Night Shift

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I'm woken up by the sound of my phone going off, I open my eyes to see my cheap apartment covered in the dim light of early day. Sighing, I sit up and slap my hand down on top of my phone, dragging it off my nightstand and on to my face.

"Hello?"

"Hey, Matt, it's Ashley."

Not even one sentence and it's obvious what she wants, but I ask anyway,"What do you need?"

"Well, my friends and I sort of have plans for tonight so I was wondering if you could take my night shift?"

"Fine, I need the hours anyway, rent is due soon," I add the last part more for my sake than hers, luckily I'm not working at all during the day, so I get to stay in and watch tv all day.

One cheap sitcom marathon later I'm gathering my work stuff and heading out the door. I work as a lifeguard at my apartment building's pool. It's a great job, all I need to do is take the elevator down and then I'm there. Like everything else in the building, the pool is run down and poorly maintained. It's also oddly located, actually under the apartment building, completely underground and devoid of sunlight.

Exiting the elevator I walk down a short hallway and reach the plexiglass doors that lead to the pool. Inside, I see the familiar pale green tiles of the pool deck. What I do not see, however, is a lifeguard. Even though the pool is supposed to be open, and supervised, twenty-four-seven. Normally someone abandoning the pool is to be expected, but not during the peak hours of the evening. Which is another odd thing, I check my watch and it's seven p.m; there are almost always people here at this time. I shrug and dismiss it as a lucky break. No people means no need to watch the pool.

I walk over to the lifeguard chair and plop down, ready for a very boring night shift. My eyes are caught by something on the chair handle, there are a few drops of blood. The previous lifeguard must have had to deal with some kid that had a bloody nose. That thought reminds me to check who the previous lifeguard actually was, the boss would be pretty pissed to find that someone had left the pool unattended. After consulting the schedule I'm surprised to find that Joe had been working. He's the one person who I would not expect to leave without telling anyone, nothing that can be done about it now though.

After getting some disinfectant wipes, I go back and wipe the blood off of the chair, it's not looking like anyone will show up so I allow myself to be lulled into sleep by the quiet drone of the fluorescent lights.

I have no idea how long I was asleep for, but I wake up to the sound of children laughing and giggling. I'm still so groggy from sleep I barely open my eyes, the pool is empty, no drowning kids, nothing to worry about. I'm content with this thought as the warm and humid air of the pool pulls me back into sleep.

The next time I wake up it is to the sound of silence, this time I check my phone and find that it is three in the morning. I had been asleep for over seven hours. That thought reminds me of those few groggy seconds when I had woken up, only now did it dawn on my how odd it was for there to have been children in the pool so late. The pool seemed to be devoid of children now, so it seems fine for me to go back to sleep. As I begin to shut my eyes my attention is once again drawn to the chair's arm. There is more blood, I could have sworn that I had wiped it off, but apparently not. Getting out of the chair I notice that the floor is wet, there's a trail of water leading from the pool right up to where I had slept. What had those kids been doing? I shrug it off and head to the supply closet.

A few minutes, and Clorox wipes, later the chair is clean and I head over to the trash can. As I throw the Clorox wipes in something at the bottom catches my attention. There, in the can, were the wipes I had used to clean off the previous blood droplets.

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