The Wasp Factory

Frank takes the jar to the loft. He checks the “Time, Tide and Distance Tables” (119) and makes an entry. He puts the jar on the altar with the snake skull, part of the bomb that killed Paul, a strip of the kite that killed Esmerelda, and several of Saul’s teeth. Frank holds his groin and recites a catechism, a litany of phrases that only he understands: “They contained my confessions, my dreams and hopes, my fears and hates, and they still make me shiver when I say them, automatic or not. One tape recorder in the vicinity and the horrible truth about my three murders would be known” (120).

He lets the wasp into the Factory, which spans several square meters around a large clock face that Frank found in the dump during the Year of the Skull. The clock face was made one hundred years before his birth, which he believes must be significant.

Once they enter the Factory, the wasps wander on the clock face until they reach the edge. Then they have to choose one of twelve pathways, each leading to a numeral. Doors close behind them as they go. Each of the twelve paths leads to a different death, including forms of being melted, smashed, and more. Death by fire is always at 12, and Frank has never rotated it for an alternate death, because fire represents Paul’s death. The wasp goes to 12, burns, and dies. Frank removes its body, puts it in a matchbox, and lays it on the altar. He looks at the photos of people he has killed and at a box containing some of Eric’s teeth and his father’s hair.

On the way to the Bunker, Frank is concerned. The Factory has now mentioned Fire twice. Kneeling at Saul’s skull, as he thinks of how Eric used to be, a vision of fire knocks him backwards. He recovers and then quickly burns Eric’s photo and notices that his hand is slightly burned as well. When he touched Eric’s mind—which is what he means by the vision of fire knocking him off balance—he thinks it burned him because of Eric’s strength.

Frank’s father goes into town after they eat dinner. Frank tries to open the study after he leaves, but it is secure. He wakes to the telephone later when Jamie calls to ask if there is any news about Eric. Jamie is nervous that Eric will do frightening things again if he comes back.

Eric calls shortly afterwards. He is furious that Frank thought he might be Jamie calling again and says Jamie’s dwarfism could be his own fault. Eric says Jamie might be an alien. Then he tells Frank says he’s nearly home and apologizes when Frank yells at him to stop playing games. Eric says he’s in a house somewhere nearby. Frank interrupts him and asks if he felt anything unusual that morning, hoping that Eric had a similar experience to him when he had the vision of fire. Eric says no and the line goes dead. Frank tries to watch TV but can’t focus. He goes outside and throws rocks into the sea.

In the morning, Frank goes to Jamie’s house, and then to the hills on the outskirts of town, where he eats his lunch. Sometimes he thinks it is a useful relief to leave the island, although he never feels any need to leave for good. Eric’s experience cured him of that. Eric was gone before Frank was born, and only came back on holidays. Frank remembers that Eric had migraines that lasted for days. Eric had decided to become a doctor. Each summer when he returned, Frank felt a greater distance between them: “He was an adult helping me to enjoy myself, not another boy sharing his own joy” (138).

During his second year of school, Eric was in love with a girl. They broke up when she left him for another man. Eric’s migraines worsened as he worked in a ward with underdeveloped babies who could not survive without assistance. While feeding a baby boy whose forehead was covered with a metal plate because the skull had not developed, he thought he saw movement in the boy’s forehead. An orderly heard Eric screaming and found him in the corner. The baby’s chair was tipped over and the baby was still smiling. Eric had seen flies that had laid eggs beneath the baby’s helmet and, in shock, had used the spoon to scatter the maggots. Eric deteriorates over the following weeks. He drinks and lights his textbooks on fire before taking an indefinite leave. When he returns to the island, he ignores Frank.

Eric starts throwing worms at small boys, then stuffing them down their shirts. Diggs and a doctor visited their father when Eric tried to get boys to eat maggots. Dogs had been disappearing before a group of children saw Eric lighting one on fire. Those children’s parents found Eric with another dog shortly afterwards. They chased him, but Eric escaped. He had returned home after three more dogs and five more days. He was caught two weeks later and submitted to psychiatric tests. He assaulted nearly everyone who came near him and was committed to increasingly harsh institutions.

Frank surveys the island with binoculars, focusing on flocks of grazing sheep. He thinks about how much he hates sheep, and what they represent: the superiority of humans.