5 Minute Reads | Anthology

The Mennonite Man by allianonymous

by allianonymous

In the vast, open fields of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, there sits an old farmhouse, abandoned and left to be destroyed by the elements. Legend has it, a man lived there with his family. He had been in that house his entire life, helping his parents with the chores and crops until they unfortunately passed, leaving the house to him, their eldest son.

He raised his children to do as he did when he was their age, showing them everything there was to know about being the perfect Mennonite family. Everything was going well, until his eldest son told him that he didn't want to follow in his father's footsteps.

This made the father very angry. As punishment, he sent his son out to do extra chores; chores he knew were too dangerous for a young boy who hadn't handled those certain types of equipment before.

One night, while tending to the crops not far from their house, the boy's tractor stopped working. He stepped down from the machine, checking to see if there was anything jammed in the sharp, circular blades located at the front. It was dark, too dark to see anything but what was only a few feet in front of him. To his right was now a wide-open field where crops stood only minutes ago. To his left, was an endless sea of corn, too tall to see over and too dense to see through. The wind howled, rustling the corn as he stood alone in front of his tractor, shivering for more reasons than just being cold.

He knelt down in front of the blades, searching for a large rock or anything else that could've caused it to shut off unexpectedly. When he reached his hand between them to feel around for something foreign and difficult to cut through, it happened.

The tractor roared back to life, its blades spinning furiously only a few feet from the son's face. His feet scrambled to push him away while he screamed at the top of his lungs, but there was no hope. The shrieking sound of a blade cutting through bones could be heard for miles.

As soon as the screams and desperate cries for help disappeared, the machine stopped, an angry, yet satisfied father stepping out from behind the wheel.

The father went mad, first murdering his wife, knowing she would only get in his way. Then he moved on to his children.

He started with the next eldest child, forcing her to clean the knives he used for cutting up cattle. Her screams were silenced by the sound of blood pooling in her throat once he sliced her open with a butcher knife. Then he sent the next eldest to inspect an issue in one of the grain bins, only to fill it up with grain moments after he jumped in, suffocating him.

He was drunk on power, too separated from civilization to be heard or questioned. It was his job to maintain the perfect family, and since his twisted mind forced him to believe that his children were anything of the sort, he had to get rid of them.

They dropped like flies, each of them taken out in a unique, twisted way by their own flesh and blood. When they were all gone, he gathered their bodies, or what was left of them, and threw them in the barn, piling them on top of each other in the corner, leaving them to rot like the evil people he thought they were.

One night, he sat up in bed, confused about the sounds that were flowing into his room. It was a tractor, rumbling just outside the house. He shot up, stepping into his boots and stomping through the house, ready to take care of whatever stood outside. But when he steppedoutside and walked over to the tractor, his confusion grew.

The sound wasn't coming from the tractor.

It was coming from inside the barn.

He ran in, almost eager to add another to his mountain of bodies. When he stepped inside, however, he was blinded by a strong light that was being powered by a generator.

"Who's there?" he yelled, squinting his eyes at the light. He couldn't see a thing. Everywhere he moved, light surrounded him, making it almost impossible to find anyone.

Just then, it cut off, leaving the man to now adjust to the severe darkness of the barn, as well as a chilling silence.

"I said, who's there?" He was getting angrier, and the longer he stood without a single answer, the more his blood started to boil.

He took a step forward, only to hear the singing sound of a large knife, stabbing the ground right in front of his foot. He looked up, watching the knives and various tools that hung from the ceiling sway back and forth. There was no one up there. There was no one anywhere from what he could tell.

Another knife fell, this time getting way too close to his other foot. He jumped out of the way in fear, only to find that another knife was falling.

And then another...

And another...

And another...

He tried to escape by running out of the barn, but as soon as he got to the door, the shadow of his eldest soon stood in the doorway, paralyzing him.

He couldn't breathe. He couldn't move. He couldn't say a word. He just stared at his son, transparent and grey under the moonlight.

The father's son stepped forward, making his blood run cold as he tried to step back, only to trip over one of the knives. He tried to get his footing back to stand up, but the son was too close. He couldn't get away from him.

The son took one final step forward, standing over his terrified father with a sinister smile as the rest of his family surrounded him, each one as transparent and grey as his son. They watched as the final knife left the ceiling, not single one showing remorse as it sliced through his throat.

Instead of adding him to their pile, the family took him back into the house, leaving him to rot alone.

Some say you can still hear the blood-curdling screams of his children. Others say you can hear the sound of knives falling from the barn.

The only way to find out is if you go there.

But I should warn you...

The Mennonite Man won't keep you alive long enough to find out.