DISCLAIMER: I don't own "Ju-On," "The Grudge," or any characters from the films that appear in this story. Feedback and constructive criticism is welcome.

Interlude: Ju-On

"Do you know what the hell all of this is about?" Derrick said.

"I have no idea," she answered, reaching the door to Tim's apartment ahead of Derrick. "I have no idea what anything means anymore."

Derrick did not know how to respond to Kristen's statement. He had been a good friend of Evan's; the two of them had been football teammates now for several years. He had attended the wakes of both Carly Smith and Jen Young, but he had barely known them. It had been tough for himself, but what this girl had gone through had to be unbearable.

Three? Three within two weeks? Jesus…

All Derrick knew was what had been reported in the news. Three high school students, all attendees of Chester Donovan, had been found dead – one of them in a very public place. All had been found in the same state, and no official cause of death had ever been listed. There had been no heart failure, no hemorrhages, no drug use had been involved in any case.

Somebody just took them…

"I don't know why," Kristen said, a little hesitant to knock on the door, "but I'm a little scared to walk in there."

"Why's that?"

"Because I know him. He's got to know everything. You have no idea how many horror movie monologues I've had to endure over the years. I mean, he's my friend, and I love him to death. But I know him – I'm going to find out something today that's going to scare me."

"What do you have to be scared of?"

"Plenty," was all she said, looking deep into his eyes. Derrick had never noticed before, but Kristen Ng was a cute girl; not quite pretty, but definitely cute. Her brown eyes were very deep and soulful, her long black hair flowing and wispy, her shape lithe and full. In addition, there was the telltale sign of a large bruise on her face in the final stages of healing. Apparently, the rumors about her old man are true. Instantly, he could also tell that Kristen was deeper than most of the vapid souls who attended the post-Chester Donovan football victory parties; he had deduced that when she had greeted Tim's haunted house story with joke after joke.

"Well, I'll do it," Derrick responded, raising his hand and knocking on the door. A few moments later, it opened.

Does he ever run out of horror movie shirts? Derrick thought. It seemed that Tim Orlock had a different screen-printed black horror movie poster shirt for every day of the week. Today, it was some film he had never heard of called City of the Dead.

"Hi, Kristen," he said, as Derrick scoped out the inside of Tim's fourth floor apartment. They were deep in the middle of Manhattan, and Derrick had found out today that he actually lived relatively close to Tim. He hadn't taken a subway. He hadn't touched them since he had seen the news story about Jen Young. He had walked.

Not too bad, Derrick thought to himself, looking at the elaborately furnished and decorated living room laid out in front of him. A lot better than mine.

Instantly, Derrick felt like the odd man out. Kristen immediately stepped forward and hugged Tim. After all, the two of them had seen their friends vanish one by one recently. All they had left was each other.

"Hi, Tim," she said. "How are you holding up?"

"About as good as I can," he responded. Kristen stepped away from him, and Tim's eyes met Derrick's.

"Hi, Derrick," he said, his eyes oddly enlarged by his thick glasses. "I'm glad you could come."

Derrick could tell that Tim was sizing him up; he was almost a foot taller than Tim, and the contrast was stark. Tim's height, noticeable clothes and even more noticeable curly haircut did not mesh with Derrick's plain-jane white t-shirt and blue jeans, and hair shaved almost to the scalp.

"Hey, Tim," Derrick said, extending his hand for Tim to shake. He took it. "You have some answers for us?"

"I think I do."

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

How does one even have this much time to acquire all this stuff?

Tim had led them through the house. Obviously, Tim's parents made a decent amount of cash; the fourth-floor apartment overlooked Central Park.

But as soon as they had stepped into Tim's room at the rear of the apartment, it was like entering an entire new world. Kristen was right; Tim did not do anything half-assed. He had known that Tim was a horror-movie buff; in the school newspaper that most of Derrick's friends read voraciously, it was practically all the guy wrote about.

But this room? Borderline freaky. At least fifty movie posters dotted the walls, and not the cheapo 10" by 12" movie posters that can be had anywhere. These cost money. Authentic originals, as he had seen some in a few of the different foster homes he had lived in over the years. And the vast majority of these movies he had never even heard of. City of the Dead be damned – these were some damn obscure posters.

The Bird with the Crystal Plumage? Eyes Without a Face?

What the hell does this kid do?

It also did not surprise Derrick that Tim's computer was the centerpiece of his room; a small television lay perched on top of a wooden bench, overlooking his bed, but the computer loomed over the rest of the room like a shrine.

Tim took his place in front of the computer. Keeping in standard with the rest of his room, the background on his computer screen was a collage of horror film characters, of whom Derrick actually recognized a few. He saw Freddy Krueger in the center, and the guy with all the pins in his face from those Hellraiser movies somewhere up top.

Kristen (at least she looks as out of place as I do, Derrick thought, looking at her plain red long-sleeve shirt), as per usual, wanted answers.

"So what is all this, Tim? What the hell's going on? Why are we dying?"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Derrick said, genuinely surprised. "You think that someone's targeting us?"

"I had my doubts," she said. "I even had my doubts after Jen and Evan. But three of us? That's just too strong to be coincidence."

"But there hasn't been any murder weapon. No suspects, no evidence of any kind…"

"That's what makes it even freakier."

"I think I actually do know what's going on," Tim suddenly said, looking at his computer screen and clicking on his internet browser. "And I don't think you're going to like it."

"Whatever," Derrick said, growing a little impatient.

Tim ignored him. He quickly pulled up a page throwing head shots of three Japanese people – a man, a woman, and a small boy.

He had the page bookmarked, Derrick thought. Wow.

"Who are they?" Kristen said.

"The people who lived in the house."

"The house?" Derrick asked. "What house?"

"It's the house, Derrick," Tim said. "The house that…that I brought you guys to in Japan."

"These were the three people who were murdered?" Kristen said.

"Yup. Takeo, Kayako, and Toshio."

Derrick looked at the three faces a little more closely. While the mother and son looked normal, even in the innocent-looking headshot the father looked eerie, sinister, about two steps away from blowing a fuse. No wonder the guy killed his entire freaking family, Derrick thought. He just looks crazy.

"So what does this have to do with us?" Derrick said.

"Maybe everything," Tim said, his voice cracking a little. "After…after Carly died, I did a lot of digging. I didn't like what I found."

"What did you find?" Kristen said.

"It's people who go into that house. Ever since the murders. It started with Takeo – he was found in the middle of the street, dead but not murdered, but in the exact same state that Evan, Jen, and Carly were in. No official cause of death. But it's gotten worse."

Derrick watched as Tim, with terrifying speed, pulled up another bookmarked page. It was a Japanese web page – the writing was the unmistakable symbolic scrawl, and the page itself looked like a newspaper scan. In the middle of the page was a picture of a middle-aged man, thick black hair, somber expression on his face.

"This is Kobayashi," Tim said. "Toshio's schoolteacher. The one that Kayako fell in love with, and the reason that Takeo killed her. About a week after the murders, he was found dead in their house."

"In the house that WE were in?" Kristen said. "What the hell was he doing there?"

"I don't know. But he's dead." Tim pulled up another Japanese newspaper page. Another story, another picture. This time three young Japanese schoolgirls, fresh faces and pretty eyes.

"The next bunch that lived in the house. One of them was found inside the house, up in the attic. One of them was even found at school, and her jaw was ripped off. The mother of the house also turned up dead."

Tim brought up another page. Same story, same type of somber-looking photo. This time, it was a man and woman together – clearly a husband and wife.

"The next people that lived there," he said. "Found dead in the room where Toshio supposedly died. The man – Tatsuya - his sister was found in her home the day after she visited her brother for dinner."

Another page, another photo. An elderly woman.

"This is where the story really gets strange," Tim said. "Because there was a witness. A young social worker, Rika Nishina, was sent to the house to check on Tatsuya's mother, who lived with them. And she says that she saw this black cloud envelop the woman. The cloud even had eyes that burned right into hers, and she said it was making this strange clicking sound."

With those words, Derrick felt his heart skip a beat. He looked over at Kristen; her eyes were glazed over. It was unmistakable.

She's heard it, too.

The clicking…

Leaving them no time to breathe, Tim brought up another page. A middle-aged man, slightly balding.

"Officer Toyama," Tim said. "The man who investigated the original Saeki murders. Police found him dead in the house, in the same state as all the others. They also found a big jug of gasoline near his body."

"He was trying to burn it down," Kristen said.

"They think so," Tim responded. Tim brought up another page – three attractive young girls. "Toyama's daughter and friends," Tim said. "They told some of their friends at school that they were going into the house – now long unoccupied – on a dare. Within a week, all three of them were gone."

"So what does all of this mean?" Derrick said. The clicking. He couldn't wrap his mind around it. I'm panicking. I hate this. I don't panic. "All of these dead people. What does it all mean?"

"I've done a lot of research on Japanese ghosts," Tim said, trying very hard to sound calm, his voice occasionally cracking. "The Japanese belief in ghosts is very different from the American belief. They classify ghosts into several different types, but from the way all of this has gone down, and the way it has branched out in such an aggressive fashion, it looks like when Takeo killed his wife and son, a ju-on was born."

"A Ju-on?" Kristen said. "What is that?"

"It means something like curse," he said, turning around in the seat to face the two people. "And it's definitely not a curse that you want to come into. A ju-on occurs when someone dies while feeling a very powerful emotion, most often rage. This rage takes place in the sites where the person, or people, were alive. But that's not the scariest thing."

"What's that?" Derrick asked.

"It's all my fault…" Tim said, looking downward.

Jesus Christ, he's crying, Derrick thought. This can't be good.

Kristen bent over, taking Tim's face in her hands.

"Calm down, Tim," she said. "It's okay. What is it?"

"All my fault," he said, looking up. "I had to drag you guys into the stupid house…"

Showing a little more reserve than Derrick anticipated, Tim wiped his tears away and gathered himself. "You're going to hate me in a few moments."

"Tim," Derrick said, not in a menacing way, but a very sincere way. "Whatever it is, you didn't know. So what is it?"

"A ju-on is powerful," he said, standing up to talk to Derrick and Kristen. "Most ghosts are bound to one place. But…once it sees you, it never lets go. It follows you."

"Jesus Christ," Derrick said.

"The clicking," Tim said. "Have you all heard it?"

"Yeah," Derrick said. "I've heard it. In the middle of the night. Every once in a while it comes from right outside my door. It moves up to it, then moves away."

"It's her," Tim said. "It's Kayako."

"Of course," Kristen said. "Her throat was cut. She's choking on her own blood."

"That seems to make sense," Tim said. "And now she's coming for us."

"So how do we stop it?" Derrick said.

"You can't stop it," Tim said. "It sees you, it kills you, and it's never satisfied."

There was a long, uncomfortable silence then, as the three people looked at each other, feeling totally helpless with the situation.

"Have you heard it, Kristen?" Derrick asked.

"Yes. From my closet. It seems to be getting louder."

"And you've heard it, Tim?"

He did not say anything. He merely shook his head.

"So all of us have it," Derrick said.

"Like I said," Tim responded, looking Derrick in the eyes. "It's all my fault. I'm so sorry."

"It's not your fault," Derrick said.

"Why not?"

"We all had the choice," Derrick said. "You didn't force us to come in. Every person makes their own choice, Tim, you can't blame yourself."

"I know, but…"

"Don't worry about it, Tim," Derrick said. "I'll take care of it. I'll think of something."

"Oh yeah?" Kristen suddenly said, a little anger in her voice. "What? This isn't football, Derrick. Some coach isn't going to bark an order in your ear telling this how to go away."

"Just trust me," Derrick said, taking a step forward and grabbing Kristen's shoulders. "There's got to be a way to get out of this. And when I find out, I'll let you know."