Tales of the Shadowmen 3: Danse Macabre

by Jean-Marc Lofficier

  She walked up to Beesley. “Hallo, Miss Sharp! Very glad to see you are unspoiled,” he said by way of salutation and then tweaked the tip of each waxed mustachio.

  “Is your musket loaded, Mr. Beesley?” she asked.

  “Ho! You wish to take a shot at this miserable beast! Just on principle, eh? Well, here you go, lass,” he said, cocking the long gun and handing it to her. Becky put it to her shoulder and turned it on Talisa, who now stood less than 25 feet away from her.

  Talisa’s eyes widened. Becky fired–

  –just as Beesley knocked her to the ground, insuring the musket ball went off mark.

  “That bitch is a monster!” she shouted up into his face. “Do you hear? That thing will be the death of us all!”

  “Have you gone daft?!” Beesley asked, wrenching the gun away. “That’s Miss Talisa!”

  By now, Lidenbrock had reached them, having begun to run when he saw Becky aim the long gun at Talisa.

  “Do not do it, Lidenbrock!” she shouted at him. “Don’t take her to the pit! Do you hear? You don’t know what you’ll be setting in motion! Lidenbrock–’twas she who flew away with me!”

  Lidenbrock shook his head in pity. “Poor creature,” he said. “This infernal Sun has been too much for her. I’ll fetch some rope–”

  “No!” Becky cried desperately. “Beesley! Get off! You can’t tie me–you have to listen–No! No!” she cried as he turned her over on her stomach, and soon her arms were bound behind her.

  Her legs were left free to allow her to walk. During the journey under Talisa’s guidance to the abandoned city, Becky continued to vilify her adversary, salting her adjurations with such profanity that even the sailors began to complain. Finally, the grieved company as one consented to her gagging. Becky thus seethed in silence.

  Lidenbrock all but swooned at the sight of the ancient amphitheater, Brom Cromwell’s temple of the pit. Soon, he was urging them through a large open archway through which a solitary stone pillar was visible. The theater’s floor consisted of flagstones. In its center, a 15-foot tall stone idol of an ape perched vigilantly on a large, round pedestal.

  “Why, it is the Ape Gigans?” Lidenbrock said and peered at the figure’s base. “There is writing here, in the esoteric characters of the West African G’harne fragments. It says that, long ago, this city’s inhabitants, the Blessed People, enjoyed a benign existence, ‘not as much as a snake,’ to threaten them. Game was plentiful. But the god of the dead, Malgoghphoni, ‘miserable in his underworld,’ envied their bliss.

  “ ‘Malgoghphoni opened the Earth, and sent from his domain his prodigy: great serpents who walked. They came forth continually. All stood in jeopardy.

  “ ‘Then from the same depths rose our salvation. Before man, when the gods fought, Malgoghphoni made eternal prisoners of those...’ ”

  Here Lidenbrock frowned. “Apparently, they identified the ape on this dais as belonging to some demigod class out of their mythology. They appear to have regarded his sudden appearance as the fulfillment of a prophecy. Let me start again:

  “ ‘Malgoghphoni made eternal prisoners of those demigods who opposed him. But one, Kong the cunning, torn free of his fetters, came now to the Blessed People’s aid.

  “ ‘Kong did what men could not do: by his strength, he beat back the serpents and took a great stone, sealing the pit against Malgoghphoni’s prodigy...’ ”

  Now Becky understood Talisa had screamed in frustration at encountering this unexpected obstruction.

  “ ‘In the doing, Kong severed himself forever from his brothers, captives in darkness below. Never could he return to free them, lest he unleash again Malgoghphoni’s brood upon us.

  “ ‘To console his loneliness, the Blessed People to this day offer him brides of our own virgins, and here we also set up his image over the pit.

  “ ‘Thus were our days extended, but because of the increase of Malgoghphoni’s prodigy, the time will come when we must leave forever the works of our fathers’ hands. Great is Kong, the bane of Malgogphoni’s brood. Blessed is he.’ ”

  Lidenbrock looked at the idol. “We will have to blow that thing up, then,” he said, and Talisa smiled. “It’s the only way in. You men–bring the powder kegs.”

  “I’ll take Miss Sharp back a pace–to that pillar in front of the archway,” Beesley said. “That should shield her. You should come along, too, Miss Talisa...”

  While the other men prepared the powder, Beesley took Becky to the ancient column and began untying her arms preparatory to resecuring her. The moment her hands were free, Becky reached up and snatched her gag away.

  “Beesley, listen to me!” she implored. “You mustn’t allow them to open that pit! It will be the beginning of the end!”

  “Bosh! We can handle these thunder lizards all right,” he said, retying her wrists before her. Just above Becky’s head, he had noticed an iron ring in the pillar, and so had left a length of rope to tie her to it. “Sorry, lass, but I don’t trust another to hold your leash, as I’m the one who has to answer for you to our Meonia masters.”

  He secured the rope through the iron ring, pulling her hands over her head. Becky groaned, turned her face from Talisa’s victorious sneer and began pulling against the ring. It held secure. Perhaps, she mused, Kong’s brides tended to be unwilling.

  There were shouts now from the area of the idol. Becky looked from around the pillar to see Lidenbrock, Marsh and the sailors sprinting for cover. Toward the dais and its statuary, a flame was slithering and sputtering along a trail of jet...

  With a boom that left all their ears ringing, as though the idol itself roared with defiance and indignation at its dethronement, the pit erupted in a shower of stone and earth. Pieces of statuary sprayed as far as Becky, flung over and beyond the sheltering pillar.

  She was just beginning to peer around it at the resulting rubble when there was another terrible roar, this from far behind her, beyond the abandoned city itself.

  “Somewhat of a delayed echo, that,” Beesley commented.

  “This island possesses unusual acoustics along with everything else,” Lidenbrock responded. Talisa stared intently into the smoke still boiling over the pit.

  Amazingly, more than half of the pedestal, sans ape, still obstinately plugged the hole. But there was enough to pass through. Talisa’s eyes flashed with triumph, and she bolted for the ingress.

  “Wait!” Lidenbrock called after her. “We must yet be cautious! Talisa, stop! The ground about may give way...” Orpheus reversed, he followed his Eurydice toward the underworld.

  She reached the edge, almost toppling over it, but Lidenbrock caught up to her just in time, pulling her back over the lip of the half crater. “Wait, Talisa! We need ropes to begin our descent.”

  As the others thus prepared, Becky found herself momentarily alone and forgotten. So when she heard trees crashing in the jungle beyond the city ruins and cried out to them, she was ignored.

  The men had secured a rope ladder and lowered it into the pit when a roar sounded that was clearly neither echo nor distant.

  Bending to squeeze his black, hairy bulk through the large archway, Kong re-entered his temple.

  “It is the Ape Gigans himself!” Lidenbrock gasped out.

  Rising now to his full height, which fell just short of the amphitheater’s great walls, Kong stretched out his long arms, and then brought his fists back against his enormous chest, drilling them in a rapid-fire staccato. He roared again, eyes riveted on those who stood guiltily among the rubble of his image.

  The pillar to which Becky was tied placed her right before the towering hulk, but he had yet to notice her. She yanked furiously at the rope that held her, but to no avail. And so, she at last gave in to her fear and screamed.

  Kong looked down and immediately reached for her.

  “No, No, No!” Becky pleaded as she was enveloped in the sweaty, fleshy folds of the great palm, fetid with musk. With his other hand, Kong snapped the rope free of
the pillar.

  Becky’s wrists, still bound, now dropped before her. She used her bunched fists to strike back and forth at the monstrous hand grasping her, as the leathery skin of the ape’s face molded into what Becky recognized as a grotesque parody of a human smile.

  This offering was unlike any he had seen before: her clothing enveloped her body, but the skin which was exposed was white, and her long hair shone like flame. He twisted her waist-length locks around a fingertip, tugging Becky’s head back so that she thought he would tear it from her shoulders. She screamed again, and Kong ceased his pulling.

  “Lidenbrock!” she cried out. “Beesley! Help me!”

  The sailors were already rushing to her aid. Lidenbrock stood at the edge of the pit, suspended on the cusp of two worlds. Talisa, seeing that the giant ape’s attention was turned, began to scramble down the rope ladder.

  Lidenbrock moved to join her, and immediately felt Beesley’s musket barrel in his ribs. “Not so fast, Professor. Miss Sharp first!”

  Meanwhile, the sailors were already loosing their long guns upon Kong. One ricocheting ball grazed Becky’s head. She heard her captor roar in anger, and the last she saw was his long arm lashing out, sending the sailors scattering like tenpins...

  Pain returned with Becky’s consciousness. Her bound hands touched gingerly at her blood-scabbed scalp. She opened her eyes and found herself upon a large leafy mat in an enormous cave. It was well lit, and she quickly saw why: two large, paired apertures in one of the cave walls above her were flooding the cavern with light.

  A deep, rapid stream flowed through the cave. Still a bit dazed, she crawled to it, and, lowering her mouth, drank. The icy cold bit when she splashed it over her face and into her hair with her bound hands.

  She suddenly realized that the twin openings above her must be those of the island’s mountain topography. But how had she come here? The answer hovered as a shadow at the furthest periphery of her consciousness: she flinched against it. And then it seemed the shadow would not be denied, that it had slipped from her mind and now blocked the Sun from the openings above...

  Becky looked over her shoulder as though against her will and screamed at the large dark form hovering behind her. Kong’s hand reached for her, but instead of snatching her up, he first gently brushed with his fingertips her injured head.

  She now rose shakily to her feet. The giant anthropoid shifted, and the sunlight struck Becky full on, making each tiny hair along her arms an incandescent wick, her reddish-blond head a conflagration. A look of wonder spread over Kong’s face.

  Becky backed away, but he imposed his hand behind her, grabbing her up again. On some level, he had understood her need for healing rest and thus had spared her his more robust attentions. But now that she was awake, he meant to renew the investigation of his catch in earnest.

  He reached for where the dress was already torn over her shoulder, revealing the intriguing pale skin. He caught the loose fabric, pulling down and popping free the buttons that held the back of her frock together. Part of the chemise beneath ripped away as well, revealing the shapely protuberances of her shoulder blades. Becky flinched as Kong stroked her, tactilely savoring both her softness and the distinct, unfamiliar textures of the shredded outer and under garments.

  The loosened dress slid off Becky’s shoulders and to her bosom, where her bound hands desperately caught it. She was soon compelled to let drop the clutched frock to box the returning, worrying thumb and fingers.

  Now only in a torn chemise and boots, Becky fought more frantically against the ape’s plucking, which nevertheless soon reduced her undergarment to hanging tatters. The abundance of unfamiliar white skin in the ape’s palm dazzled in the bright sun, a wonder from outside Kong’s existence, as though he suddenly held a handful of snow.

  Becky continued to fight him off with her bound fists. Then the ape caught the dangling length of rope from between her wrists and ripped her bonds loose. Becky yelped at the rope burn. Still, caressing her stinging wrists, she muttered, “That much was useful, at least.”

  Now Kong focused on the flaming hair, curling the reddish-blond strands about his fingers. This time, however, he took care not to tug as hard as he had before.

  “He remembers,” a breathy Becky spoke to herself as he let her long hair gently unwind.

  She realized her fascinated captor would never willingly free her. And she suspected his former brides had angered him by attempting to escape–hence this prehistoric Bluebeard’s perennial need for a new one. One bid for freedom was all she would have.

  Kong plucked and gathered fruits which, for Becky, were the size of melons. She ate, which necessitated visits to a tall, thick bush by the cavern stream. When he followed her warily, she would squat behind the bush, shooing him while rattling its branches. Once he connected that rustle with certain odors, the ape seemed to grasp her desire for privacy. He would turn away until the rustling stopped. Having established this pattern, Becky slowly began increasing the time she rattled the bush and was thus out of his sight.

  When Kong ventured out, he was always careful to place her on a high outcropping for safekeeping. From this vantage spot, through one of the high, twin apertures, Becky could look out over the island.

  And it was from here that she saw the distant wisp of smoke like that from a camp fire. Her heart leapt. Did this represent a party searching for her? She must risk all and hatch her scheme as soon as Kong returned.

  After much pacing about, she heard her captor lumbering home. She quickly composed herself lest he smell her desperation. He entered, carrying more melons which he let roll to the cavern floor. Then he collected Becky. As usual, he poked, stroked and pulled at her person. She now wore a tiny loin cloth and another rag that barely contained her ample breasts, both fashioned from her chemise’s remains. For days, she had been unraveling into string the discarded outer frock and the rope that had bound her.

  Upon her release, Becky went through the motions of eating as Kong peeled and ate the melons as though they were oranges. While he concentrated on slaking his thirst and hunger, Becky produced her latest little bundle of string from where she had hidden it in the grass mat.

  Tucking the thread into her bosom, she moved toward the bush. The ape sucked the sticky juice from his fingers and watched her. Once concealed behind the bush, she quickly added the most recent bit of thread to a long single strand, already tied there, whose length she had been increasing every trip to the privy.

  Kong sensed something more was going on than simply answering nature’s call. He moved toward the bush. Becky quickly pulled the string, rattling the branches. The ape hesitated, then, by force of habit, looked away.

  Using the thread to continue tugging on the bush, Becky kicked off her boots and slowly waded into the stream. She didn’t even feel the sting of the cold as the water rose over her thighs, her fast-beating heart had so suffused her body with warmth. Now she let the quick current carry her along, unfurling the string behind her, all the time still tugging it.

  The speed of the stream increased, and shot her out of the cave and into the sunlight–just as an angered roar sounded behind her. Suddenly, she was yanked back like a fish on a line. She released the string and swam hard, fearful to look back, trying not to think of what would happen should Kong recapture her–

  But the stream was carrying her along now even faster, and Becky realized she had entered a rapids. She went limp, bumping off of large stones, shielding her head for fear of being knocked unconscious. The ground beside her shook with the ponderous thud, thud, thud of Kong’s bulk going up and down as he ran on his behemoth’s hands and feet, now coming alongside her. Becky frantically ducked underwater, but upon resurfacing, saw he still kept pace with her.

  She ducked beneath again, and when she burst to the surface saw a new reason for fright: a waterfall. The inexorable rush of the stream left her no choice. She looked desperately now to the ape along the bank–just as the rapids took her over
. Simultaneously plunged underwater and falling, she could still hear her captor’s roar of frustration and failure. She struck the river below, plummeting to the bed, then writhing back to the surface in a rhythmic, sinuous flow of her supple body.

  Becky broke the surface, gasping in sharp, painful draws of breath as she splashed frantically and peeled away the hair plastered over her face. Her starting eyes looked about for the giant ape. No sign yet. And the swift flow of the river was taking her further away every second. She was bruised, but no bones were broken or out of joint. Her trip over the rapids and waterfall, however, had cost her her last, scant rags.

  She had no idea where she was now in relation to whoever had started that campfire. But if she set one of her own–might they come to her? Would she also draw Kong’s’ attention–or any of the other island creatures? As she came ashore far down river, she decided that risk was better than blundering blindly through the danger-laden jungle.

  Becky had learned how to start a fire in the wilderness during her time in Africa. As always, the process of striking stone to twigs was frustrating and she nicked and scraped her fingers more than once, provoking bursts of swearing. But she finally succeeded, sending and maintaining a plume of white smoke above the tree tops. She tried to stay awake, but her ordeal had exhausted her, and she fell asleep by the fire.

  A crash of the jungle foliage moving in her direction roused her, along with shouting: “Miss Sharp! Miss Sharp! Are you there?”

  It was Beesley’s voice. With the men approaching, she suddenly felt keenly her nakedness and scampered for shelter behind some large fronds.

  “I’m here!” she shouted and a few moments later, Lidenbrock, Beesley, Captain Marsh and the sailors who had survived the jungle were grouping around her fire. “Gentlemen,” she said from the fronds, “I fear my ordeal has left me au naturel. Will one of you be so kind as to toss me your shirt?”

  Lidenbrock immediately removed his, and, averting his gaze, handed it to Becky behind the fronds.