The House at the End of the World

A flashback chapter tells the story of the day when Lupo, Hamal, and Parker go on a joyride to terrorize a Vietnamese family that operates an ice cream shop in the gang’s territory. Mistaken about the time and made delirious by partying, the men don’t expect anyone to be there when they shoot up the place, hitting the nail salon and the pizza parlor nearby. However, Katie’s mother and father, Harry and Emma, are there with her two young daughters, Penny and Regina. All four are killed by gunfire. The murders leave Avi, Katie’s husband, despairing and vengeful.

A woman named Francesca returns to her house on Oak Haven Island after a night away on Ringrock Island. She greets her nanny, Sarah, and her daughter, Libby. Libby, 14, is intelligent, talented, and driven to learn new skills; however, she is lonely because her parents, both scientists who work on Ringrock, lack empathy. Her main company is Sarah, who (Libby feels certain) is more than a nanny. Sarah comes to check on Libby, who is doing gymnastics on the lawn despite an incoming storm. The two share a tender moment when Sarah tells Libby that she knows Libby will become an important and accomplished woman someday and that she’s proud to be part of her journey.

The oncoming storm rumbles in the background while Katie cleans up her dinner and contemplates her painting of the nail salon, ice cream shop, and pizza parlor—the scene of her daughters’ murder. While she knows that she wants to portray Lupo and Parker symbolically, via reflection, in her painting, she isn’t sure whether she’s ready to do it because it means closing another chapter in her life that will put distance between her and her family. She is afraid of moving on, she realizes. Suddenly, she notices that the sound of the storm is not a storm at all but something closer at hand.

Libby is reading a book in bed while trying to distract herself from her worries about what is on Ringrock. As a resourceful girl, she found and unlocked her parents’ high-security laptops 11 months ago and learned what experiments are happening there. The knowledge originally shook her, but she became accustomed to the anxiety. Now, though, with the storm and the recent explosions, Libby is fearful again.

Suddenly, a scream that sounds a little bit like her mother rips through the house, and Libby knows that Moloch, the creature being harbored on Ringrock, has escaped and merged with her mother. Guns fire in the house and an eerie voice calls out for Libby, who hides until Sarah finds her. Despite not knowing if Sarah has been corrupted by Moloch, Libby decides to trust her and follows Sarah through the house.

Katie follows the fox around the house, wondering where the noise is coming from. She remembers the strange things that Rice said to her and tries to make sense of them. The noise sounds like two people whispering to each other, but she can’t locate it. The fox stops in front of her bedroom and Katie listens, sure that it’s coming from behind her bedroom door.

Sarah and Libby confer about Moloch in Sarah’s bedroom. Sarah shows Libby how to load and shoot a rifle, and then she admits that she shot Francesca, Libby’s mom, who had become corrupted by Moloch. They discuss what Moloch does: fuse with humans and then spawn new creatures who, luckily, self-destruct quickly. Sarah admits that her real name is Shelly Framington and that she’s hiding from something terrible that she did. The two arm themselves and leave Sarah’s bedroom to escape the house.

Katie opens her bedroom door and lets Michael J. explore, watching him stop at the closet door that hides the entrance to the cellar. His behavior makes her feel certain that whatever’s whispering is in the cellar. Although the cellar was built by Joe Smith to be impregnable, Katie feels sure that whatever threatens them has made its way there, perhaps using the roots of the uncannily fast-growing grass to invade the underlying foundation. She doesn’t open the cellar door but drags a big chest of drawers in front of it.

Sarah and Libby creep through the house, trying to escape without raising the attention of the creature who has merged with Francesca. While they escape, Sarah tells Libby that she is to blame for Moloch’s arrival on earth and that the government will nuke the area if it finds that Moloch has escaped. Libby makes it out of a window to run to the Oak Island boathouse, but Sarah is attacked from behind by the creature, which looks like a muscular mass of worms with four pincered legs. It has a face, though, which is recognizable as Francesca’s. The creature merges with Sarah, and Libby runs away.

A flashback tells the rest of Avi’s history. As a former Marine and Navy SEAL, he becomes convinced that the authorities are protecting the culprits of his daughters’ murder. Discovering that Parker is the son of a US senator, Avi arranges to give this information to a journalist but is mortally wounded in a hit-and-run accident on the way home from the meeting. He lives long enough to make Katie promise to live, but the driver of the other car is never found, and the journalist never publishes the information for which Avi died.