The Chicken Shed

I was pretty young when I first started reading the old murder mysteries that my Grandma had stock piled in the book shelves of my Aunt’s old bedroom. My Aunt, being the only girl in the family, had the biggest room in my Grandparent’s house. Thin lace curtains covered the beautiful old windows, more for decoration than to really keep any light out. In the middle of the room stood a big, canopied bed fitted with lace edged sheets and multiple family heirloom quilts, most likely made by the hands of my Great Grandmother. Every summer my sister and I would huddle together in the middle of that giant bed, reading books far past our age limit. We would lay staring wide eyed at the overhanging canopy late into the night, too chilled to move or even let our feet dangle dangerously over the edges of our bed. Every hour the grandfather clock that stood in the hallway on the first floor would chime out it’s tune; sending shivers down my spine.

My Grandparent’s house, a beautiful traditional East Coast home, was located on a hill with nothing but an expanse of forest stretching beyond it’s back porch and wood piles. My cousins, far less afraid of the forest than I, would tease that one day we would sneak into the old chicken shed, that my Grandfather warned was decayed and long since abandoned, just to see if the floors would cave in. At night I would gather my courage and peek out of the lace curtains determined to catch some more sinister activity coming from the chicken shed. Was it a mass murderer who lived in that shed, or a ghost? The old shed looming on the hill enveloped in the blackness of the forest, never failed to send me jumping back into the warmth of my quilts and snuggle down further into the depths of the sheets.

Summers in West Virginia are not like the sunny, hot and calm California summers I was accustomed to. They were fraught with hot and muggy thunder storms, rain and even lighting at night. At dusk the fireflies would disappear with the first signs of a storm and my windows would rattle with the howling winds and scraping tree branches outside. Thin branches like long and sinister fingers would scrape our bedroom windows, casting menacing shadows on the walls.

I never did see the ghosts or murderers I was convinced lurked in my Grandparents chicken shed. To this day I can still feel the icy trickle of fear that would run down my spine each night  during those summers spent reading murder mysteries, in my Aunt’s old bed, waiting for the murderer to strike! – Leah

Hope you have a very happy, and suspenseful Halloween.

{Short story by Leah Bergman // Original photo source unkown}