Awoken Death

Chapter 16

We pulled off from the narrow and rough road we had been driving on. I was fairly shocked the van had even made it this far. I looked out the van window to see what seemed to be an abandoned barn. The wood looked old and the tin atop the roof was mismatch pieces of different colors. To make things seem even creepier everything around was shrouded in an eerie looking fog.
   Olivia parked and we all grabbed our bags ,we didn't carry too much with us so it didn't take long to unload. I noticed the air was slightly cool and I tugged at my jacket pulling it around my body tightly. "It seems very quiet here," I commented "I guess I thought maybe we'd here the people inside." Jack gave a small laugh and said "You'll hear them in a minute don't worry."
   Griffin slid the barn door open and I was surprised to see several groups of people in the barn. What shocked me even more though was that I could see they were talking ,but I heard not one noise. "How is that possible?" You'd think after everything I had experienced up to this point ,that I wouldn't be so astounded.
    "It's a sound barrier," Olivia explained happily. "You won't be able to hear until you enter the barn. An awoken that stays here is able to make a barrier to stop sound from traveling outside this barn. That way if someone came upon this place they wouldn't here all the chatter inside."
    "Go ahead and step in," Trey said. I took a step forward and crossed the barrier of the door. As I did so the sound of laughter and conversation filled the air. "Cool isn't it?"
"Yea ,it's incredible," I said amazed.
  There were small cot style beds lined against each side of the barn and a row down the middle. Some people stood around talking, some were sitting on the cots, and some were fast asleep ,despite all the background noise. The room was mostly full of individuals around my age or slightly older. However  I saw two or three people who looked to be middle aged.
"Hey, look who's back!"
One of the older guys shouted. The chatter faded a little when he spoke. He was slim and lanky , and had a cool brown complexion, black hair, and warm brown eyes. Although he didn't seem to be much older than 30 he already had several worry lines and dark circles under his eyes. He walked over to us and embraced each of the members of our group. He fell short when he got to me. "It appears you've picked up someone new. Don't think I know this one?"
"This is Claire," Trey stated. "Her aunt contacted us and we picked her up along the way."
"It's a pleasure to meet you Claire." He said shaking my hand. "Claire this is James," Trey said. "He's been like and older brother to us all. He's the one who keeps the sound barrier up."
"It's nice to meet you James," I said.
"If you don't mind me asking ,Claire, what is your 'gift'?"
"Uhh," I paused for a moment. I felt what I could do was odd and maybe even scary ,at least to me it was.
"Claire can see ghosts!" Olivia chimed in. "Hmm a clairvoyant, it's not every day you run into one who can make contact with those who have passed." I was a little shocked to hear that he seemed to find it interesting.
"We might have to put your abilities to the test in a bit," he added. "I'm sure all of you would be up for some light training. First we should get you all some food though I'm sure your hungry by now."
He took us over to a a fold out table that had bread, meat, and other sandwich items placed on it. We each made our food and sat down to eat on a few of the cots.
James had been walking around checking on everyone in the barn ,he was making his way back to us. "I wish we were able to feed you all something better. We are able to make grocery runs every now and then ,but we usually don't have the means to get anything much better to eat. We can only go out so often too, since we don't want any hunters following us and finding out about this place."
"You know we aren't picky," Jack said. "We are just happy to have a roof over our heads for a little while."
I sat there thinking about the last few days as they all talked. Everything had been a kind of blur. My life had changed a lot in a matter of days. I was coming to realize that my life would never be the same as it was before. I felt some peace though knowing that I wasn't alone. Although I had only just met them this group had become like my new family ,and I was grateful I at least had them.