Post by spideyfan914 on Jun 15, 2010 22:51:30 GMT -6
Strange things happen in the woods, they say. They speak of demons and cannibals, gorillas and wolves, happenings so bizarre so that they would seem impossible. When the sun goes down, the berserks come out and cause mischief and mayhem.
But as long as the sun is up, and as long you stick to the trail, you will find only men to hunt and apes to be hunted. Large groups of men go into the woods each day with rifles and a steady hand. They pass through the woods, and when they spot their prey, BANG!, and that empty spot which craves bloodlust is filled. You just have to stick to the trail, if the rumors are to be believed.
On this particular day, the man known as Nim woke up late to find that his friends had already left. Seeking company, he turned to his wife and asked if she would like to join him. She of course had no experience hunting (and neither did she want to, though she didn’t tell him this outright), but he assured her that she needn’t even carry a gun.
So Nim and his wife set off on the trail. It was still bright out, and there were many apes to hunt. They trekked through the thick of the woods, and whenever Nim spied an ape, he would tell his wife, “Stay here,” turn the corner, kill the ape, then return to collect his wife. They would continue on the trail, passing by the bloody corpse of the creature and stepping over its spattered brains.
By the third time they did this, Nim’s wife had grown pale in the face, though he could not understand why. She asked him to let her sit down for a minute. Nim looked at the sky and said, “It’s getting late. We have to proceed if we wish to finish the trail before sundown.” His wife responded, “For just a minute,” and Nim agreed.
As his wife rested, Nim moved ahead to see how far along the path they were. She sat on the stump of a fallen tree, listening to the wind pass through the leaves, and the rustling of insects crawling through the grass, and the crunches as creatures in the distance stepped on branches, and the muffled gunshots miles away. And then there was a crunch not far behind her. She spun and stared into the infinite realms of the woods, and watching the gentle swaying of trees matched by the swift-moving shadows of the demons therein.
Frightened and alone, she got up and backed away from that edge of the forest. They said that you were safe as long as you stuck to the trail, but that is only if the rumors are to be believed. Hearing the pounding of some great creature coming forward, she turned and ran in the opposite direction, straight into the heart of the woods. Thinking back on it, she probably should have run along the path toward her husband, but somehow, she didn’t think he would be able to comfort her.
So she ran through the trees and shadows, until she heard a pounding no more. With her breath now caught, she wondered if she hadn’t simply been hearing the beating of her own heart. Now she looked around and realized that she wasn’t on the path anymore. She had come to a place where all directions showed only more wood. And what’s worse, it was now sundown, and it would soon be time for the monsters to come out and play.
She wandered for a bit, looking for the path, but still, she could not find it. Realizing she was lost, she now feared for her life, feared that some beast would seek her golden head for dinner.
But then, just as the final rays of the sun were beginning to fade, she heard a gunshot go off somewhere nearby. She leapt for joy, knowing she must be close to the path, and ran through the engulfing shadows toward the human sound.
There he stood – a man about the age of Nim, holding the rifle which pointed at the star-shaped hole in the gorilla’s eye. But something was wrong with the picture: he was not on the path, but in the heart of the wood, just as she. When he saw her approaching, he first thought her an ape, and pointed his gun, but she cried out and he realized that she was woman, and not beast.
He asked her for her name, and she responded, “Lily Eve.” She asked for his name, and he responded, “I am a hunter.” She asked why he was straying from the path, and he said again, “I am a hunter.” However, he would accompany her and protect her from the demons.
And then the sun went out.
Lily and the hunter moved through the woods with haste. The hunter told her that they only had to go in one direction, and since the woods did not go on forever, they would eventually escape. Meanwhile, as gorillas jumped out, the hunter shot them dead.
But it soon became apparent that it wasn’t as simple as the hunter had thought. The night was dark, and there seemed to be no end to the woods in sight. Lily recalled that it stretched out very far, and that they should perhaps try a different direction, and that it would perhaps be faster. But the hunter said that it was best to stay in one direction, that surely after all the area they’d covered, they would soon be out. He was wrong.
The sun came up, and still they moved. They were tired and hungry. Lily wondered if the hunter had actually done this as many times as he claimed. Several times, he had needed to reload his rifle, but eventually, he’d run out of bullets, and then they’d be vulnerable to the horrors of the night (for surely, Lily realized, they’d still be out that night).
And then, when all seemed lost, and the sun passed its peak, the trees ended. There was a hole in the roof of leaves; we must have found the trail, Lily thought. But a second look showed trees on all sides – not a path, a clearing, unconnected to the trail. In the center of the clearing was a small cabin, constructed out of logs.
The weary travelers knocked on the door, hoping for refuge and directions. Answering the door was a tall hunchbacked man, with black hair covering his face and long fat arms which hung to the floor. “Hello,” the hunter spoke, “I am afraid that my partner and I have wandered away from the trail, and we are hungry and tired. By luck, we have stumbled on your cabin. If you be kind, could you allow us to stay the night, safe from the gorillas of the woods?” The ugly man said, “Please come in. I have food and a spare bed. Hang your gun by the door and lay your problems to rest.”
The ugly man baked them a feast fit for royalty. He fed them soup and bread and fruit of all kinds. And then, when their stomachs were full, he pointed them to the bed against the wall. The hunter smiled at Lily as she climbed in. “One bed for the two of us,” he whispered in her ear. She lay facing the wall.
That night, she dreamed of demons. She was haunted by nightmares of being hunted like an ape, of seeing Nim or the hunter come out from round the corner and land a bullet square between her eyes – she could see the blood gushing out, her brains spattered on the ground, and her predator then stepped over her dead body, or her dying body. She had visions of gorillas charging at her out of the darkness, beating her to a pulp, and tearing off her golden head – her body screamed in agony as her innards were yanked apart, and she was served on a plate to unsuspecting travelers.
She awoke with a start in the middle of the night. She could hear the ugly man’s voice droning on, and she lay facing the wall. He seemed to be talking to them, talking to them of the gorillas in the woods, and their fear of the hunters. She tried to turn over, but the hunter nudged her, whispering, “Stay put.” Though confused, she obeyed.
“You see,” the ugly man explained, “it is people like you who endanger the race of gorillas. Yet there is no shortage in apes to slay – they keep coming, and you keep killing. You simply don’t understand that they, like you, seek life, and seek justice when one falls. But unlike you, they are defenseless. They don’t have guns to kill with the press of a button – only brute hands, useless when up against the fury of a rifle. You see, it is not fair. You may say it is fair, you may think it is fair, but it is not. Hunters, in truth, are more animalistic than the beasts they hunt. But I am neither. I fall in between the two categories, and am able to act on my own impulses. I am the guardian of these woods, and will not rest while men like you plague the noble gorilla.”
The hunter pleaded, “Don’t do this! I’ll never hunt again!” “You are not to be trusted,” the ugly man sneered. “You must be disposed of.” Lily felt the body beside her be lifted up, and she spun around. The ugly man held the hunter in one big hand and the hunter’s own rifle in the other. But he was no longer a man – by some strange magic, the ugly man now took on the form of the beast he represented. Blue in the face, hair covering his wide chest, protruding feet with opposable toes, he was now a gorilla.
“When rise the moon and set the sun, man becomes ape and hunter becomes hunted. Now and forever, I am the gorilla man.” Throwing the hunter to the floor, the gorilla aimed the rifle and shot him in the face. His skull smashed, the hunter now spat blood and brain from the hole in his head. Lily’s eyes shot wide.
The gorilla man turned to her with a look of indifferent rage. He reached out his hand and grabbed her by the neck, pounding her head against the wall and strangling her as blood dripped down her face. She pleaded to the demon just as the hunter had done, saying that she had never taken the life of a gorilla, that she had in fact been disgusted by her husband’s deeds, and that she only accompanied the hunter for fear of what might happen if she did not.
“You are human,” the gorilla man said, “and therefore, you are evil and corrupt.” Lily begged, “No, I am innocent!” And so the gorilla man said, “I should not trust you, but if what you say is true, then I have no choice but to let you free.” Filling with hope, Lily asked him which way to trail, but the gorilla man said, “If your heart is good, then you should be able to find your way without giving in to the trial of the woods.”
Not quite understanding him, but wanting to live, Lily agreed to obey the gorilla man’s instructions. She was to leave his cabin without the gun and never return, and to find her way home on her own plan. However, she was not to hunt any ape, and should she die, no one would care. Most importantly, however, should she by sheer luck survive long enough to reach civilization, she was not to tell any human of what she saw in the woods.
Frantically, Lily left the cabin as soon as the gorilla man let go. Her golden head now mixed with blood as she ran into the woods once more. She knew not where she was or where she was going. She was now more lost than when she began, and she was on her own.
Collecting leaves from the ground, she patted her head dry and dirty, wondering how severe the wound was. She remembered the hunter’s instructions of walking in one direction, and eventually, one will reach civilization. And so she acted, moving forward and only forward.
By night, she looked all around, fearing the creatures that lived in the woods. By day, she prayed that she would reach the edge soon, before the sun went down. Surely, a place like this could raise only monsters.
Lily Eve lost track of time after a while of trekking. She knew not whether a day had passed, or a week, or a year. All she knew was that she was still within the woods, and that her stomach rumbled. She tired of walking, but dared not rest, for fear of the nightmares of the woods. And it was at this moment that she stumbled upon a fellow.
A woman with golden hair lay on the floor of the woods. She faced away from Lily Eve, the leaves piling up around her. And she was covered in blood. Yes, this woman, whoever she might’ve been, was freshly dead. Lily Eve peered about to see if a beast was lurking near, but on closer look, the woman was coated in so much blood that one could not even tell if she had died by gorilla or by man.
And then, her mouth watering, Eve knew what was to be done. She kneeled beside the dead woman, and leaned forward, licking up the blood. She drank the spilled fluids, and still, she starved. And so, forgetting her queasiness, Eve bit into the flesh of dead woman. By the time the son went down, only a skeleton remained where she had once been, and all her meat had been devoured by Eve. It had tasted delicious.
Yet her hunger was still not satisfied. Eve thirsted for more. The gorilla man had forbid her from hunting gorilla, but nothing was said to prevent her from feasting on human.
Eve traveled longer, until she heard the sound of whispers. As she peered through the thick, she saw a band of hunters passing through the woods on a trail. There were five of them, five bodies of meat to eat. Snapping off a branch of a tree, Eve charged into the group, leaping into the air as gunshots whisked past her. She slammed the branch into their heads, swept them off their feet, and drove the wood through their hearts. In seconds, they were all dead. That night, she ate like royalty.
Resuming her days in this fashion, Eve’s golden hair grew long, coming to cover her entire body. Her teeth sharpened, and gnawed into human flesh with ease. Her eyes became sharp, trained to spy her prey from a mile away. Her sense of smell heightened, allowing her to sniff out her prey. She learned to run on all fours, leap at hunters like a savage wolf, and tear them limb from limb with her bare teeth.
By day, she would prowl through the woods, cowering from the sunlight. But by night, she would feast on any lost men and women she found. And at dawn and dusk, she would lurk by the trail, waiting for her meals to pass by. She cared not whether there were two or ten of them – Eve would pounce on all groups. And she always slew them all.
Eve learned to eat quickly – any delay, and another group of hunters may have find her before she had finished the last ones. Her stomach began to bulge, yet still she hungered day and night for human meat – a hunger which seemed never to be satiated. She was a mean wolf.
On this particular day, she starved quite ferociously. The sun was rising in the distance, but it wasn’t quite bright out just yet when she saw a lone hunter approaching. Leaning down, Eve prepared to pounce and gnaw his eyes out, and then he spoke.
“Lily Eve!” he cried out. “Lily Eve, where did you go?” She heard him clear. “Lily Eve!” That was her name once. “Lily Eve!” She recognized the scent – it was Nim who called, the man who was once her husband. Had she run to him that particular day, rather than into the woods, she may have never encountered the gorilla man.
Lily Eve stood up onto her hind legs and walked through the bushes. Stretching her spine, she felt her long hair slither inward. Her long, dirty nails fell off. Her bloody head wound suddenly healed, and the blood snuck away with her carnivorous teeth. She felt clothes on her back as she finally stepped onto the trail. “Here I am,” she said to Nim.
Nim examined her up and down. He asked her where she had been, that he had been looking for her for the past quarter of an hour. She told him that she had wandered off into the woods, and met the gorilla man who protects this place. A bullet landed in her shoulder.
Nim and Lily turned to the trees and saw a brutish figure pointing a rifle at them. Nim steadied his gun and charged at the brute. The ugly man shot again, but missed his moving target. As he got closer, Nim rose his gun and shot the ugly man in the head. He looked down for a second, then summoned Lily over.
She moved in toward Nim and the bloody corpse of the brute, stepping over its spattered brains. She recognized him. “That’s the gorilla man!” she declared. Nim shook his head and told his wife, “No, that’s just a man.”
But as long as the sun is up, and as long you stick to the trail, you will find only men to hunt and apes to be hunted. Large groups of men go into the woods each day with rifles and a steady hand. They pass through the woods, and when they spot their prey, BANG!, and that empty spot which craves bloodlust is filled. You just have to stick to the trail, if the rumors are to be believed.
On this particular day, the man known as Nim woke up late to find that his friends had already left. Seeking company, he turned to his wife and asked if she would like to join him. She of course had no experience hunting (and neither did she want to, though she didn’t tell him this outright), but he assured her that she needn’t even carry a gun.
So Nim and his wife set off on the trail. It was still bright out, and there were many apes to hunt. They trekked through the thick of the woods, and whenever Nim spied an ape, he would tell his wife, “Stay here,” turn the corner, kill the ape, then return to collect his wife. They would continue on the trail, passing by the bloody corpse of the creature and stepping over its spattered brains.
By the third time they did this, Nim’s wife had grown pale in the face, though he could not understand why. She asked him to let her sit down for a minute. Nim looked at the sky and said, “It’s getting late. We have to proceed if we wish to finish the trail before sundown.” His wife responded, “For just a minute,” and Nim agreed.
As his wife rested, Nim moved ahead to see how far along the path they were. She sat on the stump of a fallen tree, listening to the wind pass through the leaves, and the rustling of insects crawling through the grass, and the crunches as creatures in the distance stepped on branches, and the muffled gunshots miles away. And then there was a crunch not far behind her. She spun and stared into the infinite realms of the woods, and watching the gentle swaying of trees matched by the swift-moving shadows of the demons therein.
Frightened and alone, she got up and backed away from that edge of the forest. They said that you were safe as long as you stuck to the trail, but that is only if the rumors are to be believed. Hearing the pounding of some great creature coming forward, she turned and ran in the opposite direction, straight into the heart of the woods. Thinking back on it, she probably should have run along the path toward her husband, but somehow, she didn’t think he would be able to comfort her.
So she ran through the trees and shadows, until she heard a pounding no more. With her breath now caught, she wondered if she hadn’t simply been hearing the beating of her own heart. Now she looked around and realized that she wasn’t on the path anymore. She had come to a place where all directions showed only more wood. And what’s worse, it was now sundown, and it would soon be time for the monsters to come out and play.
She wandered for a bit, looking for the path, but still, she could not find it. Realizing she was lost, she now feared for her life, feared that some beast would seek her golden head for dinner.
But then, just as the final rays of the sun were beginning to fade, she heard a gunshot go off somewhere nearby. She leapt for joy, knowing she must be close to the path, and ran through the engulfing shadows toward the human sound.
There he stood – a man about the age of Nim, holding the rifle which pointed at the star-shaped hole in the gorilla’s eye. But something was wrong with the picture: he was not on the path, but in the heart of the wood, just as she. When he saw her approaching, he first thought her an ape, and pointed his gun, but she cried out and he realized that she was woman, and not beast.
He asked her for her name, and she responded, “Lily Eve.” She asked for his name, and he responded, “I am a hunter.” She asked why he was straying from the path, and he said again, “I am a hunter.” However, he would accompany her and protect her from the demons.
And then the sun went out.
Lily and the hunter moved through the woods with haste. The hunter told her that they only had to go in one direction, and since the woods did not go on forever, they would eventually escape. Meanwhile, as gorillas jumped out, the hunter shot them dead.
But it soon became apparent that it wasn’t as simple as the hunter had thought. The night was dark, and there seemed to be no end to the woods in sight. Lily recalled that it stretched out very far, and that they should perhaps try a different direction, and that it would perhaps be faster. But the hunter said that it was best to stay in one direction, that surely after all the area they’d covered, they would soon be out. He was wrong.
The sun came up, and still they moved. They were tired and hungry. Lily wondered if the hunter had actually done this as many times as he claimed. Several times, he had needed to reload his rifle, but eventually, he’d run out of bullets, and then they’d be vulnerable to the horrors of the night (for surely, Lily realized, they’d still be out that night).
And then, when all seemed lost, and the sun passed its peak, the trees ended. There was a hole in the roof of leaves; we must have found the trail, Lily thought. But a second look showed trees on all sides – not a path, a clearing, unconnected to the trail. In the center of the clearing was a small cabin, constructed out of logs.
The weary travelers knocked on the door, hoping for refuge and directions. Answering the door was a tall hunchbacked man, with black hair covering his face and long fat arms which hung to the floor. “Hello,” the hunter spoke, “I am afraid that my partner and I have wandered away from the trail, and we are hungry and tired. By luck, we have stumbled on your cabin. If you be kind, could you allow us to stay the night, safe from the gorillas of the woods?” The ugly man said, “Please come in. I have food and a spare bed. Hang your gun by the door and lay your problems to rest.”
The ugly man baked them a feast fit for royalty. He fed them soup and bread and fruit of all kinds. And then, when their stomachs were full, he pointed them to the bed against the wall. The hunter smiled at Lily as she climbed in. “One bed for the two of us,” he whispered in her ear. She lay facing the wall.
That night, she dreamed of demons. She was haunted by nightmares of being hunted like an ape, of seeing Nim or the hunter come out from round the corner and land a bullet square between her eyes – she could see the blood gushing out, her brains spattered on the ground, and her predator then stepped over her dead body, or her dying body. She had visions of gorillas charging at her out of the darkness, beating her to a pulp, and tearing off her golden head – her body screamed in agony as her innards were yanked apart, and she was served on a plate to unsuspecting travelers.
She awoke with a start in the middle of the night. She could hear the ugly man’s voice droning on, and she lay facing the wall. He seemed to be talking to them, talking to them of the gorillas in the woods, and their fear of the hunters. She tried to turn over, but the hunter nudged her, whispering, “Stay put.” Though confused, she obeyed.
“You see,” the ugly man explained, “it is people like you who endanger the race of gorillas. Yet there is no shortage in apes to slay – they keep coming, and you keep killing. You simply don’t understand that they, like you, seek life, and seek justice when one falls. But unlike you, they are defenseless. They don’t have guns to kill with the press of a button – only brute hands, useless when up against the fury of a rifle. You see, it is not fair. You may say it is fair, you may think it is fair, but it is not. Hunters, in truth, are more animalistic than the beasts they hunt. But I am neither. I fall in between the two categories, and am able to act on my own impulses. I am the guardian of these woods, and will not rest while men like you plague the noble gorilla.”
The hunter pleaded, “Don’t do this! I’ll never hunt again!” “You are not to be trusted,” the ugly man sneered. “You must be disposed of.” Lily felt the body beside her be lifted up, and she spun around. The ugly man held the hunter in one big hand and the hunter’s own rifle in the other. But he was no longer a man – by some strange magic, the ugly man now took on the form of the beast he represented. Blue in the face, hair covering his wide chest, protruding feet with opposable toes, he was now a gorilla.
“When rise the moon and set the sun, man becomes ape and hunter becomes hunted. Now and forever, I am the gorilla man.” Throwing the hunter to the floor, the gorilla aimed the rifle and shot him in the face. His skull smashed, the hunter now spat blood and brain from the hole in his head. Lily’s eyes shot wide.
The gorilla man turned to her with a look of indifferent rage. He reached out his hand and grabbed her by the neck, pounding her head against the wall and strangling her as blood dripped down her face. She pleaded to the demon just as the hunter had done, saying that she had never taken the life of a gorilla, that she had in fact been disgusted by her husband’s deeds, and that she only accompanied the hunter for fear of what might happen if she did not.
“You are human,” the gorilla man said, “and therefore, you are evil and corrupt.” Lily begged, “No, I am innocent!” And so the gorilla man said, “I should not trust you, but if what you say is true, then I have no choice but to let you free.” Filling with hope, Lily asked him which way to trail, but the gorilla man said, “If your heart is good, then you should be able to find your way without giving in to the trial of the woods.”
Not quite understanding him, but wanting to live, Lily agreed to obey the gorilla man’s instructions. She was to leave his cabin without the gun and never return, and to find her way home on her own plan. However, she was not to hunt any ape, and should she die, no one would care. Most importantly, however, should she by sheer luck survive long enough to reach civilization, she was not to tell any human of what she saw in the woods.
Frantically, Lily left the cabin as soon as the gorilla man let go. Her golden head now mixed with blood as she ran into the woods once more. She knew not where she was or where she was going. She was now more lost than when she began, and she was on her own.
Collecting leaves from the ground, she patted her head dry and dirty, wondering how severe the wound was. She remembered the hunter’s instructions of walking in one direction, and eventually, one will reach civilization. And so she acted, moving forward and only forward.
By night, she looked all around, fearing the creatures that lived in the woods. By day, she prayed that she would reach the edge soon, before the sun went down. Surely, a place like this could raise only monsters.
Lily Eve lost track of time after a while of trekking. She knew not whether a day had passed, or a week, or a year. All she knew was that she was still within the woods, and that her stomach rumbled. She tired of walking, but dared not rest, for fear of the nightmares of the woods. And it was at this moment that she stumbled upon a fellow.
A woman with golden hair lay on the floor of the woods. She faced away from Lily Eve, the leaves piling up around her. And she was covered in blood. Yes, this woman, whoever she might’ve been, was freshly dead. Lily Eve peered about to see if a beast was lurking near, but on closer look, the woman was coated in so much blood that one could not even tell if she had died by gorilla or by man.
And then, her mouth watering, Eve knew what was to be done. She kneeled beside the dead woman, and leaned forward, licking up the blood. She drank the spilled fluids, and still, she starved. And so, forgetting her queasiness, Eve bit into the flesh of dead woman. By the time the son went down, only a skeleton remained where she had once been, and all her meat had been devoured by Eve. It had tasted delicious.
Yet her hunger was still not satisfied. Eve thirsted for more. The gorilla man had forbid her from hunting gorilla, but nothing was said to prevent her from feasting on human.
Eve traveled longer, until she heard the sound of whispers. As she peered through the thick, she saw a band of hunters passing through the woods on a trail. There were five of them, five bodies of meat to eat. Snapping off a branch of a tree, Eve charged into the group, leaping into the air as gunshots whisked past her. She slammed the branch into their heads, swept them off their feet, and drove the wood through their hearts. In seconds, they were all dead. That night, she ate like royalty.
Resuming her days in this fashion, Eve’s golden hair grew long, coming to cover her entire body. Her teeth sharpened, and gnawed into human flesh with ease. Her eyes became sharp, trained to spy her prey from a mile away. Her sense of smell heightened, allowing her to sniff out her prey. She learned to run on all fours, leap at hunters like a savage wolf, and tear them limb from limb with her bare teeth.
By day, she would prowl through the woods, cowering from the sunlight. But by night, she would feast on any lost men and women she found. And at dawn and dusk, she would lurk by the trail, waiting for her meals to pass by. She cared not whether there were two or ten of them – Eve would pounce on all groups. And she always slew them all.
Eve learned to eat quickly – any delay, and another group of hunters may have find her before she had finished the last ones. Her stomach began to bulge, yet still she hungered day and night for human meat – a hunger which seemed never to be satiated. She was a mean wolf.
On this particular day, she starved quite ferociously. The sun was rising in the distance, but it wasn’t quite bright out just yet when she saw a lone hunter approaching. Leaning down, Eve prepared to pounce and gnaw his eyes out, and then he spoke.
“Lily Eve!” he cried out. “Lily Eve, where did you go?” She heard him clear. “Lily Eve!” That was her name once. “Lily Eve!” She recognized the scent – it was Nim who called, the man who was once her husband. Had she run to him that particular day, rather than into the woods, she may have never encountered the gorilla man.
Lily Eve stood up onto her hind legs and walked through the bushes. Stretching her spine, she felt her long hair slither inward. Her long, dirty nails fell off. Her bloody head wound suddenly healed, and the blood snuck away with her carnivorous teeth. She felt clothes on her back as she finally stepped onto the trail. “Here I am,” she said to Nim.
Nim examined her up and down. He asked her where she had been, that he had been looking for her for the past quarter of an hour. She told him that she had wandered off into the woods, and met the gorilla man who protects this place. A bullet landed in her shoulder.
Nim and Lily turned to the trees and saw a brutish figure pointing a rifle at them. Nim steadied his gun and charged at the brute. The ugly man shot again, but missed his moving target. As he got closer, Nim rose his gun and shot the ugly man in the head. He looked down for a second, then summoned Lily over.
She moved in toward Nim and the bloody corpse of the brute, stepping over its spattered brains. She recognized him. “That’s the gorilla man!” she declared. Nim shook his head and told his wife, “No, that’s just a man.”
