Fenwick Island

Wooden beams made up the fence. A gate with rusted iron and old padlock welcomed a spider to crawl into the space and make a home. Laughter echoed throughout the premises. The tinkle of chimes in the wind made the entire affair that much more intoxicating. With smells of chamomile and cinnamon drifting on the breeze, the inhabitants of the island all rejoiced. Dogs barked.

“No, I’ll go first,” Credence Halstaff announced. She had also been given the name Ahania. She was twenty and had eyes that looked like cut jade and her skin glistened with the blackness of a region of space. Her exposed breasts looked bulbous. Some of the other islanders fashioned her hair in bantu knots. Her flat stomach and formidable posterior showed through her scant amount of clothing with the cameras rolling.

“I want to thank you, Chieftain Supreme Master,” she started, a glass of wine in her hand, “for giving us a life that is full of love, and closeness, and presence.” They sat around a blazing fire that pumped heat onto their skin in the August evening that brought with it a coolness that hinted at autumn. Another spoke.

Ariano Spokane, 30, known as Luceeno, rose to his feet and the contents of his glass of wine sloshed a bit. He showed slight muscle build and displayed a chiseled jaw. His five foot eleven frame appeared tall among the women who had been about five feet four tall. The other men seemed taller than him, though. He was lightskinned and possessed cornrows. “Excuse me,” he chortled without sound. The laugh had been trapped in his throat. He snorted. “Chieftain Supreme Master, you have given me my new life and my wife. We’re so happy to be here with you and that we will all be great together. Cheers!”

Chieftain Supreme Master just nodded. His inky black skin matched the smoke from the flames. He rose. At six foot six inches tall, he towered over all of the other occupants sitting on a large blanket on the sand. The feathers on his head swayed with the wind. Multi-colored, they highlighted his skin tone. Trapeziuses, biceps, deltoids, pectorals and abdominals dominated the visual senses of the collective. The man took a drag from the marijuana joint.

“Tonight…we embark on a journey that will be our destiny….” Applause and shouts abounded.

“Silence!” Chieftain Supreme Master snapped. The people slammed their mouths and cupped their hands and looked up at their leader. A mixture of awe and terror stirred in their souls.

“I will not be interrupted! What we will have is the chance to commune with nature and become part of it. We will continue to eat from the land, despite anything. We will all be able to build something great.” The group looked at each other in the face. Their frowns became smiles and their breath slowed and their minds warped as the marijuana passed around. The alcohol flowed even more. The heaviness of the chemicals depressed the thoughts of everyone involved and showcased a leaden sense. Their sleepiness brought them to their tents where they lay down without any physical interaction other than rolling over and vomiting violently.

The contents of the stomach on the sand created wet spots on the ground just outside of the tents that resembled the ocean’s touch on the edge of the surf. With the night sky displaying a pregnant moon, another glow replaced the torches and the large campfire. When Ariano’s water doused the mini inferno, a whoosh sound escaped from the fire. The night swallowed up the day and the stars showed as the chimes continued their tinny song.

That next morning, Chieftain Supreme Master woke everyone up from their slumber. It was about seven thirty in the morning and the sun blazed across the sky.

“Hey!” he yelled. “Where is she? Where is Ahania?!”

The sound of tents being unzipped created a buzz around the tribal grounds like hornets swarming a nest.

“Where the hell is she?!” Chieftain Supreme Master asked.

“Chieftain Supreme Master, she may be away in town getting supplies,” Ariano suggested. The others looked at each other.

“You!” he pointed at Ariano. Worry lines cropped up in his forehead.

“Go to the Kubota and go into town to find her. Now!”

Throughout all of this, cinematographers with smartphones shot each action. They captured each word and movement. All of it streamed live on Instagram, Tik Tok, Kick and other platforms.

Chieftain Supreme Master walked back up the hill to the main Airbnb house. While the rest of the inhabitants of the group lived off of the scraps from their leader, he devoured lobster, shrimp, and steak and eggs.

“I’ll cook it myself! She just gonna up and leave without telling anyone?! That’s alright. I have ways of finding her!” He pressed the steak in the pan until it sizzled with intensity.

The others looked through her tent and found no remnants of anyone being there.

After two days passed since Credence had gone missing, they reported back to Chieftain Supreme Master. They noticed he had not shaved and a beard already started to form.

“I want you to know I’m God! I am the sheperd and one of my sheep has left the flock!” He beat his chest. “I want you to know that if there is anyone who is going to find her, you will be blessed with riches untold!” His chest contracted and expanded as he uttered these words. He seemed like a steam engine, barreling down on rails from an old rustbucket full of fire and venom.

“We’re all going to stay up tonight to find her. I don’t care if you get sleepy. I’m going to wake you up, then!” he thundered.

“Yes, Chieftain Supreme Master!” They stood at parade rest and projected their voices like screeching eagles.

When night fell, they started to go through the town restaurants, hotels…anywhere. Back at the house, Chieftain Supreme Master remained in his room. Another woman, Janicka “Hyaleen” Besser looked on as the sole guardian over her leader. She stood absolutely nude. Her breath became heavier as Chieftain Supreme Master stared at her. He stood about two paces from her. She held perfect posture in his presence. Like a lamppost illuminating light, she beamed. He walked over to her and slapped her. He grabbed her by the hair and forced her down to the ground and began thrashing her.

“No!” she begged. He forced her with no one else in the area to report the assault. He abused her and picked her back up and discarded her like used tissue paper. With every step to the bathroom to wash up he felt an ounce of unearned power. He wet a wash rag and threw it at Janicka.

“You clean yourself, now, Hyaleen.”

“Yes, Master,” she managed to whimper.

“What’s my name?”

“Chieftain… Supreme… Master,” She drawled, a line of blood streaking from her mouth. Another line of blood coursed down her inner thigh.

“Good now, get out there and go help find Ahania.”

She got up and quickly ran to her tent to put on clothes. She didn’t even wash up.

It had become night again and the other inhabitants had gone to bed. Chieftain Supreme Master scanned through social media, watching his likes, comments, and views rise and rise. A sense of twisted accomplishment burrowed into his bones. He drifted off to sleep. When he woke up again, Ariano and Janicka had disappeared.

“Alright, I see what’s going on here. You fickle, fake people want to be individuals. You want to taste from the life of what we cast away like jetsam. But you’re not going to disregard me. All of you will bow down to the will of Chieftain Supreme Master. I will show you selflessness and unselfishness is the way. If you want to jump ship, so be it. I can do this on my own!” Night fell again and when Chieftain Supreme Master had awoken the next morning, no one was in their tents.

“Okay…okay. See now I know that you’re all being especially disrespectful!” The air and the fowl and the sea heard him, little else and no one in the way of human beings. “I can build another following full of loyal subjects that will know that I am God and Lord over all!” He journeyed back to the big house and noticed that candles had been lit. Someone was definitely in the house. By sweeping the whole region of the island, he noticed no one there. Chieftain Supreme Master then walked the house with a large staff. His pace was that of a jackal, wishing he had a collective again to hunt down more women and men to abuse.

Then, Ariano sprang from behind a couch with a large knife. He sliced off the ear of the Chief Supreme Master. The blood gushed from the wound and caused him to cry out in terror. Then, Janicka picked up the staff and almost crushed Chief Supreme Master’s larynx. Tears streamed from his eyes as he tried desperately to speak. A gaggle of inhabitants descended upon his body. Each of them threw fists and feet at the tall figure, now writhing on the ground, one hand to his ear, the other pressed to his throat.

“You’re not alone now, are you?” Ariano asked. “We’re all here to ensure that we mete out justice in the name of reason and reality. That’s right you cough. Continue to cough. You’re going to hear from us with every strike against your body.”

With the sun blazing into the house the entire unit of people who signed up for a cult experience of love, peace, and understanding, now reveled in the depths of violence and rational force meeting force. But it remained a definite answer to the call of Chieftain Supreme Master’s brutality. They all circled the man squirming like a worm on his living room rug. The flecks of red in the white rug looked like fallen oak leaves intermixed with the snow.

He crawled a few meters not looking up. Then a foot pressed against his head. Credence stood with a machete. Her steely gaze froze the rest of the inhabitants of the house.

“You’ve been demoted, Daron Hewitt. From there, the others applauded and screamed and shouted with the glee of Christmas on Sunday Morning. Credence put up a hand and the entire room fell silent.

“We were going to go to the cops, but out here, we thought we’d have our own court set up for you to be involved in as well.” The videographers captured all of this as they had been castigated, too. The entire world looked at the actions now happening.

“Stand up!” Ariano commanded. Hewitt struggled to his feet. He still held onto the points of impact on his head and throat. The pangs of his injuries registered in his brain as comeuppance, but he never indicated that he had been wrong.

“You are now under the control of the people of Fenwick Island, Delaware. You have been stripped of your title and any accoutrements that may be associated with it. You have no cult. You have no followers. You have no one. We remain because of the bravery of our own selves,” Credence expounded.

“Whha… I… gave… you life….” Hewitt struggled to speak, his voice gravely and almost inaudible.

“You gave us misery and spite. You created a fantasy world that you could not keep up. So, we’re dispatching you right here and now as your payment for the months of exploitation and torture. At one point, you were benevolent but you descended into disarray and now you must own responsibility for your waywardness.”

Ariano walked over to the machete and took it from Credence’s grasp. He slashed at the body of Daron Hewitt and the rest of the house sang freedom songs. Their voices lilted through the morning air as the chimes whistled in the wind. More candles had been lit in all of this. As they sang, Ariano, Janicka, and Credence took the chopped up pieces of Hewitt’s body and fed them to the dogs.