The Beast From The Air

 

Simon saw a humped thing suddenly sit up on the top and look down at him.
The flies had found the figure too. The life-like movement would scare
them off for a moment so that they made a dark cloud round the head. Then
as the blue material of the parachute collapsed the corpulent figure would
bow forward, sighing, and the flies settle once more.
Simon felt his knees smack the rock. He crawled forward and soon he
understood. The tangle of lines showed him the mechanics of this parody;
he examined the white nasal bones, the teeth, the colors of corruption. He
saw how pitilessly the layers of rubber and canvas held together the poor
body that should be rotting away. Then the wind blew again and the figure
lifted, bowed, and breathed foully at him. Simon knelt on all fours and was
sick till his stomach was empty. Then he took the lines in his hands;
freed them from the rocks and the figure from the wind's indignity.

 Now a great wind blew the rain sideways, cascading the water from the
forest trees. On the mountain-top the parachute filled and moved; the figure
slid, rose to its feet, spun, swayed down through a vastness of wet air and
trod with ungainly feet the tops of the high trees; falling, still falling, it sank
toward the beach and the boys rushed screaming into the darkness. The
parachute took the figure forward, furrowing the lagoon, and bumped it
over the reef and out to sea.

Lord Of The Flies, Chapter Nine.  A View To A Death.  William Golding, 1954.

(Simon discovers what the beast really is, and when he runs down the mountain to tell the others they kill him mindlessly, thinking he is a beast.  At this point all the boys on the island have gone over to The Other Side and deserve whatever happens to them).

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