Horror
The Old Barn on the Dirt Road
Three teenagers, George, Benjy, and Craig, walk down the same dirt road everyday after school. On this route, the Old Barn that they walk past is rumored to be haunted and nobody has stepped foot in there for 8 years. One day Craig stopped in front of it on the way back home from school. “Nope, we’re not doing it Craig, come on man.” George said. “Stop being scared, man! The rumors are just rumors… Do you believe everything that somebody tells you?” Craig exclaimed. “Look, Benjy isn’t scared,” Craig insisted. Benjy has a blank stare on his face. Benjy looks at George and then at Craig. He raises a subtle smirk on his face. “Yeah yeah see! I knew Benjy wasn’t scared.” cheered Craig. Craig is exuberating excitement now that he sees the look on Benjy’s face. “Today is the day! Let’s Gooo! Time to see if these rumors are true!” George gets a little angry, “But he didn’t even say anything!”. Craig starts to walk towards the Old Barn, “Should we wait until it’s night time? I feel like it’ll be a little bit better.” Benjy looks at Craig and says, “Yes''. Craig turns around surprised and hollers, “You heard it from the man himself, George. It’s going down tonight! Yeah!... Let's be back here at 8pm tonight sounds cool? Cool. Alright alright lets gooo!”. George releases a sigh, “This is a bad idea.” The three of them continue to walk down the dirt road and eventually go their separate ways once they get past the dirt road.
By Keenan Mitchell5 years ago in Fiction
No Release
We're wandering around Dew Valley campsite at 3 AM, but it’s too overcast to see the stars. No matter how dark the sky gets—no matter how fierce the wind pressing at the flounce of clouds, piercing holes in that thin skin—there’s no clear view of the constellations he promised me. Strangers fumbling in the dark, we just about manage the hills and dips of the field without a light source to keep us upright. To keep us from tripping over all the things we can’t see in the murk. Love could have lit us from the inside out, perhaps, if we had any love left between us.
By Maisie Krash5 years ago in Fiction
Condemned
The decision to move to upstate NY hadn’t been an easy one. It started when my wife Patricia brought it up to me as I lay convalescing in a hospital bed. Ten plus years I had walked the beat in the sleepy, seaside town of Belmar, NJ. Ten years of breaking up college parties, domestics, and the occasional purse snatcher. After all that relative peace, I hadn’t expected to get jumped and have my knees shattered by some tweakers in the middle of a midnight robbery. Here I was, though. Career decidedly ruined, painkillers not working as well as I would like, with a wife talking about uprooting our family to someplace “safer”. I wouldn’t be telling the truth if I said that, at that moment, I agreed to the idea just to shut her up. I was in pain. Not thinking clearly. In the end, consent laws may protect you from testifying when under the influence, but they mean less to nothing to an upset woman with a small child whose husband could have been killed. So, to the wonderful world of Zillow she went.
By Hill Burset5 years ago in Fiction
Dead Of Night
Dustin ran, stumbling into the open door of the old barn. He hit the straw covered ground, after hitting the doorframe, with a resounding thud. The desperate man scrambled to his feet as straw and dirt clung to the partial dried blood covering his clothing. Dustin closed the door, blocking it with a pitchfork, as he backed up.
By Cory Beaudry5 years ago in Fiction
The barn that stayed with me.
There is something peaceful about discovering the side of the world where it's purely natural and quiet. It's so pleasing to know that in the rural areas there's not a lot of people to worry about. It's just you, the cattle, and beautiful sunsets painted across the sky. There's just something beautiful about lonely places with old vintage-looking homes. It was almost as if the homes possessed hearts and the windows were the eyes in which to look into. But there can also be something horrific among the quiet and inside these homes.
By Cecilia Gonzalez 5 years ago in Fiction
Ariadne Bell and the Ghost of Farmer Ames
“Come on, hurry up, Bell! It’s freezing out here!” Thirteen-year-old Ariadne Bell stood rooted to the ground, her fingers twiddling with the long braid of her dark brown hair as she debated whether to run or to walk inside the decrepit barn. After a moment, she decided to walk, taking a tentative step towards the yawning maw of the visage of rotting wood and rusted nails. The skies above the overgrown, abandoned farm were black with ominous clouds, the forest trees beyond the barn swaying in the rising winds.
By Kathryn Vanden Oever5 years ago in Fiction
Wampus
I first met "Clyde" 10 years ago at a small diner in Christiansburg Virginia. I had just graduated with a history degree and a minor in Appalachian studies from Radford University. Being a transplant from Michigan, I ended up falling in love with the New River Valley and chose to stay here after graduation. There's unfortunately not a lot of work in my field in this area so I worked for a landscape company and played historian in my spare time. My goal was to simulate what the Foxfire heritage organization had done, and create a collection of Appalachian knowledge, straight from the horses mouth, the only real difference being that it would have a distinct NRV flavor.
By Juan Martinez 5 years ago in Fiction
