Free The Wild Things by Dave Eggers Page B

than bears, their heads far bigger, and they were quicker than bears or anything so large. Their movements were nimble, deft -- they had the quickness of deer or small monkeys. And they all looked different, as humans do -- one had a long broken horn on its nose; another had a wide flat face, stringy hair, and pleading eyes; another seemed like a cross between a boy and a goat. And another--
    It
had
been a giant rooster. This was the weirdest one by far. Max slapped himself, making sure he was awake. He was awake, and there was a giant rooster before him, no more than twenty yards away, in the full glow of the raging fire. It was at once comical -- it looked like a giant man in a rooster suit, standing upright -- and powerful and menacing.
    The rooster creature seemed frustrated, staring at another creature, this one of similar height and heft, but with a different shape. This one had a mop of reddish hair and a leonine face, with a large rhino-like horn extending from its nose. It looked female, if that was possible for such an ugly thing. She was in the middle of destroying something, beating a large nest with a log. In her enthusiasm and abandon, she looked like a kid destroying a sand castle.
    And this seemed to be greatly upsetting the rooster.
    Soon Max could see a pattern to what the beasts were doing. It looked like they’d come upon some kind of settlement, full of great round nests -- each made of huge sticks and logs and every one of them bigger than a car -- and they had decided to destroy them. They were systematically wrecking them all. They ripped the nests open, they jumped from trees into them, they tossed each other into the nest-walls which collapsed instantly from the force.
    Max was about to turn and run the other way -- there didn’t seem to be much point in staying so close to such destructive, borderline maniacal beasts -- when he heard (could it be?) a word.
    There was, he was almost sure, a word: “Go!”
    He would have never expected them to speak, but he was sure he’d heard the word
Go
. And just as he was repeating the sound in his mind, turning it over, analyzing it, the creature closest to him spoke a full sentence:
    “Is it twisted?”
    This one was standing, showing his back to another, who was sitting at his feet. They seemed to have fallen through the wall of one of the huts, and the first was asking for help, assessing possible injuries to his spine.
    “Yeah, it’s kind of twisted,” said the second.
    The two gathered themselves up and ran off.
    Max squatted down again, determined to watch a bit longer, to try and parse what was happening and why.
    One creature seemed to be leading the melee. He had a big round face, sharp horns like a viking’s and dark bags under his eyes. He was getting ready to run toward one of the nests when the rooster-looking creature approached him and put his hand -- it wasn’t a wing; he seemed to have hands and claws -- on his shoulder.
    “Carol, can I speak to you for a second?”
    Max was astounded. Had that sentence just been uttered? It was said with such casual sophistication that his conception of the creatures was exploded. They weren’t just grunting monsters: they spoke like people.
    “Not now, Douglas,” the big one, Carol, said, and moved the rooster to one side. Then Carol got a running start and barreled into the side of one of the nests, knocking it to splinters.
    Meanwhile, a giant bull-like creature was running into various walls at even greater speed. He seemed disconnected, though, not seeking out anyone’s approval or interacting in any meaningful way.
    “Good job,” Max said to him.
    The bull stared at Max, but said nothing. Then he turned away, moving like a ship, and lumbered off.
    Max could now see that a smaller creature was upset about all the activity. This one resembled a goat, standing upright and with white-grey fur. He was the shortest and thinnest of the creatures by far, closer to Max’s size than the others. He