The Creature in the Barn

My friend said the monster first appeared six years ago. "I was in the barn late one night, rearranging bales of hay. I heard a noise, just like nails being pulled out of a board by a claw hammer. I looked out over the edge of the haystack but saw nothing."

The only light in the barn came from a single lantern hanging on the wall, my friend continued. Most of the interior was in shadow. He peered cautiously into the darkness. There it was again—that sound!

The farmer took the lantern from the wall and held it aloft. Once again, his keen eyes searched the dark interior of the barn. Nothing.

"A coon," he said to himself. Raccoons were always getting into his barn and making mischief. He returned the lantern to the hook on the wall and continued his work.

A few minutes later, the farmer heard another noise—this time coming from the hayloft where he was working. He turned just in time to see a black, glistening creature lunge across the hay bales and take a swing at him with long, sharp claws. The farmer turned to protect himself and felt a searing pain across his back. Then he was knocked down.

"I must have been knocked out," he remembered, "because when I finally opened my eyes, it was morning. My shirt was bloody and my back felt like a carved Thanksgiving turkey.

"The doctor said I must have tangled with a bear, but I don't think so. I think what attacked me was something else—much worse than any bear!"

My friend said he got only a glimpse of the creature, but he said it didn't look like a bear.

"It was low and squat. The eyes were huge and staring—something like a fish. And those claws were immense!"

Then the farmer said, "I want to show you something." With that he pulled off his shirt and showed me his back. Running across diagonally were three angry scars that looked just like claw marks.

"I don't know why the thing didn't finish me off while I was lying there unconscious," he said. "I must have been out for a couple hours, at least."

Two days after the incident, word of the farmer's encounter with the strange creature spread throughout the neighborhood. Of course, few people believed him. But that didn't stop neighbors from investigating the barn personally—especially the teenagers.

"It was all I could do to keep them away. I even called the law, but they couldn't spend all their time trying to keep people away from my barn."

Late one night, three teenagers finally crept into the barn. No one knows what happened, but since then no other young people have tried to find the creature.

"It was really odd. They wouldn't talk about what happened. But they must have told someone, because there were no more trespassers after that.

"I think they must have seen the same thing that I did and warned the others to stay away."