When I was a boy, my two best friends, Robby and Melanie, loved nothing more than to sneak into Old Walter’s barn.
Old Walter had once been a farmer, the biggest one in our small town, but had long since retired. By now, all that remained of his former glory was his old farmhouse and the enormous barn next to it.
This barn was our prime destination during the scorching afternoons of a certain summer break years ago.
Old Walter didn’t like the idea of kids wreaking havoc in his barn and kept it locked all day, every day. We were crafty though, and the barn was as withered a thing as the old man himself. Small nooks and crannies were everywhere, allowing us to sneak in as we saw fit.
We loved to search through all the old tools and belongings inside, hoping to find hidden treasures.
What we loved the most, however, was the old haystack at the barn’s back. We build little nests and huts, or dug into its outer layer.
Our favorite thing by far, however, was The Jump. The Jump was as simple as it could be. You’d climb up on one of the barn’s many beams, and from there you’d plunge yourself down into the giant stack below.
It was exhilarating, and to this day, I still remember us all jumping down there, screaming and laughing as if mad.
Old Walter, however, wouldn’t have any of it.
If he caught us inside his barn, he’d curse at as and chase us out. Should he find us jumping into the haystack though, he’d be furious, his angry tirade reminiscent of that of a sailor’s.
Thinking back, I don’t remember any of the insults he hurled at us. Yet there was one thing he always spat at us in his rage. His rheumy eyes would be wide, saliva would be flying from his mouth, and his fake teeth would chatter in his mouth.
“One day, you’ll get lost in there!”
I remember how we’d laugh at that as we ran from him. How’d you get lost in a stack of hay? The old man was full of bullocks, as we called it. All he was trying to do was to keep us from having fun!
Now, Old Walter might have been old, but he was far from stupid. He knew what we were up to, and even if he didn’t catch us, he tried his best to keep us out of his barn. Yet for every nook he closed off, and every cranny he fixed, we found a dozen more. Even better, there were a lot of loose, old boards we could simply pull aside to enter.
One day, Robby and I were waiting at the local soccer field. Melanie was late, and we were getting annoyed.
When she arrived, a little boy, a few years younger than us, followed her.
“This is Terrance,” she started. “He’s here with his parents for the summer and wants to play with us.”
“City folk,” I mumbled under my breath, repeating my father’s words.
People from the city were common in our small town. Countless people from nearby cities had built small summer cabins and vacation homes near our small town to spend the warm months of summer here.
Some locals weren’t too fond of these ‘rich city folks,’ my father being one of them. As is so common with kids, I soaked up his hatred and superstition, not understanding a thing. All I knew was that city folk were to be scorned.
Robby, of course, was the same and seemed even less happy about Melanie’s little companion.
Still, it was Melanie who’d brought him along, and we were at this delicate age when we started to see her with different eyes. So, of course, we didn’t mouth up, and grudgingly let the little boy come along.
“Hey Andy, how about we show him the barn?” Melanie suddenly asked. “You wanna go, right, Terrance?”
The little boy nodded eagerly, but I couldn’t help but be annoyed. The barn was our place, our secret hideout.
“It’s not for city folk,” I mumbled, looking over at Robby for support.
“Don’t be such a baby, Andy!” Melanie chided me.
Before long, both Robby and I agreed with her, and we set out.
A good ten minutes later, we arrived at Old Walter’s farm. For a while, we stayed on the lookout until we saw the old man sitting on a bench in his garden. The coast was clear, and we instantly rushed to our destination.
I quickly found a loose plank and pushed it aside. Melanie was first to enter, followed by Robby.
Terrance, however, didn’t move, and I turned around, glaring at him.
“Isn’t that breaking in? My parents always tell me I’m not-“
“Well, your stupid parents aren’t here, are they? But if you don’t wanna come, that’s fine. We’ll just go on our own.”
He shuffled around for a moment before he hurried past me and pushed himself inside.
“Oh wow,” I heard him gasp next to Melanie. “It’s pretty cool, isn’t it?” she whispered to him.
The barn was huge from the outside, but its inside always seemed so much bigger. It wasn’t, of course, but it seemed that way because of all the things the old man had stored in here.
As we snuck around, Melanie laid open the barn’s many secrets and mysteries to our young visitor.
I didn’t like it one bit. When Melanie showed him the little hideout we’d built from hay bales at the right side of the barn, I’d had it.
“How about we do the jump?” I asked in a loud, excited voice.
“What’s the jump?” Terrance’s high-pitched voice piped up from inside the hideout before the little boy hurried over to me.
“The Jump,” I started, in the most official voice a twelve-year-old can muster, “is a jump into the hay stack over there.”
As I said it, my finger wandered to the beam we usually jumped from, but then continued on to a different one, the highest one near the roof of the barn.
“From the highest beam in the barn,” I added with a smirk on my face.
Robby answered me with a smirk of his own.
“Yeah, a jump from the very highest one into the hay below!”
“Hey, that’s not-“ Melanie started, but I cut her off right away, relishing my new position as leader.
“Anyone who’s part of our group has done it! It’s our official initiation! You wanna be part of our group? You have to do the jump. Otherwise, you can’t play with us anymore.”
“Stop being a dick, Andy,” Melanie called out, but I ignored her.
Instead, my eyes wandered to the little boy. He wasn’t listening anymore, but was looking at the hay stack and then further up. Higher and higher his eyes went before they came to rest on the highest beam in the barn. I could see how his little eyes grew wide, could see him gulp, but then he nodded.
Getting up there was easy enough. We found one of Old Walter’s ladders, propped it up against the beam and ascended.
It took no longer than five minutes before all four of us had made it to the top.
“You don’t have to,” Melanie whispered at Terrance.
When I heard this, I grinned.
“Yeah, you can just go back home to your parents and stay at your stupid cabin.”
Yet Terrance didn’t react. Instead, he was staring down at the giant stack of hay below.
“Well, what’s the matter, little baby? Not gonna jump?” I called out with the biggest grin on my face.
I watched as he shuffled around awkwardly. The fear was visible on his young face.
“I don’t wanna anymore,” he said in a low voice. “It’s scary.”
“Oh my god, what’s the big deal?” Robby started. “There’s like a billion tons of hay down there! We’ve jumped into it so many times, and nothing ever happened!”
Yet Terrance was inching back from the edge of the beam. All the color had vanished from his face, his lips were quivering, and he seemed close to a state of panic.
“There’s something down there, and-“
He didn’t get to finish his sentence, because Robby had moved forward and given him a push, annoyed at the boy’s lack of courage.
For a moment, Terrance was balancing at the edge, grabbing at the air in front of him before he fell backwards.
A high-pitched shriek cut through the air, filling the entire barn. For a moment, I saw his wide eyes and terrified face before the hay swallowed him up. His scream cut off the moment he vanished, and silence descended upon the barn.
Robby and I were laughing our asses off while Melanie called us stupid.
Eventually, our laughter ebbed away, and we kept staring at the hay below.
“Hey, where’d you go, city boy? You can come out now!”
“Terrance, you okay?” Melanie called out as well.
“Good work, pipsqueak,” Robbie added, still grinning.
Yet no one answered our calls, and the giant stack of hay remained still.
Melanie hurried down the ladder, looking around to find where he’d landed. All the while, Robby and I continued to call out to him from the top, telling him it had all been a joke. By now, we were getting worried.
Our worries turned to fear when the heavy barn doors burst open and Old Walter stormed inside.
“Now what did I tell you, you damn troublemakers? You’re not supposed to be in here! I dare you. If you don’t leave this instant, I’ll give you the beating of a lifetime!”
With that, he picked up a wooden stick and waved it around while his angry, rheumy eyes focused on each one of us.
Robby hurried down the ladder, making his way to where we’d entered from.
I was about to follow him, but then stopped, my eyes wandering to Melanie, who still hadn’t moved.
“He’s not coming out,” she mumbled, her eyes meeting mine.
“Who is?” the old man demanded, as his heavy steps led him towards us.
“The little boy,” she started.
“Terrance, one of the city kids. He jumped down into the hay, but he’s not coming out,” I added.
“Oh, you dumb little… How many times did I tell you it was dangerous? How many times? Did you see anything sticking out from the top? Like a piece of wood or something? Anything he might have landed on?”
“No, Mister Walter, nothing. It was all normal, just like yesterday, and nothing happened to us then!”
At the words yesterday, he squinted his eyes at me, but let it slide a moment later.
“No, but he said he saw something down there. I don’t know…” Robby, who’d snuck back in, added.
The old man jerked toward him, and a tirade of curses escaped his mouth before he rushed towards the stack of hay, beginning to dig through it feverishly.
I don’t remember many of his words, of his mad, angry ramblings, cursing at us, the barn, and the hay. Yet I remember one thing he said as he tore it aside, throwing heaps of it left and right.
“… just like trying to find a goddamn needle…”
It wasn’t long before the old man realized he couldn’t do this alone. At first, he called over his wife to help before he told us to head over to the neighbors to explain the situation.
We did as we were told, especially under the threat of being responsible for what had happened.
Before long, more than a dozen people had gathered, us included, all taking away the hay and putting it outside.
The work continued for hours, and the sun had already started setting when we’d cleared it, and the back of the barn was finally empty.
Yet there was nothing there.
There was no hint of the little boy named Terrance. We saw no wood or rubble below the hay he might have hit, no trap door he might have fallen through.
No, there was only the barren, empty floor of the barn.
