Drip, Drip, Drown

The smell of chlorine burned Edward Cook's nostrils, but the cold dread that crept across his skin was sharper. The university pool should have been empty—it was near midnight, and he had the only key. From inside the women’s locker room, he heard muffled splashes, like the steady rhythm of a heartbeat. Something was treading water, waiting.

“Filtration,” Edward muttered, trying to convince himself.

He placed a Windex bottle on his cleaning cart, exchanging it for a rag-wrapped flask of whiskey. He swallowed a gulp, but the shiver that followed wasn't from the burn—it was the security guard's ghost story, suddenly feeling real.

Hours earlier, Edward swept a pile of dirt beneath the gymnasium bleachers when footsteps thundered across the empty room.

“They finally let you out on your own?” Bill asked, his neatly trimmed white mustache curling into a grin.

Edward nodded. He’d just finished a week of custodial training and begged Bill to look the other way about his cleaning shortcut. A lengthy juvenile record turned job hunting into a nightmare for the twenty-five-year-old. Not to mention a slight drug habit and a horrible credit score.

“Your secret’s safe with me,” Bill said. “It’s Lynn DeRoo in the pool you have to watch out for.”

“She the swim coach or something?” Edward asked.

“Nah—our resident ghost. Used to be a lifeguard. I was working the day she drowned… that was, some twenty years ago.”

Edward’s laughter echoed across the gym. “How does a lifeguard drown?”

“Undiagnosed heart condition,” Bill said, his mustache straightening. “Stress and adrenaline can make a deadly mix.”

“So now her angry ghost haunts the pool?” Edward said, a thin edge of sarcasm in his voice.

“She isn’t angry. She’s… patient. She’s waiting for something.”

Edward shook off the story.

As he did, the lights in the women’s locker room flickered, then steadied.

The faint splash that had been echoing from the pool fell silent.

A lone drip began nearby—the ping on the tiles reverberated off the walls, and pressed against the edge of his sanity.

He raised an eyebrow, then shrugged. “Just a power surge,” he muttered. “And some condensation on the ceiling.”

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

Edward’s heart hammered against his ribs. He spun around, certain his eyes were playing tricks.

On a hook above a wooden bench, hung a sopping-wet towel—something that hadn’t been there a minute earlier.

Fear paralyzed Edwards' body. Only the muscles around his eyes twitched, oscillating like a desk fan as they scanned the room for any rational explanation.

A drawn-out, muffled voice drifted from the pool area, sounding as if someone were gargling mouthwash in the morning.

“Edward. It’s time.”

A note of femininity bled through the murmur, almost warm-hearted—like a mother calling her children for lunch. Though comforting, it was alien, a siren’s song that wrapped around Edward’s nerves.

He felt an invisible pull toward the doorway, and the locker room melted away, revealing the dark concrete box that housed the pool.

Warm humidity wrapped around him, and the sharp, hollow echo of his footsteps rang out fifty meters down the lane. A dim light reflected off the water’s surface, casting a slow, swirling glow onto the concrete wall—like a cosmic lava lamp pulsing in gloom.

“Hello… Lynn,” Edward called out.

Only the low hum of pipework and crashing of gentle waves answered back.

“Aw, I don’t have time for ghost stories,” he said, throwing up his hands. “I’ve got beers waiting for me at home.”

When he twisted away from the pool, the concrete walls flared to a soft red and blue glow, like someone was sliding the dimmer on a neon Open sign.

The humidity clinging to Edwards' skin crystallized into a fine frost.

A translucent woman hovered above the water, her hair slick and tangled as if floating in zero gravity. Her skin was pale and wrinkled, like a cheap latex Halloween mask, while darkness pooled around her eyes. In the centre of that darkness, pupils that burned like red-hot, smouldering coals.

Edward felt like he stood too close to an exploding firework—half awe, half terror.

The woman’s voice was a wet, gargled whisper. “You were given a precious gift, Edward. You’ve wasted it.”

“Gift?” Edward asked, his tone tinged with fearful sarcasm. “There haven’t been any blessings in this train wreck of a life. What are you talking about?”

The apparition's eyes flared hotter. She floated in silence, her gaze drilling into Edward’s soul.

“The gift of life. Now you've ruined yours and mine.”

Fear spread through him like a nest of fire ants—sharp, relentless bites crawling over every inch of his skin.

The water beneath the ghost churned, a vortex forming as if a bathtub were draining. It swelled and accelerated, the suction growing strong enough to yank Edward’s shirt, which flapped helplessly like a flag in the wind.

He tried to run, but each footfall slipped on the wet tile, pulling him backward until he crashed into the pool’s edge. Edward spun violently, his arms flailing, until he vanished beneath the churning surface.

The ghost of Lynn DeRoo drifted downward, and a sudden calm settled over the pool.

~

“Shut up, it’s coming on,” Bill barked to the other security guard.

Both hunched over the flickering monitor, the TV news anchor was describing a drowning at the university pool. A live feed showed a young reporter standing outside the school’s main doors, microphone in hand.

“Police have identified the victim as twenty-five-year-old Edward Cook,” she said matter-of-factly. “A man with a troubled past, he was recently employed as a night custodian at the university. Now, police don’t suspect foul play in this incident, but a Channel Seven News investigation has revealed that Cook was involved in a near-fatal drowning at this very same pool twenty years ago. Based on interviews with family and friends, along with archived news stories, we’ve confirmed Cook had slipped into the deep end of the pool and was rescued by a lifeguard on duty. However, after getting the boy to safety, the woman suffered a medical episode as a result of an undiagnosed heart condition. Twenty-two-year-old Lynn DeRoo drowned in the pool while saving Cook’s life.”