The Pump Shed

The shed looks collapsed from a distance, but the lock plate is freshly scored and the door opens easier than it should. Inside, the place smells like wet fuel, mildew, and old wood. A stack of drums lines one wall, too clean to have been abandoned for long. On a crate beneath the broken window lies a ledger with dates, initials, and short route marks that match the circles on your brother’s map. Beneath a sagging tarp in the back corner, you find a trapdoor worked into the floorboards. Someone reinforced it recently with cleaner lumber than anything else in the room. Whatever this was, it became active again for a reason.