Hannah could no longer contain herself.
“Oh, for God’s sake!” she said, rising from her seat.
“What’s your problem now?” Freddie asked with another of his smug smirks.
“What’s my problem now?” she said, sneering at his attitude with incredulity. “I can’t believe this family of yours!”
“Excuse me?” Mrs. Dan said.
“Yes, I’m saying that without holding it back this time,” Hannah said, her face red, not with embarrassment from making the Dans lose face, but with anger. “Mrs. Dan, my entire family has been missing for the past…what, half-hour at least? Not even Al has returned! What is going on here? Since when is this even remotely how guests are treated?”
“Hanna, please, calm down,” Mrs. Dan said.
“Calm down? All my dad did was go to the upstairs bathroom! All my mom and brother did was go up to find out what happened to them. They should all be back by now! Why aren’t they?”
“I’m sure there’s a simple explanation for all of this,” Freddie said, then, with an unmistakeable tone of contempt, “Take it easy.”
“Don’t you tell me to take it easy, Mr. Brother-bully!” Hannah shouted. “You can’t even do a simple thing like treat Al with respect, and you expect me to be cool when my entire family and boyfriend have gone missing for no good reason? There’s a simple explanation for this? You’ll need an extraordinary explanation for all of this, which–if I get it, if I actually get it–will get an extraordinary apology from me. I don’t see any of my family coming back. I don’t see Emily, or your dad or your brother coming back. What secret are you hiding from us?” She glared at both of them.
Mrs. Dan was laughing nervously. “Let’s go upstairs together, my dear,” she said to Hannah as she rose from her seat.
Hannah frowned at her. “And it will be my turn to disappear, I suppose,” she hissed. “At least you won’t have anyone else to complain about your less-than-stellar hospitality, will you, Mrs. Dan? And I’ll finally know the truth…with a knife in my back, I suppose?”
Mrs. Dan laughed again. “I assure you, my dear, at my age, I lack the strength to harm you even if I wanted to. Let’s go up the stairs and find them.”
“Or is this some elaborate prank, and I’m going to find them all up in the attic or something, laughing and partying,” Hannah said with a scowl as she followed Mrs. Dan out of the living room.
You’ll find them all in the attic, all right, Freddie thought. But they won’t be doing anything but bleeding, as you soon will be, you crabby little bitch.
“Please don’t take it too personally if I stay behind you the whole way up, Mrs. Dan,” Hannah said coolly.
“As you wish, dear,” Mrs. Dan said, then thought, Not that staying behind me will do you any good, of course.
“Of course, you’re not the only one I need to worry about, as far as possibly getting a knife in my back is concerned.”
That’s right, Mrs. Dan thought as they reached the second floor. “Would you like to look around the rooms on this floor, my dear?”
“No, I wouldn’t. I’d like you to show me around, while I keep my eyes open for any…surprises.”
“Very well,” Mrs. Dan said with another giggle, then she opened the door to the nearest of the rooms. She went in first, then Hannah followed, her eyes darting around everywhere for possible attackers. Mrs. Dan turned on the light.
Hannah quickly scanned the room for her family, and of course she found nobody. Then she went back to looking out for any lurking dangers.
“Nothing here,” she said with her permanent pout. “Let’s carry on to the next room.”
They left the room, Hannah always behind her host and looking out for trouble. They approached the next room. There was a noise inside it, something having fallen over.
“What was that?” Hannah snapped, her back straight and rigid.
“Let’s find out,” Mrs. Dan said as she opened the door, then turned on the light. Some boxes lay on the floor in a mess. The women went in the room.
Again, after Mrs. Dan switched on the light, Hannah remained behind her, taking quick looks around the room while remembering to look behind her in case someone was sneaking up on her. She stepped in further.
Apart from the mess of boxes in the middle of the floor, there didn’t seem to be anything of concern going on there. Hannah took a deep breath.
Whatever’s going on up here, she thought, I’m pretty sure I won’t be going back downstairs.
She felt something brush against her calf.
“Oh!” she yelped, then looked behind her and saw nobody. She looked down.
It was the cat.
She smiled, sighed, bent down, and petted it.
“Aww, cute little kitty cat,” she said.
She felt a hand touch her shoulder.
She yelped again and looked up behind her. The cat ran away.
“Oh, I’m sorry, dear,” Mrs. Dan said, taking her hand away. “I didn’t mean to scare you. I just wanted to say that we seem to be finished in here, and so we can go on to the next room.”
“Oh, OK,” Hannah said with a nervous chuckle. She got up and followed Mrs. Dan out of the room.
As they went back into the hall, Hannah noticed something jutting out of the right front pocket of Mrs. Dan’s black pants. It hadn’t been there before. It looked like the handle of a knife.
Did she pocket it while I was distracted by the cat? she wondered. I don’t dare ask her about it, but I’m especially making sure she’s always within my field of vision now.
They went through the rest of the rooms on the second floor and found nothing, Hannah always checking to see if Emily or Mr. Dan was about to ambush her, while never taking her eyes off of Mrs. Dan. Then the two women went up the stairs, Mrs. Dan first, of course, to the third floor.
As they went through the rooms on the third floor, Hannah found it increasingly suspicious that there was still no trace of her parents or brother, nor of Mr. Dan, Emily, or Al.
“This doesn’t make any sense!” Hannah said in exasperation. “Where the hell is everyone?”
“I’m sure we’ll find them soon, d–“
“No, you tell me what you’ve done with them! Mrs. Dan, I’ll bet you and your family already know where they are, and you’re leading me into the same trap, aren’t you?”
“Oh, come, come, my d–“
“Don’t you ‘come, come’ me! Something screwy is–“
They heard a moan from up in the attic.
Hannah looked daggers at Mrs. Dan.
“Your plan is for me to be moaning like that, too, isn’t it?”
Mrs. Dan giggled again. “No, not at all, don’t be–“
“Let’s go up there. You first.”
As they went up the ladder to the attic, Hannah looked at that handle sticking out of Mrs. Dan’s pants pocket.
I’m no pickpocket, she thought, but maybe she’ll be too distracted from climbing the stairs to notice me pulling that knife out of her pocket, if that’s what it in fact is. She reached up slowly and carefully.
Another moan was heard from the stack of boxes.
“Over there,” Hannah said when both of them had reached the top of the stairs. She pointed to the boxes, then ran ahead.
Aren’t you worried about me being behind you? Mrs. Dan thought with a smirk.
Hannah went behind the boxes, near a window. A large, long blanket was covering whoever was moaning, or so it seemed. She threw the blanket off a bit and saw her father’s bifurcated, bloody face, and her mother’s bloody, slit throat.
She screamed out loud, then looked up, remembering Mrs. Dan. She could see her in the window reflection, raising the axe that had killed Brad, about to be buried in her back.
“Goodbye, Hannah,” Meng said through Mrs. Dan’s mouth.
Hannah spun around and lunged at the woman’s guts.
“Did you misplace this?” Hannah hissed at her.
Mrs. Dan dropped the axe behind her, looked down at her knife in her bloody belly, and said in Meng’s low voice,” So, it was…you who…took it. No…matter, another…will kill…you.”
She fell to the floor.
Shaking and panting, Hannah looked back at her parents’ corpses. “That psycho-bitch,” she gasped. “I knew something twisted was going on here. This whole family’s fucked up.” Then she turned around again, her eyes darting around frantically for that…other…who would kill her. She saw no one.
She looked back at the bodies, with teary eyes.
“Oh, Mom, Dad,” she sobbed.
Then she noticed the arm of another body beside her father’s. She saw the black shirt sleeve of Mr. Dan.
She threw the blanket further off, and indeed, it was his body, with a bloody gash in the chest.
“Oh, God!” she gasped, then retched. At least I don’t have to worry about him killing me, she thought, then she remembered to look around the attic again for any more attackers. “Freddie? Emily? No? Good.” Where’s Al?”
She heard another moan, from the far side of Mr. Dan’s body, under the blanket.
Where’s Doug? she wondered. “Oh, no.”
There was a slight movement under the blanket’s edge.
She went over, past the three revealed corpses, and dreaded what she was about to see, but held the hope that her brother was still alive…or was it Al?
She pulled the blanket away. Doug moaned again, his eyes half-open.
“Oh, God! Doug!” she said.
CRACK!!!
She gave a jolt, and screamed at the sight of his now-bloody, fractured skull.
Then she looked up.
The bat was in Al’s hands.
Infinite Ocean 