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it in the dream, just as he did now. 
    An eagle…
    The only thing he’d been able to remember of his dream until a moment ago was that there was something about a bird.  And here was a bird now, blatantly emblazoned right above the entrance of the rundown barn.  Even if he could somehow convince himself that this barn wasn’t really the same one from his dream, that it was just his mind playing tricks on him, he couldn’t possibly deny the image of a bird so obviously placed above the entrance. 
    Eric tucked his cell phone into his front pocket, looked back one last time at the cornfield and the little dirt road that brought him here and then stepped through the door and into the shadowy interior of the barn. 
    Even the inside was familiar.  The way the sunlight filtered through the gaps in the boards and the holes in the tin roof was exactly as he had seen it in his dream, down to the last detail.  Even the weeds that were reaching through the many sunlit openings near the floor were the same.  Every place his eyes fell, he found details he remembered.  It was as if he’d been here a million times before, as if he’d spent his whole life here. 
    Except there was nothing as warm and comforting as a memory of home.  A deep and churning dread was rising in his gut.  Something was very, very wrong here.
    He began walking through the barn, toward the door on the far side, his eyes searching every crack and crevice for the slightest sign of danger.  But the building was deserted.  The stalls on either side were empty, with no evidence remaining of whatever animals they may have once housed.  There weren’t even any birds roosting in the high rafters above his head. 
    He wished he could remember more of his dream.  What happened to him in the barn?  What did he see?  What did he find?  Every surface, every beam of sunlight, every creak and groan of the aging lumber was familiar to him, yet he could not seem to remember anything beyond what he was looking at.  It came back to him only as he saw it with his own eyes.
    But some part of him, buried deep down in some far corner of his brain, must have still remembered it, because that awful, gut-churning fright remained.  Whatever it was he’d found here in his dream, it wasn’t pleasant. 
    An odd noise startled him and he stopped to listen, his skin prickling with gooseflesh.  It came from somewhere on the other side of the far door, a sickly bleating sound, like nothing he’d ever heard before.  He was no expert on farm animals, but to his ears, it was like the utterances of a wretched, starving animal. 
    That nauseous feeling in his belly grew. 
    Slowly, he crept toward the back of the barn, his eyes fixed on the second set of large, double doors that stood partially opened, just like the first.  But while there was brilliant sunlight cutting through the shadows where he had entered the barn, the space beyond those far doors was dark and shadowy. 
    He felt a chill creep through him and realized he was holding his breath.  He had to force himself to breathe normally.
    Why was he so worried?  What had he seen within these walls while he was dreaming?
    When he reached the doors, he felt a cool draft flowing across his sweat-dampened skin and was reminded of the strange moments back in the cornfield, where the corn had withered.  This was like those areas, he realized.  It was connected somehow. 
    His eyes swept across the ground as he again wondered if some invisible poison might be soaked into the soil, undetectable fumes rising around him, invading his body, poisoning and twisting his mind. 
    He forced the unpleasant thought away and peered through the open doors. 
    For a moment, he was confused.  He turned and looked back toward the sunlit front doors.  The barn was big.  Each set of double doors was more than large enough to allow entry for a sizable tractor, but it could not have been much bigger than this room when he stood staring