The Longest Night

Present Day

Bryan felt unexpectedly sad as he watched the old red barn from his childhood nightmares get bulldozed over. It didn’t surprise him when the local inspector recently deemed it a hazard and unsafe for occupants. He’d spent many memorable moments of his childhood in that barn and frankly it was unsafe then. The barn would be demolished and a new subdivision would be built in its place. He didn’t expect himself to feel these emotions, he made a mental note to bring this up in his next therapy session.

The nightmares had stopped, but there was still some lingering fear in its place. He would always sleep with a bedside light on, he didn’t like small spaces, and he was jumpy with noises.

Bryan checked his Apple watch, wondering where Jenny was. She was missing all the action. He hadn’t seen her in a few months, she had been traveling all over Asia. Was she in Thailand or Bali? He couldn’t remember. She was so adventurous and full of surprises.

1997

Like a lot of kids his age, Bryan loved his Nintendo, collecting baseball cards, and watching movies. Unlike most kids his age, he dreaded the summer holidays. He didn’t even mind school, he was polite to teachers, stayed out of trouble, and had a few friends. But it wasn’t missing school that made him hate the summer, it was the weeks he spent at his dad’s family farm. Every summer, his dad would drive him and his sister, Jenny, to their family farm 4 hours away for six miserable weeks of “fresh air” and “nature” and “a taste of country living.” Every summer his sister and him pleaded with their mother not to send them. Yesterday, he really thought they had a chance to get out of it, but at last, she didn’t give in. Bryan would remember that next Mother’s Day.

Tomorrow was the dreaded day they’d be making the drive. Jenny had resigned herself to the fact and Bryan felt betrayed by her pleasant mood through dinner. Bryan was still sulking. It wasn’t fair. She was always tougher than him, even though she was a year younger. His only comforting thought was that when everyone went to bed, he’d sneak downstairs to the family room for a movie marathon and a last night of all his favorite foods. He’d watch Back to the Future and Ghost Busters. Or maybe ET. If Jenny came down, she’d want to watch The Princess Bride. He wasn’t going to give in to her, she didn’t deserve it with her attitude at supper. But he would share his snacks.

Almost cruelly, his mom had stocked up on all his favorite things when she went to the grocery store that week. She even bought him Cool Ranch Doritos, Fruit Roll Ups, and Capri Suns. Maybe she was feeling guilty. Maybe he should have been nicer at dinner.

Now he was listening intently for his parents to go to bed, so he could sneak downstairs to begin his feast. His last supper before six weeks on the farm with his grandma, uncle, sister, and worst of all his older cousins Michael and Timmy. He could hear his sister listening to her Ace of Base cassette in her room. He knew she was daydreaming of travel adventures and dreading this visit as much as him.

Jenny and him tried to explain multiple times to their parents that it wasn’t the idyllic summer they imagined. Sure, they played tag outside and made-up adventures in the old barn, but the bulk of the summer was usually spent inside his grandma’s house watching soap opera reruns, clipping coupons from the newspaper, and mindlessly looking through old catalogs. It wasn’t a summer of healthy living and family bonding. They weren’t even eating fresh vegetables. It wasn’t a produce farm. It was small dairy farm, ran by their uncle who had the business sense of a toad. Most of the time they ate frozen meals or his grandma’s mystery meat casserole. And all they drank was milk. Lots and lots of milk.

Staying inside clipping coupons was preferred to getting chased around outside by his cousins. Each summer they were getting more and more sinister.

The only time Jenny and him would agree to join forces with the cousins was when they were hunting for treasure. The family legend was that the original settlers of the farm had stolen jewels from a British nobleman and had fled to the farmland to hide them. But no one ever found the treasure. This tale had been exciting was he was 7, now that he was 14 the fun had worn off. They had spent the first few summers searching. Jenny and him searched every part of the farm. They searched the creek, the farm house, the fields, they dug holes, they climbed trees, and they searched the barn endlessly. He was old enough now to realize that it probably wasn’t even a true story. His dad had probably told it to them to bribe them into visiting the farm. His dad knew how much he liked the Goonies. How rude of him to use one of his favorite movies against him.

The next day, Bryan fell asleep in the car on the way to the farm and was woken by the gravel road as the car pulled into the farm. The stench always surprised him. It smelled like shit. Literally. Dairy farms are full of cow shit. It wasn’t a glamourous place. He would have felt sorry for the cows if he didn’t feel sorry for himself more. After his dad exchanged a few pleasantries with his grandma and uncle, his dad was gone.

***

The first few weeks on the farm were relatively uneventful. Mike and Tim, as they liked to be called now, seemed to have recently graduated from stealing candy from the local general store to stealing stereos and electronics, which kept them pretty occupied. One morning, after she said she couldn’t take any more Days of Our Lives, Jenny convinced him to go explore the barn. “I can’t sit inside here and watch this nonsense anymore.” He didn’t really want to venture outside, but she had a point, the show was getting even a little too fantastical for him.

They were sitting in the barn imagining all the fun things their friends at home were doing when Mike and Tim snuck up on them. Mike slapped Bryan upside the head, “what are you two losers doing.” Jenny stood up ready to defend him, “Get lost. We came here to be alone.”

Mike and Tim exchanged an evil look. “Oh you want to be alone together did you say. We know just the place,” said Mike. “Yeah it’s very private,” said Tim in a way that Bryan knew was bad news. Before they could run, Mike and Tim had them pinned on the ground and started dragging them to one of the empty old horse stalls in the corner of the barn.

“Let us go you idiots!” shouted Jenny. Mike held them down as Tim pushed a heavy wooden box across the floor and used a crow bar to pry up two old floor boards to reveal a small crawl space below. Bryan began sob loudly. Tim laughed, “ No one will hear you scream here.” And they pushed Bryan and Jenny down into the crawl space and quickly replaced the floor boards.

Everything was pitch back and the air was stale. Bryan couldn’t even see Jenny though he knew she was only a few feet away. Over her loud stream of cuss words, he could hear the box being scooted across the floor to trap them in. Bryan tried to stand up and hit head immediately and fell back on the dirt floor whimpering. Jenny seemed to sense his despair and softened, “They are evil. They are really fucking evil… and not to mention ugly.” Bryan couldn’t help himself but laugh and they both broke out into hysterical laughter that they couldn’t explain. It was one of those moments where you had to laugh to stop yourself from crying.

They spent the next several hours alternating between searching the crawl space for an exit and complaining about their fate. Someone had to be looking for them, right? Were they going to starve? They cursed the farm, cursed their parents, cursed the dark, cursed their stupid uncle for having such horrible kids, and they even cursed the innocent cows.

After a while their eyes adjusted to the dark, but the noises became more pronounced. Every rustle sent Bryan into a fit of terror. He swore bugs were crawling on him. And it was getting harder to tell the time. Was it still day? How many hours had passed?

Jenny was confident at first. She reassured them both that their grandma would notice them missing. But time kept ticking. They tried to sleep. It was surprisingly cool, but the air was dusty and every time Bryan started to calm himself down, he heard a noise that freaked him out. Jenny and him sat back-to-back most of the night. After what they assumed was a full night in the barn, they both started to get antsy. And the hunger and thirst set in. They tried to distract themselves by talking about all their favorite movies and bands. Bryan admitted he liked New Kids on the Block. Jenny agreed that Indiana Jones was a masterpiece.

Whenever Bryan started to get really concerned or filled with dread, Jenny would distract him. She’d pretend she couldn’t remember the ending of Gremlins or ask him about one of his favorite movies. They also continued to search for an exit. Bryan thought to section off the space in a grid and systematically work their way through the space, one section at a time. He hated running his hands over the cold stone walls feeling cobwebs, but the activity kept his mind occupied. At one point, Jenny excitedly said she found something. “Is it an exit?!” Bryan exclaimed. “No, nevermind, it’s just a piece of fabric stuck in the wall here.” “Maybe it’s a treasure map” said Bryan excitedly. “Yeah maybe” said Jenny, but he could tell she was appeasing him. After what felt like an eternity Bryan resigned himself to lie down on the ground. He gave up caring about the bugs and the dirt. He would die here, he knew it.

A few hours later, when they had lost all hope, they heard movement. They started yelling for help and banging on the ceiling. Finally, a blinding light filled the room and they could make out the faces of their grandma through the floor boards above them. They were saved.

It ended up being a full 28 hours before their grandma realized they were missing and 30 hours before she tracked down their cousins to get their location. Mike and Tim didn’t even end up getting in big trouble for the ordeal. But their grandma had threatened them with a shotgun. Their mom had driven through the night to take them home.

The rest of that summer was one of the best summers of Bryan and Jenny’s life. Bryan got a new TV and VCR for his room to watch his movie collection and Jenny got a whole new wardrobe for school. Their mom showered them with gifts, food, and affection. But the night that changed Bryan’s life forever was a week later after they had gotten home. Jenny and Bryan were sitting in Jenny’s room back-to-back listening to music when Jenny said, “so I’ve done some research. We will have to go to Switzerland after high school.” Bryan snorted, “What?!” Jenny said, “well it’s the best place to sell this.” And she pulled a dirty piece of cloth out of her pocket and opened it up to reveal the biggest diamond Bryan had ever seen.