The yellow ‘KEEP OUT’ tape was nothing more menacing than a sagging deterrent, and Kylan ducked between the bowing barriers that rippled and flapped in the wind, hanging loose now after more than a year of guarding the abandoned children’s home.

The derelict, gothic building stood silently watching Kylan in a sea of shadow from behind overgrown gardens and towering trees. The brick wall surrounding the property had crumbled in huge sections, crude graffiti sprawled across the cracked pavers and the boarded-up double front doors, dried paint dripping from the bold, amateur lettering.

The children’s home was scorched, charred. The stench of burn still hanging heavy in the air and clinging to the singed underbrush. Destruction like what had been caused here didn’t disappear once the flames had been extinguished. That level of devastation carried on burning, fanning out and engulfing every living thing around it, siphoning every last drop of life and light.

The one building—conveniently—that hadn’t been destroyed by the flames that devoured Brookwood was nestled deeper into the woods that had claimed the children’s home for itself.

Trudging through the finger-like vines and thick, wiry trees and bushes, Kylan used his knife to hack away at the obstructions blocking his path to the caretaker’s house. Not a soul lived there now, locked up and hidden from prying eyes, but Kylan knew from whispering voices that almost everything remained inside the small, practical house, and only the senile, old inhabitant had moved on.

At the end of the beaten trail, away from the watchful eye of Brookwood, the house came into view.

Setting his backpack onto the overgrown ground, in the spindly, dead grass, Kylan tugged open the zipper and took out his crowbar. In seconds, the sheet of plywood covering the windows was in his hands, and he set it on the ground against the wall. The window shattered with the force of his elbow, and he knocked out the sharp edges of glass protruding like daggers from the rotting frame. He grabbed his bag and pulled himself up through the empty, square space, the stale air inside hitting him through his face mask with the unforgiving force of a freight train.

Kylan’s glaze flickered back to the window, to his brother loitering outside, his wary glance scouring the area nervously.

“I won’t be long,” Kylan reassured him. “There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

Theo nodded, kicking at the ground with the toe of his ratty sneaker. He rolled a stone through the grass with his sole.

Kylan wasn’t planning on taking long in the house, and he didn’t waste any more time before searching the rooms on the ground floor. Every hiding place uncovered revealed another lost hope and dead-end, and Kylan moved on to the next dusty room, disturbing the layers of dirt and grime and peeling back layers that hadn’t been touched by anyone else in a long time.

Urbexers hadn’t breached this corridor of time yet, no one keen on being the first to break the seal, unsure if the security cameras mounted to the house’s exterior were in working order or for show. The wire fence protecting the perimeter of Brookwood and its grounds, and the warning of guard dogs, hadn’t kept the vandals out for long, though, and they’d used spray paint to deface and leave their mark on the home—trashed and tore down the exterior where they could. Since the city announced demolition on the home, the copper piping had begun to go missing, and soon, as the thieves got bolder, it would all be gone.

As far as Kylan was aware, the sealed inside of Brookwood was untouched to this day, anything valuable or worthwhile burned up in the fire. A year of abandonment was nothing, but Brookwood hadn’t aged well, already over ninety years old before the fire closed its doors permanently.

Descending the stairs into the basement, Kylan navigated the stifling darkness with the white torch light on his cell phone. Cobwebs hung from the ceiling rafters like matted silk, and he ducked below them, dampness rising from the concrete floor the deeper he ventured into the dingy bowels of the abandoned house.

He knew the tapes were in here somewhere, every-fucking-thing else was. He wasn’t leaving until he found them. If anyone from city council got wind of his trespassing, those security threats could become very real. As it was, the decaying town of Devil’s Creek didn’t have spare money to shovel out on security for buildings that were a serious danger to anyone who risked entering them, and it was a lot more cost-efficient to just act like Mayor Taylor gave a shit about keeping the remaining residents in one of the city’s most ramshackle towns safe.

Kylan also didn’t give a fuck about the residents, himself included, and he pressed on searching the piles of junk beneath dust sheets in the basement, shoving useless items aside and letting them crash to the floor.

Toys, tools, cleaning products, all mixed together in jumbled chaos. Paraphernalia from an operational Brookwood taunted Kylan as he rummaged through it, crinkled pictures that had come unglued from an old photobook tumbling out. The grim faces of children of varying ages stared up at him with dead eyes, not a smiling face between them. He couldn’t look at the photographs for longer than seconds, and he promptly put them to the back of his mind, the dismal scenes pushing him harder to find what he’d came here for.

After what felt like hours of wading through quicksand, Kylan let out a frustrated growl, the reverb if his anger grazing the brick-exposed walls and boomeranging back to mock him.

His mind skittered to Theo. It wasn’t likely a dog-walker would stroll by, but Kylan had to be careful regardless. The security might be a fucking joke, but cop patrol cars weren’t, and one could cruise by here at any moment. Theo was a harmless, honest kid, but he was fucking useless to Kylan. Kylan would be in cuffs before receiving the faintest whiff of trouble arriving. He’d be in a jail cell charged with any excuse that would stick to keep him off the streets for as long as lawfully possible. Theo and Kylan were trash that needed sweeping up and dropping off at the landfill. And the corrupt local law enforcement would happily see to it that they made it to that landfill and were never unearthed again.

Kylan couldn’t have that. Not yet. It was far too soon.

Unwilling to give up, Kylan jogged back up the stairs, closing the door to the basement behind him. He padded along the creaking hallway, faded, floral wallpaper peeling back from the walls, revealing tobacco-stained plasterboard beneath it. In the office, Kylan sat down in the roller chair, settling into the silence around him, eyes scanning the blank screens of the two bulky monitors mounted to the wall above the veneer desk. He’d already been through the drawers, and they’d turned up nothing more exciting than escaping dust bunnies and shriveled, dead flies.

It was a fucking reach coming here. And leaving empty-handed was a meaty fist to the gut. But staying here all night wouldn’t put the CCTV tapes in Kylan’s hands. They weren’t here. The security system used was old as dirt, the VCR player empty. Any physical evidence had promptly changed hands or been destroyed by now, and that made Kylan more determined to find out what there was to hide. There was something to be found, he was fucking sure of it, he just needed to look in the right place. And that place wasn’t here.

“What were you looking for in there?” Theo asked as Kylan swung his leg over the window frame and dropped to the ground. The sun had started to set, the spill of shadow from the woods creeping in on the old caretaker’s house and blotting out the receding light.

“A clue.” Kylan worked quickly to screw the plywood into place over the broken window.

“A clue to what?”

Kylan put the screwdriver away and secured his bag on two shoulders, his face mask hot against his mouth and nose. His dark hair hung over his forehead and he swiped it away, combing his fingers through the inky, longer strands at the front.

Theo’s clumsy strides didn’t match his older brother’s, and Kylan slowed his pace to kill Theo’s awkwardness, sliding an affectionate, if not slightly irritated, glance sideways at his younger brother.

Kylan shrugged. He looked away from Theo and glanced up at the bruised orange sky, indigo hunting down and chasing away the last remnants of the day. “To the truth, I guess.”

Theo’s childish, toothy grin stretched across his soft face. “Like a treasure hunt? Can I help?”

Kylan smiled, holding himself back from reaching out and ruffling Theo’s mop of brown hair. It didn’t matter how old Theo got; he would always be a kid to Kylan. Mentally and physically. Some adults called Theo slow. Others, like his mom, called him special. The ones that had dared call him spastic, or retarded, had seen the blunt knuckles of Kylan’s fist. But Kylan couldn’t always be there to fight off the salivating wolves, and Theo was too naïve and trusting to fend them off on his own.

“I wish you could help.” Kylan’s smile dimmed around the edges, vanishing as quickly as the sunlight. “I really wish you fucking could, Teddy.”