This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/JohnEv10 on 2024-10-14 06:43:04+00:00.
I don’t know where else to post this, I’ve been thinking about what to do for weeks now and I can’t seem to shake this eerie feeling I’m being watched.
I like looking at old barns and sometimes if they look decent enough I will look inside too. I find some cool stuff here and there and sometimes I can sell what I find. I found a milk bottle one time and an antique mall paid me $120 for it.
I saw a barn 2 months ago driving my side by side on a trail my buddy told me about and it stuck with me. It looked almost new but you could tell it had been there over a century, the wood just felt old. It looked like every plank was cut from a tree planted when the world formed.
After some probing I made a plan to do a deep dive into it and see if I could find anything inside worth bringing to the mall. Half a week later I was back at the barn door trying to loosen up the sliding rail enough so I could get in. Eventually after some trial and error I got in and found a huge amount of tires. I wasn’t that surprised because a lot of times in older barns people would just dump crap there they couldn’t figure out how to get rid of.
The loft is usually where I find the goods as most people aren’t willing to climb on wood that might fall apart if you look at it the wrong way. I made a small step of tires and got up the small hay chute only to be greeted by a smell of rot. It was so nasty I gagged so hard I choked on my own breath.
After settling and choking my face with my own arm I found that the loft was much bigger on the inside that it looked like on the outside. It was almost cavernous, kinda felt like the tardis from Dr. Who to be honest. After standing in shock for a bit I turned my headlamp on high and looked around.
There was nothing in this huge space, just loose hay on the ground and that god awful smell. I started walking around trying to remember which way the chute was and found a silo with steps into it.
Older barns had a small silo within it sometimes just to have extra grain or corn storage for winter. Sometimes you could find some cool stuff in it as well but I had never seen one with steps before.
After thinking about it I decided to abandon any thought of going and climbing those steps so I continued onwards. After walking for at least 10 minutes I noticed that the smell never left this place but I was getting used to it by now. I also found that as big as this barn was there was nothing here at all. Nor had it looked like there was anything other than hay up here.
I walked back and even though I knew it was stupid, I did not want to leave without at least looking in the silo.
The first step creaked so loud I jumped off it immediately. I had never been one to be afraid of specters and such but this place had already spooked me by its nature so I was reacting a little more than normal.
After regaining my composure I climbed the steps one by one, cussing myself silently on every step and suddenly got to the top of the silo. I inched my way to look down into it and saw a set of steps that winded to the bottom, a rocking chair with a lantern sitting next to it within.
Of course I had to get down there and look at it, by no means could I let such an odd thing go. I once again cussed myself at every step down praying my battery was still good enough on my headlamp to get back out and just as quickly as I reached the top I reached the bottom.
The smell of rot at the bottom of the silo reached a pinnacle here. It was permanently ingrained into my nose at that point but here it made my eyes water and my nose drip. I quickly looked around and found the chair to be almost dust free but the lantern was thick with it.
I grabbed the lantern handle happily but upon moving it I found it was sitting on top of a small box cut into the floor perfectly. I hooked the lantern handle to my side and opened the box to find an older looking fountain pen and a leather bound journal. I shoved the journal in my bag and put the pen in my pocket.
No later than the pen was put into my pocket did I hear a small noise. Now all of my nightmares could not have come true so quickly and I shut off my light and listened intently to hear the noise be made again. Sitting still at the bottom of that rotten silo was horrible, sitting in the dark made it awful, hearing the noise again right next to me was worse.
I knew I had to leave right then and there so without turning my light back on I started a mad dash up the stairs. I was making so much noise I couldn’t tell if my mind was making up a crawl making chase behind me or not but I was not about to find out.
The steps seemed to be much longer to climb in the dark but eventually I made it to the top and jumped off the silo. Only to fall directly into the hay chute and on top of my step stool of tires. Now the hay chute had been at least a 6 minute walk from the silo but I wasn’t questioning that at the time. I turned on my light and ran to the barn door and out to my side by side.
I booked it out of there and made it back to my truck and trailer without even thinking. I loaded up my side by side and without much celebration threw my stuff in the bed and sped back home. After pulling into my driveway I said a small prayer and maybe cried a hair. I got unloaded and began to look at my loot.
The pen was empty but that wasn’t a surprise since it looked like it was from the 20s. The journal was filled with notes but I couldn’t understand anything written in them as it had really bad handwriting in another language, I recognized the language as Pennsylvania Dutch so I tried an online translator and it gave me this out of a passage I could decipher:
“I grew up in a place that had no name and no station. The mail was delivered weekly, and pa had to ride to go get the mail. Mama had fresh baked goods on the table every day, and my dog liked to lie in the sun. I liked to lie with him sometimes.
I went to school until the sixth grade, “that’s all you need to know,” is what pa said when I came home on my last day. I didn’t understand it, but today it makes clear sense, he wanted to keep me away from society and its understanding of good works so I could make my own conclusions. I know what is good, and I know what good works are. I am writing this now to tell you about my good works so you can follow in my footsteps and finally end me.
Seven summers ago, strange people came to my woods and drove their loud machines through my dry creek. They ran over one of my ducks. I dressed the duck and preserved the fat, then I brought the fat to their campsite after they had laid themselves down and smeared it on their belongings.
I poured gasoline into an opening near their tent and lit it with a smoldering log. As they came out, I watched them run in circles, trying to put out their tent. They screamed at each other, trying to fix the problem.
The first one was easy, she was small and ran away as soon as they left the tent. I caught her and let her bleed. I caught the second one as he was rubbing fat off a flask. I ended him quickly because he was stronger. They realized something was wrong when the second one fell, so I came in and asked what the problem was.
They screamed at me and started running. I caught one after a short chase when she slipped in the woods. The next one tried to get into a machine but couldn’t get the key in. I had jammed fat into the keyhole and over the wheel.
We had a short conversation after I had disabled him. He asked me why I had done it, and I told him to ask himself the same question. All of them were dealt with and brought to the pig when I had time and when it was hungry. I buried the site and took the machine deep into the woods and set it ablaze. When I got home that morning, mama still had a warm pie on the table, and I ate some with ice cream. I knew I deserved it after a good work like mine”
Ive taken some liberties trying to make it understandable and I’m still working on the rest but there are hundreds of pages with terrible penmanship but so far they all seem to talk about this guys “good works”. I keep seeming to run into Amish around town now who I think are looking at me. I am almost for sure I heard a horse and buggy go down my road two nights ago and I feel like I hear animal calls at night that sound off.
I’m scared and I don’t know what to do. I’m thinking of just leaving town for a bit and giving the journal and pen to the next Amish person I see but I don’t know how that would go. I’m just confused and upset about this. A few things that are making me think something is definitely off is how warm that lamp was when I put it in the bed of my truck and how my house is starting to look bigger and smell a bit worse every day. Any advice is appreciated greatly.