Zombie Kong - Anthology (16 page)

The beasts swung their great heads to look at him.

“Keep still, George,” I hissed, but my brother was never very good at following advice. When the giant gorillas fixed their eyes on George, he yelped and stumbled back, raising his rifle and letting off a wild shot into the canopy. The sharp report echoed through the brush.

The giant white gorilla started, and then, with an ear-splitting roar, he charged.

I would not have been able to get my gun up in time, but George had never let his guard drop. Through a rain of assegai thrown by the hunters, I saw George drop his rifle, raise a second gun, take aim, and fire.

The shot hit the white gorilla full in the chest. It stumbled in its charge, one massive knee hitting the ground. Several of the assegai had hit the beast in the chest and some of the hunters, who had smaller rifles on them, had also marked its broad breast with gunshot. It was bleeding from several wounds, but still it was fierce. It roared its defiance at my brother, who acted as coolly as I’d ever seen. He dropped the rifle, reached out his hand, and grabbed an assegai that had fallen near him. He lunged forward and thrust the spear into the broad chest of the beast and buried it up to the hilt. The monster roared a final time and collapsed.

I tore myself from the astounding scene and whirled around, afraid that the other two gorillas would charge to avenge their leader. I was faced with an empty jungle––they had faded back into the bush, without even the glint of their eyes remaining.

Behind me, George started hooting and hollering like the damn fool he was.

“Did you see that shot, Simon? Whoo-ee!”

I was about to answer when I felt the earth shake beneath us. The hunters, already unnerved by the charge of the white beast, fell to their knees, moaning and crying out.

“The white monster!” they cried. “The white monster comes to avenge the death of its child!”

That shook me. I had assumed that George’s gorilla was the white monster. The thought that that beast was only a child, and that its parent, by necessity even larger, was coming after us––well, that put a fear into us. We bundled up the camp as quickly as we could. I was all for leaving the corpse behind, but George wouldn’t dream of it. He bullied several of the hunters into helping him load it into the wagon. The donkeys pulled the wagon behind us as we fled.

It was this delay that almost cost us our lives. The shaking had grown worse as we struggled to move the corpse––we later found it weighed nearly two thousand pounds!––and just as we finished securing the donkeys and started off, a roar like thunder echoed from above us. I glanced back and saw the most terrifying thing it has been my misfortune to see.

The corpse we had in the wagon was an infant, and its father was pursuing us.

This giant gorilla was tremendously tall, fifty-feet if it was an inch, and must have weighed several tons. It was still far away, but the very size of it ensured that we could see it coming from far off. It, too, was an albino, and the white of its hair shone in the moonlight. It was as if a snowy mountain had grown legs and was bearing down on us.

“Run!” I yelled. “Run for your lives!”

And we ran, George upon the wagon creaking after us.

I have had many frightening experiences since that night, but nothing has yet compared to those hours we spent crashing through the dense jungle, falling and rising again and again, afraid to rest, lest the enormous beast catch us. Once it was so close behind us that I could see, even in the dark, its enormous broad chest and large head. Its pink eyes gleamed like the devil. It was a curious thing––I thought I could see, in the light of the moon, a network of gashes that ran all down the beast’s breast, open wounds that were not bleeding and injuries that should have killed even a monster of that size.

We ran until we reached the edge of the jungle and tumbled out onto the plain. It was a relief to be free of the roots that grasped at our ankles and the slick undergrowth that threatened to make us lose our footing at every step, even though I knew that the open plain would allow the monster to gain ground more easily, as well.

Strange, then, that as the giant gorilla reached the tree line, it stopped. It would not step foot onto the plain, though we were within sight and it could have had us in two strides of its long, long legs. It beat its chest and roared, and shook the trees with a sound like a storm, but it would not follow us. I could even more clearly see the monster now, and saw its dead eyes and the blood around its mouth where it had eaten an unlucky hunter. George wanted to stop and take a shot at it––I think his earlier success had gone to his head––but I refused. Although we were exhausted we pushed on, wanting to put as much distance as possible between the beast and our crew.

It did not come, though, and when we were far enough away that we could no longer see its head towering over the canopy or hear its shattering roars, we rested, and two days later made our way back to civilization, having suffered only one casualty in that unfortunate hunter. I paid the other hunters double what I had promised them, for the encounter with the giant white gorilla was more than anyone had anticipated when we set out.

George had his smaller white gorilla stuffed; he took it with him when he left for home a month later. I was relieved to see it go. Every time I looked on that still, giant body, I remembered the intelligence and majesty I had seen that night in the clearing. It made me sad, and it was also, to some extent, unnerving. George had set the beast just outside the study windows, on the veranda, and sometimes on a quiet night I would have sworn I’d seen the corpse move. It stood there, a white shadow beyond the dim lights of the study, and its arm would seem to twitch, or its head to turn. It was nonsense, but I almost hoped it would move, or come alive again. Its corpse upset me, for I much preferred the way I had seen it: alive in the moonlight.

The night after George departed, I went to the village and found an old hunter who no longer went out, but sat by the fire and told stories. After some money and some shared whiskey, he imparted to me surprising information about the mysterious giant gorillas of the inner jungle. Perhaps I should have shared my new knowledge with George but, to tell the truth, I was angry with him for shooting the young gorilla. In my few moments of communion with the white beast, I felt more brotherhood than I had in years of life with George.

Sometime later I received a letter from George. He indicated that he had arrived at home safely and that the previous troubles, which had driven him to Africa, had been satisfactorily resolved. He begged me to come celebrate Christmas with him. Since I had been home, I felt I had recovered sufficiently from my previous illness to chance a trip back to colder and wetter climes. I sent a quick note in return, accepting, and began to arrange for the journey. I was not much interested in seeing George, but I did miss England, and I must admit that I was also looking forward to seeing the white gorilla again, especially considering what I had heard from the old hunter.

It was snowing when the train pulled into the station. I stared out at the large white flakes and thought of the snowy white hair of George’s gorilla. He met me at the station––George, not the gorilla––looking very fat and merry, and chattered the whole way home, about people I had forgotten and gossip I had never known.

“Do you ever think about that gorilla?” I asked, as we rattled down the dark country roads. George looked at me curiously, then laughed.

“Of course, old boy!” he said. “It’s standing in my study, the first thing visitors see. I tell the story at every possible opportunity! I’m practically famous for it! Some of the girls think it’s haunted and they flock to see it.”

We arrived at the house and I was surprised to find it dark and empty. George explained, somewhat embarrassed, that he was between housekeepers. When I pressed him, he reluctantly admitted that no less than three sets of housekeeping staff had quit their positions in his service since he had arrived home.

“I’ve never known you to be a harsh taskmaster,” I said, disapprovingly.

“It’s nothing like that,” George said, flushing a bit. “You know me, Simon. I barely asked them for hot water once a day.”

“Then why would they take their leave so quickly?”

“Nonsense, really. Talk of ghosts, strange noises, moving shadows… and I suppose there is that maid who disappeared. But I am sure she just ran off with the groomsman, who also disappeared around the same time. They were both fine looking young folk.”

We were in the house by then, and when we had the lights on, I turned around and looked up to see those same pink eyes that had so haunted me on our first meeting.

The gorilla looked as alive and majestic as he had in the clearing the night my brother shot him. I could almost imagine that I saw his nostrils flare and the hair around his mouth rustling gently as he breathed. It was just the flickering of the light, I told myself to still my leaping heart, and turned away. But I kept a close eye on it from that moment on, and each time I entered the high-ceilinged study, I spent some time near it.

Several days after I arrived, George held a Christmas party. It was a lavish, decadent occasion, and one that I had very little intention of attending. George’s friends were annoying and trite and often quite offensive to me. They were of that set who finds it pleasurable to make a mockery of all things, quite cruelly, and among them there was not one person who had any sort of honor or redeeming quality.

I made an appearance at the party, for George’s sake, but after an hour of watching his guests act deplorably, I was content to call it a night and retire. The last glimpse I had of my brother was as he drunkenly acted out the killing of the giant white gorilla, knocking into the beast as he staggered to and fro. He leapt towards a similarly inebriated young lady with a roar––she jumped with a little shriek and spilled her glass all over the gorilla. The wine dripped red stains down his white fur. I frowned and spent the rest of the evening in my room, where I fell asleep over a book in front of the fire.

I was woken several hours later by screams.

Leaping to my feet, I grabbed for my gun, which of course was not near me, as I had left it in my house in Africa. I took up the heavy iron poker from the fireplace, instead, and, carrying the lantern in my other hand, ventured down the stairs. I walked into a scene of utter carnage.

Bodies were strewn everywhere. The young lady who had spilled her wine was near the door, hand outstretched as if to escape. The top of her head was ripped open, her brain missing, and her head was torn from her shoulders. Near her was another young man, his head equally ruined. I saw, in fact, that among their different wounds, each victim had suffered the same treatment––the head torn open and the brains removed. I knew at once what had happened.

Stepping gingerly over the bodies, I entered the study. There was George, held tight in the arms of the giant white gorilla. There was blood all around his mouth––the gorilla’s, not George’s––and it was clear that he intended the same fate for my brother as he had for the other guests.

“Simon!” George yelled, as he saw me approach. “It’s come to life! For the love of God, help me!”

“I thought that perhaps you were still alive,” I said, but I was not addressing George. The white gorilla watched me walk forward and snuffed gently. “Or rather, un-dead. That’s why I came here, you know. Not for these people. But to see you and, if possible, to take you back home, if you’ll let me.”

“Simon!” George cried. “What in the hell are you––?”

The gorilla moved his two strong hands and cracked open my brother’s head like a nut. I looked away as it ate his brains, for, as much as I despised my brother, I did not wish to observe that moment. When the terrible noises had ceased, I turned back and saw the white gorilla approaching. I stood very still as it sniffed around me. Then I reached out one hand and waited.

The un-dead beast looked at me with its unblinking pink eyes, and I again felt that sense of communion, of brotherhood. I knew in that moment that this monster––for monster it truly was, I will not deny that––wanted only to go home, to be once more in the place where it was prince, and it knew that I wanted nothing more than to aid it in its return. It took its large white hand and touched mine, very gently.

It was an easy task, to clean up the house enough that the courier, who was to take the large package to the docks for me, would not be suspicious. We arrived home on the same ship, the gorilla and I, and soon enough we were heading for the deep jungle. I did not hire hunters this time, and I did not bring a wagon and donkeys. It was a strange journey, the two of us alone in the bush, but never once did I fear for my life.

Soon, we reached the clearing with the lake where our adventure had begun. We waited for the night to come, and once darkness fell and midnight rose, we felt the stirring steps of the giant white beast approach. The reunion between father and son was gladdening for me to see. Once he had assured himself that his son was, more or less, unharmed––for that must be a very different standard among a species that does not die when killed––the gigantic gorilla reached down and picked me up. I was swallowed up in his hand like a feather in the hand of a man, but again I felt no fear. Snuffling happily, the gorilla grabbed up his child in his other hand and began heading further into the jungle.

I do not go back to civilization these days. I am content in the jungle with the gorillas. Also, I understand that the British government would like very much for me to be apprehended so that I can answer for the deaths at my brother George’s Christmas party. I doubt they would believe me if I told the truth, so I believe I will avoid them for as long as possible. And in one or two hundred years––for I have tasted of the river of un-death that flows through the country of the giant white gorillas––I do not believe the government will remember me, anyway.

TONIA BROWN