He slipped out of bed, kept his pajamas on but pulled on his running shoes and laced them up. The house was dark except for slivers of moonlight streaming through the windows. He didn’t want to turn on any lights for fear it might wake his mother. But he also needed to see where he was going. He crept quietly into his mother’s bedroom. She wasn’t snoring, but he could hear deep breathing, so he knew she was asleep. He tiptoed to her bedside and unplugged her phone from the charging cord, and, when he was back in the hallway, brought up the flashlight app.

Charlie descended the stairs and rounded the corner to the door that led down to the basement, shining the light ahead of him. Once he was atop the first step and had the door closed behind him, it was safe to flick on a light.

Even with the bare bulb illuminated, and the room largely deserted, the basement was not a place where he felt at ease. A little chill ran up his spine, the hairs on the back of his neck standing up when he reached the floor, although it might have been that Charlie was more excited than frightened.

Charlie walked over to the workbench, pulled out the drawer, and dug his fingers into the mix of rusty nails and pipe clamps and screws of varying sizes until he felt something small, smooth, and thin.

A key.

He grabbed it between his thumb and forefinger, lifted it out of the drawer, and brought it up to his nose for a closer inspection. It sure looked like a key that would open a padlock. Like the one on the shed door.

Charlie came back up the stairs, flicking off the light before he returned to the main floor and reengaged the flashlight app. He walked to the front door, opened it noiselessly, and stepped onto the porch. No security pad to worry about here. Nothing to disarm.

No bad guys in this part of the world.

He closed the door behind him and descended the porch steps. Even with his running shoes on, he could feel the dampness in the grass. Nighttime dew blanketed everything. Using the phone’s light, he rounded the house and headed for the shed, the key gripped so firmly in the palm of his left hand that it was creating an impression in his skin.

Charlie reached the shed, set the phone on the ground, screen pointed up so the shed door was illuminated, and tried to insert the key into the padlock. He had it turned the wrong way the first time, figured out his mistake, and tried again. The key slid in nicely. Holding the lock firmly in his left hand, Charlie turned the key with his right.

The lock came undone.