Kong: The Devil's Rebirth

The ship 'The Warlock' slowly ploughed to the vast spread of fog not far in front of them. On the decks below the level of movement was striking in sheer contrast to the stillness of the twitching trio above - that is, Ed Denham, Ann Redman and Officer John Driscoll.



Scrambling about, Ann could just make out the issue: the anchor seemed to not be releasing. If they went into the fog, it would be impossible to drive, no matter what level of experience the Skipper had. It was THIS, she decided to herself, that had made the supposed "island" through that fog undiscovered all this time. No sane person would purposely venture into that fog.



In the computer room, they read the depth. A messenger ran out and screamed at the wheelhouse:



"Captain, there is no sign of shallowing waters in 50 miles of here! Just fog covering blank waters."



Cap'n Englehorn gave a mad 'I told you so' glare down at Denham - who in return clenched his teeth and, pouring with sweat, hit the railing with his staff, kicking a bunch of Charley Chang's potato crates over.



"JESUS CHRIST!", Denham roared.



Officer Driscoll rolled his eyes and sighed. "You really should calm down, Denham. Or get a pair of underpants with this relatively new thing called 'elastic'," said he in his typical sarcastic swagger.



"I suggest you shut the hell up, 'Jack'...John...whatever the hell your name is now."



"You always jump at the chance of referencing my time behind those bars of yours."



"Oh, so they're my bars now, hey?"



"Actually, you're right, they can't be. The metal's too tough."



Back on the side of the ship, the anchor was at last pulled down, just before the fog bank - oh how it glowed blue on that full mooned Halloween night.



But they were not safe in the slightest from this haze demon, for lo! the wisps of fog began to close in on the ship, as if they were fingers pulling the ship into it's Satanic grasp. The ship was not moving an inch, however, the haze demon sure was convincing in making it look like it.



By the time they knew it, they were deep into the fog...deep enough, that, at turning glance, no darkness of night could be seen, nor moon's shimmering shammer upon the oily deep.



At once, all the sailors hurried below deck, bringing back up the yachts by means of a crane, where there on the side of the ship they began to load them up. From about seven o'clock in the evening to eight o'clock at night the odd storage bulk of these little sailing yachts came to fruition. Englehorn, Denham, Driscoll and Redman and about two others hopped on yacht one, Driscoll driving it, and Briggs, Loompie, Charley Chang, Wally and several others hopped on board the other.



By the time they knew it, they were sailing off to...nothing, really. Oh! Ha! Ridiculous in concept, but really quite important - unless you are one that considers the future of civilised society to not be important, in which case this piece is not for you.



Moving on...



I have a question. Is it uncomplicated to find the end of endlessness? Can a fog bank become clear? Do the wisps of haze demons hide masses of land, or is that getting too close to fate? If fate is the answer to all of these questions, then is that not breaking fate itself? The fate of answering through sudden action, not progression.



It seemed like days had gone by since sailing into the fog. Their watches told a different story, however, the story of just under two hours.



"This triple-damned fog," Denham choked. "Are you sure of your position Skipper?". Denham seemed as stiff as a log, as enveloped by stress and the foreboding as the yacht was by the cloud.



"Of course." Englehorn didn't seem entirely sure, but he offered confirmation to Denham, as false as it may have been. "Early this morning, before the wisps were even visible by telescope, I calculated the location perfectly on the computers there. I believe the position I marked as two-south ninety-east was situated where the fog began, but I'm not entirely sure."



As if Denham wasn't panting enough, Driscoll had to add onto his fears, per usual.



"If we don't see it when this fog lifts, we'll never see it," spoke he. We've quartered these parts. Either we're on top of it or we've found deep blue sea where it should be."



Denham grasped his chest and fell over, Ann, Skipper and the others attending to him. Driscoll just stood gliding the sails forward the same way and gave the sliest of grins, his grin growing even wider as he saw Skipper shaking his head at him.



Captain Englehorn just sighed a sea of built up frustrations at the constant recklessness of his First Mate."Be careful what you say, man. You know Denham's condition, yet you never cease with this nonsense. It's like you do it on purpose. Why? Why do you like hurting people so?".



Driscoll showed no regrets. "I do because I do, that's all you need to know, Skipper."



As the rest of the group helped Denham up onto his own two feet, they appeared to freeze.



"So are you going to reply or are you too asshole, Skipper?"



Englehorn slammed his hand over Driscoll's mouth and pulled him near, the yacht just gliding in the wind without it's driver.



"Do you hear that?", begged the Skipper.



Driscoll shook his head. "I hear noth-- hang on. As a matter of fact, I do believe I hear something."



They all stood there like ghosts clothed by Death, as the disturbing call of what sounded like twenty-foot waves smashing into rocks echoed all around them. The wind howled through the wisps of the Haze Demon, all nature's elements angry at it's intruders.



From the other yacht, came screams.



"Breakers ahead!" roared one.



The yolk of pandemonium split as everyone darted about trying to turn the yachts around. But it was too late. The fog began to thin more and more by the second.



The echoes of the crashing fuelled the beating of their hearts as certain death became imminent. The surf became stronger and stronger, the freezing cold salty sea spray causing definite pneumonia.



Ann abruptly grabbed the horn in frustration and blew it. Silence came over the yachts. There she listened intently on the beating, and like sheep following a shepherd, everyone joined in.



There as the icy breeze blew on their dry salty skin, they all came to a blood curdling revelation. Ann broke the human silence.



"That's not breakers," whispered she. "That's drums."



It was like she had spoken a sacred sentence, an 'open sesame' to nature, as that split second she uttered it, they left the grasp of the fog. There in front of them, lay Skull Mountain Island.



First and foremost was a great reef, with what appeared to be a man-made gap right through the centre of it, a lagoon leading right up to two huge cliffs and sheer precipice hundreds of feet high, with little homes etched into the rock, something you'd see in Petra. The figures of warriors could be seen standing all along them, acting like watchmen of the watchtowers, guarding what towered above them. For through this threshold was a sandy beach, above it, another great threshold - a great wall, surrounding a tiny little area in it's circular guard. Giving access to those allowed through the wall, was a wooden gate of elephantine proportions - a giant bolt going across it, native guards standing up the top with bowls of grease, assumingly to open the gates only to those who may enter the Cult Village.



The rest of this nightmarish, truly other-worldly island was unfathomable forest and haunted jungles deep into the island's heart, till it went uphill, uphill so high, that mountains stood bold, Titans guarding their Metropolis - like Zeus guarding Rome, Re guarding Egypt.



The tallest of these, resembled a strange skeletal face, a skull, bearing terrible similarities to the Haunting face of Edvard Munch's iconic magnum opus, that eccentric nightmare of paint which is entitled 'The Scream'.



The night was dark, but also strangely light. If they hadn't known better, they would have been convinced it was the early hours of sun-up. How was this? It was the strange globe of fog or cloud or something...vapour. That's all they knew. The luminaries, the stars, the moon, were merely beaming yellow glows, blurred, smudged; the darkness of the night sky completely invisible. At last they knew why these islands been called Vapour Islands by so many persons.



And so the legend became truth.



Getting past the cliffs would present a problem. As they made their way through the reef, they were sure the warriors spotted them. There is a chance they had gone through the reef unseen, but neither of them forgot that deep, devilish stare that one stocky clown-masked warrior gave them.



Driscoll turned the yacht to the reef and landed it against one of the rocks, then stepped down next to his colleagues on the bow of the little yacht. The folks in the other yacht did the same.



"The best way," Driscoll decided with his group, "is to abandon the yachts here on the reef and swim the way."



Denham shook his head and rose up to Driscoll.



"But Ann can't swim, nor can my camera," protested he.



"And besides," growled Englehorn, "you know it's impossible to carry all these weapons whilst swimming, 'turns men into stones."



"And boy do we need weapons with folk like them natives," Wally yelled out from the other yacht. His group had been listening in the whole time, it seemed.



Driscoll was deep in thought. After a few minutes, he stood and spoke his idea to the entire group.



"Tarpaulin. Ann, you need to get under a tarpaulin and lay here. I assume everyone else can swim, yes?"



Every single person in the party nodded.



"Swell then!", Driscoll continued. "We'll keep Ann AND our stuff on these boats. We'll paddle behind and push. So, if all goes to plan, we can get to those cliffs without being spotted. The warriors will see the "empty" yachts and think nothing of it...at least they shan't."



Später.



The "empty" yachts floated upon the high waves, both of aim but worked splendidly to seem aimless.



As the native warriors looked down from their cliff-homes, they spotted the two "empty" yachts as they floated towards the bases of both cliffs. Indeed seeing it was "empty", they shook their feral heads, stamped their spears on the ground and carried on, guarding, thinking nothing of it. It seems they weren't smart enough to sense they were being tricked - a most daft tribe, like most native tribes are - and it is through this knowledge that the white men tricked the blacks.



It was an eerie page in history. The first yacht went up against the shore - or rather, crude slope - at the bottom of the left cliff, and the second to the right cliff's shore.



Keeping well hidden, the pushers of both yachts left their positions behind the vessels in the water, and onboard. Driscoll lifted the tarpaulin up to let Ann out, but she was just laying there, shaking and seizuring and moaning, as if she were possessed, her eyes rolled back deep into her head. The party of the first yacht fell into a panic, trying to help Ann. Red marks, like burns, began to form on her neck and her chest, as if she were being strangled by invisible hands. An audible series of THUMPS was heard, as Ann's face went side to side, a blood nose and a bruised cheek morphing. Before the "beating" could go on any further, both Driscoll and Denham gathered a bundle of wet, salty kelp in a most competitive manner, throwing the odd vegetation at Ann's head and neck. She surely came out of her state of paralysis, the breathtaking sting of the kelp forcing her up so abruptly, a weird, zombie-like sitting position. She slowly turned her head to the side, to her rescuers.



Driscoll at her side, Ann managed to find words at long last, floating off her tongue and hovering off her lips. One sentence, one chillingly punctuated sentence may I add:



"The Hag, 'twas The Hag."



She fell into Driscoll's strong, protective arms, crying a river.



Ann spoke again, through her sobs "Oh Jack, I wish to never fall asleep again. Don't make me lay down any further."



"And nor shall you, my sweet," Driscoll replied softly. He turned, glared at the men, and ordered them around per usual. "Send off the flares, dogs!", barked he who seemed to know no better.



And so they did just this, sending off the flares, not just a sign for the other party to do the same, but an occurrence of deep spiritual meaning for the black men, the clamouring clang and colour sending them to their knees, looking up at the sky.



The savages spoke the following words with much reverence: "Rama Kong."



And so the blacks were distracted, giving go for the whites to hop into their yachts and venture off into the second threshold. It was no secret, however, that even through such triumphs, the shadow of Ann's demonic struggle was cast upon the entire day, a shadow deep and dark and mighty big.



In what seemed like a jiffy, both parties found themselves being poured into the Lagoon of The Wall, and splashed onto a little beach to the side, behind the right cliff and just before the wall.



Denham was the first to land upon the beach, the first to land upon the soil of this island - soil virgin to white feet. As the rest took their first steps onto the shore, fit with cameras and gas bombs and rifles and such, all couldn't help but wonder if the storm that seemed to have only just begun was some sort of message from the gods, telling them to draw back. At one stage, Denham turned white.



Loompie Brown laughed and wandered over next to him. "Ye look as if ye been seein' a ghost, Mistah."



Denham, barely being able to find the words, replied as well as he could. "Maybe I did," spoke he, pointing to a spot in the trees.



All looked, all saw, that big black thing moving about in the jungle. Grunting. Nestling behind thick foliage. Just two red beams for eyes, like flashlights through the fog, strobes projecting upon the expedition a blood red film. And then it was gone.



Terror-stricken and faint, Ann literally flew into Driscoll's arms. Tears streamed down her cheeks - distraught, chilled to the bone. "What was that!? What was that!?", squealed she.



The crowd began to murmur. "Was it a man?", some said. "A giant!", roared others. "Nephilim!", boomed the religious, and crossed themselves.



Denham moved to the front of them, eyes piercing forward with a contrasting and conflicting sense of shade - horror - and light - determination. Whatever he photographs, in motion or still, will change man's idea of evolution. "Keep those rifles cocked boys, and pass me that silly little thang o' mine."



Denham took his funny little movie camera from his "boy's", also taking an ugly box that Denham called 'Box Brownie'; apparently it could take pictures, or something like. The sailors and guards, for one, knew nothing of it - nor did they need to. Their job was strictly to carry the stuff, and to take care in doing so - they knew from experience what happens to their heads if they drop one.



Into the jungle - the Devil's Jungle - they marched. And they all knew well that in Hell, all that'll happen to you is bacon.



There was something odd about Denham's movie camera. 'Twas small and had a trigger, like a gun. Darrow couldn't help but wonder to herself if it was a thing intentionally humourous, what, with it's gun-like appearance and it's trigger to "shoot".