Monthly Drawing 50: Trespassers

So, the story is not done yet. The reason it's not done, yet is that with what I started, I can't jump to the  TF without seeming rushed. Here's the beginning, though; the month is waning and I wanted to provide you with something!

STORY:

Neither of them could speak. They just stood together in silence and stared at the sign, hardly daring to believe they’d found it. 

They’d seen the sign for a half-mile, having already found the rotten gatehouse. It could be almost read for a hundred yards. But, now, standing in front of it, covered with decades of dirt, leaf litter and creeping vines, they could take in its words:

Ministry of Agriculture and Food

Experimental Laboratory: Livestock 

Laboratory A

“This is it…” Veronika finally whispered, “This is really it…”

Though he didn’t turn to look, Dmitri could hear the smile in her voice. What started with a single sentence in an old book became an obsession. They’d been searching for this place for a year. So long that they’d almost begun to believe they were wrong and it was a myth. But, here they were.

375 Km from Moscow,  twenty Km off of the R104. Down barely paved roads, through settlements too small to even have names. Down a disused logging road that ended in a circle that even the locals have forgotten; the vodka and beer bottles were from at least ten years ago and the shotgun shells were starting to corrode.

Another day hiking with an overnight camp. They were city kids, born and bred, but, in their three years together charting lost sites, they were now pros at backpacking. 

This, to them, was the holy grail of lost sites. They were both history students as well as lovers of the macabre. Veronika had found a mention of this lab, one that did human experimentation so strange, that all records were lost, and they just had to find it. 

A year of research. 

And now, here they were. 

They turned to look at each other, elation on their faces. 

“Shall we?” Veronika said, barely holding back the glee she obviously felt.

“Wellll,” Dmitri said, looking theatrically thoughtful, “We SHOULD set up camp first. You know, make some dinner and-

Veronika just gawped at him and he laughed. 

“Kidding! Kidding!” he said, shucking his pack, “Grab the cameras and let’s go!”

They pulled their GoPros and SLRs from their packs and sprinted together to the site proper.

As he ran, Dmitiri wondered if people thought that their ‘just coming upon a cool site’ videos were spontaneous. Did their viewers realize that they scouted the sites thoroughly and found the best places to film? Sure, the carried their cameras on at all times, as you never knew what might pop up but, they always made sure they’d scoured every inch before beginning the video proper.

They stopped cold at the main entrance. The glass doors were shattered by a large pine tree that had fallen many, many years ago. There was a smell wafting around that was so familiar to them it had become pleasant. Rotten wood, pine needles and the hint of mildew. The smell of very old buildings being taken back by nature. 

Simultaneously, their hands found each other’s. There was a squeeze and then, they stepped forward.