Kong: Skull Island

ELEVEN

Mills could see the chaos around him and he knew what they had to do. Packard was down, Slivko was down, and the thing they’d awoken was running amok. This was not a fight they could win.

“Take evasive action!” he shouted into the radio.

Chapman’s Sea Stallion drifted into view alongside. The bigger aircraft was carrying much of their ordnance, and Mills wished they could use it now. He looked across and saw Chapman, and the two men swapped a glance that registered their disbelief at what was happening. Among it all, it was the loss of Packard that had hit Mills the hardest. The colonel had always been there, solid and indestructible. Seeing him go down had been like hearing God was dead.

Just as Mills was about to talk to Chapman, the monster leapt a hundred feet from the ground and grabbed the Sea Stallion’s tail. It clasped hard and pulled the aircraft down as it fell, shaking it, and the helicopter’s rotors slashed through its hand and arm. Bright red blood sprayed across the sky like an early sunset.

Got you! Mills thought, relishing the idea that the beast was in pain. But it shook the Sea Stallion as it let go, hard, rupturing the fuselage and throwing it high into a spinning, helpless course…

…directly towards Mills’s Huey.

“Look out!” he shouted. Even though Cole had already seen and was trying to lift them above the spinning Sea Stallion, its rotors caught their Huey directly amidships. Metal screeched. Their door gunner was slashed in two. Reles was thrown from the far side of the chopper and out into open air, falling just as quickly as them.

Mills closed his eyes as they crashed down into the tree canopy of this damned island.

Packard had never lost a chopper before. He’d been shot up, had a bird stall on him but landed safely, and had even flown home with his co-pilot and two passengers blasted to pieces by a lucky shot from an enemy RPG.

This had always been his nightmare, and the greatest nightmare for any airman was being burnt alive.

He was hanging upside down. His co-pilot, Nova, moaned somewhere to his left, but Packard couldn’t see him. There was too much blood in his eyes, and branches and leaves had intruded into the cockpit of the downed Huey. He assessed his wounds, hoping that he’d find nothing that might cripple his escape. His shoulders both hurt like a bitch, but that was okay, he could still flex and move them. He was bumped and bruised all over, and he felt blood running up into his nose from his mouth. He spat a thick wad of blood and phlegm. He’d bitten his tongue on impact, but he was pretty sure he hadn’t lost any of it.

The smell of burning singed through the blood. Aviation fuel had a very specific stench, and he could smell that, too. Once the flames reached the spilled fuel, he was done for. He reached for his sidearm, comforted that he could touch it. He only hoped he wouldn’t have to use it.

The radio crackled, reminding him of the chaos he was only a small part of. It was Chapman’s voice.

“Fox Six losing fuel! Tail rotor assembly’s cracked and failing, nominal control… trying for north end of the island…”

Packard reached for the harness release, but there was a heavy splintered branch in the way. He crawled his hand around his hip instead, plucking the combat knife from his belt.

He heard the soft whomps! of flames taking hold.

Nova groaned some more.

“Anyone alive back there?” he shouted. It hurt his chest, but he liked the sound of his own voice. He sounded in control.

No reply from behind. His gunner was unconscious, dead, or gone completely.

Packard worked his knife out from its sheath, turning it so that it rested against the harness across his chest and hips. He started to saw in short, hard slashes.

When the harness parted he tucked in his head, dropping and landing on his shoulders, rolling, emerging from the Huey’s wreck, sheathing the knife and rushing around to the other side.

“Nova, I got you,” he said, reaching in and taking the co-pilot’s hand. He was still alive, but badly hurt. If he could only get him out, maybe he’d be able to administer some first aid.

He squeezed his hand.

Then he was ripped away as the Huey was hauled skyward by the giant beast, debris raining down on and around Packard. He shielded his face then looked up again, just in time to see the mountainous monster flinging the stricken Huey into the air, watching it spin, then punching it hard with one closed fist. It disappeared from view, and moments later landed some distance away and exploded.

Packard drew his pistol and started firing. It was like shooting into a black hole.

The thing looked down at him and caught his eye. Packard’s finger froze on the trigger.

Machine-gun fire rattled across the monster’s face, flicking thick fur and spattering blood into the air. The operation’s single Chinook was roaring in, its familiar wacka-wacka sound a strange comfort. It was a heavy, slow-moving bird, carrying two jeeps and other equipment. Surely too large for the monster to take down.

Packard felt a sense of doom closing around him. Unreality bit in, and he looked around at the strange jungle, trees cracked and shattered by the crashed Huey he could no longer see. It was as if he’d been dropped here into a nightmare, and the glimpses he caught of surviving helicopters, the sounds of machine-gun fire, the roar of the beast, were all snippets of his damaged mind.

He shook his head and slapped himself across the face. Blood smeared his hand. That was real, and the lives of his men were real, too. Those that the animal had not yet killed.

That thing’s no animal, he thought. That beast is something else.

With one giant leap the monster closed the distance between it and the attacking Chinook. The ground shook as it landed, and it clapped its huge hands together, fingers splayed and palms closing on the Chinook’s top and bottom. Rotors sliced into its arms and hands and it roared, the sound echoing in the Chinook’s destruction. The big aircraft’s back was broken, and the beast clasped the two halves and smashed them together, threw them to the ground, trampled them underfoot.

Packard watched aghast. If he remembers me… he thought. If he comes back…

Packard did something he had never done before in his life. He started running from the enemy. Not because he was scared, but because he wanted so much to live.

To fight another day.

Conrad surfaced. Maybe he’d been knocked unconscious, or more likely he’d just blanked at the moment of impact, his body and mind protecting him from the trauma. He needed to be back. He had to be fully functional, all there, and ready for anything. For a brief, ridiculous moment, he wondered whether it had all been a terrible dream.

Then he smelled smoke and someone started coughing.

“You okay?” he croaked. He tried to look at Weaver but his eyes stung from the smoke. He wanted her to answer. He tasted blood, instinct told him it wasn’t his, and he wanted her to answer!

“Weaver!” he said, louder. He reached for her, hand closing on her thigh. She was still seated beside him, still strapped in.

“I’m okay. I think.”

Conrad rubbed blood and smoke from his eyes and released his straps. He looked across at the other door. The door gunner was gone, as was the .50 machine gun. A smear of blood was all that was left behind.

“Slivko, stay where you are,” Conrad said, not knowing if either of the pilots were even still alive. “We’ve come to rest in the trees.”

Weaver was trying her straps but they were stuck fast. Conrad didn’t want to waste any time. He whipped out his combat knife, leaned across her body and cut her safety belt. They edged together towards the door, then started clambering down. They were only ten feet above the jungle floor, the Huey suspended almost level on two trees that had splintered and cracked beneath its weight. They had likely saved it from a harder impact.

As they reached the ground Conrad sniffed. No spilled aviation fuel, at least not yet. He called up to the cockpit.

“Slivko! How’s the pilot?”

“Dead.”

“Can you get free?”

There was no answer.

“Slivko!” Weaver called.

Slivko’s face appeared through the pilot’s-side doorframe. He looked down, both terrified and elated at being alive.

“Down here,” Conrad said. “We’ve got to go.”

Conrad had survived the crash, and with solid ground beneath his feet once more, so came a sense of control. Ridiculous as it seemed—with dozens probably dead, and every aircraft seemingly taken out by the monster—he felt completely at ease once again. In the air, his destiny was in another’s hands. Here and now, he was his own man.

It was time to see just what the hell was going on.

Slivko started shimmying down the broken tree. He was covered in blood.

“Help him down,” Conrad said to Weaver. “I need to get to higher ground.”

“What? Really?”

“I won’t be long.” He took one step, then she grabbed his arm.

“Conrad…” Everything she wanted to say was in her eyes, but there was no time right then. Disbelief, shock, grief could come later.

Terror, too.

“I know,” he said. She nodded and let go, and he stalked off through the trees, dropping down into one of the huge depressions left by the beast’s foot. He paced across it and clambered out the other side, smelling something distinctly animal. Like wet dog, unwashed for some time. A heavy, damp, almost overpowering aroma. Unwashed gorilla feet, he thought, and he had to suppress a giggle.

There was blood, too, spattered across the ground and the leaves of surrounding undergrowth. Lots of blood. No wonder that thing was pissed.

Conrad ran, following rising ground where he could, pushing his way through dense undergrowth. His senses were alert, and he realised without pausing that he did not recognise some of the plant species around him. He’d served in jungles on three continents, but this was like no jungle he’d ever seen before. Creepers and vines hung from large trees. Wide swathes of heavy leaves hampered his movement, the rubbery growths slick to the touch. Parasitic flowers blossomed from low-hanging branches. It was beautiful, but also disconcerting.

He came to a steeper slope and began climbing. He rushed, fearing he didn’t have much time, driving himself hard and fast even though exhaustion already threatened. Adrenalin kept him moving. He was used to the pain of exertion, and he relished it—it made him feel alive.

So many of the soldiers and civilians he’d left Athena with were not.

As he approached a ridge line, he reached a much steeper piece of ground. Too sheer to scramble, the rock surface too obscured by undergrowth to climb, he had to hold onto plants and creepers and haul himself upward. He continued moving quickly, arms burning as he hung on, legs screaming, adrenalin pumping. He might not have much time, and—

A creeper moved beneath his hand, slipping down the rock wall. He paused and held his breath, ready to jump if the plant stem started falling. Then it flexed. Conrad paused, not certain what he’d felt, and then the creeper started moving before him, sliding up the sheer cliff face and pulling him with it. He loosened his hand and slipped, scrabbling for purchase and closing his hands around other clinging plants smothering the cliff ’s surface.

Above him, something curled out from the cliff and dipped down towards him.

The snake’s head was as large as his own, and with jaws open wide it could easily have surrounded his body and swallowed him down. He could not see its tail. It must have been far below him, maybe thirty feet, and with the curl of creature even now dipping down towards him, he feared the monstrous snake was at least sixty feet long.

He reached for his pistol and slipped some more, hooking his left arm around a dried stem that instantly parted from the cliff, swinging him out over the sheer drop. He heard the ominous sound of crackling, dried wood.

The snake hissed. Its head dipped towards him, fangs dripping venom, eyes dim then bright again as a protective film flickered back and forth across them. Its body stiffened and prodded him, swinging him even further out on the old plant that was now the only thing holding him up. Ahead of him, the cliff face and the snake’s looming head. Below, a drop that would almost surely kill him.

Conrad tried not to panic. His pistol was on the wrong side, so he reached down with his left hand and pulled his knife, taking his time, knowing that if he panicked and dropped the blade he would be out of options. He’d have to let go and fall. If he was lucky and the impact didn’t kill him, or if he managed to grab hold of other undergrowth to arrest his fall, the snake would arch down and swallow him whole.

He brought the knife up and around just as the serpent went for him. Gripping hard, his hand passed into its mouth, knocking its head aside, blade slashing through its darting tongue and severing it at the root. A lucky shot, but one that pained the serpent so much that it thrashed and coiled, shoving itself out from the wall and almost taking Conrad with it. The creeper he was grasping tore from the rock, and as he fell he leapt for another plant, gripping it with one hand just as the writhing snake smashed into the wall beside him.

He bit the blade between his teeth, almost gagging on the taste of the snake’s blood. Then he started climbing.

Whatever pain it was in, the serpent still focused on its prey. He felt the tail loop around him, circling his stomach far quicker than he believed possible. Two loops, three, and then it started constricting.

Conrad tensed his muscles, fighting the snake’s powerful grasp. He groaned through clenched teeth, still holding on to vines covering the cliff face. Just as he let go with one hand and went for the knife, the snake pulled him away from the cliff.

For a terrifying moment he was suspended out over open air, with a long drop beneath him and the cliff too far away to reach. The snake was curled around several heavy branches, holding him steady as its head extended out towards him. It was shaking, a heavy shiver that passed all along its body and transmitted into his core as it began to draw tighter, tighter. He could no longer hold out against the pressure, and when he exhaled and tried to draw in another breath, he was not able. Darkness grew around the edges of his vision. The snake’s head was feet away, those fangs as long as his fingers, edging closer, closer…

Conrad grabbed the knife from his mouth and slammed it down into the top of the snake’s head.

Its coils loosened instantly and he began to slip. Tugging his knife free, he grabbed one coil of its body and felt himself dropping as the snake began to slide from the cliff. At the last moment he leapt, pushing off from the snake’s heavy body and striking the surface, scrabbling for purchase, nails clawing at stone and vine stems until his left hand lodged between a creeper and the cool rock. It jarred his shoulder and brought him to a halt, and he hugged himself close to the steep surface, curling his leg around another creeper, gasping for breath as the snake fell away from him and out into open space.

It landed several seconds later, a heavy, meaty thud that he felt through the cliff. He looked down, but already it was lost in the undergrowth growing below. Bushes rustled and trees shook as it made its escape.

Breathing heavily, trying to ease back the delayed panic, Conrad sheathed his knife and pressed close to the cliff face. He took a few moments to catch his breath. He’d been close to death many times, but never that close.

After a while he started climbing again. This time he was careful to ensure that whatever he grabbed hold of was plant, not animal.

Three minutes later he reached the ridge line. He rolled onto his back, panting heavily. His hands were shaking.

Control, he thought, take control, breathe, it’s just you, that’s all, take charge of this time, this place and you’ll survive. His heartbeat calmed, and when he opened his eyes his vision was clear. He was staring up at streaked white clouds and a blue sky that could have been anywhere.

Standing, Conrad looked north and saw what he had climbed up here to see—a wide, uninterrupted vista of the island’s interior.

The island was even larger than he’d suspected. To his right he could see the sea, but ahead and to the left it was only land, the mountainous horizon quite close but with the suggestion of more island beyond. It was a vast, heavily wooded terrain, with plenty of places for huge things to hide.

He pulled the compact binoculars from his belt and started searching.

He soon found a narrow river that snaked from his right towards the island’s interior. It was visible in places, but where it wasn’t he could follow the course of its valley, rising and skirting the foothills of the central mountains, losing itself in the far distance. From here and there, several columns of smoke still spiralled up from the seismic charges and the sites of downed helicopters. The beast had done a good job on the Sky Devils, wiping out one of the US Army’s most efficient attack squadrons in the space of fifteen minutes.

They needed to head inland, then north across the central mountains. Their extract point was to the north of the island. How to get there without any serviceable aircraft or a boat was a problem they’d have to face when the time came. For now, at least he had an immediate plan in mind. Reach the river, track it, cross the mountains.

It looked so very far away.

He shifted his view left and right, looking for any trace of—

His view went black.

Conrad lowered the binoculars so that he could see a wider scope, and there it was. The monster had just crested a hill in the distance, still snarling and spitting, beating its chest and causing a sound that reminded him of aircraft breaking the sound barrier, again and again.

He watched the big beast scramble down the hillside, trees bending and breaking before it, piles of rock tumbling down. It seemed to be in a rush, and he soon saw why. It was making its way to one of the craters created by a seismic charge. A fire still blazed there, consuming the jungle in two long, uneven lines. Smoke billowed skyward, the oily colour of living things dying, both plants and animals.

The monster stared back in Conrad’s direction and roared. His blood chilled, and he couldn’t help but think that the scream was for him alone. He ducked down on the ridge line, pressed flat against the ground. He was too far away for the giant gorilla to see him, he was certain. Yet he felt its eyes upon him, and sensed its hate.

It stopped roaring and stood still for a moment. It stared down as if examining the crater. Then it started trampling the fires, scooping up huge handfuls of soil and smothering the flames. It worked until just a few wisps of smoke curled skyward, then it sat, snorting and exhausted, touching wounds on its arms, chest and face. Quieter now, less threatening, Conrad saw something painfully human about the giant beast.

He was entranced. This thing had killed so many, and yet it had done nothing wrong. They had come here and dropped the first bombs. The beast had attacked in self-defence.

He turned and stalked back the way he’d come, taking more care on his descent of the cliff. At the bottom he paused every few steps to make sure the snake was not still there, in truth enjoying these last few moments when he could be alone.

Soon, he would meet with Weaver and the others again. He already knew what their next move should be.

Go home.