Tim Lebbon - Kong - Skull Island

“Stop shooting!” Marlow shouted. “Quiet!”

The gunfire ceased, echoing away into silence and stillness. Blood was spattered across the deck in several wide arcs. Some still dripped from the heavy leaves overhead.

“What the hell!” Slivko said. “He’s just…”

“Gone,” Conrad said. He kept his gun ready, cautious and alert.

Weaver could barely believe how quickly it had happened. One second here, the next ripped apart and taken away. A blink between life and death.

It could have been any of them.

“I need to get Packard and his team,” Conrad said, reloading his gun. “Get into the middle of the river and moor there, away from the jungle. I’ll be back as soon as I can and we’ll get out of here.”

“You want us to wait here?” Slivko said. “I don’t think so, man. I’m sticking with you.”

“Kid’s got a point,” Marlow said.

“Safety in numbers,” San said.

Conrad looked at Weaver, and she nodded. It made sense.

“All right,” he said. “Gear up. We’re leaving in two minutes.”

“Isn’t anyone going to say something?” Brooks asked. His voice was shaking, matching his hands. “You know, about…” He glanced skyward. Nobody spoke. Weaver guessed none of them had really known Nieves enough to give him a fitting eulogy.

“He seemed like a good administrator,” Marlow said at last.

They headed inland. Conrad had taken a compass bearing on the flare, and he paused every few minutes to make sure they were still on course.

He would have much preferred to be on his own. This was his world—navigating through hostile territory, moving in silence, remaining alert in the face of unknown dangers. He had done this many times before. Although the surroundings and perils were different, the methods he used were the same. His bushcraft was his own, developed over years and adapted to suit his own strengths and talents. Bringing the others with him threatened to make all his talents redundant.

He knew, however, that they were safer together. Leaving them alone on the boat might have been to doom them to death. He didn’t want that for any of them.

Especially Weaver.

He was already missing the relative comfort of the boat. Heat hung heavy, insects buzzed, plants scratched and irritated bare skin, mysterious rustlings and slower, more measured movement seemed to come from all around. He saw shapes scurrying for cover, and worried that they might be dangerous spiders or disease-laden vermin. Conrad knew more than most how dangerous a jungle could be. This island had to be one of the deadliest places he had ever been, and by far the strangest. Giant apes, giant snakes, giant vultures…

What would come next?

He steered them down into a shallow creek so that they could follow a water course upstream, hoping that the going would be easier. With less foliage to hack their way through, they could move faster towards where Packard and his group were hopefully still waiting for them.

The stream flowed and tumbled along its rough path, splashing from rocks and throwing several small rainbows ahead of them. Conrad remained alert, trying not to get distracted. Dragonflies buzzed across the stream in rough formations, frogs leapt at the marshy edges, and he saw the silvery flashes of fish darting beneath the surface.

Weaver viewed the world through her lens, as usual. He wondered what she’d truly see of this place, and of him, if she was forced to confront it without her glass and plastic safety net.

Something rustled. A bump. He froze, hand held up to halt the rest of the group. There was sound all around—splashing, rustling, bird song and insects buzzing—but something about this sound was different. It was made by something or someone attempting to be quiet.

Conrad lifted his gun and aimed it across the stream at the dense jungle on the other side. A cloud of insects had taken off and were flying in a chaotic, angry mass.

A shape appeared in the shadows. Conrad squeezed the trigger.

The shape became a man, and Colonel Packard stepped out from beneath the cover of trees.

“Colonel Packard.” Conrad sighed, remaining alert as others emerged behind Packard.

“You’re a sight for sore eyes,” Packard said. He almost smiled. “Even you, Miss Weaver.”

Slivko and his fellow soldiers greeted each other with shoulder-slaps and banter, relieved to be together again. They still carried the stain of loss in their expressions. Conrad knew that feeling well.

“Thought for sure you’d be monkey food by now, Slivko,” Cole said.

“Sorry to get your hopes up, Cole,” he replied.

Randa stepped around Packard and splashed across the stream, shaking Brooks’s and San’s hands.

“I thought you were crazy,” Brooks said.

“Yeah, right now I wish I had been,” Randa replied. Conrad saw the lie in his eyes. He was delighted at just how right he’d been.

“Me too,” Brooks said.

“You aren’t hurt?” San asked in Mandarin. Perhaps she thought no one else in the group could understand, but Conrad had spoken the language for years.

“Barely a scratch, dear,” Randa replied in the same language.

Marlow had drawn his katana sword at the sounds of rustling, and now he sheathed it and stepped forward towards the soldiers.

“Good to see you, fellas,” he said. “New faces sure are a treat.”

“Who the hell is this?” Packard asked. He was looking at Marlow like he was something he had stepped in on the sidewalk, and Conrad could have swung for him right then. He’d already marked Packard as arrogant and dangerous. Seemed he was pompous and superior, too.

“Picked up a hitchhiker,” Conrad said.

“Lieutenant Hank Marlow, sir. Forty-fifth Pursuit squadron of the Fifteenth Pursuit group out of Wheeler Army Airfield, Hawaii.”

“You been here since World War Two?”

“More than half my life,” Marlow said.

“I’ll be damned,” Packard said. “Snap to, Lieutenant!” He saluted.

Marlow snapped a salute back, no longer looking like an old soldier.

“I’m getting him home,” Conrad said. “I’m getting all of us home. If we follow the river, his boat should take us close to the north shore in time for extraction.”

“Good to know,” Packard said, nodding and smiling. “But we’re not leaving yet.”

“Not leaving?” Randa asked. “We need to get away from here, get back home with this information while we still can. It’s important !”

“I’m not leaving Chapman,” Packard said.

“He’s still out there?” Conrad asked. “Alive?” He’d assumed that all survivors had gathered together. The idea of one man being out there on his own was awful.

“Last contact was yesterday,” Packard said. He pulled out his map and spread it on a rock so that Conrad and others could lean in to see. “He’s stayed with his downed Sea Stallion to the west… round about here.” He pointed to a spot on the map. Conrad reckoned it was less than two miles from their current location.

“Uh, no,” Marlow said. “You do not wanna go that way. Trust me on this.”

“Why?” Randa asked. “What lives there?”

“Nothing we can’t handle,” Packard said.

“Like you handled Kong?” Marlow asked.

“The monkey has a name?” Packard said.

“He’s an ape, not a monkey. And yes, of course he has a name. Look, if you go there—”

Packard cut Marlow off mid-sentence, advancing on Conrad and talking into his face. “Isn’t your job tracking down lost men?” he asked.

Conrad did not back down before Packard’s stare. He’d faced men like this before. They were bullies, and deep down all bullies were weak when they were dished some of their own medicine.