Clear Water, Hidden Danger

Chapter 3 – The First Sign

At one-thirty, I was back in the guard shack watching the cameras like a man trying to will the world to make sense. The hour between noon and one passed in complete stillness. No interference. No flicker. No movement. Even the wind stayed gone.

When you spend enough time alone on a job like this, silence stops being peaceful. It starts to breathe.

At one-forty-five, Sharon came into view along the inner path near the filtration tanks. Clipboard in hand, cap pulled low, her walk stiff like she was forcing her body to cooperate.

“Sharon, you good out there?” I asked over the radio.

She turned toward the camera, gave a small smile, and waved. But something in her eyes looked wrong. Too wide. Too still.

“Fine, RJ. Just checking the readouts,” she said. Her voice cracked in the middle of the sentence, like she was hearing it from somewhere far away.

“Copy that.”

By two-fifteen, the animals returned. Two to three hours between sightings now. First a handful at the south fence. Then dozens. Then the full spread again across the gate line.

The radio crackled. Dave’s voice sounded strained.

“We’re getting ear pressure down here. Mark thinks it’s the weather front.”

“Not sure that’s it,” I said.

The second hand of the clock moved past twenty after two.

And it hit.

The first tremor was light. The coffee mug on my desk quivered, ripples forming on the surface. The floor shook, not violent but steady enough to roll through my bones. I stood with a hand braced on the desk, watching the monitors flicker.

No roar. No boom.
Just vibration. A low hum buried under everything like a massive engine waking up underground.

Outside, the animals broke. Deer stumbled, birds dropped from the fence, a fox sprinted into the open road and collapsed. Limbs twitched. Then stillness.

The shaking stopped at exactly one minute.

The silence that followed felt heavier than the tremor.

“Plant Command, this is Security One. All units check in,” I said into the mic.

Static. Then another burst. Then voices fighting through the noise.

“Copy,” Dave said at last. “We felt it too. Some of the readings jumped during the rumble.”

“Any damage?”

“Not sure. Sharon went down near the clean-water tanks. She’s breathing but not responding.”

I already had the keys in hand.

The drive to the lower section felt wrong. Sunlight looked washed out, too pale on the concrete. My ears rang even though nothing was making sound. By the time I reached the main walkway, the air smelled of ozone and metal, sharp enough to sting.

Inside, the generators hummed low, vibrating through the metal floor. Workers leaned against walls, rubbing their eyes, blinking like they had been spun around. One engineer vomited into a bin, shaking hard.

Near the clean-water tanks it was different. The noise was deafening there and every worker wore hearing protection. They were confused but stable.

Dave met me halfway down the stairs, face pale. “It hit hard down here. Sharon’s the worst of it.”

She sat against a tank, breathing shallow, ear protection hanging loose around her neck. Her eyes were open but unfocused, like she was listening to something we could not hear.

“Sharon,” I said, crouching beside her. “Can you hear me?”

Her pupils dilated. She turned her head slowly, mouth half open, whispering something too soft to catch.

Dave leaned in. “What’s she saying?”

“I don’t know.”

She blinked twice, then smiled. A soft, distant smile that did not belong on her face.

Her hand shot out and clamped around my wrist.

The grip was strong, far too strong for someone barely conscious. I tried to pull back. She tightened her hold. Her lips moved again. This time I heard the whisper.

“It’s coming back.”

Her eyes rolled up and she slumped forward. I caught her before she hit the floor. Her skin felt hot, feverish, but her pulse stayed steady.

We carried her to the break area and laid her on a bench. Someone brought water. Someone else brought a fan. She didn’t move.

Dave turned to the workers. “Everyone without hearing protection, grab some upstairs. Now.”

No one argued. The sound of boots on metal stairs echoed like thunder through the silence.

I stayed beside Sharon. Every few seconds her fingers twitched, tapping against the metal in a slow, steady rhythm.

Tap.
Pause.
Tap.

It matched the timing of the tremor.

I checked my watch. 2:38 PM. No idea what caused that wave. No explanation for the rhythm.

Dave ran a hand through his hair. “We need to call the county. They have to be feeling this too.”

“Already tried,” I said. “No signal anywhere. Landline’s dead.”

He looked at Sharon. “You think she’s sick?”

“I don’t think this is sickness,” I said. “And if it were spreading, we’d have twenty people down by now.”

Mark came down from the upper offices, face red, looking for somewhere to aim his frustration.

“Dave, what the hell was that? Systems spiked across half the plant.”

“We’re checking flow levels,” Dave said. “RJ saw more animal activity outside. Same as earlier.”

Mark swung his stare toward me. “Animals. That’s the report you’re bringing me right now?”

“I’m telling you something is drawing them in,” I said. “And whatever it is, it’s tied to those pulses. Every time one hits, more of them show up.”

Mark opened his mouth to argue.

But a sound cut him off.

Sharon.

She was mumbling again. Dry. Thin. I leaned closer.

Her voice rasped like sand on metal. “Don’t let it in.”

“Let what in?” I asked.

Her eyes snapped open. Glassy. Reflective. Wrong. They caught the ceiling lights and held them like mirrors.

She smiled again, wider this time.

I stepped back.

“Don’t... let... it in,” she whispered, forcing the words out as if fighting something inside her throat.

Her fingers tapped again.
Tap.
Pause.
Tap.

Dave put a hand on my shoulder. “RJ, what did she—”

He stopped mid-sentence.

And what happened next, no one saw coming.