Tim Lebbon - Kong - Skull Island

“You’ve lost your mind,” Weaver said.

Packard spun and advanced on her, but Conrad had already grabbed her arm, staring at Packard as he said into Weaver’s ear, “Not our fight.”

Packard stopped and stared them down. He knew that Conrad meant business, and if it came down to it, he would offer a hell of a fight. But now was not the time, and that wasn’t what Packard wanted.

What he wanted was still out there somewhere, hiding in one of this damned island’s dark places.

“Whose side are you on?” Packard asked Conrad.

“You’ll find your Sea Stallion up that ridge,” Conrad said, pointing past Packard and neatly avoiding the question. “I’ll lead these civilians back to the boat. We’ll wait for you there.”

Packard couldn’t trust the captain, but he could also see no lie in the man’s eyes. Conrad wanted these civilians safe, and knew that where Packard was going, what he was doing, was far from safe. Besides, it would get the ex-SAS man out of Packard’s hair. That would be a blessing. If they remained together for too long, Packard knew they’d end up fighting for real.

He nodded to Conrad, then turned to his men. “Let’s send it to hell.”

As the soldiers followed their colonel, Conrad helped Marlow to his feet, handing him the sword that Mills had dropped. Marlow plucked a handful of leaves and cleaned the blade, then sheathed it, holding onto his bruised ribs. He didn’t seem shaken. Conrad wasn’t sure a man like this could be shaken after everything he’d been through. Not by a human, at least.

“We need to stop them,” Marlow said.

“Feel free to try,” Conrad said. “He seemed pretty open-minded and friendly. Or let them go, come with me, and maybe we get off this rock.”

“You told Packard we’d wait at the boat,” Weaver said.

“We do that and none of us gets out of here alive.” The implication was obvious. It wasn’t a decision that Conrad was comfortable with, but it was the only one that made sense.

“You’re sure you can do that?” Weaver asked.

“We really don’t have much choice,” he said. “Packard’s gone all Ahab on us, and I don’t think anything will change his mind. Come on. Let’s move out.”

“But Kong—” Marlow began. Conrad cut him off.

“I think Kong can look after himself.”

Taking a heading and leading the small group back down the valley side and towards the river, Conrad’s doubts began to grow. The giant ape might have spent his life fighting and defeating monsters, and he had the scars to prove that.

He had only just encountered the greatest monster known as Man.

Packard led, and Mills and the others followed. Mills would have followed his colonel pretty much anywhere, and over the past few years they’d been to hell and back together, several times. Now was the first time he was having doubts.

Packard was as cool and calm under pressure as he’d always been, but there was something about his actions that screamed obsession. Logic and good sense had taken leave. As his unit was slowly being whittled down, it was obvious that Packard needed to restrategise, to take into account the fewer soldiers at his command. So why didn’t he? Whatever drove him also seemed to blind him. Mills was troubled, but for now he kept his concerns to himself.

They moved across the rugged terrain, making their way up towards the ridge line where the Sea Stallion had crashed. The going was difficult but consistent, with the group making headway through dense undergrowth and beneath the shadowy jungle canopy. They remained alert for dangers known and unknown. Recent events had shown them they had to be prepared for anything.

Mills wondered whether any of them were destined to make it home. That idea had crossed his mind many times before, but usually when facing an enemy they all knew and understood, to some extent at least. Contemplating his own death was part of what it meant to be a soldier, but he’d always succeeded in keeping those ideas remote from his actions, not something that might interrupt or distract. This was different. Thinking about their possible annihilation by some unknown creature, in an unknown place, was horrific.

No one would ever find out what had happened to them. In the cruel jungles and fields of Vietnam, at least the news and circumstances of your death would be transmitted home. You died with honour. Here, he might cease to exist without his death impacting the world at all.

They remained quiet, with communications kept to a bare, whispered minimum. When the slope became steeper and they had to use their hands to pull on roots and trailing plants, several men at a time would remain motionless, weapons trained above and below them. Then they changed position, those who had climbed now standing guard while others scrambled up. They made good progress that way, and soon they were nearing the long ridge line.

Close to the ridge line and the crashed Sea Stallion, Mills saw a white object pinned to a tree slightly away from their trail. He worked his way across to it, glancing back at his fellow soldiers and making sure he wasn’t straying too far. Cole caught his eye and Mills nodded, acknowledging that he wouldn’t be long.

He knew what they were before he touched them. He pulled the knife from the tree and plucked the impaled pages from the blade. He held up the letters for Cole to see. Cole raised an eyebrow, then turned away and continued up towards the ridge.

“Dear Billy,” Mills said to himself, “your father was one of the best.” He followed Cole and the others, shoving the letters into a pocket inside his shirt and slipping the knife into his belt. “I’ll get these letters back to you,” he whispered.

They moved on and Mills took up the tail position. He glanced back every few seconds, making sure no one or nothing was following them. He hated bringing up the rear, but knew it was a position they had to share.

In Vietnam he’d been on a reconnaissance patrol with nineteen other men. Five days out, with heavy rain blurring their vision and supplies running low, their captain was trying to lead them to a pre-arranged LZ. As night fell Mills was in the middle of the line of troops, helping to carry an injured man on a stretcher. It was hard going. By the time they reached the LZ the following morning and heard the Hueys coming in to take them out, Mills was the last man in the patrol, and everyone behind him had vanished.

The jungle had swallowed up seven men. They were never found.

He refused to let that happen to him now. This jungle was more dangerous than any he had ever encountered. A tree trunk might be a creature’s leg. A rustling in the shadows could manifest into a swarm of flesh-eating flying monsters. Anything could be hiding just out of sight, and something probably was. He held in his fear and kept his senses alert.

Mills smelled the crash site before they saw it. The stench of leaking aviation fuel was almost overpowering. Luckily there had been no fire. If there had, the amount of armaments on the Sea Stallion would have blown out the side of this hill, taking with it everything they had come here to retrieve.

Pieces of the wrecked aircraft were strewn around the main fuselage. Trees had fallen, others bore scars from detached rotors. The crash site was large, and the remains of the successfully crash-landed helicopter was a sad testament to Chapman’s final moments on this earth.

Mills approached the helicopter and saw the dead copilot’s body, still strapped into his seat. He was already stinking of decay. Something had eaten his eyes.

“Over here,” Cole said. He was looking down at his feet thirty feet away. Another body. “Must’ve been thrown out in the crash.”