"That Old Chicken Coop"

**"That Old Chicken Coop"** is the second tale in the fourteenth episode of the sixth season of the Nosleep podcast. In it, a pair of siblings investigate a chicken coop on their family farm. Written by Rona Vaselaar, it has a runtime of 38:30 and was performed by Jessica McEvoy, Jesse Cornett, David Cummings, and Erika Sanderson. It is the 697th tale overall on the podcast.

## Summary

Greta lives on a farm with her father, mother, sister, and brother Darius. On the farm, near the edge of the property, is a large, abandoned chicken coop with rotting boards and broken windows. As she grows up, Greta is curious about what lies inside. She asks numerous times to explore it, but her father always tells her to never enter under any circumstances.

Greta spends years trying to find a way to sneak in, but her parents are always home, and the field workers will tell her father if she ever tries it. One day, however, an opportunity arises when her parents leave to go out of town to watch her sister perform in a speech competition and the field workers have a day off. After they leave, she gathers a backpack full of supplies and convinces Darius to come with her.

They arrive at the coop at twilight. Unable to get the door to open, the siblings manage to shimmy through a hole in the wall and find themselves in a vast, dark space that their flashlights can't penetrate. Deciding to stick to the wall, they inch along the enclosure, spotting items such as leather journals, packs of cards, and rusty farming equipment in their lights. Greta gathers some of these up and puts them in her pack.

Still edging along the wall, they manage to reach the opposite side when Darius' flashlight suddenly catches a pair of boots. Lifting the beam up, they find the body of an man wearing old-fashioned clothes hanging from a rafter. Darius notices with horror that the man's bloodshot eyes appear to be following them. Greta reaches out to touch the man's hand and the beam suddenly cracks, causing the body to fall on her. The floorboards give away and she plunges into darkness.

Greta wakes up in the hospital a few days later with her parents. She is taken home and awaits punishment from her father. Darius looks drained and avoids eye contact. One night, her father asks her to come outside with him. He explains that her grandfather, Seamus, owned the farm before him and that he was a bad man who did terrible things. He eventually hung himself in the chicken coop. After the body was removed, the father entered and encountered something he refuses to tell Greta about. When she asks why they don't just tear the coop down, he says he doesn't want whatever's inside to escape.

Years pass and the father dies of a heart attack. The siblings set their mother up in a townhouse not far from the farm and Greta inherits it. She questions Darius about how he managed to rescue her after she fell in the basement beneath the coop, but he says the coop doesn't have a basement. She tries questioning him further, but he refuses to respond.

Greta realizes that she never recovered her pack of supplies from the coop after the ordeal. She plans to enter it and find out once and for all what is inside.

## Cast

Jessica McEvoy as Greta

Jesse Cornett as Darius

David Cummings as Greta and Darius' father

Erika Sanderson as Greta and Darius' mother