#Chapter26
The village is quiet as darkness settles on the ground, the wind shifts through the trees of the forest that surround the clearing, the chatter of monkeys can be heard and the call of birds as they roost for the night carry through the forest.
Women are busy at the cooking fires the men sit around in groups smoking and drinking homemade beer. The children run around naked playing in the light that is thrown from the central fire in the village.
They are unaware that they are being observed, from the thick foliage of the forest.
***
Slowly the village settles down for the night, and the watchers in the forest move out into the open, across the clearing with the dying fire throwing their grotesque shadows up against the huts as they pass. People murmur in their sleep as if something terrible has reached out and touched them.