I was so blind, so quick to blame. But the violence I’ve suffered at the handsof these things reflects no great evil. They’re simply so used to pain, soblinded by disability, that they literally can’t conceive of any otherexistence. When every nerve is whipped raw, you lash out at even the lightesttouch.

"What should we do?" I wonder. I cannot escape into the future, not knowingwhat I know now. How could I leave them like this?

"Why don’t we just — wait here awhile," MacReady suggests. "See what happens."

I can do so much more than that.

It won’t be easy. They won’t understand. Tortured, incomplete, they’re not ableto understand. Offered the greater whole, they see the loss of the lesser.Offered communion, they see only extinction. I must be careful. I must use thisnewfound ability to hide. Other things will come here eventually, and itdoesn’t matter whether they find the living or the dead; what matters is thatthey find something like themselves, to take back home. So I will keep upappearances. I will work behind the scenes. I will save them from the inside,or their unimaginable loneliness will never end.

These poor savage things will never embrace salvation.

I will have to rape it into them.