“Never go into the barn, no matter what you hear.”
That’s what my father always told me, with a look of responsibility in his eyes. Never an explanation, never an elaboration, it was completely confidential apparently. Whenever I questioned my mother on the matter she’d get this nervous look in her eyes like she was worried about something, she’d quickly waive my question away with something that didn’t quite add up. “Oh he handles heavy machinery in there” was one, “The air inside there isn’t safe because of some old building hazards.” was another, it was usually a variation upon these two but the variations that lied therein were always just suspicious enough that I knew she was lying to me. What I didn’t understand was why she was lying to me, or why the question was scary. Well, I always knew the heavy machinery part was a lie for a number of reasons, first of all the generator in our farmstead isn’t hooked up to the barn, and i’ve never heard electric tools inside either so that rules out battery powered machinery. It’s made of wood after all it’s not like the sounds that go on in there are completely hidden from me. Which brings me to the sounds. That was the most important thing apparently. “No matter what I hear.” that was always what he said. Naturally this instruction made me curious so I spent many nights straining my ears trying to hear something in the barn from my bedroom window. Usually I would hear some shuffling around or clanking of tools but one night I heard clear as day the neigh of a horse. This got me excited. My 14th birthday was coming up soon and I was sure, absolutely positive they must have got me a horse for my birthday and that night I couldn’t get to sleep with all the excitement. The next day I ran up to my dad with a huge grin on my face loudly declaring “I know what’s in the barn!”
He looked at me like death. “What do you mean?” he said firmly. “I heard a horse in there last night and I know you’ve got me a horse for my birthday.” I responded. He shook his head “You probably dreamt it, we haven’t got you a horse and there’s nothing in the barn.”
Naturally I left that conversation confident that he was lying to me to save the surprise on my birthday, but when my birthday came and went and there was no sign of the horse, my doubt grew alongside my curiosity of what could possibly be hidden away in that barn. In those latter weeks after my birthday I would often here sobbing coming from the barn, and I believed it must have been my fathers. I didn’t know why he went to the barn to cry but I felt awful sorry for him.
All of this information of course is catch up, to bring us to the night I got fed up with my curiosity and decided to look what was inside the barn. It began by me waiting for my father to turn his bedroom light off to assure that he had gone to sleep. I waited about an hour then snuck out from under my covers and began the slow descent down the stairs. Careful not to make a sound I snuck out the door and made the 75 yard dash across the green to the barn. Reaching the door I took a deep breath, steadied myself and tried to quell the excited curiosity inside of me. I reached towards the latch lock and pulled it towards me with all my strength, pulling it free and opening the door. The wind immediately caught the wood panel of the right door and slammed it against the side of the building with a deafening *bang*.
I immediately panicked that the sound may obviously have been heard from my parents house and almost decided then and there to abandon my expedition, but decided against it. Before me was a row of 12 horse stalls, 6 on either end extending nearly to the back of the barn where there was a door that seemed to lead into another area of the barn that I couldn’t see yet since the door was closed. I inched my way into the barn and walked over to the first set of stalls, they were barred off an had a waist height swing door allowing access. The first set of stalls were empty except for some hay being kept on the floor. Moving further past these stalls I went to the next row. Before me were a set of tools. Hammers, buzz saws, axes, screwdrivers, nails, tongs all sorts of building tools. In the corner of the room was a sponge and bucket of soapy water which was tinged a deep red. Midway through my inspection of the tools my hair stood on end as I heard the house door open and slam shut from across the green. Father was coming. He had obviously heard the barn door slam open and woken up to come and investigate. My head filled with images of punishments my parents would give me if I was caught here, I couldn’t be found out. I jumped over the waist high swing door and hid behind a work desk where the hacksaws were being kept on and waited. I waited until eventually I heard footsteps enter the barn. “Hello?!” my father called out in a concerned tone. “Is anyone in here?”
I kept silent, obviously. Father made his way hastily towards the stall I was in, opening the door. I closed my eyes shut tightly and hoped not to be found. I heard my father go to where the axes were in the other corner of the room, pick one up, and head towards the back room. When he came back, his pace was far more relaxed. He put the axe back, shut the door and locked it. Then left.
I got up from my hiding position and left the stall. Creeping further down the barn I felt a tight sense of anxiety in my chest as I realised what was in the next set of stalls. I began to tear up and almost ran out of the barn right then. It was awful. A bloodied set of horse teeth, two hands, two feet and various different kinds of musculature lay strewn across the floor, disconnected, disjointed, bloodied, haphazardly thrown around. I didn’t know how to react. I stood there shocked. What had Father been doing here? Have these always been here? Is that why he warns me away from the barn because he knows it will upset me?
I wiped the tears that were streaming from my eyes and decided to check the back room and then leave. The subsequent stalls were completely empty anyway. I wanted to be gone. I didn’t want anything more to do with this place and I wanted to be back in my warm bed, I wanted to be able to forget the evil sight I had seen and never come back here. I approached the door leading to another room at the back of the barn. I pulled the handle to open the door and immediately I was in stunned silence. My face went blank, there was no response appropriate to what I was beholding about 10 feet away from me other than immediate revulsion.
A horse with human teeth. Human eyes. It was standing with a hunched gait such that it’s hind legs were sitting and its front legs were completely straight, it had stitches running along its entire abdomen. Behind it were a huge set of innards I could only assume belonged to what was once a horse. The “horse” looked at me with fear in its human eyes and opened its mouth to reveal a very human mouth, with some sort of metal apparatus that opened at the back of its throat. The Horse neighed at me, but immediately I recognised it was no neigh. It was the gut wrenching scream of a man which was being altered by this metal instrument in his throat to sound like a horse neighing. The result was a brassy, rusty, staccato scream which only vaguely seemed similar to a horse. The tongue flapped around in the mouth of the horse as the creature clearly tried to intonate words that only came out as different kinds of agonised, metallic moans. It tried to take a step towards me on it’s front legs and I realised that it was not resting on it’s hind legs, they were completely unusable. The creature made further desolate moans but I did not stay around to hear them. I slammed the door and ran.