Three months. It had been only three months... Was that really all it had been? It felt so much longer... decades longer. A lifetime longer. None of the boys who were on the island ever talked about it anymore. But it was always on their minds. He could tell. It was always on his mind, too. Ever since the... "incident" on the island, he had had this eerie feeling. Like he was being watched. Like he was being hunted. Three months and the beast had not left him. It was always there, lurking in the shadowy depths. Controlling him, making him weaker.
He remembered everything so vividly... so why did it feel like a distant dream? He remembered… yes, he remembered. He remembered the white sandy beaches, the wind blowing through his hair. He remembered the warm feeling of the sun against his skin, and the soothing sound of the conch. He remembered the thrill of the hunt, and the icy feeling of being hunted. He remembered how well the crimson liquid flowed from gaping wounds, and he remembered the sound of the chant ringing through the air. He remembered…. Though time and time again he had tried to omit these savage -yet enticing- memories from his mind, they had not left him. It had not left him.
He found himself alone at school, becoming distant and pensive. He had decided to quit the choir, finding it trivial, unimportant, and his friends had deserted him. Well, good riddance to them! He didn't need them. They didn't understand him anyway. They hadn't seen what he had seen. He could be the leader of himself. Though he found that it was more difficult than he thought. He had no anchor for which to combat the beast that was slowly creeping upon him, and taking him over.
One sharp, hard blow to the head was all it took to kill the beast. To rid the world of it forever. Had it really been this simple the whole time?, he mused to himself. The beast wasn't so tough after all.
All at once, memories started resurfacing from the shadowy depths of his mind to which they had temporarily been submerged. He remembered painted faces and fires. He remembered savages and pigs' heads. The desperate way the creature lay helpless in it's final minutes, the way the blood flowed and the coppery smell of it. He experienced all these things in a way he never had before, and now would for the last time, for the beast was leaving him at last. He laid on his floor and remembered memories that weren't his... not Jack Merridew's.
So 'Jack Merridew' laid on his bedroom floor and revelled in his triumph. He could feel the beast retreating slowly. For once after he had gotten off the island, he remembered all the things he had done and didn't try to push them away. He let them flow in because he knew this would be the last time-the beast was retreating!- He remembered all the horrible things he had done, and for the first time, he realized just how horrible they were. For the first time, he asked Simon and Piggy and Ralph and all the other boys -even the littleuns- to forgive him for all that he had done and all that he did not do. And for the first time, Jack Merridew laid his head back, closed his eyes, and relaxed. After all this time, he had finally gotten rid of the beast.