After thoroughly checking all of the rooms on the second and third floors, Mr. Dan and Doug approached the bathroom, where Mr. Sandy had been before he was killed.
“Oh, no–now I have to use the can,” Doug said, then went in.
After he closed the door, Mr. Dan thought, And I have to find something just right for you, young man.
But first, he pulled down the attic stairs, then went up them. He peeked his head in, hearing Emily still cleaning up the blood.
“You just about finished up here?” he asked in Chinese.
“Almost,” she said in Chinese. “Just a little more to wipe up.”
“Well, hurry up,” he said. “I’m taking Hannah’s brother up here. He’s in the bathroom. He’s taking his time in there; I guess it’s a number two, but who knows? Maybe not. I’ll send something up to you. Wait to get it, but hurry with the cleaning!”
He went back down, heard Doug fart and grunt, and he surmised that, indeed, it had to be a number two. He’d have a little more time to find…something just right for Doug.
He went into a room next to the one with the boxes, looked around impatiently, and found a baseball bat. He heard some shuffling steps out in the hallway. Oh, no, he thought, Hannah’s brother. Then after a worried pause, he opened the door and looked out.
Nobody out in the hall.
The bathroom door was still closed.
Was Doug still crapping in there?
Mr. Dan went up to the bathroom door to listen. He heard another fart, the slipping out of shit, and a horrible stink.
He squished up his face in disgust, but was relieved that Doug was still in there and suspected nothing. Mr. Dan went up the attic steps with the baseball bat.
“Emily,” he called.
“What?” she said with surprise, looking back at him from the corner where she’d just finished cleaning. “I thought you were already up here. I heard–“
“No, not yet,” he said, then presented the bat. “Put this over there, then get out of here.”
She took the bat, put it in the corner opposite where she’d been cleaning, and rushed over to the attic stairs.
“I’ve got to clean all this blood off my–” she began as she went down the stairs.
“Shh!” he said. “Hurry up and get out of here before he comes out of the bathroom!”
She went down the hall and took the stairs to the second floor. As soon as she’d disappeared, Doug came out of the bathroom.
Mr. Dan let out a sigh of relief.
“What are you so relieved about, Mr. Dan?” Doug asked, looking askance at him.
“Oh, nothing,” Mr. Dan said with a smile and a slightly nervous chuckle. “I was just getting a little impatient waiting for you to finish, that’s all. Sorry about that.” He gestured to the pulled down attic stairs. “Shall we look in the attic now? It’s the only place we haven’t looked.”
“OK.”
They went up into the attic, Doug first.
He heard moaning in one corner of the attic and rushed over to see. “Dad? Mom?” he called out.
Meanwhile, Mr. Dan sneaked over to the other corner, picked up the bat where he’d seen Emily leave it, and hid it behind his legs by the time Doug looked back.
“There’s nobody here,” Doug said. “I heard moaning right from here, but there’s no source for the moans.”
“Really?” Mr. Dan said. “There’s a lot of shadow behind all those boxes. Look again.”
“I’m looking at the shadow behind the boxes, but there’s nothing–wait, under that blanket over there.”
As Doug was approaching it, Mr. Dan raised the bat over his head. “Goodbye, Doug,” he said in a female voice.
“Emily, are you up here?” Doug asked as he pulled back the blanket, revealing his parents’ bloody bodies. He gasped, his eyes widening.
“No, not Emily,” Mr. Dan said in that woman’s voice.
“Mei’s voice,” a young man said from behind Mr. Dan, who turned around to see who it was.
Now he gasped, his eyes widening.
Al swung the axe right at his father’s chest. Blood sprayed out when it dug deep into him.
Mr. Dan fell to the floor, the bat dropping and hitting him on the head. His blood grew into a large puddle all over the floor.
“Al, Jesus fuck!” Doug said. “How could you do that?”
“It wasn’t easy,” Al panted. “That’s for sure. I’m so sorry, Papa.” He bent down and closed his father’s eyes. “Goodbye. Forgive me. I had no choice.” He rose to his feet.
“Why would you kill your own dad, Al?”
“To stop him from bashing your brains in with that bat, of course.”
“What? Al, this is so fucked up! What’s going on? Why would your family…wanna kill my family? Oh, God…Mom, Dad…” He looked back at his parents’ corpses with tears forming in his eyes.
“Because the spirits of my ancestors are taking possession of my family’s bodies to take you all as sacrifices, so my ancestors won’t bother Hannah and me anymore,” Al said in a cold, monotone voice.
“What? What horseshit are you talking about?”
“My family stopped praying to the spirits of our ancestors years ago,” Al explained. “The spirits got angry because of this disrespect, and they’ve been plaguing our family ever since.” He put the axe down on the floor beside him, next to the bat.
“Spirits, Al?” Doug asked, looking at him with a sneer. “Seriously? Let’s face it: You’re a family of homicidal nutjobs. No offence intended to Chinese people in general, but I don’t want you anywhere near my sister!”
“I love Hannah more than anything, and I’m truly sorry for what happened to your parents,” Al said in sobs. “The spirits forced me to agree with this, so I could marry her one day and we could live in peace. If they know I’ve broken the agreement, they–“
“Fuck you, Al, you and your fucked-up family!” Doug bawled.
Al was silent as Doug looked down at his parents’ bodies and wept for them.
“Oh, no…NO!” Al suddenly said.
“What?” Doug said.
But before Doug could turn his head back and see what was going on, he felt a crack of the baseball bat on his head, knocking him out.
Infinite Ocean 