Merian C. Cooper's King Kong (15 page)

“So let's put on a little speed!” Driscoll shot back.

For some time that proved impossible. They still moved through what seemed utter blackness. Then, slowly, Driscoll could catch shadows at a distance. Gradually, whenever they paused to puzzle out the way, they marched ahead upon a trail grown a little plainer. And finally, unmistakably, Driscoll saw gray light filtering down.

In a slanting shaft of dawn light they found the clearest, most complete footprint so far. Driscoll still had trouble believing his eyes.

Jimmy whistled, shifting his crate of bombs. “Would you look at the size of that thing! He must be as big as a house!”

Denham pushed his cap back. “He came this way, all right.”

Driscoll hefted his rifle. “We're still going in the right direction. Come on, and keep your guns ready!”

“Don't worry about that,” one of the sailors grunted, and someone laughed in nervous agreement. They continued their pursuit until a wide glade opened up before them.

Driscoll, toes and ankles aching from a thousand stumbles, entered the clearing gratefully. Full daylight had broken, and he ordered a short rest. “Drink some water and take the weight off for a few minutes,” he said. “But stay alert.”

Except for a thin drifting mist, every tree, every bush, every strand of knee-deep grass, now stood revealed in the light of day. The smell of jungle roiled everywhere, a mixture of fresh morning dew and ages of rotted vegetation.

Driscoll swatted at his neck and smashed something that felt as large as his thumb. “What the—something stung me!”

Denham whistled, looking at the smashed remains. “Looks like a mosquito, but a mosquito that big would just about drain you dry.”

Driscoll heard a strange buzzing drone and looked up in time to see a dragonfly as big as a crow swoop over. It flew to the edge of the river, guarded there by a thick growth of reeds, and settled down, its iridescent wings flicking as it perched.

Some of the men reached for sticks, but Denham chuckled. “Don't worry, boys. Those things eat mosquitoes, and with the brand of mosquitoes around here, I'd rather have the dragonflies eating them, not the mosquitoes eating me!”

Driscoll said, “Let's move.” They started forward again, and within a hundred steps they came across another footprint. They were still hot on Kong's trail. Driscoll broke into a trot. They left the glade and plunged back into the undergrowth.

Denham suddenly said, “Hold up. What the devil's that? Over there on the right, through the trees!”

Driscoll dropped to one knee and brought his rifle to bear. Something big blundered through the undergrowth. He couldn't see it clearly at first, but from the noise it made, it had to be huge.

“Kong!” someone shouted.

“No. He's taller and darker,” snapped Denham.

The brush parted, and an immense brute emerged from the jungle, a four-legged creature with a thick hide, with bony scutes patterned on its flanks, looking like the ornamental armor of a medieval warrior. It carried its long, spiked tail two or three feet off the ground, and it swayed heavily, menacingly, as it advanced. “What is that?” Driscoll whispered.

“Dinosaur,” Denham said in hushed tones. “But they were supposed to be sluggish tail-draggers. This thing looks pretty spry to me.”

Driscoll could only stare. The creature didn't fit his idea of dinosaurs, either. He'd always pictured them as slow, ponderous lizards, but this creature's movement was graceful and decisive, though its body was huge, larger than any elephant he'd ever seen.

The behemoth had a relatively short, powerful neck ending in a ridiculously small reptilian head, the snout tipped with a powerful beak. It walked on all fours, with its body sloping down from the much taller hind legs to meet the comparatively short and slightly splayed front legs. The great array of plates, larger at their apex atop the hips, gradually tapered in size as they receded toward the front and back. The largest ones, several feet high, swayed from side to side as the creature moved about.

“Stegosaurus,” Denham whispered. “Or something like it, anyway. Look at that thing move! If I'd brought—”

“Forget your camera,” Driscoll said. “It hasn't noticed us yet. These things eat meat?”

“The books say they're vegetarians,” Denham replied. “But I'm starting to think the books are wrong.”

Driscoll didn't look at him. “Your learning letting you down? I thought you knew everything, Denham. We'd charm the savages, get them to let you take their picture. Things don't look so sure now, do they?”

“My gut tells me not to be so damned sure of anything in this place,” Denham said. “Watch it. It's coming toward us now.”

“Where should I put the bullet?” Driscoll sighted, trying to line up the beast's tiny head, but its movements were too hard to follow.

“Maybe I'm not wrong about everything,” Denham said. “Jimmy! Hand me one of those bombs!” He reached back, and Jimmy put the heavy, solid weight in his hand. “When I throw, everyone drop and stay close to the ground, and I mean close!”

The creature grazed in some brush, still apparently unaware of them. Slowly it turned away from them, exposing a barn-sized haunch before it moved off into the trees. Driscoll found he had been holding his breath. He lowered the rifle.

Denham clapped him on the shoulder. “Well, that was a scare we didn't need. Here, Jimmy, take this—”

The attack came without warning. Driscoll heard a crashing, and the beast burst from the concealing vegetation off to the side, charging forward at what must have been its full gait. Driscoll had an impression of immense power. The creature's great bulk swayed, not jerkily, but fluidly. Denham stood in Driscoll's line of fire. He couldn't line up a shot—

The sailors' nerve broke, and they sprinted off toward the river, shouting in dismay. Two of them reached to help Jimmy, staggering under the weight of the crate.

Driscoll snapped off two shots, one into the beast's chest, the other into its head. No effect, other than to madden the monster. It stamped ferociously, letting out a deep-chested hiss like a rasping bellows. Driscoll saw that Denham still held the bomb.

“He's gonna make up his mind in a second. When you drop, keep close to me. Don't get up until I do.”

The dinosaur thrashed its head, then lunged forward, like a charging rhino. Denham stood braced until it was seconds away.

Then he threw.

The missile landed squarely in front of the beast's feet. It exploded instantly into boiling blue vapor. The gas completely covered the beast's forequarters, head, front feet, and all.

“Down!” Denham threw himself flat, and Driscoll dropped alongside him, feeling the director's hand on the back of his neck. Before he could protest, Driscoll's mouth was full of moss.

Driscoll inhaled the damp, rich smell of earth, and the sap of growing roots grew bitter on his lips. Just forward of him the ground shook violently from the fall of a great weight. He moved to rise, but Denham's clamped hand refused to release its pressure. Half a minute crept by, seeming to Driscoll like an hour. Then Denham loosed his hold and tapped Driscoll's shoulder twice.

Driscoll stood up. Scarcely the length of his own body away lay the twitching head of the beast, mouth open, tongue lolling, eyes glassy. Behind the head its enormous dome of a rib cage rose and fell spasmodically. Driscoll measured the distance with his eye and exclaimed, “Good Lord! It came fifty feet before the gas finally stopped it.”

Denham sounded triumphant: “But I did stop it! Didn't I tell you one of those bombs would stop anything?”

“Is it dying?”

“Not yet,” Denham said grimly. “But that's just a detail.” He picked up his rifle, walked forward, and put his rifle barrel squarely between the eyes of its triangular head. He pumped in two shots. The great body started convulsively and half rose off the ground before collapsing again with a jolt like an earthquake. Denham hesitated, then for good measure sent another bullet through its saurian head.

Driscoll looked over his shoulder. “My shot just creased the top of its skull. I was beginning to think bullets just bounced off this monster.” The sailors had seen it all, and now, as though ashamed of themselves, they were slowly making their way back, their eyes wide at the sight that lay before them.

“What did I tell you?” Denham said to Driscoll. The director crouched beside the grotesque head and reached a tentative hand to touch it. “Prehistoric life!”

The creature was bigger than any land animal Denham had ever seen. Its body still gave signs of movement.

“It takes its sweet time about dying,” Driscoll complained. “Look at those spikes in its tail—big enough to cave in a city bus!”

The sailors curiously clustered around the body. A couple of them prodded the flanks with the barrels of their rifles, and the creature jerked in response. “Careful, boys!” Denham warned.

“This isn't getting us closer to Ann,” Driscoll said, reloading his rifle and slinging it over his shoulder.

Denham rose to his feet, as if he had only half heard. “Jack, Ann was right last night, but she only had the start of it. She guessed the beast-god was some primitive survivor. But if this thing we killed means anything, Kong isn't the only relic of the past roaming this island. There may be all sorts of creatures that have survived along with Kong.”

“That means we have to pick up speed,” Driscoll said. “Let's go, men.”

*   *   *

Though he didn't voice his fears, Driscoll was growing more and more worried about Ann's fate. The monstrous Kong was fearsome enough, but if Denham was right and the island teemed with living dinosaurs—well, he didn't want to think of it. He led the men at a quick march, as much as that was possible through the heavy growth. Under the canopy of jungle, the air grew green with filtered sunlight. Driscoll could see how Kong could pass through here without leaving much trace. The jungle floor, thick with ancient leaf mold, sprouted little undergrowth. Too dark in the shadow of the trees, he supposed.

Still, the occasional gigantic footprint showed them they were still on Kong's trail. It still led them on a path parallel to the river, but the land now sloped generally downward. Ground mist rose and soon they waded through a lake of curling fog. It rose to their chests, then over their heads. Driscoll groaned in frustration. The drifting mist cut visibility to only a few yards.

From behind, Jimmy said, “Look there, over to the left.” Driscoll saw a foggy hollow ahead of them. Thicker, curling mist showed the track of the stream, and concealed within the densest fog something splashed in what sounded like deep water.

“Think it's him?” Denham asked.

“Let's find out!” Driscoll returned, and he raced ahead.

He reached the water's edge ahead of the others and stepped into a depression that proved to be a fresh footprint. He looked down and saw water seeping into the print from the sodden ground, bubbling up as though coming from an underground spring. “Fresh track,” Driscoll said as Denham and the others caught up to him. “Kong must have rested around here, and he crossed the river here.” He waved toward the streambed.

“Sure has widened out,” Jimmy said. “Nearly a lake here. I can't even see the far side.”

“We'll have to swim it,” Driscoll told them.

Denham grabbed his arm, as if afraid the first mate was about to leap into the water. “That's out. We can't swim, not with our bombs and guns.”

Driscoll looked left and right in frustration, and his eye fell on a tangle of tree trunks and branches washed up on a curving line of beach during some recent flood. “All right, then, we'll do better. We'll build a raft.”

“Good!” Denham agreed.

Driscoll supervised as the sailors chose the likeliest logs and lashed them together with lianas ripped from the trees lining the waterway. As they worked, he briefly told them about the conclusions he and Denham had reached. He wound up, “The long and short of it is that we don't know what kind of monsters we may run into. You volunteered for this, but if any man wants to turn back now, this is your chance.”

One of the sailors looked up from his task of lashing the raft together and gave Driscoll a tobacco-stained grin. “Hell, sir, way I figure, we're far enough out that we got just as much chance gettin' killed going backward as we do moving forward.”

“I'm in,” Jimmy said, not even looking around, to a general chorus of agreement.

Denham clapped Jimmy on the back. “That's the spirit, boys! I still say that an armed party has nothing to be afraid of. Especially if it's armed with my gas bombs!”

Driscoll nodded, pleased that the crew was sticking with him. He knew that he would rescue Ann or die trying, alone or with an army. Still, something nagged at him, some false touch about Denham's tone, something he could not put his finger on just yet.

12

SKULL ISLAND
MARCH 13, 1933

Driscoll burned with the urge to resume the chase, though the business of lashing together the logs didn't take long. By the time the sailors had finished their work, the craft looked sturdy enough. Jimmy and a couple of others cut long saplings they could use to pole their way across the water, and together the party shoved the raft down the slope, launched it on what looked like a river of fog, and climbed aboard. It was a tight fit, and Denham carefully made sure that Jimmy stowed the crate of gas bombs in the center. “Don't get the guns wet, whatever you do,” he warned.

“Shove off!” Driscoll ordered, and the men leaned on their poles. The log raft moved with a jerk and a clumsy roll that made the men at the rear stagger.

Denham gave Driscoll a sardonic sideways look. “This is your first independent command. Guess I'll have to call you Captain Driscoll from now on.”