The county line was only eight miles away, but the McCoy family turned the journey into a slow, floating feast.
They moved like a grotesque flotilla down the flooded state road. Harlan stood at the front of a makeshift barge made from the church roof and half a school bus, axe resting on his shoulder. The creature — now the size of a small car — sat in the center like a living throne. Its many arms trailed in the water, occasionally snatching floating corpses and stuffing them into its vertical maw. Every bite made it larger, stronger, hungrier.
Old Jeb had fashioned a crown from the sheriff's skull and wore it proudly. He paddled with a long pole made from a deputy's spine. Billy and Sadie rode on the creature's back, using its leathery wings as sails. They sang twisted nursery rhymes while licking dried blood from each other's faces.
Darlene had been reduced to a head and torso strapped to the front of the barge like a figurehead. Her empty ribcage flapped open in the wind. She still talked, voice wet and cheerful: "Faster, boys… I can smell fresh meat ahead."
The first town they reached was Harlanville — population 4,200. A sad little place with a Walmart, a Dollar General, a few fast-food joints, and a trailer park on the edge. The flood had hit it hard, but people were still trying to live. Power was out. National Guard trucks were handing out water and MREs. Sirens wailed in the distance.
The McCoys arrived at dusk.
They didn't sneak in.
Harlan drove the barge straight through the flooded Walmart parking lot, the creature humming a low, wet song that made every person who heard it feel their stomach twist with sudden, violent hunger.
The first screams started when the creature's arms shot out like spears and impaled three National Guard soldiers at once. It lifted them high, bit their heads off, and swallowed the bodies whole while their legs kicked in the air.
Chaos exploded.
People ran. Guns fired. But the McCoys were faster, stronger, and far more numerous in their hunger.
Billy and Sadie slipped into the crowd like feral children. They bit ankles, ripped out throats with their teeth, and dragged screaming mothers into the dark water. Sadie wore the scalp of the news reporter like a trophy; it still had the microphone clipped to the hair.
Old Jeb stormed the makeshift aid station. He tore through tents, eating doctors and volunteers alive. One nurse tried to stab him with a scalpel. Jeb laughed, pulled the blade out of his chest, and shoved it through her eye.
Harlan went straight for the Walmart. The creature rode on his shoulders now, too big to carry but too precious to leave behind. Inside the store, panicked shoppers had barricaded themselves in the meat department — ironic, the family thought.
The creature simply smashed through the glass doors. Its many arms swept the aisles, grabbing people by the dozens. It fed methodically: first the soft parts (cheeks, breasts, thighs), then the organs, saving the bones for later. The vertical mouth in its torso opened wide enough to swallow a grown man whole. You could see the outline of his screaming face pressing against the translucent skin from inside before he melted.
Darlene, still strapped to the barge, sang along with the creature's humming. Every time a new victim was brought to her, she bit off a piece and chewed happily. "Tastes like hope," she mumbled through a mouthful of lung.
By midnight, Harlanville belonged to them.
The streets ran red. The Walmart became their new feasting hall. The family dragged hundreds of bodies inside and piled them into mountains of meat. The creature sat in the center of the produce section, now the size of a pickup truck, surrounded by its growing army of half-digested victims whose faces could still be seen twitching beneath its skin.
Harlan stood on the checkout counter, covered head to toe in blood.
"Tomorrow we take the interstate," he announced. "Then the capital. Then every city from here to the ocean."
The creature's many mouths opened at once and spoke in perfect unison, voice deep and wet and ancient:
"We are the rot. We are the hunger. We are the family."
Billy raised a severed arm like a trophy. "I want to eat a whole school bus full of kids."
Sadie clapped. "And a hospital! All those soft babies in incubators…"
Old Jeb cracked his knuckles, now tipped with black bone blades. "I ain't had a good politician since the eighties. Their livers are fatty."
Darlene's head lolled to the side, eyes glassy with pleasure. "Bring me the pregnant ones first… I miss the taste of what I used to carry."
The creature pulsed, growing another pair of arms as it digested its latest meal. Its eyes — now dozens — fixed on Harlan with something that looked disturbingly like parental pride.
Harlan smiled, his own teeth now sharp and blackened.
"Rest tonight," he told the family. "Tomorrow we go viral."
Outside, the first news helicopters appeared in the sky, spotlights sweeping the flooded town. They filmed the carnage for thirty seconds before the creature extended a long, whip-like arm, snatched one chopper out of the air, and pulled it screaming into the Walmart.
The camera kept rolling even as it was swallowed.
Millions of viewers across the country watched the footage live before the feed cut to black.
By morning, the hashtag #BlackHollowHorror was trending.
But the McCoys didn't care about fame.
They only cared about the next meal.
And America was full of them.
(End of Chapter 7)