The Island of the Skull

by Matthew John Costello

  Rosa stood up, and now he too looked.

  “Ever see anything like this, Captain?”

  Rosa shook his head. “No, everything is so much bigger, and look—that tree there. What is it? Look at the leaves.”

  Sam nodded, and looked around. The whole setting—gargantuan is a word that came to mind—had the crew rattled.

  Then Sam saw something else, nearly covered with the vines, shielded by the massive trees. At first they looked like natural formations, giant stone pillars that somehow ended up next to what had to be a volcanic mountain.

  But as Sam looked he could see…they weren’t pillars. They weren’t just random piles of stone next to the mountain.

  They were sculpted.

  What looked like eyes, hooded and weathered with age, and a sloping brow, reminded him of pictures copied from the tombs of the pharaohs. Like that—but so different at the same time.

  Something…some people had been here. Made them—and now—

  They were gone?

  He watched Rosa look left and right, not having noticed the statues hidden by the jungle.

  “None of these trees will work. They are all too big. Take us days to cut one down, to make planks.”

  The captain rubbed his chin.

  “We have to go deeper into the jungle, find some smaller trees, something we can cut.”

  But Bakali came beside him. “Captain, you yourself said no one knows about this island. Maybe it’s not a good idea, going deeper into this jungle? We don’t know what’s there.”

  “He’s got a point,” Sam added. He pointed into the jungle, to the stone mammoth sculptures. “See them?”

  Rosa stopped and looked.

  Then a single word, filled with resignation, almost hopeless. “Yes.”

  “Maybe we aren’t alone here.”

  But then Rosa turned back to Sam. “And what are we supposed to do? Run the ship until the pumps give out? Let her sink? Want to take your chances in the water. With that…monster, whatever it was? You’ve seen the sharks. Is that what you want to do?”

  “Yeah,” Sam said. “Right. We have no choice. Despite the statues…despite whoever the hell might be here.”

  Bakali was quiet as Rosa barked some orders to the other crew, and then took the first step into the dense wall of the darkest green that Sam ever saw.

  They navigated slowly through the jungle, in between the towering trees, and the rest of the crew looked at the strange sculptures as they walked by. Not close enough to touch them, but close enough to make out clearly now the shape of heads, elongated, exaggerated. Could that have been the result of weathering over…centuries…or more?

  Were these gods? Or did the people on the island look like that? And were they still here?

  They pressed on.

  Even if they each were equipped with machetes, this would be a tough trek. The tallest trees grew close together, standing abreast, and any open space was filled with the twisting vines thicker than the air hoses.

  And the ferns….

  They had to be ferns, Sam told himself. But ten, twenty feet tall, with spores under their leaves the size of a half dollar.

  There was one good thing, he told himself.

  No animals.

  Because if the plants were this large, the trees—

  God, what were the animals like?

  Then Rosa shouted, calling back to the line of men. “Ahead—look!—it opens up. We find something there.”

  And Sam could see a bit of sky, and the mountain to the right that rose nearly straight up alongside this chunk of the jungle. And he thought: Let’s cut our damn tree and get the hell out of here.

  How long had the girl been running?

  Once it turned light, she started running again, always whipping her head from side to side, checking that nothing had spotted her, that nothing had decided to hunt her.

  In the light of day, she passed a circle of stones, all carved with twisting shapes and figures, some showing grim faces that looked down at her, unblinking.

  And once she nearly stumbled onto a herd of things, animals with small heads and gigantic curved bodies. Smaller ones traveled beside them, babies with mothers.

  She froze then—barely breathing—waiting until the herd moved on.

  Then running again, racing over the same place just traveled by the herd, stepping into steaming piles of their droppings.

  Across the path of the herd, she moved faster now, past the jagged mountain to her left.

  But then—

  She stopped—as soon as she heard the voices.

  The words were strange, without meaning to her.

  She stopped, and then she saw the men, coming through a thick cluster of trees, to an opening, near the mountain.

  She took a step backward. Onto a twisted root, dry and brittle.

  It snapped with a clear sound that carried over the opening.

  One of the men looked at her.

  The girl turned around, back the way she came.

  But she soon saw that now…now that was no longer a way she could run.

  41

  Atlantic City, New Jersey

  ELLIE BACKED UP, AND TRIED to pull Ann with her.

  The gunmen at the doors started firing, and in a second the club filled with blue smoke that made the scene dreamlike. The patrons scrambled to the floor; it didn’t look like the gunmen were targeting anyone. But their guns blew holes in the walls and the tables, the sound of bullets mixing with the deafening screaming.

  Then the people started running, while others ducked under tables.

  Looks like Johnny got someone mad.

  “Susan,” Ann whispered.

  She saw Johnny crawling on the floor, no big-time mob boss now, and right behind him, on all fours, the short bald guy, and other hoods.

  But she could also see Susan on the floor, under the tables, motionless.

  Frozen.

  “Susan’s not moving,” Ann said. She looked around the room.

  “What are you going to do?”

  Ann turned to Ellie. “She’s not moving—I’m going to get her.”

  Ellie’s eyes widened. “You do know they’re firing real bullets.”

  “Yeah, but looks like all they want to do is destroy the club…which they’ve done a pretty good job of…”

  The gunfire took on a rhythm as the men at the doors fired, shooting more walls, the stage, the deserted tables, the blue smoke like a fog hanging over the room.

  And then Ann bolted across the dance floor, through the cloud of acrid smoke.

  She ran to one of the tables on the left, and then crouched down, scrambling on her hands and knees to Susan, who had her hands locked over her ears, crying—her mascaraed eyes turned into black clownlike pools.

  “Come on. You got to move.”

  Susan shook her head. She wasn’t going anywhere.

  There was no time for argument. Ann grabbed her right wrist, then turned back to the line of tables leading to a side exit.

  She tugged hard, and Susan could have stopped them both if she decided that she wanted to be a deadweight.

  But like pulling a kid out from under a bed, telling him that there are no monsters in the room, that it’s safe…Ann kept moving, and Susan followed.

  The gunmen turned and started to leave.

  A last burst of fire, then quiet.

  Ann looked up and saw a side door, now open, the warm summer air letting some of the smoke escape.

  She turned back to Susan.

  “Now we run. Got it?”

  Mute, Susan nodded.

  Ann stood up, and pulled Susan with her, also standing, running. She didn’t dare look back. Who knew whether the gunmen would change their minds and start shooting people.

  Running outside, seeing cars screaming away from the roadside speakeasy, people still crying, screaming.

  Ellie came up to them.

  “Come on. The police will be here in minutes. We got to leave now.”


  Ann nodded, and heard the first distant siren.

  But before they started walking away from the club, Susan grabbed Ann’s hand.

  “Thank you. You saved me.”

  Ann laughed. “Isn’t that what we’re here for? To save each other. Maybe someday, I’ll need some saving.”

  Susan gave her a hug, hard, tight, squeezing.

  Then the three women started moving quickly away from the smoky debris-filled room that used to be a nightclub.

  42

  On an uncharted island

  SAM HEARD THE SOUND, TURNED, and then saw a pair of eyes looking right at him.

  He reached out and grabbed Rosa.

  “Look!”

  In the shadow of the mountain that rose close beside him, the strange-looking girl with tan skin and wide, terrified eyes nearly blended into the plants that circled this open area.

  Sam had only a few seconds to look at her eyes, gleaming like a cat’s eyes in the leafy shadows. He might have expected someone who looked like some South Seas islander. But her look was indefinable, with her straight brown hair and dark eyes. Sam watched her turn and start to head back into the depths of the jungle.

  “Wait! Stop!” he yelled.

  She was running full out back into the jungle, back to a place where they’d never find her. Except, as Sam started across the open area, he saw her stop. Then he saw why.

  Towering above the ferns and trees, the creature took lumbering steps right at the girl.

  Its giant eyes sparkled in the light as it used its ridiculously small arms to push away the entangling vines, and plants.

  Like every New York kid, Sam had been led to the Museum of Natural History, spent long minutes staring up at the bony giant head, the inches-long teeth of what they called…a Tyrannosaurus rex.

  King of the dinosaurs.

  This was like that. Only bigger.

  Bigger than any T. rex, a vast mountain of a lizard…

  Call it a V. rex, Sam thought, that is, if anyone ever gets around to naming the damn thing.

  Sam’s body immediately went cold; a wave of icy water crashing over him. A land dinosaur, alive, just like the monster that took Tommy, monsters, prehistoric things that should have vanished tens of millions of years ago. Here, living on this island.

  The girl stood frozen. The V. rex moved quickly. A few steps and it would be able to scoop her up in the mammoth head of teeth.

  All this—in seconds.

  Then Sam started running toward the girl, toward the dinosaur, while the men behind him started screaming.

  Sam locked his hands onto the girl’s bare shoulders.

  She didn’t turn to face him. And for a moment, Sam thought that the girl would remain fixed to the ground with the dinosaur only two, maybe three steps away from her.

  But then she turned back to Sam. Her young face cut and scratched, dotted with mud.

  Sam started pulling her along back to the opening.

  He heard—and felt—one of the giant feet land behind them, feeling not only the ground shudder but the wind made by the movement.

  There’s no way we can outrun it.

  But then the jungle—the dark and overgrown jungle—came to their aide.

  The V. rex had to navigate past a tree in its way. Sam now risked a quick glance back to see the creature dumbly push against the tree. And then when the tree didn’t go down easily, the V. rex leaned down with an amazing smooth motion, and started cutting a path around it.

  That bought them a few precious seconds.

  When Sam reached the clearing, the men had backed up against the sheer mountain face. There was no going anywhere, not on this slab of rock that led directly up.

  And no way to head back to the cliff edge. Too far to go, too much time for the dinosaur to catch them.

  The creature bellowed, now at the clearing.

  Sam looked around. Rosa and Bakali both had their guns out. Pea shooters against this thing.

  He looked along the mountain’s edge, searching for something, anything that might protect them.

  And there—a few hundred yards away, he saw an opening; no telling how big it could be. No telling if they could make it.

  He started pulling the girl toward the opening, yelling to the others at the same time as the V. rex roared…“If you want to stay alive—run!”

  Sam turned back—an action primitive and irresistible. He had to know whether survival was still a possibility.

  When he turned, he saw the line of men behind him, all running as fast as they could. But the dinosaur had reached the mountain opening and now moved, unobstructed.

  And just as Sam looked, he saw the dinosaur lean down, in an almost snakelike move, and bite down on the last in the line, an old crewman who—as luck would have it—could not run as fast as the others.

  The V. rex threw its head back, jaws open wide, so unbelievably wide, as it engulfed the crewman so only his legs stuck out.

  Sam snapped forward. Twenty yards—they might make it, then—if only it did provide some cover.

  Another look. The dinosaur biting down, then using its massive tongue to pull in the bloody, dangling legs. An amazing eating machine. And all the time it did that, it didn’t slow in its race to catch them.

  Clawed feet pounding forward, jaws chewing, swallowing, a devouring locomotive from the past still racing toward them.

  They reached the opening—only about four feet high, a dark hole into the mountain wall.

  “Just run in,” he said to the girl, even though he imagined that she didn’t understand.

  But he was wrong there.

  She did understand, darting fast, actually pulling away from Sam, into the hole, this cave with its narrow opening.

  Now Sam followed her, running inside.

  He had one thought as he threw himself into the hole. What if it isn’t a cave? What if it is some thin depression, no more than a few feet deep, and then we’re all bunched up on the inside, exposed, easy pickings for the creature?

  The carnage would be quick, total.

  It wouldn’t last long, that’s one good thing, Sam thought. They’d be dead, eaten—fast.

  Sam rolled into the hole as if sliding into home plate at the Marine Park baseball field—when nothing mattered more than beating the ball to the catcher.

  Rolled, and kept rolling. He landed on the girl, and instinctively she wrapped her arms around him, and held on tight.

  Then the others jumped into the cave: Rosa, Bakali, Ernesto, Jorge, another crewman—all safely getting into the cave.

  Without saying a word, everyone started scrambling on their bottoms far away from that opening, even though Sam could tell that it was much too small for the dinosaur.

  The girl still held on to him as he scuttled back.

  Sam hit a rock and stopped.

  All eyes were on their small odd-shaped window to the light outside. They sat—and waited.

  Book Three

  Destiny

  43

  Somewhere above the Atlantic Ocean

  DR. LEONARD MLODINOW LEANED CLOSE to the angled window and looked down at the sea below.

  How high were they now? Last night, the zeppelin had hit some stormy weather, and Mlodinow felt it climb at an angle to get out of the weather.

  But it didn’t work—and the zeppelin sailed through the rough weather as though it kept hitting rocks on a dirt road.

  And Mlodinow’s biggest fear wasn’t that something would happen to him.

  No. His fear was for what the Graf Zeppelin carried in its cargo hold, what he was bringing to New York City. Even now when he thought about it, it gave him a giddy feeling of both excitement…and fear.

  Excitement because it was the most extraordinary thing that had ever happened to him as a paleontologist. New discoveries happened all the time in the field. Roy Chapman Andrews leading landmark expeditions to the Gobi, making amazing discoveries…All very thrilling.

  But this? It made eve
rything else take a sleepy second place.

  Then—the fear.

  Here he had to admit to himself that he hadn’t quite thought through all the implications. And that was quite intentional. He didn’t want to think—worry—about what was in the cargo hold, not alone.

  He rubbed his beard. It wasn’t just that he was scared. The implications were simply too big, too important to start wondering what it meant—not until there were others to talk with.

  Though he knew this…What was in the cargo hold of this airship was the most important discovery of modern times.

  Bar none.

  “Dr. Mlodinow?”

  The German waiter tripped only slightly on his name, almost getting the opening blend of “me-lod.”

  Only took him three days…

  “Yes?”

  “Mein Herr, we are about to begin afternoon tea service. Would you care to order?”

  He looked around. The parlor did double duty as a dining room, and the staff now scurried around preparing the tables for a tea service.

  Stealing a page from the Brits, Mlodinow guessed.

  Mile-high elegance, even as the fatherland marched into gothic madness.

  “No, thank you. I think I’ll lie down for a bit.”

  “Very good, mein Herr.”

  Mlodinow stood up. He grabbed his cane and started walking out of the room to the central corridor of the zeppelin that led to the dozen staterooms. Every step brought a jolt of pain to his left leg, a pain so constant that Mlodinow had almost got to the point where he could ignore it.

  Afternoon sun bathed the other side of the sitting room with golden light, making the wait staff glow brilliantly in their starched white outfits.

  He pushed open the twin doors that led to the passengers’ rooms.

  The room was spacious, by ship standards.

  Mlodinow knew that was because up here weight was the real problem.

  He walked over to the slanted windows that looked down on the dark blue ocean below. He pulled closed a curtain, and the room slipped into a half-light.