Kong: Skull Island - The Official Movie Novelization

TWENTY-THREE

Packard led his men on the hunt for the beast. The fact that not all of them knew that was their mission troubled him a little, but not much. When the time came for him to reveal his intentions, none of his soldiers would object, because they had always followed him into hell, fire and damnation. They always would.

The civilians might not like it. But he was the man in charge, and they had no say. If they didn’t like his plan, they were free to leave and make their own way north.

They were all exhausted. The heat sucked energy out of them, soaking them with sweat, draining them of strength, but they forged on. Even Randa, older than the others and less fit, was quietly determined to keep up.

Packard led them, never for a moment letting them see his tiredness. Fury was his fuel. Revenge was his motivator.

When the ground shook, a tingle of anticipation shook him, but he thought, I’m not ready yet! If they faced the thing now they would lose. He didn’t care whether he lived or died—he was hardly thinking of his own well-being, let alone the others in his command—but he did care that the monster died. That was all that mattered in his life.

The beast appeared.

Packard waved everyone down under the trees and behind undergrowth. The giant ape stepped out before them, standing at the edge of the sweeping descent into a wide valley.

He was the size of a mountain. Packard had not been this close before, and he feared the monster might sense his hatred, turn and see him, trample him and his men down into the dirt. He tried to hold it in but it burned, seething behind his eyes and scorching his muscles, urging him to charge shooting and shouting.

I’ll bide my time, Packard thought. I’ll have you, you bastard. Just not yet.

The ape looked down at his feet, examining something on the ground close to where Packard and his group had taken cover. Then Packard saw what it was.

Tracks on the hillside. Deep clawed marks, scratched into the ground by something almost as huge.

The ape snorted and came closer, bending to sniff at the ground. It stood again and followed the tracks to the edge of the valley, pausing for only a moment before performing one huge leap from the ridge line.

Packard ran, leaping over the tracks in the ground and reaching the valley edge in time to see the ape streaking down the side. It held onto trees, swinging its massive weight left and right with a grace that even Packard could not help admiring. It seemed to defy gravity as it descended further down the cliffside, dislodging a pile of boulders that roared down into the darkness.

It paused as quickly as it had begun, crouching low over a crevasse in the ground. Sniffing. Probing with its massive hands.

The ape bellowed, long and loud, looking around as if to find the perpetrators of this carnage.

Packard thought it was one of the seismic charge craters, but there was something else beside it.

The ape stood and edged around a rocky outcropping nearby, bracing its back against the tower and grunting as it started to heave. Its muscles rippled beneath thick fur, chest expanding, and slowly the tower began to topple. The sound was unbelievable, an earthquake echoing back and forth across the valley, as the mountain of rocks tumbled into the crater and the deeper crevasse that had opened beside it.

Sealing something in, Packard thought, and he looked back at the footprints the ape had been examining. He didn’t want to know what had made them.

Several loud detonations from down in the valley jerked his head around again, and for a second he thought perhaps one of the choppers had survived after all, and was even now unleashing hell upon the monster. But the sounds came from the monster itself. It thumped its chest, a deep bass rumble that shook trees and reverberated around the valley. Then it started rushing away from them again, pausing now and then to check something at its feet.

Following a trail.

“Let’s move out,” Packard said. “Next time it might not miss us.”

Next time, we’ll be bringing the fight to it.

There were no more giant squids or river serpents. Sometimes Weaver saw shapes in the water, but they quickly passed them by. She knew that here, even the appearance of safety was only a facade. Death waited for them beneath every surface.

Following the river upstream led them into a wide marshland, the single route dividing into a dozen tributaries and making navigation more of a case of trial and error. With Conrad steering, Weaver couldn’t tear herself away from the bow, because from there she saw everything. Birds she knew and some she did not. Flowers the size of armchairs blooming from lily pads as wide as the boat. Clouds of butterflies no larger than her thumb, flocking together and moving almost like one living creature. Her expertise had always been in conflict—or more accurately, humanity immersed in conflict—but Weaver was quite sure there were as many unclassified organisms here as there were known.

Marlow joined her at the bow. He had taken to strolling the deck of his boat, proud at what he and his friend had made. As he should be. It rattled and leaked, the engine frequently coughed and backfired, and Weaver was convinced that the vessel would fall apart within days, but it was still a marvel.

“So how long have you two been an item?” he asked. It was the last question Weaver had been expecting. She glanced back at Conrad and saw that he’d also heard.

“Eh?” he asked. “We’re not…”

“We just met yesterday,” Weaver said, saving him from embarrassment.

“Some first date,” Conrad said.

“I’ve got a wife,” Marlow said. “Had one, anyway. I guess I don’t really know which it is anymore. We got hitched just before I was deployed, and she sent me a telegram the day I was shot down. I received it two hours before I took off. She’d just had our baby boy, Hank Junior. I’ve got a son out there somewhere. A grown man I’ve never met, who thinks his father died thirty years ago.”

Marlow took out a photograph of his wife, delicate now with many years of handling. He held it in his palm and showed Weaver.

“Lemme ask you something, Weaver. Would you wait twenty-eight years for a fella?”

“She probably thinks you’re dead,” Slivko said from nearby. It was a harsh statement. Weaver glared at him and he shrugged and looked away.

“I don’t think so,” Conrad said. “People don’t give up like that. Mark my words, when you get home, they’ll be waiting.”

Marlow nodded at Conrad, then stared out over the water again. Weaver saw a perfect shot framed before her—Marlow, the man lost in time; the marshes and jungles, a land that time forgot. She left her camera where it was around her neck and gave him his moment.

“This big flood swallows up a town,” Marlow said. “Guy winds up on a roof, water up to his knees, his neighbours come by in a boat and say, ‘Hop in, we’ll get you outta here.’ The guy shakes his head and says, ‘No thanks, God will provide.’ An hour later and he’s up to his neck, when some firemen fly by in a blimp. One of them shouts, ‘Grab the rope, we’ll save you!’ But he shakes his head again and says, ‘No thanks, God will provide.’ An hour after that and the guy’s dead. When he gets to heaven, he’s pretty peeved at God for doing him like that. He says, ‘I believed in you, I had faith, but you didn’t help me!’ And God says, ‘Help you? I sent a boat and a blimp!’” Marlow laughed softly. “Truth is, I don’t expect them to be waiting. Wouldn’t blame them either way. All I want is one last chance to see ’em, hold ’em. To me, that’ll be as good as Heaven.”

“You will,” Weaver said. “We’re going to make sure of it.”

Silence fell across the boat, but it was almost immediately broken by the hiss of a radio.

“Fox Five, come in,” Mills said, voice crackling with static. “Is there anyone out there?”

Slivko dived for the radio and snatched it up.

“This is Fox Five, we hear you! We have a boat, we’re heading north upriver.”

“A boat?” Mills asked. “What kind of boat?”

Slivko looked around, eyes settling on Marlow. “It floats, let’s put it that way.”

“Roger that, Fox Five,” Packard said from the radio. “Sending up a visual from our current position. Stand by.”

They watched the skies. Weaver scanned the jungles to either side of the marshland through her telephoto lens, looking from left to right. She saw the flare the same moment as Nieves.

“There!” he shouted, pointing to the left and inland.

“We have visual!” Slivko said.

“Can’t get there on the boat,” Marlow said. “None of these tributaries goes that way.”

“Tell them to hold position,” Conrad said to Slivko, steering the boat in to shore. He left the helm and stood beside Weaver and Marlow on the bow. He was readying to move out.

“What’re you doing?” Weaver asked.

“I’ll go and bring them in. Keep the boat here, moored close to shore. Shouldn’t take me more than a couple of hours.”

“What if you…?” Weaver frowned. Something wrong, she thought. Something… The sun had faded. Silence had fallen. Even the movement of the air was strange.

For a split second, everyone froze.

Nieves screamed as a shape swooped down from the jungle canopy at the shore, ripped a taloned claw into his shoulder, and hauled him aloft with a single flap of huge wings.

“Get down!” Conrad shouted, but Weaver and Marlow were already dropping to the deck, Marlow drawing the katana sword.

Conrad and Slivko grabbed their rifles and started firing up into the canopy, their targets shadowy and uncertain. Weaver tried to make out just what had attacked them—she saw wings, claws, vicious beaks, all giving the image of giant vultures.

The thing holding Nieves was tangled in the canopy, and he was a pale struggling shape, hanging onto a branch as the thing flapped its huge wings and tried to drag him further. The gunfire continued, bullets ripping through leaves and tearing chunks from the trees. She feared that they’d end up shooting Nieves, but then he came apart. That was the only way she could describe what she saw. Part of him went one way, part another, and as the huge winged shape disappeared up through the canopy and away, something splashed into the water twenty feet from the boat.

“Stop shooting!” Marlow shouted. “Quiet!”

The gunfire ceased, echoing away into silence and stillness. Blood was spattered across the deck in several wide arcs. Some still dripped from the heavy leaves overhead.

“What the hell!” Slivko said. “He’s just…”

“Gone,” Conrad said. He kept his gun ready, cautious and alert.

Weaver could barely believe how quickly it had happened. One second here, the next ripped apart and taken away. A blink between life and death.

It could have been any of them.

“I need to get Packard and his team,” Conrad said, reloading his gun. “Get into the middle of the river and moor there, away from the jungle. I’ll be back as soon as I can and we’ll get out of here.”

“You want us to wait here?” Slivko said. “I don’t think so, man. I’m sticking with you.”

“Kid’s got a point,” Marlow said.

“Safety in numbers,” San said.

Conrad looked at Weaver, and she nodded. It made sense.

“All right,” he said. “Gear up. We’re leaving in two minutes.”

“Isn’t anyone going to say something?” Brooks asked. His voice was shaking, matching his hands. “You know, about…” He glanced skyward. Nobody spoke. Weaver guessed none of them had really known Nieves enough to give him a fitting eulogy.

“He seemed like a good administrator,” Marlow said at last.