The Silo’s Second Tenant

The autumn fair had been a bust. Me, Jake, Priya, Marcus, and Leo had spent the whole evening weaving through the crowd, but the only thing we’d scored were a few stale candy apples and a bag of popcorn that tasted like cardboard. The real haul was supposed to come from the rich neighborhoods, but we’d gotten a late start. So when Leo suggested we crash at his cousin’s farmhouse—the one with the old silo that had been converted into a weird guest room—we all jumped at it. Free candy wasn’t the only reason we’d come; the farmhouse was supposed to be haunted.

We arrived at the farmhouse just as the moon was rising over the cornfields. The place was a fixer-upper: peeling paint, a porch that sagged, and a big, rusted silo that loomed next to the barn. Leo’s cousin, Mira, had left a note taped to the door. ‘Make yourselves at home. Whatever you do, don’t open the silo’s ground-level door. The latch is broken, and the wind gets weird in there. The key is under the mat if you must. But you won’t need it. Just stay out.’

Of course, we ignored her. After we’d raided the pantry for snacks and set up our sleeping bags in the living room, we decided to do a little paranormal investigation. We’d seen a YouTube video about using a Ouija board, but we didn’t have one, so we made our own with a paper towel and a coin. We sat in a circle on the dusty floor, the only light coming from a flickering lantern.

We asked silly questions at first. ‘Is there anyone with us?’ The coin slid to ‘YES.’ ‘What’s your name?’ It spelled ‘M.’ We laughed, thinking it was Leo’s cousin’s name, but Leo said, ‘Mira’s not here, and she wouldn’t mess with us.’ The coin slid to ‘NO.’ Then the lantern flickered and went out. In the dark, we heard a soft rustling, like something sliding down the inside of the silo, just on the other side of the wall.

We froze. ‘Cut it out, Leo,’ Jake said. But Leo was sitting right next to me. The rustling stopped. Then Marcus, who was closest to the door that led to the yard, said, ‘I just saw someone move past the window.’ We all looked, but there was nothing. Then the knob on the silo door rattled. We were all inside, and the door was locked.

We bolted to the front door, fumbled with the locks, and tumbled outside, shrieking. We ran to the barn and hid behind an old tractor. When we caught our breath, we realized Leo was missing. We called his name, but the only answer was the wind through the corn. Then we saw a flashlight beam bobbing on the ground near the silo. It was Leo, standing at the base of the silo, staring at the ground-level door.

‘Leo!’ we yelled. He turned, and his face was pale. ‘I heard my name,’ he said. ‘From inside the silo. It sounded like my grandmother.’ We didn’t know what to think. We tried the door, but it was locked. Then we remembered the key under the mat. We got it, and after a lot of arguing, we decided to open it. The door swung open with a groan, revealing a steep ladder leading up into darkness.

We climbed up, one by one, our heartbeats thumping in our ears. The silo was damp and smelled of old grain and something else—something like burnt sugar. At the top, there was a small platform covered in a thick layer of dust. But in the center, the dust was disturbed, as if someone had been lying there. There was also an old doll, propped against the wall, its glass eyes reflecting our flashlight.

Marcus picked up the doll. Its dress was stained, and it had a name tag sewn in the collar: ‘M.’ ‘That’s Mira’s old doll,’ Leo whispered. ‘She said she lost it years ago.’ As Leo spoke, the doll’s head turned slowly to face him. We all saw it. We screamed and scrambled down the ladder, but Leo tripped at the bottom, and the doll fell from his hands, clattering into the dirt. We left it there and barricaded the door with a heavy wooden beam.

We spent the rest of the night in the living room, not sleeping, listening to the wind. When dawn came, we decided we had to leave. But as we were packing up, we heard a voice from the silo—a child’s voice, singing a nursery rhyme we all remembered from our childhood: ‘Ring around the rosie, pockets full of posies…’ The singing grew louder, and then the latch on the silo door started to rattle, even though the wooden beam was still in place. We grabbed our stuff and ran to the car. As we drove away, I looked back and saw a small figure standing in the silo’s doorway, holding the doll. It waved.

Mira called us later that day, her voice crackling over the phone. ‘You went in the silo, didn’t you?’ We admitted it. She sighed. ‘That was your fault. I should have told you… something lives in there. It’s not the old woman that haunts the farm. It’s something that’s been there longer. It likes to play games. And now it knows your names. It will follow you. It always finds new friends.’

We haven’t seen it yet, but we’ve heard it. A rustling, just at the edge of hearing. A child’s laugh, just around the corner. And every night, when we try to sleep, we see that small figure in our mind’s eye, waving goodbye from the silo’s door. It knows our names now. And it’s patient.