Merian C. Cooper's King Kong (23 page)

“I see them. The rescue party.”

“If Kong's coming—”

“Let me try something,” Jack said. “I'm going to see if I can signal them.”

Ann realized he was lifting the rifle. He fired one shot, then a second one. Around them the forest fell suddenly silent at the two reverberating reports.

Seconds passed, and then, deliberately spaced, Ann saw three muzzle flashes from the cluster of men far off, followed each time by a distant boom. “They're three or four miles away,” Driscoll said. “Hope they've got enough sense to come back here instead of heading toward the mountain. We'd better move, Ann. Toward the Wall, not toward them. As tired as we are, they can catch up sooner or later.”

“When they do, they're going to see that I'm underdressed,” Ann remarked.

Driscoll stopped, struggled with something, then said, “Here. This ought to help.” He thrust wet fabric into her hands. His shirt, she realized. Getting into it was a struggle, for it had been almost as badly ripped as her dress, but she managed the feat at last. They staggered on even as she was trying to get her arms into the sodden sleeves, and by the time she had finished with the garment's three remaining buttons, the heavy jungle again swallowed up the two of them.

Onward, onward, stumbling, clinging to each other for support. From time to time they looked back and saw figures following them, the distance continually dwindling. Jack risked one more signal shot, then said, “I don't know how much ammo I have. Better save what's left. We may need it.”

Twilight was coming on, but now they could hear voices behind them. “Jack?” It was Denham, still distant. “Jack, is that you?”

“It's me!” Jack shouted. “Ann's with me, safe enough. Make tracks, Denham! Kong will be along before you know it!”

“We're coming as fast as we can! We got a late start because a big storm hit—lucky for us, I guess. Go ahead and don't wait for us. We're lugging an arsenal!”

“Then follow us. Catch up if you can, but I have to get Ann back to the Wall as fast as I can!”

“Go! We'll be the rear guard!”

A patter of running feet, a ruddy glow, and then Jimmy, the youngest of the rescue party, was there, holding a blazing torch. “Mr. Denham sent me ahead,” he panted. “Said you might want some light.”

“Good thinking on his part,” Driscoll said. “Now we—what was that?”

They all looked back into the gathering darkness. A few hundred yards away, more torches bobbed and wavered, but the sound had come from much farther away. It was a crashing, furious sound, the sound of an enormous body forcing its way through ancient growth.

“Kong!” Ann exclaimed. “It must be Kong!” She saw Jimmy's face turn pale in the flickering torchlight, but Jack's expression was resolute.

“We run from here on,” he said doggedly. “Ann, if I fall, you go on. Jimmy, you stick by Miss Darrow, understand? No matter what happens, you get her to the Wall.”

“Aye, sir,” Jimmy said.

They broke into an exhausted, shambling trot. Ann's mind, numbed by exertion and fear and worry, dulled to everything but the dogged necessity of lifting one foot, swinging it forward, bringing it down, lifting the other. Jimmy and Jack flanked her, each of them occasionally reaching out a steadying hand. Her feet felt raw, and she imagined them cut to shreds, but she fought to run through the pain. They reached a sharply sloping stony path, beside a torrent of water, rain-swollen, raging down in foam and fury. They steadied each other as they made their way down, then plunged into waist-high grasses.

At last Jack cried out, “Look! We made it! Just ahead!”

They had emerged onto the Plain of the Altar. Ahead of them Ann saw a shaft of golden light, streaming from the barely opened gate in the great Wall: torches, she realized, masses of them, shining on the far side, the safe side. “Oh, Jack, we're safe!” she gasped, and then fell.

Jack scooped her up. Ann was on the verge of unconsciousness, but she thought she heard again that distant crashing, and something else.

The enraged howl, the war challenge of the island's beast-god, and it was coming—for her.

19

SKULL ISLAND
MARCH 14, 1933

Lumpy saw them first. He had hardly left his perch atop the Wall, hopeless though the vigil seemed, and when he called down, “On deck there! Here they come—and there's Miz Darrow!” Captain Englehorn felt his heart leap with hope. “Open the gate!” he commanded, and in an instant it was done. “That's enough!” the skipper shouted when the portals stood open just wide enough to admit two abreast. “Sharpshooters, be ready to give them cover!”

Lumpy and half a dozen others on the Wall with him raised their rifles. Englehorn paced. The natives had offered—something. His grasp of the language wasn't firm enough, that was the trouble. Something about Wall defenses, but he couldn't quite get it, and he trusted the rifles more than any savage foolery. In the end, he had persuaded the islanders to keep to their huts. He and his men would handle whatever threat the jungle offered.

Overhead the moon, a little past full, sailed in and out of broken cloud. The sailors on the ground held torches high, ready to offer what aid they could. “Where the devil are they?” Englehorn growled to no one in particular. “What the devil is keeping them?” He couldn't stand the wait, and he pointed to two men. “You and you, bring your rifles.” The three of them passed through the gate. Englehorn had time once again to marvel at the thickness of the Wall, its width even at the summit like the waist of a beamy schooner. They emerged on the Plain of the Altar, and ahead, Englehorn spied a torch. In its uncertain light three figures stumbled toward him. “Gott sei Dank,” Englehorn breathed, using the language he had not spoken since he had first shipped aboard a British vessel when he was a teenager. He unconsciously reached for his pipe.

*   *   *

The others caught up as Driscoll half carried Ann toward the safety of the Wall. Denham ran beside him. “Jack! By God, I told them all that if any man on earth could bring Ann back, you were the guy!”

“We're not out of the woods yet,” Driscoll panted.

Ahead of them, Englehorn beckoned. “Hurry, hurry!”

From atop the Wall, old Lumpy's voice echoed down in an unaccustomed tone of command: “Lively, you mudhens, lively! Can't you see they're all wore out? Get 'em inside, lively!”

Driscoll couldn't suppress a chuckle. “Aye, aye—sir!” he croaked. Hands were reaching out, and they helped him and Ann through the open gate. Inside, Denham thrust something into Driscoll's hand. “You first, then her!” he said.

Driscoll took a long pull of whiskey, then passed the bottle to Ann, who took a quick gulp and pushed the bottle away, coughing. Driscoll's head was spinning, not from the alcohol, but from sheer exhaustion. With his voice nearly breaking, he said, “I got her. I got her, Skipper.”

“Good man,” Englehorn said. “Everyone inside? Close that gate!”

Lumpy had climbed down from his perch up on the Wall. “Good man, Skipper? Like hell! Great man! We're proud o' you, Mr. Driscoll!”

The sailors clustered around Ann, who lay on an improvised pallet of shirts and blankets. “I'm all right,” she insisted, but they would not let her rise. “Jack, make them let me up!”

“Avast, you mugs,” Driscoll said with something between a laugh and a sob. He pulled Ann up and held her close. “Ann's no weak sister. She pulled through all that like a trooper!”

“Listen,” Denham said, “Lumpy and his marksmen ought to get back to their posts. Kong's coming.”

“Nuts,” Driscoll said. “He's miles away. We left him in his lair on Skull Mountain—”

“You heard him out there,” Denham said in a challenging voice. “He's coming. We've got something he wants, and he's coming to claim it. We have to be ready. Jimmy, I want my bombs handy, you hear?”

“Got half a dozen right here,” Jimmy returned.

“Good. Jack, I know you're worn out, but now you can take care of Ann. We'll get you on a boat and back to the ship, and when Kong does show up, we'll take care of him. No, don't say a word! You know me. When I start a thing, I finish it.”

“I'll take her back to the ship,” Driscoll said. “But as for Kong—”

“The Beast has seen his Beauty!” Denham exclaimed, pounding his right fist into his left palm. “He'll come, I tell you! Sure, the instinct of the Beast would be to stick to his lair in the mountains, but his memory of Beauty will draw him like a magnet, and when it does—”

Lumpy's voice cut down through the night, making Driscoll jump: “Kong! Kong!”

“Make sure that gate is barred!” Denham ordered. “You sharpshooters, hold your fire! I'll take him down with my bombs!”

On the far side of the gate, Kong's cry of rage resounded through the darkness. An instant later, Driscoll saw the gates themselves shudder, showering down ancient dust, as a great body threw itself against them. “Protect Ann!” he yelled.

“Can't get a shot at him!” Lumpy shouted. “He's protected by the overhang!”

“You men get down here!” Englehorn ordered. “Get Miss Darrow to safety!”

Lumpy didn't need a second order. He led the men down, and they made their way to the protection of one of the smaller walls, where they formed a rifle-bristling phalanx in front of Ann.

Driscoll heard the ominous creak and crack of wood. He couldn't believe his eyes. The gigantic portals bowed inward, slowly, relentlessly. The gate gave way, inch by inch. Kong must have exerted all his force, all his rage, all his power. Zigzag cracks appeared in the heavy bars, and the gap widened. The patch peeled back and fell away. Kong pounded the top of the door, shattering its wood beams and forcing back the top of the frame, creating a gap big enough for his huge hands to find a purchase.

The fingers closed as he threw all of his weight into one mighty push. To the left and right, the beams holding the gate closed shattered with a sound like cannon fire. Kong rammed the gates again with such force that the left door flew open, almost torn from its hinges. Kong stood in the gap for a moment, eyes glaring in the torchlight. Now nothing stood between the king and his subjects.

The sailors in the cleared space fell back, raising their weapons.

“Nobody fire!” Denham shouted. “Let him through!”

The islanders came spilling out of their huts, wailing, shrieking. Driscoll glimpsed the old woman, stalking forward, holding a torch that smoldered with a curious green flame, chanting something. He grabbed her by the waist and swung her out of harm's way. “This way, grandma!” he shouted, pushing her toward Ann. She turned a fierce face toward him, and with a start, he realized that she was not as decrepit as he had thought, but still vigorous, still strong. He had knocked the torch from her hands. She tried to reach for it, but someone kicked it aside as the sailors grabbed her and pulled her back.

Kong's lunge came so suddenly that no one could react. He seized a sailor, lifted him high, and dashed him to death. The crewmen fell back as Denham, holding two bombs, fairly danced in a frustrated effort to find a vantage point.

The sailors retreated, seeking the cover of the native huts. The islanders themselves scattered, shrieking, “Kong! Kong!” in wild dismay.

Driscoll realized that they had left Denham alone. He barked, “You men get Ann to the boats. I'm going to help Denham. Somebody give me a couple of those bombs!” Morgan thrust two of the corrugated iron spheres into his hands, and Driscoll yelled, “Go! Don't let him see her!”

The ancient witch doctor tottered forth, shrieking at Kong, who cruelly crushed him like an ant before seizing the lifeless body, biting it in two, and dropping the bloody fragments. Kong tore the roof off one hut, examined the scattered ruins, and smashed the next one as the islanders fled. Hunting, Driscoll thought. Hunting for Ann!

One after the other, Kong snatched unfortunate natives from their shelters. Massacre followed, raging, insensate massacre.

A high angry voice, a woman's voice, screaming. The old woman—the sailors were forcing her to the beach, along with Ann, but she gave them away with her shouts. Kong's head jerked up, and he set off after the retreating sailors in a spraddling run.

“Come on!” Driscoll yelled to Denham. They leaped fallen masonry, dodged among the houses, barely keeping pace with the enraged Kong. The sailors had reached the boats, and they were piling in, but the old woman stubbornly fought them, tearing free, turning to face the onrushing Kong with her hands upraised. She shouted something in the island tongue, over and over—

Incredibly, Kong paused. The hesitation gave a winded Driscoll and Denham time to draw close.

“Hey, Kong!” Denham yelled. The heavy head swung around, the eyes burning with fury. Kong's lips writhed away from his teeth as he turned to lunge for them.

Driscoll saw Denham draw back his arm and yelled, “Cover your faces! Down, everybody!”

Denham threw his first bomb.

It landed almost at Kong's feet. A billow of choking vapor burst from it, washed over the great dark form of Kong. The moonlight silvered the smoke. Kong roared and burst from the fog like a nightmare.

Denham danced back and hurled the second bomb. The bomb struck a few feet in front of the lumbering Kong, billowed out its gas, and Kong's impetus took him into the spreading cloud. His deep roar broke into a spasmodic cough, and Kong staggered through the smoke, unsteady on his feet.

“What did I tell you?” Denham exulted. “Got another one, Jack? Toss it to me!”

Driscoll handed it over and stared unbelieving. Kong swayed, wiping his streaming eyes. Denham walked to within mere feet of him and threw the bomb, then ran back to escape the fumes.

The missile struck Kong on the chest, burst open, and the liquid inside soaked Kong, fuming into streamers of gas that he could not escape. Kong feebly growled, struggled on for a step, two, swayed, and then crashed to the earth with a sound like a stout tree falling.