> bad news.

> police are on their way

> i need u to meet them at the front and lead them 2 me

> don't let them cause guest panic

> take them outside fence if u can

Bay had expected the text message from Jonah to tell her to test the pump. This was not the message she expected. She looked around, peering through the crowd to see if the coworkers she had summoned back were arriving. They were: Kyle and Amanda jogging back to the wave pool, both of them looking more mussed and sweaty than they had any right to be.

"Where were you guys?" Bay asked.

"Er, helping out at the flat pool," Kyle said.

"Yeah. Qwamae wanted us to, uh, clean the locker room."

This was clearly a lie. They probably had been in the locker room, but she somehow doubted cleaning had anything to do with it.

"Did the wave pool get fixed?"

"No," Bay said. "Keep guests out of it."

"Where are you going?"

She silently showed Amanda and Kyle the text messages from Jonah. Kyle looked legitimately shaken, and Amanda looked around, as though the police were already here. "What are the po--" Kyle began, but Bay shushed him, glancing around at the guests.

"Don't cause a scene. Don't let guests in the wave pool. If Mr. Calvin comes, you can tell him what's going on, but don't say shit to anyone else, okay?"

"Why are you giving me orders?" Kyle asked, suddenly defensive. "I've worked here for longer than you."

"Shut up," Amanda said, slapping his arm hard enough to make a sound. "We've got it," she said to Bay.

"Great." Bay hurried away towards the front gate of the park. She glanced back at Kyle and Amanda before the crowd became too thick, and saw them huddling together, discussing things. She shook her head and jogged headlong out of Arcadis. She reached the parking lot and increased her speed as she went past all the parked cars, the lights bouncing off their hoods and mirrors and windshields, almost blinding her.

She miraculously made it to the front entrance as the police van pulled into the lot, and she flagged it down with some apprehension, waving her arms like a madwoman. It pulled over to the side of the parking lot, and, panting, Bay put her hands on her knees and stood for a moment as she waited for the officer to acknowledge her.

"Are you Jonah Wylan?" the officer, a man with an ugly chinstrap beard asked.

"No, I'm Bayleigh Fernandez," Bay said. "Jonah told me to bring you to her, so you don't have to go through the park and scare the guests."

The officer looked at her silently for a moment. Bay could see that there were others in the van, though she couldn't see their faces in the shadows. Another police vehicle pulled into the parking lot. They had been using their lights but not sirens.

"This place is owned by Reginald Calvin, isn't it?" the officer asked, but he wasn't asking Bay, he was asking one of his fellows in the van. A muffled response that sounded like a yes. "You and Green go find Calvin," the officer said. "I'll take my team and go with her."

The engine of the police van shut off, and a muffled crackling of radio indicated communication with the outside world. The van was awkwardly parked along the side of the road leading into the lot, but it hopefully wouldn't cause a problem there. More officers than Bay had been expecting spilled out of the van and the vehicle behind it. Bay waited for them to wait for her to lead the way, and then she did, skirting around the outside of the fence and taking the beaten dirt path through the woods towards the lake.

"Can you tell me what you've been called out here for?" Bay asked, trying to make conversation as they walked. The officers were speedwalking behind her, but they weren't egging her to go faster, so she figured she had time to indulge her curiosity a little bit. The park and all its nosy guests whom they were not supposed to disturb were far away. "Jonah's not in trouble, right?"

"We're not at liberty to comment on an active investigation," the leader of the police said, as though speaking some kind of rote line. "And we would appreciate your assistance in keeping this area clear of interference."

"That's why we're heading through the woods," Bay said. She would have rolled her eyes, if she didn't have to keep looking steadily at the ground in front of her, to not trip on the various branches and debris that littered the path.

They passed by the spot where Bay had cut a hole in the fence, and she saw, as Jonah had said, that someone else had gone and ripped it back open. She would have to talk to Jonah and convince her that she hadn't reopened the hole. She wasn't stupid. Caught once, that was enough for her.

Perhaps she should be nervous about the police, actually, thinking about this. They could have been called because of something that happened at the party the night before, which Bay had attended. She hadn't seen anything crazy, but she had also stuck by the pool with Kyle and Amanda. Until they got too handsy on eachother and she gave up and went home. The fence had still been intact, at that point, she thought. She would have definitely taken the opportunity to crawl rather than risk life and limb going up and over, especially as she had had a couple beers and had been feeling their effects. She mulled this over as they got closer to the lake, and the sunlight reflecting off the water hit them through the trees.

"Pump house is this way," Bay said, turning left when they reached the lakeshore. It came into view past a little extension of trees presently, the pier and squat concrete building an intrusion over the smooth water. Jonah sat on the pier, staring with a thousand-yard stare out at the group of police as they came forward. She had her knees up to her chest, and her arms wrapped around them, as if that would keep her steady.

Bay broke into a jog, heading down the silty lakeside towards Jonah.

"Stop right there," the officer said. Bay skidded to a stop. "Thank you for leading us here, but this is an active crime scene, and I would hate for you to disturb it."

"Can somebody please tell me what is going on?" Bay asked, hands on her hips. She looked between the police and Jonah, who was just now standing up. "She's allowed to be here?"

Jonah came towards them now.

"Are you Jonah Wylan?" the police officer asked.

"Yeah," Jonah said. "Um. It's over there." She pointed to the pier.

"What's over there?" Bay asked.

Jonah shook her head, seemingly unable to find the words. One of the police officers walked down the creaking pier and looked inside the bucket that sat on it innocuously. He nodded at the officer in charge.

"You put it in the bucket?" he asked.

Jonah nodded.

Bay was growing increasingly frustrated, but she didn't want to make herself a target for these police officers, who all seemed very tense.

"Where did you find it?"

"Do you want me to show you?" Jonah asked.

"Yes."

She walked a couple steps, waited to see if the police offers were following her (they were) and went down the pier towards the pumphouse. Bay stood awkwardly as they passed her, and then decided that she wanted to know what was going on more than she didn't want to get in trouble, so she followed behind the group as unobtrusively as she could. Behind her, several police officers cordoned off the area with yellow tape, and another began taking photographs of everything.

As Bay passed the bucket, which one officer stopped to photograph, she caught a glimpse of the object of everyone's attention: a severed head. She stifled a cry, not wanting to attract attention to herself. She jammed her hand over her mouth. The slightly more distracted part of her brain took note of the cameras that the officers were using. DSLRs. Probably five years old. Apparently photographing evidence was not enough to invest in the highest end stuff, at least for a tiny community in which not that much crime happened.

Blacklake was a small town. This was probably almost every police officer on duty, coming here. It was a sick thought, that everyone was here to just experience the most exciting thing that had maybe ever happened in town.

"I came to clean out the filter, because Bay told me that the wave pool wasn't filling, and I figured this was where the clog was," Jonah said, her voice sounding steadier now that she was describing something that everyday vocabulary had easy words for.

"Was it in the filter, or in this little building?"

"It was underwater, in the filter. This is just where you access the pumps," Jonah said. "Here." She punched in the keycode and opened the door.

"Who has the passcode for this building?" the officer asked.

"Er. Any of the staff who have worked here for a while. It's just 5555."

An officer made a note on a clipboard. Bay stayed outside as the photographer, leading officer (whose name she still hadn't caught-- she resolved to look at his badge when she saw it next), and Jonah entered the building. Their conversation was clear.

"What's all this?"

"I had to dump out the muck I had pulled out of the filter so that I could put, uh, it in the bucket."

"And this metal thing?"

"The filter cover."

"Was it like this when you arrived?"

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"No, I moved it so that I could get to the filter."

"Did you touch anything else in here?"

"Just the bucket. And I mean the floor and stuff. And I scooped all of that out by hand."

"Alright. Can you step back outside?"

Jonah blinked as she reemerged into the sunlight. While Bay had been listening to the proceedings inside the filter house and not paying attention, someone had covered up the head bucket with a sheet. That was good.

"Is the intake directly underneath the building?"

"No, uh, if you sneak around the edge of the pump house you can see it there. It sticks out the back. Careful 'cause it's easy to fall in."

"Thank you. Let's step away from this area," the officer said. Bay finally caught a glimpse of his nametag: Andover. What a stereotypically cop sounding name, she thought.

He walked back down the pier, giving a wide berth to the sheet covered bucket. Andover gestured at the rest of his team, the ones standing around on the pier, that they could go into the little pumphouse. The photographer was still in there, clicking away, bright flashes illuminating the dim interior.

Andover led Jonah to the edge of the woods, stationing himself in between her and the pumphouse and its now hidden gory scene. Bay lingered behind him.

"I'd like to ask you a few questions," Andover said. "Just to establish a kind of timeline of events."

"Okay," Jonah said.

"I'm going to record this for posterity."

"Okay."

"Great."

Bay was watching this exchange with a growing worry in her stomach. She didn't know that much about murders, and she didn't think that Jonah had done it, but she did know what her dad had always told her about police. Don't trust them. Don't talk to them. Get a lawyer.

Andover continued. "You said you came here because Bay-- is that Bayleigh Fernandez-- had said the pumps weren't working?"

"Yes, that's right. At the wave pool."

"Is it usually your job to fix the pumps?"

Jonah shrugged, clearly miserable. "I do whatever needs to happen to keep the park running."

"What is your actual position?"

"Aquatics staff head."

"And how long have you served in this position?"

"Uh. About a week."

Andover made a note on his little notepad, but Bay couldn't read it. The ferocity with which he scribbled seemed like a bad sign, though.

"Who is usually responsible for fixing the pumps?"

"Maintenance," Jonah said, but she sounded deeply unsure of herself. "I think, anyway. But like, the staff at each ride, they usually know tricks to get things working on their end, so they don't have to call maintenance down, because they're always busy."

"Why didn't you call maintenance for this problem?"

"They were fixing the ferris wheel, I think?"

"You think?"

"That's what Bay told me."

This line of questioning was starting to make Bay very, very nervous. She was still being ignored by the officer, but she didn't like the fact that her name kept coming up. She didn't like the way that Andover was staring at Jonah, and Jonah was looking over his shoulder, as all the police bustled about the scene of the crime (or at least the scene of the crime discovery.) Bay tried to position herself in between Jonah and the lake shore, so that she couldn't see it. "Get a lawyer," she mouthed as obviously as possible, but Jonah ignored her.

"Could you just walk me through the chain of events of today?" Andover asked.

"Uh, ok." Jonah looked around a little bit nervously, and her eyes focused on Bay. "I came in to work late, because my alarm didn't go off."

"What time was this?"

"Um, like" -- Jonah's face scrunched up as she tried to remember-- "I probably got here at like ten thirty, ten forty?"

"And then what happened?"

"I texted Bay, because I needed to ask her something," Jonah said. "And she told me that the wave pool was broken, so I went there."

"The wave pool was the only attraction that was having issues?"

"Well," Jonah began, launching into an explanation, "yesterday, Mr. Calvin had asked me what I thought the best way to get rid of the mud in all the water rides was."

"Mud?"

"Since we pull from the lake, whenever we get heavy rain, that stirs up the bottom pretty bad, and it makes the water cloudy. It's not actually mud, like, thick, but it's gross looking and brown. Since today was definitely going to be busy, Mr. Calvin wanted it out."

"Okay."

"So I told him that the best way to do it would probably be to flush all the rides overnight, since it hadn't rained in a couple days, the lake was probably all settled, so we could get clear water in and dirty water out."

"Do you usually not change the water?"

"We cycle the rides just enough to keep the water safe-- some rides need it more than others, like, depending on the number of people who pee in them? Sorry, it's kinda gross."

"I get it. Continue."

"So we were flushing all the rides, so the pumps were probably going crazy over night."

"Why did it take until this late in the day to discover that there was a problem with the wave pool?" Andover asked.

"Well, the other rides probably switched off their filtering as soon as their staff came in in the morning," Jonah said. "The wave pool always has problems though."

"Such as?"

"It has a big crack in the bottom."

Bay broke in, trying to save Jonah from her own, rather confused explanation. Andover looked at her, clearly surprised by the intrusion. "We were running the wave pool as usual early in the morning, but it drains way faster than other attractions, because of the force of the waves and the big crack in the bottom of it, so by like ten, Kyle noticed that the water level was getting too low to be safe, and we tried turning the pumps back on. We checked the local pumps and filters, and saw that no water was getting through there, so I asked Jonah to fix the big one there." Bay pointed at the filter house.

"So the pumps ran all night without problems?" Andover asked.

"I don't think there's a way to know that," Jonah said. "Employees probably weren't checking how much water was flowing in and out when they turned the flow off at their individual rides when they came in. We don't have that great of a system of measuring it. The filter could have gotten clogged during the night. But, like, that wasn't what was clogging it. It was all the leaves and stuff. The gunk on the floor. I have to get rid of all that on a pretty regular basis anyway. Well, usually maintenance does."

"Did you call anyone from maintenance?" Andover asked.

"I did, but they didn't answer their phone," Bay said.

"They never do," Jonah added.

The sound of the chain link fence rattling startled the trio out of their conversation. The rarely used gate that separated Arcadis from the lake was rattling open. It was rarely used because it was held shut with a padlock, to which only maintenance (and Mr. Calvin) had the keys. Aquatics employees who needed to access the pumphouse jumped the fence, as they always did.

"What the hell is going on here?" Mr. Calvin yelled.

Andover frowned and turned away from Bay and Jonah. Bay sidled up to her and they both scooted backwards, away from the red faced Calvin.

"Please calm down, Reggie," Andover said.

"Your two goons over here are telling me I need to shut my park down on the busiest weekend of the year," Calvin yelled, stomping over towards Andover. His manner changed distinctly though as he got closer to Andover, and he clapped him on the shoulder and smiled. "How's the kids?" he asked.

"They're fine," Andover said. "Look, Reggie, we found something in your lake."

"I think calling it my lake is a bit of a stretch," Calvin said. "Town wouldn't let me buy it."

"Alright, well, we found something in your pumphouse."

"Such as?"

"A dead body, Reggie. You see why we'd like to shut the park down, in order to investigate."

"If it was in the lake, it has nothing to do with me," Calvin said. "I'm not shutting the park down. We operate on pretty thin margins, you know. Ticket sales pay salaries. I'm not giving out refunds."

"We're going to have to search the lake. You won't be able to pump water in," Andover said.

"So I go without pumping water for like a day."

Calvin looked over at Jonah and Bay, as if he had just now noticed them. "What are you two doing here?"

"Ms. Wylan was the one who discovered the body," Andover said, keeping a remarkably calm voice as he tried to placate the still somewhat agitated Calvin. "And Ms. Fernandez led us here when we arrived."

"You should get back to work," Calvin said. "Outside the park bounds technically means you shouldn't be getting paid."

Bay was grateful for any excuse to leave. "Come on," she said, tugging on Jonah's arm.

"I was interviewing them, before you arrived," Andover explained, still patient. "I'd like to continue doing so."

"They don't know shit, I'm sure. Look, if you need to talk to them, have them write down their numbers and you can call them after their shift. Park closes at eight."

Andover looked torn at this, caught between his obvious police duties and the friendly relationship he seemed to be trying to maintain with Mr. Calvin. He finally sighed and ripped off a piece of paper from his notebook and handed it and a pen to Jonah. "Phone number, please."

"Can I use your back?" Jonah asked Bay, who leaned over and allowed Jonah to scribble her phone number down on the paper using her back as a surface. She handed the now very wrinkled paper back to Andover.

"And girls, please don't mention this to anyone," Andover said. "I'd prefer not to have anyone come to the lakefront while we investigate."

"If you're going to park your cars in the parking lot, people are going to find out," Bay muttered under her breath.

"What? Oh, that can't be helped," Andover said. "Closest place to park."

"How are you going to search the lake?" Calvin asked. "You got police boats?"

Bay didn't wait to hear the answer. She grabbed Jonah's arm and tugged her away from the scene. Jonah looked back over her shoulder as they walked away, passing through the gates into Arcadis.

"I should quit," Jonah said. "I should quit."

"What? Why? This has nothing to do with you," Bay said as they walked, trudging slowly back through the forest towards the park proper.

"I mean, it kinda does."

"Sure, you found it, but that doesn't mean that it's your problem." Neither of them really seemed able to say the words severed head.

"Whose problem is it then?"

"The police. That's why they're there. Obviously."

"It feels like it's my responsibility."

"That's insane."

"Don't you feel like you need to do something about it?"

"No?" Bay scrunched up her face. "I mean, I want to know what happened, and it sucks that it did, and I want to make sure that no one else gets killed, but it's not actually my job to, you know, figure that out."

"You think it could happen again?"

"I mean. People who do that, I feel like it probably isn't an isolated incident."

"Did you see it?"

"Yeah. Just a glimpse."

Jonah pulled her phone out of her pocket. "Don't tell anyone I took this." She showed a photo to Bay. It was of the woman's head, though it was framed in such a way that the neck (and obviously missing body) were not visible. "Do you recognize her?"

"No. Should I?"

"I don't know."

"What, you think she was at Arcadis?"

"Maybe?"

They came to the edge of the park proper, now, and stepped out behind the waterslide and fit themselves into the crowd. Jonah was covered in mud a little bit, from cleaning the filter, Bay presumed, so guests looked at her a bit oddly. Better than being covered in blood, which Bay thought might be the alternative. Though the head hadn't been particularly bloody. Maybe most of that had drained out into the lake before Jonah got to it. She was grateful that Jonah had found the head, and not her.

"What are we going to do about the wavepool?" Bay asked, bringing the conversation back to something concrete and mundane. They walked towards it, pushing through the crowds.

"You'll just have to leave it off. We can't run the pumps."

"Okay. You know, if we're not pumping, isn't the water going to get gross?"

"We'll just have to put in a ton of chlorine," Jonah said, with a heavy sigh. "I'll go around and tell everyone that."

At the wave pool, they found that Kyle and Amanda had vanished, after putting up 'Do Not Enter'/'No Lifeguard On Duty'/'Out of Order' signs and cones. Kids had ignored that, and were splashing through the knee deep water at the edge of the wavepool. Bay took out her whistle and blew it at them.

"Can you read? Out of order! Out!" she yelled. The kids scrambled, laughing and running into the crowd. "Where the hell are Kyle and Amanda?"

"I'll yell at them when I see them," Jonah said. Her voice sounded suddenly exhausted, and the harsh sun overhead cast deep shadows over her eyes.

"Hey, Jonah, are you okay?" Bay asked.

Jonah laughed a little. "Fuck no."

"Understandable."