Hide

The next morning, Mack decides to leave and hide alone in the park. She remembers her sister and blames herself for abandoning the girl to her death. Mack decides that it’s better for Ava to know that she is unreliable, so she leaves without saying goodbye.

Christian tries to persuade Ian to join him in an alliance, but Ian insults him, and Christian leaves in a huff. Ian wanders into the park, blaming his inability to write on his lack of a pen rather than acknowledging how long he has struggled to create artistic work. He finds the tunnel of love and enters, thinking that the decorations and atmosphere remind him of the Russian writer Maksim Gorky’s essay on the excesses of Coney Island. As he explores, hoping for artistic inspiration, he sees a series of murals depicting the park sacrifices. He is disturbed by the detail and symbolism and wonders why someone would go to so much trouble on a mere set decoration. He stumbles upon the missing book that Linda told them to find and begins to read, quickly realizing that this is no mere decoration but a real artifact.

Excerpts from the book reveal that it is a journal that was begun in 1925 and belonged to Tommy Callas and the other founding families. They left the journal to Tommy’s friend Hobart Keck, charging him to administer the project after they left. Initially, Hobart writes that he is skeptical of the entire pagan sacrifice plan and that he plans to mock Tommy, who is set to return in a few days. After the others leave through a gate into the woods, Hobart stays behind to camp. However, he is disturbed when he hears strange noises and screams. When he finally enters the gate after the seven days allotted for the ritual have passed, he finds the body of a dead cow, but his friends are all missing.

Tommy leaves behind a letter explaining that the monster did appear but was eating them one by one, leaving him and his wife, Mary, for last. In the letter, he maintains that they have made the right choice. He asserts that their sacrifice will protect the town from danger and ensure that the families prosper. However, his diction and lack of correct grammar indicate that he is seriously off-balance and frightened. Hobart is upset, and even more so when he leads the remaining families to the temple and they can see the monster. The monster is invisible to Hobart, but the heirs of the families can see it.

As time passes, the families prosper, and the monster sleeps. Hobart writes that the monster wakes again seven years later, and the families begin to understand that it will need to be fed every seven years. However, the monster will not accept the sacrifice of a servant or of anyone who is not related to the families. The families therefore begin to gather “distant relations, bastard offspring, [and] feeble cousins” to feed it and maintain their prosperity (113). Hobart succumbs to alcohol addiction, cursing Tommy and the families.

The narrative returns to the present, where Ian finds himself believing that the book describes true events. He decides to flee the competition, but while walking through the park, he hears strange noises. He makes it to camp just as Christian crashes into the spot as well.

Mack struggles to find a hiding spot, her mind still on Ava. She ducks into the carousel, but when she finds blood and Rosiee’s jewelry, she realizes that Rosiee was killed here. She flees, following Atrius’s painted arrows further into the park.

Christian heads into the park, imagining himself as the winner. He thinks that he will graciously accept the award and that Rosiee will come back to the after-party and want to date him. He sees a fence and a tower and tries to climb but is electrocuted by the fence. He doesn’t realize it, but he has reached the guarded park perimeter. When he decides to climb the tower, a person inside shoots at him, wounding him. Christian staggers into the camp and runs into a terrified Ian, and the monster appears and kills them both.

That night, the spotlight doesn’t turn on, and Ava manages to guide LeGrand and Brandon back to camp. They see blood and overturned cots. Ava is frightened and hopes that Mack is safe. Jaden and Beautiful Ava appear. Beautiful Ava is frightened by the disarray. Ava leaps on Jaden and hits him, demanding to know what he has done. Although she has grown to despise Jaden, Beautiful Ava defends him and says that they were together all day. Jaden insists that the disarray is part of the game and is just supposed to frighten them. Ava admits that he might be right but is not convinced. LeGrand is in despair and insists that no one is looking for them. Ava gazes out into the darkness, flashing back to her military past and hoping that Mack survived.