Zombie Kong - Anthology (25 page)

He began his narration: “You are seeing some sort of giant, undead gorilla. I didn’t know about the
undead
bit until I ran into a few people here at this remote research station. I’ve already shot footage, demonstrating that these things can take a fatal amount of gunfire, and that a headshot is the only sure way to put one down. If you’ll take a look––” Brett zoomed in on the primate. There were huge rakes across its chest and a fatal slash across its throat. The wounds looked ancient; the meat was dry, no blood. “This bastard was in a fight. I’d hate to see what did that sort of damage to old Bonzo, there.”

The gorilla scuttled into the open area of the complex.

Brett paned up and down before zooming in on its face, making sure the filmed-over eyes could be plainly seen.

“There is no doubt that the people I showed you earlier suffer from the same disease,” Brett narrated.

10

Vic activated the pumps and made sure the plane was topped off.

He said, “So, Doctor Redding, you’re saying that that unknown
thing
is a prehistoric ancestor of the gorilla?”

Rachel nodded.

“And it became stranded in the Antarctic after the continents broke apart, then after years inside the ice, global warming set it free?”

“That’s a simple way of looking at it, yes. The sample found by the survey team likely holds the key to whatever is causing the dead to get up. It’s why the giant primate is not just another frozen sample, like that mammoth discovered a few years ago.”

“Huh?”

“Never mind,” Rachel shook her head. “I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, but when are we leaving? That thing is moving into the complex. Granted, it’s slow… but it won’t take long for it to reach us if it sees—”

A flash and a boom cut her off.

11

“You’ll notice that an RPG to the torso has left a hole.” Brett zoomed in. “Well… a nick, maybe. Like monkey-boy cut himself shaving. Still, if you’ll look… there’s no blood.”

A moaning howl made the ground vibrate.

Brett clicked off his camera.

Something had the monster’s attention, and it wasn’t Brett. It only took him a second to realize that its head had turned towards the airstrip. Grabbing his bag and stuffing the camera inside, Brett pulled his face-shield down and ran. He wasn’t concerned about outrunning the beast, but he didn’t want to hamper their chances of leaving. Besides, once Vic became airborne, he would flick the switch and the plate of ice they were standing on would be history. The giant beast would sink to the bottom of the ocean.

Brett ducked around a corner and sprinted up the corridor.

He was confident Vic would have everything done and be ready to go as soon as he reached the aircraft. As for that one dot… well… ‘Rachel Redding, biochemist’ wouldn’t survive the blast. If she did, she’d end up at the bottom of the ocean, too.

12

“We don’t have a choice,” Rachel insisted. “If that thing sees us, or smells us, or does whatever the hell it does… we don’t have time to wait for somebody who may or may not show up!”

“Ma’am, you don’t know Brett,” Vic interjected. He tossed the nozzle aside and placed the last device on the square painted on the giant storage tank. “He’ll be here any second.”

“I’ve been meaning to ask,” Rachel said suspiciously, “Just where exactly is your… friend?”

Pop.

Vic blinked, surprised.

A hole appeared in Rachel’s facemask. Darkness spread and a tendril of steam wafted out of the hole. Then the doctor’s knees buckled, and her body collapsed to the ground.

“Don’t stand there gawking!” Brett tucked his gun into its holster. “Let’s get this bitch in the air before it’s too late.”

Vic scrambled aboard and hurried through the preflight checks.

Brett stood in the hatch, watching the mountain of simian flesh draw near. He flipped open his tablet and glanced at the prone figure at the base of the ladder leading to the aircraft. He selected the dot, confirming what he was already almost certain of.

“Checks are done!” Vic announced.

Brett tugged the ladder, which also brought the top half of the hatch closed. He took his seat as the plane swung around and pointed its nose up the runway. The whine of the engines increased as the aircraft began to make its way up to speed. They endured a brief stomach lurch as the bounds of gravity were broken.

Brett looked out the oval window as he pulled a handheld device from his case. With the press of a few buttons, a flashing green light came on. Still watching, he typed in one last code. The rising ball of flame engulfed not only the giant ape, but the Athens complex, as well.

Funny
, Brett mused,
that thing didn’t look so big or scary from up here.

After one pass, it was clear that there was nothing left. The plane banked and headed away, leaving the glow of flames behind to vanish into the sea with everything else.

13

Two months later:

Brett scooped up his case. The board at DECC had summoned him once more. This time he had no intention of answering the call. He knew damned good and well what this was about.

Walking into his living room, the television was still on. The talking head doing her best to not look skeptical as she spoke.

“…appeared yesterday at Tierra del Fuego. While it is being described as a giant ape by witnesses, there seems to be something drastically—”

Click.

WILLIAM MEIKLE

The Dreams That Stuff Is Made Of

“Make it realistic,” they said. “This is 1953, not 1933.”

What they expected him to do with a three thousand dollar budget was a mystery to Doug Turner. Originally he had planned to do it in stop-motion, but the bean counters were having none of that.

“Harryhausen is finished,” they said. “Audiences want more realism. And make it big. People like big.”

After a bit of head scratching, he took them at their word. He even took the quest for realism a bit
too
literally. Buying forty gorilla pelts on the black market cost him nearly half his budget, plus some sleepless nights wondering whether the authorities would find out about the museum in Rhodesia that had been pilfered to fulfill his order when they came up short on live catches. Then he had to get the wardrobe people to work overtime to stitch it all together. He had to call in every favor in his book for that one.

By the time he’d organized a midnight raid into the country to steal enough straw to stuff the sewn skins, he was starting to feel more like a criminal than an FX specialist. And after three more days trying to get the head––and the mouth in particular, right, he was starting to feel like he should be
anything
other than an FX specialist.

But when, right on schedule, the bean-counters turned up to view the star of their new movie, Doug was sure they’d be impressed with the fifty-foot
monster
that stood on the soundstage.

He didn’t get the expected reaction.

They laughed.

Then they berated him, long and hard, for wasting their money. Doug was told in no uncertain terms that his future in the business depended on him getting it
sorted
. Quite how that was to be done was never mentioned, but they were most insistent on the matter.

Doug took to the bottle for the weekend.

* * *

Once he was sober, the situation looked no better. He was on the verge of walking away from the job completely when he had a visitor.

At first Doug was lost in his own reverie, staring at the sad sack of straw and hair that stood in the otherwise empty soundstage and wondering just how he’d ever convinced himself that it would work. It looked less like a monster than he’d hoped––more like an oversized stuffed toy. The eyes looked exactly like what they were; globes of plastic stuck on with glue, one slightly askew, giving the giant gorilla a comical squint. One of the false teeth he’d had mocked up out of papier-mâché had already fallen out, leaving a gap on the left hand side, and the bottom jaw hung open just a little
too
far, making the beast look more imbecilic than frightening.

He was on the verge of setting fire to it when a hand touched his shoulder. There was a small man at his side. His skin looked like old, polished leather that had been left to age, and he looked so thin as to be almost skeletal. But his blue eyes danced with life, and his laughter echoed loudly around the soundstage when he looked at the gorilla.

“So
this
is why my prize exhibit was stolen? I must say, it looks better here than in a museum.”

Doug was at a loss as to how to reply.

“I guess there’s no use denying it,” he finally said, resignedly. “How much do I owe you?”

The little man laughed again. It was so infectious that Doug couldn’t help but join him.

“Nothing,” the little man said. “As I said, it looks better here. But it would look even better in motion.”

Now it was Doug’s turn to laugh.

“That
would
be a good trick. Sadly, it is only a dream.”

The little man put a hand on Doug’s shoulder again.

“Then a dream it shall be. But you must dream through African eyes.”

Doug blinked.

* * *

He was surrounded by greenery, and rain pattered down to drum on leaves the size of dinner plates. He swung, fluid and effortless, through branches of tall trees, roaring his joy at life, at freedom.

* * *

Doug blinked again.

The stuffed gorilla had moved. It now no longer stood upright. It was bent over, knuckles balancing it in a pose that looked almost belligerent. The squint was gone. Even the gap in the teeth looked more
natural
. The fur seemed to bristle, as if ruffled by wind.

“What just happened?” Doug said.

The little man laughed again.

“You dreamt the African dream. The gorilla pelt from the museum wasn’t
just
a pelt. It was once a man, a great sorcerer and shape-changer. The pelt remembers. The pelt
dreams
––of past glories, and freedom.”

Doug laughed.

“That’s the best pitch I’ve heard in years. Seriously… what kind of whammy did you put on me?”

The little man showed Doug a smile. There was a gap in the top row that made the grin look lopsided.

“There is no
whammy
… just faith. Gorillas are made to be free. Watch and learn.”

The man started to hum; a deep bass vibration that rattled Doug’s teeth. He lifted an arm.

The gorilla responded.

A huge, hairy arm rose high above the gorilla’s head. The little man started to walk forward. The gorilla arose from the sitting position and walked across the soundstage. This was no thing of casing and straw. Muscles bunched beneath the skin, and although the pelts seemed to hang slackly off an emaciated body, there was more than enough animal power on display to send Doug shuffling backwards quickly, looking for the exit.

The gorilla stopped at exactly the same time as the small man who stood beneath its swollen belly, dwarfed by the upright creature. The man seemed unconcerned. He opened his arms wide, then slapped at his chest with his palms, a quick drum-roll. The gorilla followed suit, at the same time bellowing a roar of defiance across the soundstage.

Doug stopped being frightened. He was looking at a
gorilla
, but in his mind’s eye he was seeing the movie, the beast rising up out of thick jungle to terrorize a group of intrepid explorers.

This just might work.

He stood and moved to the small man’s side, trying to ignore the creature above them.

“Can you do that to order?” Doug said.

The little man smiled, showing the gap in his teeth.

So did the gorilla.

* * *

It took Doug a couple of days to set it up. He had to take out an overdraft to pay for the foliage he wanted, and even used up all the money in his wallet to get some extras onto the soundstage and primed.

During the whole two days, the stuffed gorilla sat in the corner of the soundstage, head bowed as if asleep. At times, Doug wondered whether he’d dreamed the whole earlier experience, or whether he was finally succumbing to the
delirium tremens
his alcohol consumption surely merited. The small man, who eventually introduced himself as Mr. Mkele, put paid to that idea. All it took was him placing a hand on Doug’s shoulder, and then he was back in the jungle again.

Running free.

As the deadline to the screen test grew closer, Doug’s anxiety levels grew in proportion, but the little African man was never far away, and always willing to allow Doug access to the dream. It became the one place where he could feel no pressure, no worry, just the joy of the rain in his face and a freedom of action unconstrained by money and bean counters. The dream sustained him through to the Friday morning on the soundstage, and the arrival of those bean counters to see the
gorilla
.

When Doug saw the mass of foliage arrayed across the set, and the extras dressed in pith helmets and khaki, he actually smiled, and started to relax.

There’s no way this is going to fail
.

The screen test itself went like clockwork. The drummer, whom Doug had persuaded to work for a pack of cigarettes and a fifth of rye, set up a rock-solid beat as the
explorers
entered the
jungle
. Mr. Mkele added some verisimilitude by raising his voice in a singsong chant that seemed to vibrate through the whole stage and set the foliage rustling as if in the wind. Right on cue, the
gorilla
rose up out of the greenery, s
lapped
its palms against its chest, and
bellowed
.