Tim Lebbon - Kong - Skull Island

They were readying to move out and head north through the jungle, searching for the river he’d seen. He had to keep his wits about him. As ever, they were looking to him for words of advice before they headed off. He could think of many, but he wasn’t sure any of them would save lives. Not in such a place, with such things threatening them.

“We need to stay tight and move fast,” he said. “Slivko, divvy up those weapons. One per person.”

Slivko dug around in his pack and offered a pistol to Weaver. She shook her head and held up her camera.

“I’m happier with this.”

Slivko shrugged, saying nothing, and handed out rifles to Brooks and San. When Brooks reached for the weapon, Slivko kept hold.

“You led all of us into a trap, man.”

“I didn’t know. Didn’t believe. I’ve never seen anything alive, just million-year-old fossils, but—”

“Randa believed,” San said.

“Believed what?” Weaver asked. She was still quietly snapping pictures. Conrad thought she probably did so almost without knowing.

“The Hollow Earth theory,” Brooks said. “Randa hired me because I wrote a paper substantiating what most people think is a crackpot idea. I postulated that there are massive spaces underground, hollow zones, isolated from the surface world except for certain spots.”

“Passageways to the surface,” San said. “Randa believes this island may be one of them.”

Brooks and San were getting more animated, talking about what they knew, or at least suspected. It sounded ridiculous to Conrad, but then so did a giant gorilla fighting machine-guns and helicopters.

“He believes there’s an emergence point here, somewhere on this island, for everything that lives below. Ancient species… like what we just saw.” He shook his head. “I thought he was out of his mind.”

“He is,” Nieves said. “You are. This is insanity.”

“Well, we’ll all hash that out over beers,” Conrad said. He was keen to start moving. “Right now, we’re stranded in an unknown wilderness with less than three days to reach the northern shore, and who knows what between us and there. We’ll track the river inland. Follow its course.”

“Inland?” Nieves said. “Are you nuts? You said it yourself, we have no idea what else is out there. I’m heading back the way we came.” He grabbed a weapon from Slivko and started for the tree line. Conrad could tell by the way he carried the rifle that he probably hadn’t even held one before, let alone fired one. Chances were he’d shoot himself in the foot or kill someone else.

“Might want to take another route, then,” Conrad said. He nodded at Weaver; she was photographing him now, and he felt strangely vulnerable beneath the camera’s impersonal gaze. It was as if it stripped her of personality.

“Why?” Nieves asked.

“That rubbed bark on the tree beside you,” Conrad said, pointing. “About waist high?” He walked past Nieves to the tree, ran his fingers over the scored marks. Then he knelt and examined tracks on the ground. They were confused, churned up, but he saw enough to take a good guess. For what he intended, it didn’t need to be accurate. “Staggered tracks, diagonal walker, clawed, maybe feline, but probably canine. A meter and a half in length, at least. This is likely its feeding run.” He stood and gestured for Nieves to pass him by. “Oh, and when I was out there I saw a snake as long as the Sea Stallion, head as big as mine. Beast like that will swallow you whole, alive. Digest you slowly. But go ahead. Enjoy the stroll.”

Nieves seemed flustered. The others moved over to stand by Conrad, and really there could have been no other outcome. Strength in numbers, Conrad knew, even if some of those number were ineffectual at best.

“I’m next in the chain of command!” Nieves said. “Not you.” He sounded like a petulant child.

“Do you really want to be in command?” Weaver asked, frustrated.

Nieves glared for a moment, then looked down at his feet and shook his head.

“Then we’re moving.” Conrad headed out, not looking back. Time was ticking. He listened, counting the footsteps of those following. It was all of them.

One of the Landsat guys looked like he was about to piss his pants. Packard thought his name was Steve, but he wasn’t sure. These civilians all looked the same to him. They sat around binding their wounds, some of them shaking their heads, most of them surviving alone in this mess even if they sat next to one another. There was no brotherhood here for them, no sense of being part of a team.

It was Packard’s surviving team members who were taking action. They’d salvaged as many weapons and as much ammunition as they could from the crashed ’copters and were going through the process of checking it for working order. Two of them stood guard while this happened, eyes and ears scoping beyond the rocky slope where they were gathering themselves.

They were trying to shake off the past, but it was too immediate and too horrific to forget.

Packard could smell burning. Smoke still drifted across the jungle from the crash sites, and he knew the warm tang of cooking flesh well enough to recognise it now. He could tell by the looks on his men’s faces that they could smell it, too. That was the stench of their dead friends.

Randa and the Landsat guys were too wrapped up in their own small, disastrous worlds to notice.

“They’re gone…” the guy whose name might have been Steve was saying. He sat on his ankles, rocking slowly back and forth. “They’re all gone…”

“What do we do now, sir?” Mills asked. He stood close to Packard, keen to keep their conversation unheard. There was a network of cuts on his face from smashed glass. He didn’t seem to notice. “How the hell do we get out of here?”

“We don’t,” Packard said. “Not without every last man in this unit. We’ll head south for Chapman’s position at the Sea Stallion, rally up with any others on the way.”

“What about that thing out there, Colonel?” He nodded towards Randa and the moaning guy, Landsat Steve. “What about the civilians?”

“You know what a civilian is?” Packard said, louder so that everyone could hear. Heads turned. Randa stared at him as if afraid of what he might say or do next.

“Sir?” Mills asked.

“A man without a gun.” Packard nodded to one of the soldiers guarding the pile of salvaged weapons. “Hand them out, soldier. But not to him.” He nodded at Randa. “He’s done enough.”

The Landsat guys accepted the weapons offered to them. From their faces, Packard could tell that none of them had ever fired a shot or held a gun before. If he had time he’d have taken the opportunity to give them at least a crash course, but they had none to spare. This was kill or be killed, as much for his men as these civilians. They’d have to learn the hard way.

“Isn’t anyone gonna show me how to…” Steve said, holding up the pistol he’d been handed like it was a hot rock. His voice trailed off when no one acknowledged him. He looked lost, forlorn, and Packard felt a surprising pang of sorrow for him. It was only small.

The colonel climbed up onto a large moss-covered rock and turned to face the assembled men. They were a ragged fighting force by any stretch of imagination, but they were all he had. A soldier’s training had taught him to make the best out of the resources he had available, and Packard was determined to do just that. He had his men, his soldiers, his family, who were the real fighters.

Everyone else was bait.

“Settle down,” he said. “And listen up. That monstrosity took us out from the air and killed our brothers and friends. But from the first sharpened rock, the first spear, all the way to napalm and the cold judgement of a mounted M-60, it’s been us, and our fathers, who have asserted our dominion over this planet and all that inhabit it. Whatever that thing is, it’s still an animal and we’re still men. And with chrome-plated staffs, chemical lightning, and fifty-caliber fury from heaven we will kill everything that comes at us and send any soul it may have straight to hell. You hear me?” He scanned the faces staring up at him and chose to see only agreement and respect. “So pull yourselves together and move out!”