Domesticated Horror(Joseth Moore) “Domesticated Horror,” by Joseth Moore. Story Star version. Copyright @ 2021.

Zander and Ime Jones are puzzled by small, domestic items that are dropping from their basement’s ceiling! In many ways, it’s predictable; but odd enough for them to let a paranormal investigator look into it.
Unexpectedly, the Jones and a couple of friends greatly regret a path they’ve all chosen on that one day!

Rosemont North neighborhood; Orlando, Florida. USA, Present Day…
“…Buenos dias, Mr. Jones,” his wife said to him as Zander finally got up from their bed and ventured out into the small dining room. Sundays were his only days off from his online, floor-sales job where he stocked and helped move all sorts of items to and from all over the world!
Ime was playing music from her phone and piping it through her tech-tethered speaker while she was cleaning parts of their medium-sized house.
“Have you been up all night, Babe?” he asked as they gave each other a quick kiss and the stocky man proceeded to brush his teeth in the bathroom.
“Not quite all night…decided to take the day off from the coffee house today! Mary’s been with us for about half a year; she’ll know how to run it by herself.”
“Great,” Zander said, spitting out water after his teeth-brushing was done. He wiped his face of the water with a towel and would shower after his coffee.
“Hey, while I was up really early this morning, it happened again,” Ime pointed out after turning down her music from her phone and Zander having gone into the kitchen to make his coffee.
Zander paused slightly, trying to remember what his wife was referring to. “You mean in the basement?”
“Yep…this time, it’s more recent. Newer, I mean.”
She disappeared into their nearby sunroom and came out with a clean, silvery bolt. It was basically brand new and had the notches on top for flathead screwdrivers. She handed it to Zander after he clicked the coffee pot on. Zander tossed it up once—feeling the weight of the piece of metal, and rolled it around in his hands while examining the bolt.
“I don’t remember seeing anything like this around the house at all,” he stated. “This has to be the newest one since it started…well, at least, since I’ve been noticing it!”
“Another one for your growing collection, Zee!”
He thought on something while Ime walked off to continue her cleaning chore. “Did you notice the time?”
Ime, tall, slender, and already in her day clothes, stopped in the middle of their modest home and thought for a bit. “I think it was around Three-something—”
“Ha! Figures…”
She gave her husband a look. “What, is that like the bewitching hour or something? Jesus, Zee, it’s just a coincidence!”
“Babe, I’ve told you several times that a lot of unusual things happen around Three in the morning! Let me ask you this, Ime: Of all the times this bolt could’ve fallen from the basement ceiling, why just after Three in the morning? Why not 11 last night? Or, Two in the morning…?”
Admittedly, Ime had no viable response to Zander’s rhetoric. But she did have her own questions. “Ok, but what about those other objects you found in the basement? The first one that you noticed was the only one that you’ve heard fall on the dryer a couple of years ago—”
“But now this!” he pointed out while holding up the bolt.
“Yeah, that’s two…but out of, what, five or six objects now, Zee? Since neither of us were home at the time those objects fell from the basement ceiling, or we didn’t notice from the ground-level.”
A shrug from Zander; admitting to her good point. “It would’ve been nice if I had been livestreaming the basement some of those times.”
“But how would you know which night to do it? We’ve been here for over seven years now, Babe! These drops from the basement’s ceiling are only natural, especially with an unfinished basement!”
At that point, Ime had resumed finishing up her early-morning cleaning.
“Ok, my Love, please think about what you are saying: Yes, the basement’s ceiling is exposed and with an older house like ours, there are bound to be some objects that fall onto the floor. But—” Once again, Zander held up the shiny bolt from earlier in the day. “Does this look like it was used by any of the contractors on our house, Ime? You’ve seen the basement’s ceiling: tell me you’ve seen this type of bolt or even a screw like this anywhere else in the house, let alone the basement?”
She actually went silent as she thought on the matter. Her Top-40s music continued to quietly play over her wireless speaker.
“Also,” he went on, “all the other objects look as if they’re older—as you’d expect for a house as old as ours. But what about that wooden dowel, Ime? All the other stuff are screws and this bolt. I looked and looked around the basement’s ceiling for any other dowels used on the house and I did not see any other dowels used!”
She was nodding her head at Zander’s last point. “I have to admit, I looked around the basement a couple of times while doing laundry and I didn’t see any dowels used anywhere in the basement!”
He gave her an askance shrug, as if to say he wanted her to confirm that he was right! Ime laughed at his insistence! “Ok, so what does that leave us with, Babe? Are you saying our house is haunted? Why would ghosts drop old tools used for houses in the basement, except for that one newer bolt? That doesn’t make sense to me!”
On that point, even Zander had to nod in agreement. “I’d have to do more research on that point…” He, then, turned toward the stairs that led to the basement and went downstairs, so he could file away the bolt with the rest of his collection of mundane, domestic items that normally would have been ignored on any other occasion.

A Week Later. Get-A-Way Café; Downtown Orlando, Florida…
It was summer, and given that it was Orlando, that meant an even busier time for Ime Jones’ small coffee house! Families visiting the major family resort parks from all over the world were, now, finding their way into her business! She actually had to hire two new baristas just to be able to keep up with the traffic!
Ime made it a point to periodically go out to the tables in the dining area and her outdoor café seating to make sure her customers were enjoying their drinks, snacks, and service. Plus, it was a good business tactic for the customers to meet the owner…
“Buenos dias—good morning,” she greeted many of the customers. She often did this, specifically, to those that made eye-contact with her. She’d learned that some customers preferred to not have anyone talk to them while they were taking in their early-morning coffee or breakfast.
Ime was outside walking among the patio area of her coffee house. She could see a small line of customers beginning to form. She would give it a few more minutes before she’d hop back inside, behind the counter and help Mary and the two new baristas out.
“Buenos dias,” she greeted others while slowly walking between a few of the outside tables with the accompanying clients.
“Oh, and a Bom Dia to you, Ms Jones,” greeted back a couple of returning customers from a nearby hotel. They were a couple visiting from Brazil and had been getting coffee from Ime’s café all week long.
“Hey, guys,” she responded with a bright smile as she went to their table. They were already like the best of friends with her and her three employees just after a few days!
“So, you get to go home, or do you sleep over nights and change aprons to make it look like you went home,” joked Davi; his hair long in a man-bun and his squared jawline sporting a few-days’ worth of a beard.
Even customers from other tables close to the conversation had gotten a laugh from Davi’s comment!
“Speaking of home,” Ime segued, as she leaned against one of her patio’s guard rails, “no new drops in our basement since last week! I mean, I get it: I love to watch spooky movies, too. But Zander gets too much into it! I’m of the opinion that there are mysteries in life, and we won’t understand everything…so what? Move on.”
“Especially if the event isn’t hurting anyone,” Lucas, Davi’s boyfriend, interjected. He was almost Davi’s twin, with his hair bun and beard. “Or am I assuming too much, Ime?”
“No, no! You’re right…I mean, it’s a bit weird with the last episode this past week. Because we don’t have anything new there! We’ve been mortgaging this house for the past seven years and the last contractor we used was a couple of years ago. And even then, he did a small job on the outside of the house; not inside…”
“So where did that new-looking screw or whatever it is come from, then,” Davi interjected with a pensive nod.
“Well, you can rule out a Poltergeist,” came a new voice into the conversation! Ime and the two Brazilians turned toward the mature woman seated at one of the nearby tables. She was alone with an empty coffee cup and saucer on her table and a tablet-device in front of her. “Based on what I’ve heard, within the past seven years is when you and your husband experienced these…events. Poltergeist are attached to people. You or your husband would’ve experienced such events many years ago, well before moving into your house…”. All three gave the older woman a look. Obviously, she expected it and smiled upon introducing herself with a nod to each one.
“I’m sorry to eavesdrop, gentlemen; Ms. Jones…I’m Dr. Laquisha Ward. I run the Exo-Life Institute.” Not only did she expect the trio’s looks, but Dr. Ward anticipated where the conversation would go, as she handed a business card to Ime and one to the couple.
“Oh, my god,” Lucas exclaimed from his seat as he snatched the card from Davi and looked at it in detail, with the institute’s logo of a silhouetted person holding a telescope which was pointed to an over-sized human head facing the figure—the subgenre was that of Transcendentalism and the Paranormal. “I’ve heard about your institute! Aren’t you the ones that did a session with one of your investigators being induced to a virtual coma to see if you could trick ghosts or spirits into trying to communicate with your group?”
“What!” both Ime and Davi said, looking upon Dr. Ward and Lucas with horror!
Dr. Ward did a controlled laugh and made sure to shift the conversation a bit, upon seeing the other two’s reaction. “That’s us…we’re staffed—not with volunteers, it’s important to say—with real scientists, and we have some of our findings published in a few of the well-established medical and scientific journals throughout the world.
“I’ve actually just finished vacationing with my kids and my grandchildren in Orlando and this is my last full day here. Ms. Jones, when I travel, I always take my investigative equipment with me, just in case I run into an opportunity. I know we’ve just met, but I’ve overheard your conversation so I know the basics of what you might be dealing with…Ms. Jones, is this an investigative opportunity you’d like me to take up before I fly back to Chicago tomorrow? And, by the way, we always provide free service to society. The institute is funded by a mixture of private investors and--” She gave a self-deprecating shrug. “—executive discretion of doing investigative freebies when we do the investigation at our investors’ expense!”
Ime was friends with Lucas and Davi, but in a more professional way. But she knew them long enough to look at them as a way of gauging whether or not this was a wise thing to do. Indeed, Lucas, the true Believer between the couple, was enthusiastically nodding and mouthing, Yes!, while Davi did one of his sarcastic shrugs.
“Hey, if you took the rest of the day off, what’s your boss going to do, fire you?”
Ime, Lucas, and Dr. Ward all got a hardy laugh out of that one!
It went quiet among the four of them while Ime thought on it.
“On one condition I’d let you into our house and conduct an investigation,” Ime finally said to Dr. Ward. She then looked upon the couple. “That Exo-Life extend that service to humanity and pay for Lucas and Davi’s ride-share round trip to our house so they can be there, too! That is, if they have time to divert from their vacation plans and join us in this?”
Davi, though not quite a skeptic, was not a Believer. But the look on Lucas’ face said it all and he could not turn down such an opportunity!

Four Hours Later; Ime and Zander Jones’ Residence…
After Ime had contacted Zander about her interaction with Dr. Ward and Brazilian friends of hers, he made sure to find one of his factory floor-leaders and asked if he could take the rest of the day off due to a family emergency. Which, in an atypical way, was certainly true!
In order to maintain a sense of quarantine, at least for the rest of the day, Dr. Ward suggested during one of her phone calls to Ime that she and her husband not enter their house yet. Not until Dr. Ward and the Brazilians arrived at the Jones’ home.
After all the introductions were made upon the arrival of Dr. Ward and Davi and Lucas, Dr. Ward unloaded her SUV of her paranormal equipment with everyone else’s help and began to set up what amounted to a popup production shop on the front lawn of the Jones’ house!
A few of their neighbors looked on a bit, not sure if Dr. Ward and the two Brazilians were part of a news crew or something else! Zander and Ime simply waved at them, basically letting them know that everything was alright.

Dr. Ward let everyone know the parameters which Exo-Life Institute operated under, and it was a balancing act: the Institute was always under the behest of the host-client, in terms of what was allowed to be livestreamed or videoed or not. However, Exo-Life was a professional, independent organization and would always conduct their investigations free of influence from even the host-client.
Dr. Ward began the investigation with the livestreaming! The host-client and their family and/or friends (in this case, it was the two Brazilians for Ime) had permission to stream or video the investigation.
“Good day, this is another installation from the Exo-Life Institute streaming live from Orlando, Florida! I’m Dr. Laquisha Ward—the Director of Exo-Life, and I’ll be conducting today’s investigation! We’re at the home of Ime and Alexander—or, Zander—Jones’ home.” Both Jones waved at the camera that Dr. Ward had stationed on a tripod just a few feet away from them. “At issue: over the past seven years the Jones have noticed that up to five times during those years, nails and one bolt have mysteriously, and without any clear logic, simply fallen from their unfinished basement ceiling!
“What’s the big deal?, I’ve already seen in the comment section on our live-feed coming from a viewer out of Canada…well, problem is, Canada, if it were due to simply aging of the house, shouldn’t the basement floor be littered with old and rusty nails and pieces of wood because it’s all in the same ceiling, mostly from the same era when the house was constructed! Yet, only a few nails at a time over the years! Also, to the viewer in Canada, I don’t know about you, but I’ve lived in several houses with unfinished basements over the years, and I sure don’t remember seeing nails simply drop out of the ceiling for no apparent reason consistently! Canada, have you?
“Ok, as our long-time viewers and readers know about the Institute, we’re employed by real scientists from various disciplines, thanks to our myriad of investors; whom I’ve tagged in our post for today…speaking of which, when we get inside for the first time since the Jones left for work early this morning, I will conduct radiocarbon dating on all five pieces from the Jones’ basement. Just to make sure we’re on the right track here…”
A few minutes later, Dr. Ward, the Jones, and the two Brailians were all slowly walking inside the Jones’ house. Besides Dr. Ward livestreaming from a special device built specifically for tv-quality productions, both the Jones and both Brazilians were all livestreaming from their respective smartphones! As a result, Exo-Life’s viewership of the live investigation was in the several-thousands!
“Mr. Jones,” Dr. Ward addressed Zander; they were all in the kitchen at that point, which led to the basement, “you were the first in the household to notice these events…you took a page out of the famous Ed and Lorraine Warren legends and began to collect the said-items that have mysteriously fallen from your basement’s ceiling.”
“That is correct, Doctor.”
“Ok, once we go downstairs—where you keep these nails, one wooden dowel, and one bolt—I’ll, then, do the carbon-dating and we’ll conduct the rest of the investigation, alright, Mr. and Mrs. Jones?”
Both nodded and gave verbal consent.
“And, by the way, I’d like to thank the two friends of the Jones,” Dr. Ward said over one of her shoulders while carefully walking down the stairs, “Davi and Lucas…all the way from Brazil, originally. Thank you for helping with my equipment!”
“Sem problemas!”
“De nada!”

It took but a few minutes for Lucas and Davi to carefully help Dr. Ward set up her carbon-dating equipment and Zander quickly made an open space on top of the household’s dryer so they could lay out all five items in question.
What took a bit more time was scratching out a sampling from each of those objects and placing them into tiny vials and then placing each separate vial into the carbon-dating machine for it to read and register the approximate age of those items…
In real-time while live-streaming, Dr. Ward made sure the audience could see the results as they popped up on the carbon-dating machine one by one. She made sure to do this without cutting the streaming so no one could accuse her of editing or cheating in any way! She was using carbon-dating equipment that was a bit more advanced compared to other laboratories. Dr. Ward’s dating device was able to do it a little faster than others on the market, again, thanks to her personal ties to many of those investors she spoke of earlier!
As expected, the one nail, two screws (which could be used as nails), the one wooden dowel, and the shiny, new-looking bolt all came up with results that were within reason: about 70 to 80 years old for the nail and two screws; approximately 50 years old for the dowel; the contemporary bolt, not even 10 years old.
It was about 2 and a half hours into the investigation. And now, up to that point, with the dry, scientific portion of the investigation out of the way, the more para-normal portion of the session was just about to start…
“Ok, viewers,” Dr. Ward said with a more mysterious tone to her as she looked directly into her streaming device’s camera, “now that we have the numbers, we have the building blocks for our investigation…Mr. and Mrs. Jones, while we were waiting for results of the carbon-dating to come in, we all did more research into your house for any backstories of ghost stories, urban legends, or any other lore…and what did we find?”
Dr. Ward swiveled the streaming to Zander and Ime, standing next to each other while Lucas and Davi quietly looked on from the background.
“Honestly, Dr. Ward, we found literally nothing!” Zander came out first! He was visibly frustrated, indeed, disappointed, given that he was a true Believer. “I know I shouldn’t say this from an investigative aspect—but then again, I’m one of the clients, not the scientist…but, I thought I’d run across some from all those years of this house’s existence, someone having died here, or an accident happening, or maybe having some connection to Native Americans’ original dwelling…
“And let me say, I’m glad there were no such bad news stories of people dying or being killed! I didn’t mean it that way, but…all I found in my online research was nothing but the property and zoning history of our house!”
Ime had been nodding her head the whole time that Zander was talking. “Same here: just the year the house was constructed, how many times it changed hands, the previous owners had clean records…” Ime gave a shrug. “I suppose we’re the first who’ve owned the house who have done anything paranormal here!”
Ime looked around at everyone else in the basement and she could see that her two Brazilian friends were getting a bit tired and so was her husband, but Dr. Ward seemed to be energized by the whole experience. Regardless of the outcome, through and through, Dr. Ward was a classic Scientist!
“Well, as promised, for the last portion of this investigation I will attempt to reach any entity that could possibly have been here in time past, or is here with us, even now…”
Dr. Ward went off to the side where she kept some of her personal baggage. And to everyone else’s surprise, she produced a Ouija board!
“Whoa, there, Soldier!”
“Hey, no one said anything about a Ouija being used!”
“Que Deus nos perdoe!”
“Alright…alright, everyone, please calm down,” Dr. Ward exorted!
Given what was going on, the Exo-Life comments section had exploded with mostly disapproval from the viewers and the viewership bumped up a couple of thousands or so!
“Now, Mr. and Mrs. Jones,” Dr. Ward said to them, her eyes on them both, “you both heard what the Exo-Life Institute was about…we don’t just investigate the paranormal, we’ll push boundaries where we feel we need to! But you are the host-client. It is up to you if you want to try this last option. From my vantage, as a scientist, it’s simply one other tool to utilize! But I understand those who may hold a more—superstitious attitude toward the Ouija being used… What say you?”
Zander and Ime looked to each other, then at their Brazilian friends.
“Why don’t we put it to the viewers,” Dr. Ward suggested. “Or, I suppose we could go really old school and roll a dice?”
“Oh, meu Deus,” Lucas exclaimed while he was reading from the comments from the livestreaming. Even Davi had to side-up next to him to see what he was talking about.
And then, there was terror on Davi’s face!
“Mr. and Mrs. Jones,” Davi was now shouting, “don’t do it! Some of the viewers recognize Dr. Ward. I don’t know why they couldn’t earlier…she’s not what you think she is!”
Ime and Zander didn’t know what Davi nor what those viewers were talking about, but they both began to back away from Dr. Ward slowly while keeping an eye on her!
“I say we roll the dice on use or no-use of the Ouija board,” Dr. Ward said excitedly! She then extended one of her hands while snapping her fingers. Suddenly, a dice dropped down from above and into her waiting, cupped hand. The two, roughly-hewn cubes clacking in her sinuous hand!

The two couples ran out of the basement and straight out of the Jones’ house! The Jones insisted that the two Brazilians hop into their car and all four were long gone from the house…
That same house that had no history of ghost stories nor any other lore that would suggest there was any presence there except those that lived there.
But every now and then, in life, there are breadcrumbs for us to read. But are we willing to see them for what they are..?
fin
Image: Google-search.

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