Return to Skull Island (13 page)
Read Return to Skull Island Online
Authors: Ron Miller,Darrell Funk
The sky was pink with dawn when we spotted the clearing ahead. It was maybe three or four acres in extent, with the altar in the center. To our left was the gigantic door. It looked like it should have been able to stop a battleship . . . but it had proved to be no match for a lovelorn gorilla. It was a wreck now: timbers the size of those giant trees in California were scattered in the gateway, shattered and splintered like so much kindling. This kind of puzzled me, so I clambered over the pile of debris and looked into where the native village had been.
There was nothing but devastation. Kong had gone on a rampage before we’d gassed him, and had stomped any number of grass huts—and natives—into the ground. But there’d been people left when we’d taken Kong away—and there was no one there now. The village was as silent as a graveyard, and just as deserted. By the living at least.
Pat and Andrews scrambled up beside me.
“Holy cow!” Pat said. “Kong did this?”
“Not all of it,” I said. “At least, I mean, he didn’t kill all the natives. I don’t know where they went.”
“Probably had enough of the place,” Andrews said.
“But where would they go?” Pat asked. “We’re thousands of miles from anywhere.”
“They probably didn’t know themselves, so long as this island was behind them. For untold generations they had thought they had their god under control. It must have been a rude shock when they discovered how wrong they were.”
“But where did they
go?
”
“I have a feeling they didn’t go anywhere. That wall kept back more than Kong.”
“Oh,” she said in a small voice. “I think I see what you mean.”
“I’m interested in this wall,” Andrews said as he climbed down from the remains of the giant door. “Look at these carvings.”
I’d never noticed them before, but then, I’d had other things on my mind the last time I’d been in the neighborhood. I couldn’t quite make heads or tails of them, largely because of their scale. I had to back away a hundred paces just to take them in. They reminded me of the enormous statuary and bas reliefs that decorate some of the Egyptian ruins I’ve seen, where everything is on a scale that would shame Zeigfeld.
“There are a couple of things,” Andrews was saying, “that intrigue me about all this. You know, of course, there are vast megalithic stone structures on a few Pacific islands. For instance, the great stone city of Nan Madol on Pohnpei and hints of a cyclopean stone structure off the coast of Japan bigger than anything anyone has seen—but this wall dwarfs anything I’ve ever even heard of. Look at those blocks! Some of them are the size of small houses! The Egyptians and Aztec were masters at manipulating massive blocks of stone, to say nothing of the ancient builders of Stonehenge, but this would have been beyond even their best engineers.”
“And the other thing?” Pat asked.
“These carvings. There’s a story here, I know it. If I could only see the entire continuity . . .”
“Well,” I said, “we’re safe enough here and we need some rest. We might as well camp for a spell and have something to eat.”
“You think it’d be safe to have a fire?” Andrews asked.
“It doesn’t matter,” Pat replied. “I brought a little alcohol stove.”
While Pat and I made coffee and something hot to eat, Andrews went over every inch of the wall, scrutinizing its surface with his binoculars. He even made his way through the ruined gate and examined the far side.
When he finally returned to where Pat and I were lounging on the pedestal of the altar, I could see the excitement in his face. She handed him a cup of hot coffee as he sat down heavily, with a sigh of exhaustion and contentment.
“Had you noticed, Carl,” he said, “that there are no carvings or even decorations on the village side of the wall? It’s just a cliff of unadorned stone?”
“I can’t say I did.”
“I found it very curious that all of the imagery is on this side, the side facing toward the interior.”
“So?”
“If the natives—or more likely, their distant ancestors—built the wall, why not decorate the side on which they lived? The side they would have seen every day?”
“Beats me.”
“Another thing. As near as I can figure from what remains of the carvings—and the degree to which such a hard stone has degraded only speaks for the immense antiquity of this structure—leads me to believe that the wall was not built to keep something away from the village.”
“I don’t get it. What are you talking about?”
“Well, it would seem that it was built not to keep the dinosaurs and other monsters
in
but the rest of the world
out
.”
“I don’t get it.”
“The fact that the carvings and inscriptions—in what primal language I don’t know—are all on this side, what we had been taking for the outside, suggests that they were placed there not only for the benefit of the civilization that occupied the bulk of the island but
by
that civilization.”
“You mean whoever built that wall did it to keep the natives out?”
“That’s what it looks like.”
“That’s crazy. Those poor people were totally helpless. All they had were stone-tipped spears. They couldn’t possibly have been a threat to anyone. Certainly not anyone capable of building
that
thing.”
“It’s a mystery to me, too. But there
are
those vast structures in the Pacific I spoke of, to say nothing of similar cyclopean artifacts elsewhere in the world. No one knows who built them, how or when. For my part, I believe they tie in with eons-old legends of a race of ‘Old Ones’ that were once supposed to inhabit this globe, millions of years before humankind appeared.”
“You’ve been reading too much Lovecraft.”
“Don’t laugh. He may have known more than you think.”
While we had our coffee and something to eat, I told them what I had been thinking by way of a plan.
“It’s not much, but here it is for all it’s worth. This wall runs entirely across the peninsula. At the further end, cliffs come nearly to the wall itself. With the sea on the west, this gives us natural barriers on three sides.”
With a stick I sketched a map of the peninsula and the wall in the dirt.
“The only access to us the Japs would have would be from the direction we’ve come and, frankly, I don’t think they’ll bother. They’ll have their hands plenty full as it is. But there’d be nothing stopping us from acting as a three-man guerilla unit.”
“Like the resistance fighters we met in China,” Pat said.
“Exactly! We can keep up a program of sabotage until something turns up. Nothing big, just enough to keep the Japs delayed. The fact that they have neither Roy nor me is going to be a big handicap. They were counting on our experience and expertise.
“And don’t forget Frank,” Pat added. “If he was able to make his way to the Dutch or British authorities . . .”
“If he’s even alive,” Andrews interrupted. “We’re only assuming he made an escape during the pirate attack. For all we know for sure, he might have been killed and fallen overboard.”
“I think someone would have seen that.”
“Well, until we know otherwise,” I added, “let’s think positively.”
We decided to start out toward the end of the afternoon, figuring we’d be least likely to run into any of the island’s hungrier denizens then. We also had some hope that the animals might give a wide berth to the wall and stick to the denser woodland that stretched away from it.
Fortunately, the clearing seemed to extend west, with only a hundred yards of brush and grass between the wall and the forest to our right. I told Pat it looked like pretty smooth sailing, but I spoke too soon.
We had been hiking for no more than fifteen minutes when there was a sound from the jungle that froze me solid. I don’t know how the others reacted, but I’d heard that horrible roar before and I knew what it meant. It was like a cross between every tiger and lion on the planet and a steam calliope.
“Good God!” said Andrews. “What in the world is
that
?”
“I’m afraid we’re about to find out,” replied Pat, instinctively unshipping her rifle from her shoulder and making sure there was a cartridge in the chamber.
There was no need for me to explain. The monster that leaped from the forest took care of that. I recognized it as a Tyrannosaurus rex (I’d learned something about dinosaurs since my last visit). It was absolutely the most horrifying thing to ever walk this planet—and there one was, not three hundred feet away, panting like a steam engine. The thing stood at least twelve feet tall on a pair of hugely muscular legs, and must have stretched fully forty feet from the tip of its tail to a gaping maw that seemed to be nothing but teeth. Its two forelegs looked pitifully—even comically—small, but I knew that in fact they were immensely powerful and were each equipped with a pair of scimitar-like talons. The creature took one step forward and I could feel the ground shake under its seven tons of muscle.
Without a word passing between us, we began to slowly back up toward the wall. I was sure the same hope was passing through their heads as was passing through my own: that we were too small to be worth the effort of eating. But I was counting too much on a reptile brain. I’d learned that dinosaurs were not known for their intelligence. It’s one of the explanations of why they were so hard to kill: they’re so stupid it takes their walnut-sized brains several minutes to realize they’re dead. And they can do a lot of damage during those few minutes. The tyrannosaurus took another earth-shaking step forward, dispelling all notions I might have been harboring of not being even an
hors d’oeuvre
. The thing obviously was looking for a mid-morning snack. It leaned forward and locked its snaky red eyes on us. Even at ten yards I could feel the moist heat of its breath.
We’d retreated until we’d backed up against the wall. There was nowhere else we could go. Andrews had gone dead white. At the monster’s next step forward, he passed out cold. Pat, I saw, seemed to be hypnotized. She still had the rifle in her hands yet didn’t seem to realize it was there. I think somewhere in her head she knew the uselessness of shooting the creature. It would have been as futile as throwing snowballs at it. It would have been an act of desperation and she never acted desperately, even with death literally breathing in her face.
The monster swung its massive head from Pat and the prostrate scientist to me. It took another step forward and leaned forward until only a few feet separated it’s face from my own. Its cavernous nostrils sucked in air once, twice. Then it suddenly leaned back and said, “Carl Denham! Whatever in the world are
you
doing back
here
?”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The dinosaur invited us to its home for dinner that evening. We were introduced to its mate who proudly and blushingly showed us a clutch of ten or twelve eggs, each the size of a cantaloupe. Pat, Andrews and I clucked our tongues and cooed in admiration and the huge lizard (she was larger than the male) practically quivered with pleasure.
Andrews still seemed a little stunned but Pat, after her initial shock, seemed charmed by the hospitality of our unexpected hosts. She had gone around the cave, admiring its various furnishings and making appreciative remarks about details that I suppose only a woman would notice. It pleased the dinosaurs immensely, though they shyly hid their pleasure behind demurring remarks.
“Oh, do you really like that?” said Mrs. Rex. “It’s just a little something I picked up the other day. Do you
really
think it adds just that little touch of picturesque charm to the room? You are
much
too kind!”
“Say,” said the male, “would either of you fellows like a little pick-me-up? I know I sure could use one after a day like this has been.”
The thing waddled over to an alcove from where it retrieved an enormous skin. It was probably that of some prehistoric buffalo or giant ground sloth. In any case, it was nearly as large as an automobile. The thing was nearly spherical, filled as it was with whatever a Tyrannosaurus rex drank for fun. The monster didn’t have any human-sized cups, but we were each equipped with a mess kit we’d swiped from the Japs and held out the tin cups to be filled.
It smelled OK and seemed to be made of some sort of fermented berry. I took a tentative sip. I’d had bathtub gin that was one hundred percent raw alcohol . . . and this stuff would have taken the enamel off the bathtub. I finally managed to get my breath through a throat that had been reduced to raw flesh.
“Smooth,” I said carefully, afraid I’d be coughing up blood.
Andrews was still unable to speak. But professors are kind of soft.
“Well,” said the Tyrannosaurus rex as it settled back on its tail, like a kangaroo, “whatever brings you back to these parts?”
Between the three of us, we put together a fairly coherent story.
“This is pretty bad news,” the dinosaur concluded. “Look here. Everyone here really owes you a big favor, Carl. We ought to help you out.”
“What favor? Whatever did I do for you?”
“Good heavens! You got rid of that filthy ape, for one thing! It’d been the bane of our lives for goodness knows how long. On your last visit here, my late brother figured out what you were after and did everything he could to help you out . . .”
“Help?” For the life of me I couldn’t figure out when I’d gotten any help from a Tyrannosaurus rex.
“Sure! You remember! When that big lug of an ape had your girl? My brother tried to rescue her but—” the dinosaur bit back a tear “—he lost his life in the effort.”
“I, ah, I really appreciate what he tried to do,” I said. “I wish I’d had the chance to thank his, ah, family.”
“You got rid of that damned monkey once and for all, so that was thanks enough, I assure you. We’ve all been wishing we could have shown our appreciation, but you were gone before we had a chance. So you can just imagine my delight at seeing you this afternoon!”
“It certainly was a surprise.”
“When you say ‘we’,” asked Pat, “just who are you talking about?”
“The rest of the population of the island. You’ll get to meet some of them soon enough. I daresay they’ll be no less thrilled to meet you than I was.”
“If you’ll pardon me,” she said, “I have no intention of being rude, but how is that you are—well, so civilized? I mean, I had no idea that dinosaurs could speak. Let alone,” she added, “prepare such a delicious beverage.”
“Oh, goodness! No offense taken! I can understand your confusion perfectly! You see, you have no doubt gotten your impression of us from history books. But those are only about the dinosaurs that existed tens of millions of years ago. Why, at that time, your ancestors were little more than tiny rat-sized pests, always getting under foot.”
“
Ahem
!” admonished Mrs. Rex.
“Oh dear! No offense meant, of course!”
“None taken, I assure you.”
“You are too gracious. Let’s see . . . yes. Just as your species evolved over millions of years from those miniature, ah, creatures, so did we. That is, we continued to evolve from the primitive dinosaurs of that time. Isolated as we were on this island, there was nothing from stopping us from advancing just your species did. And so here we are!”
“I’m amazed.”
“While I’m delighted to see Carl again, and perhaps even more delighted to meet such charming friends of his as you two, I’m also sorry to hear of the circumstances that brought you here.”
“You mean the Japanese?”
“Yes. I’m afraid their schemes seem to bode well for no one, not for you, not for me and not for our plans.”
“Your plans?”
“Oh, yes! I must tell you about those! But perhaps that should wait for the morning, when I can show you. That will make things much clearer.”
“What I don’t get,” said Pat, “is how you speak English.”
“Oddly enough,” the monster replied, “I’ve been wondering how you speak Dinosaur.”
“I have just one question,” asked Andrews. “That wall. Did you build it?”
“Oh, yes, indeed! We felt a need to protect ourselves from the, ah, more primitive specimens of your species. We enjoyed our isolation here. It’s safe and we were happy. We hoped that by constructing the wall, we could discourage an unwanted nuisance. We knew the villagers were terrified of us, and they appreciated the barrier as much as we did. It was not until that horrible ape appeared that everything began to go wrong. For one thing, Kong perverted the natives’ fear of the wall, exploiting it for its own nefarious purposes.”
“So you, I take it, are the ‘Old Ones’ so many legends speak of?”
“I suppose we are.”
“Do you know if there were colonies of your, um, kind elsewhere? As I was telling Carl and Miss Wildman, there are several huge stone ruins scattered around the globe for which there’s been no explanation.”
“Oh, yes, those were ours. Or, perhaps I should say, they were our ancestor’s. You see, we were once much more prolific than we are now. There were colonies of us scattered here and there all over the planet. Alas, we are the last of our kind, here on this tiny island.”
Fearing they were tiring us, our gracious hosts deferred any more questions until the morning. They showed us to some cozy crevices which were just the right scale for humans. We had brought blankets with us, so with a few armloads of dried grass, we were able to make snug beds for ourselves. Wishing us a good night, they extinguished their oil lamps and retired.
I wanted very much to talk to Pat and Andrews, but within minutes I heard snores from their alcoves and before I knew it I was unconscious, too. I had dreams I’d just as soon forget.
The next morning, the Rexes (I had no idea what else to call them since they didn’t seem to go in for given names) had breakfast waiting for us. Knowing the omnivorous habits of humans, they had been thoughtful enough to have gathered some fruit for us in addition to the slabs of meat they’d set out on platters. I was grateful for this. Although the dinosaurs cooked their food, they liked it rare and a couple of pounds of bleeding meat was a bit much to face at dawn.
Conversation quickly turned to the problem presented by the Jap presence on the island. The Rexes were worried about what this meant. I assured them that their concerns were justified.
“You’ve never faced anything like the threat they present,” I said. “They have weapons against which you’d be powerless.”
“What can we do?” asked the dinosaurs as they wrung their tiny hands.
“The first thing,” said Andrews, “is to try to discover exactly what the Japs are doing. There may be some way to sabotage or at least delay their plans.” He then told the Rexes of our hope—however far-fetched it might be—for a friend who might be bringing help.
“But you said that no one but Mr. Denham knows where this island is,” protested Mr. Rex.
“True,” Andrews said, “but the Japanese have powerful radio equipment. It might be possible for one of us to get a message through to either Indonesia, India or Africa. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about this morning, Carl.”
“I know how to operate a radio,” Pat said.
“True enough, but as a woman you’d stand out like a sore thumb. I’ve plenty of experience in radio and I know the Jap lingo, besides—well enough to get by, at least. And I could easily mingle with the
Venture’s
crew. The boys know me and would give me cover. I suspect we look as much alike to the Japs as they do to us. I could learn a lot that way.”
“But this means sneaking back on board the ship,” I protested. “Getting off was pushing our luck . . .”
“I don’t figure to. I think Ito’s probably going to bring some radio equipment onto the island. That way he won’t have to keep shuttling back and forth every time he wants to send a report to Tokyo. Besides, he can get a transmitter to higher ground ashore, which would give him more range.”
I was in no position to argue with him. I neither knew how to operate a radio nor a word of Japanese. Pat gave a half-hearted argument, but it was just for show. She obviously knew all along he was right, though it probably irked her.
“It’d be better if the two of you stayed here anyway,” Andrews said. “I suspect there’s a lot more to learn about these creatures than we have so far—and perhaps you can figure out some sort of defense in case worse comes to worst. You know this island better than Pat or me.”
The person who really knew the island was Jack Driscoll. He’d made it all the way to the top of Skull Mountain and back where I’d never gotten even halfway there. I’d been stumped when Kong knocked the log bridge into the gorge. But Jack was ten thousand miles away, married to Ann Darrow. But, among us three, I
did
know the island best. At least well enough be absolutely terrified of it.
For that reason I wasn’t keen on seeing Andrews retrace our path back to the ruined gate. First, because he’d be alone against a jungle full of monsters who might not be as friendly as the Rexes. Although Pat offered him her rifle, I didn’t put much confidence in it. Second, because the village side of the wall was probably swarming with Japs by now.
It was Rex came up with a much better idea.
Why not, he suggested, go along the top of the wall? Andrews would be all but invisible from that height and would have an excellent vantage point from which he could survey the Jap encampment before deciding where and when to descend. While the dinosaurs kept a broad space on their side of the wall clear of jungle growth, the natives had allowed vines, creepers and trees to grow up their side of the barrier. Many of these reached the parapet. Andrews would have no problem finding a way down. And the heavy foliage would easily hide his descent.
“I can see that,” he said, “but how do I get up in the first place? That’s a sheer stone cliff out there.”
The dinosaur told him that he’d already thought of that.
After breakfast, we followed the Rexes back to the wall. Once we got there, Mr. Rex gave a weird sort of piercing hoot. A moment later, a tremendous thumping and crashing was heard in the jungle and a monster that dwarfed even the tyrannosaurs came waddling of the forest. It looked as big as a battleship, with a neck that was a cross between a giraffe’s and a boa constrictor. It stood on four stumpy legs as massive as tree trunks.
“A brontosaurus, by God!” cried Andrews.
“Good morning,” said Mr. Rex.
“Good morning,” said the brontosaurus.
After introductions and an exchange of pleasantries, the brontosaurus agreed to Rex’s idea, which it apparently thought vastly amusing. It lowered its enormous head—as big as Rockefeller’s desk, but with surprisingly gentle, cow-like eyes—until its chin was resting on the ground in front of Andrews. The paleontologist climbed on top of the scaly skull, his legs straddling it like a cowboy on a hippopotamus. Pat and I handed him the rifle and a backpack of supplies.
“Ready now?” the monster asked.
“I am if you are,” Andrews replied.
“Hold on, please.”
The brontosaurus raised its sinuous neck until its nose was even with the top of the wall. Andrews carefully climbed off and waved to us to let us know he was OK. We waved back and he was off.
Pat and I turned to the tyrannosaurus who said, “You might as well come on back with me and get the rest of the story.”