The Frozen Barn

July 15, 2015

by Ephraim

4 min read

Story Premise 4 min read (634 words)

"The blizzard had been howling for two days, trapping our group of thirty in the old Kessler barn on the outskirts of Havenwood. The wooden beams groaned under the weight of snow, and the only light came from a single lantern that flickered with dying hope. My friends and I had ventured out into the […]"

The blizzard had been howling for two days, trapping our group of thirty in the old Kessler barn on the outskirts of Havenwood. The wooden beams groaned under the weight of snow, and the only light came from a single lantern that flickered with dying hope. My friends and I had ventured out into the storm to find firewood, but the whiteout swallowed us, and we stumbled back to the barn half-frozen, our minds rattled by what we’d seen in the trees: two glowing amber orbs, unblinking, watching us from the snow.

As we burst through the side door, a scream tore through the barn, a high, thin wail that didn’t sound human. The girls who had stayed behind were huddled in the hayloft, pointing at the far corner where the shadows pooled thick as oil. Something had been moving there, they said, something with limbs too long and joints that bent backward. It had whispered their names, but the voices were wrong, like the sound of ice cracking in a deep freeze.

We tried to calm them, but fear is contagious, and soon the whole barn was a hive of trembling bodies and hushed prayers. A crunch outside made us freeze. Soft footsteps, deliberate, circling the barn. The lantern flame bent toward the wall, as if a presence was drawing the air from the room. Then the scraping began—long fingernails dragging along the planks, searching for a way in.

I grabbed a pitchfork, and my friend Marcus found a rusted axe. We pressed our backs to the wall, facing the door. A quiet chuckle, low and wet, came from the loft above us. We spun around, but nothing was there, only a slight sway in the hanging ropes and a fresh drop of black liquid on the floor. The thing was already inside.

It moved like a sheet of darkness over the floor, and when it reached the center, it stood up. It was humanoid, but its skin was pale as mold, and its eyes were those same amber orbs, now wide and hungry. It tilted its head, and its mouth opened too wide, revealing rows of needle-thin teeth. It spoke, but not with a voice—the words formed in our minds, cold and slithery: ‘Why do you run? I only want to share the cold.’

We threw everything we had—pitchfork, axe, lantern—but they passed through it like smoke. The thing reached out a hand, and the air around it shimmered. The girl who had screamed first, Lena, started convulsing, her eyes rolling back. She opened her mouth, and a pale blue light shot out, spiraling into the creature’s palm. It was feeding on her warmth, her life.

In desperation, I remembered the iron cross that hung above the door, forgotten in the clutter. I tore it down and shoved it into the creature’s chest. It screeched, a sound that shattered the glass in the windows, and retreated into the loft, hissing. The barn went silent, save for Lena’s ragged breathing. We thought we’d won.

But as we gathered around her, she sat up, and her eyes were now a different shade—pale amber, like the thing that had touched her. She smiled, but it was not her smile. ‘The cold is patient,’ she said, and the lantern went out. The last thing we heard was the sound of her bones breaking and bending, reshaping into something wrong.

Now we wait, huddled in the dark, listening to the creature outside, and the thing that used to be Lena, circling us from the loft. The blizzard shows no sign of stopping, and we know, in the marrow of our bones, that the cold is not a force of nature. It is a hunger, and it has found our shelter.

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