The Haunting of Cragg Hill House

by Elyse Salpeter

  Josh squared his shoulders. “That won’t be necessary. We’re done here.” He turned to Kelsey. “You can thank me later for getting this guy off your tail.” He cocked his head towards Bain. “And don’t worry, I won’t be staying the entire weekend and ruining your little romantic sexcapade. I plan on getting out of here in the morning, whether they open the roads or not. Deal with Bain yourself.” Josh stormed away and went up the darkened stairwell to the second floor. Elsa went running after him with her flashlight.

  Kelsey watched him go, wishing she had the power to send daggers into his back. You already ruined our weekend. You are in for a rude awakening when I get back to the city. This is far from over between us. She fully intended to confront both Josh and Ari later and find out exactly what they were doing. Until then, she could do nothing.

  She ignored Bain’s questioning glances and instead sulked over to the bar, waited for Herb to finish catering to a now clearly drunk Camille Scott, and ordered a cranberry and orange juice. He served Kelsey’s drink in a fancy glass, complete with a little umbrella and a slice of lime, just to make it look festive. She took a sip and then heard a high-pitched shriek. The hair on Kelsey’s arms bristled, and she shivered. A sense of unease swept through her.

  Carla emerged from the dining room holding baby Hope in her arms.

  Camille muttered into her martini. “She should keep that awful pathetic thing in her room. I don’t know why they even allow children like that in a place like this.”

  Kelsey did a double take. She hadn’t yet calmed down from Josh and the last thing she wanted to do was listen to this imbecile. “What do you mean, allow children like that? The child lives here. Where would you like them to take her?” she asked, coldly.

  Camille scoffed. “How about a hospital? A home? Her room? She’s too loud and ridiculous looking and obviously has something wrong with her. Look at her twitching like that. And the noise. It’s unbearable! Who needs to hear those squeals all the time? This is a resort and she should not be around paying guests. I certainly didn’t spend all this money to be subjected to disabled babies screaming and shrieking. It’s enough to ruin my appetite. She should be kept out of the sight of guests at all times. Right, Ernest?”

  Ernest played with his monocle, grunted and ordered another martini.

  Kelsey sucked in her breath. She glanced at Herb, who gave Camille Scott a look that probably said the woman probably shouldn’t order another drink without glancing at whatever was inside it. Kelsey knew Herb was Carla’s father and Hope’s grandfather. She caught his eye and he imperceptibly gave her a look that told her to just “let it go.”

  Taking his cue, Kelsey bit back the bitter retort that was stuck in the bottom of her throat. Instead, she moved over to Carla, who sat on one of the wingchairs and rocked the baby.

  Hope shook with tremors and kept squealing. Carla seemed unusually upset. “She was doing so much better, but she’s recently taken a turn for the worse. I just need to get her something to eat.”

  Tooh lumbered over with a bottle and gave it to her. Carla thanked him and tried to feed the baby. The child had a hard time latching on and would spit up constantly. Pink liquid drooled from her mouth. Carla glanced at Tooh worriedly. “It’s not working, Tooh.”

  He patted the baby’s head. “Give it time, Carla. You know these things take time.”

  Kelsey handed her a napkin. “That’s not regular formula? Why is it that color?”

  Carla took the napkin and wiped the child’s chin. “My uncle Gerald is the doctor here and he has me giving her all these supplements in her formula to help her.” She glanced outside nervously. “I really hope the storm ends soon.”

  Kelsey gently stroked the baby’s pale arm. Her sense of unease increased. “What’s wrong with her, if you don’t mind my asking?”

  “She’s got a rare brain disease that affects her motor control.”

  “I’m so sorry. Is there anything you can do for it?” Kelsey thought of the wild blond-haired girl from the stairwell. Another family member? The twitching, the thinness, the squeals. Were they both suffering from some rare genetic condition?

  Carla bit her lip. “Not really. We just try to keep her comfortable and hope she weathers through it. There’s a good chance she’ll grow out of it. It’s just something that supposedly shows up in my family every few generations.”

  Kelsey wanted to ask more, but at that exact moment the baby flinched, gave a slight hiccup, and then projectile vomited all over Carla. A pink stream of vomit hit the floor, the bar, and splattered everywhere, causing everyone in the nearby vicinity to jump. The smell was intensely strong and distinctly unpleasant.

  Lady Camilla Scott screeched and slipped off her stool. She nearly tumbled to the floor, but Ernest grabbed her arm and righted her before she fell. The woman turned and gave Carla a disgusted look before storming out of the lounge and back into the dining room. Ernest picked up both their drinks and followed her without even a glance back. Kelsey wished the baby’s vomit had hit Camilla.

  The staff was beside Carla in seconds. Tooh’s mother, Jenella, took the baby and comforted her, while Dorothea helped Carla remove her sodden cardigan. “I’ll take this to the laundry room and do a wash as soon as we have the power back on,” Dorothea said. She turned and eyeballed her staff. “The rest of you make sure you clean this up quickly and help get Hope settled. She’ll need something else to eat.” She gave them all a stern look, then disappeared back into the darkened hallway beyond.

  “I’ll take care of it, Dorothea. Don’t worry,” Tooh called out. He glanced at Kelsey. “Would you hold her for a moment while my mother and I prepare something for her?”

  Kelsey nodded and took the child from Jenella. While she settled her comfortably in the crook of her arm, Kelsey’s own sense of comfort was nowhere to be found. A deep malevolence surrounded the baby and no one seemed to notice. She watched Tooh disappear into the kitchen with his mother.

  Kelsey tried to calm the little one but it was like holding a Mexican jumping bean. She kept twitching and hiccupping, and couldn’t seem to get calm. The smell coming from her was strong and quite disagreeable with a meaty, acidy stench. This was not at all how a baby should smell. And not how a baby should feel in your arms.

  An old memory of her holding her brother Robbie, when he was an infant, came to her. She’d been just three years old and remembered sitting on the couch. The cushions had seemed so big and her feet could barely make it over the plush pillows, much less reach the floor. Her mother had propped up Kelsey’s body and arms with pillows and blankets and she’d put Robbie in her arms, just like she was holding Hope now. She’d cradled him for nearly an hour, in absolute heaven. She recalled kissing his forehead, feeding him a bottle, and playing with his little fingers while her mother sat off to the side, just watching. He’d had huge blue eyes and she’d just stare into them with sheer love. For a moment, Kelsey missed her brother terribly. She’d been only eight years old when he died of leukemia at the age of three. Too young to lose a life. And I never even got to say goodbye. One minute her mother was freaking out over the amount of bruises covering Robbie’s little body, and the next her father had taken him right to the hospital. That was the last time she’d ever seen him. They’d said he was sicker than any of them ever realized, and he died quietly in his sleep just a few days later. They even had a closed casket at the funeral. To this day, she had thought that was weird. Why in the world would they have done that? Then, within the next week, her parents had made the decision to move to Tibet. By the week after that, they had gone.

  Now, with her birth parents long dead and her adoptive parents, the Goldman’s, not knowing anything further, Kelsey had never had closure with Robbie’s death.

  The baby hiccupped again and Kelsey took the burping cloth and wiped her thin face. She leaned down and sniffed her. She could tell Carla had tried to keep the baby as clean as possible. Kelsey could detect hints of scented shampoo in that one blond c
url, and there was a perfumed cream on her soft skin, but the child’s breath reeked of chemicals and overpowered anything Carla had obviously tried to mask it with. It almost reminded Kelsey of a puppy’s breath when they got too close to you and licked your face. It was that kind of odor the baby emitted. She must be so sick.

  Carla returned and took her child back from Kelsey, who was secretly relieved. “Thank you. I’m going to see if I can rock her to sleep away from all the candlelight. I think the way the candles flicker might be bothering her.” She moved to a darker part of the room where there were no candles lit and sat down on a loveseat.

  “Sure, Carla,” Kelsey said quietly. It seemed like no big deal. A typical scene of a mother tending to her sick child. But Kelsey suddenly knew otherwise. Knew now that something was going on with this family. Because as soon as the baby had been taken from her arms, her sense of unease lessened. She’d also had a look at Carla’s arms before she disappeared into the dark corner of the lounge.

  They were covered in red welts, as if she’d been pricked with a needle multiple times. Just like her Great Uncle Dooley’s arms had appeared when Kelsey and Desmond had caught him outside splitting logs without a long-sleeved shirt on.

  Something was definitely going on at Cragg Hill House.

  Something… bad.

  #

  The lights and electricity did not come back on over the next two hours. Dooley had gotten the generator working and it kept the refrigerators going in the kitchen until it too burned out. Soon the mountain house became chilly. The staff spent their time stocking up the fireplaces in each of the occupied hotel bedrooms and Kelsey ended up back in her room keeping watch over Desmond. The doctor had returned, checked his breathing, nodded in satisfaction, and Desmond fell back to sleep. As for Josh, she had not seen or heard from him again.

  Good.

  Kelsey’s phone rang.

  “Hey, Jules.”

  “Kelsey, are you there?” She sounded far away and the line crackled.

  “Julia, I’m here. I hear you just fine. What’s going on?”

  She could hear Julia curse. “I can hardly hear you. Kelsey, I found out something that you need to know.”

  Kelsey got off the bed and moved out into the hall, trying to find better reception. It was chilly in the hallway and she wrapped the bed throw she’d grabbed closer around her to keep herself warm. The blizzard had not stopped and she was sure it wreaked havoc with her cellular service.

  “What is it, Julia?” She raised her voice. The hallway was so dark, Kelsey could not see down to the farthest end on either side of her. Her voice seemed to echo down it, making her feel like she was the only person in the entire hotel. Spooky was not even the word to describe it. The porcelain doll dressed in tribal clothing, viewed in shadow on the table next to her, didn’t do anything to alleviate the unnerving mood.

  “Kelsey, I don’t know about the missing body parts of the Papua New Guinea staff, but the tremors, the high pitched laughing, the movement issues, they could stem from something the Papua New Guinea people brought back with them.”

  “Like what?”

  “It could be a disease called Kuru. The Fore tribe was afflicted with this to the tune of nearly two percent of the population having it at one time.”

  The phone battery light blinked on. Kelsey didn’t have much power left in it. “Tell me quickly. I’m running out of juice. What is that disease? I remember hearing about it.”

  “It’s a prion disease. A transmissible spongiform encephalopathy. In this case, it’s where a normal protein mutates and turns into an abnormally shaped protein, known as PrPSc. It’s sort of like Mad Cow disease, but with people. Some of the symptoms are muscle tremors, random laughing or crying, trouble walking, poor coordination, and difficulty swallowing. There’s a bunch of different devastating prion diseases out there now that you might recognize, like Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and Gertsmann-Straussler-Scheinker syndrome, but that’s not the one I’m referring to. Most prion diseases are inherited and show up when people are older. Kuru disease is entirely different. It’s not an inherited condition at all, but acquired, and there is no cure for it.”

  “Are you sure it’s just acquired?” Kelsey asked.

  “Well, that’s what the medical books say. You have to ingest the infected material, and then after a slow process, it affects the nervous system. But, who knows? There’s weird things in this world.”

  Kelsey thought about this. “If it’s Kuru, then how does this baby have it? She’s got tremors. The people from Papua New Guinea seem fine. It doesn’t make sense. Except for one guy who stumbled in the dining room, and many of them missing body parts, they seem mostly fine. Accident prone, but fine. The Caucasians, the Craggs, seem to be the ones with the disease and the weird red needle marks on their arms. The Papua New Guinea staff are the ones with missing body parts. Where’s the connection? And how does an acquired disease switch to an inherited one? It can’t possibly be Kuru. It has to be something else.”

  “Kelsey, listen to me. Everything I’m researching is leading me towards Kuru disease and Kuru can only happen because of one thing.”

  “From what?” Kelsey asked.

  “From eating infected people.”

  At that moment, the phone died.

  #

  Kelsey stared at her phone in astonishment. Julia’s last words resonated in in her mind.

  From eating infected people. Her mind raced and the connections came fast. The kitchen in the shack in the middle of the woods. The lump of meat in the hallway with the feral girl that reeked of ham. Kelsey froze. The baby, Hope? Wasn’t she eating pink colored gruel and didn’t she smell of meat? She did exhibit the same symptoms of the people who had Kuru disease. Tremors, high-pitched squeals, trouble eating. But how was this possible?

  Wait a second. Her stomach lurched. Could it be? Were the Papua New Guinean staff purposely feeding infected human flesh to the Craggs? It wasn’t just human sacrifices for their religious beliefs, was it? Were they giving them Kuru disease and making them sick on purpose for some reason? Was it happening faster for some reason with this family? Instead of it taking years, were their genetics different and it was speeding up the process? And if this were so, that meant the Papua New Guinea people had Kuru already and were feeding parts of themselves to the Craggs? The missing body parts?

  Kelsey could not stop thinking about the possibilities. Carla said her family had suffered from this condition for generations. What if the staff had never stopped their ritualistic cannibalistic tendencies and had been getting the Craggs sick, unbeknownst to them, for over a hundred years? Just so the Papua New Guineans could continue performing their own rituals? From the moment the Craggs were born? But if that were the case, why were most of them fine right now? How was that possible? The staff should be suffering from the disease themselves and from what Kelsey knew, prion disease was not curable.

  Kelsey’s heart lurched. Her vision in the shack. She realized now that it had to have been real. A woman named Micella. So, the staff had killed her. Kelsey needed to tell someone, to ask someone, but who? Was there anyone here she could trust with this information? But wait, what about the Craggs with the strange needle marks down their arms? Were they taking medications to try to make themselves better? She had to find Carla and ask her. It was time. Especially if the woman’s baby was being made sick without her knowledge. Kelsey turned to walk down the hallway when suddenly a huge explosion rocked the night. The hotel shook with the fury of it and Kelsey slipped and collapsed to the carpet on her backside. The sound of exploding glass resonated throughout the hotel.

  Desmond! Kelsey crawled to the door, opened it and stumbled to the bed. Desmond lay on his side, snoring loudly, and Kelsey breathed a sigh of relief. The man could sleep through a nuclear war.

  Yellow light flickered from outside the slightly opened window curtain. She jumped over to it and flung the curtains wide. Through the blinding snowstorm, she could see a
raging inferno to the right of the hotel. The flames lit the tips of the trees below and the sky was alight with fire.

  Exactly where the staff quarters were.

  #

  She glanced to her left and saw people trudging desperately through the snow from the front of the hotel towards the fire. Frantic screams faintly met her ears. She ran back to the bed and threw off Desmond’s covers. He was only in his boxers. The welts still covered his torso, but they’d faded and grown smaller. What if the fire moved towards the hotel? She had to wake him up and get him dressed. She shook his shoulders. “Desmond, honey, please wake up.”

  He didn’t move. Kelsey took his chin in her hands and leaned her face towards his. “Desmond, you have to wake up right now! There’s a fire outside. We have to get you dressed and be ready if I have to get you out of here.” She shook his shoulders, but it had no effect. Dammit. The doctor gave him too much medicine.

  Even with the fire crackling in the fireplace, it was chilly in the room and her breath steamed in the air. She grabbed his shirt and tried to lift him to put it on, but he was dead weight. “Desmond, wake up already!” With a frustrated grunt, she threw the shirt over the armchair and then covered Desmond up with two blankets. She glanced outside again and bit her lip in indecision. The staff quarters were located down a long path, separated from the hotel. It was snowing hard still and the ground was covered. Maybe it won’t spread.

  Kelsey realized with frustration that she needed help. She had to find Josh. There was no one else who could help her get Desmond ready and move him if they had to.

  She threw another log on the fire, and then snatched her jacket and cap from the closet. With a final glance at Desmond to make sure he was okay, she dashed out of the room and down the hall, running blindly in the dark.

  #

  Kelsey stumbled down the staircase in the blackness and felt her way along the hallway until she hit the lobby. Once there, she met pandemonium. The floor-to-ceiling front windows had imploded and gusts of snow were swirling in. Glass shards were scattered across the entire lobby and lounge. The smell of burning and ash was strong.