"Just you and me, baby," Conrad said, looking out onto the ocean. He was in the middle of the tide pools, leaning against the old pinball machine, watching as an afternoon tide was rolling in, dragging a fresh bounty of trash into the pools around him. "Us against the world."

  He grinned, all bleached teeth, and stretched his device-strapped arm wide, giving a kingly wave to the ocean, welcoming the new arrivals to his soggy empire.

  “Welcome, fuck-o’s, one and all,” he said, waving on the haul of shit.

  And what a haul of shit it was. Sun-bleached garbage, rusted-out wreckage, flotsam from a world that had already moved on. But Conrad had claimed it. No, better — he’d earned it. And in his mind, so had she.

  "All for you, my fine-ass queen," he said, leaning in closer to the pinball machine, his full attention on the old magazine he'd carefully propped up against the backboard. The pages were warped, stuck together from saltwater and time, but he’d peeled them back just right, framing the only one that mattered. Her, in full-page spread. A woman pushing seventy, locked forever in a close-lipped smile, blonde hair teased so high it could pick up radio signals, and enough makeup to plaster a house. The Queen of his kingdom. The Bonnie to his Clyde. The woman of his goddamn dreams.

  “I’m gonna build us a ride out of here,” Conrad said, bopping the golden-years woman on her nose. “A steed just as beautiful as you. Private cabin, just for us. What'chu think about... Ibiza? Bet you’d love it there. I’d treat you real nice in Ibiza.”

  The wind flipped the stiffened magazine page, swapping his queen for some grinning asshole in a cheap suit on page 23. Conrad’s well-manicured lashes squeezed tight, his jaw twitching.

  “Get the fuck outta here,” he snarled, snatching the magazine. With careful hands, he smoothed the page back down, pressing it flat like he was tucking in a lover. “There you go, baby. Lookin’ better already.”

  He took a step back, tilted his head just right, catching her in the light with that knowing side-eye. His leading lady, right where she belonged.

  From the pocket of his denim jacket, he fished out a short bungee cord, twirling it by one of the plastic hooks, feeling the stretch, the give.

  “You know,” he said, voice thick with a grin, “been a little bit since I let the dragon outta its cave.” He chuckled, thinking back to better days. “That’s what they called my dick back home. You know that? The dragon.”

  He stared at her, waiting. Then sucked his teeth, grinning wider, shaking his head like she’d just said something flirty.

  “Why you always gotta play with me like that? If you wanted to see the dragon breathe his fire again, all you had to do was ask.”

  He looped the bungee cord together, slipped it over his head, let it cinch up nice and tight. Tight enough to color his face, to make his eyes bulge just a little. Just how he liked it.

  His fingers found his zipper, getting ready to unleash the dragon.

  Then—

  “Hey,” said a voice behind him. “You talking to a magazine?”

  Conrad stilled, more stiff than his paramour on the page. Some might have felt embarrassment in this moment, some shame. But those feelings weren’t a part of Conrad’s emotional spectrum, never had been. He just let the moment breathe, let his pulse throb against the cord. Then, slow as anything, he glanced over his shoulder.

  Russell stood a few yards back, just outside the tide pools, wary to step into Conrad’s world. Tumzy, that stupid pink panda that brought them to blows a few days back, hung around his neck. He gave the thing a friendly pat, the water inside sloshing around like he was taunting Conrad with it.

  “Not judging,” Russell said, chuckling awkwardly. “Not judging any of this.” He cleared his throat. “I, uh… hear voices sometimes too. You get the perk?”

  Conrad’s eyes were big, white pits locked onto Russell like he was looking through him, not at him. His breath came shallow, his head red as a cherry, and then, slow as hell, he started to nod — not answering Russell’s question, just agreeing with whatever violent impulse was bouncing around inside his skull.

  Russell felt the shift, the tide turning, and not the literal one at his feet. He started thinking maybe that little sniff of Spazz he’d taken to haul ass back through the jungle had also talked him into yet another profoundly stupid idea. But he was too deep now to back out.

  “Comes in handy, Hoarse Whisperer,” he said, eyes glancing towards something Conrad couldn’t see. “Other times, it’s a real son of a bitch.”

  Conrad moved in slow, like he had all the time in the world. His arms swung low, heavy, like sledgehammers waiting to rise.

  Nervous now, Russell lifted his sorry excuse for an axe — a hunk of flint jammed into a split piece of bamboo, held together with a bit of cordage. He held it out, hoping it might make his presence seem more threatening. It did not have the desired effect.

  “Hey, man,” Russell said, waving the thing just enough to get Conrad’s bulging eyes on it. “I know things got sideways last time. I shouldn’t have swiped your water. But you gotta hear me out. The boat — it’s real.”

  Conrad didn’t give a shit. The veins on his forehead popped like river systems, his whole face flushed and pulsing. He wasn’t hearing anything but the roar in his own head, wasn’t seeing anything but the target dead ahead.

  Full of rage, deprived of oxygen, probably still erect — Conrad was locked the fuck in.

  “Look, don’t make me get fuckin’ crazy, man!” Russell shouted, waving the axe harder. Too hard, in fact. The flint popped loose and tumbled into the sand, leaving him holding nothing but a stick.

  “Fuck!”

  He whipped his head around, yelling to the only person who could save him.

  “Shoji, do it!”

  Conrad picked up speed. Russell started backpedaling.

  “Shoji, do it, goddammit!”

  Conrad came tearing out of the tide pools, closing the gap faster than Russell could back up. He swung his bamboo, aiming for that swollen, fury-filled head, but Conrad didn’t even blink. Using his device like a shield, he blocked the bamboo, yanked it from Russell’s hands, and flung it aside.

  “You’re a fuckin’ thief, bro,” Conrad seethed, his voice wheezing, shaking with something too far gone to reason with. “And you fucked up my me-time.”

  “Just listen, man!” Russell shouted, but it was useless. Diplomacy had died two days ago.

  He stumbled, then tried to set his feet, readying for another attempt at violence. But when he fired his fist forward — Conrad caught it, locked it up, and swung one of his own, low and fast.

  “Wait, sto—”

  Russell’s words cut off in his throat as Conrad’s fist buried itself deep in his stomach.

  Russell had fought Conrad before — he knew he was a scrapper. But that first bout, Russell had the high ground, raining down punches while Conrad was trapped on his back. This time, they met on a level playing field, as equals — just long enough to prove that, in the art of ass-beating, they were anything but. One punch. Straight to the gut. And Russell entered a new plane of existence — one where his insides were made of marshmallows and his dick peed without permission. He hit the sand hard, coughing, hands up like they could stop what was coming next.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Conrad loomed over him, his big, beet-red head blocking out the sun. He rolled his shoulders, pushing back the edges of his denim jacket, letting the tattoo across his chest catch the light.

  THE HOTNESS

  Russell now knew what cursed cursive meant. The man was a walking fireball. Pure fury. An auto-erotic terminator.

  Conrad cracked his knuckles in Russell’s face like he was reloading.

  “I’m gonna get real weird on you,” he said. And Russell knew it was true.

  Then — seconds too late, but also just in time — the rock hit. It smacked the side of Conrad’s greasy head with a dull thud. For a second, his eyes flickered with wrath, a final surge of electricity before the lights went out.

  “Fight like a bitch…” he said, eyes beginning to roll back into his swollen, pretty-boy head.

  He swayed, knees buckling, then went down, face-first into the sand.

  Shoji stepped out of hiding, moving quick, the dogshit bags on his waist bouncing like little ballsacks. A coil of extra cord swung at his hip, and he gripped his makeshift sling like it had just insulted his mother.

  “Up! Up!” Shoji barked. But Russell was trying to keep the measly granola bars he’d wolfed down earlier from making a comeback. His stomach flipped, his head spun, and the only solid thing he could latch onto — besides the nausea — was the hatred he felt for Shoji in that moment.

  “You’re… the worst… partner,” Russell croaked.

  Shoji wasn’t listening, he was seething with a hatred of his own. He turned his sling over in his hands, scowling.

  “Shit!” Shoji spat, shaking the sling at Russell to make a point. The simple-loop weapon that he’d crafted before their trek back to the pools was already fraying, the leather he’d yanked from the yacht’s upholstery for a pouch, peeling at the knots. It had clearly come apart mid-fight, forcing him to patch it together on the fly. It was why he was late off the draw, why Russell was on the ground, wondering what remained of his insides.

  “Now up!” Shoji yelled again, and Russell remembered the fight wasn’t over yet.

  He staggered to his feet, blinking hard, trying to keep his vision level.

  “Mari-san,” Shoji muttered, pointing to the FUCK OFF tarp flapping over the cave entrance.

  They’d been watching Conrad long enough to know he was alone in the tide pools. But there was still the other one — the South American spear-hand, likely holed up in the cave, fortifying, readying for an assault. Then, as his vision steadied, Russell saw something he hadn’t seen before.

  The cave had grown teeth.

  Strung up outside, swinging in the ocean breeze, was the same headless skeleton Russell had found rotting in the back of the cave. Only now, it had been repurposed. Hung up beside the tarp like some demented scarecrow.

  Russell let out a hard breath and tried to clear the fog. Shoji was already scooping up a handful of sand, packing it into one of his dogshit bags like a man getting ready for a fight that wouldn’t be on his terms. They both knew they’d do better down here, on the beach, than up there, in her world.

  “We just… wanna talk!” Russell called out, voice raw, squinting at the tarp.

  No movement. No answer. Just the waves licking at the shore, the slow scrape of more garbage rolling in. A stillness — the kind that either meant peace or the exact moment before all hell broke loose.

  Russell decided not to wait and find out.

  “Get that fucking cord off his neck,” he said, nodding at Conrad. “And let’s tie him up.”

  Russell lingered outside the tarp, back pressed against the cliff, trying to catch his breath. The climb had been just as miserable as he remembered, legs burning, lungs working overtime. At least this time, he had Tumzy to keep him and Shoji from keeling over.

  “Alright,” he panted, looking over at Shoji next to him. “I rip it open, we go in swinging. You with me?”

  Shoji nodded. No hesitation. Russell held up three fingers.

  He dropped one.

  Then the next.

  “Why y’all pussies runnin’ away?” a voice bellowed from below. Russell and Shoji snapped toward the sound.

  Down where they’d left him, Conrad was somehow upright — hopping like a goddamn pogo stick, hands and feet still tied, surely concussed, but powered by a level of spite only a true asshole could achieve.

  “That fuckin’ guy,” Russell said. If Mari didn’t know they were coming before, she sure as hell did now.

  “Go!” he barked, ripping the tarp aside. They charged, full tilt, screaming like madmen, pure chaos in motion.

  They got about three steps before both of them hit the floor.

  Russell landed flat on his back, staring up at the soot-stained ceiling, Shoji groaning somewhere beside him. The floor was littered with traps, and they’d walked straight into it like a couple of dumbasses.

  “Shit!” Russell gasped. “We got Home Aloned!”

  Shoji, knowing an attack would follow, threw a last-ditch fistful of sand forward.

  “Kuso kurae!” Shoji shouted as he flung the sand, grains scattering into the air — then falling uselessly. Nobody had been there to blind. Not a soul.

  Russell pushed himself up, rubbing the back of his head, scanning the place. His brain started working, rewinding, comparing this scene to the last time he was here — when he was dehydrated and half-convinced the pink panda on his chest was his closest friend.

  Yeah, something was different.

  Conrad’s empire of filth had spread, swallowing everything in its path. Clothes tossed everywhere, empty tuna cans stacked like tower ruins, even the beverage cart had been upturned and swallowed under the wretched waste of The Hotness.

  But worse than all that — the tissues.

  What had once been a small, pitiful pile in the corner had multiplied, spreading without mercy. Dozens of wadded-up tissues covered the cave floor like landmines, stretching from wall to wall. This wasn’t just a jack shack anymore.

  “Jesus,” Russell said. “It’s a full-blown goon cave.”

  That’s when they both realized it. The mess beneath their feet? Not some carefully laid trap. Just the balled-up byproducts of Conrad’s goonin’ good time.

  Shoji gagged, screaming again and again his favorite word of the day. “Up! Up!”

  This time, Russell obliged, with record time. He needed a shower. Maybe a priest.

  Shoji pointed at the empty space where the spear-hand’s bedroll used to be. “Mari-san. Gone.”

  Russell took another look. Yeah, she’d packed up, alright. Who wouldn’t haul ass out of here? But, to Russell, the real kicker was that Shoji knew exactly where she used to sleep.

  “Yeah,” Russell said, frowning. “Mari-san gone.”

  He tiptoed back to the tarp, careful not to step on any more of Conrad’s landmines, and peeked through. No sign of Mari lurking outside, ready to shank them from behind. All he saw was Conrad, hopping his way back into the tide pools, inch by inch, like some homicidal kangaroo.

  “Get out of my—” Conrad screamed up at them.

  Russell let the tarp fall back into place. “That bungee cord will hold his hands, but you tie his legs good?”

  Shoji nodded, but lifted his frayed sling, giving Russell a look that said, this was the best we had.

  “No telling how long it’ll hold him. And this is assuming that Mari’s really gone. One thing’s for sure, she wouldn’t bounce without water.”

  Together, they pushed the clothing off the beverage cart like they were uncovering an ancient tomb. Mari’s old lipstick scrawl on the cabinet door — KEEP COOL — was nothing but a red smudge now. Conrad had scrubbed it out like he was trying to erase her from existence, a new king wiping out the laws of the last. Russell popped open the cabinet. One bottle of water.

  He pulled it out, rolling it in his hand, debating. Tumzy could use the refill, but even if Conrad was a full-fledged piece of shit, leaving him with nothing felt a little too cold-blooded. Then again, what was one bottle really gonna do for him?

  Before he could decide, something else caught his eye.

  Inside the cabinet door, smeared in the same old lipstick, was something he’d missed the first time he’d raided the thing. Three sets of initials, lined up next to tally marks — water rations, most likely.

  MF. CR. And then, a single Japanese character.

  Russell paused, then gave in to a sudden urge to investigate the cart — like he should have way back when. Inside the cabinet, below the tally, the insignia of an airline company he didn’t recognize. He ran his fingers over the cart’s handle. Frayed fiber cordage still tied to the cart. Someone had hauled this thing up into the cave. A surprising picture was starting to take shape.

  He turned to Shoji, waving a hand around the wrecked space. “You ever been in here before?”

  Shoji nodded, like it was obvious. “Yeah.”

  Russell’s frown deepened. “Yeah? So, how do you know these two?”

  Shoji puffed his cheeks, letting the air out slow. He threw up a universal gesture for it’s complicated. Then, finally, he gave the best version he could.

  “We all, same work.”

  Russell let that sit for a second. Same work. What the hell kind of work did a rock-chucking nudist, a meathead masturbator, and a woman who could probably gut a man in three moves all have in common?

  Down in the tide pools, something big smacked the water with a loud splash, but Russell didn’t bother looking. Shoji was making moves towards his dogshit bag, fingers itching for another hit of Spazz. Russell put a hand up. “Careful with that, alright? We only needed enough to get across the jungle. Keep double-dipping, and next thing you know, you’ll be swan-diving out of this cave thinking you can fly.”

  Shoji frowned, then relented. Instead, he shook out his sling, rattling it again for Russell to see. “Shit!” he yelled, then chucked it to the cave floor.

  Russell nodded. “Mine too. But don’t sweat it — next builds, we’ll be better.”

  They had to be. The schematics were getting more complicated with every level. Didn’t matter what blueprints they unlocked if their hands weren’t up to the task. Maybe there was something in the goon cave that could give them an edge — something he’d overlooked in his first rushed raid, or something new that had washed up since.

  “Let’s see what we can find,” Russell said, kicking through piles of clothes. “Materials, maybe. For crafting.”

  They tore through Conrad’s kingdom, hoping the degenerate had stashed something worth a damn. From the wastes, Shoji turned up another bungee cord, likely part of Conrad’s late-night auto-erotic routine. Disgusting, but useful.

  The deeper Russell dug, the more relics surfaced — some familiar, some not. Conrad Rock-Hard’s professional headshot, all pouty-lipped and desperate for fame. A bottle of cologne so strong it brought tears to his eyes. An empty tissue box, confirming what he already knew.

  But when it came to actual survival? Conrad had nothing.

  One bottle of water. No food. No more tissues.

  The Hotness was a dead man walking, last of his name. He’d have no choice but to join their venture. If he could stop throwing punches and jerking off for five goddamn seconds.

  “Rope!” Shoji hollered, pointing at the tarp.

  They stood under it, eyes tracing the anchor points — old fishing line and plastic strips, tangled up with VHS tape yanked from busted cassettes. Some of the tapes still dangled there, wrapped around the quick tie job they’d done on the skeleton, caught like offerings to the dead man. Everything was cinched tight to the jutting rock, a puzzle made of trash.

  “We could cut it down, use the line,” Russell said, a little hopeful. “Enough to fasten a new axe, a new sling. And hell, a tarp ain’t bad either.”

  Russell tried to work out the best way to unknot the mess, all while teetering over a twenty-foot drop. It wasn’t gonna be easy.

  “No problem,” Shoji said, a devious grin creeping in. He held up the bungee cord, pushed it toward Russell’s face like it was a gift, like he was offering up something sweet. The little man had just enough Spazz left in his system for one last bad idea.

  Thirty seconds later, the beverage cart came screaming out of the cave, wheels squealing like a stuck pig. It didn’t just fly past the tarp — it took the tarp with it, the two locked together in a suicide pact, courtesy of the bungee cord, looped tight through the cart’s handle and one of the tarp’s grommets. The tension hit, yanking the cart back, bouncing once, twice — then gravity made the final call. The knots gave, the rocks snapped, and the whole mess came crashing down — the cart, the tarp, the skeleton — slamming into the sooty boulders below in a tangle of twisted plastic and flailing limbs.

  Shoji bolted for the cave’s mouth, whooping with joy as he bounded into the sunlight. Russell followed at a slower pace, watching with mild amusement as Shoji straightened his body, raised his arms, then locked them into a perfect Y-shape.

  “Praise the sun!” Shoji hollered, full of glee.

  Back on his goofy bullshit, Russell figured, celebrating a win. Fine. He’d let him have it.

  “Praise the motherfucking sun,” Russell muttered. And hell, it did feel good. First time since waking up on this godforsaken rock that the sun didn’t feel like a punishment. He gave Tumzy a pat and let himself enjoy the moment, looking out over the tide pools.

  The quiet tide pools.

  Too quiet.

  No shouting. No thrashing. No Hotness.

  Russell’s gut tensed. “Fuck.”

  It took him a second to spot it. There, in one of the deeper pools, filled high from the tide. Conrad, face down. Hands tied behind his back, ankles bound together. Floating, motionless.

  VICTORY ACHIEVED! Praise the sun!

  this song is only fitting.