The Barn

I remember the day my life changed forever like it was yesterday, and I reckon it'll always be yesterday for me because that day has sewn itself to me like a shadow I just can't shake.

My buddies, Tommy, Jeff, and the twins, Eddie and Chris, and I stood just outside the Sudz-n-fold in Silver Grove studying a little collection of missing pet posters stuck to the fading bricks on the side of the building, commenting excitedly about what had happened to all the pets in the Grove.

That's when we all decided to venture out to old man Parker's place on the county line.

I was around 15, old enough to know better, and still too damn dumb to not listen back in the summer of '82 when my life changed forever. Hindsight is twenty-twenty, or so the saying goes, but how I survived is something I think on often and still can't quite figure out. I was lucky, but I don't even know if that's a fair assessment.

I survived. That's all. I survived. And they didn't.

---

"Bet ya there's bodies buried in that old barn, bet ya that's what that crazy S-O-B has hidden up there," Chris said, his eyes were squinched but still carried a hint of fear around the edges.

"Bodies and treasure," Eddie said, not looking at his brother. He had that far-off look that smart kids did and the bad habit of playing with his glasses when he thought he was being especially smart like he thought he was being right now.

"Y'all are idiots," said Tommy, punching Eddie in the arm playfully but hard. Eddie staggered off balance for a moment, skinny kid didn't have much weight to him to start with.

Jeff walked quietly, he looked older than the rest of us, a solid farmer's build, and well earned from all the work his Daddy put him through on their farm.

I trailed behind all of them, scared to death and trying not to show it. Eddie glanced at me, his eyes saying he knew and felt it too. Tommy followed his gaze once and gave me a smart-assed grin that said he was ready to jump at me at any moment for a good laugh.

We decided to cut through the woods, figuring we'd get caught sure as shit if we walked the roads. Someone's Daddy or someone's Momma would be heading out to grab a drink or go play some bingo and there we'd all be, caught dead to rights.

And then we were there.

---

We all lined up against the rusty barbed wire fence that acted like the last plea from God for us to turn around and forget this fool errand.

It was the border between crawdad hunting and lazy Summer days and the wild unknown of old man Parker's farm - that wilderness of weed patches and thornbushes that used to be a big field, gone to shit over the years, and at the far end stood the centerpiece of a half a dozen old ghost stories.

Sitting just beyond the wild field and off to the side of a falling down and gone to waste old farmhouse was old man Parker's barn. Gray weathered boards a powerful contrast to the cotton candy sky as the sun wobbled its way behind the rolling tuff of hills to the West.

My friends and I stood staring at that old barn for some time, then we looked at each other, Tommy with that damned smirk on his face, Jeff with his stoic and stern eyes not saying anything, the twins standing a little closer to each other.

No turning back now.

---

And then we were at the barn, not more than 12 feet between us and that big ugly monolith of so many nightmares and ghost stories. We stood in silent awe. Tommy punched Eddie's arm and laughed a little. It sounded off, his laugh, like laughing next to a graveyard.

We heard a sudden noise from inside the barn and realized someone, or something was in there. We looked at each other and ran around beside the barn, hiding just in time. Old man Parker pushed the big door open just enough to push himself and a wheelbarrow through. Then he turned and pushed the big door shut.

How he didn't see us is beyond me, but we had to run and quick. We circled the barn, running around to the other side.

Then we were at the main door and old man Parker was taking the wheelbarrow to a side shed attached to next to where he had been in the beginning. Tommy hit me hard in the ribs with his elbow and said, "Look in the wheelbarrow."

That's when we all saw it.

"Are those…?"

"Mummified" Jeff said.

"Mummified what?" I asked.

Jeff looked at me then and I wish he hadn't. I never seen him scared before.

But before we could turn back and run to safety Tommy, stupid Tommy, was at the barn door and pushing it open.

---

Inside, the barn had a heavy thick feel to it. And it smelled bad too. Coppery with a sickly sweet smell of rot.

It was dark, crpyt-like, with little slivers of light slicing through its tall barnwood walls. Loose dust stirred as we followed the tracks dug in from God only knows how many years of old man Parker and his barrel bringing God only knows what in and out.

There was a clicking sound somewhere ahead, not like a machine, more like something whispering in a dry throat. And then a quick rustling sound, like silk running across hard hands with thick callouses.

Eddie's eyes were big and he looked ready to run. He might have made it if he had run then. But old man Parker ruined any chance of escape. He was coming back.

"Quick!" Tommy whispered in a loud voice, grabbing me and yanking me behind a pile of old rusted-down farm equipment. "Hide!"

Jeff went behind the equipment with us and the twins ran off in the opposite direction.

---

Old man Parker came back in with a big burlap bag thrown over his shoulder, he took a long moment to notice the door we had left cracked open. He looked around the barn before walking in and then pulled the door shut with a stomach-twisting thud.

Darkness fell across us with a physical weight.

Old man Parker made a series of clicks with his mouth that didn't sound natural. Then whistled like was calling up a dog. And, in a way, he was.

He walked toward the back of the barn, hoisting the bag over his shoulder, and in one quick ugly motion and shook something out. Something living, something small. My mind went to the pet posters but I never saw what was in the bag, one small mercy in a day of horrors.

That's when we saw the web. How we hadn't seen it before is one of the many mysteries from that day. The entire back part of the barn was covered in layers cobweb.

"Come and get it Charlie!" he yelled.

And then the most absurd and awful thing came crawling down the web. Eight legs half as tall as a full-grown man carried the fat and sinewy strong body of a giant midnight black spider slowly, oh so god forsakenly slowly, down a length of almost invisible spider web.

"Do you fucking see that??" Tommy said a little too loudly.

Old man Parker's head snapped toward us. We had been caught.

The spider reacted too, with inky fluid ease it went back up the web into the dark heights of the barn. There was a sudden noise from near the roof.

Tommy was looking up. Jeff was watching old man Parker. And Eddie was running for the Barn door from where he and Chris had been hiding.

Tommy pointed up, his finger following what he was looking at, "There it is," he said. His finger was moving along the ceiling and then toward the barn door.

Eddie.

Before I could yell the spider was descending from a fresh web straight on top of Eddie. I didn't see much, I heard it mostly.

There was Eddie, and then there was the spider. And then there was Eddie screaming. And then there was the spider making its awful screeching noise. And then there was Eddie and the spider going back up toward the roof. And then there was a crunching sound. And then there was a gurgling sound. And then there was a muffled sound. And then there was a haunting silence for an ache of minutes.

Chris was screaming, but I muted most of that out. Old man Parker never even flinched. he was visibly calculating what to do with the rest of us.

And then it was Tommy's turn, as he began to piss himself and tried to run for the door. The spider was on him, and then it snatched him up and into the roof as it had Eddie before. The same ugly sounds came pouring down. And then the same ugly muffled scream. And then the same ugly quiet afterward.

Jeff was up and moving fast, but not toward the barn door, he was running like a quarterback straight toward old man Parker. They connected in an instant, and Jeff took him down. The spider reacted in a violent hurry, but Jeff had quick reflexes and before the spider could grab him, he rolled over and pushed old man Parker up and into the way of the spider.

It wound up sinking its fangs into the man who had been feeding it God knows how many disgusting years. The last look on his face was one of horror mixed with a quiet and absurd acceptance.

Jeff pushed his way out beneath the two and ran back toward me, he grabbed me and yanked me to my feet.

"Run," he said. I half ran, and was half yanked to the door. Chris was still on the ground sobbing. Jeff didn't ask him, he just snatched him up and threw him over his shoulder, and ran.

---

The Sheriff thought we made it all up, but when he came back, after finally being convinced to look into it, the Sherriff seemed older and quieter. One of his men was missing, but he didn't say anything about it. The story that went into the paper afterward was that old man Parker had killed Eddie and Tommie and then died in a conflict with the officer, who he had also killed just before being shot and killed himself.

We knew different but the Sherriff made it clear to never say otherwise.

Chris died not too many years later. His family said it was an accidental overdose, he had taken up heroin and it really was only a matter of time. I hadn't spoken to him or seen him since the barn. But the story I heard was that he kept to himself, aged rapidly, and told stories too hard to believe.

Jeff lived a longer life, but in the end, whiskey drank him dry and he was found dead and alone in a trailer not many miles from the land that had been old man Parker's.

I was the only one to survive and that's not saying too much as I toss and turn and dream ugly dreams of clicking sounds and screams every night. It won't be many more years I'm sure before the ghosts of that spider and my friends catch up to me too.