Free The Wild Things by Dave Eggers

trip -- one month, then two, then it wasn’t a business trip anymore. He was simply gone, and soon had gotten the place in the city. Then there was quiet. Then he was back for that one loud week, then gone again. Then quiet again, for what seemed like a year. Then the white-haired Peter. Who was he again? He was too old. He once brought Max a plant, a fern, for a present. Max put it on the window sill and later made sure it “fell” into the garden below. Then Peter was gone ... though he came back that one late night and woke everyone up with his singing and begging. Right? That was Peter.
    Then came Gary. But what about the other-other man, the man who came to the door a few times last year? His mother had gone with him in his car, a small convertible the color of ash … Max had asked Claire about that man, but she told Max he was only someone from his mother’s work; they had to go to a working dinner, she told him. Max was sure there was more to it than that, but there were secrets between Claire and his mother. Too many.

    Max sailed in and out of days and nights. He endured blustery winds, cruel winds, chattering winds, and warm blanketing breezes. There were waves like dragons and waves like sparrows. There was rain but mostly there was sun, the terribly unimaginative sun, doing the same things day in and day out. There were occasional sightings of birds and fish and flies, but nothing Max could reach or much less eat. He had not had a morsel of anything in what seemed like weeks and it was causing a churning ache within him that felt as if his organs were feeding on each other for sustenance.

CHAPTER XV

    But one day he saw something. A green blot on the horizon, no bigger than a caterpillar. Half-crazed and untrusting of his eyes, he thought little of it. He went to sleep again.

    When he awoke, the caterpillar had become an island. It towered above him -- a rocky beach beneath massive cliffs, green hills above. The island seemed strangely alive everywhere, vibrating with color and sound.

    By the time he reached the shore, it was night and the island had gone black. It was a good deal less welcoming now, as a silhouette against a gunmetal sky, but there was something high in the hills that beckoned him. An orange glow between the trees high above the shore.
    As soon as he felt he was able, Max jumped out and into the water. He thought it would be at least waist-deep, but it was far deeper than that. His feet could not reach the floor and he was quickly swallowed in the foam, the white. And the cold! The water was colder than he thought possible; it knocked the wind out of him.
    He held the rope that held the boat, and tried to dog-paddle shoreward. He thought for a moment he would have to let go of the rope, lest he drown. But just as his head dropped below the surface and the boat tugged against his grip, his feet found the sand below, and he stood. He would not die this night and he considered this, on balance, a good thing.
    Max stumbled forth, soaked and exhausted. He dragged the boat onto the beach, placed a group of large stones around it, and tied its lead to the biggest tree he could find. When he was finished, he collapsed and lay down, his cheek to the cold sand. When he felt rested, he rose again, but found he could barely stand. He was tired and hungry and leaden; the weight of his fur when wet surprised him. He considered taking off his wolf suit, but he knew if he did he’d be even colder. The wind was bracing and he knew that his only chance at warmth -- of survival -- would be to climb the cliffs and find his way to the fire he’d seen from the sea.
    So this is what he did.
    The cliffs were jagged but dependable. He climbed to the top in under an hour and rested at the summit. While heaving and looking down -- he was easily two hundred feet up -- he heard the sounds coming from the island’s interior: crunching and crashing, whooping and howling, the crackle of a gigantic fire. Only in his