18 #3
And with that bewildering explanation, he set off toward the barn again.
The smell of dry rot was stronger as they neared the structure.
At one point, the plank walls had probably been painted red, but all that was left were pale strips curling away from the wood.
The gable doors were held shut with a massive drop bar, but a judas door was partially ajar.
Above, the loft doors and windows were open.
A crow perched on an empty frame, turning in place as it watched Tean and Jem, obviously trying to decide what to do.
When they reached the barn, Jem put a hand on the door and pushed. It rocked inward. And the wind stopped.
It didn’t dip. It didn’t lighten. There was no sense of fading, or the force weakening.
The wind just stopped, completely and absolutely, and in its absence, there was too much silence.
The sounds that remained—the murmur of the creek, the scuff of an animal moving in the brush, the creak of the judas door’s hinges—were too loud.
Jem shivered and muttered what might have been “Fuck me.”
Then he pushed the judas door again, the hinges screeching, and went inside.
When Tean followed, something was moving overhead—the skittering of claws on wood. Then the hinges protested again, and the judas door fell back into place. And then it was just the sound of him and Jem breathing.
The barn’s interior wasn’t dark. A loft door was open on the far end, letting in the white sunlight.
But it was gloomy, as though everything inside the structure was determined to resist the light as much as possible.
The breezeway was empty except for a scattering of old hay, but on either side, the stalls made pockets of shadow, and the storage area under the loft was dark as well.
No equipment was stored here. No livestock.
No sign that anyone might be camping here and using the structure to stay out of sight.
The chemically sweet scent of gasoline, maybe kerosene, still hung in the air—spilled fuel, or perhaps they’d stored old machinery in here at one point. Beneath it was the smell of decay.
Jem made a face and spat.
“Something might have had its den here,” Tean said.
Jem didn’t say anything. After a moment, he took out his phone and turned on the flashlight.
Tean copied him. They moved down the breezeway, checking the stalls as they passed.
Each stall had a Dutch door that provided exterior access; that was a good touch, and it would have made it easy to turn the animals out into a paddock or for grazing or however they’d run their operation.
The upper and lower halves of the doors had shifted over the years, no longer hanging square, and light filtered through the gaps—the stalls weren’t as dark as they’d seemed at first glance.
Disintegrating straw. Dried horse dung. The hint of animal smells under the stronger stench of rot was like an echo of another world.
The tack room had been stripped down to the studs, and in the washroom, a fixed kettle had oxidized to a scaly gray.
The stink was getting worse.
“Fuh,” Jem said, pulling up his coat to cover his nose and mouth.
He stopped at the ladder that led to the loft.
Beyond him, the shadowy storage area under the loft looked like it might have held a few old boxes and barrels.
A thin line of light suggested where the gable doors opened at the far end of the barn.
It was the echoes. It was the stench, but it was also the echoes—there had been so many echoes. Dissonances, too, but more echoes than not. Kai’s childhood compared to Rydel’s. The surreal experience of moving through each man’s home. And now this. The barn.
Because, in Rydel’s barn, they had found a body.
Tean moved into the shadows under the loft. He moved the phone back and forth. Shadows jumped, but there were only a few wooden crates, a stack of collapsing cardboard boxes, and six barrels lined up in a neat row.
Lined up across the breezeway. Blocking the path.
Tean moved toward the first barrel. The smell of decay was stronger, and now he copied Jem, bringing his coat up to cover his nose and mouth. It was a large plastic barrel, the kind a frugal homeowner might use to store rainwater. Fifty-five gallons, maybe. Blue. The top had not been sealed.
He used the edge of his phone to nudge the lid. It slid off the barrel and hit the floor with a clatter.
The stench rolled up.
“What—” Jem began.
Burns covered her face, and her lips had been cut away.
The eyes, cloudy now, stared up at the loft.
She’d been shoved inside the barrel, forced to fit, and one arm was upright, as though she were reaching to pull herself out.
The fingers on that hand had been broken.
One had been severed at the first knuckle.
Another had been severed at the second. The cuts were ragged—done with a tool not meant for the job.
On other fingers, the nails had been ripped out.
Burns showed on the sensitive skin between the digits.
All of that registered as Tean stood there, unable to move. And then he took a step back and turned away and breathed sharply through his nose.
Jem’s shoes whispered against the floor. And then the sound stopped. “Jesus Christ.”
“Don’t touch anything,” Tean made himself say.
“No shit.” But then Jem said, “These other barrels—”
“Don’t touch them.” He realized he was hunched, as though he might be sick, and he made himself stand up straight. “Don’t touch anything.”
“Hold on,” Jem said. “You know who that is?”
Tean opened his mouth. But then an unfamiliar smell made him stop. Angling away from the barrels, he took another breath.
Smoke.
And there, licking up along the walls at the far end of the barn: fire.