The Running Taps



I've been an elementary school custodian for quite a while now. I really enjoy the job. The school brings back so many memories from my childhood. It made me really happy at first, and I didn't expect anything out of the ordinary to happen. That is, until last week.

My boss told me that I should run the sinks of the classrooms every once in a while in order to avoid gas clogs. I ran them every day since that recommendation. I would usually do one hallway at a time, with one classroom at a time, leave them running for thirty seconds, and then shut them off. Using this method, I have a decent memory, so I could turn them on and shut them off in the exact same order.

Today was different. I was going to start in the upstairs hallway. I had already done two classrooms, and was moving on to two more on opposite sides. But when I looked in them, they were already running. Not knowing how long they were on for, I shut them off immediately. I was confused. Did I leave them on by accident? I couldn't remember. Again, I have a good memory, so I always remembered very well to shut them all off. So how come they were running before I got to work? Did someone else turn them on? And why would they? My boss and partners knew that I do it, but I'd never seen any of them turn some of them on for me. Could there be someone that was spying on me and was mimicking me for some reason? I decided to ignore this and get back to work. I expected things to resume as normal for the rest of the week. I thought that I could forget about that weird incident and move on.

I came into work the next day as I would normally do. I came to the hallway to start running the first taps. But just as I was entering the first classroom, I heard a faint sound. I didn't know what it was at first, but when I stepped foot-first into the classroom, it became more clear. Water. Sure enough, I came to the sink to find it already on. It didn't creep me out to start with, it merely annoyed me. I decided to leave it running for an extra thirty seconds just in case. While I waited, I went to the next classroom.

Outside the doorway, the running of the tap from the first room still sounded quite clear. I figured it was just my ears playing tricks with me, but when I walked into the second room and came to the next sink, it too was already on. Here we go again, I thought. Then, I had a funny feeling. I checked the next two classrooms. Sure enough, they were running too. My heart told me I should shrug it off again, but my brain thought otherwise, telling me that it was rather strange that this happened twice in a row, only the second time was twice as many sinks.

The next day, I came to the hallway again. Before jumping into the closest classroom, I thought for a moment. I contemplated on what I would do not only if I found the taps running again, but also what I would do if I found whatever, or whoever was responsible for it. I kept thinking as I went into the first room, but my thoughts were interrupted when I discovered that the tap was off. I was nearly relieved, but I checked the other rooms anyway. No water. My relief started to slightly increase. I went back to the first classroom to start running them again.

When I pulled the lever up on the first tap, however, nothing happened. I jiggled it, but that didn't help. I ignored this, thinking it was just a faulty pipe. I went to the next sink, but it wouldn't turn on either. I tried the third. Nothing. Fourth. Nothing. Fifth and beyond. Nothing.

My relief was now replaced with more confusion than ever. "First they're running before I get to work, now they won't turn on for me? What is happening? I hope I'm not going crazy." I decided to tell my boss and some of my co-workers about it so they could look into the problem themselves. But just as I was leaving the hallway, I heard the running water again. I checked all the rooms again. This time, it wasn't two rooms. It wasn't four rooms. It was the entire hallway. And now that I heard them turn on so recently, I was so close to, yet still feeling very far from, finding the answers to this mystery.

The next morning, I asked my boss and some of my coworkers if they had seen anyone leaving the sinks running. They hadn't, although my boss told me that she had seen something strange as she was leaving work yesterday. She described it as a dark figure, human-shaped. She said the thing sounded...wet.

I went into the hallway once more. I checked all the rooms, then tried to run the taps, but none of them worked. I decided I'd had enough of this shit. I pulled out my phone to call the cops to suggest a fucking search warrant to catch whatever asshole was doing this to my school. But just as I was about to dial, I heard the running of the water again. This time, it was louder. I walked further down the hallway. The water got louder and louder. I checked the rooms and was shocked to find the water gushing from the taps. I tried to shut them off, but they wouldn't stop. Soon, the water, already spilled on the floors of the rooms, began to flow into the hall. I wanted to be ready to clean all of this up, but I still wanted to know what the hell...what the fuck was going on.

I looked down the hallway again, and at the other end, I saw something. It was a dark figure, person-shaped, just like my boss pictured it. I was afraid of what it might do to me, but I felt too close to answers to turn back now. I got close to it. As I got closer, the thing became more visible, less dark. When I was finally five feet away from it, I saw its true form, one I would never forget.

This person wasn't like any other human being. I have seen scary things in my life before, especially monsters in my dreams. But this time, I was sure I wasn't dreaming. I was not imagining the thing that stood before me. The person, who I couldn't tell was a man or a woman, was made completely out of...water.

Its skin was water. Its head was water. Everything except for some of its face was water. How did a being like this come into existence? Who is this? What is this? Does it have to do with the...Then it hit me. The taps. Running the taps long enough created this thing. Made enough water in the atmosphere. But how? Before my mind could form another question, it walked right up to me without warning. It didn't speak. It just stood there and stared into my soul. I was on edge at this point. I was as frozen as the numbing floe that scuppered the Titanic. I wanted to run more than anything in that moment, but I couldn't. I was just stuck.

I didn't expect what happened next. I was thinking that this creature would attack me in the manner that any creature from a story I knew would do. Instead, it gently touched me. It put its hands on my shoulders, and slowly stroked me up and down. This made me feel very uncomfortable. I thought it would squeeze me. It let go of me eventually. Then, it blinked and smiled at me, the creepiest smile I have ever seen. I wanted to talk to it. I wanted to ask it what the hell it was doing here, and what it wanted from me. But just as I was opening my mouth, it just bolted in the opposite direction. It jumped out the window, no, through the closed window at the end of the hall, and ran off into the distance, leaving a big trail of water behind.

I had never been more scared of anything in my life. Never again will I ever be able to see my school the way that the little kid that still lives inside me once did. I find myself unable to sleep at night sometimes. Every time I wash my hands, I have disturbing hallucinations of there being more of those water people. Many people say that I am crazy, but I know it's true. I have seen it. I felt it touch me! I don't know what it wants from me. I don't know what it will do to me if I were to do anything else to it, or even just cross paths with it again. I still don't even know how the water was made to create a new kind of being in the world.

But the most frightening part about it, the one thing that keeps me awake at night as I lie in my bed, is the sound that I may never get out of my head:

The sound of the running water from my kitchen sink.

Written by Al Timotheus.