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. Looking back at the boat—he was easily two hundred feet up—he heard sounds coming from the island’s interior: crunching and crashing, whooping and howling, the crackle of a gigantic fire. Only in his depleted and desperate state would Max have considered that his best option would be to run, stumble, and crawl through the densest and wildest kind of jungle toward the sounds of what seemed to be some kind of riot.

But this is what he did.

He walked for hours in the moonlight. He slashed his way through the undergrowth, ducking under grasping, luminescent ferns and slithering between barbed and crosshatched vines. He waded through narrow creeks and climbed over boulders covered with a red and delicate moss that clung to the stone like embroidery. The landscape was familiar—there were trees, there was dirt, there were rocks—but then very odd: the earth seemed to be striped in brown and yellow, like peanut butter and cinnamon at the first twirl of a mixing spoon. After some time, his fur, at least above his shins, was dry, and he was warmer, but he was so tired he was dreaming on his feet. Again and again, he would shudder awake and find that he’d been walking while asleep, always making his way toward the chaos in the center of the island.

Finally, when he reached the top of a long high hill, he saw the fire, huge and snapping at the black sky. Most of it was obscured by a giant boulder in his line of vision, but the fire’s size was clear: it licked the surrounding trees orange and blotted out the stars above. It was intentional. It had a center and a purpose.

Then, movement. First, there was just a blur—some kind of creature shooting through the trees, a rushing shape silhouetted by the red fire beyond. It could have been a horse, he thought, but the animal seemed to be running upright, on two feet.

Max dropped to his knees, holding his breath.

Another shape darted between the trees. This one was the same size, but Max could have sworn he’d seen a beak. It seemed to Max’s tired eyes that a giant rooster, twelve feet tall, had just run across his field of vision.

Max had half a mind to turn and flee—for what good could come of engaging beasts of that size near a fire of that strength?—but he couldn’t leave just yet. The heat from the blaze had awakened him, and he had to know what was happening down there.

So he skulked forward. He wanted the warmth the fire promised, and he wanted whatever food might have been roasted on it, and he wanted more than anything else to find out just what was going on.

A hundred yards more and he knew.

Sort of. That is, he saw what he saw but couldn’t believe any of it. He saw animals. Animals? Creatures of some kind. Huge and fast. He thought they might be oversized sorts of humans covered in fur, but they were bigger than that, hairier than that. They were ten or twelve feet tall, each four hundred pounds or more. Max knew his animal kingdom, but he had no name for these beasts. From behind, they resembled bears, but they were larger than bears, their heads far bigger. Even so, 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—and powerful and menacing.

The rooster seemed frustrated, staring at another creature, 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 horn, like a rhino’s, extending from its nose. It looked female, if that was possible for such an ugly thing. She was in the middle of beating a large nest, resting on the ground, with a log.

And this seemed to be greatly upsetting the rooster.

Soon, Max could see a pattern to what the beasts were doing. It looked as if they’d come upon some kind of settlement, full of great round nests—each made of huge sticks and logs, and bigger than a car—and had decided to destroy them. They were systematically wrecking them all, like kids destroying sandcastles.

Max was about to turn and run the other way when he heard (could it be?) a word. There was, he was almost sure, a 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?”

Two of the creatures appeared to have fallen through the wall of a nest, and one was asking the other for help, assessing possible injuries to its spine.

“Yeah, it’s kind of twisted,” the other said.

Then the two gathered themselves up and ran off.

Max squatted down again, determined now to watch a bit longer, to try to figure out 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 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?”

“Not now, Douglas,” the big one, Carol, said, and moved the rooster aside. Then Carol got a running start and barrelled into the nest, knocking it flat.

Max was astounded. Had that sentence just been uttered? These weren’t grunting monsters. They spoke just like people. Gradually, Max realized that they were a kind of family.

Douglas, the rooster, seemed logical and even-tempered, and didn’t appreciate the way that Carol was trying to amuse himself. Carol was the main instigator and the heartiest of the destroyers. He was the biggest, the strongest, the loudest. He had horizontal stripes on his torso like a kind of sweater, and his claws were huge and cleaver-sharp.

The creature with the horn and the red mop of hair was called Judith, and she had a sharp, poky voice and a harsh cackle for a laugh. Ira had a bulbous nose, and he seemed to be always close to Judith. Max guessed they might even be a couple. Ira had a sad sort of aura and poor posture. There was the goat-shaped one, Alexander, with a snarl for a face and pin-thin legs. He was just a little bigger than Max. And then there was a bull, whose name seemed to be the Bull. He was gigantic, maybe thirteen feet high, and seemed built entirely of muscle and stone. He hadn’t said a word yet.

The beasts jumped from trees into the nests, they tossed each other into piles, they rolled boulders into the remains of the structures. It was just about the best mayhem Max had ever seen.

But soon there was a lull in the action. One by one, the beasts sat down, scratching themselves and nursing small wounds.

“I’m bored,” one said.

“Hurry up with your investigation—he’s lying on the remote.” Facebook

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“Me, too,” said another.

“C’mon!” Carol roared. “Let’s finish this!”

There was no answer from the rest of them. Ira sat down. Carol jogged over to him—they really were agile things, these creatures, Max thought.

“Ira,” Carol said, “we’re not done yet. The job isn’t complete.”

“But I’m so tired!” Ira said. “And uninspired.”

“Hey, don’t think you can rhyme your way out of this. Uninspired? How’s that possible?” Carol turned to address the rest of the creatures. “C’mon, isn’t this fun? Who’s gonna really go crazy with me?”

No one responded. Carol jumped from beast to beast, trying to create some excitement. When he approached the rooster, Douglas said, “Carol, why are we doing this in the first place?”

A quick cloud came over Carol’s face. His teeth—what must have been a hundred of them, each as big as Max’s hand—were bared in something between a smile and a show of force. He ignored Douglas. “All I need to know now is if there’s anyone on this island who’s brave and creative and wild enough to help finish this job. Is there anyone up to it?”

No one responded.

“Anyone?”

Something clicked in Max. His thoughts lined up, his plan was orderly and clear: he needed to be that someone.

Max dashed down the hill and between the legs of Douglas and Ira, his face a knot of determination. The creatures towered over him, and outweighed him by thousands of pounds.

“Whoa, what’s that?” Ira said, alarmed.

“Look at his little legs!” Judith squealed.

“What’s he doing?” Douglas asked.

Max intended to show them. He took the largest stick he could swing and he began to hit everything he saw. He knocked over the remains of whatever nests still stood, he broke low-hanging branches from the trees, he screamed and howled.

The beasts cheered.

“See, that thing knows how to wreck stuff!” Carol said, his eyes aglow. “Let’s do one together, little thing.”

Together, Carol and Max picked up a long log and ran at a nest that had survived intact, laying waste to it. Max had never destroyed so much so well and so quickly. He followed Carol to one of the last nests, and he and Carol both lifted their sticks over their heads, preparing to crush it with simultaneous blows.

“Hey, new guy!” Judith snapped. “Don’t touch that one.”