Horror - Short

This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are fictitious and any similarities to actual persons, locations, or events is coincidental. This work cannot be used to train artificial intelligence programs.  No AI tools were used in the writing of this story.

All rights reserved. Survivor Buffet Copyright © Eddie Generous 2026

SURVIVOR BUFFET

The flight attendant in her smart pantsuit and ascot pushed the drink cart along the aisle as if everything were business as usual. A storm flickered on the night sky through the windows. Nearly all the seats were empty.

“Drink?” she said, stopping at a pair of occupied seats on either side of the aisle. To her left was a man in a suit, collar open, tie loose. To her right was a man in a navy uniform.

The man on the left said, “I guess just a ginger ale. You have any of those cookies?”

The flight attendant began digging into her cart before handing off the cookies and then cracking a can of Canada Dry. “And for you, sir,” she said to the man on the right as she poured.

The man in the uniform grinned. “Oh, I wouldn’t say no to a Heineken.” He leaned close, as if conspiring. “Uncle Sam’s footing the bill—or whatever’s the Canuck equivalent.”

Playful, but in that way that can only be professional, the flight attendant winked. She handed off the cup of ginger ale as the lights flickered and the plane dipped. She stood still a moment, as if deciding whether the plane was going to cause her to spill. Ten seconds passed. As if someone hit play on her video feed, she resumed motion and began pouring a beer into a plastic cup.

“Best not waste any,” the man in the uniform said, still trying to flirt.

“I’ll do my best,” she said and handed the cup off before continuing along the aisle with the cart. Elbows poked into view from three seats in the next two rows. Before she had a chance to lock the wheels of the cart, the lights died and the plane pitched forward violently.

—

“One-two-three-four-five-six-seven,” Stephen Barnes intoned to himself as he pressed his weight into his co-worker’s chest. He leaned in, pinched her nostrils, and blew between her lips. Funny, but not so funny, he’d imagined pressing his lips to her lips about a million times. He pulled back and began compressions again. “One-two-three-four—”

Hailey Thompson—like Stephen, a correctional officer from Kingston, dressed in a blue guard’s uniform—made a choking noise and spewed close to a liter of brownish water. She then began whining and Stephen draped his body over hers, squeezing.

“Thank God,” Miller Marshall said, another from the prison, making a skinny shadow over the pair, in his left hand was a slim grey rope attached to a semi-deflated life raft.

The four of them dripped Pacific Ocean.

“Yeah, thank god,” Sidney Hughes said. He sat beneath a coconut palm on the waterlogged seat cushion he’d swum behind after escaping the cracked hull of the downed plane. He still had handcuffs on his wrists, as he was scheduled to until back behind heavy bars and thick walls.

The extradition order was part of a friendly deal between Canada and the Ukraine. They’d give up Sidney, the Canadian Cannibal, Hughes in exchange for happy thoughts during the next trade deal. The Canadian prison guards met Sidney in Australia—where he’d briefly continued his serial murdering and ingesting—with orders to escort him home for a one 1,000-year residency in Kingston Penitentiary. He’d killed and eaten fifty-nine people but had managed to wiggle his way out of the country during a transfer between Ottawa and Kingston. The guards involved in his escape had moved to the gen pop within Kingston themselves.

“Shut up,” Stephen said.

“Or what?” Sidney smirked.

They’d been in the air for about three hours when the engines cut out and the plane slammed into the ocean—the pilots, though both dead, did a hell of a job lessening the impact.

“Is anybody here?” a voice called from down the beach.

Miller put a hand above his brow to shadow the light. There, way down the beach, was the pretty flight attendant—now looking like a drowned cat—who’d been pushing a cart when the plane began its unscheduled descent.

—

The courtroom was wood on wood all over: the walls, the desks, the jury box, the floor, the bench, and so on. The jury was visibly shaken by what they’d seen and heard. To avoid a circus, the judge ordered the court to be vacant aside from people directly associated with the case, leaving but a small crowd at the back of the room. The defense council in their wigs and gowns sat in their seats, looking pale and defeated.

The prosecutor, dressed the same as the defense, stood behind a pulpit, sneering as he spoke, holding a fine fork and steak knife. “Sidney Charles Hughes had these utensils on the mantle of the home he’d rented. He kept them in a place of honor. He kept them in a place that was visible, somewhere that he might remember and relive. Ladies and gentlemen, this knife, this fork, these are the very tools Sidney Charles Hughes used to murder Gloria Darri and then dine upon her flesh. Raw. He cut her throat, holding her to the floor with his knee against her back until she bled out. He then sat in that very hot blood and began to eat. He ate from her breast, her cheek, her eye, and eventually, he opened her up and devoured her heart. I could go on, but I won’t…this case makes me sick to my stomach.”

Sidney Hughes indiscreetly licked his puffy lips as he watched and listened to the sum of his crimes revisited.

—

“You motherfucker,” Hailey said through clenched teeth. Her knees dug into the beach sand next to the destroyed body of a second flight attendant. The corpse had floated to shore the night before and her flesh was almost entirely intact.

It had been, then.

“You disgusting motherfucker,” Hailey said.

Sidney held his cuffed wrists out before him. “I didn’t do that.”

A fist slammed into the back of Sidney’s head, and he flew forward, flopping onto the flayed corpse.

“No laws are gonna save you out here, sicko,” Miller said.

The flight attendant named Clare, who’d survived the crash, looked at the body of her once co-worker, visibly horrified. “He did this to her? Who could do that?”

Sidney rolled over and looked up at Stephen Barnes. “Better stake a pig’s head,” he said and turned sideways to kiss the skinless thigh of the dead flight attendant. He licked his lips. “Salty.”

“Get him off her!” Hailey said.

“How could he do it?” Clare said.

“This crime ain’t mine,” Sidney said, smacking his blood-pink lips.

—

They made camp under one of the huge trees that covered the small island. Inland about five hundred meters from the beach, the tree they chose had a trunk thicker than the length of a pickup truck. Bulbs like breadfruit circled the base, fell from the lowest branches—they were high enough that any features of the branches were indistinguishable. Miller had patted it with his palm, absently telling the others about the summer he worked as a lumberjack—or rather, as a laborer to lumberjacks.

Night was warm and the ocean breeze was melodious, playing them into easy sleeps. During the day, they stayed near the beach. There was a freshwater creek that trickled by the camp and the bulbous fruits falling from the trees proved edible, though not overly appetizing.

By the third night, they’d begun to accept that they might be on the island for a while. The SOS sign in rocks would help, but the Pacific was the biggest mass on the planet.

“Might pay to do some investigating, deeper in, I mean,” Miller said.

All but Clare and Sidney rumbled agreements. Clare sat, blank-faced like a beaten waif while Sidney watched the trees. That afternoon, he’d used his cuffed wrists to strangle two pelican-like birds. They’d eaten them at sundown, retreating from the beach where the rats amalgamated to feast on night insects and washed-up sea life.

“Bet there’s a cat or something in here,” Stephen said. “Probably came from the same place as the coconuts and the rats. Ships from way back, whenever, would stop in to check stuff out. They toss some coconut shells. Rats jump ship. Cats follow the rats.”

“Hmm,” Hailey said, eyes closed, picking a hunk of cooked bird from between her teeth. “Miller, you might be the one to save us.”

“I caught the birds,” Sidney said, feigning offense.

“So what? Miller figured out the fire, you motherfucker.”

Miller was the only one with his cellphone still in his pocket once their floating party reached land. Too soaked to work ever again, he took it apart gingerly, used the cracked glass screen to magnify the midday light against a mound of coconut shell hair and the plastic battery.

“Should be happy I’m sampling the avian menu…and not my favorite.” Sidney licked his lips. “Been a long time, too long.”

“Shut the fuck up, motherfucker,” Hailey said and threw a breadfruit melon across the fire.

Sidney let it hit him and eyed the woman.

—

Hailey’s screams awoke the camp come sunup.

Sidney was on the ground bleeding, hands to the side of his head and cheek. “I didn’t do that!” he whine-screamed the words. When he first arose, he’d been smirking, his expression curious.

“You sick motherfucker!” Hailey was livid. Miller held her back. She had a fresh rock in each hand. The first one she’d clocked off Sidney’s head had rolled into the shadows cast by the great tree.

Stephen Barnes was a corpse by the smoldering coals. His clothing was gone, as was his skin—from the bottoms of his feet to his scalp, gone. He was pink and white, the colors of his veins playing about him like flair. He looked like an anatomical diagram of human muscles.

“How could I do that?” Sidney didn’t dare get up.

Clare stared up into the big tree they’d camped beneath, chewing absently at coconut meat.

—

“I say we go investigate…because what if it wasn’t him?” Miller whispered to Hailey.

“Can’t leave him with her,” Hailey said.

Both looked at Clare, who was still peering up at the green limbs and dangling fruit bulbs.

“I have an idea,” Miller said.

Together they tied Sidney to the huge tree where they’d camped as the two surviving guards moved to the beach, dragging the fleshless corpse with them. After a short discussion, they pulled the body into the ocean as they had with the washed up flight attendant’s remains.

“You know, I don’t get it. How’d he do it?” Miller said.

They’d arranged more rocks into an SOS shape on the beach—the tide had washed their previous attempt away.

“He’s sick. Probably used a stone. Probably knows how to do it like—”

Miller cut Hailey off. “I helped my uncle skin a deer once. Skin doesn’t just slide off…even if Hughes has some trick, it’s a ton of work. Like hard work, yanking cutting, yanking cutting, and you gotta have them hung to make gravity help… Well, that’s how my uncle and me did it.”

“Let’s go ask him then. That motherfucker did it somehow.”

“Unless there’s something out here.”

“We should kill him.” Hailey picked up a smooth shell and fired it into the ocean.

“One of us will watch him all night. We’ll go in shifts. Like normal.”

Hailey shook her head. “Fuck that. Let’s tie him to a tree down here.”

“But the rats.” Miller grimaced, thinking.

“Too bad.”

—

“You stay here, okay?” Miller said.

Hailey nodded.

Miller pushed a trail into the thick flora, watching his feet and the forest floor as he walked. There had to be a sign of something else—Sidney hadn’t done what Hailey was so certain he had, something else was on the island with them. The only heartening thought was that the something waited until Stephen was asleep before it had killed him.

Miller paused a moment upon hearing the tinkling of water before increasing his pace and chasing the sound. The pond was small but look deep.

Sweaty and dirty, Miller stripped out of his prison uniform. He paused a moment, glancing around, then whispered, “Cannonball,” before running ten steps and leaping forward with his knees held tight to his chest.

The water was cool and silky. Miller rubbed everywhere, washing away sand and salt and days’ worth of grime. He paused while floating, his hands in his hair. It felt like something was watching him. He scanned the sandy shore before locking eyes with the biggest damned frog he’d ever seen. Big as a housecat and had rubbery lime flesh.

“Are you poisonous or edible?” he said, knowing this couldn’t be the island’s predator.

As he dressed, Miller watched the frog spear insects with its pale pink tongue. It hardly had to move, it almost seemed as if the bugs wanted to be eaten.

“See ya later, froggy,” he said before heading back toward camp.

The frog made a noise like an electric squeak toy and Miller turned as that pale tongue lashed out and clung to his forehead. Miller had no options, numbed motionless, soundless. After a few seconds, the tongue retracted and yanked Miller’s flesh away with a wet ssslurp sound. What remained were bloody muscles, white bones, and blue veins. His organs spilled out and his heart thumped itself from his chest, dangled around where his naval had been.

The frog’s throat had become huge, like it was smuggling a library globe.

—

“Miller didn’t come back. There’s something. We need to watch out for each other,” Hailey said to Sidney, her expression and tone unlike anything she’d offered the man before.

“What?” Sidney said.

Hailey took a step left, revealing Clare’s flayed corpse where it leaned against a stone. Her dead head remained tilted skyward.

“There’s something here,” Hailey whispered.

Sidney tried to lift his cuffed wrists. “Undo me.”

Hailey shook her head.

“Look, we only survive if we stick together. You can’t let me die in these cuffs.”

Hailey shook her head again. “I think we should take the life raft.”

Sidney leaned in close to her face. “Uncuff me or we both die.”

“How do I know you won’t kill me?”

“Because then I’m dead and I have no lookout. We need to work together.”

—

The sun was almost down. They’d fashioned spears and dragged Clare’s body to the beach, spent the rest of the day gathering wood. It had been hard work and Hailey was visibly beat.

“I’ll take first watch,” Sidney said.

Hailey yawned, nodding. An indeterminate amount of time later she awoke with her hands tied and Sidney cutting into her ankle with a sharp rock. She wailed and tried to thrash, but he’d put his knee across her knees, and she couldn’t move.

“You motherfucker,” she said, the words playing free like a hiss.

Blood darkened the sand and within a minute, she passed out again, only to come to screaming in pain and looking up at Sidney. He had a clown’s smile of blood and was munching on her uncooked foot.

“Hey there, tasty,” he said.

“What have you done, motherfucker?” Hailey said where she leaned against the trunk of a huge tree. Her face was lumpy with great red and purple blotches. Her lips were split, and a swollen gulley ran down the back of her head. She was alive, felt the compounded pain she’d missed when she’d slipped into unconsciousness while Sidney carved away the flesh of her left foot.

“You’re delicious,” Sidney said. “I really mean that.”

She spat. “How’d you kill Miller and Stephen?” She spat again, great black-red globs.

Sidney smiled. “You flatter me,” he said. There were two spears close by his side. “Unfortunately, I don’t have time to slice you up and brine you before I go.”

“Go where?”

“This island has an apex predator, and I don’t what to be its next meal.”

“You’re ins—” Hailey’s face drooped after a jolting forward. Her expression tightened as she leaned back. Her face smoothed and then split down the middle, blood splattering out before oozing down. In a blink, her entire skinsuit was yanked away.

Sidney popped to his feet. He grabbed the raft and one of the long, flaming sticks from the fire—forgetting his spears. He charged down the beach toward the water, shaking sand out of the raft. The ocean was calm enough to give him hope, and he pushed in with the raft. Whatever had snatched all those skins, he did not want to test it.

It proved impossible for him to climb inside with the lit stick, so he doused it in the ocean, smoke rising in the moonlight like a soul departing its flesh. He tossed the stick into the raft and them pitched himself backward, into the raft himself. The bottom of the raft was deflated, but the big ring around him was stiff and holding air.

Quickly, making distance from the shore, was what appeared to be a three-foot tall frog. Sidney scrunched his face. At least it wasn’t the predator. And as large as this frog was, he was glad he didn’t have to meet whatever other oversized creature might’ve dwelled on the island. He turned his back a moment and tried to use the stick like a paddle—thankfully, the tide was headed out—while his legs lazily motorboated over the back end.

Ahead, the big frog rose through the surf, its eyes shining wetly beneath the big moon.

“Pretty risky, going into the ocean, don’t you think?” he said to the thing, his pace slowing a modicum. There was something eerie about this whole situation—did frogs even go in saltwater? He shot a look out behind him. “Hmm,” he said.

Behind the raft were four more massive frogs. They began squeaking an electric cry that sent a tingle into Sidney’s skin. He looked forward again, dozens of frogs popped up upon the surf. In a pack they swam gracefully to the raft.

“Hey,” Sidney said as the raft began to turn, losing ground, and heading back to shore.

He swatted at the frogs with the stick. One frog lifted its face and lashed out at Sidney, hitting the raft. In no more than two seconds, the raft disappeared beneath him like a club performer yanking away a tablecloth. He fell into the water, his knees hitting rough sand and his head momentarily going under. A scream erupted from his throat. There were dozens of the huge frogs.

He popped up and tried to run. The frogs watched him for several steps, until he made it back most of the way. Only his calves and feet remained below the surf, when the first tongue lashed out, then a second, third, fourth. Sidney’s motor activity continued beyond his lulled brain as the tongues pumped poison into his bloodstream. He ran against the hold, and kept going, even after his flesh separated like rubber puzzle pieces. The vacant-eyed man reached the beach, fleshless, and pitched forward. He lay still, feeling the intense agony of being eaten alive, but unable to do anything about it.

From the ocean, the frogs converged, swimming and hopping, some swallowing the bits of flesh they’d taken. As a group, they dragged Sidney inland, sand playing into the man’s open eyes, clinging to his sticky body.

Over the following day, the frogs gathered the corpses and dragged them into the high, high trees to let them fester, putrefy, and bait all manner of food to the deserted island.

XX