The King of the Dumps Read online

  The King of the Dumps

  by: Jonathan Antony Strickland

  With mouth agape, Wilbur "The Brute" Boswinkel stood in silence like the rest of the crowd around him and watched the huge ape plummet. The fall was breathtaking, burning itself into the nightmares of the onlookers, a fitting end that seemed only too right for one so majestic. King of the unknown, the mysterious Skull Island, bouncing and tumbling in the throes of death, his enormous bones breaking with each sickening blow. And even though to the terrified onlookers his roar grew louder the closer he descended upon them, if you listened very carefully, his cry felt as though it grew weaker by the second as the pain within him sapped his mighty strength.

  He hit a small building, three stories high that was dwarfed by the great skyscraper. The sound a body makes when hitting concrete from a great height is terrible enough but when that body was so large, the tremendous thump it made as it was dumped down was magnified to a level of spine chilling revulsion. The noise was truly sickening, though none felt any sympathy at the time.

  Still not dead, even from a fall so high, even though two of the three stories had buckled and smashed beneath his great weight, Kong still let out a defiant roar that sent the crowd running in fear. In their masses they fled in panic. Some falling, trampled beneath the hundreds of feet as the people ran wide eyed and screaming in an attempt to get away as far as possible from him as the massive ape made to stand once more. Alas, as big and strong as he was, his bullet riddled body was broken and as he tried to haul his colossal weight up in defiance, his muscles failed him and he pitifully collapsed down, his mouth filling with blood from the substantial internal damage he'd sustained.

  Even Wilbur, with his many years working as a journalistic photographer, who'd made it his business to be in the middle of some of the deadliest situations that the dark streets of New York could spew up, everything from insane street riots to horrific mafia assassinations and shootouts, found himself running in terror before his training kicked in and he'd remembered the camera around his neck. With this thought, he forced himself to freeze, eyes shut, gathering his composure as the screams of the crowd faded behind him.

  When he again opened his eyes, not a soul remained. The whole surrealness of the situation hitting him like a ten ton tanker. Only moments before he had been surrounded by hundreds, watching the crazy battle atop of the Empire State Building, the next, screaming in terror as Kong crashed down, and now eerily alone with the hulking beast. He watched as the masses ran from him and as his shaking hands gripped the camera he had to ask himself why he too did not follow. But before the ugly coward that hides within us all could answer the question, the other part of his psyche, the part that had led him into journalism screamed out... "Before ya turn yellow, think of the money ya can make!".

  ..........

  Kong lay on his back, his great chest heaving up and down and a gurgling noise emitting with each breath as his blood flooded his lungs. His eyes began to close as death crept into his body and he began to dream of his old stomping ground and the tiny and beautiful creature that had fascinated him so much. He did not know how the miniscule thing had cast such a glamour upon him, enriching his thoughts, stirring a passion within him that he'd never felt. It was not as if he had never encountered these things before and although his memories did mainly involve surviving the bigger toothier things within his land, the little things that scampered about had always been there as well. Indeed, memories of the things once fearing and worshipping him, singing his name and sacrificing some of their own to appease his wrath happily came flooding back into his dreams. And mighty tasty they were too!

  It was when the other things appeared that the trouble started. They were pretty much the same as the ones he ate, though lighter in colour, their bodies covered in a variety of soft strange leaves like no plant he'd ever seen. They carried with them evil shiny sticks that violently sneezed out puffs of smoke that made tiny holes appear in his skin. These holes caused pain, burning pricks of painful fire, and with this pain Kong's anger grew as he began to hate all but the one of the new tiny creatures.

  Suddenly a bright flash woke him and with great effort he turned his head to the right as his eyes flicked open to gaze upon his tormentor. One of the creatures carried in its tiny hands a flashy light thing that he hated so much. Why did they point such a thing at him, surely they must now know how angry it made him. That blinding white light burned his eyes, making him dizzy and of course... ANGRY! Another painful light blast followed, followed by another and another. Even in death the anger returned, anger that gave strength back to his muscles, anger that made a low guttural growl escape from his blood soaked mouth as he gritted his teeth in frustration and he made to swat at the infuriating little creature that pestered him.

  ..........

  The huge hand swept by the spot Wilbur had been standing in but moments before as he photographed Kong. If Kong had not been mortally wounded he'd probably wouldn't have been able to evade the blow and no doubt would have ended up splattered from one end of 5th Avenue to the other.

  Wilbur knew that this was his moment, though he didn't have long. He surmised he had only a couple of minutes before the police arrived, followed no doubt by the crowd who had just fled the scene. He really had to work fast.

  "Say cheese banana breath", he shouted out while taking pictures of the dying giant gorilla that now lay still (this time for the last time), only faintly alive, watching helplessly as Wilbur snapped away with his camera. Having taken half a dozen pictures of the great beast's head, Wilbur quickly began making his way around Kong to get as many angles of the great ape as possible. He worked as quickly as he could, snapping picture after picture.

  "This is it", he thought to himself. "This is the big one. The one that's gonna make me world famous."

  Wilbur could see it all. How every newspaper would not only want the pictures of the dying beast but also the story from the last man to see Kong alive. His name and pictures on the front cover of every two bit ragtag paper in the world. He'd even thought of a title as he remembered the sickening noise (though now to him it sounded almost sweet) as the beast crashed down.

  "The King of the Dumps", he said gleefully to himself as he took more pictures.

  "All those years. All those frigging lousy years working ma balls off day in and day out for a few measly dollars, and now this big ugly hairy assed monkey turns up and makes it all worthwhile."

  He shook his head at his unbelievable good fortune, then shouted out to the dying ape: "Kong... Ya big dumb bastard. I could fucking kiss ya."

  In truth, Wilbur "The Brute" Boswinkel had made himself quite a bit of money and something of a reputation in the journalistic world. The money however was usually gambled or drank away, and as for the reputation, even though it was a noted one, it was not a reputation of honour. Various people had fallen fowl of Wilbur's poisonous pen and putrid pictures. In his time he'd exposed several high class affairs including one of America's up and coming female actresses. Her real name had been Jean Louise Dregs, though on becoming famous she'd wisely changed it to the more glamorous Melody Manzanita. After appearing in various low budget exploitation films where her buxom talent was made to stand out (mainly of a science fiction or horror theme, which always involved her scantily clad form being chased about by some schmuck in a badly made rubber monster suite) she'd married young and rumour said to a guy who used to rough her up a bit. So as fame threatened, it was hardly surprising that she found some solace in the arms of a fellow actor. His name was Dirk DooGood, one of Hollywood's leading men, who's fame let him wield great power over his directors. He was also a known and notorious womaniser who used his influence to make any dame he took a fancy too
semi-famous, just as long as he got his fun with them first!

  Alas, so it was that on one starry and moonlit night in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's car-park, Wilbur had caught the pair of them at it, in the back of DooGood's Cabriolet, secretly photographing a different kind of beast that day than the one he currently did. Ye old beast with two backs!

  When the story broke, Melody had virulently denied it saying it had not been her in the back of DooGood's car and that Wilbur Boswinkel was nothing but a liar and a fraud, repeatedly calling him a callous brute who sought only to make a name for himself, even if