Dave Eggers - The Wild Things

“I didn’t do that,” Max snapped.

“But look how you made Carol feel. Just because you’re scared he might eat you, you need some kind of secret chamber? That’s nuts. You know, if you care about him and he wants to eat you, he should be able to eat you. Get your priorities straight, King.” There was a sound of teeth on ligament, like the snapping of chewing gum. She turned to Ira. “Ow. Stop.”

She turned back to Max.

“Did that offend you, Max? I’m sorry if you were offended by that. You know, people don’t always like me because I say what’s on my mind. I tell the truth, but I do it for the good of everyone. And the truth is, if this little secret door maneuver of yours does what I think it’ll do, someone else might see fit to eat you. I might have to eat you myself.”

“No, no, no!” a voice was yelling from the fort.

It was Carol. He was on his knees, his ear to the ground. “Wait wait wait. What’s that? That’s not right.”

Douglas was close by. “What is it?”

“It’s bad,” Carol whispered.

“Is it chatter?” Douglas asked.

“So much chatter,” Carol said.

Judith and Ira rushed over.

“And what about the whispering?” Judith asked.

“Yup. There’s a lot of whispering,” Carol said, lifting his head and looking to all of them gravely. “I’m afraid it’s reached us here, even inside these high walls.”

Alexander was hyperventilating. “What does that mean? We won’t be safe here?”

“I’m not sure,” Carol said. “But I do know that something’s wrong with the design of this fort.” He turned to look at Max. “Something’s very wrong. I knew there shouldn’t be secret doors. Arrrgh!”

Carol stormed around the walls. He glared at the secret doors with unchecked contempt.

Now Max was on his knees, listening for whatever it was that Carol heard. Max couldn’t hear anything.

“There can’t be chatter here,” Max said. “Not inside the fort. It’s too big and powerful to worry about things like that.”

Carol gave him a look registering disappointment in a dozen varieties. He began to mark walls and beams with his claws. “We’ll have to start over,” he said.

“But the fort’s not done yet,” Max said. “Shouldn’t we wait—”

Carol cut him off. “Max. Your voice is one I don’t want to hear right now. We need to remake it. We need to tear down all these parts and start over. We’ll need a moat. And higher walls. And an outer wall. I don’t know what I was thinking. It could never have made us safe, the way it was designed.”

A black mood passed over everyone.

Night came and Max was afraid. The beasts were acting strangely. Alexander was crying so hard he was hiccuping. Judith was off in a corner, eating tiny cats by the handful, while Ira gnawed on her leg.

“Max, come to me,” Katherine said.

She was in a quiet and dark corner of the fort. Max went to her, letting her close her arms around him. But just as Max was beginning to feel safe and was drifting off to sleep, he looked out and saw that Carol was staring intently at the two of them together. Carol’s eyes narrowed and he returned to clawing at the walls of the fort, marking it for destruction.

Carol’s voice boomed through the darkness.

“Wake up! Wake up! Get out here! Everybody come out here! Now!”

Everyone woke up, disoriented, and walked outside. It was the middle of the night. Carol was staring into the sky.

“Look!” he roared. “What are we going to do?”

“What’s wrong?” Douglas asked.

“Where is it? It’s supposed to be right there!” Carol roared.

“What?” Douglas asked.

“The sun! The sun hasn’t come up!” Carol said.

Everyone else was hanging back, thinking it better that Douglas handle the problem.

“What do you mean, Carol?” he asked measuredly. “I … Well, I think it’s still night.”

“No it’s not,” Carol said gravely. “I didn’t sleep. I’ve been up all night, counting the hours. It’s morning, Douglas.”

Ira gasped.

“But it’s dark,” Ira noted.

“ Exactly ,” Carol said, pointing to Ira as if he were the only sane one among them.

Now Douglas looked to the sky as if beginning to see Carol’s point. “Maybe it’s just late to come up,” he said.

“Don’t be an idiot,” Carol fumed. “It’s never late!” And now he looked at Max. “It’s dead!”

Max tried to protest. “No! That’s not gonna happen for a long time.”

Judith turned to Max. “What do you mean? How do you know?”

“I told him—”

“You told him the sun was gonna die?” Judith said, enraged. “What did I tell you about saying things to upset Carol? And why didn’t you tell us ?”

Alexander ran to Judith and hid between her legs. “The sun can’t die, can it?”

“Of course it can,” Carol said. “And it just did!”

Ira’s hands were over his mouth. “Oh my god. The void. It’s really here.”

All of the beasts stared at the place in the sky where the sun was supposed to be. There was nothing but black.

Now Max was worried. Though he knew in his heart that the sun would not, could not, die for millions of years, he was starting to believe that Carol might be right, that the sun had indeed died just hours ago. Maybe things were different on this island.

“We have to think of a new way to live,” Carol said. “And the first thing we do is get rid of this fort.”

“What?” Max said.

Carol ignored him. “Douglas, start tearing it down.”

“What’s wrong with it?” Douglas asked.

“Everything!” Carol said, and kicked down one of the interior walls. “This fort was designed so that things like this wouldn’t happen. And now they’ve happened. It’s a failure, and I want it taken down completely.”

“Please,” Douglas said. “Not again. Just wait—”

Carol kicked down another wall. “Wait for what? Another sun to grow in the sky? This fort is just a reminder of our failures.”

“Carol, calm down,” Douglas said, putting his hand on Carol’s shoulder.

Carol shook himself free. “Don’t try to calm me. This is the end of the world, and you’re trying to be calm? I knew I couldn’t trust you.”

Carol ran himself into one of the log-pillars holding up the roof. It cracked and sent half of the ceiling crashing to the ground. It barely missed Alexander, who began to cry and shudder.

“There you go again,” Douglas said.

Carol ignored him and turned to the other beasts.

“We need to take this fort down. Let’s go. Right now. No one will be safe in there.”

“Yeah, not with you around,” Douglas said, blocking his path.

Carol followed him, exploding. “What does that mean? I’m dangerous? I’m scary? Ira, tear it down!”

Douglas wheeled on him. “Fine, you’re going to tear it down eventually anyway. Burn everything!”

“Shut up!” Carol yelled.

“Eat everyone!” Douglas hissed.

“Maybe I will!” Carol yelled, and grabbed Douglas’s arm, as if to pull him away. But Carol intended something else, and succeeded: he pulled Douglas’s arm off. He ripped it from the socket and held it aloft, as if he’d grabbed something rotten and rank.

Douglas stood with wet sand pouring from his shoulder. He put pressure on the hole with his other hand, but the sand leaked between his feathered fingers.

“Your arm’s not so great now, is it, Douglas?” Carol said, and tossed it away like it was nothing.

Douglas stalked off, and Katherine followed him, trying to stanch the sand from flowing. Max was left standing in the doorway to the fort, and there he locked eyes with Carol. Carol looked afraid, knowing he could never take back what he’d just done and what Max had just seen. He turned away and walked into the woods.