let go, hard, rupturing the fuselage and throwing it high into a spinning, helpless course…

…directly towards Mills’s Huey.

“Look out!” he shouted. Even though Cole had already seen and was trying to lift them above the spinning Sea Stallion, its rotors caught their Huey directly amidships. Metal screeched. Their door gunner was slashed in two. Reles was thrown from the far side of the chopper and out into open air, falling just as quickly as them.

Mills closed his eyes as they crashed down into the tree canopy of this damned island.

Packard had never lost a chopper before. He’d been shot up, had a bird stall on him but landed safely, and had even flown home with his co-pilot and two passengers blasted to pieces by a lucky shot from an enemy RPG.

This had always been his nightmare, and the greatest nightmare for any airman was being burnt alive.

He was hanging upside down. His co-pilot, Nova, moaned somewhere to his left, but Packard couldn’t see him. There was too much blood in his eyes, and branches and leaves had intruded into the cockpit of the downed Huey. He assessed his wounds, hoping that he’d find nothing that might cripple his escape. His shoulders both hurt like a bitch, but that was okay, he could still flex and move them. He was bumped and bruised all over, and he felt blood running up into his nose from his mouth. He spat a thick wad of blood and phlegm. He’d bitten his tongue on impact, but he was pretty sure he hadn’t lost any of it.

The smell of burning singed through the blood. Aviation fuel had a very specific stench, and he could smell that, too. Once the flames reached the spilled fuel, he was done for. He reached for his sidearm, comforted that he could touch it. He only hoped he wouldn’t have to use it.

The radio crackled, reminding him of the chaos he was only a small part of. It was Chapman’s voice.

“Fox Six losing fuel! Tail rotor assembly’s cracked and failing, nominal control… trying for north end of the island…”

Packard reached for the harness release, but there was a heavy splintered branch in the way. He crawled his hand around his hip instead, plucking the combat knife from his belt.

He heard the soft whomps! of flames taking hold.

Nova groaned some more.

“Anyone alive back there?” he shouted. It hurt his chest, but he liked the sound of his own voice. He sounded in control.

No reply from behind. His gunner was unconscious, dead, or gone completely.

Packard worked his knife out from its sheath, turning it so that it rested against the harness across his chest and hips. He started to saw in short, hard slashes.

When the harness parted he tucked in his head, dropping and landing on his shoulders, rolling, emerging from the Huey’s wreck, sheathing the knife and rushing around to the other side.