A young boy named Jason also discovers The Stuff is alive and sees how it affects his family and how they are adamantly against his beliefs on The Stuff. He gets arrested for vandalizing a supermarket display of The Stuff, attracting the attention of Rutherford, who comes to his aid. Rutherford also manages to charm Nicole, an advertising executive who becomes his partner and lover when she sees the effect of The Stuff. The trio infiltrates the distribution operation, which is actually an organized corporate effort to spread The Stuff on the basis of eliminating world hunger, and destroy the lake of The Stuff with explosives, though Hobbs is killed by The Stuff. Meanwhile, United States Army Col. Malcolm Grommett Spears, a retired soldier, leads a militia in battling the zombies and transmitting a civil defense message for Americans to break their addiction to The Stuff by destroying it with fire. The Stuff addiction is ended, and Rutherford, Nicole, Jason, and Col. Spears are hailed as national heroes.