Though the visible evidence of a long winter had all but disappeared, the temperature still remained fierce, preserving only small portions of dirtied ice that had not yet melted. The rest of the ground was free of snow, the dead grass from the previous autumn blanketing the ground on either side of the dirt road with a light shade of brown. I rode ahead of the main group with Kevin in his two seated pickup. He had been the person to first tell of us of this location and it seemed only fitting that he come with us the night that we decided to have our first look at the place. Being a far distance from the house that we all had left from, we passed the time with idle chit chat before I asked Kevin to again tell me his story of how he had found the location.
Months prior, Kevin had been working with his father (their specific line of work now eluding me) a few towns over from his own. Kevin remembered an urban legend from his own town about a road near where he and his father were working and Kevin (if only out of sheer boredom alone) decided one day after work to head to the road that the stories were centered around. He was told that after a mile or so, he would find an abandoned piece of property with a large barn, a few smaller buildings, and an empty stone lined basement full of charred rubble.
Whether there is any truth in the urban legends that we hear about most of the locations we visit, I tend to find that there are at least some positive merits to be found in them, if only for the descriptions of the locations themselves. It seems that decades ago, a local family owned the property, a large farm house once standing over the basement and charred remains that now fill it. The stories involved mentions of an older couple and a son that was mentally ill and somewhat physically deformed. It seems people believe that the family had to restrain the young boy because of violent fits and that for unknown reasons, the home one day burned to the ground, the entire family inside.
When Kevin had first found the property, after driving around on several back roads to find the place, it had been the middle of the day. After finding it, he left his vehicle and decided to investigate the land, possibly examining the contents of some of the abandoned structures nearest the road. The property begins at the road with a fenced off drive lined by several large, shading oak trees. The drive, after fifty yards or so, passes what can possibly be the remains of a chicken coop and a rather large barn on its right side, the remains of the burnt house and two other buildings on its left.
Kevin was not able to venture far onto the property, though. Shortly after he arrived, a man approached him who he had not previously seen when walking up the drive.
Kevin, caught slightly off guard by the man’s sudden appearance, laughed off his own reasons for being there, retelling the urban legends he’d heard to the man, curious about their validity and possibly hoping to hear the man’s thoughts on them. Much to Kevin’s surprise, though, the man was not amused. In fact, he responded immediately almost with aggression.
“Who told you that story?”
Not quite receptive to the man’s intent with his questioning, Kevin responded.
“Oh, just my friend. He told me about it a few weeks ago.”
“What’s his name?” The man continued with his line of questioning, as though the answers were extremely important to him. Kevin, not quite sure why the man was asking or if giving him valid answers was a bad choice, responded to the man with a fake name.
“Where does he live?”
“I can’t tell you that, man.” Kevin, now disturbed by the man’s aggression and only imagining what the man could want or do with the information he was requesting, decidedly left in hurry, leaving the property and the curious individual he found there behind. In truth, Kevin’s encounter with the strange man interested me more than property itself did. I honestly expected to find nothing that night, possibly killing a few hours as we checked out what would surely, I thought, be an uninteresting patch of land in some small town surrounded by farmland and not much else. Still, all the details together made the location feel as though it was at least worth a single visit.
Kevin turned his pickup onto the dirt road, Alex following behind us in his SUV along with Craig, Garrett, and Felicia. I knew that Alex and the others were fairly excited about this new spot, but I remained skeptical as he passed by newer homes and modern farms lining the road. Slowly, though, the prevalence of houses and lit buildings began to lessen as it gave way to thick encroaching forest on the left side of the road and a small patch of trees on the right separating the road from an incredibly large, opened field. And then I saw the first signs of the property, beginning with entrance to the small dirt driveway. Beside the overgrown dirt drive, fenced off with chicken wire, was a small dilapidated shed, its wooden walls painted with chipping red paint, an extremely weathered and aged metal mailbox sitting in front of it, barely attached to the rotted post it had once been nailed to. And as I looked above the shed past the thick branches of the numerous oak trees that lined the drive, I then saw the shadow of a large wooden barn obscuring the night sky.
Kevin drove past the driveway and pulled his truck over to the side of the road beside a small, metal fence that ran the length of the property. Alex pulled his SUV over as well and the six of us exited the vehicles, welcomed by the frigid night air and the silence of the land surrounding. After some brief, idle conversation, we all began to step over the chicken wire at the front of the drive and onto the property.
I walked at the rear of the group, gathering my nerves that had been shaken as I left the warmth of the pickup and was met by the chilled air. The others walked ahead of me, headed towards the remains of the farmhouse, obviously being the first point of interest after the stories told to Kevin by others and reiterated to us. As we exited the shade of the oaks and stepped out onto the open piece of land surrounded at all corners by the skeletal remains of several buildings, I couldn’t help but avoid my focus redirecting from the basement of the farmhouse to the large barn behind me, standing like a sentinel in the darkness overlooking the property.
As we continued walking, I watched as Garrett broke off from the rest of the group and stood a few yards away from the basement that the other four were moving towards. Wishing to catch up with the others, I walked past Garrett and approached them as Alex climbed down into the hole where the house once stood. Some sense of unease had come over me, though, and I waited anxiously.
Alex proceeded to investigate the remains of the house and pick through the burnt rubble as I watched from the ledge overlooking the exposed basement along with Craig, Kevin and Felicia. As I stood there watching him, I could not separate myself from a sudden anxiety brought on by the thought of my back being exposed to the opened door of the dilapidated barn (even with a significant amount of distance between the two structures). It was as though some low, inaudible wave of static was emitting from its walls, washing over me in the darkness.
Garrett was still standing where I had left him and I noticed that he was now facing the barn, his back to us. I grew curious, wondering if he was feeling the same anxiety that I had begun to feel over the barn or if he simply felt safer keeping a watchful eye to our rear. After a few minutes of Garrett still not joining us, I left the others and headed back towards him, still facing the barn from a few hundred feet away. Without receiving a pre-conceived notion from Garrett other than his hesitation to leave the barn out of his sight, I decided to ask him his thoughts.
“Hey man, how do you feel about the barn?” I asked him earnestly, not quite sure what response I may receive. “I keep getting a weird feeling from it.”
“I was feeling the exact same way. It’s like someone is watching us from over there.”
Though it was nice having my concerns shared with another, I can’t say that I necessarily felt good at that moment knowing that we both had our suspicions about the barn. Still, I wasn’t quite sure if we were both feeling unnecessarily uneasy or if there was some validity to our feelings and concerns.Â
By now, Alex had grown uninterested with the basement and had climbed out. Walking ahead of the other three, Alex approached us, hoping to either share a cigarette with Garrett or ask what had caught our attention. Before he reached us, though, something suddenly startled him.
“What the fuck was that?!” Before he had shouted, I was unaware of Alex approaching us and I too was startled, his loud voice contrasting with the deep silence of the property surrounded by the vast, open field. Garrett and I turned quickly to face him and see the source of his concern. As we did, we saw that Alex was in fact pointing back at the barn.
“Something just ran from that building towards the barn!” Alex explained to us that he witnessed what appeared to be the silhouette of a man hunched over running from the nearby building towards the rear of the barn. Within those few minutes, three of us without first explaining our concerns to one another had either received ominous feelings from or had witnessed something strange involving the barn in some way. It seemed that the next most logical point of interest would not be the remains of the farmhouse.
After explaining our feelings about the barn prior to Alex’s approach, we collectively decided that the barn was where we would most likely find and experience activity. Still, without wanting to leave an unexplored building between us and the basement, I suggested that we first examine the shack that Alex witnessed the shadow moving quickly away from before heading towards the barn. We did so, but still with hesitation.
The outside of the shack offered little to our interest, but there was one single detail as we further investigated that increased our unspoken apprehension. I slowly opened the small wooden door to the front of the shack and as it opened outward, a message written in red spray paint with a small arrow beneath it pointing towards the barn caused our unease to grow further.
“They’re watching you.”
I shuddered, even knowing that this message had been left by human hands. It only contributed to my growing dread from what felt like a slow pulse in the darkness reaching from the yawning entrance of the barn. Though I did have my uncertainties, I still felt as though an experience was inevitable with the approach of the tremendous structure. Following the examination of the outlying buildings, the six of us then proceeded to move towards the barn, Alex expressing minor protests, still unnerved by what he had seen only a few minutes prior.
Earlier, I had mentioned the temperature that night and the state of the snow, mostly melted and remaining only in various locations around the land. As we approached the barn, now only feet away from the black, opened maw, I observed that no longer was the ground a colorless, dead patch of frozen soil blanketed by small pockets of dirtied ice, but instead was now covered by a fine, white layer of snow, still powdered as though it had just fallen. There had been no snowfall in the area, though, for quite some time. Immediately, I recognized that this meant only one thing: the temperature of the air and ground surrounding the barn, unlike the rest of the property (or the general area, for that matter), was so cold that it had not allowed the snow from the previous month to melt even slightly, preventing it from becoming ice again with the falling of the temperature earlier in the week. I could even feel in that moment the difference in temperature as I stood beside the decaying wooden structure. The skin on my face tightened as the moisture on my lips and within my nostrils began to slightly burn.
I mentioned these observations to the others, who had not wandered as close to the barn as I, though they had still noticed the difference in temperature. Kevin, who had himself not wandered this close in his previous visit, began to voice his worries, wanting to leave the property as soon as possible as slight unease began to grow within him. I stood there for another moment, shivering from a combination of the sudden blistering cold and from nerves already frayed by something indiscernible the moment I stepped onto the property. Whether or not I was fearful in that moment of what we might find, I still did not ask the others to shine their lights between the barn doors. Instead, nearly captivated, I stood there and watched the stars through the gaps in the dark boards lining the barn’s collapsed roof, attempting to gather my own thoughts.
After another moment, no longer able to withstand the fierce bite of the sudden cold, I stepped away from the barn to stand beside the others. The six of us then spoke for a few moments about our thoughts on the place. Aloud, Kevin, Alex, and Felicia discussed their being generally unimpressed by the property and decided that they would wait for Garrett, Craig and I in their vehicles until our curiosity had been sated. And then with haste strange for individuals undisturbed, they moved back towards the vehicles with their now illuminated flashlights, the shade of the looming oak trees consuming them quickly as they followed the overgrown driveway and stepped upon the road, leaving us behind in the shadow of the barn.
Craig, Garrett and I had moved away from the entrance, now several yards away, and began to head down the short slope that the barn rested on. I could now see, even in the dark, that part of the barn’s basement rose above the ground here, its foundation being level against the slope of the land. Unlike the decaying wooden walls of the barn, the basement’s walls were made of stone and mortar and we could see that a large portion of the corner above the ground was missing, allowing one to see into the darkness of the basement if they were to be so bold.
The three of us were discussing what we would do next when standing there between the shadows of several decrepit buildings, I suddenly felt as though someone were watching the three of us, feeling the presence of another living creature standing only a few yards away. Craig continued to talk, perhaps unnoticing of my sudden change in posture and tone. Garrett though, seemed to react in a similar fashion and I knew at that moment that he felt the same closeness of something foreign. Craig, now hearing the quietness in both our voices, lowered his and asked what was wrong.
“Something is watching us from the barn, from that hole in the basement,” I whispered to the others, as though I believed I could avoid alerting whatever it was.
Garrett, the only one still in possession of a flashlight, nervously raised his arm towards the barn. Without hesitation, he turned the flashlight on, casting a bright beam towards the hole in the exposed basement wall which was several yards away from us.
No matter how many years have passed, I can still remember the sensation of all feeling leaving my legs and finger tips the moment that beam of light illuminated the shape of the horrid thing watching us from the darkness. We watched as within the center of the beam of light, a dark shape of something leaning over the stone ledge widened its illuminated eyes and sank back down below the wall into darkness. In his fright, Garrett turned the flashlight back off, ready to run for the vehicles.
“What the fuck was that?!“ Whispering harshly, Garrett held tightly to my sleeve as Craig and I moved closer towards him.
“It was an animal. It had to be. It was a raccoon.” Craig didn’t even seem satisfied with this response that he whispered back as he attempted to calm Garrett.
“That was not a fucking raccoon!” His voice was now raising and, unsure myself of what answer to give in return, I motioned for them to lower their voices again. Although I too was frightened, I was not entirely certain of what I had just seen and something still seemed to draw me towards the barn. I may have wanted to be quite sure that what we had seen was not an animal, but I truly cannot describe what it was that kept me from letting go of Garrett and running for the vehicles, shouting for the others to follow after me. Perhaps it was the very morbid curiosity that seems to draw me back towards places like these, often filling me with terror and sometimes leaving my nights sleepless.
However it was that I convinced them, the three of us, no longer feeling the daggers of searching eyes, began to move closer towards the basement, agreeing that we would shine down in through the hole and see if what had been watching us truly was an animal (though our doubts of this were very strong). Standing so close that our elbows and shoulders were touching, the three of us crept towards the lip of the basement’s ledge, overlooking the basement drowned in complete blackness. I was not quite sure of what we would see the moment our flashlight lit the contents of that void, but the anxiety of my imagination’s assumptions kept me from wanting to delay any further and as our feet nearly touched the stone ledge, I told Garrett to turn the light on.
He did so and the light chased the shadows from the center of the basement, the beam resting on the back stone wall opposite the ledge that we stood near. At first, I felt a sensation of relief when nothing could be seen. But before I could even acknowledge this relief aloud, from beneath the lip of the circle of light, something stood (though the word “materialize” may better describe the fluid motion) out of the darkness and straightened against the back wall in the center of the beam. No light reflected from its surface. Only the dark shape of a shadow emanating from no obstruction stood erect against the stone wall of the basement, the eyes of something similar to an animal’s casting light back towards us from the center of its apex.
The three of us, having just watched that horrid shape materialize before our eyes, turned and ran after screaming in fear, stumbling over brush and one another as we crossed in front of the barn’s opening and followed the oak lined drive back towards the road. Even in his moment of panic, Craig remembered the drive being blocked at its entrance by chicken wire and he stepped down onto it, allowing Garrett and I to cross it easily as we stumbled towards Alex’s SUV. Having heard our screams, Alex and Kevin had climbed out of their vehicles, prepared to help. We shouted at them to climb back inside and drive as fast as they were able. Kevin climbed into his truck and drove away immediately while the three of us ran for Alex’s vehicle. He started it and though I was standing on the running board and hanging on to the frame of the opened door, Craig and Garrett had quickly climbed inside and I shouted for Alex to drive as fast as he was able.
The dust from Kevin’s trail grazed my face as the SUV sped away from the property and I held on tightly. Before I could climb inside though, I shouted for Alex to slow the vehicle down and come to a stop after we had put a sizable distance between ourselves and the drive leading to the barn. Coming to a complete halt, but leaving the vehicle running, Alex turned to ask the three of us, breathless, what had happened. Shouting and interrupting one another, we explained to Alex and Felicia what we had seen and they expressed concern, wanting to leave immediately, as did Craig.
But again came the curiosity, the macabre fascination that must be what those gripped by madness at times feel. And though I was afraid, I was not satisfied; I wanted to turn back, again not believing my own eyes. The rest of the group could not believe my words, except for Garrett. We must have shared that same madness, because he too felt the need to confirm what our eyes already should have.
Through much coercion (and slight pleading), the two of us convinced Alex to turn around and head back towards the property’s drive, though Craig expressed no interest in leaving the vehicle with us to return to the barn. Alex promised to leave the vehicle running if we in return promised that we would immediately head back to the vehicle should we see or experience anything. I could sense a slight impatience in his words, but I knew that he too was curious about what we may find (or if we would find anything at all upon inspecting the basement again).
And so, with a bravery (or foolishness) that I question whether or not I still possess, Garrett and I quickly climbed from Alex’s SUV and stepped back onto the drive leading towards the barn. The wind seemed to blow much harder as we crept silently past the old oak trees, watching the barn entrance carefully from a distance. There were few shadows now, the harsh wind pushing clouds out of the moon’s path, bathing the land in a pale light. Garrett and I, again standing close beside one another, moved in a way that allowed us to watch the entrance of the barn from a distance while traveling diagonally towards the hole in the wall.
Again, after nurturing whatever senses we had left at that point, the two of us found ourselves yards away from the hole leading into the barn’s basement. Unlike the last approach, though, I again felt the pressure of some low-frequency static emitting from the structure, upsetting my stomach and casting my thoughts into disarray. Each step towards the basement’s entrance felt separated by years of torturous anxiety. Whatever we had seen down in that basement was not only there still, but it was waiting for us.
Our breaths tight and short, we again approached the lip of the hole in the basement’s wall and with our patience thin from the agonizing approach, we turned on the flashlight and aimed it towards the center of the basement.
There was no pause, no hesitation, no break in our terror. The moment the light touched those awful surfaces, our horrors were realized and we knew that what we had seen earlier was not our eyes or imaginations deceiving us, because as surely as I breathe, now visible in the beam of our flashlight were five of those shapeless shadows, their eyes gazing with unforgiving intent back into ours. They stood in our light as we remained frozen and speechless, beset by a horror we should have been prepared for, but entirely were not. Were it not for the situation progressing in the way it did, I am not sure how long we would have stood there in the darkness, staring back at one another.
The shape nearest us suddenly broke into a full sprint and Garrett and I turned, now consumed by the thralls of panic, and again ran for Alex’s truck. Every inch I traveled, no matter how fast, seemed to pass by so slowly, yet I forced myself between breathless strides to run faster. We had made it halfway down the drive when as I stumbled onto some foliage, my foot came out of its shoe. In what was intended to be only a fast, single motion, I turned around to pick the shoe up. And from my hunched position, I watched in horror as something crawled from the basement’s hole and stumbled into the moonlight, standing on two legs and turning to watch us flee. Had Garrett in that instant not turned to grab me, shouting obscenities and pulling me away, my fascination may have prevented me from turning and running when it again gave chase.
This time, not exiting his vehicle, Alex shouted at us from his opened window as we stumbled over the chicken wire and climbed into his truck, shouting for him to drive away, this time not allowing him to stop until he had put miles between us and the property, leaving the dark, dirt road behind. Even up until the moment I slammed the vehicle’s door, I could feel that low emanating pulse following only inches behind me as that thing chased the two of us to the road, pursuing us to whatever end it ended.
In the following days, Alex had made several phone calls to friends and acquaintances from the area who he knew had at one time visited the property as well. Two of these specific parties had troubling information to share. Neither of them were familiar with one another or their respective stories and Alex had not spoken to either of them about their experiences prior to our investigating the spot, nor did he share with them the details of our own.  One account involved, similarly to ours, several individuals being chased away from the barn by something in the dark that they could not see. The other involved an individual driving past the property alone one night and seeing at the end of the drive what he described as a large, black shape with two eyes like an animal’s, watching him as he drove past on that dark, lonesome dirt road.
Since then, I have attempted to investigate further into the nature of the property and the relevance of the stories and lore surrounding the road itself. One such time involved me questioning the cashier at a lone gas station a mile or so away from the dirt road. Upon asking the cashier about the road, the man at first met my questions with uncertainty, saying he’d never heard of the road, the barn, or any stories involving either. After thanking him, I then said that I’d had my own experiences there and that I planned on heading back to further investigate.
“Be careful. A lot of kids have disappeared down there trying to do the same thing.” He watched me closely as I turned to exit the gas station. Confused, I responded to the man.
“I thought you said you had never heard anything about the road.”
The cashier shrugged and did not say another word, continuing to stare at me until I exited the gas station. Whether there is a story to the property, much more ominous and closer to truth, that the locals know of (the cashier and the man Kevin found on the property serving as prime examples) or whether it is all coincidence is still something of speculation between me and the others that I have brought to the barn.
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