Mop Water

The clock above the nurses’ station clicks from 2:42 to 2:43 a.m.

Lance dips the mop into the bucket, the gray water churning with a lazy swirl. The plastic bucket squeaks as it rolls forward, one wheel clicking every few inches. The hallway is empty. Too quiet, even for graveyard shift. He hums something low and tuneless—half lullaby, half static in his brain.

Left side of the hallway, then right. Mop. Rinse. Repeat.

That’s the rule. That’s the routine. That’s what keeps things quiet in his head.

Room 214’s door is cracked open.

He stops mid-swish. The mop drips onto the linoleum.

That door wasn’t open before. He knows that.

“You’re tired,” he mutters. “Long shift. Five Red Bulls and still feel like oatmeal.”

He looks around. No Linda. She was at the nurses’ station ten minutes ago—gum popping, nose buried in that trashy romance novel. The one with the guy on the cover who looks like he should be rescuing people from volcanoes, shirtless and brooding.

Now her chair is empty. Still spinning slightly.

The coffee pot on the counter is shattered. Steam still rises in curls. He didn’t hear it break.

A low buzz builds in his ears.

He steps toward Room 214 and knocks gently with the mop handle. “Hey—just the janitor. No big deal. Don’t mind me.”

No answer. Only the slow, mechanical inhale-exhale of a ventilator from inside.

He pushes the door open.

The overhead light flickers. A man lies in the bed, still and pale, hooked to machines. His chest rises and falls too slowly, like someone faking sleep. On the table beside him: a single red crayon and a folded piece of paper. Lance leans closer. A child’s drawing.

Stick figure. No face. Just a mop in his hand. Blood smeared across the background. Doors open behind him.

It’s the hallway.

It’s this hallway.

Lance stares at the drawing, the edges curling slightly from moisture. His stomach turns. He knows this picture. Not from today. Not from a room check. He knows it the way you know the ending of a bad dream, even before it happens.

The monitor jumps.

Once. Twice.

Flatline.

The room screams with a steady beep.

“Shit,” Lance whispers, stumbling backward. His bucket tips, mop water rushing out in a wave across the tile. It touches his boots, warm and foul. He fumbles for the emergency call button on the wall, slamming it.

The man’s eyes snap open.

No iris. No pupil. Just white.

“Lance,” he says, without moving his lips.

Lance freezes. His mouth goes dry.

“Lance, you left the door open.”

The voice doesn’t come from the man in the bed. It comes from the hallway behind him.

He turns. The door to Room 215 is now ajar.

He stares at it, the air in his lungs turning heavy.

“You’ve got a routine,” he says aloud, like a mantra. “Mop. Rinse. Left side. Right side. That’s the rule.”

But Room 216 is open now, too.

The lights flicker once, then again. They hum louder.

He backs into the corridor. The hall seems longer. Or maybe it’s just stretching. Warping. The edges shimmer like heat rising off pavement.

He checks the drawing again.

More doors are open in it now.

A breeze moves past him, though the air vents are silent. He hears whispering. Too many voices to follow.

“You’ve been here before,” one says.

Another: “You never left.”

His hand grips the mop like a weapon. He turns and runs. Down the hall, past the station. Past the elevators. Past a nurse’s cart tipped over on its side, pills scattered like teeth across the floor.

The clock above reads 2:43 a.m.

Still.

Exactly the same.

He crashes through the stairwell door and barrels down to the first floor. Bursts through into—

The same hallway.

Room 214’s door: cracked open.

Room 215: slightly ajar.

The dirty trail of his mop water leads right up to them.

He gasps. Turns back. But the stairwell door is gone.

In its place: Room 216. Open.

“You cleaned it up real nice,” says a voice. Female. Familiar.

He turns, slowly.

Linda stands at the nurses’ station, face pale, gum frozen in mid-pop. She holds the trashy novel to her chest like a shield.

“You remember, right?” she asks. Her voice doesn’t match her lips. It echoes from somewhere inside the walls.

He blinks—and she’s gone.

The chair at the station spins gently.

The coffee pot is whole again.

Steam curls upward.

The clock ticks from 2:42 to 2:43 a.m.

Again.

His chest tightens. His eyes dart back to the drawing. The hallway is full of doors now. All open. And the mop man—the stick figure—is smiling.

Behind him, scribbled in red: “Do it again.”

The floor shakes under his feet.

The tiles ripple like water.

Room 214’s door slams open.

Inside: not the same patient.

Now a woman in scrubs. Blood covering her chest. Her mouth wide in a silent scream. Hands reaching out.

Lance screams back. Falls. The mop hits the floor with a crack, splitting. The bucket is gone. The water’s still there, but black now, oily.

He crawls backward.

A figure rounds the corner at the end of the hall.

Same face.

His face.

Calm. Smiling. Holding a crayon in one hand, a scalpel in the other.

“You're the clean-up crew, remember?” the copy says.

Lance shakes his head.

“I didn’t—” He chokes on the words. “I didn’t do anything.”

The figure steps closer.

“But you cleaned it. That’s enough. That makes it yours.”

He lifts the crayon and scrawls something onto the wall. The lines bend and twist, become a circle. Clock hands. They spin.

2:42.

2:43.

2:42.

2:43.

Back and forth.

The sound of beeping. A flatline. A heart monitor.

His own voice, in his ear now: “Left side. Right side. Mop. Rinse. Repeat.”

The walls pulse like lungs. The floor opens slightly, just enough to see a glimpse of what’s beneath—more doors. Endless. Stacked. Turning like gears.

From somewhere behind him, a mop clatters to the ground.

Then the lights go out.

Somewhere at the nurses’ station, Linda flips the page of her book and smacks her gum. The coffee pot hisses. The chair rocks gently.

The hallway stretches out before her. Clean. Shiny.

The clock ticks from 2:42 to 2:43 a.m.

And behind her, down the corridor, a mop begins to move.