After she’d returned home from church and switched into a pair of running shorts and a sports bra, Mallory headed outside to go jogging. Mr. Fish had mentioned a series of dirt trails in the woods behind the neighborhood, and the sunny afternoon looked like a perfect time to familiarize herself with the area.
She left the yard, cut between the homes in back of her own, and found herself at the rear half of the block. A small path cut from the street into the forest. Leaving the pavement behind, she turned right and began jogging through the woods under a thick ceiling of lush tree branches.
Packed tight beneath the footfalls of countless travelers and worn flat by the abrasive touch of speeding bicycle tires, the ground along the path created a smooth tunnel-like passage beneath the trees. Forks branched from the main trail every so often, but on all sides a dense net of plant life blocked her view of anything beyond.
The close-knit greenery gave her a sense of isolation that she found perfect for clearing her thoughts, a calm she used to ponder the new developments concerning her old classmate, Derrick Nolan. Until last night, Derrick had always seemed unattainable to her, a person she could only dream about. Maybe all that was going to change?
Rounding a small knoll, her train of thought switched tracks, and she found herself wondering what Rebecca’s son, Tim, might be like. What if he proved an even better find than Derrick? It would certainly put a positive spin on the moving experience to find a cute guy waiting for a girlfriend.
Who knows? It could happen.
Lost in thought, it took her a second to notice how the dirt path had diminished to nothing more than a game trail. The forest leaned in on both sides.
Crap, I must have taken one of the forks.
She slowed down, about to turn back, when she caught sight of something beyond the trees to her left.
An old barn.
Mallory walked off the trail, pushing aside a curtain of ivy to get a better look.
Blackened by fungus and age, the enormous building sat at the far end of an overgrown field, looking dilapidated and on the verge of collapse. A towering concrete silo stood behind it, its dome top peeking over the barn’s sagging roof like an archaic observatory.
“Cool,” she whispered.
She glanced around, making certain the property was abandoned, then waded through the weeds until she stood before the ramshackle structure. She craned her head upward to take in the sight.
This close, the barn blocked out the sun, and its worn timbers hid in the shadows.
She rubbed her arms to dispel the electrifying chill that arose from her nerves at the thought of seeing a face appear in one of the building’s open windows.
To the left sat the fire-gutted shell of a two-story farmhouse, half-hidden by trees. To the right, a collection of tin henhouses dotted the weeds, all surrounded by the drooping remains of a rusty barbed wire fence.
She noticed spray-paint graffiti decorated the silo’s base with the names of those who’d visited here and felt the need to leave their mark, but none of the writing could keep her gaze from returning to the open front doors of the barn.
Mallory stepped up to the threshold and stopped. She panned her gaze from one side of the open main chamber to the next, sweeping the scene from the dusty floor to the high, hole-speckled ceiling.
She took her first tentative step forward, moving inside as if entering a forbidden tomb guarded by malevolent spirits.
Wide horse stalls took up most of the space to each side of the lower room, their wood walls dotted with insect burrows and rot. High above a wheeled rope and pulley hung from a rusty track along the central crossbeam. It appeared someone had added a new rope to the old contraption and turned it into a ride of some sort, using the wheeled runner to slide back and forth between the two open haylofts at either end of the building.
Uncertain whether the upper levels were safe or not, Mallory stuck to the ground level. She picked her way through the rubble littering the floor, occasionally kicking over a fallen wall panel to see what lay beneath it or prodding at suspicious bits of trash and mentally reconstructing how they had gotten into the barn.
The shadows deepened the farther she went, wrapping her in a cool embrace.
At the rear of the building she found a wooden storage bin in the far right corner. An open metal chute jutted from the wall directly above the bin—probably connected to the silo, she guessed—and inside the opening she discovered a host of writing scrawled across the sheet metal in permanent black marker.
Jennifer Johnson sucks dog cocks!
Go Green: Smoke weed.
HB loves JD
After making sure she wouldn’t step in anything gross, she climbed into the empty bin and stepped up to the chute for a closer look. She peered into the dark.
The rectangular passage extended upward at an incline into blackness, with the far end barely visible in the murk. The messages appeared to continue for the full length of the chute, hundreds upon hundreds of them, no doubt left by local teens over the years.
Mallory scanned the writing closest to her, sometimes having to guess at the words where one note overlapped another. She read proclamations of love, giggled at dirty jokes, and frowned at the occasional racial slur or homophobic remark. Drawings accompanied many of the notes, and they sometimes included phone numbers or web sites. She spotted peace signs and swastikas, hearts and skulls, naked cartoon people drawn with oversized boobs or gigantic penises.
She read almost two dozen messages before spotting a familiar name among the clutter: Tim Fleming.
Mallory’s eyes widened.
The last part of the name was scribbled over by the thatch of doodle-lady spreading her legs, but Mallory was sure she had the name right. The last half of the message reappeared on the other side of the drawing, and her brow furrowed when she put the two together, whispering the words aloud.
“Tim Fleming… is a dickless faggot.”
Mallory stared at the message, cringing with disgust. She read it again and recalled her meeting with Rebecca. The woman seemed nice enough, but that didn’t mean her son would be the same. Obviously he wasn’t too well liked by someone. And she had already agreed to hang out with him later in the day.
She looked up, into the chute, searching the messages a little farther inside.
And found another bearing Tim’s name.
Tim Flemwad is a pussy.
She looked to the left wall.
Tim Flemwad takes it up the ass.
To the right.
Tim Flemwad licks shit.
She counted twenty notes with Tim’s name, but the ink was faded and scratched, written over in some parts. The freshest-looking message lay just out of reach, but what little she could see of it told her that it promised to be the juiciest bit of info yet.
Tim Fleming Loves…
Mallory groaned, unable to read the rest.
“Who? Tim Fleming loves who?”
Due to the incline of the chute the last half of the message vanished into shadow. Even on her tip-toes, she couldn’t see what it said.
“Damn.”
She couldn’t help wanting to know the rest. It was like a sitcom at this point. And here, obviously, was the source of the whole conflict, teasing her like cliffhanger ending.
She rested her hands on the lip of the chute, testing its strength. She looked up. Obviously the metal was strong enough to hold the weight of those who had ventured inside to leave their tag on this makeshift bulletin board, and all the newer messages seemed to be farther up. Perhaps one of them would reveal the name of the mystery girl Tim loved and shed light on the reason for so many hateful comments about him?
After one last moment of contemplation, she climbed inside and crawled upward.
Up and up she went, getting closer and closer, but now her own shadow was blocking the light, and she couldn’t fully see the entire message until she was almost on top of it. Then, finally, mercifully, she discovered the final piece of the message.
Tim Fleming Loves… Fucking Donkeys.
Mallory rolled her eyes.
“I crawled all the way up here for THAT?”
She expelled her frustration in a single long breath, not wanting to think of how dirty she’d gotten, especially now that it was all for nothing. The upper opening of the chute waited just a few yards ahead, letting in a little more light, and she inched along toward it, searching the writing for more mention of Tim. She found plenty, but nothing that explained the anger behind the messages.
She reached the top of the chute.
Switching interests, Mallory wondered what the inside of the silo looked like, imagining it as a huge archive of spray paint and ink.
She leaned into the dank air of the silo’s interior, looking around to see what she could make out in the gloom.
The second she did, the foul stench of rot overpowered her senses.
She gagged and coughed with each lungful, involuntarily clutching her nose when she reeled away from the stink. With a moan of disgust, she twisted around to slide back down the chute, but with all her weight pressed on the unsupported edge at the opening, the sheet metal bent and the section she sat on tore away from the wall, spilling her backward.
Into the silo.
The world blurred into gray and black, rushing past her like a midnight wind.
I’m dead! I’m dead! I’m going to die!
She hit the ground before her fear transformed into a scream, landing on her back atop a carpet of moist soil and damp leaves.
She lay motionless, staring skyward. A brilliant beam of sunlight pierced the gloom from a missing panel in the silo’s domed roof, and she squinted her eyes against it, realizing she was unhurt.
No broken bones. No twisted limbs.
Groaning, she pushed herself to a sitting position.
The stench of death still polluted the air, and she slapped a hand over her mouth and nose to block it out.
Ugh! That’s sick, she thought. I have to get out of here!
She glanced up, searching for the chute opening, praying it wasn’t too high to reach, when she spotted something swinging in the shadows overhead.
Looking closer, she spotted a taut rope hanging from the highest reaches of the dome. Following the line with her gaze, she began to make out shapes in the murky chamber overhead: a pair of brown work boots hovering thirty feet off the floor; two legs dangling in the darkness; a hand sleeved in shadow.
Mallory’s hand dropped away from her mouth. Her body stiffened.
She saw where the rope ended in a noose, the frayed tether partially concealed behind a white face that gazed down with empty eyes.
A scream exploded from her throat. It bounced off the cold walls encircling her, amplified by the concrete. A flock of birds burst into flight, rushing from a hidden roost within the silo’s upper structure. The beat of their wings overpowered Mallory’s cry, and transient shadows darted across the dead man’s body as they flew out of the dome.
Mallory wailed again, pulling her knees up to her chest, miserably realizing no one could hear her.
Oh, God! The smell, that awful smell!
She inhaled to scream again when she spotted tufts of cloth and grass protruding from the corpse’s clothing. Her eyes adjusted to the light as she stared, and now she noticed wire secured around the dead man’s wrists and ankles, holding his boots and gloves in place. Duct tape bound a long and rusty kitchen knife in his right hand.
What kind of person would hang himself while holding a kitchen knife?
“It’s not real,” she whispered to herself. “It’s just some dumb prank.”
She stood up and took a second, longer look at the slack white face above. This time she saw a rubber mask instead of someone’s head, a stupid Halloween prop probably purchased for under ten bucks at any WalMart or Target store.
Shifting her gaze from the hanging dummy, she searched the floor and found the remains of a small animal—maybe a raccoon or a woodchuck—not far away, which had to be the source of the stench in the air. More importantly, she also discovered a small access hatch in the silo’s wall, outlined by glorious yellow sunlight.
“Thank God,” she whispered.
Wiping tears from her cheeks, she walked toward the door.
Overhead, a strong wind pushed through the hole in the silo’s rooftop and swirled down the concrete walls, turning the dummy just enough so that its hollow eye sockets seemed to track Mallory’s movements across the room.
The sight of it caused her bravery to vanish like a ghost.
She spun away, pushed the hatch open, and squeezed out into the warm daylight.
She didn’t stop running until she’d traveled beyond sight of the silo.