‘The Ancestors,’ a Horror Story, Chapter Ten

“Oh, my God!” Hannah screamed. “Al! What the fuck are you doing?”

Al dropped the baseball bat on the floor. It bounced a few times, rattling by his feet.

He was shaking and weeping.

“Oh, God, Hannah,” he sobbed. “I’m so sorry. It wasn’t me who killed your brother. It was–“

“Sorry?” she yelled. “What do you mean, it wasn’t you? I just saw you kill my brother, you crazy bastard! Why?“

“It wasn’t me. It’s…the ancestors. Their spirits are taking control of our bodies.”

“What on Earth are you talking about, Al?”

“This is why…I didn’t want you to come here…and meet my family. They’re worse than crazy. They’re cursed…by the spirits of our ancestors.”

“None of this is making any sense, Al,” she sobbed. “Why did you just bash my brother’s brains in with that baseball bat? What did he do to you? Why did your family kill my mom and dad? What did they do to you?”

“When we moved…from China to here, my family decided…they didn’t want to pray…to the family ancestors anymore. I knew that would bring bad luck to us. I continued praying to them, but it wasn’t enough. The spirits of our ancestors have been plaguing us with bad luck for not praying to them anymore, but it always looks like it’s my fault. Only I pray to them, but I’m blamed for our problems. No good deed goes unpunished, I guess.”

“Al, you’re trying to tell me that ‘spirits’ are why you helped your family murder my entire family?!“

“I killed my father, too…to stop him from killing your brother. I never stopped you from killing my mother, so you could save yourself.”

“And then you killed Doug yourself! Do you want a medal, or something?”

“Hannah, you don’t understand…the spirit of Mei, one of the family ancestors, took control of my body. She made me hit your brother with the bat. She killed him, not me.”

“You expect me to believe this nonsense?”

“When my mother tried to kill you, and she said, ‘Goodbye, Hannah,’ she spoke with a man’s voice, remember? Too low to be a woman’s voice. That’s because a man’s spirit, Meng’s, was controlling her body! The moans in the attic are also the voices of the spirits, luring you all up here. You gotta believe me, Hannah!”

“Oh, what does any of that prove, Al? Face the facts: your whole family is insane, including you. I’ve known lots of Chinese who were wonderfully nice people, and I thought you were one of them–the man I fell in love with was certainly one of them, but…” She looked down at the bodies of her family and resumed weeping. “Oh, my God!”

“The spirits tricked me into thinking that if…I gave them your family, they wouldn’t cause the two of us any bad luck, then…”

“There is no more ‘the two of us,’ Al.”

He wept louder. “Then I killed my father…to try to save your brother. The spirits saw that I broke my pact with them, and now they’re trying to ruin my life, to destroy our love! Mei came into me, and made me kill your brother. I’m so sorry, Hannah! I didn’t want any of this!”

“‘Sorry’ won’t fix this, Al. You and I are through.”

“Oh, no, NO!!! Hannah!” He was shaking and wincing.

“Bawling at me isn’t going to fix this either, Al. We shouldn’t see each other anymore.”

“No, you don’t understand. Mei…is coming into me…again. Go! Run! She’ll make me…kill you!”

He was fidgeting before her as if in pain.

All she saw was a crazy person.

He buckled to the floor, then reached for the bat.

“Run, Hannah! Get out…of the house!”

“Al, you need psychiatric help.”

In his pained voice, he said, “Mei will…” Then, with the bat in his hand, Mei hissed, “kill you!”

Hannah sneered at the creepy feminine voice coming out of his mouth.

With a crazed look in his eyes, and all of his teeth showing like bared fangs, Mei made him get up and raise the bat to his left, ready to crack it on Hannah’s head.

She screamed and ducked as Mei had him swing the bat from Hannah’s right to her left. The bat missed its mark, then she kicked him hard in the balls.

She ran for the pull-down attic stairs and got down to the third floor. Then she ran down the hall for the stairs to the second floor, but she heard two voices coming up from there.

“I’ll bet Al’s fucked this all up,” Freddie said to Emily as they were coming up from the stairs to the third floor.

“Without a doubt,” Emily said.

Hannah yelped, then ran back and found Mr. And Mrs. Dan’s bedroom. She looked around frantically for a place to hide as she could hear Freddie’s and Emily’s approaching steps, then she saw the bottom of the bed. She quickly slipped under it.

“Hannah,” Emily said with a smile as she and her brother reached their parents’ bedroom. “I know where she went.”