The Barn

“Lizzie, the barn isn’t real.”

I didn’t even bother to contradict her. I’d heard those words too many times, from too many people, especially from Shelly. It was an argument that wasn’t worth having, particularly since I knew I was right.

The Barn was real.

There was no doubt about that.

I’d seen it, I’d touched it, felt it, I’d smelled it. It was as real as Shelly’s loosely braided pig tails and funnily shaped birthmark, she had a birthmark in the shape of an owl just under her left earlobe. She knew it was there and that it existed even if she couldn’t see it all the time, so why couldn’t she believe me, her best friend, when I told her again and again that The Barn was real? A real friend would at least have pretended to play along, even if they were only humoring me.

“You know that, right Lizzie?” Shelly continued when I didn’t say anything. She wanted me to admit to her, like the adults had tried to make me admit to them, that the barn wasn’t real, that it was all in my imagination that I was making the whole thing up. But, I wasn’t a liar, I wasn’t crazy and most of all I wasn’t afraid of Shelly.

“Right Lizzie?”

“It is real Shell ,” I told her again for the millionth time. She threw her hands up in exasperation, her fingers barely missing the wood of The Barn wall. She started to laugh, looking around for non-existent supporters that would laugh at me along with her, laugh at Looney Lizzie Lawthorn and her imaginary barn.

She didn’t look at the barn in all her looking around.

Not once.

No one ever looked directly at it.

Ever.

Maybe that was why they couldn’t see it, because they weren’t looking at it.

I sighed heavily and looked at The Barn.

It was old, very, very old, the red paint that had once covered it’s exterior peeling and chipping in more places than one. There were strips of splintering wood hanging down here and there, from the roof, from the walls. The windows had glass and none of the glass was broken from what I’d been able to discern, leastways not broken enough that there was a hole, but it was cracked plenty. The cracks were beautiful sometimes, the broken lines delicate and feathery like snowflakes, but other times their designs felt more savage, more violent.

I wasn’t tall enough to look into any of the windows, and I’d not been brave enough to ever venture inside of the barn either. Plus, the doors were all locked and I wasn’t strong enough to break in on my own, and when nobody else could see it, well, that meant that there was nobody stronger whom I could ask for help. Not even Billy Wilson, even though he was a good foot taller than me and never called me Looney Lizzie.

“It’s not even funny anymore Lizzie,” Shelly exclaimed, stomping her feet as she walked away from me. I watched her go, feeling for the hundredth time that maybe I should just say what they all wanted to hear. That The Barn was fake, I’d made the whole thing up for attention and I’d thought it was great fun to make them all worried and annoyed. I very nearly did that, right then and there. I opened my mouth but Shelly’s name died on my lips in an extended sssshhhhh that blended in with an alien creaking sound.

The Barn door was open.

The bottom part of my jaw lowered till my mouth was as wide open as a fresh water fish’s’ on land. I wanted to say something, to shout, to scream out for Shelly to come back, to come back right away. I couldn’t force people’s eyes to focus on The Barn, but I could take Shelly into The Barn with me. Then she would see it. Then she would know that I wasn’t Looney Lizzie Lawthorn, I wasn’t crazy or a liar or a bad friend. I was telling the truth and it was real.

The Barn was real!

A gust of wind blew by, stirring the long grass around my legs and the dusty ground from inside The Barn.

“Shelly,” I turned, the word dying on the wind as I saw how far away Shelly had gotten. She was nothing more than a figure the size of my index finger now. She wouldn’t be able to hear me, and if she did, she wouldn’t come back. The sway of her pigtails in the distance told me as much. There was another, milder creaking sound. The door had opened a small smidge more.

All the wonderings I’d ever had about what could possibly be inside of the old quiet, invisible Barn…

I undid the ribbon in my hair and tied it around a particularly sturdy stalk of grass, that way if anyone came looking for me and they couldn’t see The Barn, as they never could, then they would at least see the ribbon and know that I was nearby. Very nearby, in fact, just on the other side of The Barn doors. That task done I pushed the heavy, splintery wooden doors open a smidge more and squeezed inside of The Barn.

There was a whoosh of wind - and the doors closed behind me.

∞

Elizabeth “Lizzie” Lawthorn was never seen or heard from again. A pale pink ribbon believed to be belonging to the victim was discovered by Michelle “Shelly” Jones and William “Billy” Wilson jr., classmates and friends of the victim, at the victims last known location. Psychiatric history for the victim suggested possible unintentional suicide due to persistant delusional belief. Authorities did not suspect foul play, but regardless public opinion remained against Shelly Jones and Billy Wilson till their own disappearances 16 years later. Last correspondence on record from Shelly Jones was in a voicemail to her fiancé, Timothy Travers. Transcript as follows:

SHELLY: “It’s real. Oh my god, Tim, it’s real. It’s really real, I can see it now. I can sm – I can smell it! I can – I don – I c – I don’t underst – I can’t believe it! I gotta call Billy. I gotta get Billy, I gotta tell him, I gotta call you back. I’ll call you back Tim, I love you. Bye.”

Transcript ends.

Like their friend, neither William Wilson nor Michelle Jones were ever seen or heard from again.

THE END.