Author: Eden Beck
Category: Paranormal
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And then just as quickly, the trees thin and I find myself standing in front of an old, forgotten barn. A long-forgotten scent of horses sticks in the air, faint enough to be nothing more than a memory. The air here is still, so still it doesn’t even rustle the browning leaves of the vines winding their way up the side of the old red-painted slats of wood.
This must have been a part of the original homestead.
Part of me knows I’m bordering on trespass now, but that’s the part of me that’s easily shoved aside in favor of a blossoming curiosity. One does not simply find an abandoned building on their land without exploring it.
Still, I walk around the barn looking for signs of life, and finding none, test the latch on the front doors. It’s unlocked, but it wouldn’t matter if it was because the rusted latch breaks in my hand at the slightest touch.
Red rust crumbles in my hands, followed by the scent of iron. I wipe my hands across the front of my thighs, and checking once more over my shoulder, push on the groaning double doors.
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They open at the expense of a silence-shattering screech. By the time I’ve finished wincing from the sound I’m surprised they too haven’t crumbled into dust. If there was anything sleeping in the forest nearby, it’s certainly awake now.
The scent of damp hay and leather and rust overwhelms my nostrils. Skylights set into the roof of the barn let in just enough of the waxing moonlight to let me make out the shapes within. Stalls, as empty and forgotten as the rest of the building, line either side. A loft above is heaped with hay packed down and disintegrating.
But what interests me the most is the object draped with a cloth tarp sitting in the middle of the barn. As soon as the dust settles, that single flourish reveals exactly what my thumping heart expected underneath.
It’s an old classic car.
The shell of the car is blue, but it’s so rusted-out that it looks more like a speckled robin’s egg. The windshield has a spiraling crack on the passenger’s side, but other than chipped paint and an old nest shoved up under one of the seats, it’s actually in pretty good condition.
But there’s only one real way to find out.
I give the handle a careful tug, expecting it to give way like the latch to the barn outside, but the door pops open without a sound. I open the door wide enough to slip through and sit down in the front seat, sending a heaping dust cloud into the air.
After a few solid coughs to clear the grime from my lungs, I’m a little disappointed not to find a key forgotten in the ignition. My fingers poke and prod in the dark, searching in the glove box and under the seats to see if I can find anything of use.
Nothing.
That disappointment settles deeper this time, and I flop dejectedly back in my seat.
What’s the use of a car that doesn’t start?
It would have been the perfect ending to my little adventure. Not that I expected to drive it out of here or anything. I just thought …
I shake my head. I don’t know what I thought, maybe that fixing up this car would become some kind of secret side project I worked on. Like some sort of teen character from a movie. Even if the car started … what would I do with it then? Steal it? Drive it around town until the original owners finally recognized it? And all that’s if it didn’t turn out to need parts, which I have neither the money nor the skill to replace.
All this is what I tell myself to try and soften the unexpected blow of being unable to start the car. But it was unnecessary.
When I finally lift my head back up, ready to stare resignedly out the dingy windshield towards the barn door cracked open to the forest, that feeling of disappointment is replaced by something much stronger.
Absolute heart-stopping terror.
All this time, I thought that I was alone.
But I’m not.
9
Sabrina
One moment he’s standing in the doorway, nothing but a shadow. The next, in a movement far too fast to fully comprehend, the car creaks under his weight as he leaps onto the hood of the car.
I gape up at him through the glass. There on the hood of the car, with one hand touching the metal exterior and the other on the top of his knee, is Kaleb Gray. He looks like he’s ready to pounce through the glass at me. He also loo
ks like he’s breathing heavily enough to have just finished running a marathon.
I scramble out of the car and to my feet. I take a couple steps back from him and stare in disbelief.
“What are you doing here?” I snap. He scared me so much that between my shock and all the dust I swallowed, my words sound more like a gasp.