*****

[Irene speaking:] "We wanted to stay out of the basement, so Bertie dragged Mother's bloody body to the top, opened the door, and kicked her down. Her head went first, splitting against each step. I didn't just see blood, but gray chunks that gushed through the cracks in her exposed skull. I was scared, but for some reason, I couldn't react. I was numb. I looked up at Bertie. She also looked numb. So cold and empty. She didn't say anything as she closed the door.

I was the one who had to drag Ford into the living room. His face was still bloody from the attack. He would try to speak, but his bottom jaw was broken. The two separate pieces hung open and exposed, the tongue hanging and bloody over them. He never got words out, though. He only gurgled and chunks of blood and tissue sloughed off and came up in his constant drool. The vomiting was even worse, like the overflow of a dam."

I couldn't help gulping, but with that image stuck to my brain, it made me wince and unconsciously reach for my throat.

"The black snow fell again that night. The basement was quieter than before, but we heard a lot of scampering. The next morning, I woke up to Bertie's screaming. I got up quickly, only to see Ford pinning her down. The bloody saliva pouring from his exposed throat and limp tongue was staining her face red. He squeezed her throat to shut her up, then lifted what he had in his other hand. Father's hammer.

He hit her once. Her head snapped toward me, and more than a dozen of her teeth scattered across the ground in front of me. He hit her again, and her left eye bulged out of the socket, immediately turning bloodshot and dilated. He lifted the hammer again, so I picked up a poker from the fireplace. He hit her again on the cheek, and just as he pulled it away, I rammed the poker down his throat. He stopped, and Bertie was able to push him off.

We dragged him to the stairs and pushed him down. He got stuck halfway down, though, so we went down to finish the job. I heard something strange after he hit the ground, though, so I kept going.

At the bottom of the stairs, I slipped in the decomposing fluid that leaked from Dennis and Mother, as well as blood. Fresh blood. It was coming from Father.

He was sitting across from me, in the dark. I watched him slice into the top of his arm with the straight razor, only to savagely dig his fingers into the wound and uproot the skin. I watched the tiny white roots pull away from the red flesh underneath, pulling up vessels along the way that caused them to bleed. Like a glove, he tore down to his hand, snapping away the fingertips and their nails.

Then, he turned to me and grinned. I realized massive patches were missing from his whole body, including his face. Some of the flesh was darkened and greenish from infection. I watched the muscles contract and flex as he got up and staggered toward me.

Bertie pulled me to my feet and dragged me up the stairs. We locked the door, then listened to the sounds of slicing flesh and pouring fluids."