Chap­ter 37 unfolds as Rod­dy steps into Emily’s dim­ly lit bed­room with a focused demeanor, care­ful­ly bal­anc­ing a tray that holds a rather unset­tling sight—a gob­let filled with a strange, white, lard-like sub­stance streaked with thin red threads. Despite the unbear­able pain that con­fines her to bed, Emi­ly’s gaze lingers on the odd offer­ing before her, her curios­i­ty out­weigh­ing her dis­com­fort. As Rod­dy approach­es, he explains that this pecu­liar meal is a care­ful­ly pre­pared suet pud­ding, some­thing he had stored in the freez­er and delib­er­ate­ly chose to reheat in the oven rather than using a microwave, which he con­sid­ers destruc­tive to essen­tial nutri­ents.

This is no ordi­nary meal—it car­ries a deep­er pur­pose, one meant to pre­pare Emi­ly for the omi­nous task ahead, demand­ing that she regain some of her vital­i­ty. The dis­turb­ing real­i­ty behind the dish soon comes to light: the suet is derived from the ren­dered fat of Peter Stein­man, a child whose body, though not excep­tion­al­ly fat­ty, yield­ed what Rod­dy refers to with eerie admi­ra­tion as ‘edi­ble gold.’ As Emi­ly devours the grotesque meal with an unset­tling hunger, Rod­dy ensures that every last drop is con­sumed or put to use, turn­ing the expe­ri­ence into some­thing rit­u­al­is­tic and unnerv­ing­ly pre­cise.

Rod­dy does not stop at feed­ing Emi­ly; his care extends to a more phys­i­cal appli­ca­tion of the ren­dered fat, spread­ing it method­i­cal­ly over her pain-rid­den body. Each motion is delib­er­ate, focus­ing on areas marred by injury or ill­ness, cre­at­ing an inti­mate yet dis­turb­ing dynam­ic between the two. While his actions may seem ther­a­peu­tic on the sur­face, they car­ry an unmis­tak­able under­cur­rent of prepa­ra­tion, with cryp­tic hints about the future use of a young girl’s liv­er and ref­er­ences to oth­er mor­bid culi­nary inten­tions cast­ing a sin­is­ter shad­ow over the moment.

As the night pro­gress­es, the sto­ry piv­ots sharply, shift­ing atten­tion to Bon­nie Dahl, who awak­ens in an entire­ly dif­fer­ent and hor­ri­fy­ing predica­ment. The stark con­trast between her sit­u­a­tion and Emily’s is jarring—where Emi­ly is bedrid­den yet seem­ing­ly com­plic­it, Bon­nie finds her­self stripped of any agency, lying com­plete­ly exposed and immo­bi­lized. Pan­ic grips her as she takes in her sur­round­ings, real­iz­ing that she is restrained and vul­ner­a­ble, with Rod­dy and Emi­ly now clad in gloves and aprons, their attire hint­ing at some­thing far more sin­is­ter than mere care­giv­ing.

The unset­tling shift in the nar­ra­tive high­lights a broad­er theme of con­trol and manip­u­la­tion, draw­ing atten­tion to the pow­er dynam­ics at play. Emi­ly, despite her reliance on Rod­dy, retains a cer­tain degree of priv­i­lege with­in their grim rela­tion­ship, where­as Bon­nie appears to be noth­ing more than an unwill­ing par­tic­i­pant in what­ev­er macabre plans are unfold­ing. This dis­tinc­tion ampli­fies the hor­ror, forc­ing the audi­ence to con­front the impli­ca­tions of absolute pow­er being wield­ed over anoth­er per­son in such a grotesque man­ner.

Beneath the sur­face of this grotesque tale, echoes of real-life hor­rors emerge, draw­ing unset­tling par­al­lels to his­tor­i­cal cas­es of sur­vival can­ni­bal­ism, cult-dri­ven sac­ri­fices, and extreme psy­cho­log­i­cal con­di­tion­ing. Through­out his­to­ry, instances of indi­vid­u­als resort­ing to such acts—either out of neces­si­ty or deep-seat­ed ide­o­log­i­cal beliefs—have been doc­u­ment­ed, rais­ing dis­turb­ing ques­tions about human nature. The psy­cho­log­i­cal com­plex­i­ties behind such behav­ior often stem from des­per­a­tion, coer­cion, or a warped sense of rit­u­al­is­tic pur­pose, mak­ing the sto­ry even more chill­ing in its plau­si­bil­i­ty.

Emily’s accep­tance of Roddy’s meth­ods, cou­pled with Bonnie’s help­less­ness, under­scores a ter­ri­fy­ing reality—the ero­sion of auton­o­my and the grad­ual nor­mal­iza­tion of the unthink­able. While Bonnie’s fear is imme­di­ate and vis­cer­al, Emily’s posi­tion sug­gests some­thing even more insid­i­ous: the abil­i­ty of manip­u­la­tion to warp one’s per­cep­tion to the point where hor­ror becomes rou­tine. The con­trast between these two per­spec­tives deep­ens the ten­sion, forc­ing read­ers to ques­tion how indi­vid­u­als can be led down such dis­turb­ing paths.

As the scene reach­es its chill­ing cli­max, the ques­tion of what comes next looms heav­i­ly over the nar­ra­tive. The ster­ile pre­ci­sion of Rod­dy and Emily’s prepa­ra­tions sug­gests that Bon­nie is not just a cap­tive but the next ingre­di­ent in their twist­ed rit­u­als. The mere pres­ence of gloves and aprons trans­forms the atmos­phere into some­thing akin to a sur­gi­cal the­ater, height­en­ing the sense of impend­ing doom and leav­ing the audi­ence on edge, antic­i­pat­ing the unspeak­able hor­ror about to unfold.

This descent into dark­ness is not mere­ly a mat­ter of phys­i­cal hor­ror but psy­cho­log­i­cal as well, show­cas­ing the depths of deprav­i­ty that can exist when moral­i­ty is aban­doned. The inter­play between con­trol, sub­mis­sion, and help­less­ness adds lay­ers to the hor­ror, mak­ing it more than just a grotesque tale—it becomes a study in human psy­chol­o­gy, pow­er, and the ter­ri­fy­ing ease with which one can be drawn into some­thing unthink­able. The story’s abil­i­ty to unset­tle its read­ers does not rely sole­ly on graph­ic details but rather on the psy­cho­log­i­cal tor­ment embed­ded in its char­ac­ters and their inter­ac­tions.

The final moments of the chap­ter leave no doubt that what­ev­er is about to hap­pen next will only push the nar­ra­tive fur­ther into a realm of pure hor­ror. Bonnie’s fate is left dan­gling in uncer­tain­ty, ampli­fy­ing the ten­sion and ensur­ing that read­ers are left with an unshak­able sense of dread. Whether she will suf­fer the same fate as Peter Stein­man or some­thing even worse remains unknown, but one thing is certain—the night has only just begun, and the hor­rors with­in it are far from over.