Against all odds (Reg Slivko - Thomas Mann Fic)

Not on foot

Slivko didn't want to look, but he had to. The picture showed a strange creature. He had never seen something like that; it had a lizard head, a long tail, two arms and no legs.

"I call them skull-crawlers" Marlow said. "They come from the vents deep down. That's why Kong got so mad. Those bombs woke up a bunch of them. You're lucky that he's out there too, or you wouldn't have made this far. He can handle them as long as he gets to them when they're still small. You don't wanna wake up the big one."

Slivko's face turned white. He looked at Marlow, then looked at the picture, and then at Conrad. A cold sweat ran down Slivko's back. He took off his bandanna and tumbled over a rock. If before he had some doubts, now he knew for sure: All those bombs they drop... It was his fault. He buried his head in his hands.

"Listen," Conrad said addressing Marlow and trying to rush the matter. "There's a refueling team coming to the north end of the island in three days." The tracker looked calm and confident.

Slivko looked at him. «How he does it?» asked himself. «Probably because is not his girlfriend the one that's lost...» He concluded and his heart squeezed. She technically wasn't his girlfriend but that didn't prevented him to have feelings for her, to be worried, and to wish to have her in his arms. «Dammit!» said to himself, he had really being an asshole.

"You can't get to the north end in three days! No way!" Marlow said.

Slivko felt that he was falling through an endless and dark hole. He had screw things up in a God level. And now, no matter how hard he tried to make amend, that creepy island seemed to conspire against him.

"At least..." added the man raising his eyebrows. "Not on foot"

In the meantime, Megan's group had moved far away of the bamboos. They had walked a long way just to found their road interrupted by a nasty pond. It was green and flies were flying everywhere. Luckily it didn't stink.

"No way! I won't get into that... water" Megan said refusing to move forward. "How do you know there is not something creepy down there?"

"Enough of it!" Cole said. They already had lost fifteen minutes in that fight. "Reles, you pick up her"

"What? No!" Megan step back but Reles took her by the wrist and in a fast movement put her over his shoulder, like a potato bag. "Put me down! This is not necessary! I walk! ok, I walk!" She said giving up and Reles put her down. "But if I drown..." said pointing her index finger to Cole face "I blame you!"

The soldier smiled and got into the water leading the group.

It was cold and thick. You couldn't see what there was underneath, it felt like mud, but in that island could be anything.

Meg walked making a huge effort. It seemed that her feet were plungers that clung tightly to the bottom of the lake. Every time she took a step, she had to make so much force that she became unbalanced. She walked behind Mills and Reles. They walked so smoothly that she felt envy.

Suddenly, something moved between her legs. She stifled a scream, trembled and stumbled. She would have fallen if Reles did not catch her in time.

"Got ya" the soldier said, grabbing her arm. "Are you okay?" asked without been able to hide his smile.

She nodded, still with an expression of horror in her face.

"This is a terrible idea" Meg said. "Don't we should be heading north?" asked shaking her hands that had touched the creepy water.

The soldier's face went dark and he exchanged glances with Mills.

Meg looked at them and knew they had been thinking about it for a while.

"Come on man" said Reles letting out his feelings "It seems..."

"Like maybe he wants to go kill that ape instead of getting us off this island? Yeah!" Mills said. He sounded really upset; didn't need to ask why. "Are we even gonna make it? We gotta be in the exfill in three days!"

"We'll make it. Where gonna make it." Cole said jumping in the conversation.

"But, Cole, what happened if Chapman is not even..." Reles started saying but Cole cut him off.

"Hey! The Colonel said he is there, he is there" And he signed to them to keep moving forward.

They kept walking on silence. Megan was part of the Mills team. She was convinced that the objective of Packard was to kill the gorilla. And she wasn't very sure that they will make it to the exfill. She didn't even know if she wanted to do it. What would happen if she made it and Slivko was not there? What if she never sees him again? Meg froze. What was the point of all that?

"Are you ok?" Reles asked her checking the water around to corroborate that there was nothing strange. The rest of the group also stopped and looked around with his rifles ready.

She didn't know how to answer. Her heart was beating so hard that she felt it was about to exploded.

"Hey!" said Reles understanding the situation and taking her by the arms. "Listen" he grabbed her stronger forcing her to look at him. "He is fine"

«What do you know?» she thought without being able to put her feelings into words.

The soldier shook his head.

"You have to trust in his abilities" told her guessing what was going on in her mind.

"He is a great soldier" added Cole.

 And for the first time in her life, Megan felt relief to here that words.