Girls #24

Everything must come to an end to make way for a new beginning.

Ethan starts hallucinating and begins yet another conversation with the the original Girl. She tells him that she can give him a happiness that will never go away if he'll let her. He seems to accept but is shaken out of his day-dream by the sounds of violence. The men and women of the town start to kill the girls that are trapped in the circle of fire they had created to hold them. The battle stops being one sided when the girls get over their fear of the fire and guns the townspeople are carrying and start to fight back even as they are gunned down. The numbers of the girls quickly make up for their lack of weaponry and they begin killing people. A few die but those remaining drive the girls away. They think the battle is done until one of them sees that the girls are taking some of their friends to the giant sperm. On the way to rescue the captives, Ethan finds he original Girl and tries to talk to her like he does when he drifts off. All she can do is mimic what he says and Ethan is visibly distraught. Just then, the Girl is killed by someone else.

Not far away, Nancy, trying to save her daughter, is caught by the sperm, sucked into it, and explodes. Ethan sees the same thing about to happen to Taylor so he rushes to save her. He makes it in time and is able to get her to safety. The last girl is killed soon after and the sperm begins to make strange sounds. Deciding to take the opportunity, the sheriff signals Merv and the young man sends his car, filled to the brim with dynamite, speeding towards the sperm. There is an explosion but the sperm is still there.

Instead of being blown away, the sperm raises its tail and points it up at the the sky. Just then the bubble around the town disappears. Outside the town, the world watches news casts and share that the area is no longer blocked off by the impenetrable reflective bubble that once stood. Before people can start to rejoice, the earth starts to rumble and something is launched from the sperm's tail.

Back at the center of the town, the sperm starts to fade away as the townspeople pick themselves up and start wondering what happened. Those that hadn't been part of the final attack on the girls started to make their way to the rest of the group and Merv's dog finds Ted's baby. It had apparently been born and kept alive when his mother died. While the military makes its way to the people of the town, they all finally relax. Above them, the only sign of the sperm's explosion is a large cloud in the sky.

In an epilogue that mirrors the one at the beginning of the series, one of many sperm swim from a cloud of semen and head toward an egg. The final pages of the book are closer on the egg and the sperm, and the sperm is revealed to contain a Girl and the egg is not an egg, but a planet. The cycle continues.