Tim Lebbon - Kong - Skull Island

A mile or so past the village, they followed Marlow onto a wooden dock extending out into the river. At last they saw what he wanted to show them.

Whatever Conrad had been expecting, it wasn’t this.

“Gunpei and I started building her together years ago,” Marlow said. “Finished a couple of years back. Almost finished, anyway. Pulleyed the engine parts from my P-51, the screw from his old Zero. We were gonna head to open sea and civilisation. But that’s when one of them got him.”

“What happened?” Conrad asked.

“We’d gone down to the beach to salvage more parts from my plane. It’s half-buried in the sand down there now, washed way up on the beach by storm surge. We were hoping to tear out some of the electronics so we could rig some sorta ignition switch, and we wanted…” Marlow waved his hand, and Conrad was surprised to see tears in his eyes. “Anyway, on the way back we heard a noise coming from a deep ravine. Sounded like a kid screaming, calling for help. You’ve seen these villagers, Conrad. You know they don’t say much, not even the kids. So we ran to help and…” He trailed off.

“It wasn’t a kid,” Slivko said.

“Not a kid,” Marlow said. “Gunpei had started climbing down into the ravine, while I fed him rope. He always was the stronger one of us. The braver. He was maybe thirty feet down when the strange voice stopped, and then I heard it.” He fell silent again, staring out over the river.

“Marlow,” Conrad said, touching the man’s shoulder.

“Maybe it was laughing,” Marlow said. “I dunno. It was like a deep clicking sound, a heavy rattle coming from somewhere inside it. Gunpei looks up at me, his eyes are wide, and I start pulling, because I know we’ve made a terrible mistake. I hardly even see what takes him. Something whips down there in the dark, reaches out, snags his legs and tugs. And I… I can’t hold on. The rope rips through my hands, burning them, and Gunpei is gone.”

Conrad and Slivko remained quiet, giving Marlow his moment.

“I didn’t even hear him scream.”

“That’s a good thing,” Slivko said, and Marlow glared at him. “Right, Conrad?”

“Right,” Conrad said. “A good thing, Marlow. He didn’t know what hit him.”

“But I know,” Marlow said. “One of them hit him. I spend whole nights lying awake, thinking about how I can pay them back. But…” He shook his head. “I can’t. No one can. Not them.”

“So let’s see this boat you made with your friend,” Conrad said, and Marlow smiled.

They walked out along the dock towards the craft these two island-bound enemies had built together as friends.

Conrad inspected the boat, and the more he saw, the more impressed he became. It was constructed from salvaged parts of aircraft and finely crafted timber, all patched onto what looked like the hull of an old World War Two torpedo boat. It wasn’t graceful or beautiful, but the engineering abilities used to construct something like this out here were staggering.

“Lovely,” Conrad said.

“Does it even float?” Slivko asked.

“Well… she needs work…” Marlow looked around, then leaned in close to Conrad. “But nothing a few extra hands can’t fix! We’ll have to gather tools and start work after dark. Like I said, our friends aren’t keen on anyone splitting town, in case it stirs things up even more.”

“You think they’ll try to stop us?” Conrad asked. He was aware of the weight of the pistol on his belt, but also keen not to use it. Not on these people. He wasn’t sure he could.

Marlow shrugged. “They survive. That’s their life.”

“So if they see us potentially threatening their survival,” Conrad said, but he did not finish his sentence. He really didn’t need to.

Time would tell.

Now that the truth was out, Randa felt invigorated. They were within reach of everything they had set out to find. That it had already found them only made things easier.

People had died. That weighed heavy on his conscience, and Packard threatening him with a gun might have been the closest Randa had ever come to death. Now that moment was passed, and they were making their way towards the crashed Sea Stallion, he had time to really appreciate the truths they had discovered.

Everything he’d ever hypothesised seemed to be coming true. If that beast existed, then it stood to reason that the other things he had speculated on were also here, somewhere—the vast underground world that no one had ever seen; the creatures that lived there, separated from evolution for millions of years.

The monsters.

The ape was only the first. Randa believed there would be more, many more. His only hope was that they did not encounter them face to face.

From a distance, though, would be fine. He carried his film camera after all, and once they were away from Skull Island, he would be ready to confront the world and show it that he had been right all along. Brooks and San had always doubted, along with many others in the scientific community. To some he was a pariah, a mad scientist lucky enough to have a monied organisation backing him. Calling someone a hollow-earther had become something of a joke.

He looked forward to seeing their faces when he presented his evidence.

He and the other survivors moved slowly through the jungle, carrying supplies and gear, guarded by the soldiers and following their lead. Packard was treating this like a war zone, and that caution suited Randa. They had seen the destruction and chaos that carelessness could cause.

Randa saw so much here that must have been exclusive to the island. Plant life, insects, several unusual species of small mammal, unique birds of paradise that danced and sang from the tree canopy. The trees themselves were huge and primeval, towering so high up that their heads were often lost in a haze of jungle mist, thrown up by the steaming temperatures and high humidity. A closed ecosystem, this was truly a wild land.

It was also unpredictable. One minute they were pushing through huge ferns, the next they emerged into a wide clearing of knee-high grasses and sparse, thin shrubs. The going was tough, and Randa was soon exhausted. Excitement kept him alert.

“Check it out,” one of the soldiers said pointing his gun to their left.

A sheer cliff rose to a ridge line a hundred feet above them. Pressed to the face of the cliff was what could only be a handprint, marked in blood and buzzing with flies and skittering lizards. The ape had come this way.

“Magnificent,” Randa breathed, filming the scene.

“It bleeds,” Packard said, moving up beside him. “We did that. And when we reach Chapman, there’s enough munitions on his downed Sea Stallion to finish the job.”

The column moved out, but Randa could only stare at the handprint. It was like a tribal marking, reminding him of ancient cave paintings from pre-history. There were many theories, but no historian could discern exactly what those long-dead artists had been thinking when they’d made their impressions. There was something about this that was similarly unknowable, as if in pressing his blood to the stone the ape had left something of his unknowable mind for all to see. A statement in blood.

Randa shivered. Cole nudged his shoulder.

“Keep moving, Mr Scientist.”

They moved out, and Randa knew that the massive handprint had troubled the soldiers as much as him.

“Man, whatever happened to letting sleeping dogs lie?” Mills muttered.

“They all wake up eventually,” Randa said. “The question is, are we ready?”

Walking ahead of Randa, Cole held up his AK-47 like a trophy.

“You know why I carry this instead of an M-16?” he asked. “Took it off a farmer fighting for the NVA. He surrendered after we levelled his village, one of the only ones who didn’t fight to the death. He was maybe fifty years old. Told me he’d never even seen a gun until we showed up. Sometimes an enemy doesn’t exist until you go looking for one.”