Simon tries to say that the beast is the boys themselves, but he can’t get the words out. At first, the beast is only a fear of the littluns, a nightmare conjured from their circumstances of fleeing a war and crash-landing on an island. The beast could also be an animal like a boar or a snake, or even something they’ve never seen. It is the darkness at night, the unfamiliar surroundings, the sudden recognition they are on their own.

The beast is also the fears of man. The boys allow these fears to get inside them. They begin to fear each other. The split between Ralph and Jack grows and grows. Jack wants to hunt—he thinks the best way of staying alive is to arm themselves, to hunt and kill, while Ralph wants to keep hope alive and wait for rescue. The beast comes before either thing happens. When the pilot parachutes onto the island, the boys don’t recognize it as a man. In the darkness—not just the darkness of night, but the darkness of all their fears—they don’t recognize humanity any longer.

“[M]aybe it’s only us” (89), Simon tries to muster, and so it is.