Tim Lebbon - Kong - Skull Island

“Bury them,” Packard said. His voice was strained with grief and rage. “We bury our dead, then kill the beast that killed them.”

Mills helped. They dug shallow graves and heaved the bodies inside, trying to ignore the damage done to their hardening flesh by creatures of the jungle. When they dragged the co-pilot across to the grave, a black scuttling shape fell from the open wound in his chest and tried to run. Cole stomped on it. It took three more stamps to burst the spider’s hard body. He ground it into the soil.

They shovelled dirt into the graves and then stood back, sweating and sad in the heavy heat. They’d buried too many men in shallow graves on the jungle floor. Reles planted two rough crosses made of tied sticks above the graves and hung the dead men’s dog tags around them.

Packard stepped forward with another cross and pushed it into the ground between the graves, hanging Chapman’s dog tags from it. His body nowhere to be found, it was as if the captain shared these graves with his crewmen.

“These men didn’t die in vain,” Packard said. “Nor will their deaths, or those of the other men lost on this island, go unanswered.” He spoke quietly, but Mills and everyone else heard the passion in his words.

They stood motionless and silent for a while, silently saying goodbye to their friends.

It was Packard who broke the silence.

“Let’s kill the monster,” he said. “Rescue as much ordnance as you can. Pile it up. We’ll see what we’ve got, then formulate a plan.”

Mills, Cole, Reles and the others approached the downed helicopter and started delving inside. Dusk was falling, and the light quality was fading. They had to hustle.

“What do you think about this?” Mills asked quietly as they worked. The aircraft’s contents had been disturbed in the crash, but the loadmaster on the ship had done his job well, and most of the weapons were still safety stowed.

“Old man’s got a plan,” Reles said. “We follow it.”

“Cole?” Mills asked.

“You’re asking me like you want me to disagree with him,” Cole said, tugging at one of the napalm barrels. “Ain’t gonna do that.”

Mills helped Cole with the barrel.

“So what about you?” Reles asked.

“We’ve never faced anything like this before,” said Mills. “If the colonel suggested we’d win this war by jumping from a cliff, would you? That’s what this is.”

“He’s always been there at the bottom to catch us,” Cole replied.

“Yeah,” Mills agreed.

Half an hour later they stood in a rough circle around the pile of weaponry they’d extracted from the wreck, and Mills felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickling. Even he hadn’t realised just how much heat they were carrying. There was enough shit here to take on and defeat a small country.

Packard looked grim but satisfied as he surveyed the neatly stacked equipment.

“Those seismic charges seemed to get the thing’s attention last time,” he said. “Mills, Cole, prep that ordnance.”

“Where are we going to set the ambush, sir?” Cole asked.

“That lake we passed in the valley bottom,” Packard said. “Flat ground, good cover, decent vantage points. Any thoughts?”

Nobody spoke. No one offered any criticisms. If any of them were doubting what they were doing, they kept quiet.

Mills and Cole set to work preparing the seismic charges for setting and priming. Mills had followed orders his whole life, and he believed that was what made him a good soldier. Whatever doubts he might harbour over what they were about to do, Reles and Cole were right. Now was not the time to start questioning their colonel.

A good soldier didn’t do that.

They moved everything down to the lake. It was difficult work, even though it was mostly downhill. The napalm barrels could be rolled, their descents controlled with ropes, but the evening heat was intense, and the work was backbreaking. Their food rations were dwindling, and Mills didn’t feel he could trust any of the berries or nuts they’d seen growing on the island. The animals here were inimical to man, it only followed that the plant life would be too.

“Night’s falling!” Packard said. “Hurry it up. We don’t have long.”

They went to work setting their traps. They were experienced at setting booby traps, but not for an enemy so large. They worked on the idea that all the basics were the same, all it took was more firepower.

With everything done and the sun dipping to the horizon, they settled into their assigned positions, checked their weapons, and waited.

“You think he’s losing it,” Cole said from Mills’s right. It was not a question.

“It’s not up to me to doubt the old man’s orders,” Mills said. They only ever called Packard ‘old man’ when he couldn’t hear. He wasn’t even that old, but he had at least twenty years on all of them.

“Still,” Cole said. Silence fell for a while.

“So what do you think?” Mills asked at last.

Cole shrugged. He didn’t reply.

Mills looked across the clearing by the lake shore at Packard, sitting quietly between two large piles of fuel-soaked sticks and branches. Losing it? he thought. I think it’s already lost. But I’d follow him to the ends of the earth.

Looking around, the idea settled that they were already there.

Conrad couldn’t bear admitting it to himself, but he was lost. Somewhere in the past half an hour they’d left the route he’d intended taking, and now there was a steep slope rising up on their left, a fast-flowing stream to their right. He didn’t recognise either of them. It stood to reason that following the stream would take them back to the river and Marlow’s boat, but that was easier said than done. Not far from where they stood, the stream turned into a torrent, entering a narrow canyon with no safe way through. The water became so violent that it threw up a mist that drifted back to soak them, diffracting the setting sun and making false rainbow promises of hope and beauty.

“Get off this rock alive, huh?” Weaver asked as she stood by his side. At least she was good enough to keep her voice low.

“Sarcasm isn’t a survival skill,” he gave back. He looked around them, spotting what might have been an easy route up the steep slope. Once up there he’d be able to take a bearing from the setting sun and determine which way they needed to go.

“Stay here,” he said to the group. “I need to get up top.” He remembered the last time he’d done something like this, the snake he’d come across. Such encounters would not always end in his favour.

Most of them nodded, seeming only too pleased to take a rest. As he headed into the mist and started climbing, he sensed someone behind him.

“Wait up!” Weaver said. She held her camera in one hand, using the other to grab onto branches and roots. As he glanced back at her she took a quick snap of him from down below. Probably not his best angle.

Conrad smiled. He was pleased for her company.

They headed up the slope, and as dusk fell it became even steeper. What had looked like a low ridge seemed to grow the higher they climbed. A fall would not be too dangerous, because the slope was so heavily overgrown with hardy trees and shrubs, but the plant growth made the going hard and slow. Their physical conditions didn’t help. Conrad was thirsty and hungry, and he knew that if he was tired, then the others would be close to exhaustion.

He and Weaver helped each other up the slope, and eventually they reached the ridge line above, falling on their backs and breathing heavily with exertion. After a couple of minutes Conrad tried to look down below to see how the others were faring, but they were out of sight behind the sloping mass of trees. Even if they’d lit a fire he didn’t think he’d be able to see it from this high up.