The Haunting of Cragg Hill House

by Elyse Salpeter

  “You don’t have to explain anything to her, Tooh,” Dooley spit out.

  Tooh was aghast. “They deserve to know what’s going to happen, don’t they? If you’re planning on killing most of them anyway, what does it matter any longer?”

  Dooley huffed. “Fine, speak your mind and then let’s get this done. But do it quickly.”

  Tooh spoke. “When our Spirit couple is within us, and we receive the blood of a pure line Cragg family member, our symptoms cease.”

  The red welts. Of course. Dooley and Carla are donors? But science doesn’t work that way. There is no cure for Kuru disease.

  Tooh continued. “When a member of our family dies, we honor them by consuming their divine flesh. In this way they are within our bodies and their spirits are with us. It is the only way for our souls to move on to the afterlife. You must understand. This is our religion, Ms. Porter.”

  Kelsey shook her head. “But don’t you understand that if you consume a person who dies who has Kuru disease, you will infect yourselves? This practice of cannibalism was outlawed in the 1950s and yet you continue to do it. You feed the Craggs and give them your disease. Why? Don’t you realize that because of this, you are all still suffering?”

  Dooley glanced up and glared at her. “We are not suffering at all, but thriving! Look at me! Don’t you think I’m as healthy as a horse? All of us are. You don’t know what you’re talking about. Nothing can save us except each other and our Spirit Mother and Father.”

  Kelsey arched her brows. “You think you’re saving yourself by feeding parts of your bodies to each other? You think that will cure your prion diseases, too? It’s not medically possible.”

  Dooley huffed, gave the gun back to Tooh, and grabbed the rope himself. He moved to tie Kelsey’s hands. “You think you know everything, don’t you? You are an outsider. You are not family and you don’t understand. Our families are connected and have been since my ancestor Ezerel Cragg bedded Tooh’s ancestor, Mawai. It bound our families together and because the Cragg blood produces extra Glycine and Tooh’s family’s flesh produces extra Valine, together, with the help of our Spirit Mother and Father, they create a cleaving in the defective proteins and are now resistant to deterioration. My son, Gerald, explained it all to us and that’s all you need to know. Now stay still.”

  She moved just out of his reach. “That makes no sense! That’s not how Kuru disease works at all. It’s incurable and it takes time to get into the nervous system. If you all actually had Kuru, you would all be sick right now. All of the family from Papua New Guinea. And I realize now there’s no way the baby has Kuru. Something else is wrong with your families.”

  Dooley clicked his tongue. “Nothing is wrong. I’m fine.”

  Kelsey pointed at the girls tied up on the floor. “But they aren’t. What happened to them? To that man that lives up here, if you can cure each other?”

  Dooley fumed. “What happened is that we didn’t take care of our staff properly and give them the blood they needed in time. Our Spirit Mother and Father became weak and punished us. Just like they are punishing baby Hope. Just like they are punishing the girls now. You are wasting our time!”

  A lightbulb went off in Kelsey’s mind. Could it be? “Listen to me, Dooley. Your blood does nothing but put your body in Pago’s family’s bodies. Don’t you see that? These demons you call the Spirit Mother and Father are not your saviors, but your enemy. They are flesh eaters, hoarders. They do nothing but seek your souls and eat them.” She backed away from Dooley.

  “They send us on to our afterlife,” Dooley said. “It is flesh that cures us. Now I’m telling you, Ms. Porter, stop what you’re doing or you’ll be sorry.”

  Kelsey put all the pieces together in her mind. It all started to make sense. “Dooley, you need to understand. I’m telling you that the Spirit Mother and Spirit Father you believe in are charlatans. They are fakes. They are just demons from the hell realms and do nothing with anyone’s soul but eat them. I think they are the ones making you and your families sick. That’s what they do. They inhabit your bodies. I know one is in Pago, the same way one was in Roselyn. Please trust me. When I feel their presence, someone seems to get sick immediately. It’s the Onis making you sick. I can feel this and I can help.”

  Desmond spoke up. “She does, Mr. Cragg. Kelsey can help you free yourself and your families from these creatures.”

  Dooley gritted his teeth. “We do not want to be free of them. Now stay still.”

  She glared at Dooley. “I will not be bound.”

  Dooley grabbed the gun and pointed it at her. “You will do what I say. I will not have my family destroyed because of you.”

  “Or what? You’ll just kill me? In cold blood?”

  His expression became cold and his aura darkened instantly to a deep black. Kelsey realized something with startling clarity. She had underestimated him. Overestimated the idea of the truth setting him free. He was a true believer. No matter what she said, his belief in the scenario his religion had created would not allow him to change his mind. She had lost this battle of words. She tried immediately to calm him down, and put out her hands to be bound. “Mr. Cragg, Dooley, I’m sorry, I was wrong. Here, tie me up.”

  It was too late. Without another word, he took aim and shot towards Desmond. At that moment, Josh dove into the path of the bullet and took it in his chest. He fell on top of Desmond and pinned him to the ground.

  Josh, no!

  “Him I don’t need, but we do need you, Ms. Porter,” Dooley spit out.

  Kelsey moved towards Josh, but felt the butt of the gun in her cheek and froze. “Care for me to kill your boyfriend, too? Just try me.”

  Tooh spoke up. “Mr. Cragg. Please… don’t do this. There are other ways.”

  “Stay out of this, Tooh. You always were too soft about these things!” At that moment, the Oni presence rushed forwards and threw herself into Kelsey from behind. Kelsey stumbled forwards and fell to the floor. Pago took that moment to pounce on her and pinned her down on the floor as the demon tried to take her essence. Pago opened his mouth and in a rush of air, the male demon billowed out from him, surrounded Kelsey like a shroud, and then thrust itself into her body. Kelsey’s back arched and smacked her head into the floor. She now felt the presence of both the demons inside her, each of them struggling with their sharp talons to get their locks on her soul. It was painful and suffocating, and she felt like every part of her body was on fire. But she knew somehow that she could hold them and she willed herself to lock onto them and to remain strong.

  The Onis could feel her strength and knew they now had a safe place to root, but they were torn. They quickly realized she was not a regular woman.

  This one’s strong enough to hold us. Stay put.

  No, she’s vile! Filthy! Can’t you feel it? Something’s wrong. We must leave!

  But we need to root.

  No, no! Not here. There’s something wrong with her.

  Nothing is wrong. We can remain. Fight it!

  No, no! I feel who she is. Flee! This one is Mara’s daughter! One of the Three Sisters. Do you not feel her? Flee! Flee!

  Kelsey felt them both instantly try to release from her and she immediately reached deep into her divine past and felt for the part of her spiritual soul that connected with them. Not just for the part that could lock them to her, but the part that was literally part of them. The evil part. The part of her soul that she’d tried for centuries to forget. The part of her soul that was connected to her father. The part of her soul that was a demon of the hell realms. She felt that power and latched on tight, and it was as if a vice had been attached that was so strong nothing could break it.

  The Oni Demons balked and furiously tried to escape.

  Let us go! We shall kill you if you don’t!

  Kelsey’s back arched and her body bucked as the demons tried to leave, but she would not let them go. While her spiritual self was strong enough to hold them, her physical body took a be
ating, and she slammed her head and back repeatedly against the floor. The pain of her physical body was an afterthought for now. All that mattered was that her powers as the Princess of the Hell Realms held tight. In Mara’s realm, she would have lorded over these Oni creatures with a vengeance, and they knew it.

  And then something within her changed. She felt a slight pop, a lightening as she finally tapped into the special part of her essence she needed. A feeling she’d never experienced since she’d left her father’s kingdom, flooded her body. The part of her essence she had tried so long to ignore resurfaced, and the sensation came as a relief. She felt her physical body relax, felt her spiritual powers grow exponentially. She could now connect to these demons. She could feel their evil and their depravity. More, she could look deep into their past and she saw their deceit for centuries toward the Papua New Guinea people. How they had possessed the shamans in the original Fore tribe, convincing them they were their Spirit Mother and Father and making these people personal flesh hoarders. They’d been tricking them for centuries. Promising them that if they sacrificed their loved ones, that they would help them move on, when what they were really doing was allowing the Onis to eat their souls. Not one of the Cragg or Papua New Guinea descendants had moved on to any of the bardos. They had all been destroyed. It wasn’t Kuru disease at all. They’d go into the souls of certain descendants and make them sick, make the Craggs and the Papua New Guinea families think it was their bodies in control, but it never was. It was just a ruse to link the families so the Spirit Mother and Father would have a larger trove of flesh and souls to consume.

  Well, now I know the truth and now you will pay. You are going nowhere, demons. You are mine now and I know what I need to do with you. She didn’t relish the task she had to do next, but she knew it had to be done. There was no other way to finish this. Kelsey began to wiggle her fingers, over and over, running first one finger up and then the next, and then down, over and over in a quick little dance. Up and down, up and down. She did not think of Xanadu this time, but another place. A place from her past. A dark place she’d tried hard to forget. Kelsey ignored Dooley questioning Pago about what was happening. She ignored the pounding in her skull where it had connected to the hardwood floor multiple times. She ignored the girls screaming next to her on the floor. She ignored Josh’s labored breathing from getting shot in the chest, and she ignored Desmond yelling at Josh to stay awake. She let it all go and reached down deep into her core for her very first father. She needed him because although she was strong, and though she could have been a Buddha, and though she was of the hell realms, she could not roam them at will. The part of her soul that had evolved both prevented, and protected, her from moving through those dominions. She could only take herself up, to the worlds of Xanadu, Aihika and the Devic realms, and only down to the palace in Naraka where she was first born. Back to her kingdom and to her father. It was there she would do what needed to be done.

  Down, down she went. She pushed, and waded through the purest, darkest evil, the worst horrors imaginable, the tortures of the damned, but she forced her way through the blackness. Like descending through the floors of an apartment building, she moved into the darkest subbasements, through the crypts, and through the shallows. She saw hell realm after hell realm pass by her. People being speared, people being burned, tortured for centuries. Lands of ice, lands of ash, all of them blocked against her where once she had been free to enter and torment at will. Finally, she found the one she sought. Had she arrived in Xanadu she would have been met with the haunting forlorn sound of the longhorn and her heart would have swelled with joy. But now there was nothing here to greet her but the miserable screams of the damned.

  She stared around at the cavernous meeting hall inside the palace. It looked exactly the same as when she’d stormed out a millennia ago. She closed her eyes and sniffed. A heavy musky scent, mixed with rosewood and ylang ylang hung in the air. She remembered that scent well. She opened her eyes to the plethora of erotic tapestries hung against the black granite walls and the twenty-foot tall glass vases filled to the brim with glittering precious gems. The rugs laid throughout the palace were made with human hair and the lampshades which had been stitched together in exquisite designs, she knew, were made of the human skins of the dead.

  And there, holding court over it all, was her Father. Mara lounged on his velvet divan in his human form, though he kept himself two sizes larger than those humans around him, and sported horns on his head that he believed made him look more sinister and intimidating. His dark olive skin glowed on his chiseled face, and his hair was a long, black mane that stretched wildly past his shoulders. Mara played with a gorgeous strand of black pearls in his hands. He’d given them to her once as a gift and she’d discarded them at his feet when she’d deserted him. He turned his dark brown eyes upon her.

  Well, look who decided to pay me a visit. Hello, Tanha. Looking for your black pearls? You left last time so quickly, perhaps you forgot to take them with you.

  Hello, Father.

  Back in the attic, Kelsey’s body suddenly stilled. The wind surrounding her ceased its relentless whirling. Everything was silenced.

  Pago flinched and fell down on his backside, bewildered. He turned to the others, his brown eyes wide with fear and utter confusion. “I don’t understand what’s happening.”

  “What’s the matter?” Dooley asked.

  “They’re gone.”

  “What do you mean, they’re gone?” Dooley whirled around. “Where are they?”

  Pago pointed at Kelsey. “Both of them were inside her and now they are suddenly gone. I don’t feel them at all.” He searched around in astonishment. “Dooley, they are no longer in the attic or roaming the property. Our Spirit Mother and Spirit Father have vanished!” In a panic, he turned to Kelsey and yelled at her. “What did you do to them?” He leaned down and grabbed her shoulders and shook her. When she did not respond, he smacked her cheek, but she did not even flinch. “Bring them back right now!”

  “Leave her alone!” Desmond roared. He could not move to help Kelsey. He had to keep pressure on the wound in Josh’s chest from the gunshot or the man would bleed out in minutes. “I swear to God, Pago, I’ll kill you if you touch her again!”

  Josh wheezed and spit up blood. “Desmond,” he coughed. “Just go and beat the shit out of him already.”

  “Shut up, Josh. I can’t leave you and there’s nothing I can do for her right now. She took them someplace. Now just be quiet.”

  “She took the demons to Xanadu?” he slurred.

  Desmond pursed his lips. “No, I don’t think so.”

  Suddenly the girls on the floor began to moan. “Uncle Dooley, help me!” one cried, weakly.

  Dooley ran to her side and rubbed her head. “Ellora, you can speak, you’re lucid?”

  “I am too, Uncle. It was the demons inside us making us sick,” Naomi croaked. “I’m so cold.” She began to sob.

  Dooley glared towards Kelsey. “Is she dead?”

  Pago bent to her chest and listened. “No. But her pulse is low and weak.”

  “Then if she still breathes, and she’s strong enough to hold them, and they needed a place to root, then where did they go? What happened to all of them?”

  Pago kneeled there, stunned, staring at the girls who were now begging to be freed. “I have no idea.”

  #

  “So, Tanha. After all this time, to what do I owe this visit?”

  Kelsey stood in front of Mara. He stared down at her with a haughty, yet amused expression on his face. A naked woman sat at his feet, and another nude woman stood behind him and fanned him. Both were covered in cuts and bruises and their expressions were strained with the tortures they surely must be receiving daily. But they did not stop smiling. Not even once. Their grins were frozen on their faces as if they were painted on. When Kelsey looked closely she realized why. Their lips were stitched up in a fashion to make them perpetually smile. A special little cruelt
y her father adored using on his personal slaves.

  Kelsey glanced around, dismayed to see nothing had changed since she’d been here last. Had she thought anything would? Groans and screams of pain wailed throughout the opulent halls of the palace. Couples in various states of undress cavorted on velvet couches scattered throughout the room. Hunched servants scuttled to and fro, desperately trying to avoid the leather whips of the guards as they shuffled by, laden with their burdens of food and drink. Musicians played their haunting stringed instruments and blood dripped from their fingers as the biting cords sliced their skin with every stroke. Strangely, her sisters were not there. Usually, they were a constant at times like this, lounging naked on their own divans while male servants tended to their every need, usually involving something erotic and self-serving.

  Kelsey addressed Mara. “It’s been a long time.”

  He glanced with interest at the two ogre-like creatures that lay beneath his daughter’s bare feet. Kelsey held them down with her painted, bejeweled toes pressed firmly on their skulls, and though they tried in vain, they could not escape her clutches. Her power in this kingdom was a thousand times greater than theirs.

  “I’ve been searching for these two traitors for centuries.” His voice boomed when he spoke and the creatures flinched. “Where were they hiding?”

  “With humans in the Earth realm. After they fled their posts, they took their place with a tribe of cannibals and made themselves their gods.”

  Mara nodded. “Yes, that sounds like them. Onis are lovers of the human soul, so it would be easy enough to sway naïve humans. Not that I can blame them. We are all lovers of the human flesh, aren’t we, my dear?” He stroked the head of the girl at his feet and she reached up and licked his hand. He glanced at Tanha. “I remember once you were, too.”

  She ignored this. “These creatures are traitors and need to be punished. Capturing them is my gift to you,” Kelsey said.