“You can’t go up,” the man told him.
Jack pushed past him and set off at a run. He rounded a corner, found the service elevator, and stepped inside. This time, when he pressed a button, the doors drew slowly closed.
A buzzing roar filled the sky, destroying the beauty of the dawn. Ann looked up, startled, heart pounding once more, and saw four biplanes coming in low over the downtown business district to the south. The cold wind blew around her, whipping her hair across her face, and she pushed it away as she watched the biplanes approach. Two-seater planes, with mounted guns.
Kong shifted uneasily, watching their approach. He couldn’t possibly know what they were, but he glanced at her and must have seen her agitation. Perhaps in sensing the fear in her, he realized they were predators. Or perhaps it was only the buzz of the engines that roused him.
The planes began to circle.
All along, Ann had felt a strange connection, as though she could sense what Kong was feeling. It seemed to her now that the bond was mutual.
One by one, the planes dipped the wings and began to dive toward the observation deck, aiming directly for Kong. He shifted slightly, protectively, though he could not have known what was to come. By instinct, he pushed her toward the wall behind him.
Kong roared at the planes as if issuing a challenge.
At last Ann found her voice. “No!” she screamed, at the pilots, at Kong himself, and at the world.
The four planes came at Kong from different directions and their machine guns began firing, tearing up the sky, the noise rupturing the dawn. Kong roared and snatched at planes as they darted by. Bullets tore into his flesh and he flinched with each impact, more blood spilling, dripping from his fur.
Kong grabbed hold of the wall and began climbing again, higher up the narrowing structure toward the uppermost level. There was another observation deck there, surrounded by glass, and above that, the dome and the pinnacle of the building. Ann stared first at Kong, then at the planes, amazed that he had left her behind.
Then she realized that was precisely the point. The bullets had hurt him. By climbing higher and leaving her behind, he was attempting to draw the planes away from Ann, still trying to keep her safe. But she could not allow that. The only chance he had of survival was if Ann could get in the way, could make the pilots and gunners of the planes see her. Maybe they would hesitate, retreat, and try to come up with another plan of attack.
Desperate, she ran to a ladder on the observation deck, and began to climb. The ladder led to the steel dome at the top of the building, and continued upward. The wind whipped at her, icy fingers tugging at her, but she tightened her grip and continued on.
Kong broke the mooring mast off of the pinnacle of the building and brandished it as the planes came in for another pass. The giant gorilla leaped into the air, smashing at the plane. The mast struck it, tearing metal, impact like cars colliding. The crippled plane spun out of control, plummeting toward the street, but Kong was falling, too.
Ann gasped and watched as he tumbled through the air, one hand still clutching the top of the building. He smashed against the dome, but managed to hang on. Then he dropped down to the upper observation deck, the highest level of the building, and caught himself by smashing one fist through glass windows, scattering shards that fell a thousand feet, glittering in the dawn’s light.
The impact shook the whole structure and Ann’s ladder gave way.
With a scream, she dangled precariously in mid-air, trying to keep her grip on the steel rungs. She stared at her fingers as though she could force strength into them by sheer will alone, pulse racing, pounding in her ears.
She saw her fingers slipping, but could do nothing.
Ann fell, only the winter wind beneath her now.
Kong caught her in his leather hand, cutting off her scream. For just a moment, Ann felt safe. Then she saw the three remaining planes circling behind him, preparing to dive. Kong reached through the broken windows and put Ann inside the closed observation deck. She tumbled roughly to the ground.
They looked at one another and in his eyes she saw no more confusion, only a reflection of the same sadness she felt.
Before she could stand, another burst of gunfire raked the building. Windows shattered. Glass flew all around her and she raised her arms to protect her face. Bullets slammed into Kong’s back and he arched his body and roared in pain.
Jack burst through the doors of the observation deck only to be greeted by a hail of bullets. He dove to the floor as they perforated the wall above his head.
When he looked up, he saw Ann stagger to her feet and run for a small stairway that led up higher still, to the dome.
The planes circled again and came in for an attack just as Kong reached the peak again. Bullets strafed him but he barely flinched. As the planes zipped by him through the air, he reached out and got hold of a wing. Its momentum nearly pulled him from the building, but he turned and flung it away, redirecting that momentum, tossing the plane into another, the two of them exploding in mid-air, wreckage tipping end over end as both flying machines fell away toward the ground.
Ann saw the whole thing as she came up through a hatch onto the dome. Kong stood there, holding the top of the dome, watching the planes warily. Blood soaked his fur. He was weakened from his wounds. An ordinary animal would have fled. Instinct should have demanded it. But he was cornered, with nowhere else to go, and another powerful instinct had taken over, the need to protect her.
Ann could do no less than try to protect him as well.
She ran to him, there on the edge of the dome, and raced between his legs to the edge of the building. Other planes had arrived. Reinforcements. They were coming in for another attack run and frantically she waved at them, screaming as loud as she could.
“No! No!”
But they came on, with no indication that they’d seen her. Gunfire tore into Kong and he staggered back against the dome and slid down, leaving a smear of blood behind. Ann crawled to him, buffeted by the wind. Kong grasped the side of the building, holding on. Ann clutched his fingers, hugging them, trying to comfort him. She felt hot tears on her cheeks and tasted their salt upon her lips.
Kong slowly lifted her in his hand, studying her, and then his gaze shifted and he looked to the east, to the rising sun.
Slowly he lowered her to the building, keeping her safe, close to the dome, shielding her. To Ann, all sound seemed to fade away except the wind, which had subsided to a gentle breeze.
In his eyes now she saw no fear, no confusion. Only tenderness. Then slowly the light faded from his eyes and was extinguished.
Kong toppled back, tumbled over the edge of the building, and disappeared from sight. Ann stared at the place where he’d been, the sunlight warm upon her face, the tracks of her tears suddenly cold in the breeze.
She moved to the edge and stared down at the street below, the empty places inside of her filling with despair. For a brief moment she wanted nothing more than to follow Kong. What place was there for her in a world so cold.
Then, suddenly, she became aware of Jack beside her.
“Ann…”
Slowly, she turned to face him, her grief still trapped inside her.
“Why are you here?” she heard herself say.
It seemed to her that a kind of mask fell away from his face, that some distance between them was bridged. Ann felt as though she was seeing him for the first time.
“Because I love you.”
Ann stared at him, paralyzed. Fresh tears spilled from her eyes, hot tears of anguish and grief and of hope. Slowly she rose. Hesitantly, she went to him.
Jack gently embraced her. She wrapped her arms around him, and they held one another as the dawn light washed over them.
Excited crowds gathered to stare at Kong’s body. A swarm of journalists converged on him, light bulbs flashing. Two photographers climbed onto Kong’s chest, cameras aimed right at his face, jostling for position before a policeman
dragged them off.
“Come on, boys, move on! Show’s over!”
The National Guard had arrived and began to push the onlookers back. One of the photographers stared up the long length of the Empire State Building at the extraordinary distance Kong had fallen.
“Why’d he do that? Climb up there and get himself cornered? The ape musta known what was comin’—”
“It’s just a dumb animal,” said the other, snapping a picture, flashbulb popping. “It didn’t know nuthin’!”
“He knew,” Carl Denham said as he pushed through the crowd. He couldn’t tear his eyes off of the face of Kong, serene in death. Dread crept through him as the realization struck. “He knew how it would end.”
“What does it matter?” the second photographer said. “The airplanes got him.”
Denham did not even look up. He could only stare at Kong. “It wasn’t the airplanes,” he said.
“It was beauty killed the beast.”
CHRISTOPHER GOLDEN is the award-winning, bestselling author of such novels as Wildwood Road, The Boys Are Back in Town, The Ferryman, Strangewood, Of Saints and Shadows, and the Body of Evidence series of teen thrillers. There are more than eight million copies of his books in print. Working with actress/writer/director Amber Benson, he co-created and co-wrote Ghosts of Albion, an animated supernatural drama for BBC online, which will soon become a book series from Del Rey. He has been listed among the top ten favorite writers by the readers of SFX Magazine in the U.K. three times since 2000, and his novels have been published around the world in nearly a dozen languages, including French, Italian, Czech, Chinese, and Russian.
With Thomas E. Sniegoski, he is the co-author of the dark fantasy series The Menagerie as well as the young readers fantasy series OutCast. Golden and Sniegoski also wrote the graphic novel BPRD: Hollow Earth, a spinoff from the fan favorite comic book series Hellboy. Golden authored the original Hellboy novels, The Lost Army and The Bones of Giants, and edited two Hellboy short story anthologies.
He has written or co-written a great many novels and comic books set in the worlds of the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, and also wrote the very first X-Men novels, a fan favorite trilogy entitled X-Men: Mutant Empire. His work in comic books has included tales of such characters as Wolverine, Batman, The Punisher, and The Crow.
Golden was born and raised in Massachusetts, where he still lives with his family. He is currently at work on a dark fantasy trilogy for Bantam Books entitled The Veil.
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