Moon prattled in a singsong voice. He cavorted about the area, unconcerned with the forms suspended in living death. Now and then he would glance into the sky, cackling nervously. Bounding through the snow with amazing energy, Moon suddenly cartwheeled up to a hitching rail before the abandoned farmhouse, which stood beside the nearer tree. Never stopping, he made an acrobatic leap over the rail, a tumble through the snow, and then a springing double somersault that landed him feet first onto a blood-stained skeleton in the snow that had been picked nearly clean. Brittle bones exploded in all directions. “Hee-heeeee!” Gonji gritted his teeth but said nothing, as he looked again at the hanging forms, mortified. Their eyes had been gouged out. They seemed paralyzed, their exposed heads lolling in slow motion, slack mouths emitting idiot sounds. He dismounted and began to cut the wretched victims out of the cottony black cocoons, one by one.
