Tim Lebbon - Kong - Skull Island

Weaver caught her breath. The shape appeared over the top of the smaller of the great Kong skulls, silhouetted against the mist, crawling up and over the skull’s curved dome and down towards Randa with barely a sound.

It was the Skull Crawler, its wide reptilian head tilting sideways as if to get a good look at its prey.

Randa turned around slowly and stared right up at it. “Well look at you,” he said, and then the monster struck.

It moved fast for such a huge creature, flipping itself over the skull, scooping Randa up in its tail, turning onto its back, and dropping the stunned, silent man into its gaping mouth and swallowing him whole.

San screamed.

As Randa fell he must have triggered the camera’s rapid shot function, and he disappeared into the mouth head first, seeing what awaited him. The Skull Crawler’s open mouth was illuminated by a flash, and Weaver’s last sight of Randa was his legs disappearing between long, cruel teeth.

The camera continued shooting, and the poor man’s journey down the creature’s gullet was marked with flashes through its translucent skin.

“Get down!” Conrad shouted, grabbing Weaver and pulling her to the bone-strewn ground just as the whole world erupted into a storm of gunfire. After the relative silence it was a shock, and she pressed her hands to her ears, rolling onto her side so that she could still see what was going on.

Conrad was firing his sidearm, switching aim with each shot as the creature circled them in the mist. Only vaguely visible in the haze, the faint flashes that accompanied its shadowy movements must have come from the camera that Randa had been holding. The idea of him swallowed and whole in the creature’s gullet, perhaps even still alive for a few seconds more, was both grotesque and fascinating.

Wish I could get that film , she thought.

Several heavy blasts thumped at Weaver through the ground as grenades were lobbed at the circling monster.

“Set up that fifty-cal!” Packard shouted. Weaver saw a flurry of movement as one of the soldiers set up a machine gun atop the cracked skull of what might once have been a triceratops. Bullets seared the air and ricocheted from rock and bone. Tracer rounds probed the mist for the elusive beast, but during occasional pauses in gunfire they all heard the unmistakeable growls, scampering of feet, and crushing of old bones indicating that the Skull Crawler was still out there.

Now that it knew they were there, it would not be leaving.

Conrad and Weaver rushed for cover against one of the Kong skulls as the .50 opened up. Its heavy, devastating fire punched holes through the smoke and mist, the gunner pausing and turning slightly when another camera flash came from elsewhere.

Marlow ran across the clearing, katana sword held in both hands, and it was as if the Skull Crawler was drawn to him. The mist parted and it darted towards the airman, mouth open and teeth dripping a bloody saliva.

Marlow slashed and dived, twisting out of the beast’s reach and leaping into an ancient, giant ribcage where San and Brooks were also sheltering. As it turned for him again, a burst of gunfire lashed along its ribcage, wounds bursting open and spraying blood. It writhed and twisted, lashing out with its tail and knocking the .50 cal machine-gunner from his perch. Then it went for Marlow once more, giant mouth snapping open and closed, old rib bones shattering—

—and Marlow leapt forward with the sword held high, slamming it down into the monster’s eye.

For a moment the scene froze. Gunfire ceased and faded into echoes, the creature grew still, and the only noise was the sound of broken bone falling around Brooks and San.

Deeper, into its brain! Weaver thought. Marlow caught her eye and she nodded, urging him on.

Then the Skull Crawler opened its real eyes, two feet back along its head from whatever feature Marlow had impaled, and a steady growl rose deep within its throat.

“Gills,” San shouted. “It has gills!”

“Write the paper later!” Brooks said, shoving her from the shattered ribcage and away from the monster. Marlow tugged the sword free and went with them as the Skull Crawler thrashed in pain, its head shoving Marlow along so that he went sprawling, stood, and ran again. Old broken bones flew, and a haze of bone dust rose like slow smoke.

“Come on,” Conrad said to Weaver. “Stay close!” He skirted around the Kong skulls and she followed, keeping the raging beast to their right as they worked their way around to where the soldiers were gathering. The camera flashes had ceased, and she thought of Randa deep in the belly of the beast. Surely he was dead by now? Suffocated, or chewed in half as he went down? She hoped so. To still be alive in there, feeling its stomach acids already eating at his skin, knowing what was to come, would surely be the greatest form of torture.

At least he’d died knowing that he’d been right all along, even if one of his theories had come to swallow him whole.

From her right she heard Packard yelling, “Engage! Engage!” and a flash of boiling heat seared her right arm and leg as a flamethrower spewed fire at the Skull Crawler. It shrieked and jerked away from the flames, and she saw the brief look of triumph on the soldiers’ faces. But then the monster charged through the flames, whipped its tail around, and the stream of fire flipped and roared at the sky as its bearer was pummelled into one of the Kong skulls. The gas canister on his back ruptured and exploded, shattering the skull and sending bone shards whistling through the air like shrapnel.

Weaver dived for cover, landing beside Conrad on a bed of broken bones. Someone screamed. Someone else’s scream was cut off by a gurgling, strangled cry. As Conrad pulled her to her feet, she grabbed her camera and snapped off a few blind shots.

The scene was one of chaos: soldiers ran and fired, but the Skull Crawler appeared unhurt; fires had broken out across the ground and among the skeletons of dead giants. Brooks and San were nowhere to be seen, but Slivko was writhing on the ground with a shard of bone protruding from his torso.

Packard and his men were so focused on battling the beast that they did not see what was happening behind them. The fire from the flamethrower had spread across the half-rotted carcass of some great beast, and out poured a stream of vulture-like birds. They were all talons and fierce beaks, wings beating at the flames, feathered bodies smoking, furious and vicious.

Instead of fleeing the scene of destruction, the birds turned their rage against the soldiers.

“Marlow, your sword!” Conrad shouted. The old airman lobbed his blade, Conrad caught it, and as he lashed out at the attacking bird creatures, Weaver and Marlow followed close behind.

Weaver edged towards Slivko, realising that the bone shard had actually pinned him to the ground. Shouts and shots continued around them, the Skull Crawler somewhere behind.

“Help me!” she shouted, and Marlow was already by her side, holding Slivko’s arms as she readied herself. Conrad continued slashing out at the birds whenever they came near, and feathers and blood spattered all around.

“I got you,” she said to Slivko, grabbing the bone shard, “but this is gonna hurt.”

“It’s mainly my jacket,” he said. “I think it might have—”

She pulled. Slivko screamed. The heavy splinter of bone she tugged out was smeared with blood, but it looked like a flesh wound across his hip. They’d have to patch it later.

“—just nicked me,” Slivko said.

Conrad lowered the bloodied sword and started shooting over Weaver’s head.

Weaver ducked and turned to see the Skull Crawler charging towards them. Bullets rattled into its heavily scaled body, some of them finding home and spouting gouts of blood, others ricocheting from scales with sparking puffs of dust. It went on, intent on adding to its meal with the four people before it.