Tim Lebbon - Kong - Skull Island

A claw of fear scraped down his back, sending ice through his veins.

“They told us to leave at dawn,” San said.

“I know.”

“It’s dawn.”

“I know.”

Another roar echoed out to them, startling aloft a flock of birds from the trees along the shore. There was no telling where the sound had come from. It had sounded far away, but if the thing making that noise was as big as most of the monsters here, maybe it would be able to reach them in the blink of an eye.

“So what are we going to do?” San asked. She and Brooks stared at each other for a beat, because they both knew what had to be done. They’d known since the first smear of colour in the western sky.

Brooks nodded once, and San started the boat’s engine.

If he’d had any sort of plan to begin with, it was in tatters now, so Conrad just ran. Weaver was close behind him, still hefting her camera in one hand. She’d probably die still taking pictures. He didn’t like that thought. If the situation didn’t change rapidly—if he didn’t come up with a plan that involved more than simply running blindly into the jungle—death might visit them all far too soon.

Behind Weaver came the surviving Sky Devils Cole, Mills, Reles and Slivko. Marlow brought up the rear. He was probably fitter than all of them from his many years on this strange island. However fit they were, however fast they could run, there would be no outrunning the Skull Devil.

Conrad also knew that time was ticking. Dawn had come, and although that helped them navigate through the trees, it also meant that their window for getting to the extract point was beginning to close. If San and Brooks had any sense, they’d have already started the boat and sailed north.

Unsure of the direction they were taking, aware that they were throwing caution to the wind in their headlong rush away from the battling creatures, still he did his best to peer through the trees and tangled undergrowth ahead of them. With terrible danger behind them, he didn’t want to run them off a cliff or into a giant rodent’s nest. At least the threat behind was known.

Machete drawn, he hacked through vines and hanging plants, always checking to make sure he wasn’t slicing at the legs of some waiting creature. Spiders scuttled away, but they were only as big as his hand. Snakes coiled around branches around them, but most seemed a normal size. It stood to reason that the island’s ecosystem would not support hundreds of giant beasts, and that those that existed must be rare and long-lived. He had no wish to meet any more.

Spying a clearer space ahead of them, Conrad increased his efforts. Reles and Mills helped him, hacking at hanging vines until they burst through the last of the trees into a wide open space.

“Yes!” Reles shouted, and other voices were raised in delight.

But Conrad’s heart fell. At first glance they appeared close to the ocean, but between them and the sea was a wide, level spread of marshland, stretching left and right for at least a mile. Planted at its centre, halfway between where they stood and open water, was the skeletal remains of a shipwreck, half-buried in the marsh and rusted and rotted away. It lent the whole scene the air of a graveyard, and Conrad wondered how many sad human remains spent a lonely eternity beneath the surface.

“It’s marshland,” he said. “We’ll sink and drown, or get caught and…” He didn’t need to say ‘and what’. They could all hear the fight behind them, and they knew that the warring beasts were coming their way. The ground shook, rippling the surface of a nearby pool of brackish water. Their furious roars serenaded the growing dawn. Trees cracked and snapped, sounding like bomb detonations echoing through the jungle.

They didn’t have very long.

“Terrific, now what?” Weaver asked. She was panting but still in control, and if she was feeling panic she didn’t show it.

“Reles, your flare gun,” Conrad said. The soldier handed the gun and its ammunition belt over without question. Conrad assessed their situation again, taking in everything he could about the location. It was barely a plan, but it was all they had. Conrad checked the gun over, then handed it and the belt to Weaver.

“Get up on those rocks and fire these,” he said, pointing ahead to where a rocky promontory jutted out into the marshland. “With any luck, the extract ship will see us.”

“What about you?” Weaver asked.

Behind them, the battle was drawing close. The tree line shook with increasing impacts, and Conrad knew they had only minutes to act. The soldiers and Marlow were preparing to make a stand, even though rifles and a sword would do nothing against such massive beasts.

Conrad tried to shake the idea that this was all hopeless. Only once in his life had he given up hope, when he’d seen the dead girl Jenny lying at his feet. Never since. He wasn’t about to start now.

“Just run!” he said to Weaver. “We’re armed, you’re not, and you’re probably faster than all of us!”

Securing her camera around her neck she nodded once and then ran for the rocks.

The Skull Devil smashed through the tree line. It seemed even bigger than it had before, none of it hidden beneath a waterline and with dawn’s early sunlight revealing the whole of its grotesque, horrific body. Much of it was snakelike, but with thick legs and heavily clawed feet. Its head was almost amphibian, but scaled and spiked, its mouth wide enough to swallow Marlow’s boat with all of them inside. Its tail whipped from side to side, scoring deep scars across tree trunks. It stood and stared at them, sweeping its head from left to right as it took in the scene. In its gaze Conrad saw an awful malevolent intelligence.

Mills started shooting first, and the others quickly joined in. Even though Conrad knew it would do no good, he started firing as well, aiming for the monster’s eyes.

It stormed towards them. If the bullets did penetrate anywhere, they did not seem to bother the beast. It roared as it came, displaying vicious teeth and a long, forked tongue that whipped at the air, sensing, tasting them. They would hardly constitute a meal.

Conrad had one grenade on his belt. If it came to it, he’d pull the pin seconds before being swept into the monster’s mouth.

He glanced back at Weaver and saw her running along the single spit of land that protruded out into the marsh. She reached the rocky promontory and started scrambling up, looking back over her shoulder but not slowing down. The flare pistol was stuck in her belt. They had to give her as long as possible to give them all a chance.

But Conrad felt hope slipping away. How could they fight such a monster? With bullets and bombs that would barely scratch its thick hide? Even if they still had the flamethrower or the .50 cal, or the barrels of napalm, head-on combat with this beast would be brief and with only one possible outcome.

“Back,” he shouted to the others. “Back!” They ceased firing and ran towards the sea, and already Conrad could feel the soft ground beneath his boots. Areas of higher ground might offer some hope, and yet the beast had come from beneath the lake, and it would surely be as at home in this marshland as anywhere else.

He wouldn’t give up. He couldn’t . Not here, not now. Not while he had a single breath in his body, a single desperate thought in his mind.

“This way!” he shouted, leading them out into the marsh. If they worked their way across the marsh and towards the sea, maybe they could hold it off until the ship arrived.

He glanced across the marsh at the old shipwreck and discarded any notion of heading there. It would offer them scant protection, and once inside they would be trapped. He wondered what had grounded the vessel, what had happened to the crew. Maybe a monster had dragged it ashore, like a spider trapping a meal…