CLOSET

III

**Author's Note: Apologies in advance--unedited chapter**

JARED went into great detail about the string of strange events he experienced inside his grandmother's home while he and Caroline still sat in the parking lot of the senior living facility. His voice quivered as he recollected on the terrifying memories. When he concluded recalling the events, Caroline's features appeared unmoved.

"Jared, you were seven," Caroline stated, talking down on his fears. 

Jared became disconcerted. "Are you saying you don't believe me?"

"No--I'm just saying that it could have been your imagination."

"That's what I thought at first, but repeatedly being terrorized made me believe otherwise," his tone began to sound as if his tongue was bitter. At this point, he refused to look at Caroline, who relentlessly started at him.

"Jared... If it wasn't your imagination, then why didn't you see or hear anything when you were a teenager?" Caroline challenged, trying to appear rational while still receptive.

"Because I refused to go back there after the last incident with Lance! I begged my mom not to take me back ever again, and I haven't stepped foot in that house since," he retorted, his watery eyes feeling as if they were on fire. "How do you explain what happened to Lance?"

Ashamed, Caroline wondered if Jared might have hallucinated the events to make sense of Lance's tragedy. Reluctant to hurt his feelings, she muttered an answer, "Accident?"

He released a frustrated groan, and denied, "No, Caroline. It was not an accident. I know what happened."

Jared's belief in what happened was so strong that it was difficult for Caroline's rationale to get a hold of her. Although she wasn't completely convinced, her intuition trusted his confidence, and she conceded.

Her voice evolved into a more empathetic one, "If it brings back that much fear and hurt, then why did you accept the job?"

"I don't know. She insisted. And I was thinking about the kids," he massaged his temple with two fingers.

Caroline placed a hand on his lap in effort to comfort him, "You don't want to do it."

"I know it's stupid, but I'm scared."

"If anything strange happens, we'll just leave, okay?"

Jared shook his head, "I don't want to have to go back there unless I have to. It's just going to bring back so many emotions and bad memories."

Caroline's frustration climbed within her, but she responded coolly, "So, what? You want to me to go back in there, and tell Grandma Bonnie that you aren't going to do the job?"

"Would you?" he pleaded hopefully.

She breathed outwardly, "No. You don't want the job, then you go in there and tell her that you can't accept it because of your childhood ghost fears."

Jared was silent. He mulled over the decision for a brief moment. To reject a job that had to get done anyway would be selfish and cruel to his family.

He twisted his torso, and buckled his seat-belt in the driver's seat of the SUV. As he put the car into reverse, Caroline said, "You're not going to tell her?"

"Looks like I'm doing the job," Jared replied, preparing himself for his looming nightmare.

‡‡‡‡‡‡ ‡‡‡‡‡‡

Jared prepared himself to be faced with the evil he believed lurked inside Grandma Bonnie's home the next day. Caroline and Jared stopped by the nearest supermarket to buy a year's supply of cleaning products for the project they were about to undertake.

They drove out to the uncultivated foliage of the moor, where Grandma Bonnie's old house stood forlorn next to a moss-grown marsh and dense thicket of bracken. There was no driveway or road up to the house, so Jared had to drive through the thick, earthy grass and mud toward the vicinity of the property. After climbing out of the SUV, the two of them closed proximity on the home. 

"Should have worn boots," Caroline expressed, floundering through the mucky soil, "The ground's so squishy."

Jared smirked at her finicky remark.

"She said the key was in the back," he stated while walking toward the backyard. Caroline followed closely behind, analyzing the old house that sat in the middle of nowhere.

The house was more like a cottage of brown bricks. The home was fashioned with white, french-style windows, faded navy shutters, and a steeply-pitched roof with deep gray shingles, where a slender brick chimney protruded from it. The front door was wood with a once-colorful stained-glass window occupying a large portion of it. The back door, however, was a narrow, timeworn walnut door. On the left-side of the back door there was an old, steel planter box that had turned copper from rusting and weathering. Inside the planter, dead weeds had invaded the soil, and the soil was dry as a bone.

Jared tipped the planter box slightly to the side, and reached underneath it, in search of the key to the house. His fingers felt around the quaggy moss that resided under the box.

"Nothing," he affirmed, setting the planter box back down onto the moss and backing away. "Should have known she forgot where she put it..."

"...You sure?" Caroline muttered, lifting up the planter box again. She glanced back at Jared, and nodded her head, motioning from him to move toward her, "Here, lift it for me, I'll look underneath."

He obeyed, holding up the planter box while she looked underneath. She reached under the box, pulling out a brass key.

"It's right here," she presented showily while placing the key into Jared's palm. She let out a sharp laugh, "Quit playing around, Jared."

"I'm not," he demanded, approaching the back door. "It wasn't under there."

As he put the key into the lock of the doorknob, Caroline joked, "Did the ghost hide it from you, and then put it back for me?"

Jared's face became exasperated. He rolled his eyes with a grimace on his face.

Caroline chuckled, "You know I'm kidding! Okay, okay, I'm sorry."

After Jared twisted the knob and the door opened, a strange feeling enraptured the both of them.