They Bloom at Night

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They Bloom at Night by Trang Thanh Tran

Nhung, or Noon as she is called to everyone because they can't actually pronounce her real name, and her mom, shrimp trawlers, sort through the wreckage and red algae bloom left over from the hurricane that hit Mercy, Louisiana, a couple of years ago. In the Gulf, there are animals that have mutated, and Noon may have mutated, too. Her hair is now stark white instead of black, but they tell everyone that it is stress-induced, and she's losing her fingernails. While they are out, they go to their friend's home, a fortune teller, only to find her dead in her chair. They search her place and find a note that reads WHEN THE WATER KEEPS RISING. Is it a fortune? Is it their fortune? It doesn't mean anything to Noon, but to her mom, it means every day is an opportunity. Noon's life is not so great. Two months before the hurricane, she was sexually assaulted and everything has been wrong since then.

Noon and her mom end their day on the water and go back to the port, but no one empties their haul and instead they fuss about the Asians always being late. Noon sees a girl, Covey, who kind of stands up for them when some of the other dock guys mock them for being Vietnamese. She changes the subject and questions the name of their boat, the Wild Things. Noon’s father chose that name after his son Jaylen, Noon’s younger brother and prized child of the household, wouldn't let him name the boat after him but suggested the picture book instead. Jay was a good brother even if he was the favorite because he was a boy.

Noon, her mom and Covey leave the Wild Things and take a skiff to a different area of the bayou where they find Jimmy, Covey’s dad, who actually owns their boat and a weird emporium that does gator tours. They owe him a lot of money and work to pay him back by bringing him the mutated wildlife that they find for him to display or sell. Now, he's got an offer for them. He tells them that they have to bring back the monster that is tormenting Mercy, that is causing people to go missing, including a group of scientists, whether anyone else believes it's a thing or not. The government is planning to end the fishing season early and evacuate the area in three weeks because things are going wrong, obviously because of this so-called monster. Noon’s mom doesn't want to do this because she believes that the creatures they find are reincarnations and they might be her family. She lunges at Jimmy, clearly upset, but he slams her around, hurting her arm, and throws her down onto a rusty nail on the dock. If they don't hunt the monster, Jimmy will call in his debt and take back his boat.

Noon tries to convince her mom to just leave, but she believes that her husband and son are still there somewhere, reincarnated as sea creatures after drowning because of the hurricane and she doesn't want to leave them behind. Noon struggles with this, why doesn't she matter too?, but they stay. The next day, Covey joins them as they get ready for their monster hunt and comes packing with crossbows and several knives and an ax and traps and five or six books. Covey mentions a scientific team that has gone missing, presumably because of the sea monster that they're going after, and she wants to find them and stop the creature. As they travel the waters, they pass an island with a phone on it, the Wind Phone, like one set up in Japan after a tsunami killed a lot of people, meant to contact lost loved ones and Covey seems upset by it. Apparently Covey is less concerned about speaking to the missing than Noon’s mom.

They spend days on the boat, Noon and her mom doing their normal trawling job and Covey soon stepping up to help. They pull in some mutated creatures and some regular creatures, too. After a few days, suddenly, without warning, a squall hits them as they are trying to bring in their nets. Covey thinks she sees something monster-like in the net and grabs her crossbow but Noon’s mom won't let her kill whatever it is, hoping it is her husband or son. She takes one of Covey’s knives and starts cutting the net. Noon tries to stop her but her mom accidentally knocks her into the red algae-infested water. As she falls, she sees hands, lots of hands, reaching for her and hears the repeated lines let us in let us in let us in whispered over and over, but she thinks that it must just be Covey reaching for her. Covey finally manages to get Noon back on the boat and her mom rushes over, slapping her back to get her to cough up all the water she will have taken in. 

Unfortunately, Noon realizes that her mom is burning up and sick with a fever, so she speeds Wild Things to a lighthouse where Vinh and Jenn, longtime friends of Noon’s family, live. Their son Wilder was Noon’s best friend growing up. They should be able to help. Noon insists to Covey that she go stay on the boat while they stay with their friends. They are untrusting of new people and they don't know Covey, so she agrees. The nail wound from Jimmy's has gotten worse and now she's got a fever, but it's hard to say if Noon's mom is sick because of that or because of the water rescue, or both. In the beforetimes, Jenn was a nurse so thankfully she knows what she's doing. They decide that they will hold off on going to a hospital for a little bit and try treating the infection with antibiotics Jenn has first.

Noon goes out to the boat with Covey and tells her that they're going to have to go out on their own without her mom. Covey agrees and says that if they don't find the sea creature, they'll skip out on her dad, which Noon wasn't expecting. She wanted to do that, but didn't think his own daughter would feel that way. Covey has her own reasons for wanting to search for the creature. She's also curious about her mom who went missing. Maybe she's missing just like the scientists, or maybe there was foul play involved because of her dad. Either way, they are going to go searching. They did both see something in the nets and water earlier, though Noon just thought it was Covey. Maybe not. 

That night, Noon dreams of becoming a boy, her mom happy to have another son, helping to shave her head. Her dad is there, too, and they have matching tattoos of ships made from bone and they go shrimping together. Noon wishes this were true, but looks at her female skin sloughed off on the floor, and realizes that is her, too. The next day, she goes to tell her mom, Vinh and Jenn that she and Covey are going to continue searching for the monster and try to find the scientists and Covey's mom who is also missing in Mercy. Jenn gives them a small skiff to take since Wild Things is too big to maneuver around Mercy and Noon’s mom gives her the key to their boat and tells her daughter not to go back to the cove. 

Noon and Covey take Jenn’s small skiff and search for a place to stay in a part of Mercy abandoned after the hurricane. They find an old fishing cabin with a hole in the floor so big they can see and hear the water lapping down below. They don't hear any other lifeforms though. No bugs. Nothing. Noon opens a pack prepared for her by her mom and pulls out supplies to make dinner while she and Covey chat about books that were better than their movies and other random things. They turn on a radio and hear briefly about an approaching tropical storm that will likely turn into a hurricane but turn it off, deciding they are probably fucked either way. 

That night, Noon wakes to hear dripping coming from somewhere. She thinks she's back home with her brother who had not shut the faucet all the way after using the bathroom and washing his hands in the middle of the night, running scared back to his bed. She wakes and sees her brother peering up at her through the hole in the floor. No, that's not possible. He's dead. Noon goes to another room and strips off her sweater, bothered by a rash that she has had since going into the water. When she looks at herself in the mirror, she sees flaps on either side of her neck. Gills? No. Is she dreaming still? She can't have gills. She is not dreaming. Noon covers the slashes on the sides of her neck with medicated patches. 

The next morning, the two decide they are going to go to the school to explore because, after the area was abandoned, scientists took over the gym. If they can't find anything of interest there, they’ll visit the school librarian, Mrs. Olivier, who lives across the street. When there weren't enough students to warrant the school being in use, the librarian helped the scientists, so she'll probably know lots of important information. They set off, wishing there was a dollar store still open somewhere so they could get candy, or, Covey suggests, hair dye for Noon to conceal her white roots that she currently has covered with a giant floppy hat. Noon plays off the premature grayness of her hair, but remembers that it turned white overnight after what happened to her at Mercy Cove.

Noon and Covey arrive at the gym after walking through a creepy corridor with discarded craft projects hanging on the walls, googly eyes tracking them as they pass. The gym is full of tanks, but the creatures inside, a lot of exotic jellyfish it seems, are long dead. They also find a bunch of notes left by the scientists that are oddly important. They see another tank that looks coated on the inside with a thick red substance, blood? did something implode?, but before they can investigate, they hear a chair move behind them. Covey has her crossbow at the ready, but Noon sees an octopus crawling along the floor. She knows from watching documentaries that an octopus can't be out of the water for more than an hour, but she also knows not to touch the creature. She hopes to lure it back to its tank, labeled with a sticky note with its name, Frank, by leaving a trail of water for it to follow. Inside the red tank is a bit of coral reef that is bleached completely white, which is what happens when the algae that lives inside them die.

Noon and Covey leave the gym and head across the street to the librarian’s house. Mrs. Olivier is beginning to suffer from dementia, her son Travis says, and asks them not to cause his mother undue stress. Mrs. Olivier recognizes Noon immediately and seems to be her old self. She sits knitting, though it seems she's unraveling her work rather than creating anything new. She also has giant bandages on both arms. Noon and Covey ask about the scientists and one in particular, Delgado, who apparently started the entire scientific mission in Mercy in the first place, and what their focus was. The librarian mentions that they all had their own areas of special interest, but Delgado was a marine biologist studying coral reefs. If Delgado was a marine biologist, maybe it's not so weird for Noon to have seen what looked to be the boy in the water. Delgado was clearly studying some creature, not just the algae and other plant life.

Before the two leave, Mrs. Olivier talks to Noon about that idea of being inside a nightmare and having to fight your way out. She starts using her knitting needles to scratch at the skin beneath her bandages. Noon knows exactly what the librarian is talking about, just recently having had to fight through the hands reaching for her and whispering to her under the water. While they are talking, Covey notices a drawing pinned to the wall with her mother's initials on. She asks Mrs. Olivier when she last saw her mother, but she can't remember. Just before Travis comes to take his mother to rest, Mrs. Olivier grabs Noon and says in a creepy flat voice NEVER ANSWER KNOCKS IN THE NIGHT.

After leaving the librarian, Noon and Covey map out where they are going to set traps for the sea creature based on their own knowledge and what they learned from the things left behind by Delgado and the other scientists in the gym. Noon's mom calls but she's afraid to tell her anything and definitely doesn't mention her possible gills, worried her mom will come to Mercy to help even though she's still unwell. That night, Covey reads aloud a little mermaid story, but not the Disnified version or the turning into seafoam version. This one mentions the prince being in love with the mermaid dancing on her new legs even though it feels like she's walking on glass. Her sisters give her a knife that if she takes to the sea witch after killing the Prince, she'll give her her tail back. 

After a few days of the same thing over and over, checking the traps and then coming back to the cabin to listen to Covey read books, Noon goes to explore her old neighborhood. She doesn't want to look inside her old trailer because of all the memories there, and looks inside her neighbors’ place instead. While she's there, she realizes someone else is inside, Aaron, a total dudebro who just started working for Jimmy doing the same thing that they are. He says Jimmy just probably wanted to get Covey out of his hair for awhile. All the while this dudebro is talking, Noon is quietly freaking out, remembering being at Mercy Cove, Aaron holding her in the sand. Her not being able to swim. Not being able to get away. It's very unpleasant. 

Noon leaves and decides she is brave enough now to go inside her old house. She finds lots of cute trinkets given to her by her brother and photos of them growing up. She sees herself in a picture wearing smeary eyeshadow and knowing that she was a different person underneath. That was around the same time as Aaron. Noon was definitely a different person after that. Her mom covered for her with her family, telling everyone she had food poisoning, not that she was drunk and assaulted at the cove. They never told her dad, but he's dead now anyway so what difference would it have made? 

While Noon is exploring her old house, she finds something completely unexpected… Delgado, the scientist. Dead. Their body is wearing their hazmat suit, which isn't unusual, but the pencils shoved into their ears definitely are. Noon goes back to tell Covey and unfortunately, she thinks Noon is seeing things. They go back to check the trailer and, yep, Delgado is gone. Maybe Aaron took the body? Noon mentions Aaron to Covey. Surely she would have known that her dad hired him, right? He said he was hired to search the land while they searched the sea, but he also said Jimmy sent them out to be rid of Covey, so who knows what she knows. They search around and find some tracks that disappear on a gravel path, so that's not very helpful. 

Later that night, Noon and Covey wake to hear a knocking sound, but it's not at their fishing cabin door. Noon doesn't want to check it out, thinking there's something she should remember about knocking, but Covey goes out and she follows after looking doubtfully at herself in a mirror and thinking about all the horrible things seen in reflections… Candyman, Bloody Mary, your own face looking back… Outside, Noon and Covey hear the knocking again, hopeful it might be caused by what they set out to find. Unfortunately, Covey is pulled off the dock and into the water. After a moment of thinking it would be easier for Noon and her mom to run away if Covey disappeared, she jumps into the water to help.

Despite not knowing how to swim, Noon tries to rescue Covey. She can't hear the knocking anymore, but instead she hears the whispered let us in let us in let us in again. She can't see anything under the water, not Covey, not a monster, just algae, and then water gets inside her mouth and she blacks out. While she's out, Noon dreams she is Covey's mom trying to help her small daughter out of a tree. She successfully catches Covey and then wakes up, pulling herself and Covey through the hole in the floor of their cabin. Just before starting CPR on Covey, she comes to, questioning why Noon jumped in to save her since she can't swim, telling her not to do that again and to save herself instead. Noon rushes off to the bathroom and to the mirror again to check for gills, but instead she sees that her pupils have changed and no longer look human. Back with Covey, they look at the drawing Covey's mom did again and realize there's a clue in the corner. The paper is stationery from a wealthy family and Noon knows where their house is.

House is not the right word. Noon and Covey arrive at the mansion and start searching, but before too long, someone sneaks up on Noon and holds a knife to the back of her neck, asking if she's alone. Noon recognizes the voice and turns to find her childhood best friend, Wilder. He lets her go and calls to his friend Saffy, who is holding Covey hostage, and the situation calms down. Noon and Covey tell Wilder and Saffy that they are searching for the missing and ask if they have seen Covey's mom. Wilder and Saffy know Covey's mom, Mack, and tell them they haven't seen her in a couple of months but that she was helping them gather supplies. They just assumed that Jimmy had something to do with her disappearance. Wilder and Saffy ask them if they've seen their friend Rosa, who is also missing, but they haven't. 

After a call with her mom in which she seems not to care about Noon's well-being and is more concerned about the approaching storm, they join Saffy and Wilder for burnt ramen and expired stovetop cake and talk about their interests with the radio on in the background. Wilder and Saffy know quite a bit about the algae and other parasitic creatures and they all decide that maybe the algae somehow formed a symbiotic relationship with humans and that's why Delgado was wearing a hazmat suit. Doesn't explain the pencils shoved in the ears though. Suddenly they hear on the radio that the hurricane is approaching quickly and then a report that can't possibly be correct. Mrs. Olivier is missing. 

Some time passes and Noon explores the mansion, finding a fuck-it list, not a bucket list because they are not planning to die any time soon, posted in one of the rooms. Wilder, Saffy and Rosa all have things that they want to do, like join a boy band and learn to ice skate. Noon is invited to add her own, but she can't think of anything, which is kind of depressing, but she's just focused on one day at a time. Later, Noon finds Wilder and Covey chatting, Wilder explaining that Noon is like a corpse flower. Okay, that can't be a flattering description, so she interrupts. Wilder wants to explain so they go up to the roof to chat. 

Wilder explains his comparison to the flower by saying that once Noon opens up and you understand all her feelings and emotions, you can't help but be drawn to her and you don't want to look away. They each confess at this point that they had huge crushes on each other since they grew up together and became best friends. They both decide that they don't like each other like that anymore though and it's fine. Wilder mentions being bisexual and being his own kind of masculine that his father didn't approve of and Noon expresses that she doesn't feel like she's in the right skin most of the time. Wilder clearly does, Covey knows that she's a lesbian, and Saffy knows herself, too, that she is a girl not a boy. Noon now is dealing with a headache and the feeling that something is growing inside her mouth, maybe her wisdom teeth? but they're not in the right spot for that. Can't think about that right now though, because from the roof, they see Mrs. Olivier wandering around below. 

They all follow Mrs. Olivier who is shambling barefoot, still scratching her arm with her knitting needle. They follow her all the way to the cove where Noon was attacked by Aaron and though it was terrifying then, it's even more terrifying now. The bodies of the missing fill the cove, sloshed together in a weird amalgamation of nightmares. They think that maybe the government knows about this and this is part of the reason why they want everyone to evacuate. Delgado is there too, but is still mobile, not yet part of the mass. Noon can hear voices calling to her let us in let us in let us in and she understands why Delgado had pencils in their ears. They tried to stop the voices from calling, but they ultimately failed. Mrs. Olivier is clearly impacted by the voices, too, and invites Noon and the others to peel off their skin and join them as she rips the flesh from her arms. They realize that the algae is causing this as they see the red flowing around all the husks of people below them. Delgado comes for them and Covey takes them down with her crossbow. Just as they are feeling safe, Covey sees her mom in the algae. Mack comes for her daughter and Covey doesn't fight, but Noon rushes in and bites Mack until she releases Covey. They run to get away.

Back at the mansion they store Delgado’s body to take back to Jimmy, hoping everything will be over, at least this monster-hunting, scientist-finding part. Noon looks at the rash on her side and thinks about the cove and the attack and the algae and lots of things click into place. She has been changing ever since Aaron attacked her, so clearly something else unwanted, something non-human, got into her body that night, but since falling into the algae, she is changing much more quickly into something else. She leaves her friends and goes to the lighthouse where her mom is staying with Wilder’s parents. 

Noon confronts her mother about being ashamed of her since Aaron attacked her in the cove. She asks what really happened that night after her mom found her, thinking about the bodies and the algae, thinking it was already there, but it wasn't. The algae didn't come until the hurricane, and that happened months after the attack. Noon's mom tells her that when she found her at the cove, she thought she was dead and made a prayer to a water deity, Sông, to save her, and it must have worked. Her mom refuses to leave the area because if Sông brought her daughter back, reincarnated, then surely they would bring back her husband and son, too. After the attack, when her hair turned white and her fingernails fell off, she must have become something else that her mother tried to cover up. Noon is disgusted and leaves, but not before shaming Wilder's parents for treating their son badly, too.

Instead of going back to the mansion, Noon goes to the cabin with the hole in the floor and is surprised to find Covey there waiting, apparently having seen Noon looking at her rash earlier. Noon reveals that she is a monster and asks if Covey is going to shoot her with the crossbow and take her to Jimmy. Instead, Covey hugs Noon, who then explains her family's story. Her great-grandparents traveled to America on a boat but there was a storm. Her father explained that they prayed to Sông to keep them safe in the water, and apparently Sông did because they survived. Noon's mom did the same when she found Noon after Aaron attacked her. Noon explains that she never really felt right in her own body, even before the attack, always just going along with whatever everyone else did or said to feel like she fit in, which is why she went along with Aaron to the cove. Maybe she's just been a monster inside all along. 

Noon and Covey go back to the mansion and unfortunately they learn that Delgado dissolved into sea foam. They decide to tell Wilder and Saffy everything about Noon and the fact that she is probably a sea monster herself. Noon tells them everything, from the assault at the cove, being “saved” by Sông, all the body changes because of Sông and the algae, how she’s seen other's memories. They decide that the goopy amalgamation has a hive mind because they each experienced it when they were in the water. They name the ones that haven't become part of the goop, like Mrs. Olivier and Mack, the Undone and they decide that they are going to try to catch Mack and take her far inland, away from all water and algae and the hive mind to see if she will get better. To do that though, they are going to need Jimmy's resources. Before they can go to Jimmy, Noon asks for help in removing the algae that's inside her rash. Working together, they all strap her down and pull strands of algae out of her wound. Noon enjoys the painful sensation and thinks of peeling off her skin like Mrs. Olivier suggested.

After formulating a plan, Noon and Covey go to Jimmy's. They tell him half-truths about capturing Delgado and them turning into seafoam, and explain the goopy body fusion and say that Mrs. Olivier appeared and let them follow her and tried to convince them to join with the creature. Instead of saying anything about Mack, they act as though they want to capture Mrs. Olivier instead and manage to convince Jimmy not to send Aaron with them to help, though he will stay close by to assist and supervise. Noon and Covey definitely don't want that but go along with Jimmy anyway because they need his supplies, especially the tranquilizer gun.

The next day, Noon has lost a couple of teeth but keeps that secret, though she hides her teeth under Covey’s pillow like the tooth fairy is real. Aaron is there when they are getting supplies and is creepy to Noon and Covey, but thankfully Travis, Mrs. Olivier‘s son, is also there, preparing to evacuate, and steps in to protect the girls. They wonder if they should tell him about his mother when he mentions that maybe someone has already rescued her and helped her evacuate, but they decide against it. They try to determine how much tranquilizer will knock out a person and Wilder agrees to contact his former nurse mom at the lighthouse with Noon’s mom to ask. It's difficult for him, but they have to capture Covey's mom. 

They rig up a net like they are trawling on an old houseboat and Covey positions herself with the tranquilizer gun after slicing her arm open to try to use her blood to lure her mom to them. Unfortunately Noon slipped and knocked out another tooth, but her friends didn't see the tooth come out and fall into the water because they suddenly see a weird, octopus tentacle-looking body swimming to them and realize that it's not Mack, it's Mrs. Olivier. They were hoping that Covey's blood would attract her mom but instead the librarian was drawn to them, to Noon. She pulls Noon into the water, into their net that she's trapped in, telling her that she's waited too long and begins peeling Noon's skin off. Noon hears the voices, Sông’s voice?, chanting let us in let us in let us in. The net is then dragged out of the water and her friends try to cut her free, but Mrs. Olivier opens a weird monster maw and nearly bites Wilder's hand off. Suddenly Noon’s mom is there to help. She knocks Mrs. Olivier away and into a broken window of the houseboat. She dies and turns to seafoam.

Noon, her mom and Covey go back to the cabin while Wilder and Saffy go to the mansion. Noon asks her mother how she found them and she admits to overhearing Wilder's call with his mom. Noon and Covey discuss not being able to bring a body of the Undone out of the water and back to Jimmy so they should just run away. Noon then reveals the rash and also shows off her gills. She takes her mom out of the room to explain. She tells her that she has never felt like a girl and that her body is wrong, but maybe this new change is the right one. Her mom asks if she still would have felt that way if Aaron didn't assault her and she says yes, that she's never felt like a girl but always went along with everything that girls were supposed to do. Her mom tells Noon that she didn't want to take her away from Mercy because she was worried that being away from the water where Sông reincarnated her would cause problems.

That night, Covey and Noon try to act like normal teenage girls. Covey has some makeup that was once her mom's and they give each other really bad makeovers, but it's nice and they have fun. They discuss what they would eat right now if they could eat anything (a hot dog covered with sweet relish and onions and mustard for Noon and a buttermilk biscuit, red pepper jelly, fried green tomatoes, two eggs over easy, and orange juice for Covey), and Noon asks where Covey will go next, after all this is over. She says she's going to go to the Wind Phone. 

After they fall asleep, Noon wakes to a figure that looks like her dead brother, but she knows it is Sông. She thinks that maybe Sông is trying to kindly lure her in this time, so she follows her not-brother to their old house. Here Noon begins to understand Sông when she is shown hive mind memories of her friends and their memories, her great grandmother when they crossed the ocean, and even the ocean itself’s memories. Noon hears the chanting let us in let us in, but says not yet. She goes back to the cabin and finds it empty. Covey and her mom and the Wild Things boat are gone.

Noon uses the radio to try to call her mom on their boat but Aaron answers, gloating about how he followed them and that he knows she's becoming a sea monster because he's been watching her and has seen her body change. Jimmy gets on the line then and tells Noon that she's going to turn herself in and when she does, he'll let her mom go. Soon the scientists will give in and he'll be able to clean up the algae without them fighting to study it and life will return to normal and Jimmy will be there, lording himself over the bayou. Noon asks about Covey but Jimmy says she's where she belongs. Noon thinks about just running away, she's not going to be herself anymore soon anyway, but decides against it.

As the hurricane draws closer, Noon goes to the mansion and tells Wilder and Saffy what happened. They begin to plan a rescue, saying that they are going to run away when it's all over, get away from Mercy, but Noon finds she doesn't want to leave the shore. Then, she asks her friends if they trust her. They go to the cove and Noon steps through the bodies of the Undone, past them and into the ocean beyond. Once submerged, Noon tells Sông that they moved too quickly, the bodies of the Undone are in pain and are unhappy, and that she will make them a deal. She needs to be strong. She opens herself to Sông, the unimaginable creature that looks kind of like a monstrous pupilless eyeball, then she realizes that what she said was not true. Happy hive mind memories rush through her. She walks back to shore, transformed into who she was meant to be. 

Noon goes to Jimmy's. When one of his dock workers approaches her, being shitty, she smiles a shark-toothed smile at him and he backs off. She goes inside to demand that Jimmy set her mother and Covey free, but clearly he was never going to do that, saying Covey is where she's supposed to be and she and her mom will be together soon. Aaron appears and grabs Noon by the gills and drags her to a tank. Her mom is in one, too, beaten and bloody, surrounded by algae. Clearly Jimmy is hoping she will also transform. Noon sloughs off her skin and oozes through the wire cage acting as a lid to her tank just like Frank the octopus from the gym. A worker comes in but Noon easily knocks him out and takes his keys, freeing her mom. She's upset that Noon didn't just leave her there and escape before the hurricane hits, but they're all getting away from Jimmy's.

Noon and her mom sneak through Jimmy's weird emporium to the living quarters and find Covey's room. She answers their knock and is surprised that they are still there and that they've come for her and not just left to get ahead of the storm. They plan to take a small boat and get a little ways away before hunkering down to wait out the hurricane, then Noon wants Covey and her mom to leave for good. As they head to the dock, they see Jimmy and Aaron dumping algaecide into the water. This infuriates the creature who is now Noon. Before she can do anything, Jimmy spots them.

Noon sees the key to Wild Things around Aaron’s neck and points it out to her mom and Covey and then a fight breaks out. Unfortunately it doesn't go well and Jimmy stabs Noon through the heart and she falls into the algaecide-filled water. This doesn't stop her though. The Undone then spill out into the dock, terrifying unless you know them. Noon sees Aaron going for Wild Things and she and other Undone board the boat. Aaron tries to be shitty to Noon, but she breaks his jaw and shoves her arm down his throat. 

Back with Jimmy, he's yelling at Covey about wanting to leave with this Asian girl and that she's just going through a phase and that their family has been there for centuries and he's going to turn everything around. He doesn't see Mack rise from the Undone and come for him, but Covey does. Mack grabs Jimmy and pulls him through the water, not letting the algae take hold of him. Like Aaron, he is not worth it. Instead she takes him to a congregation of alligators and lets them feast.

After the hurricane passes, Noon, her mom, Covey, Wilder and Saffy decide to stay together until it is time for Noon to join Sông in the water. She doesn't know how long that will be though. They go to see Wilder's parents and his mom offers to help with his bitten hand. Wilder will decide how much of himself he wants to share with his parents though, and that's okay. Saffy convinces Noon’s mom to create her own fuck it list that includes visiting the Statue of Liberty. Noon and Covey go to the little island with the Wind Phone and carve their initials into the side. Noon will soon become part of Sông, but until then, she's glad that, this close to the end, she is with her friends.