Big Splash

The fuel gauge needle quivered just above the red line, and I found myself doing that thing where you lean forward in your seat like somehow that’s going to stretch the gas a little further. My Honda Civic, already a piece of junk when I bought it three months ago, had developed this wheeze when I pushed it past sixty, so I kept it at fifty-five and watched Indiana roll by in the pre-dawn darkness.

I’d been driving since two in the morning, unable to sleep at the rest stop outside Terre Haute. Some trucker had been running his engine all night, and the sound kept mixing with my dreams until I couldn’t tell if I was asleep or awake anymore. That’s how the last three months had been—one long blur of highway, rest stops, and gas station coffee that tasted like burnt rubber.

The sign for French Lick came up in my headlights: “French Lick - 5 miles. Home of Larry Bird.” I’d never heard of the place before yesterday when I’d done the math at a truck stop. Forty-three dollars in my wallet, maybe three gallons left in the tank if I was lucky. The kind of math that makes your stomach tight and your hands sweaty on the steering wheel.

I’d left Ohio without a plan, just a need to be somewhere else. Somewhere Mom wouldn’t call crying about the divorce, where Dad wouldn’t show up drunk at two AM wanting to talk about where everything went wrong. Somewhere that wasn’t the hardware store where I’d spent eighteen months saving every penny just to buy this car and a tank of gas.

The rest stop appeared through the morning mist, one of those old ones that probably hadn’t been updated since the seventies. Concrete block buildings, rusted metal roofs, parking spaces painted so long ago the lines were more memory than reality. I pulled in and parked next to a minivan with a family still asleep inside, kids’ faces pressed against the windows in that uncomfortable way kids can sleep anywhere.

I turned off the engine and sat there in the growing light. The fuel gauge settled firmly into the red. This was it. The end of the road, at least for now.

I got out and stretched, my back popping in three places. The morning air was thick with humidity, that Midwest summer wetness that makes you feel like you’re breathing through a wet towel. Cicadas were already starting their daily scream, and somewhere in the trees, birds were doing their morning thing.

The rest stop bathroom was exactly what you’d expect—graffiti from decades of bored travelers, that weird pink soap that doesn’t really clean anything, and a mirror so scratched I could barely see myself. Which was fine. I knew what I looked like—nineteen years old, too skinny, hair too long because haircuts cost money, and eyes that had that thousand-yard stare of someone who’d been looking at highway for too long.

I splashed water on my face and tried to think. Forty-three dollars. No job. No plan. No connections. Just me and a dying Honda and the town of French Lick, Indiana, which sounded like the punchline to a joke I didn’t get.

Back in the car, I turned the key and held my breath until the engine caught. The wheeze was worse now, like the car was expressing its opinion about the situation. I pulled back onto the highway and took the exit for French Lick, following signs toward downtown.

The town revealed itself slowly as the sun came up properly. Old buildings, mostly brick, lined a main street that had seen better days. Half the storefronts were empty, their windows either boarded up or displaying sun-faded “For Lease” signs. The other half were the kinds of places that exist in every small town—a diner, a hardware store, a bar that probably did more business than all the others combined.

But then, rising above the tree line like something from a different world, I saw the slides. Bright blue and yellow spirals twisting into the sky, the skeleton of what had to be a massive water park. A sign by the road confirmed it: “Big Splash Adventure - Indiana’s Premier Water Park Experience!”

Premier seemed like a stretch, but it was the “Now Hiring” part of the sign that made me pull over.

I sat there in the parking lot, engine running because I was afraid if I turned it off it might not start again, and stared at the entrance. It was still early, maybe seven-thirty, but there were already a few cars in the employee lot. The place was bigger than it looked from the road—I could see at least a dozen slides, multiple pools, and what looked like a lazy river winding around the perimeter.

A water park. In French Lick, Indiana. It was so random it almost made sense.

I found a rental sign three blocks from the park, in front of a two-story building that housed a laundromat on the ground floor. “Efficiency Apartments - $300/month - Inquire Within.” Three hundred dollars. That was almost everything I had, but it would give me a roof while I figured things out.

The landlady was already up, sitting in the laundromat reading a romance novel with a cover that made me blush just looking at it. Mrs. Chen, according to the name tag on her shirt, was maybe sixty, Chinese, and had the no-nonsense look of someone who’d heard every sob story and excuse in the book.

“You here about the apartment?” she asked without looking up from her book.

“Yeah. Yes, ma’am.”

She marked her page and gave me a once-over that felt like being scanned at airport security. “You got first month’s rent?”

“I have three hundred.”

“That’s first month. You got a job?”

“I’m about to apply at the water park.”

She snorted. “Big Splash? You know they only hire for night shift this late in the season?”

I didn’t know that, but I nodded anyway. “That’s fine.”

“You got references?”

“I... no. I just got to town.”

She studied me for another long moment, then shrugged. “Room 2B. No parties, no pets, no overnight guests without telling me first. Laundry’s free but you provide your own soap. Rent’s due on the first, and I mean the first, not the second, not the third. You’re late, you’re out. Understand?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She held out her hand, and I counted out three hundred dollars, leaving me with exactly forty-three cents and whatever change was in my car’s cup holder. She handed me a key that looked like it had been around since the building was new.

“Stairs are in the back. Don’t make noise after ten PM. The walls are thin and Mr. Rodriguez in 2A works early shift at the casino.”

The apartment was... well, it was a place to sleep. One room with a kitchenette against one wall, a bed that looked like it had seen better decades, and a bathroom so small you could sit on the toilet and wash your hands at the same time. The window looked out over the parking lot and, in the distance, I could see the top of the water park slides.

I sat on the bed, which squeaked like it was personally offended, and tried not to think about what I’d just done. No money, no food, and if I didn’t get this job, I’d be homeless in a month. My phone had been dead for a week—I’d let the plan lapse to save money—so I couldn’t even call anyone if I wanted to. Not that there was anyone to call.

After a shower in water that took forever to get hot and never really did, I put on my least wrinkled shirt and walked back to Big Splash Adventure. The employee entrance was around the side, a plain door with a buzzer and a sign that said “Please Ring for Service.”

I rang and waited. The morning was already hot, that thick humidity making my clean shirt stick to my back. Through the fence, I could hear the sounds of the park getting ready to open—pumps starting up, music being tested, the distant voices of employees preparing for another day of summer fun.

The door opened, and I found myself looking at a woman who seemed to exist outside of time. Eleanor Voss, according to her name tag, could have been anywhere from fifty to seventy. Her hair was that careful gray that might be natural or might be chosen, and her cardigan looked like something from a vintage shop, if vintage shops specialized in clothes that had never been worn despite being forty years old.

“Yes?” Her voice had that quality of someone who’s asked this question a thousand times and expects to ask it a thousand more.

“I’m here about the job? The hiring sign?”

She looked me up and down with eyes that were the exact color of chlorinated water. Not blue, not green, but that specific shade that only exists in pools. “Night shift?”

“That’s what I heard.”

“Come in.”

The office she led me to was in a trailer behind the main buildings, one of those construction site offices that was supposed to be temporary but had clearly been there for years. The inside was impossibly organized, filing cabinets lining every wall, each drawer labeled with dates that didn’t quite make sense. I swear I saw one marked “1987-2023” even though it was only 2024.

She pulled out a folder from a cabinet without looking, like she’d known exactly which one she needed before I’d even walked in. “Fill these out.”

The application was standard stuff—name, address, previous employment. I filled it out quickly, trying not to think about how thin my work history looked. Eighteen months at a hardware store and a few months of mowing lawns in high school.

While I wrote, Eleanor pulled out more papers from various folders, arranging them on her desk in a pattern that seemed important to her. Some of them she turned face down before I could see what they were.

“Andy Willby,” she read from my application before I’d even finished writing my name. “Nineteen. From Ohio. No college.”

“That’s right.”

“Running from something or toward something?”

The question caught me off guard. “I... what?”

“Everyone who ends up in French Lick is running from something or toward something. Which are you?”

I thought about lying, making up some story about seeking adventure or wanting a fresh start. But something about her eyes, that chlorine color that seemed to see through things, made me tell the truth.

“From, I guess. But I ran out of gas, so now I’m here.”

She smiled, a small thing that didn’t reach her eyes. “Honest. That’s good. You’ll need that.” She pulled out another form, this one older-looking, typed on an actual typewriter by the look of it. “Sign here.”

“What is it?”

“Standard liability waiver. The park has certain... hazards. We need to ensure you understand the risks.”

I reached for the paper, but she pulled it back slightly. “Just sign. Reading it won’t help.”

That should have been my first warning. Who asks you to sign something without reading it? But I needed this job. I needed it more than I needed to be careful. So I signed on the line she indicated, and she immediately flipped the paper over and filed it in a folder I hadn’t seen her pull out.

“When can you start?”

“Immediately. Tonight if you need me.”

“Good. Be here at seven PM. Park closes at ten, but your shift runs until the work is done, usually around two or three AM. Forty hours a week minimum, overtime after that. Fifteen dollars an hour, twenty-two fifty for overtime. Direct deposit every two weeks.”

It was more than I’d made at the hardware store. “That’s great. Thank you.”

She pulled out one more thing—a thick booklet bound with plastic spiral binding, the kind they used to use for presentations before everything went digital. “Employee handbook. Read it before you come in tonight. All of it.”

The handbook was heavier than it looked, and when I opened it later, I understood why. It was dense with text, single-spaced, covering everything from dress code to emergency procedures. But it was the sections at the back, the ones marked with red tabs, that made me pause. “Special Circumstances,” “After-Hours Protocols,” “Containment Procedures.”

I spent the afternoon in my apartment, reading through the handbook while my stomach reminded me I hadn’t eaten since yesterday’s gas station burrito. The regular stuff was what you’d expect—be on time, wear your uniform, don’t steal, don’t harass other employees. But the sections at the back were different.

“Section 7.3: In the event of unexpected water flow after closing hours, do not attempt to locate the source. Proceed immediately to the pump room and notify the Night Supervisor.”

“Section 8.1: Certain areas of the park are restricted during night shift hours. These areas will be identified during your orientation. Under no circumstances should you enter these areas outside of designated windows.”

“Section 9.4: All night shift employees must provide their own food. Food from park concessions is not to be consumed after closing hours under any circumstances.”

It went on like that, rule after rule that seemed to be describing a completely different place than a water park. But the pay was good, and I needed the money, so I convinced myself it was just corporate liability paranoia.

At six-thirty, I walked back to Big Splash. The parking lot was different now, families loading tired kids into minivans, teenagers lingering by their cars not wanting the day to end. Normal summer water park stuff. Through the fence, I could see employees in bright blue shirts cleaning up, emptying trash cans, hosing down concrete.

I went to the employee entrance and rang again. This time, the door was answered by a mountain of a man in coveralls that had seen better years. Everything about him was big—hands like ham hocks, shoulders that barely fit through the doorway, a face that looked like it had been carved from granite and then weathered by decades of hard work.

“You Andy?” His voice matched his size, deep and rumbling like distant thunder.

“Yes, sir.”

“I’m Tank. Marcus Jennings if you’re being formal, but nobody’s formal here. Come on, I’ll show you around before the park closes.”

He led me through a maze of back passages, concrete corridors that ran beneath and behind the public areas. Pipes ran along the ceiling, some of them gurgling with water, others hissing with pressure. The fluorescent lights flickered occasionally, creating shadows that seemed to move on their own.

“This is the backstage area,” Tank explained as we walked. “During the day, you won’t be back here much. But at night, this is your highway. Keeps you out of sight, lets you move between areas without going through the public spaces.”

“Why would I need to avoid the public spaces? The park’s closed at night, right?”

Tank glanced back at me, and something in his expression made me wish I hadn’t asked. “Park’s closed to the public, yeah. But that doesn’t mean it’s empty.”

Before I could ask what that meant, we emerged into a massive room filled with pumps and pipes and gauges. The noise was overwhelming—a constant rhythm of mechanical breathing that seemed to come from everywhere at once.

“Pump room,” Tank shouted over the noise. “Heart of the whole operation. Everything flows through here.”

He showed me around the room, pointing out various pieces of equipment, explaining basic maintenance tasks I’d be responsible for. But what struck me most was the wall near the main pump, covered in what looked like graffiti but was actually carefully drawn charts and diagrams, all in what appeared to be dried blood.

“Is that...” I started to ask.

“My translation guide,” Tank said, like that explained anything. “The gauges don’t read in normal measurements. Had to figure out my own system. You’ll learn to read it eventually. Or you won’t, and then you won’t last long.”

He said it matter-of-factly, like he was talking about the weather.

We continued the tour as the park started closing. Tank showed me the supply closets, the break room (a depressing box with a microwave that looked like it might be radioactive), and various cleaning stations throughout the park. As we walked, he pointed out areas that were “off-limits after dark.”

“The Pirate’s Plunder area, don’t go there except between three and four AM, and even then, only if you absolutely have to. The indoor pool after midnight is a no-go unless Bianca’s with you. And the laser tag arena... just don’t go in the laser tag arena at night. Period.”

“Why?” I couldn’t help asking.

Tank stopped and turned to face me fully. In the dying sunlight, his scarred hands caught the light, and I noticed for the first time that they were covered in what looked like burn marks, but burns that formed patterns, almost like symbols.

“Look, kid. You seem nice enough, and you need this job. I get that. But there are things about this place that don’t make sense if you think about them too hard. So don’t think about them. Follow the rules, do your job, and you’ll be fine. Start asking why, start poking around where you shouldn’t, and...”

He trailed off, but the implication was clear.

The last of the daily employees were leaving as we finished the tour. Tank introduced me to a few of them—a nervous kid named Colin who worked concessions and barely made eye contact, a aggressively cheerful woman named Theresa who managed day operations and seemed personally offended by the existence of night shift, and a few others whose names I immediately forgot.

And then, as the sun finally set properly and the park lights started switching from their daytime configuration to something more sparse and functional, I met Bianca.

She appeared from nowhere, or at least it seemed that way. One moment Tank and I were alone by the wave pool, the next she was standing there in her security uniform, dark hair pulled back in a bun so tight it looked painful, eyes reflecting the pool lights in a way that made them look almost black.

“New guy?” she asked Tank, though her eyes never left me.

“Andy. Starting tonight.”

She walked around me slowly, not in a threatening way, but like she was memorizing me, filing me away in some mental category system I couldn’t understand. “You read the handbook?”

“Yes.”

“All of it?”

“Yes.”

“Even the back sections? The red tabs?”

“Especially those.”

She stopped in front of me, and for the first time, I noticed she was wearing a compression glove on her left hand. “Good. Most people skip those parts. They don’t last long.” She turned to Tank. “I’ll take him from here. You need to check the filters before the overnight maintenance window.”

Tank nodded and lumbered off, leaving me alone with Bianca as the last of the daylight faded and the park transformed into something else entirely. The cheerful music that had been playing all day cut off abruptly, leaving only the sound of water moving through pipes and the distant hum of machinery.

“First rule,” Bianca said, her voice taking on a formal quality, like she was reciting something memorized. “Bring your own food. Always. It doesn’t matter what—sandwiches, candy bars, fruit, whatever. But before you bring it into the park, you need to...” she paused, seeming to choose her words carefully, “express gratitude for it.”

“Express gratitude?”

“Say thank you. Say grace if you’re religious. Hell, sing it a song if you want. Just... acknowledge it somehow. With words. Out loud.”

“That seems—”

“Weird? Crazy? Yeah, I know how it sounds. But around eleven o’clock, sometimes earlier, you’re going to get hungry. Not normal hungry. The kind of hungry that makes you want to eat everything in sight. The food you brought, if you’ve done what I said, will help. If you haven’t, or if you try to eat something from the concession stands...” She shook her head. “Just don’t.”

She started walking, and I followed, trying to process what she was telling me. We passed the Galley Grill, and through the service window, I could have sworn I saw someone in the kitchen. A heavy-set man in a stained apron, chopping something on a cutting board. But when I blinked and looked again, the kitchen was dark and empty.

“Did you see—”

“No,” Bianca cut me off. “And neither did you. That’s important. There are things here you’re going to see, or think you see. Most of the time, the best thing to do is ignore them. They ignore you, you ignore them, everyone gets along fine.”

“What kind of things?”

She stopped and turned to face me, and for the first time, I saw something in her expression that might have been sympathy. “Look, Andy. I’ve been doing this for eight years. Eight years of night shifts at this place. I’ve trained seventeen people in that time. Want to know how many lasted more than a month?”

I didn’t, but I nodded anyway.

“Four. The rest either quit, disappeared, or...” she paused, “had accidents. The ones who made it were the ones who followed the rules without question. So I’m going to tell you the rules, and you’re going to follow them, and maybe you’ll be number five. Okay?”

“Okay.”

We spent the next hour going over the practical aspects of the job. Cleaning routines, chemical procedures, maintenance schedules. Normal stuff, except for the constant additions: “Never clean this area alone.” “Always announce yourself before entering here.” “If you hear water running in this section, leave immediately.”

By ten o’clock, the park was officially closed. The last stragglers had been ushered out, the gates were locked, and suddenly the place felt different. Not empty, but waiting. Like when you turn off the TV but the screen still holds a ghost of static.

“Ten-fifteen,” Bianca said, checking her watch. “The pumps shut down in ten minutes. All of them, all at once. When that happens, there should be no water moving anywhere in the park. No flow, no drips, nothing. If you hear water after ten-fifteen, you find me or Tank immediately. Don’t investigate on your own.”

“What happens if there’s water running?”

She gave me that look again, the one that said I was asking the wrong questions. “Things that shouldn’t be here try to come through. The still water keeps them out. Moving water invites them in.”

I wanted to laugh, to make a joke about how this sounded like a bad horror movie, but something in her expression stopped me. She believed what she was saying. Completely.

At exactly 10:15, the pumps shut down. It wasn’t gradual—one moment the park was alive with the sound of moving water, the next it was silent. Eerily, unnaturally silent. Every pool became a perfect mirror, every slide a dry tunnel. The lazy river stopped so abruptly that the remaining water sloshed against the walls before settling into stillness.

And that’s when I first felt it. The hunger.

It started as a small thing, just a reminder that I’d skipped lunch and dinner. But within minutes, it grew into something else. My stomach didn’t just growl—it ached, cramped, demanded. I could smell food everywhere—burgers, hot dogs, pizza, things that couldn’t possibly be cooking since all the concession stands were closed.

“Right on time,” Bianca said, watching me. “You bring anything?”

I shook my head, unable to speak through the sudden, overwhelming need to eat.

She sighed and pulled a granola bar from her pocket. But before handing it to me, she held it up and said, clearly and formally, “Thank you for this food.” Then she passed it over.

The moment I bit into it, the hunger lessened. Not disappeared, but became manageable, like normal hunger instead of the all-consuming need I’d felt moments before.

“Every night,” Bianca said as I ate. “Sometimes it’s worse than others. But it’s always there. And if you give in, if you eat something that hasn’t been... blessed, I guess... it gets worse. And worse. Until...”

“Until what?”

She pointed toward the Boatyard Restaurant, and through the windows, I could see him clearly now. The man in the kitchen, still chopping. But what he was chopping didn’t look like any meat I recognized. It was too red, too wet, and it seemed to twitch as the knife came down.

“That’s Bob,” Bianca said quietly. “Or what’s left of him. He was a night worker, years ago. Got hungry, ate from the kitchen. Kept eating. Couldn’t stop. They found him three days later, stomach burst from consuming forty-three pounds of... various things. But he didn’t die. Not exactly. Now he’s part of the park. Bound to it. Preparing food for hungers that can never be satisfied.”

I stared at the figure in the kitchen, watching as he moved with mechanical precision, chopping and preparing and arranging things that shouldn’t exist. As I watched, he looked up, and our eyes met through the window. He smiled, a horrible expression on a face that wasn’t quite right anymore, and beckoned me closer.

“Don’t,” Bianca said, grabbing my arm. “Never go to him. Never acknowledge him directly. He’s not hostile, usually, but he’s always hungry, and he wants to share that hunger. Ignore him, and he ignores you.”

We moved away from the restaurant, and I tried to process what I was seeing, what I was being told. Part of me wanted to run, to get in my car and drive until I hit the ocean. But I had forty-three cents to my name and nowhere else to go.

“It gets easier,” Bianca said, maybe reading my expression. “The first night is always the worst. You see too much too fast. But if you follow the rules, if you don’t ask too many questions, it becomes routine. Just another job with unusual hazards.”

“How do you do it?” I asked. “Eight years of this?”

She was quiet for a long moment, looking out over the still pools that reflected the security lights like sheets of black glass. “I had a swimming scholarship once. Full ride to State. I was good, really good. Olympics good, maybe. Then there was an accident. Not here, at another pool. I got caught in a drain, pulled under. They got me out, revived me, but... I can’t go underwater anymore. Can’t even put my face under in the shower. Killed my swimming career, killed my future.”

She turned to look at me, and in the strange light, her eyes seemed to reflect depths that shouldn’t exist. “This place understands that kind of fear. It feeds on it, maybe, or protects it. I don’t know. But I can work here, around all this water, and never have to go in it. The park and I have an understanding. I maintain its boundaries, and it maintains mine.”

We walked in silence for a while, moving through the park’s empty pathways. Despite everything, there was something almost peaceful about it. The crowds were gone, the screaming children and exhausted parents replaced by the soft sound of our footsteps and the distant hum of machinery that never quite stopped.

“There’s someone I want you to meet,” Bianca said eventually, leading me toward the indoor pool complex. “She’s... well, she’s one of the things I mentioned. But she’s mostly harmless if you follow the rules.”

The indoor pool area was warmer than outside, the air thick with chlorine and humidity. The main pool was still, its surface like glass, but the hot tub in the corner was different. The water moved slightly, circling in patterns that had nothing to do with jets or mechanical systems.

And in it was a woman.

She was young, maybe mid-twenties, with long dark hair that floated in the water in ways that defied physics. She was naked, but the water seemed to cling to her strategically, providing modesty that felt intentional. Her skin had a quality I couldn’t define—simultaneously wet and dry, present and not quite there.

“Marina,” Bianca said softly, not quite looking at her directly. “We have a new night worker. Andy.”

Marina stretched, her body bending in ways that made my eyes water trying to follow. She looked at me, or through me, or into me—I couldn’t tell which.

“Young,” she said, and her voice came from the water more than from her mouth. “They’re always young now. The old ones know better.”

“Be nice,” Bianca said, but there was fondness in her voice. “Andy, this is Marina. She’s been here longer than any of us. Longer than the park, maybe. She likes the hot tub at night. When you’re cleaning in here, just work around her. Don’t stare, don’t interact unless she speaks to you first, and definitely don’t...”

“Don’t what?” I asked.

Marina laughed, a sound like water going down a drain in reverse. “Don’t fall in love with me, boy. I bite.”

She disappeared under the water, but the hot tub was only three feet deep, and she simply wasn’t there anymore. A moment later, wet footprints appeared on the deck, leading toward the main pool, steaming in the cool air.

“What is she?” I whispered.

“I don’t know,” Bianca admitted. “Nobody does. She’s been here since the park opened, and there are stories about her from before that. She’s bound to the water somehow, can’t leave it for long. During the day, she stays deep, where the guests can’t see her. At night, she comes up.”

“Is she dangerous?”

“Everything here is dangerous if you’re stupid about it. But Marina... she’s more lonely than anything. Sometimes she talks to me, tells me about things that happened before the town existed. Sometimes she just floats there, existing. As long as you don’t...”

She trailed off, but I understood. Don’t show interest. Don’t stare. Don’t give her any reason to notice you specially.

We left the pool area, and Bianca showed me the supply closet where I’d get my cleaning supplies. Basic stuff—mops, buckets, chemicals, the usual. But also salt, lots of it, and spray bottles filled with something that wasn’t quite water.

“For the footprints,” she explained. “Marina’s and others. Regular mopping doesn’t work. You need the salt solution. Don’t ask me why, I don’t know. It’s just what works.”

The rest of the shift was almost normal. I cleaned bathrooms, mopped walkways, emptied trash cans. Normal janitor stuff, if you ignored the constant feeling of being watched, the occasional sound of water moving when it shouldn’t, and the figure of Bob in the restaurant, endlessly chopping his mysterious meat.

Around two AM, Bianca found me cleaning near the wave pool. “Good first night,” she said. “You didn’t run screaming, didn’t investigate things you shouldn’t, didn’t break any major rules. You might actually make it.”

“This is insane,” I said, too tired to filter myself. “All of this. It’s completely insane.”

“Yes,” she agreed simply. “But it’s also a job. Fifteen an hour, overtime after forty hours. Health insurance after ninety days. In French Lick, Indiana, that’s not nothing.”

She was right. It wasn’t nothing. It was survival.

“Come back tomorrow,” she said. “Seven PM. Bring food—something sealed, like granola bars or packaged sandwiches. Say thank you over each item before you put it in your bag. And Andy?”

“Yeah?”

“Try not to dream about this place. The dreams here have a way of becoming real.”

I walked home through the quiet streets of French Lick, my mind trying to process everything I’d seen and heard. The logical part of me said it was all hazing, elaborate pranks designed to scare the new guy. But the granola bar in my stomach, the one that had stopped that impossible hunger, suggested otherwise.

My apartment felt smaller when I got back, but also safer. More real. I sat on the squeaky bed and pulled out the employee handbook, flipping to the sections at the back. In the light of my single lamp, reading them again, they made a different kind of sense.

“Section 12.7: Employees may occasionally observe individuals in areas where no individuals should be present. Do not engage. Do not acknowledge. Continue with assigned duties.”

“Section 13.2: The park maintains certain permanent residents who are not listed on any employee roster. These residents are to be treated with respect and distance.”

“Section 14.1: In the event of encountering standing water where no water should be present, do not touch or disturb. Mark the area and notify senior staff immediately.”

I kept reading until my eyes couldn’t focus anymore, then fell asleep fully clothed on top of the covers. And despite Bianca’s warning, I did dream about the park. I dreamed about empty pools that went down forever, about slides that led to places that weren’t in Indiana, about Marina floating in water that didn’t exist.

But mostly, I dreamed about Bob in his kitchen, chopping and chopping and chopping, preparing meals for things that were always hungry but could never eat enough.

I woke up at three in the afternoon with my mouth tasting like chlorine and my sheets soaked with sweat. The dream about Bob’s kitchen was still fresh—the sound of his knife hitting the cutting board had followed me into waking, becoming the rhythmic banging of Mr. Rodriguez’s headboard against our shared wall.

My stomach growled, the normal kind of hungry, and I remembered I had exactly forty-three cents and no food in the apartment. But I also had a job now, even if it was at a haunted water park or whatever Big Splash actually was. First paycheck wouldn’t be for two weeks. I needed to figure out food until then.

The laundromat downstairs had a vending machine. Ancient thing that looked like it hadn’t been serviced since the Clinton administration, but it took quarters. I got a package of peanut butter crackers for fifty cents—which meant I was now technically in debt by seven cents—and ate them slowly, making them last.

Mrs. Chen was at her usual spot, different romance novel but same general theme based on the cover. “You look like hell,” she said without looking up.

“Thanks.”

“Job work out?”

“Yeah. Night shift.”

She made a noise that could have meant anything. “Night shift at that place. You’ll either last a week or forever. No in-between.”

“You know about Big Splash?”

Now she did look up, marking her page with a receipt. “Honey, everyone in French Lick knows about Big Splash. We just don’t talk about it. Bad for tourism.”

“But—”

“No buts. You need the job, they need workers who can handle the night shift. Everyone gets what they need. Just follow their rules and don’t go swimming after dark.”

She went back to her book, conversation clearly over.

I spent the afternoon at the library, using their computer to look up Big Splash Adventure. The official website was all sunny photos and smiling families. “Indiana’s Premier Water Park Experience!” it proclaimed, with a history section that talked about the park’s founding in 1998 and its commitment to family fun.

But when I dug deeper, searching news archives and local forums, I found other stories. Seventeen employees missing over the years, all night shift. The official explanations varied—they quit without notice, they moved away suddenly, family emergencies. But there was always a detail that didn’t fit. They left their last paychecks unclaimed. Their cars were found in the employee lot. And always, always, their shoes were left behind.

There was a death, too. Patricia Morse, a local detective. Drowned in the parking lot, according to the report, which made no sense. How do you drown in a parking lot? The comments on that article had been disabled, but I found references to it elsewhere. People saying she’d been investigating the park. That she’d gotten too close to something.

At six-thirty, I headed back to Big Splash, stopping at a gas station on the way. The attendant, a kid about my age with bad acne and worse attitude, rang up my items—two bottles of water and a box of granola bars—without looking at me.

“That’ll be eight seventy-three.”

I handed him the emergency twenty I’d found wedged in my wallet’s lining, saved for absolute disaster. This qualified.

As he made change, he glanced at my Big Splash shirt (they’d given me two, told me to wash them myself). “You work there?”

“Just started.”

“Day shift?”

“Night.”

He actually looked at me then, really looked, and I saw something like pity in his eyes. “Good luck, man. My cousin Riley worked nights there. Three weeks. Won’t talk about it now, just says to stay away from the kitchen after closing.”

“The kitchen?”

“Yeah. The restaurant kitchen. Whatever you do, don’t go in there alone. And if you smell something cooking that smells too good to be true, run.”

He handed me my change and turned away, clearly done with the conversation.

In the parking lot, I sat in my car and carefully opened each granola bar wrapper, holding each one up and saying “Thank you for this food” before rewrapping it and putting it in my backpack. I felt ridiculous, but less ridiculous than I’d felt watching Bob chop his mysterious meat.

The employee lot was emptier tonight. Just five cars including mine. Tank’s massive truck, Bianca’s practical sedan, and two others I didn’t recognize. The day shift was gone, the last families departing as I walked to the employee entrance.

Colin was there, just leaving, his concession uniform stained with what looked like nacho cheese. He saw me and stopped, glancing around nervously before approaching.

“You came back,” he said, sounding surprised.

“Yeah. Need the job.”

“Most people don’t come back. Not after the first night.” He shifted his weight, clearly wanting to say something else. “Look, I know it’s not my business, but... be careful around the wave pool between midnight and one. And if you see wet footprints going up the tornado slide, don’t follow them.”

“Why would wet footprints be going UP a slide?”

Colin just shook his head and hurried to his car.

Inside, I found Bianca in the break room, eating what looked like a homemade sandwich. She’d taken her hair down from its tight bun, and it made her look younger, less severe. Almost normal.

“You brought food?” she asked.

I showed her my granola bars.

“And you...?”

“Said thank you. Felt weird about it, but I did it.”

“Good. The feeling weird goes away. The hunger if you don’t do it doesn’t.” She took another bite of her sandwich. “Tank’s already in the pump room. He wants to start teaching you the maintenance routines. I’ll handle the orientation for the other areas.”

“Other areas?”

“The places I showed you yesterday, plus a few more. The park has... zones, I guess. Different areas with different rules, different residents.”

“Residents. Like Marina.”

“Marina’s just one of four. Well, four main ones. There are others, smaller things, but four that really matter.” She finished her sandwich and stood. “Come on. Better to know what you’re dealing with.”

We left the break room and headed into the park proper. The sun was setting, painting everything orange and red, making the water look like blood. The last few day-shift employees nodded as they passed us, that same look Colin had—surprise that I’d come back.

“First thing,” Bianca said as we walked, “the spirits. That’s what we call them, though I don’t know if that’s accurate. They’re bound to specific areas, can’t or won’t leave them. As long as you respect their boundaries, they mostly leave you alone.”

We stopped near the laser tag arena, a building designed to look like a crashed spaceship. Through the tinted windows, I could see the day-shift employees had already turned off all the equipment, but there was still a glow coming from inside, a pulse of colored light that didn’t match any of the normal arcade machines.

“Phill,” Bianca said. “Twelve years old, or was when he died. 1999, during a birthday party. Official cause was an asthma attack, but seven kids swear they saw him pulled into the walls. He’s playful during the day—high scores appearing on machines, giggling in empty corridors. At night...”

She trailed off, and I saw her unconsciously rub her left arm.

“At night?” I prompted.

“At night, he wants to play. And his games get serious based on what he thinks you deserve. I went in once, my second year here. Just to clean, nothing else. But I’d gotten a speeding ticket that week, and somehow he knew. The lasers actually burned. Left marks that took weeks to heal.”

“That’s insane.”

“That’s Tuesday at Big Splash.” She started walking again. “The rule is simple—don’t go in at night. If you absolutely have to, make sure your conscience is clear. No recent sins, even minor ones. He judges, and his judgments hurt.”

We moved on to the restaurant area. Through the windows, I could see Bob at his station, chopping. Always chopping. Tonight, under the knife, the meat looked different. Pinker. More marbled with fat.

“You already know about Bob. He creates the hunger, we think. Or maybe he just responds to it. Either way, he’s the reason for the food rule. Eat only what you’ve blessed, never touch the park food after closing, and never, ever go into that kitchen.”

“What happens if you do?”

“Remember those seventeen missing employees? Three of them were last seen heading into the kitchen. They found pieces later. Not enough to identify, not enough to bury. Just... pieces. Mixed in with the regular meat deliveries.”

My stomach turned, and I was glad I’d only eaten crackers.

“But here’s the thing,” Bianca continued. “Bob wasn’t always hostile. My predecessor, Dennis, used to talk to him sometimes. Said Bob was a chef before, a real one. Had his own restaurant in Indianapolis. Got into debt with the wrong people, ended up here working nights to hide out. Then one night, he got hungry...”

“And ate the wrong thing.”

“And became the wrong thing. Now he’s stuck, preparing food for hungers that can’t be satisfied. He still cooks, still follows recipes, but what he makes isn’t for human consumption anymore.”

We walked past the Pirate’s Plunder area, and Bianca picked up speed, clearly not wanting to linger. Even from a distance, I could feel something wrong about it. The air was colder there, and the shadows fell in directions that didn’t match the setting sun.

“Larry,” she said once we were past. “The worst of them. Child predator when he was alive. Worked here in 2006, used his position to identify victims. Seven fathers found out, took justice into their own hands. Drowned him in the toilet bowl slide, held him under until he stopped moving. Body was never found—the filtration system processed him, turned him into something the pool absorbed.”

“Jesus.”

“Jesus has nothing to do with Larry. He’s angry, violent, and confined to that area. Between 3 and 4 AM, he goes dormant—something about the fathers’ vigil, Tank thinks. That’s the only time you can clean there. Any other time, he’ll attack anyone who enters. Killed a detective last year who was trying to save a kid who’d gotten lost in the park after closing.”

“Patricia Morse.”

Bianca stopped and looked at me sharply. “You’ve been researching.”

“Library has newspaper archives.”

“Forget what you read. Patricia died a hero, saving that kid. But she died badly. Larry doesn’t just kill—he drowns you without water. Fills your lungs with chlorinated nothing until you suffocate standing on dry ground.”

We completed the circuit at the indoor pool, where Marina was already in her hot tub. Tonight she was visible, her form more solid than yesterday. She waved at Bianca, who nodded back carefully.

“Marina’s the oldest,” Bianca said quietly. “She was here before the park, before the town maybe. The construction workers in ’98 found her in an underground spring when they were laying foundation. Instead of reporting it, they built the pool system around her. She can’t leave—bound to the water somehow.”

“Is she dangerous?”

“She’s lonely. Dangerously lonely. She wants company, wants touch, wants things that would kill a human to provide. Men who’ve shown interest wake up in the hospital with internal injuries that doctors can’t explain. Women who’ve stared too long get scratches that spell out warnings in languages that predate writing.”

Marina must have heard us talking because she laughed, that liquid sound that ran down my spine like cold water. “I just want a friend,” she called out, her voice carrying impossible distances. “Is that so wrong?”

“We’re all friends here, Marina,” Bianca replied, not looking at her directly. “Just friends with boundaries.”

“Boundaries,” Marina repeated, sinking into the water until only her eyes showed. “Everything here has boundaries except the water. Water goes where it wants.”

We left quickly after that.

Tank was waiting in the pump room, his massive form bent over a gauge that showed measurements in symbols I didn’t recognize. The blood-drawn charts on the wall looked different in the fluorescent light—more intentional, less insane.

“Kid came back,” he said without looking up. “Good. Hate training newbies just to have them rabbit.”

“I need the money.”

“Everyone needs something.” He straightened, his knees popping like gunshots. “Tonight, you learn the basics. How to read the real measurements, not the ones on the gauges. How to feel when something’s wrong. How to keep the heart beating.”

“The heart?”

He patted the main pump, the massive thing he called Bertha. As if in response, it shifted its rhythm slightly, and I realized it really did sound like a heartbeat. Slow, steady, but definitely organic.

“Everything flows through here,” Tank explained. “Water, sure, but other things too. The park’s not just concrete and fiberglass. It’s alive, in a way. And like anything alive, it needs circulation. That’s what we maintain. Not just pumps and filters, but circulation of... other things.”

He showed me how to read his charts, translating the strange symbols into concepts I could barely grasp. This gauge showed not pressure but “intention.” That one measured not flow but “hunger.” The large one in the center displayed something Tank called “saturation”—how much of whatever the park was had leaked into our reality.

“Keep it between thirty and sixty percent,” he said. “Below thirty, things start manifesting that shouldn’t. Above sixty, the park starts digesting things. People, mostly.”

“This can’t be real.”

Tank looked at me with eyes that had seen too much. “Real’s relative, kid. This is what is. You can accept it or not, but either way, if you work here, you maintain it.”

The next three hours were a crash course in impossible engineering. I learned to feel the pump’s rhythm, to know when it was “feeding” versus when it was “sleeping.” I learned that certain pipes carried water and others carried something Tank just called “the flow”—a substance that looked like water but moved against gravity and tasted like copper and regret.

Around midnight, something changed. The pumps shifted their rhythm, and Tank immediately moved to a panel I hadn’t noticed before.

“Feeding time,” he said, flipping switches in a sequence that seemed random but probably wasn’t. “Every night, between midnight and one, the park feeds. Processes what it’s collected during the day—lost items, forgotten memories, skin cells, hair, all the little pieces people leave behind.”

“Feeds on what?”

“Human residue. Experience. Emotion. The stuff that makes a place feel lived in.” He adjusted another valve, and the rhythm smoothed out. “It’s not malicious. Just hungry. Like any living thing.”

Through the pump room windows, I could see the park in its feeding state. The pools glowed slightly, processing their daily harvest. The slides moved subtly, peristaltic motions like throats swallowing. And in the distance, I could see things moving—not quite human, not quite anything—collecting what the park needed.

“Don’t go out during feeding time,” Tank said. “The park can’t always tell the difference between what’s been left behind and what’s still attached to someone.”

We waited in the pump room until the feeding ended, the rhythm returning to its normal pattern. Tank checked his gauges, made notes in a logbook that looked older than the park itself, then nodded.

“Good for tonight. Tomorrow, I’ll teach you about the overflow systems. What to do when the park gets too full.”

“Too full of what?”

“Everything it can’t digest. Sometimes that includes employees who didn’t follow the rules.”

He left me with that cheerful thought, heading out to do his rounds. I found Bianca by the wave pool, mopping up footprints that led from the water to the tornado slide. The footprints were wet but wrong—too many toes, or not enough, or toes in places toes shouldn’t be.

“Marina’s restless tonight,” she said, pouring salt solution over the prints and watching them dissolve. “She does this when she’s lonely. Leaves pieces of herself around, hoping someone will follow them back.”

“Has anyone?”

“Once. A day-shift lifeguard named Tommy. Followed the prints right into the deep end. We found him three hours later, technically alive but speaking languages that don’t exist. His family had him committed. Last I heard, he was still drawing blueprints for pools that go down forever.”

We worked in silence for a while, cleaning up Marina’s trail. The footprints led everywhere—up walls, across ceilings, into places that should have been impossible to reach. Each one dissolved under the salt solution, leaving behind a smell like low tide.

“Can I ask you something?” I said eventually.

“Depends on the question.”

“Why do you stay? Eight years of this. Why?”

Bianca paused in her mopping, looking out at the wave pool. In the security lights, it looked almost normal. Almost.

“I told you about my accident. What I didn’t tell you is that I died. For three minutes, I was gone. Heart stopped, breathing stopped, everything stopped. And in those three minutes, I saw...”

She trailed off, searching for words.

“What did you see?”

“Water. But not like this. Water that was alive, conscious, ancient. It showed me things—how every drop is connected, how the ocean remembers everything that’s ever touched it, how water is the boundary between our world and others. When they brought me back, I couldn’t forget what I’d seen. Couldn’t go back to normal life.”

She resumed mopping, her movements mechanical.

“This place understands that. It exists on the same boundary I saw. Working here, maintaining these borders, it’s the closest I can get to that water without drowning again. And Marina...”

“What about Marina?”

“She was there. In my vision, or death, or whatever it was. She was there, in that ancient water. She recognized me when I started working here. Said I smelled like the deep places.”

“That’s...”

“Insane? Yeah. Everything here is. But it’s my insane, and I understand it. Out there,” she gestured toward the town, “that’s what doesn’t make sense to me anymore.”

We finished cleaning Marina’s trail and moved on to the bathroom facilities. Normal cleaning, mostly, except for the third stall in the men’s room which was locked from the inside despite being empty. Bianca said it had been that way for years. Sometimes you could hear someone in there, but it was better not to investigate.

Around 2 AM, I was cleaning near the entrance when a car pulled into the parking lot. Not unusual—sometimes people got confused, thought the park had late hours. But this car parked and sat there, engine running, lights on.

“Security issue?” I asked Bianca when I found her.

She looked through the window and frowned. “That’s Riley’s car.”

We watched as Riley Chen got out, clearly drunk, stumbling toward the employee entrance. Bianca sighed and went to intercept him, me following.

“Riley, you can’t be here,” she said, blocking his path.

“Need to tell him,” Riley slurred, pointing at me. “New guy needs to know.”

“Know what?”

“About the kitchen. About what Bob really wants.” He swayed, catching himself on the fence. “He doesn’t want to hurt people. He wants to cook. Really cook. Like he used to.”

“Riley, you’re drunk. Go home.”

“No!” He pushed past her, surprisingly strong for someone that intoxicated. “I figured it out. Three weeks I worked here, three weeks of watching him. He’s not evil. He’s trapped. Trapped doing the same thing over and over, preparing food no one can eat.”

He was crying now, tears running down his face.

“I can cook,” he said. “Not well, but I can. And that night, my last night, I went into the kitchen. Everyone says don’t, but I did. And Bob didn’t attack me. He watched me. Watched me make a simple omelet with ingredients that shouldn’t have been there. And when I was done, he ate it. First thing he’d eaten in years probably. And he smiled.”

“Riley...” Bianca started.

“He said ‘thank you.’ In a voice like grinding meat, but he said it. Then he told me to run, to get out before the hunger took me too. So I ran. But I know now. He doesn’t want to create hunger. He wants to satisfy it. He just can’t anymore.”

Riley looked at me with eyes that had seen too much. “If someone could cook for him, really cook, maybe he could rest. Maybe the hunger would stop.”

Then he turned and stumbled back to his car, driving away before we could stop him.

“Is he right?” I asked Bianca.

“I don’t know. Maybe. But it doesn’t matter. No one’s going to risk going into that kitchen to find out.”

But looking through the restaurant window at Bob, endlessly chopping, I wondered. He looked up, met my eyes, and for just a moment, his expression wasn’t hungry. It was sad.

The rest of the shift passed quietly. I cleaned, maintained, avoided the restricted areas. Normal night shift stuff, if you could call any of this normal. When dawn finally came, painting the sky pink and gold, I was exhausted but still alive, still sane, still human.

“Two nights down,” Bianca said as we clocked out. “Just remember, every night is different. The park has moods, phases. Some nights are quiet. Others...”

“Others?”

“Others, we earn our hazard pay.”

Two weeks into the job, I’d developed a routine. Arrive at seven, check in with Bianca, get my assignments from Tank, and spend eight hours maintaining the boundaries between normal and whatever Big Splash really was.

The hunger was manageable now. I’d found that prayers didn’t have to be religious—a simple “thanks for existing, granola bar” worked just as well as formal grace. The spirits had become... not friends exactly, but familiar hazards. Like working around dangerous machinery, you learned their patterns, their danger zones, their safe periods.

Marina had taken to following my cleaning route some nights, leaving wet footprints for me to mop up. It felt almost playful, like a cat bringing dead mice. Bob continued his endless chopping, though I’d noticed the meat changed based on the day—sometimes red, sometimes white, sometimes colors that meat shouldn’t be. Phill’s giggles echoed from the laser tag arena, but as long as I didn’t go in, he seemed content to play alone. And Larry... Larry we all avoided, that three-to-four AM window the only time anyone went near Pirate’s Plunder.

It was Thursday night, humid even for July, when I heard the voice in the administrative trailer.

I was emptying trash cans in the parking lot, a mindless task that I’d come to appreciate. The trailer was supposed to be empty—Eleanor only worked days, and her office locked up tight after five. But there was light coming from inside, and voices. Not voices, exactly. Voice, singular, but speaking in harmonics that made my teeth ache.

I crept closer, knowing I shouldn’t but unable to resist. Through the window, I could see shadows moving in ways that didn’t match any human shape. File cabinets were opening and closing on their own, papers filing themselves with wet slapping sounds.

“—the Missouri situation requires attention,” the voice was saying. It sounded like multiple people speaking through a throat that wasn’t designed for human speech. “The warden’s binding has weakened since the incident. Structural integrity compromised.”

Another voice responded, this one coming through what looked like an old speakerphone on Eleanor’s desk. “The penitentiary entity was always unstable. Too much accumulated suffering, improperly channeled. We warned them about the gas chamber configuration.”

“Nevertheless, it was containing what needed containing. Now those elements are dispersing. Seeking new anchor points.”

“Big Splash has capacity?”

“Limited. We’re already maintaining four primary resonances and numerous secondary manifestations. Adding Missouri overflow would require... adjustments.”

There was a pause, filled with sounds like papers rustling and water dripping upward.

“Portland Interstate has been notified,” the first voice continued. “They’re scheduling pickups for the more problematic elements. The Alaska facility has expressed interest.”

“The lich won’t pay fair market value. It never does.”

“Payment isn’t always monetary. Sometimes binding is payment enough.”

I was so focused on listening that I didn’t notice Bianca until her hand landed on my shoulder. I nearly screamed, but she covered my mouth, shaking her head. She pulled me away from the trailer, not speaking until we were safely inside the pump room.

“Never eavesdrop on the administrator,” she said, and I noticed she was actually shaking. “That’s not Eleanor in there. That’s what uses her office at night. The thing that really runs this place.”

“What is it?”

“I don’t know. Dennis called it the Supervisor, said it managed multiple locations like this one. Places where reality is thin, where things leak through. It coordinates containment, arranges transfers, maintains the barriers.”

“Transfers?”

“Sometimes spirits need to be moved. When they get too strong, or when their anchor points fail. That’s what Portland Interstate does—they transport things that shouldn’t exist from one place to another.”

“That’s insane.”

“That’s Tuesday,” she said, using her favorite phrase. “Look, just stay away from the trailer at night. The Supervisor doesn’t like being observed. The last person who got too curious...”

“What happened to them?”

“They became paperwork. Literally. Their entire existence compressed into a file that Eleanor keeps in a locked drawer. Sometimes you can hear them screaming when she opens it.”

Before I could process that, Tank burst into the pump room. “We’ve got a breach,” he said, already moving to his control panels. “Pirate’s Plunder. Something’s wrong with Larry’s containment.”

We could hear it as soon as we stepped outside—a sound like drowning in reverse, water being pulled from lungs that shouldn’t have it. The temperature near Pirate’s Plunder had dropped twenty degrees, and frost was forming on the slides despite the summer heat.

“It’s not three AM yet,” Bianca said, checking her watch. “He should be dormant for another hour.”

“Something’s stirring him up,” Tank said, reading his gauges. “The saturation levels are spiking. If we don’t contain this...”

That’s when we saw her. A woman in a police uniform, scaling the fence near Pirate’s Plunder. Even from a distance, I recognized her from the newspaper photos—Detective Patricia Morse.

“That’s impossible,” Bianca breathed. “She’s dead.”

“No,” Tank said grimly. “She’s about to be.”

We ran toward the Pirate’s Plunder area, but we were too far away. Patricia—and it was definitely her, not a ghost or memory—had made it over the fence and was moving purposefully toward the toilet bowl slide.

“Detective Morse!” Bianca shouted. “Stop! You can’t be here!”

Patricia turned, and I saw her face clearly. She looked exhausted, desperate, but very much alive. “There’s a child,” she called back. “Emma Hartley. She got locked in when the park closed. Her parents just called it in.”

“We’ll handle it,” Bianca said, still running. “Just wait—”

But it was too late. A small figure emerged from behind the slide structure—a girl, maybe twelve, frozen with terror. And behind her, forming from the shadows and chlorine mist, was Larry.

He looked exactly like what he was—a middle-aged man who’d died badly and come back wrong. His Big Splash uniform was soaked despite no water being near, and his face was bloated like a drowning victim. But his eyes were the worst part. They burned with a rage that had nothing to do with being dead and everything to do with being interrupted.

Patricia drew her service weapon, which would have been funny if it wasn’t so tragic. “French Lick PD. Step away from the child.”

Larry laughed, a sound like water going down a drain. Then he moved—not walked, but flowed—toward Emma. The girl screamed, the sound cutting through the night like breaking glass.

Patricia didn’t hesitate. She stepped between Larry and Emma, her weapon forgotten, using her body as a shield. “Run,” she told the girl. “Find the adults. Run now.”

Emma ran toward us, and I caught her, pulling her behind me. But I couldn’t look away from what happened next.

Larry touched Patricia, and she started drowning. Not in water, but in nothing. Her lungs filled with chlorinated void, her body convulsing as she tried to breathe air that wouldn’t come. She fell to her knees, hands clawing at her throat, eyes bulging.

But even dying, she fought. Her hand found her radio, managed to key it. “Officer down,” she gasped through lungs that were failing. “Big Splash Adventure. Save... the... child...”

Then Larry flowed into her completely, and Patricia Morse died for the second time. Or the first time. I wasn’t sure which anymore.

Her body collapsed, water that shouldn’t exist pouring from her mouth and nose. But Larry wasn’t done. He turned toward us, toward Emma still cowering behind me, and started moving.

“Salt!” Tank shouted, pulling industrial-sized containers from a maintenance shed. “Circle the girl with salt!”

We poured white lines on the concrete, creating a barrier around Emma. Larry hit it like a wave against a seawall, his form splashing and reforming, screaming in frustration.

“It won’t hold him long,” Bianca said. “He’s too angry.”

That’s when the van arrived.

It pulled into the parking lot like it belonged there, even though the park was closed and the gates were locked. A white van with “Portland Interstate Delivery” on the side in letters that seemed to shift when you weren’t looking directly at them.

The driver who got out was young, maybe twenty-five, with the exhausted look of someone who’d seen too much but couldn’t stop looking. He wore a uniform that looked normal from a distance but wrong up close—too many pockets, fabric that didn’t quite reflect light properly.

“I’m Paul,” he said, like we were meeting at a coffee shop instead of standing over a dead detective while a murdered predator tried to kill a child. “Paul Loston. I’m here for a pickup.”

“We didn’t call you,” Bianca said.

“The Supervisor did. Said you had an unstable element that needed containment.” He looked at Larry, still raging against the salt barrier. “That him?”

“That’s not what you’re here for,” Bianca said, and there was something in her voice I’d never heard before. Fear. Real fear. “Larry’s contained. He’s bound to this area.”

Paul checked a notebook he pulled from one of those impossible pockets. “Larry Crenshaw, deceased 2006, bound to Pirate’s Plunder area. You’re right, he’s not on my list.” He flipped a page. “Marina. That’s who I’m here for.”

“No,” Bianca said immediately. “Absolutely not. Marina’s been here since before the park. She’s stable, contained, not a threat.”

“She’s requested by name,” Paul said, and he did look genuinely sorry. “The client in Alaska specifically asked for her. Something about her particular resonance being useful for their work.”

“What client?”

“You don’t want to know. Trust me. I’ve been there, seen what they’re building. Marina would be... useful to them.”

While they argued, I noticed something. Paul kept touching his ear, like he had a bluetooth device, but there was nothing there. And occasionally he’d respond to something none of us had said, little nods and “uh-huhs” like he was having another conversation entirely.

Emma whimpered behind me, and I remembered we still had a traumatized child and a dead detective to deal with. “We need to call the real police,” I said.

“They’re already coming,” Paul said. “Patricia’s radio call went through. You’ve got maybe ten minutes before this place is crawling with cops.” He looked at Larry, who had given up on the salt barrier and was now pacing the perimeter like a caged animal. “I can help with him, though. Not a collection, just a... temporary containment.”

He pulled something from his van that hurt to look at—a snow globe filled with water that moved in directions water shouldn’t move. He started speaking in a language that sounded like drowning, syllables that bubbled and flowed.

Larry turned toward him, suddenly interested. Or afraid. It was hard to tell with a face that bloated.

“You’re new at this,” Bianca said, watching Paul work.

“Eight months since my training. This is my first solo run to a place like this. Usually I just do simple pickups. Haunted objects, possessed furniture, that kind of thing. But my trainer, Holley, she said I was ready for a spirit collection.”

“You’re not taking Marina.”

“I have a contract.”

“I don’t care about your contract.”

They stared at each other while Paul continued his chant. Larry was being pulled toward the snow globe now, his form stretching like taffy. The child predator who’d become something worse was fighting it, but losing.

“There,” Paul said as Larry was sucked into the globe with a sound like a toilet flushing backwards. “He’s contained. Not permanently, but long enough.” He put the globe in his van’s glove compartment, which I noticed was refrigerated and lined with symbols that made my eyes water.

“Thank you,” I said.

“Don’t thank me yet. I still need Marina.”

“You can’t have her,” Bianca said.

“Then I need something of equivalent value. The contracts are specific. If I don’t deliver...”

He trailed off, but touched his ear again, listening to something. “Yes, I understand. No, they’re not cooperating. Yes, I’ll explain.”

He turned back to us. “If I don’t deliver Marina or an equivalent spirit, the client in Alaska will call in the debt. And trust me, you don’t want them collecting directly. They’re... not gentle.”

Sirens in the distance. The police were coming.

“We need to go,” Tank said. “All of us. Now.”

But before we could move, the trailer door opened and the Supervisor emerged. Or didn’t emerge, exactly. It was more like reality folded wrong and suddenly it was there—a distortion in space that spoke in harmonics that made everyone except Paul step back.

“The child needs memory adjustment,” it said. “The police need a plausible narrative. The body needs to match expected parameters.”

It moved toward Emma, and I instinctively stepped in front of her. The Supervisor’s attention fell on me like a physical weight.

“Interesting,” it harmonized. “Andy Willby. Three weeks employed. Zero violations. Unusual pattern adherence for a new employee.” It turned to Paul. “This one might be of interest to your employers. Eventually.”

“I’m not merchandise,” I said.

“Everything is merchandise to someone,” the Supervisor replied. Then it touched Emma’s forehead, and she collapsed. Not dead, just... absent. Like someone had hit her pause button.

“She’ll wake in the hospital,” the Supervisor explained. “Remembering a gas leak. Detective Morse died saving her from toxic fumes. Heroic. Believable. Satisfactory.”

It gestured, and Patricia’s body changed. The water damage disappeared, replaced by symptoms of chemical exposure. The drowning became asphyxiation. The impossible became plausible.

“Now,” the Supervisor said, turning to Paul. “Marina.”

“You can’t,” Bianca said, but she was crying now. “She’s been here forever. She’s part of the foundation.”

“Which is why she’s valuable,” Paul said, not unkindly. “The client needs something old, something that remembers when the boundaries were different. Marina qualifies.”

“What if we found something else?” I asked. “Something equivalent?”

Paul looked interested. “Like what?”

“I don’t know. But there has to be something. Some other spirit somewhere that would work.”

“The only other unbound spirit of appropriate age in this region is in Missouri,” the Supervisor said. “At the former penitentiary. But that situation is... complicated. The entity there has recently experienced a structural failure. It would need to be stabilized before transport.”

“I could stabilize it,” Paul said quickly. “I’ve been trained in containment reinforcement.”

The Supervisor made a sound that might have been laughter or might have been reality tearing slightly. “Ambitious. Very well. You have one week to retrieve the Missouri entity. If you fail, you take Marina as originally contracted.”

Paul nodded, already heading to his van. “I’ll be back in seven days. Have Marina ready, just in case.”

He drove off, leaving us with a dead detective, an unconscious child, and the approaching sirens.

“Everyone not essential needs to leave,” the Supervisor said. “I’ll handle the police. Bianca, take the child to the front gate. She needs to be found there. Tank, ensure all systems show normal operation for the time period in question. Andy...”

It turned that impossible attention on me again.

“You interest me. Continue being interesting.”

Then it was gone, folded back into whatever space it normally occupied. The police arrived minutes later, finding Emma unconscious but breathing at the front gate, Patricia’s body showing clear signs of chemical exposure, and a tragic but explainable accident.

We gave statements. Yes, we’d heard someone might have been in the park. Yes, we’d searched. No, we hadn’t seen anything until we heard the detective’s radio call and found them both overcome by fumes from a maintenance chemical spill.

It was dawn by the time they let us go. Bianca and I sat in the empty break room, too exhausted to move.

“He’s going to take her,” she said quietly. “Even if he gets the Missouri spirit, he’ll take Marina eventually. That’s how it works. Once something’s named in a contract, it’s just a matter of time.”

“Maybe not,” I said, though I didn’t believe it.

“You don’t understand. Marina isn’t just some spirit. She’s...” Bianca paused, searching for words. “She’s my anchor. The thing that keeps me here, keeps me functional. Without her, I don’t know what I’ll become.”

“What do you mean?”

“The night I died, in those three minutes, I wasn’t alone. Marina was there, in that space between life and death. She pulled me back. Not to life, exactly, but to something. A state where I could exist in both places at once. She’s part of me now. If they take her...”

She didn’t finish, but she didn’t need to. I’d seen enough in three weeks to understand. Big Splash didn’t just contain spirits. It changed the people who worked there, made them into something that could survive proximity to the impossible.

“We’ll figure something out,” I said.

“There’s nothing to figure out. Paul will come back, take Marina, and I’ll...” She stood abruptly. “I need to go. Tell Tank I’m taking a sick day.”

She left, and I sat alone in the break room, watching the sun rise over a water park that was so much more and worse than water.

That night, Riley came back.

I was alone in the parking lot when his car pulled up. He was sober this time, carrying a bag of what looked like groceries.

“I heard what happened,” he said. “About the detective. About Marina maybe leaving.”

“News travels fast.”

“In French Lick? Yeah. Look, I know everyone thinks I’m crazy, but I meant what I said before. About Bob. About cooking for him.”

“Riley, that’s suicide.”

“Maybe. Or maybe it’s the solution. Think about it—Bob creates the hunger because he can’t satisfy his own. He’s stuck in a loop, preparing food that no one can eat. But what if someone could break that loop?”

“By cooking for him?”

“By cooking with him. Not as a victim, but as a colleague. I’m a good cook, Andy. Not great, but good. And that night, when I made that omelet, I felt it. The kitchen wants to be used properly. It wants to create real food again.”

“Even if that’s true, it’s too dangerous.”

“Everything here is dangerous. But we still do it.” He hefted his grocery bag. “I’m going in tonight. During the quiet period, when the park’s not feeding. I could use backup.”

“Bianca would kill me.”

“Bianca’s not here. And if this works, if we can give Bob peace, maybe the hunger stops. Maybe that’s one less danger the night shift has to deal with.”

I looked at him, this kid barely older than me who’d been broken by three weeks at Big Splash but had come back anyway. “You’re serious.”

“Dead serious. No pun intended.”

“What do you need me to do?”

“Just watch. If something goes wrong, pull me out. If it goes right...” He smiled, the first genuine smile I’d seen from him. “If it goes right, we feast.”

Against every bit of common sense I’d developed, I agreed.

We waited until midnight passed, until the park finished its feeding cycle. The restaurant was dark except for the kitchen, where Bob continued his endless chopping. We could see him through the service window—mechanical, repetitive, trapped.

“Here goes nothing,” Riley said, and pushed open the door.

The smell hit immediately—meat and chlorine and something else, something that made my mouth water despite knowing what Bob was probably chopping. Riley walked straight to the prep station, setting down his bag.

Bob stopped chopping.

For the first time since I’d started working there, Bob stopped chopping and looked up. His face was more human than I’d expected, just tired and sad and endlessly hungry.

“You came back,” Bob said, his voice like a garbage disposal trying to form words.

“I said I would,” Riley replied, unpacking his groceries. “Brought better ingredients this time. Thought we could make something real.”

“Real,” Bob repeated, like he’d forgotten what the word meant. “It’s been so long since anything was real.”

Riley started cooking. Simple stuff at first—sautéing onions, browning meat that was definitely beef and nothing else. Bob watched, then slowly, carefully, began helping. Passing ingredients, adjusting temperatures, adding seasonings with hands that remembered being human.

They worked together for an hour, not speaking much, just cooking. The smell changed from that horrible hunger-inducing wrongness to something actually appetizing. They were making pasta sauce, I realized. Nothing fancy, just good, honest food.

When it was done, Riley plated two servings. He pushed one toward Bob.

“Eat with me,” he said.

Bob stared at the plate like it was a miracle. “I can’t. The hunger...”

“Try.”

Bob picked up a fork with shaking hands, took a small bite. His eyes closed, and for a moment, he looked completely human. Then he took another bite, and another, eating like someone who’d forgotten food could be pleasure instead of compulsion.

“Thank you,” Bob said when his plate was empty. “Thank you for reminding me.”

Then he started to fade. Not disappearing, but becoming less solid, less bound to the kitchen.

“What’s happening?” Riley asked.

“I’m full,” Bob said, and he was crying. “For the first time in years, I’m full. The hunger is gone.”

He faded completely, leaving only the lingering smell of good cooking and a kitchen that felt normal for the first time since I’d started working there.

“Holy shit,” Riley breathed. “It worked.”

The hunger that had plagued every night shift ended with that meal. When Bianca came back the next night, she couldn’t believe it. The oppressive need to eat was just gone, replaced by normal appetite that normal food could satisfy.

“You gave him peace,” she said to Riley. “How did you know?”

“I didn’t. I just... understood him, I guess. The need to create, to nurture through food. He wasn’t evil. He was just stuck.”

One spirit down. Three to go. And Paul would be back in six days for Marina.