Kong bounded over to her, slapping his hands on the ground as though he were pounding a drum, uttering a guttural growl. Ann lay flat, eyes shut, lying still, praying the ruse would work again.
Kong circled her, suspicious. As before, he prodded her a couple of times but again she gave no response. And as before, Kong moved on. Through slitted lids she saw him lumbering away, and she opened her eyes.
He spun around and caught her watching him.
Despair and panic shot through Ann and she sprang to her feet. For a desperate moment, she stared at the gorilla and wondered if she should run. But her heart sank as she forced herself to accept the truth. She would never make it, never escape. Trembling, she had to do whatever it took to survive.
Ann’s stumbling had made him curious before, had distracted and confused him. It had also hurt like hell, but that had merely been an accident. Her life in vaudeville had allowed her to master the artful fall.
What the hell—let’s see if it works again…
Ann did a pratfall, there in the midst of the clearing, arms and legs flying as she flopped crazily onto the ground. It hurt, but not nearly so much as when she’d struck face-first.
Kong cocked his head, brow furrowed with interest. He bared his teeth a bit and made another circle around her, studying her closely.
She climbed to her feet, stood for a few seconds, and then repeated the pratfall. Kong slapped his hands on the ground, shook his head and growled, but he did not move closer. Instead, he watched to see what she would do next. She had to make him see her as something new, something unique.
What, she thought to herself, you’re going to make him laugh?
Perhaps not, but she might amuse him or, at the very least, intrigue him.
Her breath came in tremulous gasps and she tried to steady herself, forcing herself to breathe evenly. She closed her eyes to slits and tried to remember the stage and the audience, the music and the smell of greasepaint, and it all seemed a lifetime ago. New York City was another world, another age.
As Kong watched, mesmerized, Ann began to sway drunkenly, falling into character as the English gentleman she’d played with Manny so many times. Voice low, she sang an inebriated little ditty, and then fell, but this time let herself roll into the fall and spring up again immediately.
Kong grunted and slapped the ground, but remained where he was, staring at her.
Ann kept on. She began to dance, a bit of soft-shoe, there on the rough ground of the clearing. A song rose from her lips, but it was a mask that she hid behind, carefully watching the reaction of her audience, making certain her performance was striking home. She went back to her routine, swaying drunkenly and falling, then bouncing back up, working her timing around Kong’s reactions. All along, she observed him, and saw that he grew increasingly engaged.
Panting from exertion, body bruised and bones aching, she forced herself to continue. She bounced up, beads of sweat trickling down her face. Her gaze darted between the jungle and Kong, hope rising once more that she might find the right moment to flee, might lose herself in the jungle.
But Kong was nothing but a demanding audience. The moment she hesitated in her private show, he became impatient. He reached out, knocking her off her feet, the poke of that massive finger like a punch to the gut. Ann fell to the ground, winded, sucking air.
Kong slapped his hands on the dirt again and let out an excited growl. He thumped with his fists, and shook his head. At last he was amused, but Ann quickly realized he had come to see this as a game. She would stand up, sway a bit, and fall down again. And he hadn’t tired of the game yet.
Instead, he was delighted with it.
Wary, Ann tried to get up, but Kong pushed her over once more. This time she stayed on the ground, breathing heavily, fear roiling in her chest. She had felt like a rag doll in his hands before, but now he really was treating her like some child’s plaything. But if he played too rough, he might just kill her out of sheer amusement. How many times could he knock her down before something broke inside her?
Grunting, he thumped the ground several times in rapid succession. He reached out and tried to prod her into getting up. Ann slapped his huge finger away and Kong pulled back his arm, startled.
“Stop!” she gasped, one hand clutched to her aching chest.
Kong cocked his head and beat the ground again.
“Stop,” she repeated, staring up at him as she tried to stand.
But her performance had severely depleted her. Her legs went out from under her and she collapsed. This time, it was no act.
Kong rose to his feet and beat his chest, towering over her. He raised a huge fist then slammed it down toward her. Ann closed her eyes, frozen, as Kong’s fist thudded into the ground inches from her. He drove his other fist into the dirt on her other side.
When she did not move, Kong went berserk. He beat his chest, a roar erupting from him and echoing all through the jungle. Flocks of birds took flight from the trees above. Things skittered through the underbrush at the edges of the clearing.
Kong wanted an encore and Ann’s failure to provide one had driven him into a rage. Even if she tried now to stand and continue, it was too late. Fury overcame him—Kong ripped a tree from the ground and threw it, cracking other trees and branches in his display of anger.
In this place, he was the master. The undisputed king. Whatever he demanded would come to pass, or he would shatter and destroy. This was the nature of the male of the species—Ann knew enough about the animal world to understand that.
Ann had angered the ruler of this domain, and now fully expected to die.
The ground shook with his fury. Ann rolled onto her stomach and lifted her head. For a brief moment they made eye contact. Incensed, Kong charged at her. Eyes blazing, teeth bared, he snatched her off the ground.
Ann screamed.
Kong’s fingers tightened around her and she shut her eyes, cowering, raising her arms to shield her head. It was useless to fight, and she accepted her fate.
But death did not come.
Slowly, Ann opened her eyes, and found Kong staring at her, this small figure in his hand. Something about his face had changed. All of the anger drained from his features, and his eyes had softened. There was almost a sadness there, as though he had a rudimentary thought or memory about something that touched him.
From the moment she had escaped Kong at the place where he had killed the others, she had struggled to make him notice her, to see her as something other than an object. Perhaps it had happened at last, but what it was that reached him, what soothed him or saddened him, she could not know.
Very slowly, Kong opened his palm and allowed Ann to slide from his grasp. Tense, wondering if at any second he might change his mind, she slipped through his fingers and landed heavily on the ground.
Hesitant for the first time since he’d come for her, Kong stepped back from Ann. He stared at her, that look of utter confusion making him seem somehow lost, as though some of his power had been diminished, as though he was now no longer master of all he surveyed.
Slowly, he backed away, then faster. Suddenly he turned and left the clearing. Ann could only watch as Kong loped off into the jungle. He pulled himself up and over a ruined wall and in a single motion disappeared from sight.
Ann stood, finally free of her captor, but somehow troubled, both by the encounter, and by the uncertainty of her own fate.
Without Kong to protect her, she feared she would not survive the journey back to the shore. And even if she were so lucky as to find her way, and get there alive, hours had already passed and it was unlikely the Venture would still be waiting.
She started off, and could only pray she had chosen the right direction. Exhausted, her throat parched with thirst, she moved through the jungle as fast as she was able, pushing through thorns and tangled vines.
Ann was completely unsure if Jack and the others had indeed stayed around to rescue her—she silently hoped so. But first, she h
ad to make it out of here, and for the time being she could only rely upon herself.
19
THERE COULD BE NO turning back now. As the sailors used long branches to pole the two makeshift rafts they’d built across the surface of the murky swamp, Jack felt the weight of their fate upon his shoulders. Everyone had pitched in to build the rafts, heading across the swamp in the direction that Hayes gauged the monster had taken Ann.
Yet Jack knew that if he had given up, not a man among them would have gone on without him. His unwillingness to give up on her, to turn back, sustained them. In some way, that made him culpable for whatever destiny awaited them, a responsibility he keenly felt.
The lead raft carried Hayes, Denham, Bruce, Lumpy, and several other sailors. Jack was on the second, along with Preston, Choy, Jimmy, and the rest of the party.
Dead trees thrust out of the water, draped with vines and dried moss. Fog drifted lazily over the fetid swamp, air stuffy and close. The insects were clearly more numerous here than in the jungle, yet they didn’t bother with the sailors much. Small flying lizards flitted among the stumps of trees that had rotted and been torn down by storms.
Dinosaurs. Jack still had difficulty with the truth, though he’d seen them up close…too close. Somehow this place had survived in its primordial state from prehistoric times. Conan Doyle had once written about a Lost World, and here it was in all its glory. Skull Island.
Under other circumstances, he would have thought it a wonder. Instead, the island itself seemed savage, preying upon their group, taking them one by one, even as they strove to save Ann from whatever strange secrets it had.
An ape, that’s what Denham said he saw. But what sort of ape left tracks like those they’d found? Could a gorilla truly grow that large? If he hadn’t seen those dinosaurs, Jack would never have believed it.
He shifted the ammo pack that hung heavily upon his shoulders, gaining little relief. Miraculously, Carl had given Preston the camera to hold onto, and the director’s assistant clung to it almost as avariciously as Denham had, as though it were made of gold. At the front of the raft, Jimmy peered nervously down into the water.
Up ahead, something rippled under the surface. Jack frowned and shifted his position, trying to get a better look. Even as he did there was a thump ahead and Hayes’s raft jolted, rocking in the water. The men muttered anxious grunts and looked over into the murkiness, trying to see what they’d struck.
“What the hell was that?” Lumpy snapped, twisting around to try to get a glimpse.
On the raft behind them, Jack and the others did the same. The water rippled again and a large, dark shape moved beneath the surface of the swamp, swiftly creating a wave that rolled toward Jack’s raft.
Without warning, it burst from the water, a monstrous thing that seemed part fish and part serpent. Its huge jaws gaped wide with jagged rows of vicious teeth, like some kind of piranha-serpent. It reared out of the swamp and smashed down upon the raft, shattering the fallen logs into kindling, tearing it apart. Men shouted in terror and alarm. Jack heard Lumpy swear and Hayes call out to Jimmy, even as he saw the boy go under the black water.
Then Jack was splashing into the swamp as well, plunging deep, with thick, filthy water choking down his throat. Long reeds waved in the depths of the swamp like tentacles. The ammunition pack weighed Jack down, dragging him deeper, and he sank like a stone to the bottom.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw motion in the water, and knew it had to be that monster, that prehistoric piranha. Piranhadon, he thought, the writer in him needing to name the beast.
And he wondered if there were others.
For just a moment, Ben Hayes felt hope leave him. Watching Jimmy sink into the swamp was like drowning himself. He was responsible for all of these men, but for Jimmy most of all. Preston, Denham’s right hand, had managed to cling to the last vestiges of the shattered raft, still clutching the damned camera. But the others had all gone under.
Then one of the sailors was splashing in the swamp just inches from his own raft, and Hayes was in motion. He dragged the sailor aboard.
“Get them out of there!” he shouted. “Come on, help them!”
Choy was floundering in the water, trying to reach for a shattered log.
“Swim, you dopey bugger, swim!” Lumpy yelled to him.
But Choy sank beneath the water. He emerged again, spluttering and gasping, but it was clear he was going to drown. Lumpy called his name in panic, then dove into the murk and swam for Choy.
Hayes kept on shouting, wondering how many of them would be left when they reached the other side of the swamp.
If they reached the other side.
Underwater, Jack frantically looked around. He thrashed his legs against the long reeds that seemed to want to wrap around them, to drag at him. The water was dark and filthy. Another sailor, Carnahan, sank down nearby. He was also wearing an ammo pack. Jack wanted to go to him, to help him toward the surface.
The Piranhadon emerged from the gloom. Its body flowed back and forth, propelling it toward them, twenty-five feet long at least. Carnahan tried desperately to undo his heavy pack. Jack tried to stop him, signaling to Carnahan to head to the bottom of the swamp. The creature would be drawn toward the thrashing at the surface. But Carnahan ignored him—the sailor slipped the ammo pack off of his back and floated free, pulling for the surface.
With frightening grace, the Piranhadon swept the sailor up in its jaws.
Blood blurred the water.
Jack dove down, into the swirling weeds, using the weight of the pack to propel himself along the bottom of the swamp. His lungs burned and blackness played at the corners of his vision, oxygen deprivation taking its toll. His heart clenched as he looked back to see the Piranhadon pursuing him, Carnahan’s mangled body still in its jaws. It closed the distance with terrifying speed.
With a desperate effort, Jack heaved himself between the tangled roots of a swamp tree, just as the creature lunged toward him. It scraped against the tree roots, denied its prey, and then turned back toward the raft and the sailors still trying to get out of the swamp to safety.
Lungs ready to burst, Jack kicked for the surface. He came up from the water, gasping for air. Hidden among the roots of the swamp tree, he glanced around and immediately saw Preston clinging to the remains of the destroyed raft.
From the surviving raft, Denham shouted to him.
“Hold on, Preston! Don’t let go! Whatever happens, don’t let go of the camera!”
Concealed in the shadows of the tree’s roots and the swamp, Jack felt a twist of disgust in his gut. Carl had already lost two men. Yet still all he could think about was his film. Damn him.
The monster reared out of the swamp in a spray of water and muck. Carl raised a Tommy gun and let loose a torrent of gunfire that punched the water between Preston and the creature. The Piranhadon disappeared below the surface and Denham looked around wildly, waiting for it to rise again.
Jack took that as his cue. He swam out from the roots of the swamp tree, straight for Preston. When he reached the shattered bit of broken log that Preston clung to, he grabbed hold of the wood and the two of them began to struggle together toward shore.
Nearby, the swamp monster broke the surface again and began to circle around, coming back for Preston and Jack.
From Hayes’s raft, upon which the others were swiftly working, trying to pole it toward shore, Carl fired the Tommy gun again.
“Stop!” Hayes shouted.
The Piranhadon veered away from Preston and Jack and headed straight for the remaining raft. Carl had wanted to get its attention, and he’d done the job too well. It dove under the water, disappearing again. Carl ignored Hayes and let out several more bursts of gunfire, bullets striking the water, chasing the wake of the creature.
The thing swam beneath the raft. Carl kept firing, bullets splintering wood and severing the rope that lashed it all together. As Hayes shouted at him, the raft began to break apart bene
ath them, and then Jack and Preston watched as all of the men began to tumble into the swamp.
Heart pounding, throat ragged, gasping for breath, Jack kicked toward shore. Preston worked just as hard, silently, clutching the precious camera in his hands, keeping it atop the remnant of raft they were using to stay afloat. Jack waited, every second, to hear the screams of sailors dying or the splash of the creature thrusting from the water again. His every nerve was on edge, but none of those things happened.
Finally, he and Preston could touch the bottom with their feet, and they were staggering up out of the water onto dry land. Moss and vines hung down around them, and the humid swelter of the day clutched at their sodden clothes, but at least they were out of the swamp.
Moments later the first of the others reached land, eyes dull with shock and exhaustion. Carl and Hayes were among the first. Jimmy, Hayes, Bruce, Kelso, Lumpy, and Preston soon followed. Other stragglers joined them. Choy came up and sat down beside Lumpy.
Carl ignored the others, even Preston, and went straight to the camera. He picked it up and cranked it, the mechanism whirring.
Lumpy rounded furiously upon him. “Turn that bloody thing off!”
“Just a quick check,” Carl replied, without so much as looking at him.
The last of the crewmen, Hal Jablonski, waded toward them in the shallows.
“It’s working,” Carl said, his relief palpable, turning the camera toward Jablonski.
The placid surface of the swamp exploded as a huge shape reared out of the water. The Piranhadon snatched Jablonski up in its jaws, then drew back, vanishing into the water as quickly as it had appeared. There hadn’t even been time for Jablonski to scream.
Everyone stared numbly at the place where the man had been only a moment before.
Lumpy turned to Denham. “Get that, did you?” he asked grimly, a gallows smile on his lips.
Slowly, they gathered up what little they had left by way of weapons and supplies. Hayes looked at the sun, turned to gauge the distance and location of the peaks that were behind them, and then chose a direction. He started off and the others followed.
King Kong Page 20