Tim Lebbon - Kong - Skull Island

“Do we want to see them?” Weaver replied.

“No, you don’t.” Marlow’s voice carried a weight of grief and fear. “They come from the vents, deep down beneath the island. That’s why you got Kong so mad. He keeps most of them at bay, down there where they belong, but you don’t wanna go and wake the big one.”

“Big one?” Brooks asked. He pointed at the horrific images. “What, these are the small guys?”

Marlow moved along the wall and pointed out an image none of them had seen yet. It was the most monstrous of them all, all fangs and claws, and fury.

“It’s as big as Kong!” San said.

“Bigger,” Marlow replied. “Never seen it, but I know it as the Skull Devil. Kong’s the last of his kind, but he’s not yet fully grown. Look.” He moved along to another image, this one a wide landscape painted on a shadowy corner of the spring room. It showed a lonely Kong, shoulders slumped, standing defiant in a battlefield of dead creatures like him, and Skull Crawlers torn apart by their mighty hands.

“He’s still a juvenile?” San asked.

“He’s pretty damn huge,” Slivko said.

“He’ll keep growing, if he survives,” Marlow said. “And he’d better. The villagers say if Kong ever went away, the big one would come up and overrun us all.”

“And that’s why they won’t let us leave,” Conrad said.

“After the entrance you made? Not likely.”

“Our extract team is coming to the north shore of the island in three days,” Conrad said. “We have to be there.”

Marlow raised his eyebrows. His bushy beard animated his face, and Weaver thought perhaps he’d never believed this possible.

“We’re not staying here, turning into…” Nieves said, nodding at Marlow. “No offence, man.”

“None taken,” Marlow said. “So you really have someone coming to meet you?”

“You’re welcome to come with us,” Weaver said.

Marlow shook his head. He seemed firm. “Nope. You won’t make it to the north shore in three days. No way. Not through the jungle.”

Conrad frowned, and Weaver looked around at the others, seeing their disappointment and fear. Then Marlow smiled and continued.

“At least, not on foot.”

“You gonna tell me you got your plane flying again,” Nieves said, a tone of mockery in his voice.

“Oh, better than that,” Marlow said. “Come on. I’ll show you.”

He grinned at Weaver, and she replied by taking his photograph one more time.

Mills held his breath as the colonel aimed the rifle, and he looked at the target one more time, confused, scared, disbelieving.

The bird was the size of a man, but unlike any Mills had ever seen. It resembled a gigantic vulture, sparsely feathered, leathery winged, its head large and bulging with bright red nodules, its skin lined and creased. It was almost prehistoric, and when it leaned its head back and called, the deep cry did nothing to dispel that notion. Behind it a tall black tree seemed to be its home. They suited each other.

Still, Mills saw no reason to blast it to hell.

They were hunkered down behind a huge fallen tree. There was a big enough gap beneath it for them to walk through, but Packard had called a halt when Cole saw the bird a hundred yards away. It was a good time to rest and take in just one more feature of this amazing, terrifying place.

Packard breathed in deeply, out slowly. “That is one ugly bird,” he muttered. Then he fired.

The bird’s head exploded and its body slumped heavily to the ground. Even from this distance, Mills heard it. Then behind the bird, something strange started happening to the tree.

Bullet went right through , Mills thought.

The trunk fractured.

Shattered the tree, made of stone perhaps, nothing like —

The branches drooped and then fell, splitting, fragmenting.

Not a tree at all .

The tree was composed of hundreds of those strange birds, melded and clasped together, shocked apart by the gunshot and the death of their companion, and now their strange conglomeration was falling apart, the birds crying out, flapping, drifting and soaring.

“Everyone down!” Mills shouted, but he already knew it was hopeless. If the birds came for them, they were finished. With their combined weapons they might be able to shoot down five more, or eight, but then they’d be smothered, picked apart by angry beaks and cruel claws. The sudden sound was terrifying, a combination of shrieks and the heavy flapping of wings. Mills hugged the ground. Cole was beside him, staring at Mills as if not seeing. Maybe he was praying.

The birds did not attack them. Instead they streamed skyward, spiralling up in patterns which Mills could only admit were beautiful. On the ground they might have been ugly, but once aloft they were graceful.

Packard was already on his feet again, shouldering the rifle as if nothing had happened. “Let’s move,” he said.

Mills brushed himself down, trying to still his hammering heart and not show his fear. The colonel was already walking away, and Mills and the others scampered out from beneath the massive fallen tree and followed.

“Jesus,” Cole said.

“We’re in hell,” Reles said. “Only explanation. This place is hell.”

“Dear Billy,” Mills said, “monsters exist, under your bed and signing your pay checks.”

They fell into step behind the colonel. He was twenty yards ahead, pushing through the undergrowth and constantly alert. He seemed unafraid.

“Anybody believe we’re gonna make it?” Mills asked. He kept his voice low, not wanting Packard to hear.

“Make what?” Reles asked.

“The exfil,” Mills said. “If we’re not there in a day and a half we miss the flight out, and this freak show of an island becomes our home sweet home.”

“We’ll make it,” Cole said. He spoke with finality. He didn’t like the colonel being questioned, but Mills couldn’t help that. Normally he’d follow Packard anywhere without question, but the doubts were his now, and this operation was far from normal.

“I dunno,” Mills said. “We’d have to beat feet even without the Chapman detour.”

“If it was me out there, I’d understand,” Reles said. “I’d be okay with you guys getting out. I think.” He glanced around at his companions. “Are we sure Chapman is even—”

“The colonel said he’s there, he’s there!” Cole said.

“Okay, Cole, don’t get all bent,” Mills said. “He’s there. And we get him, and we load out the munitions, and we go find the giant ape and wage war. That about cover it?”

“That’s a lot of burned daylight when we’ve got a hard walk out to the exfil,” Reles said.

They fell silent for a few steps, lost in their own thoughts. When Reles spoke again, he said what Mills had been thinking.

“Is he okay?”

“Who?” Cole asked.

“The colonel. He seems a little…”

“Like he’s losing it,” Mills said. “Like he’d rather kill that ape than get off the island.”

None of them replied. Not even Cole, to defend the colonel he’d follow into a lake of fire and out the other side.

Losing it , Mills thought, watching Packard as he led the way. The colonel seemed taller than ever before, as if a sense of purpose gave him life. Mills only hoped he wouldn’t let that hold on life go simply to fuel his aims.

Marlow led Conrad and Slivko past the village and along the riverside towards the vast wall. They walked for a few minutes and the wall barely seemed to come closer, and Conrad realised just how huge it was. It was a staggering architectural and engineering feat. He wondered at the fear these people must hold to force them into a task that must have taken many generations. Its maintenance would be an ongoing effort as well, something that the villagers would commit their lives to performing.