Day 5 - The Chimney Goes Down & The Shattered Funhouse Mirror

They first heard the crying in September.

No one in the town can agree on the exact date because the sound had been dismissed for weeks before anyone took it seriously.

[gentle music] Fall winds did strange things around old buildings.

They slipped through cracks and whistled through warped boards.

They moaned through empty rooms and rattled loose siding.

Every farm family in the county had heard 100 sounds they couldn't explain any better than, "It's just the wind." This town was, and is, no different.

The abandoned Mercer farmhouse sits three miles outside of town proper, but still inside the city limits.

Alone among dead fields and broken fences.

Nobody's lived there since the late 80s.

Even when it was still fully standing, the roof sagged and the windows were blotted out with dust and grime.

But the structure had long since collapsed with only the chimney still standing, surrounded by the fallen debris from the roof and walls.

The crying came from the chimney, not the house.

The chimney, drifting across the fields on cold nights.

Depending on who you asked, most people thought it sounded like white noise or maybe the psst, psst sound you make to cats.

But to some, it sounded like a person sobbing.

Sometimes it sounded like a child, sometimes an elderly woman.

Occasionally, it was impossible to tell at all.

The sheriff started getting calls.

A deputy was sent to investigate.

That same deputy returned later that day pale and exhausted.

Eventually, he told them what he saw in fragments.

He had gone to check the fireplace, thinking maybe it was a cat or other animal stuck inside, as sometimes happens.

But once on the property, he saw that the fireplace had been sealed shut, not boarded up, not simply bricked over.

Sealed.

Someone had poured concrete into the fireplace opening.