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.