The following day, Richard was up before dawn. He rummaged through his garage with deliberate care, setting aside a sturdy notebook, two flashlights—a dependable old Maglite and a compact LED version—some rope, and other odds and ends that might be helpful. He made sure to replace the batteries and set the extras aside. Joy watched from the garage’s threshold, sniffing curiously at his tools and wagging her tail when he held up a coil of rope with a grin as if to say, We’re going prepared this time, girl.

  Just after breakfast, Richard and Joy headed into town. Joy now sported a snug harness with several small pouches. Inside were her essentials: a handful of dog treats, her favorite rubber chew toy, and a tiny LED clip-light so she’d have her illumination source. Another pocket held a discreet AirTag, ensuring that Richard could track his faithful companion using his phone if they ever got separated in the confusion of that old barn. As they walked through the quiet morning streets, Joy’s harness jingled softly, giving her the air of a seasoned explorer.

  Their first stop was Fred’s Hardware, a well-worn storefront that smelled of sawdust and machine oil. It was a mainstay in town, run by Fred—an older man with a bushy mustache—but often staffed by his teenage grandson, Connor, who handled weekend shifts.

  Inside, the bell above the door chimed softly as they stepped in. Richard looked around at the neat rows of tools, paint cans, and gardening supplies. Connor, a lanky kid with earbuds dangling around his neck, glanced up from behind the counter. He pushed his bleached-blond hair aside and broke into a lopsided grin.

  “Hey, Mr. K,” he greeted. “Haven’t seen you in a while. What can I get you?”

  Richard approached Joy, padding beside him. “Morning, Connor. Doing well?”

  “Can’t complain,” Connor said, leaning forward on the counter. He reached down to scratch Joy behind the ears. “What’s up with the gear? You two going camping or something?”

  Richard gave a knowing smile. “Not exactly camping. I need a pry bar, some batteries, and a cap light—one of those LED attachments I can clip to a hat brim.”

  Connor raised his eyebrows. “Sounds like a late-night project.”

  “You could say that.” Richard tried to keep it casual, but Connor was no fool—he’d also heard the rumors circulating in town. “We’re taking a closer look at the Thompson barn.”

  Connor’s eyes widened. “No way. Are you seriously going out there? People say it’s haunted or that aliens have been sighted. I mean, crazy stuff, right?”

  Richard chuckled, though the tension from the previous evening still lingered at the back of his mind. “I’m not sure about aliens, but we saw some strange lights and heard something… mechanical. Let’s just say I want to be ready when I go back.”

  Joy let out a soft bark as if in agreement, and Connor snorted with amusement. “Joy’s in on this too, huh?” He smiled at the Chiweenie’s rigged-up harness, giving the small LED light a curious tap. “You two are like the town’s own detective team.”

  “That’s the idea,” Richard admitted. “Now, about that pry bar and cap-light?”

  Connor nodded and slipped out from behind the counter. He led Richard down an aisle lined with wrenches and hammers before reaching a pegboard display of pry bars. He selected a medium-sized one, sturdy but manageable. Then he guided Richard to a spinning rack of small gadgets: headlamps, belt holsters, and finally, the perfect clip-on LED light for Richard’s cap.

  “Here you go,” Connor said, handing the items over. “And batteries are over by the register.”

  Arms now full, Richard followed Connor back to the front. As Connor scanned the items, he lowered his voice. “Be careful out there, Mr. H. People say a lot of weird stuff goes on at that barn. I’ve heard stories of humming noises and strange footprints in the mud. Not everyone comes back bragging—some just come back quiet, like they saw something they can’t explain.”

  Richard met the teenager’s gaze and offered a reassuring smile. “I appreciate the concern, Connor. Don’t worry, Joy and I know when to keep our distance if things get dicey.”

  Connor nodded and slid the bag across the counter. “I’d ask for a full report when you get back, but… maybe I’d rather not know,” he joked, though the slight tremor in his voice told Richard the barn’s reputation spooked the kid.

  Richard chuckled softly, accepting the package. “We’ll let you know if we turn up anything safe and ordinary. If not, well, maybe the less said, the better.”

  With that, he tucked the bag under his arm and gave Connor a nod. Joy gave a happy “woof,” her tail wagging, ready to go. Outside, the morning had brightened. The early sunlight felt reassuring on Richard’s shoulders as he headed back to the car, Joy trotting along at his side.

  Now equipped with rope, lights, a pry bar, and a quiet determination, Richard felt more prepared. He and Joy would return to that old barn tonight—or perhaps late in the afternoon before dusk set in. This time, they wouldn’t just witness flickering lights and mysterious hums. They’d be investigators, ready to uncover the truth behind the Thompson barn’s curious secret.

  Armed with his freshly purchased gear and the items he’d gathered from home, Richard returned to the Thompson estate later that same morning. He parked the Explorer in the grassy clearing where he’d left it the night before and made his way toward the barn with Joy trotting beside him. In the crisp daylight, the old structure looked far less intimidating. The warped boards and peeling paint seemed more a sign of time’s slow decay than any lurking menace. For a brief moment, Richard almost laughed at himself for having been so unsettled the previous evening. Indeed, those strange lights and noises had been something simple—perhaps a distant helicopter or a low-flying plane—a trick of the imagination fed by the town’s gossip and late-night nerves.

  As he circled the barn, examining its weathered exterior for clues, he realized Joy was no longer at his heels. Turning back, he saw her lingering near one of the walls, her nose pressed low to the ground, sniffing intently at something hidden in the tall grass. Her tail, usually wagging, was held at a cautious half-mast.

  “Find something, girl?” Richard called softly. Instead of prancing back to him, Joy let out a short, quiet growl—not angry or threatening, but almost conversational. It was as if she was trying to tell him, Come here. Check this out.

  Intrigued, Richard knelt beside her, one hand absently scratching behind Joy’s ears. He followed her gaze to a set of curious markings on the ground. These weren’t a deer's neat prints or a wild hog's heavy imprints. They looked like claw marks and unusual tracks that he couldn’t readily identify. The pattern was strange and uneven, as though something had scrabbled at the earth beside the barn wall with an urgency he couldn’t explain.

  He took out his notebook and jotted a quick sketch, marking the exact spot. Joy sniffed the marks again, then glanced up at Richard with big, questioning eyes as if asking, Do you see what I see? Her ears twitched, and Richard felt a tingle of caution creeping back into his spine. Whatever made these prints wasn’t anything he immediately recognized from the woods around town.

  Standing, Richard followed the tracks along the base of the barn, eventually coming to a patch of siding that looked... off. At a casual glance, the wooden skirtboards appeared no different than anywhere else. Still, now that he was paying attention, he noticed slight differences: a hairline gap, nails half-pulled loose, and edges are worn smooth as if someone—or something—had pried at it before.

  He pulled out the pry bar he’d purchased from Fred’s Hardware. He carefully and deliberately worked it into the seam and gently applied pressure. The board popped free with surprising ease, and Richard caught it before it fell, setting it quietly on the ground beside him. Behind it was an opening large enough for a grown man to pass through if he ducked. It was as if someone had deliberately created a hidden entrance concealed by the barn’s outer wall.

  Richard leaned forward, peering into the dim space beyond. Dust motes drifted in the warm afternoon light, and the smell of old hay and damp wood drifted toward him. He could see a sliver of the barn’s interior—shadowy shapes of old beams and piles of debris. All was silent, but a recent memory of that mechanical hum and flickering lights stirred uneasily in his mind.

  He looked down at Joy, who was watching him intently. He could sense her uncertainty. “First sign of trouble, girl; we get out of here,” he said quietly, offering her a reassuring nod. This wasn’t a game. Something inside could be wild or dangerous, and he refused to put his four-legged friend at risk needlessly.

  Joy tilted her head, her eyes steady. Then, as if to show her trust, she brushed her side against his calf and stepped toward the opening, her harness jingling softly. She paused only long enough to check that he was following.

  With a deep breath, Richard knelt and ducked through the gap. He could feel the slight drop in temperature as he entered, his boots crunching softly on old straw and dirt. Joy crept beside him, her nose working overtime as she sniffed the stale air. The barn, so unremarkable in the daylight from the outside, now felt charged with tension from within. Tools at the ready, flashlight and cap-light prepared, Richard ventured deeper, determined to uncover what lay hidden behind these old wooden walls.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Standing fully upright inside the barn, Richard first switched on the small LED clipped to his cap, then bent down to flick the light attached to Joy’s harness. The pup sniffed appreciatively at his gentle touch. For added illumination, he retrieved his Maglite from his bag. The old barn’s interior stretched into darkness, revealing only fragments of its past life as a working farm. He could just make out a small enclosure where livestock might have once been kept. A flimsy wooden gate—long removed from its hinges—now leaned precariously against the wall, ready to tumble at the slightest disturbance.

  “Easy, does it,” Richard whispered, holding a hand up as if calming Joy, who seemed just as alert as he was. He moved past the broken gate, careful not to brush against it. Stepping into the barn’s main corridor, he turned right, noting the large, chained barn doors he’d seen from outside, and then turned left, where the structure stretched deeper into shadow. From what he could see, it appeared to be a typical barn—stalls along both sides, piles of scattered hay, and a loft overhead where even more bales were stacked, half-hidden by darkness. Everything looked ordinary at first glance, yet something felt off. It was too quiet and heavy, as if the air held its breath.

  Despite the midday sun shining outside, hardly any natural light reached them here. The lower windows had been boarded up long ago, and old hay bales blocked the upper loft windows. Richard wouldn’t have been able to see his hand before his face without the beams of his flashlights. As he inched along the central aisle, he tried not to think about the pitch-black space behind him whenever he moved the flashlight’s beam away. Joy stuck close to his leg, her tail low, emitting a barely audible whine every few steps.

  “Don’t worry, girl,” he murmured, though his voice sounded unconvincing in his ears. “We’ve got plenty of light this time.”

  He inspected each stall as he passed, briefly shining his flashlight inside before moving on. Rotting straw, cracked wooden beams, and the faint smell of old earth greeted him at every turn. Nothing unusual so far—just the silent decay of a place long abandoned.

  But then, as he edged closer to the barn’s rear wall, he heard a soft hum, so faint he might have missed it if not for Joy’s reaction. She looked up at him with bright, concerned eyes, her ears drawn back as if to say, Do you hear that too? He nodded slowly, acknowledging their shared perception. The hum deepened as they advanced. It began as a distant vibration, barely audible, but grew into a low, resonant rumble he could feel through the floorboards. The sensation crawled up his legs and settled in his chest, making his heart beat faster.

  “Steady,” he whispered again to Joy and himself. Each step forward was a struggle against an instinctive urge to run. His mind churned with logical explanations—some hidden generator, an underground pump, maybe just a draft of wind through old planks—but none thoroughly convinced him. This was something else that didn’t belong in an abandoned barn.

  By now, dread coiled in his gut. He tightened his grip on the Maglite and glanced down at Joy. The little dog’s stance said she wanted out, but her bond with Richard kept her close. He felt a wave of gratitude and guilt. If he turned back now, they could forget this whole thing. Just let the mystery remain unsolved. Was it worth pushing on?

  Curiosity proved too strong. Against his better judgment, he took another few steps forward. Then, a sudden, unshakable instinct made him pause. He hesitated, heart thumping, then quickly extinguished the lights—first Joy’s small lamp, then his cap light, and finally the flashlight. They were plunged into blackness. He waited, straining his eyes, letting them adjust. At first, he could see nothing, not even the outline of Joy at his feet. He was about to flick the lights back on, frustrated when something caught his eye.

  A faint, thin band of greenish light glowed along the floor ahead, steady and constant. It wasn’t bright enough to illuminate anything else, but there was—no illusion of his adjusting eyesight. The beam was too perfect and uniform to be a stray reflection. He dared not speak, but Joy pressed closer as if acknowledging this unexpected discovery.

  Richard swallowed hard. He’d come this far—leaving now would mean never understanding what he’d stumbled upon. Still, the quiet hum, the strange claw marks outside, and now this eerie glow all suggested something unnatural. He reached down, gave Joy a reassuring pat, and leaned forward, trying to discern where the mysterious green light was coming from.

  He would see for himself, even if the truth unsettled him more than he cared to admit.

  Pushing aside the anxiety gripped him in the darkness, Richard reached for the small LED clipped to his hat and flicked it on. He decided against using the Maglite for the moment, worried its powerful beam would wash out the faint, eerie glow lingering ahead. With the gentler illumination from his headlamp, the greenish light he’d spotted before came into sharper focus.

  Approaching with slow, measured steps, he realized it wasn’t just a single luminescence line. Instead, three thin lines formed a shape like a “U” turned upside down—three sides of a perfect square, lacking only the top edge. Richard knelt heart thudding, and leaned over the glowing marks. He could finally understand what he saw in the weak light of his headlamp. There, set flush with the barn’s hidden concrete foundation, lay a metal hatch.

  The floor here wasn’t simply packed earth, as he’d assumed—someone had poured concrete and camouflaged it with dirt and straw. Carefully brushing aside grime and debris, he ran his fingertips along the thick metal plate, roughly two feet by two feet. At the center of the lower edge, he found a recessed handle, cool to the touch, fitted neatly into the steel surface. This was no makeshift covering; it felt deliberate, engineered, and secretive.

  Before he could test the handle, Joy began to growl. Her body went rigid, each rumble in her throat intensifying until she was practically snarling at the hatch. The tension in the air spiked, and Richard’s pulse quickened. He understood the dog’s message clearly: Don’t open it.

  “Easy, girl,” he whispered, though he felt anything but calm. He glanced at Joy and saw her ears flattened against her skull, teeth bared in a silent plea. Her hackles were raised. Fear and instinct radiated from her taut frame.

  Then he felt the rumble he’d noticed earlier, but more substantial this time. The vibration rolled beneath his knees, making it feel like the ground was alive. The hum wasn’t just sound; it was something that reverberated up into his bones. Joy’s growls faltered, turning into pitiful whimpers as she pressed against him, ears back, tail tucked.

  Richard’s logical mind told him to leave. Everything about this was wrong. Yet, the stubborn curiosity that had brought him here in the first place refused to yield. He had to know what lay beneath that hatch. Gently placing a calming hand on Joy’s back, he reached for the handle. His fingertips touched the cold metal, and he wrapped his hand around it, steeling himself for what he might find.

  Suddenly, chaos erupted. A deafening bang rang loud enough to make him jolt and nearly cry out. Simultaneously, the rumbling intensified, becoming a full-bodied roar that made his head swim. The green glow flared to a blinding intensity, flooding his vision with an eerie light that momentarily robbed him of sight.

  Then, in a heartbeat, it vanished. The glow winked out. The rumbling ceased. Silence descended, as thick and suffocating as the darkness enveloped them, leaving only his headlamp’s pale beam. Richard realized he had been holding his breath and exhaled shakily, heart hammering in his chest.

  He scooped Joy into his arms. The little dog trembled, pressing herself into him, seeking reassurance. He held her for a few moments, trying to calm them both. After he felt his pulse slow a fraction and Joy’s trembling ease, he forced himself to breathe normally; he lowered her gently to the ground.

  “Stay close,” he managed, voice cracking slightly.

  Joy peered up at him, uncertain but obedient. Richard pushed himself to his feet, his muscles tight from tension and crouching. He stretched his legs, feeling every nerve screaming for him to flee. But something more substantial inside him—the desire to understand this impossible phenomenon—compelled him onward.

  Dropping back down beside the hatch, he gritted his teeth. Whatever just happened, it hadn’t driven him away. If anything, it had only sharpened his determination. He closed his hand around the handle once more, knuckles whitening. He yanked upward with a swift, decisive motion, bracing himself for whatever was about to emerge from the darkness below.

  Richard yanked hard on the hatch, straining until the tendons in his hand and wrist protested. Still, the metal panel refused to budge. He stood up, flexing his fingers and wiping sweaty palms on his shirt, then circled his shoulders to work out the stiffness in his back. Frustration gnawed at him, but he wasn’t ready to give up.

  He remembered the pry bar nestled in his gear. Retrieving it, he crouched again and tried to wedge the tool into the hatch’s seam. Yet no matter how he angled the bar or how much pressure he applied, the thin edge wouldn’t slip into the gap. The seam looked wide enough to let out that strange green glow he’d witnessed earlier, but apparently, it provided no leverage for his pry bar.

  “Locked or sealed somehow,” he muttered under his breath. “This isn’t just stuck.”

  Setting the pry bar aside, Richard reached for his Maglite. He flicked it on and carefully examined the hatch’s surface. The handle was just a recessed grip in the metal—enough for a few fingertips but nothing he could hook or turn. With no prominent latch or lock, it felt deliberately puzzle-like. There had to be a mechanism he was missing.

  Then he spotted something unusual: at the center of the hatch was a strange impression shaped somewhat like an oblong seashell. It had fine, wiry grooves at its wider end, each groove ending in tiny pinprick holes. He might never have noticed this subtle detail if he hadn’t been hunched over the door, peering at every inch.

  Around the seashell-like indentation was a series of eleven distinct shapes, each an odd combination of geometric forms. The first looked like an elongated triangle imposed over a narrow rectangle encircled by three evenly spaced dots. Another had an oval laid over a square, a single dot in its center, and five more arranged around the edges—three on top and two below. Each shape was unique, meticulously placed, and deeply engraved as part of some cryptic code.

  Richard pulled out his notebook, determined to record every symbol precisely. He sketched the seashell indentation, carefully noting the grooves and pinholes, then copied each geometric figure. It took time and concentration—he wanted every line and dot in their proper places. This might be important later, perhaps the key to understanding what or who was behind this hatch.

  After a while, the silence and dim light pressed in on him. He suddenly noticed a soft, rhythmic sound: gentle breathing. Looking down, he found Joy fast asleep at his side, her head resting on her paws. He smiled ruefully. The pup had been trembling one moment, and now she’d dozed off. The poor thing must have been exhausted from the fear and tension of the past few hours.

  Richard took that as his cue to wrap things up. Sticking around any longer in this eerie place wouldn’t help much—he was hungry, thirsty, and starting to feel the weight of his fatigue. He checked his phone and nearly gasped at the time: 5:22 PM. He’d been here for almost four hours!

  No wonder Joy was so worn out, and his stomach grumbled as if on cue. It was time to head back to the diner, regroup, and think this through with a fresh mind and a full belly. Maybe Sally’s comforting smile and a hearty meal would help him piece together these clues. Joy would surely appreciate some tidbits from the kitchen, too.

  Richard carefully lifted the sleeping dog into his arms and left the mysterious hatch behind. He retraced his steps, navigating the dark corridors of the barn and slipping back out the makeshift entrance he’d created. Outside, the late afternoon light felt warm and reassuring after the barn’s cold, secretive gloom.

  With Joy secure, he headed back to the Explorer, already thinking of Sally’s Salisbury steak and perhaps a side of mashed potatoes. The puzzle would still be waiting for him later. He would rest, refuel, and plan his next move for now.