Absolution: A Southern Reach Novel

The biologists prepare to release a “burden” they brought with them: four large alligators transported from 100 miles away. The stated purpose of the experiment, led by Team Leader 1 and Team Leader 2, is to test the alligators’ “site loyalty” by seeing if they will return to their original habitat. The animals, including a large female nicknamed “the Tyrant,” are fitted with experimental trackers. 

Old Jim learns from a note in the files that the alligators were not wild-caught as claimed; they were sourced from roadside zoos and a previous Central experiment. The locals, including a poet nicknamed Drunk Boat, find the project ridiculous, as the area is already teeming with alligators. The release is chaotic, with one animal becoming entangled in its harness, and the biologists seem disorganized and tense. The locals later dub the four alligators “the Cavalry.”

A week after the alligator release, the biologists establish their headquarters in the ruins of an abandoned town. They begin calling the site “Dead Town,” a name the locals eventually adopt. The team finds the location unsettling and ill-equipped; a promised generator turns out to be a hollow shell filled with old, deflated party balloons. They set up canvas yurts at the edge of a wildflower meadow. The biologists’ extensive and intrusive research activities across the coast begin to annoy the locals. At the Village Bar, a debate emerges over whether the biologists are simply fools or “Rogues” capable of intentional harm.

A mysterious and pale stranger, who the locals call the Rogue, appears at the Village Bar. He is thin, limps with a walking stick taken from a local trail, and says nothing. The bartender, Sally, notes that he carries a strange, “electric” odor. After initial suspicion, the locals decide he is harmless and accept him as a quiet fixture who sits alone in the back of the bar. 

From his future vantage point reviewing the files, Old Jim recognizes that the Rogue is a dangerous agent, someone who operates outside the normal constraints of time and is a significant threat.

In mid-July, a biologist (nicknamed “the Mudder” by Old Jim) is collecting samples when she encounters the expedition’s first major anomaly: a gaunt, white rabbit with red eyes, calmly eating a live fiddler crab. The Mudder is unnerved by the sight and by what appears to be a small camera hanging around the rabbit’s neck. While trying to flee, she twists her ankle and has to be rescued. The expedition’s Medic dismisses her story about the camera. The biologists discover a piano in Dead Town, and the Medic repairs it so that they can play it. They are unnerved, however, when their piano playing is mysteriously echoed back at them from across the marsh. 

Old Jim knows this was a prank orchestrated by Man Boy Slim, who had been secretly observing the camp for days.

By mid-August, the expedition’s morale deteriorates. The Tyrant’s tracker activates, revealing the alligator is stalking the perimeter of their camp. The group’s field generator then dies unexpectedly from what appears to be sabotage. In the resulting silence, the biologists feel a deep sense of loss, and their journals fill with strange, disconnected phrases. The Medic insists on repairing the generator, despite protests from three team members who believe that something is wrong with it. The night the generator is fixed, one of the dissenters walks into the marsh and vanishes, leaving only his floating helmet behind. Central’s files list him as “missing, presumed dead” and show his death was covered up (29).

While reviewing the files, Old Jim focuses on the Medic, who never left camp, and the Mudder, who left it most often. He discovers surveillance footage in the archive of the Mudder sneaking out at night to meet Man Boy Slim, who takes her by boat to the Village Bar. The footage shows that on two of these trips, the Mudder was at the bar at the same time as the Rogue. During their second encounter, the Rogue approaches the Mudder and appears to whisper something to her, which makes Man Boy Slim visibly nervous. Old Jim questions why Central had bugged the bar in the first place, suspecting that the agency was already aware of an external threat operating on the coast.

Five nights after the generator is repaired, a massive, panicked migration of wildlife—including birds, bats, deer, and predators—stampedes through Dead Town, forcing the biologists to take shelter in their yurts. The event leaves the team shaken. Team Leader 2 feels as though the natural world has rejected them and their mission. The Medic, conversely, expresses a sense of “a great relief” (36). The following morning, the unsettling silence is broken when the biologists discover that Dead Town has been completely overrun by hundreds of white rabbits.

As a heavy rain begins to fall, the biologists grapple with the sudden invasion of the carnivorous white rabbits. Team Leader 1 suspects it is a prank by the locals, while Team Leader 2 theorizes it might be the work of a rival scientific expedition. The rabbits exhibit strange qualities, including a faint phosphorescence at night; they also continue to voraciously eat the fiddler crabs, which seem to wait passively for their death. 

At the Village Bar, Man Boy Slim discusses the rabbits with his friends, and his tone suggests genuine fear and unease, not complicity in a prank. By this time, the Rogue is no longer seen at the bar, having apparently moved on.

Frustrated, the biologists attempt to capture the rabbits but find them to be unnaturally aggressive and difficult to catch. They notice that about one in 10 rabbits wears a tiny camera. When caged, the animals thrash themselves bloody. They give the rabbits an experimental sedative, meant for birds, has the unintended effect of making them “chatter” in a hostile manner. That night, Team Leaders 1 and 2 secretly view the footage from two recovered rabbit cameras. The second video unnerves them deeply, as it displays inexplicable, close-up images of their own faces, as if the camera were actively watching them in that moment.

By the third day of the rabbit invasion, the team’s electronic communications have failed. An order—whose origin is unclear—is given to exterminate the rabbits. The biologists use propane-fueled weed burners as makeshift flamethrowers, herding the rabbits into the now-barren meadow. In a disturbing display, the rabbits offer no resistance as they are incinerated. That night, a storm intensifies into a hurricane, trapping the expedition at Dead Town. Team Leader 1 orders the disposal of the remaining non-functional rabbit cameras, which are dumped into the marsh.

The morning after the killings, the biologists discover the meadow is again filled with hundreds of white rabbits, which are methodically eating the charred corpses of the rabbits slain the day before. The horrifying sight prompts Team Leaders 1 and 2 to order another assault. As the biologists advance, a figure emerges from the marsh: the Rogue. He runs toward them, shouting words that blaze into a fiery, psychic wave. The attack overwhelms the biologists’ senses, causing them to collapse in the mud, filled with shame and terror. Some believe they felt the Tyrant pass through them in the Rogue’s wake. When the assault ends, the Rogue is gone, two biologists are dead from fear, and four are missing: Team Leader 1, Team Leader 2, the Medic, and the Mudder. The generator is completely destroyed.

The hurricane floods Dead Town, forcing the 17 remaining biologists to take shelter on the roof of City Hall. Stranded with dwindling supplies, the survivors descend into a state of psychological breakdown. Their journals, later recovered by Central, become incoherent and hint at murders and mutilations. By the time a rescue team arrives, all of them are dead. Central covers up the incident, claiming the expedition was lost at sea. Old Jim learns from the files that the Medic was extracted by Central at a pre-arranged location, while the Team Leaders were found hiding in a motel. The Mudder, however, was never found. Her journal, unlike the others, was pristine, suggesting she may have escaped. The files contain only one distorted photo of the Rogue leaving the scene. 

The section ends with Old Jim questioning his own understanding of the events, wondering if they happened at all as the records suggest.