The Troop

In the middle of their hike, Ephraim refuses to keep going. He’s not hungry, but he is obsessing over his knuckles. He doesn’t tell the others about what Shelley supposedly saw, choosing to sit down while Newt and Max hike onward.

Ephraim asks the worms to share his body and not destroy him, then decides it’s pointless to reason with “things” that don’t think rationally. Shelley calls Ephraim on the Walkie-Talkie and convinces him to try and cut the worms out with his pocketknife. Ephraim attempts this self-surgery and believes he sees worms, so he keeps cutting while Shelley eggs him on.

Newt and Max hike for another hour, then find blueberries, which they eat. Newt finds some coral mushrooms, which aren’t poisonous but are a laxative, so he saves some to give to Kent.

Max teases Newt for being smart, and Newt checks him for once, asking Max to not be an “asshole” under the current circumstances. This rebuke makes Max feel bad that everyone always picks on Newt.

Newt and Max spot a sea turtle and chase it. Finally, they catch it and stab it, but it doesn’t die right away, seeming to suffer for a long time instead. This suffering upsets the boys greatly. Eventually, the turtle dies, but they’re too sad to eat it, so they just bury it instead. 

Edgerton’s conqueror worms are “smart worms” that lead the worm colony, similar to how bees have a queen with special status compared to others in the hive. The conqueror worm is larger than the others and claims its place as the leader, moving to the host’s brainstem. This infestation allows these worms to gain partial control over the host’s brain, increasing the host’s appetite and causing hallucinations and other psychotropic effects. For example, subjects at a late stage of infection don’t seem to be aware of pain or of what they’re doing. This was exemplified in the animal subjects and, according to the interviews with the single survivor from Falstaff Island, in the infected humans as well.

Ephraim is still cutting himself trying to get the worms out, while Shelley eggs him on through the Walkie-Talkie, calling him weak if he can’t get them out. Ephraim is determined to get them out because he doesn’t want to die like Tim did.

The GQ journalist interviews Kent’s father, Jeff Jenks, who confesses it was difficult for him to sit around and wait while others did nothing to help his son or the other kids stuck on the island. As police chief, he is used to being able to intervene, but when the military showed up, he had to yield to their authority. He doesn’t regret his decision to steal the boat and breach the quarantine zone because it was the right thing to do as a father. Now, Kent is officially still “missing,” which is also difficult because Jeff isn’t able to get closure about his son’s presumed death.

Kent regains some energy after eating the worms that Shelley fed him. He is angry and wants to punish Shelley for denying him additional meat. He can’t get out of the cellar, though.

Night arrives, and the other boys haven’t yet returned from their hike, so Shelley decides he’ll kill Kent. Shelley opens the cellar. Kent tries to attack him, but he is clumsy and disoriented. He follows Shelley to the beach and wades into the ocean after him. Shelley pushes Kent’s head underwater. He pulls him back out and Kent coughs on Shelley. Shelley pushes Kent back under, demanding Kent “show” him some sort of secret he thinks he’s supposed to learn from murdering people. He continues until Kent dies. Kent was too weak to fight back much, and Shelley is furious when he doesn’t learn anything profound. Worms crawl out of Kent and onto Shelley. Shelley lets Kent’s body float out to sea, then goes back to the camp. A few hours later, he starts to eat excessively.

Newton and Max camp on the beach with a fire. They debate if the turtle and Tim went to Heaven. They see some baby turtles hatch and guide them safely to the water.

The GQ journalist interviews Dr. Edgerton, who is now incarcerated in the mental health section of the prison. He talks about how resilient insects, cockroaches, and worms are. He doesn’t seem to care about ethics, just about what he can learn from studying things, even if he has to harm them in the process. The journalist concludes that Edgerton is a “sociopath” and claims that a medical degree is not required to make this diagnosis.