I remember when the island was untouched and beautiful. That was before the war. Before the casinos, before Chune took my soul.

The island's tropical splendor was an inevitable casualty of the fighting. We needed it for our aircraft. Forget its history, to hell with its charm -- all that was important was defeating the enemy. Besides, it wasn't our island, so what did we care?

If we had seen its owner, we would have been wiser.

My unit was ordered to clear the land for an airstrip from which heroic pilots would be dispatched to drop bombs on someone I didn't know. That was fine. They were the bad guys, after all. I was lucky enough to land a job as an interpreter for the natives. Their language was incomprehensible, but sometime in the past French missionaries had set up shop there, and there was one old fellow who remembered enough of what he'd been taught that I was able to get along with him with my college French. The very first question I had for him was simple: Why didn't anyone live here?

The island was actually two, separated by a narrow sunken isthmus. The water was only hip deep and easily crossed, yet the natives clung exclusively to the tiny, crowded island on the north side of the channel. The southern island was massive and green, teeming with birds and game and breadfruit trees, but not a single islander was willing to cross over to it. We offered them money and presents, but they refused. I asked the old man why.

"It doesn't belong to us," he said matter-of-factly. "It belongs to Chune."

"Chune" was as close as I could get to the pronunciation of the name. Thinking that it was a badly mispronounced French word, I spent hours searching through my dictionaries before realizing that the old man was referring to the owner in his own tongue. "Who is Chune?" I asked him. "Where can I find him?"

The old man only shook his head. It was taboo to tell me about Chune. I remained curious, however, and I asked him several times to no avail. Finally, I discovered that a well-administered dose of bourbon made the taboo seem far less meaningful to the old man. Chune, he told me, was a local deity-figure, the God of Great Storms, who came to his island once in a man's lifetime to feast. His voice took on an ominous tone as he related to me a frightful ritual in which members of his own tribe would be chosen to cross the narrow straight and give themselves over to the god's hunger. "He eats them to their bones," he whispered, "even their souls."

"Did you ever see him?" I asked, skeptical.

The old man nodded.

"What did he look like?"

I got no answer. The bourbon, so useful in coaxing the story forth, had done its job all too well, and the old man fell sound asleep. My curiosity satisfied, I left him be.

Ships arrived carrying earth movers and concrete and strong men to fell the trees. It was not long before the land was hacked bare. Long air strips crisscrossed the island. The trees were turned into barracks and a mess hall. The planes came soon after, roaring down the newly-laid tarmac and rising into the sky over the tiny northern island, where the natives stubbornly remained, still refusing to set foot on the larger island. We left them alone. The littler island was of little consequence; it was the larger that was important to our war effort.

Planes came and went, and then we got the news that the war had ended. We celebrated of course, running around like damned fools and drinking and praising our Fighting Men. A lot of the fellows went home after that. I stayed, however, and so did a few of the others. Some of them had orders to do so, and others, like me, had nothing much to return to. The airstrip became a lonely outpost in the middle of the ocean, a bastion against whatever threats might still be lurking across the waves from our defeated enemy.

It wasn't a bad life, not for me at least. The trouble was that after a few years other people, mostly those with too much time and too much money, realized that it might not be a bad life for them either. We were ordered to enlarge the airstrip and to clear more land, and before I knew it people were pouring in. The sounds of construction went on night and day as hotels and casinos rose from the sandy soil. These attracted more people like bees to a field of flowers, and the influx gave rise to more resorts and movie theaters and big cars. The island became a playground for those who could afford to reach it.

I always laughed at the advertisements for the "fabulous tropical paradise" that was my home. Imported palm trees had been planted in rows behind a sprawling hotel, and the tourists thought they were in Eden. If only they had seen it with my eyes.

And the natives? They watched it all from the shelter of their little island. They would peer across the channel at me as I walked on the beach in the mornings and would shake their heads. I remember calling to them once or twice, trying to convince them to wade across and at least see that the big island was safe to visit. The old man I knew had died, though, and either no one was left who could understand me, or they simply did not want to acknowledge the invitation.

The big island quickly filled up with foreigners yearning for the tropical sun, and soon government boats arrived and took the natives away from their little sanctuary. I don't think anyone ever discussed the matter with them. They left tearfully, without a struggle, and even before their cooking fires were cold a massive dredging operation filled in the channel. The larger island quickly swallowed its little neighbor whole.

I had an apartment in one of the taller buildings and had a fine view of the harbor from my window. I remember one day being concerned over clouds gathering on the horizon. In those days weather forecasting was mostly a matter of guesswork. People still relied on trick knees, and more than a few of those were acting up on the island that morning. A couple of folks, newcomers mostly, headed for the airport, but most people stayed put. We had been through storms before and come through just fine. No one was thinking of a typhoon, except maybe for me. The old story came back to me as I sat watching the clouds growing darker and fiercer. I thought at last that I understood the basis for the tale. Chune, God of Great Storms, was the sort of raging typhoon that a man was likely only to see once in a lifetime.

I could feel that it was coming. The old man's voice whispered in my head. "Chune." I had seen some terrific storms back home and could well understand the islanders' awe and terror. Little did I know then that the weather was the least of the islanders' worries. I should have kept the old man talking that night.

As the wind rose I stayed at the window, hypnotized. A foolish move, I know. The glass could have given way at any moment and cut me to ribbons. Now I wish it had. It would have spared me decades of torment. I must have watched for hours as the typhoon winds thrashed the island, and pieces of rooftops and other debris raced through the streets below. For the most part the buildings withstood the blow, although a few of the smaller houses were less defiant. Casualties and damage would have been light, a brief mention in the local newspaper, if it had been only the typhoon that visited us that day.

From my vantage point I could see the waves growing more ferocious as they lashed through the harbor. Then, further out, a shadow appeared to rise up from the waves. I squinted through the curtains of rain, and then hurried to fetch my binoculars and returned to the window. The shadow grew larger -- a waterspout, was it?

The rain grew thinner and then stopped entirely. The eye of the storm had arrived. And with it had come Chune.

He was a living mountain, rising and rising from the water, growing larger still as he strode through the harbor and into the shallows. I have seen him over and over in countless waking nightmares, as clearly as I saw him then. A hulking giant, upright, shaped like a burly man but far from human. He raised one huge foot and stepped onto the beach. I saw webs between his clawed toes as his foot sank deep into the sand, and it seemed to me that I could feel the impact through the floor of my apartment. Behind him the waves broke on a long shark's tail. His hide was as grey as the stormy sea behind him, and his head (my stomach lurches just to think of it now) reminded me more than anything of a crocodile, but with green eyes that burned with such a palpable malevolence that I could not help but cringe. As he moved closer the sun emerged from behind the clouds and glistened off of his wet hide. He rose up even taller, impossibly huge, and loosed a screech that froze my veins, and then advanced.

Horrified beyond words, I stood at my window and watched as one of Chune's feet rose and swung forward, smashing through an oceanfront villa as easily as through a grassy meadow. Walls that had withstood the full fury of the gale now disintegrated, the pieces hurtling through the air for hundreds of yards. The foot came to rest in the street, which held for just a second before crumbling to powder beneath the weight. Chune hesitated, his monstrous head turning from side to side. I imagine he was bewildered by the transformation his island had undergone.

Then I saw tiny figures swarming out of the building beside him. Others had seen him, too. No doubt many simply stood dumbstruck, as I did, but many more took to their heels. Chune's gaze fell on them, and I saw -- I saw! -- his eyes catch fire with a horrific glee. Here was something familiar to him, the terrified offerings of his long-vanished worshippers. The great body stooped down, one arm stretching forward, reaching for the fleeing figures. Long, webbed fingers overtook a man and a woman and surrounded them. They closed into a fist, the webbing obscuring the captives, and Chune rose up straight again. He peered closely at his fist, the fire in his eyes blazing with cruel delight. A moment passed, and then as if losing interest he opened his hand and turned it over. I saw pieces raining down like broken twigs past his belly to land clattering at his feet. Red, slender sticks, some small chunks -- I realized with revulsion that these were skeletons. In those few seconds their flesh had somehow been stripped away, leaving only those sad, shattered remnants.

He ate them. Down to their bones, even their souls. I think I started to laugh then. The fact that I had assumed the old man's story to be a simple-minded metaphor suddenly seemed an uproarious joke.

Cackling, I stared as Chune stooped again, both hands now groping before him. Tiny people, their arms flung over their heads in raw terror, vanished into his grasp to reappear moments later as broken, fleshless shards. Chune continued forward. Blinded by fear, a man in a waiter's uniform darted into the street just as a gigantic foot came down. It covered him and crushed him like an insect, and when it rose again there was nothing but a shattered skeleton in the center of the print. Everything that the man had been had vanished in an instant, his flesh, his thoughts, his last screams all somehow absorbed into the giant's being.

Once again Chune paused, his head lowered curiously. He had seen where this singular victim had come from, and he was clearly intrigued. Turning, he peered down at the low structure at his feet. A restaurant that catered to the wealthy and the powerful, it became a feeding trough as Chune tore the roof away with his hands and reached inside. I began to laugh harder at the irony, my throat aching and hoarse by now. I could not see the horror behind the walls, but I saw Chune's hands rise one after the other, flinging aside the bare indigestibles and then darting greedily downward for more.

The street behind him began to fill with shrieking, stumbling figures. I saw them, and Chune saw them as well. He rose again and turned, his tail brushing through a tall building behind him and collapsing it in a heap of dust. For a moment he simply gazed at the swarming mass, and then with frightful intent, he lifted one foot and stepped on them. The webbed toes sank into the pavement with his weight and then rose once more, swinging to the side to descend with deliberate care upon more scrambling victims. The street became a mass of pulverized concrete and broken bones. Nothing that looked vaguely human was left behind. Chune saw to that.

He turned again, and a great mass of grey suddenly swept by my window. At the same time the building lurched wildly. The ceiling cracked and part of it collapsed, sending an expensive chair hurtling down beside me. My mind, overcome by the abominable scene before, was suddenly snapped back to reality. A raw instinct for self-preservation overtook me and I began to run.

It was five floors down to the street. I cannot remember taking them. I remember only dodging the fallen masonry that poured down around me, and then suddenly I was bursting through the doors and out into the sunlight. The calm skies of the storm's eye seemed almost ludicrous, the sun shining down so cheerfully on the murderous giant a cruel sarcasm.

I tripped and fell against my car. Maybe that was what I had intended to reach. My hands fumbled at the doorlatch. I did not think to unlock it. Turning my head I could see Chune towering over the street several blocks down. As though aware of my plan and flaunting its futility, Chune had snatched another car from the roadway and was holding it aloft. He tore it open with contemptuous ease and dumped its terrified passengers into his waiting palm. His hand closed around them and tightened. The car fell to the street, and a moment later, a pitiful jumble of bones followed it.

A sea of humanity suddenly burst from the grand hotel across the street. I was swept up in the flood as they poured through the doors. Scrambling, screaming, eyes wide but unseeing they pushed past me, and it was all I could do to keep from being knocked to the ground and overrun. My body was spun about crazily by the jostling mass. I saw Chune's head rise in the distance, his malicious gaze drawn to the lure of abundant prey. He strode toward us, muscular legs brushing aside the glamorous signs pinned to the facades on either side of him, his feet crashing deafeningly closer.

The crowd was mad with fear. I realized that there would be no outrunning the monster, and began to fight against the tide. I thought that by making my way to the trailing edge of the crowd, I might be passed over as Chune descended upon the meatier portions ahead of me. It seemed my only hope at the time, and I fought like a wildman against the mob. I could see Chune's thunderous footfalls drawing nearer by the second, overtaking us as though we were standing still. The huge, clawed toes drove down deep into the pavement, the webs snapping like sails as they rose again and swept forward. One foot inevitably rose and swung high over my head. I saw the sun blotted out by its bulk, the underside smooth and black and glistening. It began to fall -- it was enormous -- and I pushed myself backward with all my might.

I fell on my rump and watched as a massive claw came down before me. The people let out a singular shriek and threw up their hands in a fruitless, desperate gesture. The huge foot covered them and drove them down in a tangled writhing mass to the pavement. I watched helplessly as the mass compressed, the foot sinking down further and further in grotesque slow motion. My ears filled with an awful crackling sound, and as the foot settled into the pavement the noise shifted to a bubbling hiss, like escaping steam but almost deafeningly loud. An acrid aroma choked me and stung my eyes. The immense toes splayed as the foot shifted forward and then rushed skyward again, sweeping over me and knocking me flat with the sheer shock of their passing. I sat up slowly and stared for an eternity at the gigantic footprint and the sea of shattered bones that littered its floor, and then I fainted.

When I came to I was in wrenching, unbelievable pain. My body was bruised and scraped, either by the press of the crowd or by something else while I was unconscious I'll never know. All around me was in ruin. Buildings lay in rubble on both sides of the street. My apartment building was nothing more than a pile of twisted metal and brick and wood. There was an awful silence, not even a whisper of air, and then that was shattered by a resounding crash behind me. The pavement lurched, throwing me into the air. I landed hard and spun about, to find Chune's great foot resting heavily before me.

I froze, waiting for death. Chune's shadow lay around me, and slowly faded as the sunlight dimmed. Somehow I found the courage to raise my eyes. My gaze rose along the pillar of muscle that was Chune's leg, and fell at last upon his terrible face. He was looking at me, toothy muzzle parted slightly in a savage grin. His eyes locked on mine, their inner fire leaping and growing ever brighter as the sky darkened behind them. The wind began to whistle and then to howl through the devastated streets. Sand stung my eyes, but I could not look away from Chune's eyes.

The great foot lifted slowly. I waited, tensing, wondering if the pain would end quickly. I saw his vast sole swing past, and the pavement shook again as it landed behind me. The shark tail snaked through the air and vanished over my head. Turning, I squinted through the blinding gale and watched as Chune strode back toward the sea, the eye wall following close behind him, leaving the gale to tear at my flesh. I could do nothing but clutch desperately at the broken pavement and watch with my last scrap of sanity as Chune disappeared once again beneath the waves.

*****

They tell me that I was found clinging to a chunk of floating rooftop far out to sea by a Navy. The ship's doctor sedated me because I was raving and lashing out at my rescuers. That would become my daily routine for years to come as I languished in the asylum. They filled me with drugs and strapped me to my bed, but could never drive the lingering horror from my mind. Every waking moment I saw Chune's eyes staring, cruel and baleful, down at me from on high. I tried to tell them what I had seen, tried to warn them to stay away, but they just shook their heads and looked at me with pity, just as the island natives had done from across the channel so long ago. "You fractured your skull," they would say gently. "You suffered a horrible ordeal. It is natural for you to have hallucinations."

"What about the bones?" I shrieked. "You must have found them!"

"The storm surge swept nearly everything out to sea," they crooned gently. "We did find some bones, but that was because sea birds had gotten to them before we did."

"No sea birds! No storm surge! It was Chune! I saw him! It was his island! He ate them to the bones, even their souls!"

They would leave me alone at that point, alone to stare into space and cower before the might of the God of Great Storms. Every minute of every day I sat shivering in his gaze and screaming, screaming, screaming.

Somewhere, someone one day made a pen stroke, and the asylum was closed. With the thunder of Chune's footfalls and the shrieks of his victims still echoing around me I was sent away to fend for myself. From that moment I began to search for a way back to the island. I knew that Chune only returned to feed once in a man's lifetime, or so the old man had told me, but now I was an old man myself, far older than any of the islanders would have thought a man could live. I knew, I knew that Chune would return, and soon, and that he would be expecting me.

I still do not know why he spared me. Maybe it was to savor my torment somehow from afar, or perhaps he simply could not remain with the passing of the storm's eye. Maybe, too, he felt that one lone, cowering man was not worth his effort. Even monsters can be capricious, I suppose. Either way, I knew that I had to return to the island. I had to be there when he returned, because I knew full well that it is only Chune who can end the nightmare.

*****

They've built a seawall around the island. They think that it will prevent the sort of catastrophe that raged through here fifty years ago. It makes me laugh. They would never believe me if I were to tell them that catastrophe could step over that wall as easily as they would step up on a curb.

The clouds are gathering on the horizon. They have been since early morning. Across the street from my hotel room I can see a vast concrete bunker. Someone is hanging signs on it proclaiming it to be a public storm shelter. In my mind I can see Chune's heavy fist smashing through the concrete like paper, his fingers groping within for food. They will all be huddled together within, all in one place. It will make it so much easier for him this time.

I will be waiting in there with them. I pray that Chune will show me mercy this time, and will finally finish what he started.

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