Kong: King of Skull Island

by Strickland, Brad

  Kong met the charge head-on, but the impetus toppled him backward. As he tumbled, he flung up the weapon he carried reflexively, thrusting it inside Gaw’s snapping jaws, keeping them from closing on his neck. For seconds they moved slowly, locked in a contest of strength. Gaw grabbed at the base of a tree with one hind claw and gripped the ground to gain traction with the other, trying to throw her opponent to the ground. Kong gave way, falling back, pressed to earth, but his muscles rippled as he gathered strength to attack again.

  Ishara could not look away. The hatred in the eyes of both huge combatants was ancient, powerful, unyielding. Kong’s fierce, expressive eyes offered stark contrast to the steel-cold glare of Gaw’s reptilian face. Ishara felt Gaw’s drive, her visceral need to kill Kong.

  And Ishara also sensed Kong’s deep-seated fear of this thing that had killed his parents. But beyond that, overpowering his fear, was a red rage. Kong, gathering a deep surge of energy, threw Gaw bodily back. Kublai had his spear at the ready, Magwich his pistol, but Ishara pulled both of them back. “No. There is hope.”

  Gaw had smashed into what seemed a tree, but it shattered, revealing one of the buildings wrought by the Tagatu in time unknown. The monster charged from the debris, and Kong splintered the bone he held against Gaw’s skull, making the saurian reel back, shrieking in pain.

  Ishara began to circle, toward the ancient structure.

  “What are you doing?” whispered Kublai fiercely, grabbing her arm.

  “I have to see what Magwich’s men left behind,” Ishara returned.

  Kublai followed her. The battle between Gaw and Kong was working its way around to the right. They inched to the left. As far as Ishara could see, not one of the Europeans was still alive. Lifeless deathrunners strewed the earth. What had attracted her attention was a handcart loaded with earthenware jars. It had tipped over, but the jars had not broken. Ishara snatched some sacks from the ground, emptied them of jewels, and began to stuff the jars into them.

  “What’s that?” Kublai asked.

  “Maybe the only things that can save the island,” Ishara replied fiercely. “Come, Kublai, carry as many as you can” she said.

  The two behemoths were closer than ever, breathing hard, both of them bloodied, weaving from side to side as each sought an opening, an advantage.

  Kublai and Ishara stopped in their tracks, not wanting to draw attention to themselves. Ishara knew that the end was near. She felt the building tension, the last gathering of waning strength of ape and saurian. “It is finished,” she whispered.

  At that instant Kong let out a deafening roar and rushed forward with astonishing speed. Gaw, caught off guard, fell, knocked sideways and flattened to the ground. Directly beside her was the huge skull of the triceratops. Its studded frill and horns were mostly intact. Kong made for it, as if in the grip of a sudden inspiration. Before Gaw could recover, Kong had seized the skull. Gaw’s powerful head jerked up, jaws snapping, but Kong was already upon her, using the skull as a shield. Gaw’s maw was hopelessly stuck in one of the two huge fenestrations of the skull’s frill. Kong used his great strength to force himself forward, keeping the monster’s jaws engaged.

  Gaw’s arms flailed. She tried to push away the frill, but her strength was not equal to Kong’s. Kong lifted his adversary completely off the ground, then smashed her to the earth. Gaw’s neck bent sharply, nearly breaking. The force of the impact shattered the frill, the two great horns breaking loose. Kong yanked one of them free. Gaw, on her back, raised her arms, attempting to fend off Kong’s downward thrust—but too late. Kong stabbed into Gaw’s neck, and the great creature’s mouth bubbled blood as an inhuman gurgling hiss burst from her.

  Impossibly, Gaw clawed at the horn, reared to her feet. She shook her head, sending slavers of blood spraying through the air as she staggered wildly. Magwich, flushed from his hiding place to avoid the monster, was crushed as the beast collapsed.

  Kong struck at Gaw’s chest with short, heavy blows, not retreating, not giving the wily creature a chance to recover. Kong snatched up another bone from the same skeleton, a heavy leg bone, and used it as a club, beating Gaw without mercy.

  Ishara saw that Kong was hurt, that open wounds on his chest and shoulders spilled his own blood and wondered how he could relentlessly fight on. But then she understood that the memory of his parents’ death explained his deadly determination. It was, she realized, Kong’s great advantage: Like a human, he felt emotion, not just the deep, reptilian cunning of Gaw. Perhaps they were equals in intelligence, but their minds were of different orders. Gaw lacked the ultimate strength and determination born of spirit.

  Gaw’s arm swung up to rake his chest. Kong intercepted it and Ishara could hear the crunching of bone as Kong’s enormous canine teeth bit into it. A horrifying, hissing scream escaped Gaw’s muzzled jaws. Gaw struggled to attack again, but her body was no longer able to respond as Kong pounded down with both enormous fists. The monster’s bloodshot eyes strained to focus, then slowly, shakily, rolled up into her skull. A moment later, Gaw was dead.

  There was a sudden, dead silence. Kong stepped back, not fully able to grasp that it was over. Suddenly, he viciously pounded the lifeless body. When nothing moved, he nudged and shook the misshapen head of Gaw to make sure no spark remained.

  Kong threw his head back and let out a sustained, deafening roar as he savagely pounded his chest. The sound made the very air vibrate. It came from all over, everywhere, and seemed to go on forever.

  Kublai said in tones of wonder: “The kong has killed Bar-Atu’s god.”

  Ishara understood exactly what that meant. Their world would never be the same. Every living thing on that island had now better bow before . . . “King Kong,” she said in a reverent whisper. Beside her, she felt Kublai tremble.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  SKULL ISLAND

  June ?, 1957

  Jack Driscoll’s luck ran out as the sun sank toward the west. He had left the labyrinth of underground passages hours earlier. More than once he had heard the stealthy skitter of two-toed feet not so very far behind him. In the confined darkness of the tunnels, the flesh eaters had too much of an advantage. Driscoll had come back to the surface and now was betting his life on a last dash to reach the Wall.

  He had two choices of pathway: the rocky top of a sinuous ridge, where he would be exposed, or the depths of the jungle, free of undergrowth but difficult to navigate with no glimpse of the sky.

  The ridge won. He needed to see if the creatures were following him. He could see more than that, for at one point, he even glimpsed a dark line far ahead that might, just might, be the Wall. The trouble was that the ridge wound and twisted at a slant-ing angle toward it. The direct route led through impassible brush and tangles of low scrub trees.

  And from the brush came occasional crackles, as if the creatures were pacing him, a few hundred feet off to his left. Driscoll cradled his rifle and made the best time he could along the ridge’s rocky spine.

  Then he took a wrong step. The ridge gave way, sloped downward, buried itself in grasses taller than his head. Driscoll frowned. Ahead he could see that the ridge climbed up again, but it emerged a hundred yards away. In the thick grass, he wouldn’t be able to see anything that might be following him.

  “Double-quick,” he told himself, and dived into the grasses. The turf underfoot was treacherous, springy and yielding. Driscoll realized he probably wasn’t even walking on real soil, but on thousands of years of compressed and decaying grass. Insects zinged and whined, and he forced his way through the grasses, step by step. “Worse than the subway in New York,” he grunted.

  Then he heard the chittering. The man-sized hunters were close. Moving a millimeter at a time, Driscoll brought his rifle up. He could see nothing in the grass. He edged toward the place where the rocks rose again, step by careful step, his ears sharp for the rustle of a charging enemy.

  Another sound, a rhythmic tok-tok-tok. Not a woodpecker, but with that insist
ent quality, from somewhere not too far away. Rock underfoot. Driscoll took a step up. Another, carefully. Another, and his head was above the surface.

  A green-gray blur, coming fast! Driscoll fired, and the creature fell or feinted, vanishing in the grass. He turned to keep its line of passage in sight—

  And a heavy weight crashed into him from behind, sending him sprawling. He was trapped beneath a massive body, and he steeled himself for the slash of teeth.

  It never came. Something warm ran over his arm—blood, not his own. Driscoll grunted and heaved. The dead body of one of the dinosaurs rolled off him, and he saw that a spear shaft protruded from one of its eyes.

  A hand closed on his arm.

  Hours later, Driscoll said, “You fellows could take off the blindfold. It’s night now, anyway.”

  The two men escorting him gave no sign that they understood. They hustled him along, guiding him, catching him when he stumbled. He had never been so tired.

  “So are you guys from around here?” he asked. “How about those dinosaurs, huh? I’ll bet they taste like chicken.”

  No response. “Tough crowd,” Driscoll muttered. He hoped they weren’t in the mood to see what he tasted like.

  His legs were dead under him, numb with effort. At last his guides paused. Driscoll heard a strange creaking, then a hand placed on his head firmly pressed down, making him duck as he was guided forward. A slam and a sense of being inside.

  And then at last one of the natives pulled the cloth from Driscoll’s eyes. He blinked. He was in a cave, or perhaps the largest longhouse on the island. Torches flared, washing everything in a ruddy light. The two tall islanders looked at him impassively. One carried his pack and rifle, the other a formidable spear. “Got a deck of cards?” Driscoll asked. “A pair of dice? No sense in wasting the evening.”

  The spear bearer gestured, and Driscoll preceded him. From somewhere ahead he heard voices, two of them. One sounded like a woman. The other—

  “Vincent?” Driscoll called.

  The spear prodded him in the ribs.

  “Okay,” Driscoll said in a lower voice. “I get the point.”

  The islanders shoved him into a room and pulled a heavy door closed. Driscoll heard a bar drop into place. He looked around. A kind of cot, leather stretched over a wooden frame, stood against one wall, and on a triangular table rested an earthenware pitcher of water and some fruit.

  Driscoll drank deeply from the pitcher, then sat on the cot. He was almost sure he had heard Vincent’s voice. That was the best news he’d had in days.

  Well—if you didn’t count not being ripped apart by a dinosaur, it was.

  Driscoll settled in to wait.

  Skull Island

  The Past

  Kong seemed maddened beyond all control. Again and again as he vanished into the forest, the air reverberated to the great beast’s roars. Gaw’s lifeless form lay before Ishara and Kublai, the crushed figure of Magwich barely visible beneath the chin.

  Behind Kublai someone cowered in the darkness. “Who’s there?” Kublai demanded.

  “Just me.”

  Kong retreated, his roars of triumph fading. Ishara went to the huddled figure of Charlie. “Are you hurt?”

  “I don’t think so. What happened to the Captain?”

  “Dead,” Kublai said shortly, raising his spear. “I should kill you—”

  “No,” Ishara said. “He’s not like the others, and we need every hand. Quickly—help me gather the jars. They are our only hope!”

  “We’d better grab some of these, too.” Charlie sounded frightened, peering in all directions as he gathered three strewn rifles. “Something tells me we’ll need ’em.”

  It took them hours, but by torchlight, they found the jars. Or what was left of them. Ishara fell to her knees in disbelief. Many lay beneath the body of Gaw, the rest were shattered and their contents scattered. They dragged the broken body of Magwich from beneath Gaw’s head. Kublai stared into the dead man’s face. “Even now he looks like he’s scheming.”

  “His schemes died with him,” Ishara said.

  “Can we bury him?” Charlie asked. “Don’t seem right to leave him—”

  Kublai lifted the limp body and rolled it into the pit. “His grave is a huge one,” he said.

  They salvaged what they could of the seeds and the few unbroken jars. It was tedious work, doubly hard in the flickering light of the torch. Ishara was silent for a long time as they searched the trampled earth where the battle had raged, hearing the shrieks of animals from time to time, the far-off roars of Kong. Pterosaurs circled high over head, but it seemed Kong’s ferocity had frightened off the land creatures. Ishara could neither see nor hear any sign of them.

  At last, when half the night was gone, Kublai said, “Let’s rest. Ishara, what troubles you? There must be more of those jars left. We can come back in daylight and seek them.”

  “There are no others,” Ishara said with a deep certainty. How she knew she could not say, but something told her that even in death Gaw had struck at them, crushing the jars, spilling their precious contents. What they had scavenged might be useless—especially without the ancient knowledge of the formulas required to combine the plants. Ishara felt only a deep sense of failure.

  Kublai touched her gently. “You can’t give up now.”

  “You don’t understand. I had hoped so much—and now we have nothing.”

  “We have each other,” Kublai said simply. “I love you, and you love me. We will survive. Our people will survive. I promise you.”

  He went back into the open and was gone for a long time. When he returned, he bore a bloody burden wrapped in the shirt of one of the Europeans. “Proof that Gaw is dead,” he told Ishara. “I don’t know if Bar-Atu is alive, but with this, we can break Bar-Atu’s cult. His god is dead. There is nothing left to sacrifice our people to. The old priest has failed, and now my people, and yours alike, will rally around me. Even now they are waiting for my return and will have overthrown the last of Bar-Atu’s henchmen. You will see.”

  They were exhausted. A foggy dawn broke well before they were within sight of the Wall, and they found another entrance to the maze of tunnels. They spent much of the morning resting in the mouth of one of these, taking turns watching. Unknown creatures passed close by but did not disturb them, though once Ishara, standing staring into the fog, was almost sure she heard human voices not too far away. Ishara hissed a warning for the others to be quiet. She could see nothing, though, except vague shadows. But she was very weary. Could it be her imagination?

  Kublai slowly cocked his rifle, and the echo reverberated in the tunnel. A hushed silence. “Nothing,” he whispered at last.

  They set out again at noon, exploring the tunnel for miles before it opened again to the sky. Kublai looked around. “I know where we are. This is the clearing past the place of sacrifice.” Ishara sensed his unspoken hope: That the sacrifices had ended for good now, that the place of sacrifice would fall into disuse. “Come, follow me,” he said.

  He found a hunter’s path, and the three of them hurried along it. They burst out of a final thicket into the opening before the great gate. Kublai put his hand beside his mouth and called out, “The King has returned. Open the gate!”

  Heads peered over the edge of the Wall, and a jabber of voices rose. Kublai unwrapped his bloody package. “Look! Gaw is dead! I have his teeth and claws!”

  More excitement. At last the gate tentatively opened, and Ishara, Charlie, and Kublai made their way inside. A circle of villagers, all armed, stood staring at them, spears at the ready. Several aimed rifles directly at Kublai. Immediately five men rushed forward and disarmed Kublai and grabbed Charlie, who struggled vainly to get away. Something was very wrong. None of his men were present, and none of the villagers looked friendly. Kublai flushed. “Let him alone! I tell you, Gaw is dead!” he yelled, brandishing in each hand a tooth nearly a foot long. “I show you the proof! No other creature on the island has tee
th such as Gaw’s!”

  “We know that,” one of the warriors said. “Bar-Atu killed Gaw.”

  “Bar-Atu!” Ishara exclaimed in surprise. “No! King Kong killed Gaw!”

  “King Kong! That is good, a true and proper name! Bar-Atu used his magic to call forth this new King,” the man said. “He granted him the strength to overcome the old god. Now Kong is our King!”

  Another pointed accusingly at Kublai. “You captured the kong and promised to tame it, to control it. You were not strong enough! Now Kong is god!”

  “And I am his high priest,” said a stern voice. Bar-Atu, wearing his priestly regalia, stepped forward, madness in his eyes. “When he could not help, I helped. It was I who had the outsider Magwich and his men killed as they were about to steal the treasure of our people with their rifles!” Bar-Atu’s men stepped forward, holding aloft the few last rifles that remained. “The stranger’s treachery was made possible by this liar who wanted to be your king! Gaw failed us by letting outsiders enter our island. Their ship had stood ready to take them back to their world so they could return with the others. I prevented them! This boy, this so-called king, cares nothing for you!”

  “You lie!” Kublai shouted.

  “Who helped the outsiders find materials and food for their ship and to take our women for their beds?” taunted Bar-Atu. “It was Kublai! But I have killed the outsiders and all those who sided with them. They will never threaten us again!”

  Ishara felt horrified. She knew many of the island women who had married the strangers, who had borne them children . . .

  Kublai shouted in anger: “You wanted to enslave the people with fear. I want to set them free!”

  “Kill him,” Bar-Atu snarled.

  Ishara stood by Kublai’s side. She realized that, behind them, a short sprint away, the Gate was still ajar. “To the jungle—run!” she said in a tone so soft only Kublai could hear, and they both sprang back at the same instant.