By midnight the rain had turned to a relentless downpour that sounded like God pissing on a tin roof. Inside the McCoy trailer, the air was thick with the smell of cooked meat, shit, and fresh blood. Darlene lay on the table like a gutted deer, her torso still open, intestines slowly sliding out onto the floor every time she laughed. Old Jeb stood upright for the first time in six years, his atrophied legs trembling but working. Billy and Sadie were licking the skillet clean, their faces shiny with grease and their mother's fluids.
The chest sat in the center of the table, lid open. Both fetuses—the original and the one ripped from Darlene—had grown. They were now the size of large cats, limbs writhing, eyes glowing with a dull red light. They fed on scraps tossed to them, tiny mouths tearing into flesh with wet smacks.
Harlan wiped blood from his beard and picked up the rusty axe again. "The chest wants more. Real meat this time. Not just family."
Sadie clapped her bloody hands. "The Parkers! They got that fat girl who always made fun of my lice."
Billy grinned, teeth black. "And their dog. I want the dog."
Old Jeb cracked his neck. "I'll take the father. Been dreamin' of eatin' a man's liver since Reagan was president."
They moved out into the flood like a pack of pale, smiling ghouls. The water was waist-deep now, corpses bumping against their legs—some human, some animal, all soft and ready. Harlan carried the chest on his shoulder. It hummed against his skin, warm and eager.
The Parker trailer was half a mile up the holler, half-sunk in the mud. Yellow light glowed from one window. Harlan kicked the door open without knocking.
Inside, the Parker family was trying to eat dinner—canned beans and rat meat. Dale Parker, a fat, bearded man with a shotgun across his lap, jumped up. "What the fuck, McCoy?"
His wife, Tammy, screamed. Their fourteen-year-old daughter, Brittany, the one who used to throw rocks at Sadie, froze with a spoon halfway to her mouth.
Harlan smiled. "We're here for supper. You're invited."
Old Jeb moved faster than any of them expected. He grabbed Dale by the throat and slammed him against the wall. The shotgun went off, blowing a hole in the ceiling. Jeb's fingers dug into Dale's belly like claws and tore out a fistful of fat and intestine. He shoved it into his mouth while Dale screamed.
Billy and Sadie went for Brittany. The girl tried to run, but Sadie tackled her into the floodwater pooling on the floor. Billy sat on her chest and started biting her face—cheeks first, then lips, then the soft meat around her eyes. Brittany's screams turned to wet gurgles as Sadie ripped off her ear and chewed it like candy.
Harlan went for Tammy. She begged, "Please, we got kids—" but he drove the axe into her shoulder, splitting her collarbone. He dragged her to the table and pinned her down. With calm, practiced hands he began carving—thighs first, nice thick steaks. The chest on the floor hummed louder, fetuses reaching out with their many arms.
Darlene had dragged herself from their trailer all the way here, leaving a trail of guts behind her like a bridal veil. She crawled to Brittany and started eating the girl's breasts while the child was still alive and screaming.
The dog—a skinny pit bull—tried to attack. Harlan caught it mid-leap and snapped its neck. He tossed the still-warm body to Billy. "Save the heart for your sister."
Within twenty minutes the Parker family was reduced to meat and bone. The McCoys carried the best cuts back through the flood—legs, arms, livers, brains—wrapped in plastic trash bags. The two fetuses rode on Harlan's shoulders, licking blood from his neck like kittens.
Back in their own trailer they feasted again. Darlene's open belly became the serving platter. Old Jeb ate Dale's testicles raw, crunching them like grapes. Sadie sucked the marrow from Brittany's fingers while telling the chest-fetuses bedtime stories about all the people they would eat next.
The fetuses were growing faster now. One of them had sprouted wings—tiny, membranous things that flapped wetly. The other had a full set of adult teeth.
Harlan sat back, belly full for the first time in years, and watched his family devour their neighbors. The chest was singing now—a low, wet lullaby in a language older than the mountains.
Outside, the flood kept rising. More lights were going out across Black Hollow. More trailers sat dark and silent.
Harlan smiled, blood dripping from his chin.
"Tomorrow," he said, "we take the whole holler."
Darlene, still breathing through her ruined body, raised a half-eaten arm in a toast.
"To family," she slurred.
The fetuses answered with twin, high-pitched laughs that sounded almost human.
And deep beneath the slag heaps and flooded mines, something ancient and starving stirred in reply.
(End of Chapter 4)