Kong: King of Skull Island

by Strickland, Brad

  “Who could have done that? And why?”

  Driscoll glanced up from the map. “I don’t know.”

  Denham stood beside him, hesitating for a moment. Finally he took a deep breath and said, “I need your help.”

  “To do what?”

  Vincent thumped the map. “To find this place,” he said. “To see what’s really there.” He looked Driscoll in the eye. “Jack, I’m going to Skull Island.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  ABOARD THE DARROW

  June 28, 1957

  Jack Driscoll leaned back in his chair and drained the last of his coffee. “She’s an old Liberty ship,” he said. “I bought her back in ’46.” He shrugged. “I’d come through the war all right, had some money saved, and figured there was no point in crewing for someone else all my life. Started in the Mediterranean. By the time we began taking jobs in the Pacific, I had a fleet of six. Anyway, the Darrow was the first.”

  “She’s a good ship,” Vincent said, wishing that she had a somewhat better cook and a less pervasive stink of diesel. Still, breakfast was tolerable, and he poured more coffee for Driscoll, then for himself. “I didn’t know you were still sailing. Personally, I mean.”

  Driscoll grinned. “Vince, this is the first trip I’ve taken in four, no, five years. Mostly I navigate paper across my desk now. I’ve done all right for myself, I guess. And for Ann.”

  “I’m glad she wasn’t upset by your taking off with me like this,” he said.

  Driscoll looked at him over the rim of his cup. He put the coffee down and said, “She liked your old man, Vince. She still feels he saved her life by getting her off the breadlines—in spite of the fact that he almost got her killed. Besides,” Jack said with a smile, “I reminded her that if it weren’t for your dad, she never would have met me. How could she argue with that?”

  They were in the captain’s wardroom, where they had eaten every morning and night for weeks. Vincent had wondered what kind of sailor he would be. Now he knew: except for a touch of seasickness during a heavy blow, the answer had been a pretty good one. Still, he woke every morning to—not nausea, exactly. Butterflies. The feeling that something big was coming, heading right for him.

  “How close are we?” he asked Driscoll.

  Driscoll shrugged. “Not far now. We’re lucky—when I sailed with Englehorn, sonar hadn’t been invented.” With a sweeping gesture, Driscoll added, “This isn’t what they call blue-water sailing, Vince. This whole area is shallow, bottom at no more than twenty fathoms anywhere, reefs coming to within a fathom or so of the surface. Volcanic. Unpredictable currents, shifting sands. Already we’ve learned that the old chart isn’t a hundred percent accurate anymore. We have to take our time.”

  Vincent nodded. “What happened to Englehorn?” he asked. “I tried to trace him, but—”

  “He vanished about the same time your old man did,” Driscoll said. “Him and his ship.” He gave Vincent a long, appraising look. “There was some talk that your dad went back to Skull Island. Went back and never returned.”

  The squawk box overhead crackled to life: “Mr. Driscoll to the bridge.”

  “Come along,” Driscoll said, reaching for his hat. “It’s probably land.”

  It was land, land on the very edge of visibility. The water shaded from deep greenish-blue to a pale emerald, and in the center of the emerald patch was a gray-brown smudge, a shining patch of cloud above it. “Good work,” Driscoll said, staring through high-powered binoculars. “Are we in the channel?”

  First mate Hansen, standing on the far side of Driscoll with folded arms and a dis-satisfied frown, nodded. “Not much of a channel, if you ask me. The depths you gave me are way off.”

  Driscoll winked at Vincent and handed him the binoculars. “To be expected,” he said. “Assuming no one’s been there for nearly a quarter of a century, and the chart’s at least that old. What do you think, Vince?”

  Vincent was trembling with excitement. He struggled to hold the binoculars on target. Through them he saw towering peaks, an etched white line of surf. No detail. Not close enough for detail. “How soon?” he asked, not heeding Driscoll’s question.

  “Hard to say,” Hansen replied. “With these dog-leg turns, maybe three hours. If the channel hasn’t shoaled up completely.”

  Three slow hours, with the island growing every minute of them. Vincent and Driscoll stayed on the bridge, staring ahead. Vincent kept thinking, Big. Much bigger than I’d thought. But then it would have to be, if it harbored any respectable range of life.

  Once or twice the ship came to a dead stop while Hansen swore, reversed engines, reversed them again, and jockeyed her through an almost impossible turn. Still, they progressed. Vincent kept staring at the cliffs through the binoculars, recognizing them as eroded volcanic plugs. From the dark green tangle of jungle, wafts of steam suggested that the island was still volcanically active—hot springs, at the least. Lost in distant mists were hints of mountains. But the peculiar geological formation that gave the island’s central mountain its name showed clearly: eye sockets, empty nasal cavity. The skull of an earth giant.

  “There’s the lagoon,” Driscoll said at last. “We’ll anchor there.”

  Vincent lowered the binoculars. So far, he had been disappointed. He had caught no glimpse of life. “Where’s the village?” he asked.

  Driscoll gestured to the left. “On that peninsula. Can’t see it from here, though. You can see part of the wall. There, coming over the rise and going right down to the water.”

  Even with the naked eye, Vincent spotted the straight feature, its base deeply shadowed by the late morning sun. Through the binoculars, it became a sight to make him gasp, a towering structure fifty or sixty feet high. Its architecture was oddly . . . reptilian was the word that came to mind, sinuous like a snake, gigantic in proportion like a dinosaur. “Who could have built something like that?” he asked.

  “Your guess is as good as mine,” Driscoll said. “Your old man thought it was Egyptian, but—”

  The deck lurched, and Vincent fell against a bulkhead, grabbing wildly for support. Driscoll lost his footing and fetched up against the forward bulkhead. The captain was already barking orders. The ship’s engines groaned, screeched, the Darrow gave another heave—

  “We’re over,” Hansen said, helping Driscoll to his feet. “You all right?”

  “Pride’s a little bruised.” Driscoll looked at Vincent. “You?”

  “I’m okay,” Vincent said. “What happened?”

  “We grounded,” Hansen said, lifting a telephone handset. He spoke into it, then shook his head grimly. “We’ve sprung a plate or two, but the pumps are handling the leaks. We may have bent the drive shaft or damaged the prop. Can’t tell without diving.”

  “There’s a few days of work,” Driscoll said.

  “I’m dropping anchor,” Hansen told him. “We have to check the damage. I’ll tell you one thing, though: we’re not getting out of this lagoon until the spring tide.”

  “In that case,” Driscoll said with a grin, “we’ve got a couple of weeks to do the work.” He clapped the captain on the shoulder. “Always look on the bright side, Max.”

  “When can we go ashore?” Vincent asked.

  Driscoll laughed. “Why did I know you were going to ask that?” He stared across the water for a moment, as if lost in thought. “Well, you won’t be much use aboard, and you’re itching to get onto the island. Tell you what: I’ll have some men row you ashore. Rafaelo speaks more Pacific island lingos than there are islands. If anyone can communicate with those strange birds ashore, he can, so he’ll go along as interpreter. And just in case they can’t understand Rafaelo, I’ll have rifles and sidearms issued to the crew. You’d better go armed, too.”

  “I never—”

  “You will now,” Driscoll said. “Listen, Vincent: These are primitive people. Human sacrifice is as low as it gets. You’re going into real danger now—this ain’t a museum. I’ll stay aboard to
supervise the inspection, then later I’ll join you ashore. Okay, kid?”

  Vincent nodded.

  It took less than an hour to assemble the shore party, though Vincent felt as if days were passing. He changed to khakis, stowed some equipment in a backpack, clapped on a pith helmet, and strapped on a holster. The unfamiliar weight of a Colt automatic dragged at him. It was not as if he were going to use it, he told himself. Not as if he could even hit anything.

  He went back on deck to find the weather had turned around. A gray cloud hung over the island, its underside ominous, as purple as a bruise. A jagged streak of lightning strobe-lit the eerie peak in the west, the rocky facade that grinned over the island with a skeleton’s sardonic expression. Vincent stared at it, thinking, Dad saw this twenty-five years ago. The gateway to the beast-god Kong’s lair. Skull Island.

  “Ready, Vince?” Driscoll asked, bringing Vincent out of his reverie.

  “I guess so. I—” Vincent broke off, noticing Driscoll’s expression. “What’s wrong? How badly is the ship damaged?”

  Driscoll shrugged. “I’ve seen worse. It’s going to take a lot of work, though. And probably it would be wisest to get out of here in two weeks, when the tide is highest. Get to port, make some real repairs.”

  “You can leave me,” Vincent said. “We’d planned for six weeks.”

  “Comes to that, I’ll stay with you,” Driscoll said. “Look, kid, get to shore and then find cover, fast. If the islanders show up, and they probably will, let Rafaelo do the talking. My best men will go with you. Stay on this side of the wall and you should be okay.” Driscoll slapped him on the back. “Take care, now.”

  The dinghy was waiting, two oarsmen holding her close to the side of the Darrow. Vincent had never climbed down the side of a ship before, but the sailors rigged a sling and lowered him like a side of beef. Hands seized his legs, dragged him into the boat, and settled him near the stern. The man named Rafaelo dropped easily into the bow and grinned back at him. “Get wet soon, no?”

  Thunder rumbled ominously as if in agreement. The men pushed off and bent to their oars. Off to the right, the squall swept over the jungle toward them. Fascinated, Vincent watched it coming, a dark wall of rain silvered with lightning blasts, as inevitable as sunset or death.

  “Hold on!” shouted Rafaelo, clapping a hand on his hat. The dark wall of rain came hissing and boiling across the green surface of the lagoon, hit them with pelting, drenching force. Vincent shrank from the cold, stinging lashes of rain, gasped for breath, heard the hammer of the storm on his helmet and on the boat. And then—

  The world turned upside-down. Vincent felt himself falling, heard the terrified yells of the men. He plunged into the warm water and into silence. Frantically, he snatched at his bootlaces, dragged his feet free, unbuckled the holster and let the drowning weight of the Colt pull it away from his body. With his lungs clenching for air, he kicked and flailed desperately, eyes wild.

  Before righting himself, something immense glided past him, an arm’s reach away. Whale? No, impossible, not here in the lagoon—

  Vincent’s head broke the surface, and he gasped in a long, shuddering lung-ful of air. The overturned boat spun nearby, the two sailors clinging to it, trying to right it. Rafaelo was nowhere in sight. The pounding rain whipped the lagoon’s surface to something like foam, smothering and blinding. Vincent trod water, gathering strength for the swim to the boat.

  A commotion near him, a huge shimmering, scaly back breaking the surface, dragon jaws gaping.

  Vincent shouted as the monster seized the nearest sailor, lifted him screaming, shook him as a terrier shakes a rat. He heard, or imagined he heard, the crunch of those ferocious jaws. Then, with a strange liquid grace, the creature turned sideways to dive, and only a red cloud in the water showed what had happened to the man. It was no whale. It moved like a crocodile, but its build was different—

  Mosasaur? No, not quite right. New species maybe. New? Living species! Vincent swam toward the boat, stunned, numb, but his brain working, instinctively seeking to classify, to understand.

  The man still clinging to the boat yelled and flailed his arm. Gull-sized birds—no, not birds, feathered but not beaked, their heads split into toothed weapons—dived at him. One scooped a golfball-sized chunk of flesh from his arm and soared away. The man shrieked again, clawed at the boat, and sank. No.

  Something had dragged him under.

  Something that swam below.

  It, or another huge creature, broke the surface, breached, hung suspended for what felt like an eternity, then fell atop the overturned boat, splintering it. Vincent whirled in a welter of froth, tumbling over and over. He went limp, letting himself float to the surface. He turned on his back and panted for air. Through the rain-darkened air sailed an immense winged creature, swooping low, coming at him with extended claws—

  Something closed on his leg like a vise.

  Exhausted, lungs clogged with water, Vincent struggled as something pulled him under, into darkness. He heard his own pulse pounding in his ears, felt his lungs burning. This was what it was like to be eaten alive, to be prey, not hunter. This was . . .

  CHAPTER THREE

  SKULL ISLAND

  June 28, 1957

  Hansen said, “I wish you wouldn’t do this.”

  “I’m not gonna ask anyone else to do it.” Jack Driscoll had been hunkered down, studying the traces in the fine, tawny-gray sand of the narrow beach. Someone had been dragged inland by two barefooted people. The pith helmet that rested upside-down said the person being dragged was probably Vincent Denham. The streaks of blood on the beach said he was hurt. Driscoll rose and tightened his gunbelt. “You’ve got your orders, Hansen. Get back to the Darrow.”

  “Aye, sir,” Hansen said. “Good luck.”

  Hansen climbed back into the dinghy. The sailors immediately pushed off and began to row. They had seen what had happened in the lagoon, Driscoll knew, and they were in a hurry to get back to the ship.

  Driscoll turned from the retreating dinghy and toward the island. “I hate this place,” he muttered to himself, and tapped his pocket, making sure the map of the island and his compass were there. His rifle leaned against a drooping palm tree, and he reached for it. If only the men had been willing to row him into the lagoon—but they were scared, and he couldn’t blame them. Well, he could walk to the wall, but not along this beach. A hundred yards away it petered out, replaced by an overhanging cliff of dark volcanic rock. It would have to be overland.

  He had made it through that jungle once before. Sure, back when he was twenty-odd years younger and twenty pounds lighter. But he had learned that a group of men looked like appetizing morsels to the wild animals that roamed here, while one lone man could find ways of sneaking through. “So sneak,” he told himself. A last glance showed him that the dinghy was tied fast to the ship again, the men safe on deck. He waved and pushed into the brush.

  Within minutes sweat was pouring into his eyes. Insects chirred and zinged all around him. Fine, let them. They shut up when something big was around. Suited Jack Driscoll to have some warning. From time to time he heard distant shrieks and growls, fewer it seemed to him than he recalled. Well, if some of the dinos had died off, he had no objection.

  At last Driscoll broke out of the tangled undergrowth and into the open floor of the jungle. A heavy overhead canopy cast everything into a green gloom but kept the smaller growth on the jungle floor stunted. And it was cooler, too. Driscoll had a compass, but he didn’t need to refer to it. One thing that hadn’t left him was his unerring sense of direction. He knew that the wall had to be ahead and to his left. Far off and to his right was the broad river, and beyond the steep-sided canyon. And beyond that the mountain, once the lair of Kong.

  Well, he wouldn’t be going that way. Shouldn’t even be going this way, but Hansen had seen through his binoculars Vincent ashore, moving feebly and looking semi-conscious. And then, judging from the footprints, someone had taken h
im away.

  If the kid was still alive—

  Something big crashed through the forest somewhere behind him. Driscoll saw a deadfall, three or four gigantic trunks that had collapsed and left a triangular opening, just about man-sized.

  The crackling of branches came again, nearer. Without hesitation, Driscoll crept into the opening, wedged himself, waited with his rifle at the ready. An indistinct creature was moving among the trees, something as big as an elephant. Driscoll pressed himself back. The branches behind him yielded, feeling springy. The place smelled of mold. Beads of sweat crawled down his face like ants.

  The creature lumbered into sight, munching on a leafy branch it had torn from a low tree. Driscoll breathed easier. It looked like a cross between a triceratops and a rhinoceros, he thought. Definitely like the former, with its thick barrel body and short, powerful tail. It also had the massive, parrot-like beak. But like the rhino, it had a single huge horn and no shield-like frill. At any rate, it was a plant eater, not—

  The branches crackled, and he felt himself slipping. His instinct was to grab for a handhold, but he was clutching the rifle. Driscoll tried to lunge forward.

  Too late. A branch snapped, and he felt himself falling. He had no time to brace, and maybe that saved him from breaking his leg as he came down hard after a fall of eight or ten feet. Leaves and twigs showered around him. He got to his feet. He seemed to be in a cave of some kind, though he could see almost nothing. A faint shaft of light came down through where he had fallen.

  But there was no way to climb up to it.

  “Oh, great,” Driscoll said aloud. “This is just great.” About par, he added mentally, for what always happened on Skull Island.

  “Jack! Help me, Jack!”