Iain Kelly

‘Scan it,’ Colonel Hawk ordered.

Kelso gulped and approached the huge skull with it’s gaping eyes and large nasal cavity.

He raised his scanner. It bleeped and the gave a read out. He radioed back. ‘Negative, Colonel. Whatever it is, it’s from this planet.’

‘Some sort of mutated monster gorilla,’ Hazard mused, peering over the ridge. ‘What do we do, Colonel?’

Hawk was tempted to call in an airstrike and be done with it. Hawk knew why the top brass were concerned. Cargados Carajos was one of the islands in the Indian Ocean used for nuclear bomb experiments in the fifties.

Kelso came over the radio in an urgent whisper. ‘Someone’s approaching.’

A small man appeared, in tattered clothes, wearing a tool belt and carrying a ladder. He set down his ladder against the skull and climbed. He took a chisel and hammer from his belt and began working.

Hawk motioned to his men and they sprang out, surrounding him, rifles aimed.

‘US Army, what are you doing here?’

The small man, raised his hands above his head.

‘For the tourists,’ he said in broken English and gestured to his sculpture, ‘King Kong, yes?’

Written as part of Sunday Photo Fiction. Write a story of around 200 words based on the photo prompt given (above). Hosted by Susan Spaulding. For more details visit HERE. For a change, this story is autobiographical as I have recently started cycling to and from my work.

To read more of the stories based on this week’s prompt, visit HERE.