Whatever part of Carl Rascoe that had played the storyteller eroded then once and for all. The calm, lucid voice beneath the bed dissolved into gibberish and moans. "Soon, soon, screaming, the scream, the soon scream, the soon scream . . ."

Billy was still clenching his father's hand through the oven mitt. The carbide lamp coated his face in sickly yellow. He stared at us.

A low, choppy sound began on my left.

Nip was laughing.

Billy flinched. "What?"

"Your dad doesn't read much, does he?"

"What does that matter?"

Nip laughed harder. I thought back to that day at my aunt's house, Nip losing it over that joke I told about the Bear Pie when what was really on his mind was the Newport he had found on the bleachers. He shook his head, his chest huffing, his eyes squinted like he was holding back tears. "There's a hole in the yarn."

"A hole?" Billy's hand tightened on his father's. The gibberish beneath the bed stuttered and fell off and started again.

"Soon soon soon soon soon—"

"Yeah, a plot hole. And around it all the little strands come falling apart." Nip fluttered his fingers, smiling. "Your father's crew. His three men. They weren't reported missing. They weren't reported period. Which means they're still alive and looking for a new job, like all the other miners laid off."

The room went silent except for the quickening mutter of, "soon soon soon soon."

"See?" said Nip, looking from Billy to me to Ash, who was sitting with her cross clutched in her hand and her eyes wide, looking into herself instead of out. "Nothing holds together. If your dad's crew isn't dead, they weren't down there. And if they weren't down there, your dad didn't steal what's-his-name's backpack. And if that didn't happen, he didn't get caught loading the backpack and didn't smash that guy's face up either."

I spoke without meaning to. "Mike is dead."

Nip turned to me.

"Mike Richards and Gabriel Vasquez. Both of them are dead. It was in the papers." There was something else, too. Something in the back of my brain, a memory that twisted and moaned beneath white sheets but refused to show its face.

Nip gave a twitchy, almost desperate nod. "Sure they're dead. They were down on Level Whatever when his dad blew up the place, and that sucks. But at least he didn't kill them himself, personally. That's good news. That's something to be thankful for, isn't it?" He looked back at Billy as he finished, and I could see him wanting Billy to agree almost as much as Billy wanted us to believe.

"Soon soon soon soon soon it screams soon it screams screams . . ."

"You're wrong," Billy said. "There's no plot hole. You just don't have the whole story. Block and Cricket and Mancini, my dad used to talk about them. Complain about them. Every night it was Cricket fucking up this, or Mancini shitting all over that. He told me where they came from, how they got to be down there in the basement doing the work nobody was willing to do. They were drifters before Blackstone, all three of them. They didn't have families. They didn't have anyone. Dad doubted they were even on payroll." Billy paused to catch his breath. "Blackstone was paying them under the table, and when all this happened, that's exactly where they got swept."

"Bull." Nip's laugh made a brief reappearance. "Blackstone couldn't do that."

"Blackstone didn't."

"Who did then?"

Both of them were talking louder, raising their voices to be heard over the voice under the bed.

"Remember those guys I mentioned coming by the house? Those suits? They weren't all company men. Some were military."

"You're saying—"

"Someone kept their names out of the mix."

Nip shook his head. "Even if that's true, even if, your dad's crew still took the elevator down every day. Other miners saw their faces."

"There were hundreds of men working the mine, all spread out through the mountain. What's a few missing faces?" Billy waved his free hand. "Besides, it's not like everyone got together after it was over for roll call."

"Soon!" The chant became a shout. "Soon! Soon! Soon!"

Nip opened his mouth, but Billy cut him off. "I'm done talking. I'm done. You want proof? I'll show you." He let go of his father's hand and in a single twisting motion, grabbed the mattress and flipped it over. Carl Rascoe lay curled in a naked ball. His face was smooth but his head was not. Weeping scabs covered his scalp. "Look." Billy stepped into the hole of the bed frame. He dragged his father off the carpet. "Look." Carl's ribcage stressed against his skin. His thin penis flopped between his legs. He was bald down there, too. Bald and raw. "Take your hand off, Dad. Show them your eye."

"Soon! Soon! Soon!" Spittle flew from Carl's mouth. A trickle of brown leaked down his inner thigh. "Soon! Soon! Soon!"

Nip climbed onto his feet and took a step back. Ash only stared, fingers tight around her cross.

"Soon! Soon!" And then a sudden change of course: "ONE!"

Panting, struggling.

"TWO!"

Five, I thought. He's counting to five.

"THREE!"

Sometimes pain doesn't set in right away. Sometimes pain doesn't set in for a long time.

"FOUR!"

Billy wrestled his father still, wrapped an arm around his neck, and pried back the hand covering his face.

Carl Rascoe's right eye was completely black.

"FIVE!"

A hush fell over the room.

Ash whispered a word, "Askuwheteau."

The house pitched. A tremor rolled beneath the floor, actually rolled, like a wave. The carbide lamp tipped over, its curved mirror throwing crazy flickers across the walls and ceiling. Nip landed across Bitchmaster's armrests, and I clutched onto him, dragged him in tight to my chest. I don't know if I meant to keep him safe or protect myself. I don't know if he was struggling out of simple panic or trying to get away from me. But I held on. As the next wave surged underneath us, I held onto Nip and Ash held onto Bitchmaster and Billy held onto his father, who held onto his ruined eye. The pair of them were dancing. They swayed back and forth, around and around. Billy's heels caught against the bed frame and he fell onto his back, his father on top of him. Carl's spine arched, lifting his bare chest toward the ceiling. His jaws opened wide.

He screamed.

And something screamed with him.

From far away down the mountain there came a howl. To say I heard it is an understatement. I became it. It filled my ears and overflowed my brain and gushed out of my mouth and nose and pores, a howl of pure unfiltered pain, of the deepest and blackest agony. The carbide lamp flickered for the last time, and as the room darkened, the real tremors began. Then there was only the shaking, only the crash of glass and the splintering of wood and the howl. Above all else, the howl. I felt Nip's heartbeat hammering my palm and I clutched on tighter, just as Ash must have clutched on tighter to Bitchmaster, because the chair rocked and rocked but its wheels never once lifted off the carpet.

It ended.

How long it lasted I cannot tell you, but it ended.

First the shaking calmed, then the howl grew in volume, then both stopped together. Like that. A cord severed. No movement. No sound but our breaths in the darkness. I remembered my name. Joel. My name was Joel, and I was alive. I was alive. Across the room something fumbled and pawed. There was a peeling noise, like a large Bandaid being ripped off. I squinted against sudden glaring light.

Billy had reached up from the floor and torn aside the curtain. Duct-tape dangled from the windowsill. I let go of Nip and looked at Ash. She looked at me. We turned our heads together and looked at the door.

In a little while we were all gathered there, all of us but Carl Rascoe, who was lying with his jaws locked open in a silent scream. I could see his chest moving faintly. Billy reached for the doorknob. He twisted it. He pulled.

One after another we moved down the hallway.

Broken liquor bottles covered the kitchen floor. The refrigerator lay on its face, milk puddling around it. In the living room, the television had come off its stand and the picture frames had flown off their hooks, leaving the walls naked.

Billy opened the front door.

The four of us stopped on the porch. Billy's pickup had been crushed beneath the oak, and that black waxy bark was oozing down the hood. The roots of the tree hung in the air. They too were black, and dripping.

But that was not where our eyes went.

Our eyes went to the south, toward Honaw, where a thread of dark pink was uncurling into the sky. As we stared, more threads rose over the woods and wove together, sewing the day in blood.

Ash spoke beside me. "School's out."

I finished.

"Forever."

____ ____

Author's Note:

Thank you for reading! If you're enjoying Poor Things, please consider hitting the vote button—it will help other readers find the story. Comments are always appreciated, too. Seriously, I love them.

Coming up, the kids get one last view of their town . . .