It was so long ago, decades in fact, that it should seem strange that Grandad's legacy still weighs upon us, still haunts us, casting a long, monstrous shadow over our family.

Honestly, he was a good man. Sure, he was driven and hungry, and I fear that's what got the better of him. "Mad" some might say, and some did say.

But he was also right. He did what nobody else dare do. He went to some uncharted spot, far east of Zanzibar, in his search for a monster, a place where even the devil may fear to tread.

It was the Tomb of the Wayward, the Refuge of the Beast— the Sanctuary of Kong.

The stuff of legends, of adventure, a shore rumored to be built upon the backs of dead travelers, anchored in a torrential sea upon a bed of broken skulls.

One Thousand and One Nights alluded to it, so did the Greek Epics. The Egyptians, the Sumerians, the Phoenicians, the Aztecs had their names for it. Many searched for it, and few who sought it ever came back.

No matter the land, whatever tongue, this place meant death to whoever disturbed its sands.

But there he knocked on death's door, he faced his monster.

And came back smiling with it a prisoner.

His triumph was short lived. Chaos broke loose, the monster was freed. Death, destruction followed, the toll was unparalleled.

But, at length, the beast succumbed to fate and it was silenced.

In the end, it was as the old bard had dreamed: "Beauty wept and reproached herself for having caused his death."

Granddad didn't know it at the time, but the animal had come with a warning affixed.

For the devotees of Kong say, "Tor’Rae Kong! Tor’Rae KONG!" Granddad, the promoter he was, translated it in part as "conqueror or king."

But had he knew its true meaning, perhaps, he would have sailed far away from that place.

No, not king, not conqueror, they called it— the "Unconquerable" Kong.

So Granddad moved overseas to Singapore, changed his name, later married. He tried to recoup his losses in other grand ventures but was not very successful.

It was sometime afterwards that he passed. My father had already relocated back to the states, by then, and there was some return to normal.

Every so often, there is a request for comment, but the family tries to keep quiet about the matter. We even refuse to speak the beast's full name. That is to say the one Grandad gave it.

It's 1988, now. We have our own lives to live, and I my own ambitions. But Granddad, he was a leader, an adventurer, a fighter, what then am I?

I'm a retail clerk, an art student, an extrovert, a left fielder, and a bit of a movie buff, I am just, like, so everyday.

Still, sometimes, I like to close my eyes and wander in his footsteps. I ask myself if there could still be more relic populations of the beast out there? Forgotten members of primus kong in some far-off corner of the globe. And then, that's when I wonder— "Could it really not be dead?"





JUNE 11, 1988 — I don't know quite how I got the idea in my head or from what desire finally pushed me to do it. But I resolved to find out more, so I put an ad in a local paper reading rather simply:



I followed this with my name and a P.O. box, thinking little of it at the time. It had almost completely slipped my mind when a couple days later I receive a letter in the mail addressed priority, it reads:



The letter was short, a bit cryptic to be sure. But I did recognize the name. On the back was an address of a diner on 4th, followed by a time and date. The letter added, "I wouldn't be writing if it were not urgent!"

I felt the matter altogether odd. But Grandad did speak of Mr. Ch'ien rather fondly. I don't know if it was curiosity, or fate, but I knew I was going to go along.



JUNE 15, 1988 — The appointed date arrived, and I'd be lying if I said I was not a little nervous. But then I was greeted by a short man in his mid-seventies with grey whiskers and a reassuring smile. Before long, my nerves were settled, and we began to talk.

Small talk, mostly. He was a skipper now. He told me of some of his work on Granddad's trips, interactions among the crew, of Granddad's more scandalous exploits. The kind of stuff that would be good for motion pictures. It was really refreshing, actually.

Except, he never spoke about that day, Granddad's big trip.

The Skipper was exceptionally cordial, warm, gentlemanly, chivalrous even. A good-humored, old grandpa-type, truly, a rare make of a man, certainly one of his time.

"Arlena," he says in a solemn tone in mid conversation.

"Yes?" I inquire somewhat eagerly.

"Recently, I've been contacted by a party who say they're with the government. Suits, they've been asking a lot of strange questions."

"Like what sort?"

"Questions about Kong."

The conversation grew quiet for a brief moment and then he continued.

"But not about what happened. But things like the animal's habitat, behavior, diet, stuff like that. But the thing is, that sometimes, sometimes they would slip up when speaking, they would speak of it in the present tense."

Chills came over my arm. I felt my pulse jump a little.

"No, you don't mean? Kong is gone. That's not—how, that's not even possible? Is it?"

"I don't know, but I do know I'm in no condition to find out for myself. Still, if there is something to it. If this primal giant is still out there. You have to stop it. Somehow, you must. For your grandfather's sake. For everyone's, we cannot possibly allow what happened to ever happen again. You understand, better than anyone else, you do, don't you?"

I nod, hesitantly, however, as he wasn't wrong. I did understand, I really did. Even still, I was face-to-face with a man who knew the grandfather I never could, looking at me as if I wore his hat, as if I climbed mountains, as if I hunted monsters, as if I had any other life than the one waiting for me back at my apartment.

I assured him I'd get back to him.

And, needless to say, I didn't get much sleep that night.





JUNE 16, 1988 — I thought, maybe, in a few days. A few days, to me, that was all I needed to find the courage and swing into action. But no, who was I kidding?

I felt disappointed in myself.

I step out of my bedroom and look around. "This is my life," I think to myself, "This is who I am. And I'm no more real than that bowl of painted wooden fruit resting on my end table."

So I sit down, pick up the phone. I made up my mind. I was going to call Mr. Ch'ien and tell him the whole thing was off, to find someone else.

And then I hear breathing.

"I'd put the phone down, if you understand what might happen," a voice roughly remarks.

I turn. Entering from the back comes a man wearing sunglasses pointing a revolver. His "street facade" was complete with greased-back hair, an Army camo vest and way too much gold jewellery.

Hours folding bargain denim were enough to tell me that his "well-worn" appearance was a mishmash of clothes lifted straight from the morning's go-back bin, and not even the knee holes cut into his jeans were frayed. It was the look of someone you instantly knew was trying too hard to appear like anyone else.

And sure, I was scared. But, whether fifties greaser or background dancer in "Beat It," whatever he was going for, he wasn't pulling it off

"Are you deaf? I said get your dirty, gnarly hands away from the phone."

And he used gnarly wrong.

I raise my hands, not fully knowing what to expect.

"You shouldn't have ran that ad," he declares raising the pistol at me.

"Now," he continues, "Your clock is up."

The more he spoke the more like I felt I was in a bad movie.

"Wait!" I exclaim, a cold sweat running from my forehead.

"What?!" he replies.

"What about breakfast? I always have breakfast. Come on, just a bite, just a piece of fruit?"

"Crazy," he chuckles, amused he says, "Okay, get on with it then."

It was the kind of choice only a thug in a movie would make, which was exactly the kind of reaction I was hoping for.

And, get outta town, if that hardwood fruit didn't look real— I painted it, myself.

Consequently, as a Red Delicious flies, at point blank range, with the full force of downward-spiral fastball, the acute and unmistakable screams of a man with an imploded nasal septum resound.

I dash for an escape, as blood runs from the injured man's nose, his hands shaking uncontrollably from the pain.

I hang a right around the shrieking mess of a man, jump the coffee table, my hand lands on the doorknob, I'm almost out, I'm—

Pulled to the ground.

Above me is the face of someone soaked in red, and a gun pointed one-shot-one-kill at my forehead.

I close my eyes, I hear tension on the handle grip proceeded by curses in what sound like Russian.

And then comes the shot. I lie there. I lie there thinking I've been killed. No, knowing I've been.

But there I lie still.

Somehow, I open my eyes to the sight of my former assailant on the floor. Uneasy, I check.

Stone dead.

A clamour on my fire-escape catches my attention. I rush over.

I see no one. I find nothing.

Nothing but a warm shell casing.





JUNE 16, 1988 — I didn't know how or why. Neither did the police. But something was going on. I phoned Mr. Ch'ien and told him I was game.

I didn't have much to go on. I suspected the Russians were involved, how I couldn't imagine, and still without clue to the identity of my would-be-murderer's murderer. But Granddad did have a lot of connections. And there were many who owed him a lot of favors.

It was high tide, time to collect.

So as morning came, I crack open Granddad's little black book hoping a number would still work. The first try was for a lieutenant. I notice the name had been circled for some reason. The number was on a DSN line, that is on the Defense Switched Network. I call, and I am told he is now a colonel retired, but he and the sergeant, who answered, were still on good terms. He could relay a message, if I'd like. So I gave him my name, my real name.

He sounded almost as if he would fall right out of his chair.

"DENHAM!? As in the—?"

I answer affirmatively, and he agrees to phone the colonel.




JUNE 18, 1988 — It was a few days before anyone got back to me. But soon I received an invitation to come over. The colonel appeared to live a solitary life along the coast of eastern Michigan. A little fourteen acre lot, wooded mostly. My taxi pulls up to a modest home with cabin-style exterior. I walk to an open porch and ring the doorbell.

A man answers the door, and I wasn't at all surprise by the one who answered. It was the visage of a man in his forties with a weight about him distinctly military.

The Colonel, Warburton Rex, brings out some cups and a coffee pot. We sit down outside on the porch, and I begin.

"So it's nice out here, do you live alone?"

"Mostly, nieces and nephews come to visit sometimes. No kids, myself, divorced, got an ex someplace."

"And you knew my grandpa?"

"Hell of man that one," the Colonel declares, "I was just a young buck back then, 'round 'bout the time you were born, if memory serves correctly. Me and him, well, we got real close before his passing."

"Oh really, did you work together?"

"Yep, I had secured work on a steam freighter, The Challenger, a rusty relic of a vessel, I should say, most of 'em having long been phased out by diesel. But it was just the sort of thing that made your old grandpa's heart smile. Made a little extra on the side, haulin' pretty much anything imaginable for 'em."

He continues, "But I'm guessing you didn't come all this way for me to reminisce."

"Colonel, do you know why I'm here?"

The Colonel nods, says:

"You want to know about Kong."

Initially, I was a little off taken by his candor. But I began to sense the colonel was as unsettled with the whole situation as I. I was about to ask him what it all meant, but like any good military strategist he always anticipated.

"After Kong, after New York, the body was kept for study in a large temperature-controlled cavern deep underground, somewhere a few miles northwest of Detroit. I mean, one just does not throw a durn big Sasquatch to the curb. Now, during the war, they wanted to make a weapon out of it. So, Uncle Sam worked closely with the allies."

"Like the Soviets?"

The Colonel shakes his head affirmatively.

"But it's dead, right?"

"By the legal definition, yes. But there was a time when a man in a coma might just rightly be called dead even if not today. Death is a label, it only refers to an inactive state our current understanding has no cure."

"I suppose, I guess, but the bones must have been shattered, the nerves severed by the impact."

"Arlena, bones can be mended and your grandfather brought more back from that place than some blasted beast," the Colonel continues, "There, he discovered what appeared to be a strange root growing upon the corpses of the brute's slaughters. It turned out to be an organism that adsorbs flesh, branching out, like a vine, enveloping certain organic matter. We learned it could be centralized, injected directly into a nervous system, eventually replacing the host's neural network with one of its own."

"Like a jelly fish, a brain that stretches throughout a body, dear lord, they're trying to fix him?!"

"I fear, not trying, they're—" the Colonel stops abruptly, I witness carefully as he methodically scans into the distance.

His face grows white.

"COVER!" he shouts haphazardly knocking over the table and pushing me to the floor.

A second, maybe more, perhaps less, a volley of gunshots come flying in our direction.

A couple of shots pass through the window shattering the glass and on through the house. Another strikes the coffee pot, another into the floor, and another. A couple go through the table, one in the Colonel's arm. The rest fall short into the dirt.

Next thing I know, I find myself down on the hardwood watching as the Colonel struggles to grip a board.

"Now, let's go, we gotta get somewhere," I shout, as I attempt to pull the Colonel to safety.

But hesitantly the Colonel appears resistant and instead points out a particular floorboard frantically. I grip the board, pulling it apart. Underneath there is a cord with a handle.

As before, a good military strategist always anticipates.

Not five seconds after I give it a tug, a screen of colorless smoke rises from the lawn in all directions. I could hear something, something that sounded like shouting and wheezing in the distance.

Then there is a faint breeze blowing a bit in my direction. I notice a noxious odor. I knew in a second.

"CS gas," I mummer.

But that's when, when I hear something else.

A shrill shriek, loud as cannon fire, as piercing as nails.

I couldn't quite make it out, not really, but the Colonel could. I could see his eyes change. There was something about it that resonated with him. Immediately, I watch a wounded veteran stagger to his feet much faster than any injured man should.

"Ororgog!" the Colonel exclaims.

He pulls me by the arm, half forgetting he was the one with a bullet. We race from the oncoming cloud of smoke.

Around the back he turns, knocking over a trash bin, there an ATV is already waiting.

Again, a good military strategist— you know.

We steal away against the wind, racing into the woods as fast as possible. At length, I muster some courage to inquire:

"What's an Ororgog?"

"Ain't you ever seen a gargoyle before? Think that but bigger, you'll find out soon enough," the Colonel declares.

At first, I was a little confused, not certain if I heard correctly. But as we bound through the forest, I turn.

Peering through the tree tops, I could faintly make out the outline, the shadowy form of a flying creature.

An immense flying creature.

My blood ran cold, as the "Ororgog" thing continues its chorus of shrieking cries.

Then the creature begins to make gains flapping huge monstrous bat-like wings thirty yards over our heads. I want to look away as its gray-bellied form proceeds to swoop down, talons open, ready to pluck us into the sky.

"Hold on," shouts the Colonel.

The Colonel hangs a sharp left. The creature snarls, lunges—

Slams into a trunk, taking down a large tree.

We continue onward with little reaction from the Colonel despite what just happened.

But then he, he starts, well, he starts to slow down.

"The hell—" I scream but before I can continue the Colonel is on the ground wiping away leaves, searching. Another second, and I see him pulling on a latch of some kind.

He swings a hatch open to reveal a small stairwell, just barely big enough for a grown person to fit down. We hastily enter and shut the door behind us.

At first, I did not know what to make of it all. The ceiling clearance was nonexistent, beer cans were everywhere on the floor, and the whole space is pitch black. Abruptly, the Colonel hands me a flashlight.

I turn it on.

Instantly, I find myself peering at rows and rows of large metal drums. A good fifty plus, by quick estimate. I shine my light closer at some very faded, stenciled letters. They read:



I shout, "Like, Seriously? Did someone forget their rainy day stash?!"

"Best guess, illegal refuse for hard-to-sell overstock, I dunno, stumbled on it one day, came with the property. Land was hella cheap, though, hella cheap."

"Yea, 'cause it's hella toxic, what it is. It's not safe here! It's—"

Suddenly there comes a loud crash shaking the structure and knocking dust down from ceiling, quickly followed by a series of blood-curling cries from an unrelenting predator.

"Well, ya ain't wrong about that last part," the Colonel declares.

"Try not to breath, would ya?" he exclaims, picking up a crowbar swiftly ramming it through one of the drums.

Fluid begins to gush out.

I cover my nose and mouth. My silent rage starts to grow, there I am, standing, thinking, "He's mad, he's absolutely mad."

Just then the hatch doors fly open.

Immediately, an enormous head, bat-like in suggestion but with the features of demons or ghouls, bursts its way into the opening, screaming with a burning rage, spraying a trail of saliva our way.

We both bolt towards the back of the space, as Ororgog continues to scratch and claw its arms frantically through the opening. It manages to get its head through before getting stuck at the base of the neck.

My terror soon gives way to some relief, as we arrive to a back entrance, escaping up a ladder. As I enter back into the woods, I can see the hindquarters and wings of the creature jerking and flailing madly, as it attempts to wriggle itself free, screaming per usual.

We keep running and take shelter behind a tall oak tree. Before I can say anything, the Colonel proceeds to hand me something.

"My good throwin' arm is out of commission, so, be a lamb, and pitch that back in there for me would ya," he declares.

Looking in my hand I see a grenade. I keep staring.

"I can't, I've never done this, anything like that, I'm not a soldier, I'm just not," I declare.

"Look," the Colonel firmly responds, "I'm not asking you to decide what you're gonna be. What I am sayin' is I'm going to give your nine seconds. Nine seconds between the time it leaves your hand and lands. Nine seconds, to decide on whether you choose to be more tomorrow than you are today. After that, take all the time you need, do you understand?"

I take a deep breath.

"You do your papaw proud, okay?" the Colonel utters.

I nod.

"All right, repeat: THUMB TO CLIP."

"Thumb to clip," I utter with a firm grip.

"TWIST, PULL PIN," the Colonel continues.

"Twist pull pin!"

"FRAG OUT," he says and I repeat while the object leaves my hand. Rapidly, we both dive to the ground taking shelter behind the mighty oak.

In an instant, the device lands with precision down our former escape route.

There is nine seconds of quiet, saved for the maddened screams of Ororgog. Then a series of deafening explosions resound almost immediately followed by an intense wave of heat while a long agonizing cry is heard from the monster.

A couple of inches to the right, and, I suspect, I'd have shared in its agony as well.

We turn, carefully. The back of the oak tree on which we rested is all but obliterated, remnants of oil drums still crashing back to earth.

To the immediate front, a view of a large burning crater emerges, and, further in the distance, the still flaming form of something flying off towards the visible horizon.

The ATV having inauspiciously jettisoned landing some twenty feet away into a nearby tree, we continue on foot.







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