Out of the Darkness

25

When we got closer to the building, the walls gave us a pretty big shaded area. "Wow, didn't realize that it was this big," Sam muttered, looking up to the top of the building. I had to admit, it seemed like the place had grown with every step closer to it that we took. "Did he tell you how we were going to get in?" I asked, pulling at the door know even though I knew it wouldn't open. "Yeah, should be simple enough. There's a staircase behind it, that leads up to the second floor. That door is unlocked and unboarded. Our way in." We walked around to the back, eyeing the building, just to see the structure of it. Sure enough, a winding, black metal staircase let up to a door that was on the second story of the building. "Yesss," Sam said, looking up at the door. The staircase was blocked off by a gate but it was nothing for us to jump it. The staircase wobbled a little, but we had taken chances with worse. Once we reached the door, Sam turned the knob easily, and we stepped inside the old, musty building. I let the door go, and it swung shut with a bang. "Uh," I said, looking at Sam with wide eyes, and a slight smile. I reached my hand out and twisted the know, feeling relief sweep over me when it turned easily. "I thought it locked on us for a minute," he said, grinning at me. I could see it in his face, just like I felt it in my bones. This was us. This is what we had always loved. The adventure, the exploring, the history left behind in old places. We didn't need our flashlights since it was sunny outside. While the windows were boarded up, the light was shining through the open areas. There's just something mysterious and haunting about a place that you know used to be occupied by people. A place where people used to live or work or play, now left unused but still standing. We spent about an hour looking through the different rooms and inspecting the items that were left behind. The new owner hadn't done anything with it yet, so everything that was left behind was still there. In one room there was barbed wired hanging from the ceiling, crisscrossing back and forth in a small hallway, blocking us from entering the room that was behind it. "Well, that's weird," I muttered. Sam reached out and ran his finger over the wire, until it got to a barbed part. He leaned down and brought the duffel bag around. Then he proceeded to pull out a tough pair of gloves. "Thought we might need these eventually. I keep them in the exploring bag, just in case," he said, sliding them onto his hands. He reached out and started pushing and pulling against the wire, trying to dislodge it from the wall. I was really curious as to what was behind that wire, but then had a thought. "Hey Sam," I said quietly, putting my hand on his arm to make him stop fucking with the wire. "Yeah, what's up," he asked, wiping his forehead with his arm. "There's a reason this wire was put up here. Someone didn't want whatever is in that room to be seen. Maybe we should leave it. We don't need yet another terrifying experience right now. I don't think I'm over the first one yet." He looked from me, through the wire, to the door on the other side. "Yeah, you're probably right. I really want to know what's in there though. Oh well, not the first time we've had to leave something unexplored. You want to chill, eat a little, then head home?" I smiled and nodded. "Yeah, sounds good." We went back upstairs, and sat down up against the wall on the other side of the building, under the windows. The place used to be a factory of some sort. You could tell that, but I wondered what kind. We hadn't found anything that could inform us on that. There were order slips, and client logs, but there was no information on what they made, or distributed. It was weird. Sam and I joked around, talked about the interesting things that we had found, debated over what the factory may have been used for, and just had a good time. Like in the old days. The way we used too. It was like we were getting back to our roots, and it felt great. I thought about sharing the fact that I had a ghost in my room that was connected to a creepy doll that I had stolen from an even creepier haunted house...but I decided against it, after I heard myself think that. He would have me admitted so fast. After we finished eating the crackers, apple slices, and cheese that Sam had packed into small lunch bags, we stood up and dusted ourselves off. "Guess we're finished. We've explore everything we could, and got some great pictures. I didn't even think about bringing out the camera to film though," Sam said, shaking his head. "Doesn't matter. It's better this way. No pressure to make it something that it isn't, or more than it is. This was just for us," I replied softly, looking around the building. Sam showed me the photos that we had managed to capture while we were there, on the drive home. There were some really Instagram worthy shots, and I was excited to post them. "I guess we've covered everything, huh?" Sam asked, looking around the top floor. I nodded. "Yep, pretty much. You ready to go?" He nodded, so we packed up our stuff and headed back out the door, and down the stairs. On the drive home, we blasted the music and sang along, laughing at each other for our over dramatization. It really felt like old times, and I realized that Sam and I needed to make a habit of this.