Angie had been first
introduced to the world of Urban Exploring by her former boyfriend. Now, after
she’d left that asshole Jake because it turned out he was sleeping with her
best friend, she’d gotten her new boyfriend interested in her hobby. Jake was a
totally different guy than Mark was. Mark was this jock-type macho prick, while
Jake was an eloquent, slightly shy dude. Hell of a photographer too. She’d
learned so much about photography from him. She was taking him along on his
first urbex trip.
She remembered the
first time Jake told her about his hobby. Entering abandoned places and taking
pictures of them didn’t sound too thrilling at first. But when she accompanied
him on her first trip the adrenaline rush of managing to find a way to get into
an old building, which was still more or less illegal, triggered something
inside her. She’d always wanted to be more of a wild child but her catholic
upbringing had apparently been so strong she had a hard time of letting loose.
This was a nice relatively safe way of doing it. Well, you had to be careful on
those old stairs because they might give in under your weight of course. And
once there had been this neighbor who had seen them enter the building and chased
them out with a shotgun.
She’d heard the
stories about the building she and Mark were walking towards. It was said the
place was haunted. Those were usually the coolest places to enter. She’d been
in supposed haunted houses before and had never seen any truth to those rumors
before. The whole folklore around it made it a bit cool, though.
The Kingsbury House
seemed to have come straight out of a James Wong movie. It was huge, there were
no other buildings connected to it and there were a lot windows. It looked very
old.
Angie tried the door
first. She winked at Mark. “Always try the easy way first.”
“Right,” Mark said who
was already looking around restlessly, like a rabbit afraid an eagle would come
sweeping in. “So what happens if someone calls the cops again?”
“Don’t worry, Mark.
Usually you just get a warning or something. Don’t be a pussy.” Angie felt a
bit guilty about pushing Mark that way. The fact he was something of a pussy
was part of his appeal, the total opposite of Jake.
The door was locked
tight. “Let’s go see if there’s a window we can get through.”
Mark swallowed. “Okay.”
They walked around the
house, looking up at the windows, trying to see if there might be an open one.
After fifteen minutes they had come to a conclusion.
“Looks like they are
all locked,” Angie said. “Guess we will have to go for Plan C then.”
“Plan C?” Mark asked.
“Yeah, can you give me
a little boost so I can reach a window?”
“But they are closed.”
“Not for long,” Angie
said with a wicked smile. Maybe she was enjoying this stuff too much these
days.
She folded her leather
jacket around her arm. Mark folded his hands together so she could step on it
and reach the window. She smashed out one window panel.
“Angie!” Mark sounded
shocked.
“Relax,” she said and
used the hole that was now in the window to reach the handle inside. Without
much difficulty she opened it and managed to crawl inside.
Mark looked up at her
in the window. “Now it’s really breaking and entering, isn’t it?”
“Technically, I guess…
Come on, jump! I’ll pull you up inside.”
Mark jumped as high as
he could. Angie grabbed both his wrists and pulled while he kind of climbed the
wall. With a large tug he tumbled inside, flat on the floor.
“Easy-peasy, right?” Angie
said, smiling. “Let’s go have a look.”
Mark brushed off some
dust and got on his feet. “Okay.”
“This looks to be the
bedroom of the kids,” Angie thought. Indeed, there were two small, beds, some
old porcelain dolls and stuffed animals.
“It’s still really
well-decorated,” Mark noted.
“Yeah, cool, huh?”
Angie said.
“I guess.”
Angie picked up an old
porcelain doll and stuck it in Mark’s face. He recoiled a bit.
Angie laughed, “Scary,
right? I love it!”
“Fucking creepy.”
“Maybe we should walk
less horror movies,” Angie said.
“Yeah. Hey, what’s that
light?” Mark wondered and pointed ahead.
“Are you trying to
scare me now or,” Angie started but saw what Mark was talking about. There was
a pulsating, green light down the hall.
“That’s strange, I
would think they cut off the power a long time ago,” Angie said. She walked out
of the room, followed by Mark.
They entered the
hallway. There were two doors, leading to other rooms. The light was coming
from up the stairs.
“I wonder where that
light is coming from,” Angie said.
“I can hear a faint
humming sound as well. Can’t you?” Mark asked.
Angie shrugged. “Not
sure. I think all that punk rock I’ve been listening to might have damaged my
ears.”
“It sounds… weird.”
“Maybe it’s a
generator or something?”
“Running on solar
batteries then?”
“We’ll see,” Angie
said and walked up the stairs.
“Be careful,” Mark
said.
What Angie encountered
in that room was the most terrifying thing she had ever seen. She’d come over
there looking for excitement. But the thing in that room defied all laws of
nature, smashing all her notions of life, of reality in seconds. She screamed.
Screamed like she’d never screamed before and ran out of the room as fast as
she could, bumping into Mark. They both fell on the floor.
“Angie, what’s wrong?
You sounded like you saw a ghost?” Mark said.
“Just get up! Get up
and get the fuck out of here. Now!” Angie screamed, scrabbling to get on her
feet. When she’d managed to, she grabbed Mark’s hand and pulled him along.
She dragged him to the
children’s bedroom, almost pushing him out of the window. They jumped down.
Angie hurt her ankle but didn’t take the time to lament that. She just tried to
get away from that damned, unholy place as fast as she could.
