Farmhouse, 83651

Today I am leaving the Farm. My prison for sixty-five years. My mother Geraldine has died, and in her death lies my freedom. If you are like me, you have been living a half life, trapped and silenced by the truth. If you are like me and do not know it, I envy you with my whole heart, and pray you will never be plagued by the secrets that defiled me at fifteen, and now eighty five. I do not wish for anyone to suffer as I have, but the notion of being the only one fills me with a dread greater than the stronghold my invisible captors have had upon me. To feel safe one last time, to know the full truth and move out of fear for a moment before I die. That is my only wish.

The year was 1956, the month June, the day the twenty-third. I had been fifteen for five days, four hours, and eleven minutes. Sunlight poured through slats in the barn door which had hung loosely to the left ever since the last storm. Hazel my beagle was lapping my face; her breath was spoiled milk. The bed of hay jabbed at my sides as I sat up, allowing the memories of my life thus far a chance to sit up and stretch with me. That was when the memory of the day's ongoing chore landed with a thud against my temples. Groaning, I buried my face against Hazel’s warm back.

My mother had me cleaning Grandmother’s things out of the farmhouse attic, and she had not a care in the world should it take all three of my sacred summer months. Grandmother had been gone for a whole year. According to my mother, this was the appropriate amount of time to respectfully begin to rummage and choose which of her belongings were worth holding onto. As if she could read my mind, my mother Geraldine apprehended me before I could escape.

“Loretta Jo! You sleepin’ in the barn again?”

She always added ‘-etta Jo’ when the usual Lori wasn’t quite serious enough. Hands on her hips, chocolate hair flowing, cheeks flushed rose, my mother waited for Hazel and me by the edge of the sagging porch.

“The attic ain’t gonna clean itself now, you best hop to it!”

Hazel wagged her tail beside me, tongue dripping, ice blue eyes bright and cheery. “C’mon.” I said, annoyed that she was not dismayed by the task at hand. If I could have been a dog, I too would spend the day doing whatever I like. Hazel was unfazed by my sulking and trotted around the porch and into the kitchen. Above me a pair of swallows chased one another and chirped loudly. A faint breeze washed over the dead, grass fields, which spread like the ocean in every direction. The hulking shabby barn had been at one time full of life, but now sat silent and stoic against the blue sky. Of course it wasn’t much, but there was nothing else as familiar.

The attic air was thick as a wool blanket, it filled my lungs, forcing an immediate, spluttering cough, which lingered as an itch in my throat. There were two small square windows on either side of the room. Sunlight poured in, presenting the magnificent heaps, some of which almost brushed the ceiling. Sparkling dust puffed into the air as I moved through the old coats, shoes, hats, undetermined boxes, and hundreds of books. I immediately pushed the window open as I settled in the back left corner, where I could reach enough novels, manuals, and bestsellers to see me through the day.

One by one I determined the worth of my Grandmother’s lorn possessions. I felt like a thief, stalking through someone else’s life, calculating what personal belongings were worth keeping for myself. I did not have any trouble identifying Bibles, magazines and digests as daily pastimes of my Grandmother, and the books worth reading, Ernest Hemingway’s Old Man and the Sea, William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, and J.R.R Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, a reflection of my Grandfather, whom I never knew beyond his literature of choice. Day turned to night as I worked. Lighting the lantern suspended above me, I had one book left to assess before resigning for the day, my stomach an empty roaring pit.

Faded black chamois fashioned a once worshiped chronicle. The cover was plain, adding mystery to its contents. Upon further examination, it revealed handwritten, slanted scribbling that I recognized immediately. In her own midwestern drawl, my Grandmother’s thoughts spilled into the margins. Fragments of her life crammed inside an abandoned shell, hidden amongst the shipwreck of her effects. A diary, left behind collecting dust and begging to be discovered. I remembered her in that moment, tucked away in her bedroom, scrawling hurriedly. As if a ghost would rip away the pages before she had finished. As if her words sealed someone’s fate. Whether by coincidence or design, this was the entry I read first.

June 23, 1941

Geraldine should’nt a kept it. She know nothin of demons, nor sacrifices, nor Satan. I askin her why she think they gone and leave it in the barn, but she refuse to be rid of it. Even curse at me when I try to tell her it’s a demon. I says I saw the lights, I saw them goin in the barn and walkin in the fields. I tolds’em they were scaley and had glowin eyes and standin in a circle all silent and noddin their big heads all together like witches. I says they chose us, leavin that thing behind. Gerald tells me I loosin my mind, tells me we ain’t seen the world and we knows nothin. The scales all up and down its skinny, little body ain’t nothin to worry about. Says they’ll fall off and we aught to be lettin Geraldine have a baby cause she never gonna meet nobody livin ways out here with her old Ma, and Pa. He’s tellin me to keep my mouth shut, he’s makin Geraldine hate her mama.

July 2, 1941

Geraldine is callin it Loretta, like it’s her own baby, like it’s a human, and even been feedin it Mable’s milk. I tells her she ain’t bringin it to church, God forbid someone up and think she been foolin around and got herself pregnant. It even startin to look like her, its scales flakin off all round my kitchen floor. It standin by the winda and starrin at the barn like it remember somethin. I ain’t been more scared in my life then when it lookin at me, its eyes unnatural like there’s a light behind ‘em. I even seen em’ glowin like I sees its own kind when they left it. Gerald been encouragin hers not to listen to me, say’in I aught’a have pity cause it’s just a baby. Oh Lord it’ll be our shallow graves, if not tommora, then vera soon.

“Loretta!”

I jumped right out of my skin. My mother was hollering at me from the bottom of the attic ladder. Heart pounding, confusion racing through me, I attempted to steady my breathing. What had I just read, what kind of ridiculous fable was this? Had my Grandmother lost her mind? Was she feverish, hallucinating? Had she been writing about me, Loretta? Calling me a demon, calling me a sacrifice to Satan! What was that about scales flaking off...

“Loretta Jo, dinner’s gettin cold, don’t dally!”

I ate in silence. Mother didn’t seem to notice my tortured posture as she gushed over Hazel’s imploring, sad eyes. Hazel always begged for food at the table, and my mother encouraged it, feeding her chicken and potato from her fingers.

I slept in the farmhouse that night. The barn a haunted miscreation against the grey night.

‘It even standin at the winda starrin at the barn like it remember somethin’.

Grandmother’s words echoed. I shivered at the thought of sleeping out there in the dark where anything could be lurking, watching or waiting, hunting me. My fingers stroked the pernicious narrative that before tonight, taunted my ignorance with its own existence. The lore resounded against my skull. I was disturbed by demons, or perhaps I was the demon. My distressed curiosity got the better of me. I rolled over in bed so the moonlight would illuminate the book. Turning to the next entry, I read on.

July 6, 1941

I’ve gone and given up Geraldine’ll ever hear her Mama, and do what’s right for the lot of us. I’ll never hear the end of her protectin that thing, like’er life depended on it’s here survival. Gerald tellin me I ain’t a good Christian woman if I don’t love the thing like Christ love me. He testin me every chance he get. I tells you, ' he better not keep up this way or I is gonna havt’a do somethin about it. He ain’t the one watchin out the winda all night and seein what I saw. I tells you if he saw those things, those demons in the barn, messin with the livestalk, leavin behind that spawn, he ain’t be tryin’a be its Grandady neither. Like I says before, it’ll be the end’ve us one way or anotha. If those creatures comin back lookin for the child, God have mercy, they’ll kill us dead.

August 3, 1941

I ain’t gonna write what I did, but believe me, God in Heaven better have looked away or I is goin’a Hell. I tolds Gerald he better get Geraldine’na give it up or I is gonna have to do somethin about it myself. He ain’t listen to me, and well, he ain’t listenin now even if he tried. Geraldine is cryin all day and night, thinkin her Daddy up and leave her. I havn’t the heart to tell her Daddy’s in the ground beside the Maple.

October 14, 1941

Geraldine knows what I did, she’s been usin it against me, usin my guilt every chance she gets. Im’a doin every thing she says. Feedin Loretta, washin’er up, I even gone and got her a puppy down at’ol Elmer’s Ranch, drove somethin like thirty miles for that thing, she not even say one thank you. Geraldine gone and tells me she’ll put me right there with’er Pa if I says a word and don’t love Loretta like I aught’a.

My eyes burned as sunlight engulfed my modest bedroom. I had fallen asleep reading the black book, it lay beside my bed on the floor. I gathered myself and headed outside, calling Hazel as I went. An ominous entity hovered above me as I trudged along the mud path winding through the trees. Hunting for Hazel as I walked, glancing this way and that, looking over my shoulder for those scaly creatures my Grandmother claimed were here. Our rusty red mailbox tilted to the right, clinging to the wooden pole it was mounted on. I opened it. There were several things inside.

First an envelope overflowing with dollar bills. I stared at the money. I had never seen anything like it. I felt uneasy, like someone was watching me. I peered down the abandoned dirt road to the right, then to the left, daring the invisible onlooker to show themselves. A typed note with ‘Attention Loretta Jo Johnson’ was stuffed inside with the money.

Evaluation Site: 83651 Farmhouse, Indiana

Test Subject: 228462

Please be advised that the information you have come across is dangerous and your continued safety is most important to us. Leaving location site: 83651, Farmhouse or communication of confidential information inside or outside location to result in immediate correction. Due to the significant nature of our research, enclosed you will find an allowance of $20,000 cash, paid promptly by our Studies and Analysis Division, S.A.D. The sentience of a Miss Geraldine Johnson is contingent upon your compliance with our request. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience or distress.

-Task Force 7,

Conservation of Estranged Alien Children, C.E.A.C

Delirious.

I reached further inside the mailbox, searching for anything else that may have been left there.

My hands folded around a sticky, leather strap. Pulling it into the light, I froze, hands shaking, unable to take a breath.

Hazel’s dog collar. Dripping in blood.