Tag: fiction

‘The Ancestors,’ a Horror Story, Chapter Eleven

Hannah’s heart was beating even harder and faster now that she heard the door open and Freddie and Emily walk into their parents’ bedroom. It wouldn’t take long for them to deduce that she was hiding under their mom’s and dad’s bed.

Her mind was still racing, trying to make sense of all of the craziness that had been happening up until now, and especially now that she was next to be killed. Still, her priority was wondering what she’d do when Al’s brother and sister…and Al himself, once he was to come down from the attic after that kick she’d given him in the balls…found her. She had no time to process any of this.

She listened for Freddie and Emily.

Total silence.

No shuffling around, looking for her.

What were they doing? If they knew she was under the bed, why not just get down, look under, and grab her by the feet? Were they toying with her?

Yes, they were, actually.

The siblings were standing by the bed, looking down at it. There was nowhere else in the room for Hannah to have hidden, anyway–no closet big enough for her to fit into. Emily put her finger to her lips to tell Freddie to be quiet. They were smirking.

Hannah could hear light, unintelligible whispering.

“Let’s wait a while before getting her,” Emily said softly in Freddie’s ear. “Give her a moment to think through what’s happened…also drag out the terror for her, and the false hope.”

“Good idea,” he whispered back in Emily’s ear.

Hannah’s heart still pounding as hard and fast as ever, she began to think through everything that had happened to lead to this nightmare.

This was just supposed to be a pleasant dinner for both of our families to meet each other, she thought. Al was so resistant to me meeting his family, but I assumed it was just going to be some mundane problem. I never would have imagined, in a million years, that his family would be a bunch of murdering psychos…and that Al himself was one of them, too!

“Where is that loser, Al?” Freddie whispered.

“Shh!” Emily said, pointing at the bed.

All in one night, Hannah thought, I went from pleasantly anticipating meeting Al’s family, mine visiting them, and assuming I’d marry Al and unite our families in mutual love, to not only realizing that Al was being bullied by them, but also…having all of my immediate family…brutally murdered (She tried to hold back a sob), and worst of all, Al is one of the killers! I went from hopes of extending my family, to include his, to losing my family, Al’s family, and having to dump the man I love…loved! How could such extremes happen?

Now she let out an audible sob.

“Alright,” Emily whispered. “Let’s do this.”

She and Freddie squatted and looked under the bed.

Hannah at this moment was still far too absorbed in her thoughts to notice the siblings coming down to see her. This craziness has gotten so extreme, she continued thinking, that I have become a killer, too! I stabbed Al’s mom with that knife! It was self-defence, but I’d never in a million years see myself killing someone…wait…

She felt Freddie’s and Emily’s hands on her ankles, pulling her out from the bed.

“Ah!” she yelped, then grabbed onto the bedposts at the head of the bed to stop them from getting her out. The siblings kept yanking and yanking at her shaking legs, their grip irritating her skin and causing her shoulders and wrists to ache, but she kept a firm hold on those bedposts.

The siblings stopped yanking for a second, let out sighs of frustration at the same time, and in the voices of Po and Meng, they shouted, “Fang shou!”

Magic in those Chinese words forced Hannah to let go of the bedposts.

She screamed as Freddie and Emily pulled her out from the bed, her unable to conceive how mere words could force her to let go. Her screams were cut short by a blow from Emily’s fist on her head, smashing her face on the wooden floor, giving her a nosebleed and knocking her out. Meng’s spirit had given Emily’s fist extra strength.

“Let’s tie her up and take her downstairs,” she said in Meng’s deep, male voice.

“There’s rope in the room next door,” Freddie said in Po’s raspy, feminine voice. He left the room.

In the hall, he saw Al having just finished coming down the attic stairs.

“Where have you been, you loser?” Freddie asked in his own voice. “You’re fucking everything up again, aren’t you? Where are Mom and Dad? Emily and I are trying to take care of your girlfriend, and you’re wasting time in the–“

“Don’t talk to me that way, boy!” Al said in Mei’s authoritative, feminine voice. “I was stalled by Al’s determined efforts to regain control over his body. He killed your father, and Hannah killed your mother. I’ve finally subdued Al, so I can help you and Emily now.”

“Sorry, Mei,” Freddie said, bowing and gesturing to her with his hands clasped together. “I have to find some rope in the other room. Meng is with Emily in our parents’ bedroom. Hannah is knocked out. We have to tie her up and take her downstairs.” He went in the room to find the rope.

Mei took Al’s body into his parents’ bedroom.

Though Al’s soul, for the moment, was fully under Mei’s control, he was able to see, however passively, Hannah lying unconscious on the floor. He tried with all of his might to regain control over his body, but Mei was ensuring that he couldn’t make his body budge an inch.

Is Hannah dead? he wondered.

He couldn’t even weep for her.

Freddie returned with the rope, a bandana, and a small rubber ball to use as a gag for Hannah’s mouth. All three Dan family members, under the control of Po, Meng, and Mei, helped tie up and gag Hannah.

They carried her downstairs and into the dining room, and with some remaining rope, they tied her to a chair. They sat next to each other, Emily in the middle, at chairs on the other side of the table.

The whole time, Al had been trying, in all futility, to take control of his body and stop the other two. All he could do was watch helplessly, and be forced to help them through Mei’s possession of him.

“So,” Freddie said in Po’s voice. “What should we do with her, Al? We know you can see and hear us.”

“But you can’t do anything about it,” Emily said in Meng’s voice. “You broke our agreement, Al, so we’re under no obligation to do anything for you.”

“And doing things to upset you has always been much more amusing than doing things for you,” Po said. “What shall we do with her?”

“Kill her, of course,” Meng said.

“Of course, of course,” Po said. “But how?”

“In a way that Al will find the most upsetting. We should make him hold the knife that cuts into her chest.”

Al wanted to scream “NO!!!” at the top of his lungs…but he couldn’t even grunt.

“Then we can make him cut her body into pieces, cook them, and serve them as our dinner. The Dan family may have been sated at dinner, but we ancestral spirits haven’t had a bite to eat. We’ll let Al have the biggest share of Hannah’s cooked flesh.”

Mei curled Al’s lips upward in a smirk.

Al couldn’t even weep.

‘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.”

‘The Ancestors,’ a Horror Story, Chapter Nine

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.

‘The Ancestors,’ a Horror Story, Chapter Eight

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.