Jonah paced back and forth in the basement of her house, disguising the sound of it by the thumping of the clothes dryer next to her. She was doing laundry, and contemplating the state her life was in.

Should she, or should she not go break up the party that she knew knew KNEW was happening over at Arcadis, as she stood and paced around.

On one hand, she didn't want to make new enemies out of her staff. They were freshly under her command, after all, and she wanted to have an easy summer, and not a terrible one. On the other hand, the thought of something happening at that party, while she was technically the one responsible for all of them, it was driving her crazy.

Maybe Rebecca had had some kind of plausible deniability, not actually knowing that the parties had happened. But if some drunk idiot member of her staff fell into the wave pool and drowned, Jonah wouldn't have that kind of recourse, of saying that she didn't know it was happening. That lie would never hold up in a court of law. There were photos of her on various people's Facebook pages, beer in hand, at these parties.

And it wasn't like people didn't get hurt. The incident in which Mario had fucked up his ankle the previous summer had been when he climbed up the fence blackout drunk and fell off the top of it. Everyone was lucky that he had been able to stumble home in the dark, and he hadn't decided to sue or something.

She now felt retroactively bad for having gone when Rebecca was in charge. At the time, she hadn't been thinking about potential consequences, because she knew the consequences wouldn't fall on her shoulders, unless the police came, and that wasn't likely to happen.

Argh. It was driving her crazy. Jonah wanted to take her car and drive past Arcadis, just to peek in and see what was going on, see how crazy things were, but her sister had "borrowed" her car to go on a date with her weaselly looking boyfriend, and she wasn't back yet.

Maybe she should just go to bed. Get some actual sleep for once in her life.

But she couldn't do that.

Frustrated with herself, with her coworkers (employees?), and the world, Jonah stopped the dryer and pulled out the still slightly damp shorts and tee shirt that were rattling around in there. She restarted the rest of the clothes, got dressed, and stomped upstairs. Her parents were asleep, or she thought they were, anyway.

She stomped around the kitchen for a second as well, and angrily drank a glass of water. The damp clothes steaming on her body didn't help her mood any.

Finally, she made her choice. She fished around in the kitchen sink cupboard for the big flashlight, the one that she had used to use to walk to work before she had a car, and checked that it had batteries. It did.

She was just going to take a look, she decided. She would only interfere if she thought something actually dangerous was going on. That was her intention, anyway.

She retrieved her bike from the shed, and dangled the flashlight's handle over her handlebars, then kicked off, headed out past the water tower, down towards the lake. It was about a mile of biking, but it was all flat and the roads were completely empty, so it went fast. There was a place where the road ended, where everyone stashed their bikes before they had to walk through the woods themselves. Jonah left her bike, tires still spinning, there next to several other people's. She frowned, knowing that meant that the party was, in fact, on, and that there were plenty of people doing things she had explicitly told them not to do.

It was always slightly creepy, heading through the woods at night. The cicadas were loud as ever, a perpetual shrieking whine in her ears, and every other sound seemed amplified by the pitch darkness outside the cone of light cast by her flashlight.

As she approached the fence, Jonah became aware of a rattling sound, as though someone were shaking the whole thing with force. It was windy, but wind never rattled the fence like that. She cast her flashlight around for a second, wondering if it could be some sort of animal thrashing against it. A dear that had gotten stuck, perhaps. She didn't think that bears tended to live around here, or wolves, or mountain lions, but she couldn't help thinking that she might encounter one anyway. She existed on the border of curiosity and fear, and she crept forward, keeping her flashlight low to the ground, until the fence emerged, shining and silver, from the gloom. The rattling had not stopped, and now she could see the fence itself shaking ever so slightly. She followed the line of the fence, moving closer to the sound of the vibrations, and saw something that made her stop in her tracks and curse in annoyance.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" Jonah asked loudly, pointing her flashlight at the kneeling figure who was clearly re-opening the hole in the fence that Jonah had closed not twelve hours prior.

Startled, the figure jerked and turned, caught red handed. It wasn't Mario or Markus, it was that new girl, Bay.

"Jesus Christ," Jonah said. "I literally told you people explicitly NOT to pull holes in the fence."

"I was going to close it back up when I was done," Bay said. She was blinking rapidly in the harsh glare of Jonah's flashlight, looking exactly like a deer in the headlights.

"What the fuck do you need a hole for?"

"I didn't want to climb the fence with my backpack on."

"Then chuck the backpack over first."

"It's delicate," Bay said.

Jonah didn't like the sound of that. She saw the offending backpack on the ground, and picked it up. Bay didn't protest or stop her as she opened it.

"If you have a backpack full of booze, I'm going to fire you," Jonah said, shining her flashlight into the backpack. She had a terrible thought that this, searching Bay's backpack while neither of them were technically at work or even on work property, was probably very illegal, but Bay didn't stop her. The light glinted off of shiny metal objects, and Jonah couldn't resist pulling one out. It was a soup can? An empty one. She shook it, and it rattled ever so slightly.

"Please put that back," Bay said. "It's a camera, if you're wondering."

This really only made Jonah more confused. "Not alcohol, then?"

"No." Bay reached up and took the backpack gingerly out of Jonah's hands.

"I've never seen a camera like that."

"Complicated to explain," Bay said, but she became animated as she talked about it anyway. "It's, well, a pinhole camera. If you have a small hole in something, it can act kinda like a lens, and project an image..."

"I know how light works," Jonah said. "Fine. Pinhole camera. What are you doing with a backpack full of them?"

"I wanted to put them out around the park. Get some interesting solography shots, with the slides and stuff in the background." Bay shrugged and zipped the backpack shut. "I also have my real camera in my bag. I didn't want to toss that over the fence."

Their conversation was interrupted when they heard the characteristic whistle and crack-pop of ameature fireworks going off. "Jesus fucking Christ," Jonah swore. "I cannot believe this."

"What?"

"Someone's gonna get their hand blown off," she said. "And it's gonna come down on me."

"Fourth of July isn't for a while, where'd they even get fireworks?" Bay asked, watching through the treetops as another firework sailed up and exploded in a shower of red sparks. Distant laughter and shouts cut through the cicada whine.

"They probably saved some from last year," Jonah said. "I don't know, I don't really care. I should..." She paced back and forth. "I should fire them all."

Bay leaned back against the fence. "You think you can run a park with zero staff? Threatening to fire everyone is not going to get you on the best of terms with everyone."

"What do you know?" Jonah asked. She kicked at some dead leaves, swinging the flashlight around wildly.

"I know that you physically can't fire everyone."

Another bang-pop of fireworks.

"I could fire you."

"You won't."

"I won't?"

Bay was silent for a long moment, leaving Jonah to stew. "You don't want them on your bad side, but you need to get them out of the park. You could call the cops on them."

"I don't want them arrested, either," Jonah said. An idea was percolating in her mind. "You could help me out."

"In exchange for what?"

"In exchange for me not being mad that you cut a hole in the fence."

Bay made a face. "And what do you think you want me to do?"

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

"Whoever's in there with the fireworks probably has something that'll make a lot of smoke. You figure out a way to get the smoke alarm to go off, the fire department will come. It'll be loud enough to scare everyone away before they actually arrive."

"Isn't creating a false fire alarm like, a crime?"

"It's a crime for a good cause."

"This place is chaotic."

"That's not my fault," Jonah said.

"It kinda is your problem though."

"It's one that I'm trying to solve, here. Are you going to help me, or not?"

Bay considered it for a second. "I want time to stick my cameras up first."

"If someone shoots themself in the face with a rocket in the time it takes you to do that, I'm blaming you."

"That would not hold up as a defense in court."

"Just go," Jonah said. "I'll get your backpack over the fence for you so you can stop ripping it apart."

Bay stood, smiling. "Be my guest." She handed the backpack to Jonah, who slipped it on and took a nimble leap to climb the chain links of the fence. She landed heavily on the other side, and Bay scrambled up after her, significantly less nimbly. At the top, she wobbled a bit, slipped, and started to come crashing down. Jonah, instincts kicking in, grabbed her around the waist as she fell, sending them both heavily to the ground. Bay's head knocked against Jonah's face, causing her to exclaim, "Ow."

"You didn't have to grab me," Bay said, extracting herself from Jonah's arms. "I'm fine."

"Here's your stupid backpack," Jonah said. "Be quick about this, will you? Or I'll get tempted to just straight up call the police.

"Don't do that," Bay said. "I don't want to get arrested."

She took the backpack full of cameras back from Jonah, then scurried away, vanishing into the darkness. Jonah was left with nothing to do but clamber back over the fence and wait on the other side, nursing her bruised nose, and checking her phone.

----------------------------------------

Bay arrived at the party out of breath, having hustled to get there. She saw several people she knew almost immediately, following the raucous sounds of the event. The lights of the park were on, at least all the ones by the big regular pool. The pool had some kind of stupid name, but Bay just thought of it as "the normal pool". She didn't at first know why a waterpark bothered keeping such a thing around, when there were much more entertaining things going on, but when she asked during training, someone had explained that it was because summer camps rented out space there to teach swim lessons. People from the town also bought discounted season passes, just to use the pool to swim laps.

In any event, that was where the mass of party goers was gathered, all around the deck of the pool, and some in it, even though the water was filthy with storm runoff lake mud. The firework lighter, a young man with curly blonde hair and no shirt, had a whole array of fireworks out in front of him. Bay looked around for Kyle and Amanda and found them both leaning against the wall of the changing room that led out onto the pool deck. Kyle had a beer in his hand, and he passed it to Amanda for her to take a sip. Bay headed over to them.

"Hey! You made it! I figured you had changed your mind about coming," Kyle said with a grin.

"Hah, yeah, I fell asleep. You're lucky I woke up at all."

"Damn, if you were that tired now, how are you going to doo a Saturday shift after the party?" Amanda asked.

"The same way everyone else does," Kyle said. "Hungover. You bring anything in that backpack?"

"No, I didn't have time to stop at the--" She was going to say grocery, but then remembered that grocery stores around here did not sell alcohol, which remained odd. "Store," she finished lamely.

"Eh, that's alright. Amanda's been bumming off of me all night."

"I'm sure it's because you're a generous person, and you're doing it out of the kindness of your heart," Amanda said, blowing a bubble.

"Exactly," Kyle said. "And my motivations would be just as pure for giving it to you." He smiled cheekily at Bay.

"He's too old for you," Bay said bluntly to Amanda.

"Hey," Kyle protested. "Now you make me not want to share."

"I'm not really in a drinking mood," Bay said. "It's hard enough getting over that fence sober."

Kyle laughed at that. "I think drinking actually makes it easier. You think about what you're doing less."

"That somehow doesn't seem like a good thing."

"So what is in the backpack?" Amanda asked. "If it isn't drinks."

Bay pulled it off and opened it up. She took out her real camera from its protective pocket and snapped the flash on top. "Smile," she said.

Amanda threw up a peace sign as she hung on Kyle's arm, and Kyle took a casual sip of beer. The flash was blinding in the dark, and Bay wasn't even sure that she had set the exposure correctly, but whatever. She advanced the film and let the camera dangle around her neck.

"How retro," Kyle said. "You know phones take better pictures, right?"

Bay rolled her eyes. "I go to art school. I can't help liking retro things."

Kyle laughed. "I'm just teasing you."

"I know. Anyway, how's the party been?"

"Pretty decent. I think a lot of people skipped out because of the weather."

"The weather?"

"You didn't check the forecast?"

"No?"

"You didn't look up at the sky?"

"It's night, what am I supposed to see up there?" Bay craned her neck.

"Well, usually the moon is a good place to start."

"I just assumed it was a new moon," she said. She hadn't actually assumed any such thing; she just hadn't been paying attention.

"Well, it's supposed to rain. Oh, look, Jason's gonna do another firework."

Blond shirtless boy held up a firecracker, lit it, and tossed it onto the pool deck. It spluttered and danced around for a few seconds before falling into the pool and extinguishing itself, to a round of mocking cheers. "Better dive in and get that one," Kyle yelled.

Jason laughed and did a mock bow.

"I'm gonna take a walk around, if you don't mind," Bay said. "I want to get some photos in."

"Can I come?" Amanda asked.

"Er... Sure." Bay didn't have a great excuse to not let Amanda tag along, so she did, and the two of them walked away from the light of the party.

"What do you want to take photos of?" Amanda asked.

"I really want to hang these long exposure cameras up somewhere," Bay explained, taking out one of her soup can cameras and showing it to Amanda. "They'll make interesting photos if I can put them in the right place where no one will touch them for a few days."

"Hunh." This seemed to go over Amanda's head, but she was fairly helpful as they trawled around the park, and pointed out a few good hiding spots where Bay could duct tape her creations where they wouldn't be disturbed.

"Should I be worried about putting them right next to the security cameras?" Bay asked.

"Jonah told me those don't actually work," Amanda said. "Do whatever you want."

"Cool, cool." She didn't honestly know if it would be worse that Jonah was right and the cameras did nothing, or if Jonah was wrong and the camera was recording her face, right up close, sticking her camera up on top of it.

"Oh, we should go on the changing room roof," Amanda said. "Everyone loves hanging out up there."

"Of the pool we were just at?"

"Yeah. I'll show you how to get up there. There's a secret ladder."

They had put pinhole cameras at most of the interesting looking attractions already, so returning to the flat pool with the last one was fine by Bay's measure. They passed by Kyle, who was dangling his feet in the pool and waving a sparkler around.

Seeing the sparkler, Bay remembered that she had an actual task to accomplish here, aside from hanging up her cameras.

"Kyleeeeee," Amanda whined. "Let us on to the roof."

"Why, you gonna jump?" he asked.

"Bay wants to see it."

"It's not that thrilling."

"Please..." She put on a smile, a pouting little thing. Bay admired her willingness and ability to manipulate Kyle to her will.

"Fine," he said, pushing himself to his feet. "Anyone want this?" he asked the partygoers, holding out the sparkler.

"I'll take it," Bay said, seizing the opportunity.

"Enjoy." Kyle thrust it into her hands. "Anyway, follow me."

He trooped into the locker room, and faced a small closet. "It'll take me a sec to get this open," he said.

"I'll be right back," Bay said. "Gotta pee. I'll meet you here, or up there, if you've already gotten it open.

"Sure," Kyle said. Amanda shrugged, and shot a dopey face at Kyle, who was pulling a credit card out of his pocket, and sticking it in the doorframe to jiggle the lock open.

Bay scooted further into the locker room, sparkler lighting her path. She ducked into a bathroom stall, one with a smoke detector over head. Quickly, she pulled a bunch of toilet paper out of the roll, and crumpled it lightly into a ball. She jammed the sparkler into it, lit side down, and breathed on it lightly, hoping that the flames would catch. They did, and soon the ball of toilet paper in her hands flared up. She didn't know what exactly to do at that point, so she dropped it on the floor. It threatened to go out, having burned through its initial offering of toilet paper, but she spooled out more, then exited the stall to grab handfuls of paper towel to feed the flame. She could smell it now, but it still wasn't smoky enough. Maybe she just had to wait.

But she didn't have time to wait. She dropped all the paper towels she could onto it, hoped it would burn for a while, and exited the bathroom, heading back towards the closet where she had left Kyle and Amanda. It was open, and inside it was a ladder, which she climbed to get onto the roof.

"Took you long enough," Kyle said with a smile. "Nice view."

"Where'd your sparkler go?" Amanda asked.

"Burned out," Amanda said.

"Sad. Would have looked cool to throw it into the pool."

"Let me set up my last camera," Bay said, thinking of the flames she had left unattended down in the bathroom. Being on top of a building with open, unsupervised flames was making her nervous.

"Stick it in the gutter, that's probably the best place for it," Amanda said. She pointed to the unguarded edge of the roof, and Bay nervously squatted down and duct taped her final pinhole camera in place.

"Careful you don't fall," Kyle said, humor clear in his voice.

Bay stepped back from the edge. She was nervous, but the lack of fire alarm said to her that her plan had failed. The burning mess of paper towels probably had just extinguished itself and--

The fire alarm went off, blaring. Bay jumped, teetering too close for comfort to the edge of the roof.

"What the fuck?" Kyle swore.

Amanda looked around, panicked. "What's going on?"

"We've gotta get out of here," Kyle said. "Fire alarm. That does summon the fire department, I think."

People on the ground were already picking up their belongings and running pell mell towards the edge of the park and the woods.

"Can we get down?" Amanda asked, panic in her voice. She didn't want to be trapped on a burning building any more than Bay did, but Bay was at least reasonably sure that the fire wasn't dangerous or completely out of control.

"It's probably okay," Bay said. "Someone probably just was smoking too close to an alarm, or something." She demonstrated her resolve by descending the ladder.

There was a mild singed smell in the air in the changing room, but nothing worse than the smell that might occur from burning something in the oven. Enough to set off the alarm, not enough to actually cause a whole bare concrete building to go up in flames. She exited the building with no further investigation, and began running back towards the woods, hoping that Kyle and Amanda were following.

Jonah owed her big time for this one. She was going to have to find some way to make use of that.