The Barn: Chapter Six

By John Casey and Doug Campbell
The once white, now mostly gray gambrel-roofed barn had two sets of wide, double doors, one at either end. Large enough to allow the tractor in and out. Keith grabbed a rusted metal handle with each hand, slid the suspended doors left and right on their rails, and went inside. With no windows on the first floor, it was dark inside. All these years later, and there was still no electricity. He fumbled with his smartphone, tapped the flashlight app, and walked inside.

The barn had been used for storage in recent years and was filled with random junk. A large tube TV console in the corner. An oxidized aluminum ladder hanging sideways on the wall. The card table their grandparents would set up on Sunday mornings after church to play pinochle on with their friends. A pile of wooden folding chairs. He shined the light around. Antique farm tools hung here and there, suspended from square-headed nails in the walls. A two-man handsaw. The metal ‘Conway Farm’ sign that once stood next to the driveway near the road leaned against the far-left wall. Further inside, he approached the stairs leading up to the second story.

They were still in good condition, a nail head poking up here and there. It didn’t look like much from the outside, but aside from (and despite) the hole in the steeple roof, the barn had weathered time quite well. He shined the light all around the base of the stairs, kicking aside the dust and brittle remains of yellow straw. Keith was hoping to see a stain on the wooden floor. Proof of where he died. If there ever was, it had faded long ago. A noise upstairs startled him.

He dropped his phone. What the heck? Damn it. He picked it up and looked at the screen—it was cracked. Keith illuminated the stairwell and began to walk up, scanning the area above where he heard the commotion. He caught himself tiptoeing, as if there were some reason to be quiet. Each step creaked long and ominously. At the top, he no longer needed his phone, with sufficient light filtering through the windows and jagged hole in the steeple roof. Then the noise again, closer this time. He nearly fell backwards and down the stairs as a large crow flew by his head and upwards. “Damn!” he muttered, gathering himself.

Sheepish at being so easily frightened, he shined the light on the rafters above and saw him perched there, head cocked to one side curiously, looking down at him with one glassy black eye. It had always been easy for his imagination to get the best of him, especially when alone and in a dark place. The second floor was largely open with four partitioned spaces, two of them storage areas for fence building and other materials and tools. The largest area was where his grandparents would store hay for the winter. A small, scattered pile of it still lay there in the middle.

This barn held so many memories. Most of them were good, dating back to the days Mom would bring them to visit Gram. Hide and seek, exploring. But now, the run-down, disused building exuded something else. Portentous and foreboding. He shuddered a bit, even though he knew it was all in his head—this was where his grandfather died, after all. But he couldn’t shake the feeling. There was a square, gaping, open space between the first and second level that made it easy to move material up and down and over to each of the rooms. It was essentially a large hole in the second story floor.

A waist-high safety railing ran intermittently along all four sides, a four-foot gap in the middle of each. The gaps were there to allow hay and equipment to pass through as it was brought up to the loft. Chains across the gaps could be hooked and unhooked as needed. Two were still in place, the others were missing, broken at some point and never repaired. An industrial-sized block and tackle hung from above through the middle of it, completing the picture. He’d forgotten how tight the staircase space was. It was maybe two and a half feet wide, left to right. It would be nearly impossible for someone to fall without hitting one wall or the other. And there were railings on each side… Gramp was strong and athletic, only 28 years old at the time. He fell down those stairs? How could he have not caught himself? Above and through the rafters, Keith surveyed the interior of the steeple, with windows on two sides. He wished briefly he could get up there somehow. He would have a great view of the property and surrounding hills if he could. He sighed and walked back down the stairs, pausing for a moment where the stain on the floor should have been. He said a quick prayer for Gramp, then headed back to the house to have coffee with John.

© John Casey & Doug Campbell 2022 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED; Published with permission (PHiR Publishing, San Antonio, TX)