Rising from the boat’s floor, I find red now splattering my tattered white coat, and my face, too, is wet and sticky. I can’t remember for the life of me their smiles, though they are so familiar. And I realize, it’s his blood upon me — oh no, it’s his blood! — in my eye, and it stings. Yet of Tian there’s nothing left.

What had begun as bliss as become terror…

“Stupid, stupid, stupid!” I think I cried out… no, that was what I definitely cried out!

The wedding party had snuck away from the reception without telling anyone and we had just jumped into a boat dressed in our matching tuxedos, sharing what was rapidly becoming the best time of our lives. It was me, Vera, Browning with his crutch carefully matched to the event’s colors, and, of course, Tony and Tian the joyful newlyweds. And there was the boat’s captain, an elderly man who had made such a generous offer to Tian in commemorating their special day. The old man, in clothes fashionable yet slightly dated, stood at the wheel to the front as the vessel bobbed up and down, us laughing and joking, him saying very little until we were far enough from shore that we could not see the mainland clearly.

The old man looked back at us wearing a strange smile. “Only takes but twenty minutes,” he broke his muteness, speaking in English though his accent was thick, though not so strong we could not understand him. “Then you are there,” the old man added, letting go of the wheel. He wrote a quick note into a small notepad, then stuffed the little book into his pocket and pushed forward a lever on the boat’s control panel. The hum of the engine increased and the spray of saltwater settled between the old man and us, in the back.

Tony and Tian’s celebration had been welcomed with amazingly Mediterranean weather, bright and warm, and all of us were excited and intrigued by the old man’s secrecy about this so-called “private island, perfect for photographing this type of thing.” Whatever the old man’s game, he was an expert in his trade. If the island was half what he pitched, the pictures would be incredibly unique.

Like Tian. I look at him and still see stars, though I’m delighted for Tony. Tony. How joyous. I’d not seen him so happy before. He caught me staring at his partner and grinned. “Won’t the sun be perfect in twenty minutes?” he asked me. I nodded and turned my gaze to the sea before us. I saw the shape of it rising from the water, directly in our path, and soon had my first look at the old man’s private home.

From that distance I saw lush flora. I don’t know much about plants but there were palms and myrtle trees, similar to those back home. And flowers everywhere else. The old man turned to me and grinned. “Take as many pictures as you want,” he told me. “You’ll be the very first.”

“Did you hear that?” Tian clapped. “We’ll be the first to take pictures on his island! How magical!”

Tony’s enthusiasm disappeared as he muttered so that only the party could hear him, “Think he means guys like us, Tian.” Tian shrugged. The old man’s attitude towards their marriage was something he had been experiencing his entire life. Subtle disdain yet blinded by cash.

“Uh-huh,” Tian replied, kissing Tony on the lips, and we, as a group, resumed honoring the date with glee. Stepping back, studying for a second Tian’s handsome face, I couldn’t help but laugh and drink deeply from this semi-charmed life. Here the boat’s motor cut back and the island, bigger than I thought, filled our view ahead. There the exotic landscape demanded all our eyes, a rock jutting up from the blue like the lower tooth of a mythical giant.

The old man’s island, more secluded than private, had been shaped from the same volcanic history as the grounds of our resort, yet here the colors were more vivid and alive. Below the green and flowered hillsides were sparkling beaches painted with jagged pillars of pink, red, and orange, which led to a path which climbed to a ring of white marble straight out of Ancient Greece. It was too much to take in at once, as the rolling surf bounced us up and down, as our party exchanged eager yet nervous looks. There was a chorus of laughter among us as Vera fell into Tian’s arms and together, they hit the boat’s floor. “Watch yourselves!” the old man laughed, as Tian and I helped them to their feet again. The boat leveled off and its motor cut off, so I returned my attention to the old man’s home.

It was breathtaking to behold, those dramatic slopes where white stone swept towards the sky from the emerald-green waters surrounding it. To our left there lay what looked to me like a cavemouth, something straight from a story of a pirate’s hideaway. Above all, at the top of the winding stone stairs, were quaint buildings cut directly into the cliff. These structures, four from what I could see, were squat and square with bright-white walls holding up bronze-colored rooftops that glittered with sunlight. Even before us the single dock held exquisite life-sized marble statues of nude men and women.

“She’s the goddess Aphrodite,” the old man smirked. His dense brows wiggled, “She is known to take human lovers.” I laughed to be polite, feeling heat in my cheeks. It did not help his comment on my attraction that I found him interestingly good-looking. Perhaps my head was simply well-dizzied from champagne, because I nearly went down to my knees as the boat came drifting beside the wooden planks. Either way, he had a way of making me feel uncomfortable.

“What did I tell you,” Tian purred in my ear. “Magical, right?”

“Oh yes,” I said.

“He’s cute in a pappy sort of way,” Tian snickered. The old man hopped onto the dock, his speed surprising in tying us down. Tian left my side and set a hand on Tony’s arm, “Ooh! Ask him if he gives lessons, babe!”

The old man rose tall and dragged the boat against the dock. “Welcome to my home,” he said.

“Is this a hotel… uh, resort?” I asked.

“No,” he held one finger high. “All mine. Come ashore!” 

As Tony took the old man’s hand and stepped onto the dark boards, he announced, “I don’t know how you do it, Tian. But this is amazing!” And that was an understatement. Tian always had an unexplainable knack for finding the most amazing experiences, even during a post-vow gathering at a destination resort in Nafpaktos, as shown by our arrival upon the island to document the biggest moment in their fairytale love affair.

“That big one up there is my home,” the old man said. “The others are for guests and people under my employ.”

“What about the ring of pillars,” I asked, shielding my eyes from the powerful daylight. Along one edge of the cliff there was a tall hedge, and we saw our first sign of human activity there: a figure before the wall of green carried a ladder on their shoulder, passing out of sight a second later.

Tony again kissed Tian. “You are the luckiest person in all the world, Mr. Pappas,” he beamed.

“And I’m all yours,” Tian sighed cheerfully.

“This really is beyond even your luck, Tian,” Vera said, and the newlywed man brushed his hand against her cheek as he made kissy lips.

“Aww, you’re crying,” said Tian. Just then Tony dragged him towards the dock by his sleeve, and Vera and I followed along. Until I remembered Browning and stopped. Vera wiped her eyes with her hands and laughed.

She asked, “Do you need help, Browning?”

“No,” he said. “I’m fine.”

At the base of the stone stairs, which were hewn into the natural rock, the old man stood to the side and waved us onward. “Go up and look around,” he said. “I’ll be along shortly.”

Browning limped past on his crutch, led by Vera, Tony and Tian. I was the last person to pass the captain, and he met my eyes. There was something mysterious behind them, like they were mirrors of pure silver, which made my adrenalin pump. In that trade of glances, I understood he knew how attractive he was and his effect on me. Ahead, Tian and Vera pushed into one another.

Vera squealed, “Stop fooling around, Tian!”

“Find your spots and I’ll bring the camera,” the captain called after us. “It’s the best one for natural lighting. You’ll see!” I looked over my shoulder at him while I took the first step, but the old man shooed me ahead with a broad grin. “Go on,” he laughed in a terribly sexy way. He jumped onto the boat once again and ducked into the cabin below.

“We should get some on the beach,” Tony said.

“We have beaches at the resort,” Tian replied. “I want to see what’s behind the ring of pillars. Come on…”

“Why not climb a hundred narrow stairs,” Vera grumbled, as she peeled off her high heels. “Because wedding shoes are made for mountain climbing.”

“Honey!” Tian slipped his arm under hers. “Once in a lifetime.”

“You’re right,” she laughed, fixing her expertly tailored tuxedo. Tian pecked her cheek and thanked her, and Vera ran forward towards the top where the ring of pillars and hedge loomed overhead. I started to chase her, but Browning begged for a hand. Before I climbed back down the stairs to him, I watched Vera disappear through the green wall.

Browning leaned into me as we took the last of the rise arm-in-arm. He slipped the crutch back beneath his armpit and pointed using its tip. “What do you think they keep in there?” he asked uncertainly.

“Seriously,” I said.

There amid the hedge stood a huge bronze gate which, like the ring of pillars and statues, appeared to have stepped out of Greece’s distant past. “Tian brought us onto the set of the next Hollywood dinosaur movie,” Tony said, scanning the unbelievable layout before us. Tony stopped just at the top of the stairs and waved. “I want to start here!” he announced.

I directed my gaze to the buildings above. They were less white than they looked now that I was closer to them, something more of a cream color, and the metal roofs were notched into narrow castellations where windows sprang from their squat tops adorned in vivid maroon and indigo hues, and lining the glass portals were primitive people with exaggeratedly oversized intimate body parts. And they were drawn with their mouths open, either with sexual delight or, I thought, absolute panic, depending on the angle I checked them. Behind these repeating crude figures were charging bulls. I hesitated before the odd artwork, unsure if it turned me on or repulsed me. Perhaps it was a little of both of these feelings. “Look at the horns on that one,” Tian cooed, and Tony laughed and slipped his tongue down his partner’s throat.

I looked away. Browning was evaluating the ground, which was now partially volcanic gravel and partially smooth marble. “Are you okay?” I asked him.

“Should be good from here,” he said. “I think…”

“Need me to carry you, little brother?” Tony asked.

“Haha,” Browning replied, dismissing him with a hand gesture.

Tian caught my eye and he smiled mischievously. “Why don’t you stay with him while we go find Vera?” he said to Tony.

“He’s fine,” Tony laughed, nudging Browning with his elbow.

“Stop,” Browning snapped. “Trying to send me to the bottom the fast way?”

Tony snatched his brother into a headlock and laughed. As Browning squirmed loose, Tony mussed his hair and called him a baby. “Go on,” Tony told Tian. “You two haven’t had hardly any time to talk. If there’s a spot you want, I’ll carry my brother.”

“You won’t either,” Browning growled.

Tian didn’t wait or respond except to grab my hand and drag me through the massive gate.

“Would you look at this,” he said as we walked beneath the shadow of the enormous hedge. Not far beyond the entrance we came to a place where the path turned twice, then narrowed with white stone to one side and the green monster to the other. Up close we found the hedge to be thick with thorns and green berries, and as I was taking a closer look at these, Tian came up behind me and began to massage my shoulders.

“You always liked that,” Tian said, not missing my sigh of pleasure.

“You have magical hands, my friend,” I told him, wishing we were not where we were, and that things had gone differently between us. Meanwhile, Tian read my mind.

“I still think about you sometimes,” he said, letting go of me.

I wanted to say, “Me too,” but I didn’t. Tian looked at me playfully, and I knew that expression far too well, though I always loved that about him. Up here, mere hours after he got married to my best friend, it simply stung. Instead of speaking the truth, I said, “You guys are perfect for each other.”

Tian’s lips curled and grew thin. “But what about you and the old man,” he said. “I saw the two of you.” Before I had a chance to answer, he added, “Look here, there’s a path through the hedge.” Just then we heard Vera’s voice. She was talking to someone, and not gently so. I spun back to Tian just as he vanished into the green leaving my line of sight.

“Hey!” I called after him, accelerating to catch up to the echoing slaps of his shoes against rock. 

There was indeed a path, though I had to duck beneath low-hanging thorny branches, dense with waxy leaves. Tian was ten feet ahead and he had stopped, and he was looking up slowly at what I saw to be a Cyclopean mound of massive blocks, like a large table or some out-of-place Egyptian mastaba. 

I reached for him, then my throat clamped shut as Tian suddenly screamed and flew into the air as though he had stepped into a spring-loaded trap. He crashed headlong into the misshapen stones and an impossibly shaped shadow fell over him. And he turned to the side with a groan, and he looked up at the source of that darkness, and a cloud of dust rose around the mastaba, and Tian’s bloodied face screwed into a horrific expression which will never again leave my mind! 

“Tony!” I shouted, rushing in.

I hadn’t cleared the hedge when, to my utter horror, Tian’s body twisted unnaturally, and what came next was a shocking, crimson crunch! In slow-motion, his arms tore clean off though clung to the shrieking body by stringy muscles. Tian’s cries grew hideously shrill then ended shortly, as vile gibbering led to crunching bones, and whatever it was that held Tian in its clawed grip, that devil was devouring the love of my life! And the world went black with madness!

Until the beast’s eyes found me…

Shaking, choking, unable to breathe, I stumbled back into the hedge’s thorny wall. Those jaggers cut lines which drove back the overwhelming terror and awakened my senses, all the while the shadow’s awful jaws chewed the bite it had taken of Tian. What I thought I saw was not possible. I won’t speak of it… can’t speak of it! However, as madness retreated and my will to survive flushed back, another cry brought me about.

“The old man tricked us!” Tony roared. “Get out of here!”

I gasped, scrambling back through the hedge. As I emerged from that green obstacle, I saw Tony on his back, his arms thrashing before him, and he was clearly fighting for his life with some invisible foe. It was a battle he lost before I could help, and his head snapped back, too far to survive, and it smashed the stone until red washed down. Poor Browning lay crumpled to his side, crutch broken in two. Hurrying to his side, I wasn’t checking for danger. A powerful blow knocked me off my feet. My head struck the stone floor, and the last thing I saw were blurry pillars holding up the bright blue sky.

***

When I came to, I saw the heavens had darkened and more stars shimmered out there than I had ever before seen. I sat up, head throbbing. Dried blood marked scrapes across my skin where the thorns had done their dirty work, but it was not that which caused me to stir. What brought me conscious again were Vera’s screams.

Despite everything spinning around me, I slowly made it to my feet and began to crawl towards the stone stairs where I might reach the boat. I staggered beyond the massive bronze gate and teetered at the top of the winding steps. But the screams suddenly ended, and I heard behind me shuffling. I turned around to see Browning dragging himself towards me under the strength of his arms, alone. His gaze met mine, and he said, “Mickey! Help me…”

I started his way then fell back when the old man appeared above him, bashing a brick into Browning’s head until Browning lay unmoving. The old man then showed me a toothy grin.

“I’ll kill you!” I hissed through trembling lips, but then there was a sudden blackness, a silhouette against the starlight. The old man let loose an unhinged laugh as the shadow took shape, and I saw a bull, its horns wet with gore, and its square jaw grinding upon the arm of one of my friends until it slurped the mangled limb into its mouth, out of sight. Then, its burning stare shone with the same mirror-like reflectivity which the old man’s eyes possessed, and I saw myself in them, aghast with terror, mouth wide, hands curled and shaking, and I screamed the scream of a person facing certain death!

That giant bull came lumbering at me, leaving bloody hoofprints on the stone floor, steam issuing from black hole nostrils, eyes showing me plainly my reaction in the path of oncoming doom. And as the beast’s shape became more defined under the celestial glow, I could see teeth like the volcanic rocks on the beach and an uncanny resemblance to those crudely drawn bulls which lay upon those buildings hidden now from me in the cliffs above.

My mind unraveled as it bore down upon me. I watched helplessly as the old man began to drag Browning away. I couldn’t move as the ground shook beneath me with each thunderous step which the beast took at me. It wasn’t until its hot, putrid breath slapped my nostrils that my legs broke free, and I leaped to the stairs just as a horn gouged the stone where I had been. Then I tumbled too far, and falling backwards, I saw the sky, the beast, the top of the stairs, as everything dropped away in an instant. And I should have broken and splattered on those stairs but instead there was a tremendous splash!

I plunged into the sea, bobbing moments later to the surface. When I could again determine my whereabouts, spluttering frantically and gasping for air, I found the shape of the boat nearby. Swimming with all I had left, I grabbed ahold of the side of the boat then pulled myself up its ladder, as tears streamed down my cheeks and pain wracked my entire body. Despite my condition, I was alive!

I sank to the floor, seeing the old man’s notepad there on his captain’s seat. I took it in hand and found the pencil stuck into the notepad’s ringlets. I looked at myself and realized that my tuxedo was shredded, and I was bleeding in more places than I had realized. I had what must be a bone poking through the skin of my wrist. Feeling nauseated and unstable, I tried the ignition, but the boat’s engine rolled over without starting. My hand slipped off the key, leaving a bloody smear on the controls, and it was here I heard a heavy footfall as the dock shuddered, shaking the boat under me.

I don’t dare move again!

***

“Beautiful sunrise,” the old man said to the man under his employ, who was working at repairing damage on the dock. The old man stepped off the dock onto the boat. There was quite a mess to clean up, and in the middle of the puddle of blood was his notebook. He picked it up and read words scrawled upside-down on the inside of the back cover.

“I’m writing what I can. Dark. Can’t move! It’ll hear, I’m too weak…

Hooves… shit!

If you read this, tell my family I love them. And tell them they’re all dead- Tony! Tian! Browning! Vera! Dear God! The hooves closer… I can see its shadow!

And a smile crept over the old man’s face.

He tore the note out, crumpled it with a chuckle, and tossed it overboard.

[Mord McGhee is the author of Ironblood (Golden Storyline Books, London UK 2023), The Stroke of Oars (Nat1 Pub, LLC USA 2023) & is an Honorable Mention Winner of the 2023 L. Ron Hubbard’s Writers of the Future Contest. He is disabled, writing out of a tiny fishing village in Lowcountry, South Carolina. Mord McGhee.com for more information.]