https://vocal.media/fiction/the-barn-vnmh9p0eo5

The Gatekeeper

“Big mama,” that’s what her grandchildren used to call her. She lived for their smiles, the little noses, the little hands. Eloise sucks in a deep breath and shakes her head hard, rattling the memories of before the accident, clearing her mind. Her hands tremble at the edge of her sky, blue rocker. The orange glow of the porch light illuminates the cavernous cracks of her skin. Her thin lips mash together, accentuating the razor sharp edges of her cheek bones. Her stiff hair barely ripples in the breeze. It smells of honeysuckle, summer rain, and deep earth. She recognizes the smell. It’s the familiar smell of someone new, someone grieving. The whites of her knuckles show as she clenches the quilt on her lap. Her foot taps at a porch board that has long since been curled by the baking sun. Someone new must be coming tonight. 

The house is peeling, it’s black, rotting board exposing itself under a coat of damp, white skin. It sits on a small hill overlooking the family barn. Peeking from the shadow of the house, the barn dips itself in the July moonlight. 

In mere minutes, she spots a face illuminated in the barn’s cold glow. She stands, and the porch creaks as her boots mash into its boards. She smooths her nightgown and digs a flashlight out of it’s pocket. 

“They always come at night, like damn suffering ghouls” she grumbles under her breath. Her bones crunch as she marches into the damp grass. “They never care for the rules.” Her teeth grind and the flashlight clicks. 

The Grief 

Nathan Price coughs. The smell of dust and moldy hay scrape down the back of his throat. He closes his eyes, pressing his eyelids tightly together, letting the blackness soothe him. He trembles as tears break in waves down his high cheekbones. The salt stings the cracks in his lips. The taste of alcohol lingers on his tongue as he licks the warm moisture away. He inches forward, his hands outstretched.

He runs the tips of his fingers down the cool, glowing boards of the barn’s entryway. His fingers catch on the splintering wood. An electric pulse jolts like lightning down his spine. The sting and fresh smell of blood force his eyes open, and he blinks away the haze. He gazes up at the looming, second story, and sifts through Angela’s words rattling in his head. He bites his lip, straining to remember any clues she may have let slip of the barn’s fabled mysteries. 

“I thought of him,” she had said. ” I reached for him, and he was there, cold but whole, and so real.”  

He remembers her voice cracking in agony as she spoke of her encounter with her late husband, Edward. He had only met him in passing, but he suspected Edward had known. Edward had to have known. That fact hadn’t stopped Nathan before, and it didn’t stop him then as she leaned into him. He placed his hand on her cheek. Her hot tears spilled down his neck as he pressed his lips hard against hers. He ran his hand down her thigh. He loved her ripped jeans. They were covered in the same hay and dust that now stirs in clouds beneath his feet. 

He cautiously inches his way into the barn’s cavernous hold. The sound of blood rushes like a river, beating against his eardrums. He shivers in the damp and hears the first patter of rain bounce across the roof. 

He takes another step and the tip of his tennis shoe scuffs a hidden stone, it flings him forward and his knees smack hard into the ground. His fingernails dig into the soft, grey earth. Nausea rips through his stomach and bile claws up the back of his throat. He wretches and rolls onto his back. He imagines being on a gurney, strapped under the blinding lights, but here there’s only darkness, darkness kissed by the moon. 

He gazes at the large cobwebs embellishing the ceiling. They look intertwined, he thinks, like a massive smothering blanket. He runs his hands through his thick brown hair in a desperate attempt to ignore the crushing pressure suddenly building in his head. It was like the barn grew limbs, and the heel of it’s boot pressed deep into his forehead. The barn’s mouth is open wide, forming a rotting portal to the other side. It knows he’s here, and it knows why he’s come. 

As if by instinct, or by the will of death itself, he filters through the lives he’s lost. He searches for her in a roulette of faces spinning behind his flickering eyelids. So many of them are small faces, with dimples like dolls. 

“So many. Too many ” he moans,” and grips himself tightly in frustration. In the cloudy depths of his mind, he loses her, and the faces swirl. Confusion grimaces across his face. 

“No,” he whimpers, his resolve fading. 

Then, front and center, as though he never left, comes James, a familiar but unintended face. A face lashing out and clinging to his desperation. James reaches out with his viney hand and twists his yellow fingers around Nathan’s arm. It was like he was alive once more, still breathing booze into his tear streaked face, his mother trembling in the corner. James smiles grimly, his vapid body beginning to clearly focus. 

“Nice to see you again boy,” James begins. 

Nathan clenches his fists, gritty nails digging deep into his palms. A silent scream etches itself across his lips. Unable to wiggle his toes or bend his knees, he gives into the quaking paralysis that ebbs across his body. 

The Rules

“You must have a bushel of demons,” she muses as her muddy boot knocks against his ribs. 

Nathan moans, but doesn’t move. 

“It normally doesn’t knock anyone out that long. Can you stand?” 

Nathan’s eyes peel open, but Eloise doesn’t offer her hand. Instead, she hums in the glow of the flashlight and moves back to lean against a rusty Case tractor by the door. Her brows twitch as she watches Nathan roll to his knees.

“I hope you used your time wisely” Her voice cracks, and she trails off, her chin jutting upward towards the bouncing shadows, “I hope you tied up any loose ends.” 

Nathan stands. He dusts his unusually dirty hands, and shakes the cobwebs from his hair. His forehead wrinkles in lines of stabbing pain, and he scrubs at his eyes, trying to clear the desperate fog. In this new sense of being, he flounders. 

Nathan’s mind is always sharp. He is always composed. His shoulders are wide and regal, his hands strong and steady. This is how he has to be, and this sense of uneasiness is new. He narrows his eyes and longs for his usual clarity. 

He gazes straight into the orange glow, drawn like a moth in the dark. Eloise’s eyes flash heavy and black. 

“I’d offer you some tea, but it’s 2 am.” 

She clicks her tongue against the roof of her mouth and moves to the closest stall door. A steel horseshoe hangs upside down in it’s center. She tilts it upright and looks again in his direction. 

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t realize.” He flushes. “I thought it was abandoned…” He trails off as a clap of thunder rolls across the edges of the roof. 

“Most think the same. They don’t realize an old maid still wanders the grounds.” She chuckles and picks at her hair. “No matter. We won’t be seeing each other again.” She waves her right hand dismissively at the door. 

“Excuse me ma’am,” Nathan grapples with his composure. “I was hoping I could come again. Maybe tomorrow night?  If you don’t mind, that is?” 

“That won’t be possible,” Eloise sighs and points the flashlight to her feet. 

“But you see, I didn’t find her. I mean, I didn’t find who I was looking for,” Nathan says, voice quivering. 

In the still moment of silence, he notices the tremble of the woman’s fingers, the deep purple patches of skin on her exposed legs, and the shallowness of her breathing. 

Eloise resigns herself to leaning against the stall, lightly tapping the back of her head against the rotting boards. 

“She probably didn’t want to be found, dear. She must have nothing to be found for,” her voice was cold now. 

Nathan could sense her hospitality waning, but the deep burning in the pit of his stomach urged him to press onward. 

He takes an uneven step towards her. He reaches out with his left hand and notices the weight of his muscles and the bruised bones twinging under his freezing skin. His eyes are wide, pleading. 

“You don’t understand,” she shakes her head. “It only works once. That’s all anybody gets.” 

“Wh..what?” His voice breaks into little shards like those of a broken window. 

“Don’t think you’re the only one who begs for more, boy.” She quickly turns her back to him as he falls to his knees for the second time that night. 

“It’s not my fault you forgot to ask the rules.”

The Pieces

She sits across from him in the break room, ringlets dripping with gold, her amber eyes scanning his face. 

“What’s the matter, Doctor Price?” she tilts her head to the right and the corners of her lips curl in a subtle smile. Her scrubs are a little rumpled from the night shift she’s wrapping up. 

“Do you trust me, Dani?” he rubs his fingers across the open palm of her hand. She had laid it outstretched on the table, open in concern. 

She was young, and Nathan needed naivety, just as he needed compassion. He had seen Dani sing to the NICU babies. He had watched her brush the tears from their mother’s eyes. He knew her heart, and she knew Abigail. 

“I mean, I guess,” her eyes narrow in suspicion. She looks down at her feet. 

“There’s this barn, Dani,” he starts, “and I need your help. I think you could see her. Tell her for me. With me.” 

Nathan reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small photo. The picture is crinkled at the edges, and the cracks of age splinter from it’s center. He places it on the table, and slides it in Dani’s direction. 

The heat rises in her face, red and sour, like a strawberry baking in the sun. “This is about Abigail again?” Her voice rises in disbelief. “Angela’s daughter?” 

Dani yanks her hand in the air and slams it quickly back down, covering the photo of the beautiful two year old whose tiny body was ravaged by disease. Dani’s palm presses flat and hard over the girl’s angelic face. 

“Dani, please…”  Nathan’s fast disjointed whispers strain against his clenched teeth, “she needs to know I’m so sorry.” 

“Let it go, Nathan!” Dani stands quickly, the heat of her breath hitting Nathan’s face. “For fucks sake, you can’t save everyone. You’re not God.”  She turns, biting the tip of her tongue between her teeth. 

“No,” Nathan drops his forehead to his hands. “But I was her father,” he whispers, heart racing, his fingers clawing at his tear-streaked eyes. 

Dani slams the door behind her, her hand clenching tightly around the handle, she leans her curls against the door. She sighs in resolve, and knows that if she doesn’t help, he’ll never stop looking for someone else.