Return to Skull Island
CHAPTER FIVE
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Englehorn took a deep breath and held it as he strained his ears. The shuffling by his feet had stopped for the moment. He was about to release his breath in relief when he heard the noise again and something touched his foot.
Startled and terrified he kicked the thing as hard as he could. His boot met flesh with a satisfying thud and he began to scramble from the hole, kicking dirt into the face of whatever creature lurked behind him.
His shoulder throbbed from the sudden exertion and his breath was ragged in his ears, but he stood crouched by the hole, his entire body tense. He had drawn his gun, though he remembered that it was unloaded a few seconds later.
Nothing came from the tunnel but a peculiar noise. Warily, Englehorn lowered his head toward the hole. It broke off for a moment, but returned with more force than before.
It sounded like a child crying.
Englehorn stood for a moment. Should he wait and find out what he had just kicked? Or would it be best to just keep running? Common sense told him to leave, but for some reason he lingered until something poked its head from the hole.
He jumped backward, pointing his useless gun at the thing.
But the thing was just as he'd thought it to be. A small, dusky child with unruly dark hair clambered from the hole. One tiny hand was clamped over its right eyes, and it emitted loud sobs every few seconds. It stared at him accusingly with its left eye and hunched into a small ball on the ground.
Completely taken aback, Englehorn just watched the child for a few moments without even wondering why it was in a tunnel, or why it wasn't going anywhere.
"What are you?" he finally asked, quietly, incredulously, more to himself than to the small native child.
The child babbled something in its native language and removed its hand from its eye. It blinked a few times, sniffing. Apparently assured that there was no lasting damaged, it swallowed its last tears and smiled.
Englehorn stared blankly.
The child held up a small finger in a universal gesture of wait and began to crawl back into the tunnel. Englehorn obeyed, too stunned to move.
It returned a few seconds later, lugging a basket behind. It held the basket out to him and he studied the contents.
The basket seemed to be filled with small, white, black-speckled orbs. Though completely round, they looked like eggs. His stomach growled loudly and he remembered how good eggs tasted.
The child offered the basket, further, inching close enough that he could easily reach in and grab an egg.
They were dirty, raw, and foreign, but he was only undecided for a short time. Swallowing his reservations, he reached into the child's basket and took an egg.
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The next time Jimmy awoke, a pale sunlight filtered through the trees. He shivered and winced at the pain in his bound hands, but he was filled with a strange joy. He had survived a night on Skull Island.
Now rested slightly, he tried to pull free from his bonds. Maybe he had been too weak the night before. Maybe now he could escape.
But his efforts did no more than stretch his arms. Panic began to override his happiness. What if the natives left him here? He would have no way of escaping, and he would starve to death. The natives would get their human sacrifice, whether to the creatures of the island or to hunger.
He waited, helpless for what felt like hours. The movement of the shadows told him otherwise, but with nothing to do but dangle and let his worry build, each moment stretched to infinity.
Finally he saw a train of natives begin making their ways through the dense trees. He noticed with a stab of panic that one held a knife. He decided, in that moment, that it would be better to die from starvation than from a stab wound.
They reached him quickly. Time had, in the moments since he'd seen the natives, sped up so that each minute was a second.
It was like waking up early, before he had to start his day, knowing that in a few minutes he would have to leave the comfort of his blankets. Those minutes felt like seconds, and he anticipated the rough voice of a crew member during each one.
Now it was not a voice, he anticipated, but her ripping pain of the knife. He struggled, in a last attempt to free himself, but to no avail.
The native came close to him. He could see each wrinkle in the strange face, the skewed angles at which the teeth seemed to hang on, and each knot o the matted hair.
Jimmy said a silent quick prayer, hoping that after all this time God hadn't forgotten about him.
The native raised the knife and brought it down quickly on the rope that tied Jimmy's left hand to the bridge.
Jimmy gasped, partly from pain as his weight swung onto his right arm, but mostly from surprise that he was still alive.
The native cut his right hand down as well, and Jimmy crumpled to the ground in a disorganized heap. He groaned as circulation found its way back into has hands, but didn't move until the natives pulled him up.
He fell immediately and this time two native grabbed his arms and hauled him upright. They half-dragged, half-marched him through the woods toward their main area.
He didn't protest as they tied his arms behind his back, and he was silent as they looped this rope around a long, thin crag of rock that jutted from the ground. Even struggling seemed too much work for his battered body.
A woman emerged from somewhere behind him carrying a clay bowl. She grinned, and her toothless mouth made Jimmy shudder.
She walked up to him, and he became aware that the bowl held some kind of soup or stew. Normally, he probably would have thought that it looked vile, but after two stressful days of fighting a storm and a night spent tied to a bridge, it looked and smelled absolutely wonderful.
The woman held the bowl to his mouth and he drank greedily.
He had no idea why he was being kept alive, but he took advantage of the slight hospitality. Maybe, on a full stomach, he could escape.
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Jack awoke early, despite his late night, and rolled out of bed as quietly as he could. Anne murmured something unintelligible beside him.
He sunk his feet into slippers and walked into the kitchen. The clock read six thirty. It was probably too early to call Carl, but perhaps the filmmaker would understand the urgency.
Jack began to dial Carl's number once before hanging up quickly. No one would help him if he called at six thirty in the morning.
He made a sup of coffee and settled down on at the kitchen table. The second hand crawled slowly around the clock, once, twice, thrice, and again and again.
Anne walked into the kitchen at about seven. She surveyed Jack, who still nursed his coffee, and smiled.
"Good morning. Waiting for something?" she asked.
He sighed and returned her smile. "Just the later morning," he said. "I've decided that I'm going to call Carl and see if he can help."
Anne was speechless for a moment. "Carl?" she managed. "What do you expect him to do?"
Jack's late-night reasoning now seemed slightly flawed, but he plowed through it anyway. "Carl had managed to do some crazy things," he said. "It seems that if anyone can get me to Skull Island quickly, it'll be Carl."
"You remember what happened last time he took you there, right?" Anne asked softly.
Jack nodded, his face grim. "Yes. And think of what might be happening to everyone on the Venture."
Anne nodded. "Go on," she said. "Call him. It's never too early for a friend in need."
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