“What is taking them so long?” Hannah asked with an audible tone of anger.

“Agreed,” Doug said. “I don’t like this. Sorry to be so blunt, but our mom and dad should have been back here sitting in the living room by now. Not even…what’s her name?…Emily, not even she’s back.”

“I wanna go find them,” Hannah said urgently, rising from her chair.

“No,” Al said with even more urgency. “Stay here.”

“Why?” she asked, glaring at him, suspecting he knew something she didn’t.

“Because,” he said, squirming in his chair and searching for a plausible excuse. “I-I just want you here with me.”

“I agree,” Doug said, getting up from the sofa. “I’ll go find them. I don’t like you going up there, Hannah.” He was looking at Al’s family with suspicious eyes as he said that last sentence.

“I’ll take you upstairs and help you look for them,” Mr. Dan said, getting up from his chair.

“Yeah, sure,” Doug said. “I can take you in a fight, if necessary.”

Hannah scowled at her brother for his rudeness while Mr. Dan laughed. “I assure you, young man, that won’t be necessary. I’m sure there’s a simple explanation for all of this. Come with me.”

Al continued to squirm in his chair as his father led Doug out of the living room and towards the stairs. Hannah was watching her boyfriend’s nervousness with some worry of her own.

The sprits have killed Hannah’s parents, Al thought. I’m sure of it. Po, Meng, and the other spirits are possessing my family members’ bodies and killing off Hannah’s family. Her brother is next to die, and Dad’s going to be his murderer this time. Emily is probably still cleaning up the mess after killing Hannah’s mother. In any case, if Emily came down now without Mrs. Sandy, she’d have a hard time explaining why neither Hannah’s mom nor her dad are back. I’m gonna have to intervene, as nasty as Po and the other spirits are gonna be to me. I should never have agreed to giving Hannah’s family to the ancestors. I won’t be able to live with myself if I just sit idly by while her whole family is murdered.

Al jumped up from his chair all of a sudden.

“What’s your problem, loser?” Freddie asked, sneering.

“I gotta use the bathroom,” Al said, glaring back at his smart-ass brother.

“Ooh, dirty look,” Freddie said, smirking.

“My boyfriend is not a ‘loser,’ Freddie,” Hannah said, looking coolly into his eyes.

“Are you sure about that?” Freddie said with a smug grin.

“Yes, I am,” she said, still looking straight in his eyes. Her voice would rise in a crescendo as she stood up. “And I’m also sure that you have a really offensive attitude. It’s bad enough that my parents are mysteriously missing, and you’re only making things harder with your abusive remarks. Why can’t you just love your brother? Now I understand why Al was so uncomfortable about me meeting his family!”

Freddie was laughing now. “Whoa!”

Mrs. Dan wasn’t so impressed, though.

You will pay for making my family lose face, girl, she thought as she frowned at Hannah.

Hannah saw the angry look on Mrs. Dan’s face and realized she’d crossed over the line.

“Oh, uh…” she stammered. “I…w-wasn’t directing that at…all of your family, Ms. Dan, just…”

“At Freddie,” Mrs. Dan said with a grin as Hannah sheepishly sat back down. “I will admit that he does need to mind his manners.” Now she was glaring at him. His smart-ass smile faded.

“Anyway,” Al said in a wobbly voice. “I gotta use the bathroom.” He was walking toward the exit that led to the stairs.

“Why are you going that way, Al?” his mother asked. “The way to the first-floor bathroom is out the other way.” She pointed to the exit at the opposite side of the living room. “You’re not thinking of using one of the upstairs bathrooms, are you?”

“Of course I am,” Al said. “You yourself told Mr. Sandy that the ground floor toilet is broken. We all know that. How could you forget, Ma?”

“Oh, old age must be making me scatterbrained,” she said, giggling and tapping her head. “I just find it odd that you have to go upstairs so soon after your father took her brother up there.” She was now glaring at him, as if something supernatural inside her body could read his mind. “You don’t by chance have some other reason for going up there, do you, Al?” She took a sip of her tea.

“I just need to pee, Mama,” Al said, then went out for the stairs. I hope that was just her being suspicious, and not Po, he thought.

“Don’t piss your life away,” Freddie said in a deep voice. “Loser.”

He looked right at frowning Hannah and grinned.

She saw a devil in his eyes.

Al thought he had heard Meng in his brother’s voice.

Between ten and twenty minutes later, Freddie came down the stairs and into the living room, where everyone was having after-dinner tea. He had changed his clothes.

Margaret looked up with hope to see Brad finally returning. She frowned to see only Freddie.

“Where is my husband?” she asked. “He’s been way too long up there.”

“It must be his gout slowing him down,” Hannah said.

“It shouldn’t be slowing him down this much,” Margaret said. “Even if he had to do a Number Two.”

“Did you see my dad up there, Freddie?” Hannah asked him. “And why are you dressed differently?”

“Oh, uh,” he began, “I found a mess up there that urgently needed cleaning, and I got some of the mess on my clothes, so I changed them. I never saw your dad, probably because I was so busy in a room up there cleaning the mess.”

“Well, I’m beginning to worry,” Margaret said.

“I can take you upstairs and help you look for him, Mrs. Sandy,” Emily said. “Let’s go.”

“OK,” Margaret said. “Thank you, Emily.”

They both got up and started walking out of the living room towards the stairs. As Emily was following Margaret, Freddie put something in his sister’s hand while no one else was looking.

As they were going up the stairs to the second floor, Emily caught up with Margaret.

“I’d like to check every floor,” Margaret said. “Just in case.” They reached the second floor. “Brad? Are you there?”

No answer.

“I hate to snoop around your house,” she said, “so I’ll let you show me the areas you feel more comfortable with me seeing, Emily.”

“That’s fine, Mrs. Sandy.”

They went through the hall, room by room.

“Brad?” Margaret called again.

“Mr. Sandy?” Emily called out.

No answer.

Emily opened the doors of the rooms so Margaret could look in. No sight of her husband anywhere, of course.

“OK,” Margaret said with a sigh. “Shall we go up to the third floor?”

“If you wish, Mrs. Sandy,” Emily said.

They returned to the stairs, and started going up to the next floor. “Brad?” Margaret called. “Where are you?”

Still no answer, of course.

Margaret’s heart was pounding. She shook all over. A drop of sweat or two ran down her face.

“Brad!” she shouted as they were reaching the third floor. “Brad!”

Silence.

“I’m sorry for the shouting, Emily,” she said with a wobbly voice. “But this is starting to scare me.”

“I understand,” Emily said as they were now leaving the stairs and walking down the third floor hallway. “And don’t worry. I’m sure we’ll find your husband soon, and there will be a perfectly reasonable explanation for–“

“Aaah!” Margaret screamed.

She saw a few drops of blood on the floor just by the door to the room where Brad had found the cat. In fact, that cat was walking by right at that moment, with a few spots of Brad’s blood on its ginger fur.

“Oh, Mrs. Sandy,” Emily said, picking up the cat and showing it to her. “The blood isn’t your husband’s. It’s our cat’s–see? Don’t worry. I’m sure he’s fine. Let’s just keep looking for him, OK?”

“I’d really like to believe you,” Margaret said, not seeing any actual signs of injury on the cat, just the spots of blood as if they’d come from somewhere else. “But frankly, I’m afraid I don’t.”

“Very well. Let’s keep looking.”

“What’s in that room?”

“Oh, nothing interesting. Just a lot of boxes.”

“Is it OK if I take a look in there?”

“Well…uh…sure, but I see no reason why your husband would be in there.” Emily frowned, Margaret noting some tension in her eyes.

“I’d like to see what’s in there,” Margaret said firmly.

Emily hesitated. “Well, alright.” She opened the door.

Nothing could be seen in the dark.

“You must have a light switch,” Margaret said.

“Of course,” Emily said, then turned on the light.

Just stacks of books. No blood.

Emily breathed a sigh of relief, as if she had clairvoyance to know what had happened in there.

Margaret got a good look around the room and was satisfied about it, but was wondering about Emily.

“OK, Emily,” she said. “Let’s keep looking.”

They went out of the room, Emily turned off the light and closed the door, and they continued down the hall in the direction of the bathroom, the door of which Brad had left wide open, and so it was easy to see that no one was in it.

A moaning sound, with the deep voice of a man, was heard from above.

“Brad?” Margaret said, her head pointing up.

“That sounded like it was coming from the attic,” Emily said. “Come this way.” They continued down the hall towards the bathroom. She gestured at the ceiling. “We go up there.”

“Pull down attic stairs?”

“Yes,” Emily said, getting a short step ladder from the bathroom to stand on. She got on, pulled down the attic stairs, then went up into the attic, Margaret following immediately after.

More low groaning, from a far corner opposite from where the two women were.

“Brad?” Margaret called in the darkness, her hands cutting through cobwebs as she went in the direction of the groans. “Are you in here?”

There was another groan, but this time it was from a corner in the opposite direction.

“What the–?” Margaret said, then tripped over something and almost fell down.

Standing behind Margaret, Emily was smiling.

As Margaret continued stumbling in the dark to where she’d heard this last groan, Emily took what Freddie had given her out of her pocket.

“Is there an electric light in here, Emily?”

‘Yes, of course,” Emily said, still smiling. “I’ll go get it.”

Just as Margaret had reached that corner, a moan was heard from far back behind her.

“Why do all the moans keep coming from different places?” Margaret’s pulse was racing. “You’d think someone was pulling a prank on me. If so, it’s not at all funny.”

Emily tugged a string, and a light bulb shone from the ceiling in the centre of the attic.

As in the other room, boxes were stacked everywhere, all clad in cobwebs.

“At least I can see now,” Margaret said, her eyes racing around the area to find the source of the groaning. As she walked toward where she’d heard the last groan, another came from the opposite direction. “Oh, for God’s sake, not again! What’s going on here? Are you part of this mind game, Emily?” She looked behind her and saw Emily standing immediately in back of her, grinning eerily. “What are you doing, Emily?”

“I am not Emily, Mrs. Sandy,” a deep, male voice said out of her mouth. “I am Meng, one of the Dan family’s ancestors.”

Margaret didn’t have time to react to that monstrosity of a voice, for she saw, just over Emily’s shoulder and among the boxes in a corner, her husband’s legs lying on the floor.

“Brad?” she called out, then shoved Emily to the side and ran over to his body.

A white sheet, stained with blood, was wrapped around Brad’s head. Blood stains were all over his clothes.

She gasped, then unwrapped the sheet as unwillingly as could be, but needing to know the ugly truth. The deep axe wound in his face gave her that needed truth.

“Aaaaahhh!!!”

Her screams were cut short by a deep slice in her throat by the blade of the straight razor Freddie had given Emily. Her blood was gushing out as she fell. Emily lay Margaret’s body next to Brad’s.

“And now, you can be together forever, Mr. and Mrs. Sandy,” Meng said.