The House at the End of the World

Libby sprints through lightning and rain to the boathouse, knowing that Sarah is dead behind her. She plans to take the boat off of Oak Haven but realizes, once she’s in the boathouse, that Sarah has the keys in her pocket.

Katie rethinks lighting her pipes on fire, opting for Clorox bleach and drain cleaner instead. When she opens the drain to pour the chemicals down, however, the voices become beseeching and loving. The fox leaps up and bites her hand, and Katie realizes that, without knowing it, she has responded to the call, left the kitchen, and walked to the cellar door.

Libby is shocked by her situation but refuses to give up. She thinks quickly, recalling that there is a smaller boat with an outboard motor. She’s used it before and believes that she can make it to nearby Jacob’s Ladder, having seen Katie across the water before. She doesn’t have a compass, though, so she will be navigating using the lights of the houses alone.

Shaking off the spell of the whispers, Katie feels as though she’s woken into an even darker and more terrifying world than the one she inhabited before. She goes back to the kitchen and pours the chemicals down the drain, which does stop the whispering momentarily.

A flashback presents a journal entry from Raleigh, Libby’s scientist father, relaying his thoughts about Moloch, dated six years before the present day. He outlines five thoughts about the creature. First, the universe is made of energy. Second, all living creatures ingest matter. Third, they have found a life form that just ingests energy. Fourth, this life form can produce new tissues and organs with extraordinary speed. Fifth, this life form appears to be immortal. With these considerations in mind, Raleigh wonders why Moloch—the name some of the scientists have given the creature, though Raleigh would prefer to call it Proteus—is not the only life form in the universe. Why does it try to combine with other creatures instead of simply ingesting them, and why do its hybrid creations keep failing? Raleigh believes that he has the answers and that understanding Moloch will transform human civilization for the better.

Libby makes her way across the lake to Jacob’s Ladder, thinking about the events of the past two days and her parents’ shocking lack of care for her. She wonders why they didn’t try to evacuate her when they knew that Moloch had escaped and considers that her parents were geniuses without empathy. Her parents’ lack of interest in her often made her feel as though she were already dead, but on the lake, making her way to Jacob’s Island, she feels certain that she will not die yet. She sees Jacob’s Ladder ahead and docks at the pier, tying her boat up and taking her shotgun with her. She is preparing to tell Katie the whole story when she is confronted by a dark figure at the top of the bluff.

Katie paces the house, wondering why evil exists. She feels upset that she is always left with this question after tragedy and certain that until the reason for evil is understood, it will keep acting again and again. She wonders why powerful people don’t have enough empathy to stop evil when it affects poor and middle-class people. Suddenly, she realizes that the reason for evil doesn’t matter; all that matters is that she resists it. She sees this resistance as part of her promise to Avi. Watching the fox relaxing in her living room, she tells Michael J. to trust her and that when they are done, she will paint his picture.

Libby addresses the figure on the stairs, who turns out to be Hampton Rice calling for “Mother.” She decides to help him find his mother, but when the lightning flashes on his face, she can see that he has been corrupted by Moloch. She shoots Rice several times and then contemplates going to the house. If Moloch made it to Jacob’s Ladder, what if he has corrupted Katie? She thinks about trying to take her boat to the mainland but decides that doing that would show the same lack of empathy her parents showed.

Katie hears voices outside and then gunfire. Libby knocks on the door and calls for help. Katie asks several questions to determine if she can trust this young woman and then opens the door. Neither of them puts down their guns at first, trying to determine if the other is human. However, eventually they lower their guns and start making a plan to leave the island together.

Another flashback presents a journal entry from Raleigh dated six years before the events on Ringrock. Raleigh answers the questions that he posed in the earlier journal entry. First, he supposes that Moloch isn’t the only life form in the universe because the universe is vast and full of life; that Moloch prefers to build biological civilizations, not technological ones; and that its intelligence might be far different from human intelligence. Second, he theorizes that Moloch hybridizes other creatures because it has no need to consume them and that it sees itself as a DNA data storage system. Perhaps Moloch is a genetic librarian or even an artist using the hybrids to engineer life forms that it considers beautiful. Finally, Raleigh answers the questions about why the hybrids fail. First, he finds it possible that the hybrids are merely a way to transmit the genetic data to the mother mass, and once that’s done, the hybrid itself is of no use. Second, perhaps the artist-Moloch is a nihilist. Third, perhaps Moloch, being millions of years old, has become senile. Regardless of these considerations, Raleigh believes that understanding Moloch may give humanity the chance to control its own biology.

As they plan to leave, Libby tells Katie that the authorities will quarantine all the islands and nuke Ringrock by midnight, giving them a timeline for their escape. Libby begins to panic when Katie asks for more information, but Katie encourages Libby to adopt a fierce, relentless attitude toward their crisis.