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PLUMBING PROBLEMS: PART XI

April 16, 2024 at 2:08 pm 1 comment

                             PLUMBING PROBLEMS: PART XI

It was fall now: time to harvest what our garden has produced, cut and split firewood and get ready for the winter, our first winter in the country.  I wanted to get as much firewood as I could in the barn.  But before I stacked wood in the barn, I would have to clear the place out, a job I’d been avoiding for as long as possible.  Unfortunately, there was no avoiding it any longer. 

It was a beautiful crisp Saturday afternoon, and time to tackle the barn.  I began by picking up the clutter on the floor, old tools and the usual barn debris.  Off to one corner I saw a stack of large wooden boxes.  I assumed they would be too heavy for me to move on my own, so I cleaned up around them.  Soon, I had the barn in reasonable shape.

After a few days, I returned to finish the cleaning.  All that remained was that stack of wooden crates to move and I would be done.  I still thought I’ll need help moving them, but I figured I’d give one a try.  Much to my surprise, the boxes were empty and extremely light.  Why would anyone store a bunch of old wooden boxes in a barn, wasting all that space?  Once the boxes were removed, all that remained to be done was sweep out the hay that littered the barn floor.  I began with the area I had just cleared when I noticed a large metal ring set in the floor.  A little more sweeping revealed a large trap door.  Must be some sort of root cellar or storm shelter I speculated, could be a fallout shelter.  The house was extremely old, dating back to the nineteenth century, but the barn was more recent, maybe only fifty of sixty years old.  Pulling open the door, I saw a set of concrete stairs descending into the darkness.  Spying a light switch on the wall, I flipped it up, and saw banks of fluorescent lights coming on below.

Entry filed under: free science fiction and horror stories, free stories, PUBLISHED WORKS, Walt Trizna, Walt Trizna's Stories. Tags: barn, barns, books, fallout shelter, farm, fiction, horror, nature, plumbing problems, science fiction, storm cellar, Walt Trizna.