Merian C. Cooper's King Kong

by Joe DeVito

  From high in the dawning light, the planes swooped down again. With one last look at Ann, Kong rose up. His roars broke into a harsh, rending cough, but he still straightened to his greatest height. He thumped his chest as wildly as ever, in a fierce, unconquerable gesture of final defiance.

  One after another the planes screamed down, each poised in turn for a murderous instant, and then curved away. The rattle of the machine guns drowned out Kong’s bellowed challenge. Suddenly he swayed, and in spite of his gripping feet, began to topple. As he painfully caught himself in an effort to regain his balance, his gaze met Ann’s for one last time.

  His eyes were heartbreakingly weary, but in them was a look she had not seen since he was on the island, the king of all he surveyed. Then Kong turned to face his attackers.

  Indomitable, he fought to the end. With his last bit of strength he leaped for the last plane as it flashed past. He missed, but his mighty spring had carried him clear of the setbacks below, and out above the street.

  Ann could never quite understand or explain what happened next. All fear left her, and with crystal clarity she saw Kong hang, motionless, as though time had stopped. She imagined him in the same regal loneliness that had been his upon the summit of Skull Mountain. Once again a king and a god, gazing upon the world he knew. King Kong. Ancient. Eternal.

  Then time moved again. In the next instant, he was gone.

  EPILOGUE

  NEW YORK

  JULY 1, 1933

  “We can see them from here!” Driscoll exclaimed. He led the way through a window to the farthest corner of the cramped roof of the topmost setback. A policeman, his revolver drawn, followed, along with Carl Denham. Above them, on the ledge of the uppermost platform, they saw Kong’s massive form stagger.

  Driscoll could tell at once that Kong had been mortally wounded. The great creature was moaning, reeling. Then Jack saw Ann, lying prone in a softly glowing white dress stained with dark patches. Blood.

  His heart stopped. High above, the nimble airplanes renewed their dance of death as they dove toward Kong in another grotesquely graceful ballet. Their barking guns ripped into Kong’s body. “Duck!” Driscoll yelled, and he, Denham, and the policeman flattened themselves against the meager protection of a corner. Slugs bit into it, kicking up a gritty spray of fragments. Jack turned his face away from the drift, trying to keep the wind from whipping grains of concrete into his eyes.

  Unexpectedly, the machine-gun fire fell silent, and the planes swept away to gather themselves for their final attack. A reek of sulfur dissipated in the breeze. Above them, Kong barked a deep, gurgled cough and swayed unsteadily. The end was very near.

  Suddenly, Ann began to move. “She’s alive!” Driscoll yelled to Denham. But he had no time to relax.

  Denham grabbed Driscoll’s arm and yelled, “Stay down, Jack! They’re coming back, all five of ’em!” In the growing light of dawn, Driscoll saw the planes wheel around and peel off for their dive.

  “God help that woman,” growled the policeman.

  “God help me, too!” Driscoll shot back. “I’m going after her. Kong can’t fight off those planes and keep his eye on Ann at the same time, and I can’t leave her there alone!”

  Denham said nothing, but he followed, and after a moment of hesitation, so did the policeman.

  As the new barrage of machine-gun fire began, Kong’s last stand shook the airship mooring mast. Driscoll, in the lead and taking the stairs inside the spire three at a time, lost his footing and fell to his knees. A slug ripped through the thin metal skin of the building and passed just above his head. Jack ignored it—if it didn’t kill him, it didn’t matter. He scrambled to the top and burst through the doors only to encounter—

  The whistling wind.

  Driscoll took in a deep breath of the chilly morning air. Kong was gone. As he looked up he saw Ann blankly staring at something he could not see.

  “Ann!” Driscoll rushed forward and almost fell. His foot had skidded in a splash of blood and fur, and now he saw that blood had spattered everywhere.

  Ann stared at him with a terrified, empty gaze, and for a moment, Jack thought she had been hit. Then she weakly called his name and reached out for him. Driscoll gently lifted her to her feet and helped her off the ledge where she had lain.

  As soon as they were in the stairwell, Ann began to sob. “Oh, Jack!”

  Driscoll held her, close and warm. “It’s all right,” he murmured. “It’s all right now.”

  As they embraced, he knew he need say nothing more.

  * * *

  Denham and the policeman had just arrived. Denham took a moment to raise his eyebrows at Jack, who answered his unspoken query with a nod: Ann was unharmed. Denham stepped out onto the narrow platform at the base of the spire, the policeman at his elbow.

  The cop was gasping for breath. He holstered his revolver and stared at the bullet-ravaged facade of the tower, at the blood and tufts of fur spread everywhere. “Looks like a battlefield. You know, the size of that thing—I never thought the aviators’d get him.”

  “The aviators didn’t get him,” Denham replied slowly.

  “What?”

  “It was Beauty killed the Beast.”

  The cop gave him a long, uncomprehending look. Denham sighed. Below somewhere, the gargantuan body of Kong lay on the street. The carnage Kong had left was something that Denham would have to answer for. Denham thought fleetingly of his wife and son—good thing he had not brought them to the show, as he had first planned. They were better out of this.

  With mingled feelings of relief and despair, Denham looked off into the new dawning day. He could not help wondering if his long nightmare was over—or if it was just beginning.

  Also by Joe DeVito and Brad Strickland

  KONG: King of Skull Island

  MERIAN C. COOPER’S KING KONG. Copyright © 2005 by Richard M. Cooper, LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

  Foreword copyright © 2005 by James V. D’Arc.

  Illustrations copyright © 2005 by Joe DeVito.

  www.stmartins.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  DeVito, Joe, 1957–

  Merian C. Cooper’s King Kong / by Joe DeVito and Brad Strickland; illustrations by Joe DeVito.—1st ed.

  p. cm.

  A full rewrite of the original 1932 novel.

  ISBN 0-312-34915-7

  EAN 978-0-312-34915-8

  1. King Kong (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Motion picture industry—Fiction. 3. Apes—Fiction. I. Strickland, Brad. II. Lovelace, Delos Wheeler, 1894–1967. King Kong. III. Title.

  PS3604.E8864M47 2005

  813'.6—dc22

  2005047475

  First Edition: October 2005

  eISBN 9781466841888

  First eBook edition: March 2013