I Work at the Hoover Dam. We have 6 STRANGE Rules.

You ever see Jeepers Creepers? The old one. If you have, good. If you haven't, then don't worry. It'll make sense later. Anyway, my name is Andre Williams, and I've worked the night shift at Hoover Dam for almost 9 years. Honestly, it's a pretty good job. The pay is great, the benefits are solid, most nights are quiet. That's why I took it. Before this, I'd worked security in warehouses, office buildings, and a natural gas plant outside Las Vegas. Nothing exciting, just 12-hour shifts, a flashlight, a radio, and enough coffee to stay awake until sunrise. When the opening at Hoover Dam popped up online, I applied the same day. A week later, they called me. Another week after that, I was standing on top of one of the most famous structures in America. Most people think Hoover Dam is just a giant wall holding back Lake me. It isn't. It's basically a small city built inside concrete. There are miles of tunnels running through the dam, generator rooms bigger than basketball courts, maintenance passages that seem to go on forever, elevators, stairwells, control rooms, pump rooms, catwalks hanging hundreds of feet above spinning turbines. He could work here for years and still never see every part of it. During the day, the place is packed. Tour buses, families, school field trips, people taking selfies. You'd never believe how many tourists try climbing over railings just to get a better picture. Every now and then, somebody drops a phone over the edge. Sometimes a hat. One guy somehow managed to drop both. By 6:00 every evening, though, almost all of them are gone. The gates close, the tour elevators stop running, the gift shop shuts down, and the dam becomes quiet, not silent. A place like Hoover Dam is never silent. You can always hear the generators humming somewhere below your feet. You can hear water moving through pipes bigger than houses. You can hear ventilation fans pushing air through tunnels carved into concrete almost 90 years ago. After a while, you stop noticing those sounds. They just kind of become part of the job. There are usually only a few dozen of us working nights. Maintenance crews, engineers, electricians, security. Everyone pretty much knows everybody else. My shifts were simple enough. Walk the property, check secured doors, replace lights when maintenance needed an extra hand, inspect fences, respond if an alarm went off. Most nights nothing happened. Honestly, I preferred it that way. If I wanted excitement, I would have become a cop or a firefighter. Instead, I got paid to walk around one of the biggest engineering projects ever built. Hard to complain. The first week was mostly training, generator safety, electrical hazards, heat exhaustion, emergency evacuation rounds, what to do if someone fell into a restricted area. The instructors covered everything you'd expect. Nothing more. Nobody mentioned [clears throat] hearing children. Nobody mentioned red water or balloons. If they had, [music] I probably would have assumed they were messing with the new guy. Instead, my first real shift started at exactly 7:00 on a Tuesday night. My supervisor, Scott Jackson, met me inside the employee entrance with a flashlight in one hand and a ring of keys hanging from his belt. He looked at me for a second and then he asked me the strangest question I've ever heard at a job. You ever see Jeepers creepers? Rule one, never drink the water between midnight and 1:00 a.m. Scott didn't tell me the first rule on my first night or my second. Honestly, he let me work for almost 2 weeks before he ever brought it up. By then, I'd settled into a routine. I'd clock in around 7, grab my radio, check the maintenance board to see if anything needed attention, then start my rounds. Most nights, I'd spend a few hours walking the tunnels inside the dam, checking locked doors, replacing burned out lights, or escorting contractors into restricted areas. Around 10, I'd usually take my lunch in the employee break room before finishing the rest of my shift. It was easy work, you know, quiet, exactly what I wanted. The break room wasn't anything special. Few vending machines, a fridge that was probably older than I was, a microwave that sounded like it was about to explode every time somebody used it. There was also a sink, and one of those bottle filling stations people always use nowadays. I probably filled my water bottle three or four times every shift. The water came straight from Lake Me after being treated. It was cold and clean. Tasted fine, at least during the day. The first time Scott mentioned the rule. It was completely out of nowhere. It was a little before midnight. We just finished helping maintenance replace a light fixture near one of the generator rooms. By the time we got back upstairs, I realized my water bottle was empty. I walked over to the bottle station. Scott cleared his throat behind me. Don't I looked back at him. Don't what? Don't feel it. I laughed. It's empty. I know. So he checked his watch. 11:58. Then he looked back at me. Wait an hour. I stared at him for a second before laughing again. Seriously? He nodded. I figured he was messing with me. I shrugged and reached for the button. Anyway, Scott grabbed my wrist before I could press it. Not hard, just enough to stop me. I'm not joking, Andre. Something in his voice made me stop smiling. He let go of my wrist and pointed at the clock on the wall. Come back at 1. Why? You'll see. Neither of us said another word. We sat down at one of the tables in the break room. Scott drank coffee and I sat there wondering what kind of joke he was setting up. The clock slowly rolled over midnight. Nothing happened. I looked at Scott and he didn't say anything. And about 30 seconds later, I heard it. We both looked toward the sink. A faucet that had been turned off all night had started dripping by itself. One drop, then another, then another. Scott stood up. We walked into the hallway. Every employee sink we passed was doing the same thing, slow dripping. One of the electricians walked by carrying a toolbox. He didn't even look surprised, just kept walking. When we reached the next water fountain, Scott nodded toward it. Go ahead. I leaned down and the water wasn't clear anymore. It was red, almost like rust, except it wasn't rust. The entire stream had changed color. I remember just standing there staring at it. What the hell? Scott interrupted me. Don't drink it. We walked to another fountain. Same thing, then another. Same thing again. We checked a sink inside one of the maintenance rooms. read every faucet, fountain, bottle station, every pipe carrying drinking water through Hoover Dam. From exactly midnight until 1:00 in the morning, the water turned red. At exactly 1:00, it went back to normal, just like somebody had flipped a switch. Clear, cold, perfectly clean. I spent the next week trying to come up with a logical explanation. Maybe it was sediment. Maybe some strange mineral from Lake me. Maybe maintenance flushed the pipes every night. But none of those explanations made sense. If it were sediment wouldn't happen at the exact same minute every single night. If it were maintenance, somebody would have mentioned it. Eventually, I stopped asking questions. Everyone on the night shift already knew. They'd known for years. Scott finally told me where the rule came from. About 12 years ago, before I started working there, a new maintenance worker named Joel Bailey decided the older guys were full of it. He waited until 12:15, walked over to a fountain, filled an entire paper cup, then drank in while everyone watched. He smiled, held up the empty cup, and asked if that was all they had. Well, nothing happened. Then Joel finished the rest of his shift and went home. The next day he called in sick. Scott said Joel told his supervisor he couldn't get the taste of blood out of his mouth. Didn't matter what he ate or drank. Everything tasted like blood. His doctor couldn't find anything wrong. Dentist couldn't find anything wrong. And a week later, Joel quit. Nobody at Hoover Dam ever saw him again. Now, maybe it was all in his head. Maybe there was another explanation. I honestly don't know. What I do know is that I've worked here for almost 9 years, and I have never taken a single drink of water between midnight and 1:00. Not once. Rule two. If you hear wings flying above you, go inside immediately. You ever see Jeepers Creepers? The old one. The guy in the trench coat, big hat, even bigger wings. I remember watching it years before I ever worked at Hoover Dam. I thought it was creepy. Sure, but still just a movie. And then I started working nights here. The first time Scott Jackson brought it up, I laughed. The movie? I asked. Scott nodded. Do you remember the wings? Yeah, good. That was all he said. He didn't explain what he meant. He just kept walking down the inspection tunnel like we'd been talking about the weather. I figured he was just another older guy trying to mess with a new employee. Every workplace has stories, you know. Construction workers have ghost stories. Truck drivers have haunted highways. Security guards swear abandoned buildings aren't really abandoned. I figured Hoover Dam was no different. I was wrong. The story everyone tells new hires starts with a man named Christian Black. Nobody agrees on exactly how old the story is anymore. Some guys say it happened in 2014. Others swear it was 2016. Scott always said the exact year it didn't matter. The only part that matters, he'd tell people, is what happened after he looked up. Christian worked the night maintenance crew. From everything I heard, he was a good worker. Showed up early, never complained, never cut corners, kind of guy everyone wanted on their shift. Well, one August night, he was assigned to inspect the warning lights that run across the top of the dam. Simple job, really. Walk the roadway. Make sure every light is working. Replace bulbs if needed. Report any damage. You spend most of the shift completely alone. By that point, the tourists are gone. The traffic is stopped. Even the wind usually dies down after midnight. It's surprisingly peaceful up there. Christian liked listening to music while he worked. Technically, you weren't supposed to wear earbuds during inspections. Too many safety risks. But people did it anyway. One ear butt in, one ear open. That was usually enough. The security cameras followed most of his route across the dam. Scott showed me the footage during my first month. Not officially. He wasn't supposed to have a copy. He just told me to sit down in the security office after lunch one night. I want you to see something. The video looked completely normal. Christian walked across the roadway with a flashlight in one hand and a clipboard tucked under one arm. Every few seconds, he'd stop beside another light, write something down, then keep moving. Nothing unusual, nothing scary, nothing that would have made anyone remember that night. But then Christian stopped walking. Not suddenly, almost like he'd heard something. He reached up, pulled one earbud out, tilted his head, listened. Scott paused the video. "What do you hear?" I shrugged. "Nothing." "Exactly." He pressed play again. Christian slowly looked up toward the night sky. Not straight up, just enough to follow something moving over him. The security camera flickered once. Then again, the screen filled with static for maybe 3 seconds. And when the picture came back, Christian was gone. His flashlight was lying on the concrete. One white earbud rested a few feet away. That was it. No blood, no signs of a struggle, no damaged railing, nothing. I remember staring at the monitor for a long time before finally speaking. So, he fell?" I asked. Scott shook his head. "No, no." Search team spent 3 days looking. I watched the last few seconds of the footage again. There wasn't enough time. Even if Christian had somehow climbed the barrier and jumped, he couldn't have disappeared that fast. Not in 3 seconds. I looked over at Scott and then he said something that stuck with me. The report also leaves something out. There were four other workers on shift that night. They were all inside different parts of the dam and they all reported hearing the same thing. I felt a knot form in my stomach. He looked toward the office window for a few seconds before speaking. wings, big ones. Now, nobody saw anything. By the time they reached where Christian stopped answering his radio, he was already gone. The official investigation blamed an accidental fall. Case closed. This guy told me nobody in the night crew believed that. Not a single one. After hearing the story, I started paying attention whenever I worked outside. Not because I believed all of it, because stories like that, they've got a way of getting into your head. Every owl suddenly sounded louder. Every gust of wind made me glance upward. Sometimes bats flew around the lights near the intake towers, and I catch myself watching them longer than I should. And then almost 3 years later, I heard it. I was walking back toward the employee entrance after checking a security gate on the Arizona side. It's around 2:00 in the morning. Perfectly clear night. No wind or traffic, nothing. And then I stopped walking. Something else slower this time. It didn't sound mechanical. It sounded alive. Huge. like something with wings was moving through the darkness above me. I remember then exactly what Scott had said years earlier. If you ever hear wings, don't stop to figure out who they belong. Do don't look. Just get inside. For one second, I almost stopped and looked. Human curiosity. It's a funny thing. Part of me wanted to know, you know, wanted proof. wanted to see whatever had made Christian stop and look all those years before. Instead, I lowered my head, grabbed my radio, and I started running toward the nearest security door. The sound came once more, closer, this time. Then it stopped. I slammed the steel door behind me so hard the windows rattled. The hallway was empty. Only the steady hum of the generators echoed through the concrete. While I stood there for almost a full minute trying to catch my breath, Scott happened to walk around the corner and carrying a toolbox and one look at my face told him everything. You heard him. It wasn't a question. I nodded. He looked toward the closed door behind me, then back at me. You look up. I shook my head. No. And for the first time since I had met him, Scott smiled. Good, he said quietly. That's why you're still here. The next morning, I couldn't stop thinking about it. Not because I believed I'd almost been carried off by some giant flying creature, cuz I I didn't. At least not yet. I kept telling myself there had to be another explanation. Maybe a large bird. Maybe some strange echo bouncing off the canyon walls. Every explanation sounded reasonable at first. Scott never brought it up again. That was another thing about the night crew. Nobody liked talking about the rules once you learned them. It wasn't some secret club. It was more like everybody had already accepted there wasn't an answer. You learned the rule, you followed it, then you moved on. A few nights later, I asked one of the electricians if he'd ever heard the wings. He looked at me for a couple seconds before answering >> once. What'd you do? >> Exactly what Scott told you. Did you look? He shook his head no and walked away. Over the next few years, I worked hundreds of night shifts on top of that dam. Sometimes I'd spend three or four hours outside. Summer or winter, didn't matter. I'd walk the same inspection routes Christian Black once had, check the same lights, unlock the same gates, sign the same inspection sheets. Every now and then, I'd catch myself looking up into the night sky. Not because I'd heard anything, just because I I was thinking about him. Thinking about those three seconds. It's amazing how much your imagination can do with three missing seconds. Maybe he really did fall. Maybe the camera really did fail at exactly the wrong moment. Maybe everyone inside the dam imagined hearing wings because they'd already convinced themselves something strange had happened. All of those explanations, they they are possible. They're also a lot easier to live with. Still, there's one thing I've never been able to explain. Every security camera on Hoover Dam stores its footage for years. Maintenance videos, traffic cameras, inspection recordings, everything except that one. Christian's recording disappears right after the static. I've asked around more than once. The official answer is that the file was corrupted. Maybe it was. Or maybe someone decided nobody needed to keep watching those three seconds over and over again. I honestly don't know. What I do know is this. I've heard the wings once. Scott heard them twice. The electrician heard them once and none of us looked. Christian Black did. And whether you believe the old stories or not, he is the only one who never came back. So, if you're ever working the night shift at Hoover Dam and everything suddenly goes quiet and you hear something enormous beating the air above your head, don't try to figure out what it is. Don't convince yourself it's just a bird. Don't tell yourself you're being paranoid. Don't look up, just run. Rule three, never stand too close to the edge. Now, not every rule at Hoover Dam exists because of something supernatural. Some of them exist because this place is dangerous enough all by itself. People forget how massive Hoover Dam really is. Pictures don't do it justice. Standing on top of it doesn't either. It's only when you walk the maintenance routes at night that your brain finally understands the scale of the place. The top of the dam sits more than 700 ft above the Colorado River. The concrete curves away beneath your feet until it almost disappears into the darkness below. During the day, tourists lean over the railings to take pictures without thinking twice about it. At night, it's different. There are fewer lights. The canyon below becomes one giant black shadow. You can still hear the river, but you can't always see it. Sometimes all you can make out is a faint strip of moonlight reflecting off the water hundreds of feet below. It's enough to remind you that one mistake is all it would take. Most of the inspections we do are routine. Checking warning lines, looking for damage along the railings, making sure gates are locked, verifying cameras are still online. The kind of work that gets repetitive after a while. And that's exactly when people become careless. Scott used to tell me the same thing every week. Don't let the routine fool you. One windy night during my second year, maintenance called us out because one of the warning lights near the Arizona side had stopped working. Wasn't urgent, just another burned out bulb. Scott and I grabbed a replacement and headed out. The weather had changed since sunset. The wind coming through Black Canyon was stronger than usual. Not enough to shut down work, just enough that you noticed. Every few minutes, it would whistle across the top of the dam before it disappearing into the darkness below. The Scott walked ahead of me, carrying the toolbox. I looked over the side for a second. Big mistake. Even after working there for 2 years, looking straight down still made my stomach tighten. The river looked impossibly small. Cars crossing the bridge in the distance look like toys. The wind suddenly picked up. Not much, just enough to make me instinctively shift my weight. Well, we replaced the light in less than 10 minutes. On the walk back, we passed one of the maintenance pullouts overlooking the canyon. There wasn't much there, just a short section where crews could stage equipment during larger repairs. Scott stopped walking. Come here for a second. I walked over. Painted on the concrete, almost faded away after years in the sun, was a yellow line about 3 ft from the edge. I'd walked past it dozens of times. Never paid attention to it. What is it? I asked. Scott shrugged. Nobody really knows. What do you mean? It was already here when I started. So why not repaint it? We do, he said. He looked toward the edge. To remind people. Remind them of what? I asked. How? Somebody thought it needed painting in the first place. Over the next few weeks, I started noticing the same yellow line in several places across the dam. Always near maintenance areas, always a few feet back from the edge. Never mentioned on any official map, never discussed during training, just there. One night, I asked one of the engineers about it. He looked where I was pointing. Oh, that stay behind it. That's all he said. And then he walked away. Nobody ever gave me a better answer. Eventually, I stopped asking. Instead, I started paying attention. Whenever I worked outside, I'd noticed that every experienced employee naturally stayed behind those yellow lines. One night, a contractor stepped right over one while carrying a coil of cable. Scott called him back immediately. Behind the line. The contractor laughed. I'm still 10 ft from the edge. I know. So, what's the problem? Scott didn't answer. He just kept staring until the contractor finally stepped back. The rest of us never crossed it. Maybe it was only a safety tradition. Maybe the line meant absolutely nothing. Or maybe after working Hoover Dam long enough, you stop ignoring the little habits the older guys have because every single one of them started for a reason. So that's rule three. Never stand too close to the edge. Maybe it's just because the drop is over 700 ft. Maybe it's because the wind through Black Canyon can surprise you. Or maybe some rules don't need an explanation. Rule four. If you hear a child calling from the water at 3:33 a.m., don't answer. The first time Scott told me about rule 4. We were sitting in the maintenance office finishing paperwork after a 12-hour shift. It was almost sunrise and everyone else had already gone home. Scott was signing inspection sheets while I cleaned out my locker. Without looking up, he asked me a strange question. You got kids? I shook my head. No nieces, nephews. Uh, my sister's got two, I said. Scott nodded. If you uh if you ever hear one of them calling for help out on the reservoir. Don't answer. Scott slid the clipboard into a filing cabinet and locked it. I'm serious, Andre. That was the entire conversation, and for almost a year, I forgot about it. Unlike the red water or the stories about wings, rule four almost never came up. Nobody talked about it in the breakroom. Nobody joked about it during inspections. Even the older guys avoided the subject. It was almost like saying too much about it somehow made it worse. The reservoir above the dam, it's enormous. During the day, it's full of boats, fishermen, kayaks, and tourists. At night, it's empty. That's one of the strangest things about working there. You can stand on top of the dam at 2 in the morning and look across miles of perfectly still water without seeing a single light. No boats, no voices, no engines, just darkness. Sometimes the moon reflects off the surface so perfectly it looks like polished glass. Other nights you can't tell where the water ends and the sky begins. My job took me up there a few times every month. Usually was something simple. Checking security fences, inspecting flood lights, walking the shoreline near the intake structures. Nothing exciting. One October night, I was doing exactly that. It had been unusually quiet. No wind or insects. Even the water looked frozen. I remember checking my watch while walking along the access road. 3:31 a.m. I still had one more gate to inspect before heading back inside. And that's when I heard it. Mister. The voice was quiet. So quiet I honestly thought I'd imagined it. I stopped walking. The flashlight hung loosely at my side. Nothing. No movement or boats or people. I started walking again. Mister. This time it was clearer. A little girl, maybe maybe six or seven years old. She sounded scared. Not screaming or crying, just scared. I slowly turned my flashlight toward the shoreline. Nothing. The beam stretched across the water without finding anything. And then I remembered what time it was. 3:33. Every hair on my arm stood up. The voice came again. I'm cold. It wasn't far away, maybe 50 yards. Somewhere out in the water. My first instinct was exactly what you'd expect. Somebody needed help. A child was out there. People don't stop to analyze things like that. You just react. I took one step toward the shoreline, then another. The rocks shifted under my boots. The voice sounded stronger now. Please, I can't get out. >> I grabbed my radio. This is Andre. Is anybody working the north access road? Static. Then Scott's voice. >> I'm here. >> Yeah, I think there's somebody in the water. >> No, >> I hear a little girl. >> No, you don't. >> His answer caught me completely off guard. What? >> You stay where you are. I'm telling you, Scott, there's Andre. >> His voice had changed. Wasn't loud, but it was the most serious I ever heard him. >> Do not go any closer. >> I looked back toward the reservoir. The surface hadn't changed, still perfectly calm and empty. And then the little girl spoke. This time she used my name. Andre. I felt my stomach drop. I'd never reported my location over the radio. I'd never answered whoever or whatever was out there. Yet somehow it knew my name. I took another step backward. Scott was still talking through the radio. >> Keep walking toward the access gate. >> What is it? >> Just walk. The little girl's voice became more desperate then. Please, my daddy left me. I don't want to die. And then the crying stopped. Complete silence for maybe 5 seconds. When the voice returned, it wasn't a little girl anymore. The words were the same, but the voice wasn't. Andre, come play with me. The sound rolled across the water like thunder. I didn't wait for Scott to tell me again. I turned around and I started running as fast as I could. Behind me, the voice laughed. Not a child's laugh, not even close. Every few seconds, it would almost get it right before slipping back into something much older. By the time I reached the security gate, Scott was already waiting for me. He didn't ask what I'd heard. He didn't need to. One look at my face was enough. We stood there for almost a minute without speaking. Finally, I asked him the question I'd been thinking ever since the radio call. Has anyone ever gone looking? Scott stared out across the black water. A long time ago. What happened? They never found anybody. The child? I asked. He slowly shook his head. There wasn't one. Neither of us spoke after that. We locked the gate, finished the rest of our inspections, and watched the clock. The reservoir looked completely normal again. Just miles of silent water reflecting the moon. I don't know what calls from that reservoir, but if you ever find yourself working the night shift at the dam and you hear a frightened child calling for help from the middle of a perfectly still reservoir at exactly 3:33 in the morning, don't answer. Rule five, never enter an unassigned maintenance tunnel alone. By the time you make it to rule five, you've usually stopped asking why the rules exist. You just follow them. Some make sense, some don't. Either way, they keep you alive. The fifth rule is surprisingly ordinary compared to the others. At least that's what I thought. Never enter an unassigned maintenance tunnel alone. Sounded like standard workplace safety. Buddy system, confined spaces, nothing unusual. And then I actually started working inside the tunnels. From the outside, the dam doesn't look all that complicated. It's one giant wall of concrete holding back an enormous reservoir. Simple enough. Inside, it's a maze. There are maintenance galleries, drainage galleries, electrical corridors, ventilation passages, equipment rooms, inspection shafts, and stairwells connecting levels that seem to go on forever. Some tunnels are wide enough to drive a pickup truck through. Others barely let two people squeeze past each other. Almost every hallway looks the same. gray concrete, steel doors, yellow safety rails, rows of pipes disappearing into the darkness. After a few hours underground, you completely lose your sense of direction. There aren't any windows. You can't see the sun. You can't hear traffic. The only constant is the low vibration from the generators. Eventually, every corridor starts looking identical. Scott warned me about that during training. Never trust your memory down here. I've got the maps, I said. You might not when the power goes out, he said. Every employee carried a radio, a flashlight, and a laminated map of the tunnel system. That sounds reassuring until you realize there are hundreds of intersections. A wrong turn doesn't usually put you in danger. It just wastes time. Most nights, that's all it is. most nights. Well, one winter evening, maintenance reported a pressure sensor that had stopped responding. Wasn't a major repair. Someone just needed to confirm the wiring hadn't been damaged. Scott was busy helping another crew, so we pointed toward the maintenance office. Grab the blueprints. I'll meet you down there. No problem, I said. I picked up the map, checked the tunnel number, and headed downstairs. The first 10 minutes were completely normal. Concrete corridor, left turn, steel door, another corridor, exactly like every other inspection. And then I reached a four-way intersection. According to the map, I needed to go left. Except there wasn't left. The hallway shown on the blueprint simply didn't exist. Instead, there were three identical corridors stretching away into the darkness. I checked the map again. Same result, wrong layout. I figured I'd counted intersections incorrectly. Easy mistake. So, I picked the center hallway. 5 minutes later, I found another intersection. And again, it didn't match the map. I stopped walking, pulled out my radio. Yeah, this is Andre. Static. Scott, you copy? Nothing. I tried again. Still nothing. The radio had worked perfectly upstairs and now just silence. That was the first time I realized how quiet those tunnels could become. Without the radio chatter, without footsteps, without anyone talking, all I could hear was the distant hum of machinery somewhere inside the concrete. It almost sounded like breathing. I told myself not to be ridiculous. This place was nearly 100 years old. Old buildings make noise. Pipes expand. Fans cycle on and off. Concrete settles. There was a logical explanation for everything. I took another hallway, then another. Nothing looked familiar. Every door had the same paint. Every light fixture looked identical. Every corridor stretched into another corridor. I checked my watch. Almost 40 minutes had passed. The repair should have taken 10. And for one of the first times since starting the job, I felt genuinely uncomfortable. I had absolutely no idea where I was. I stopped again and listened. Somewhere far ahead, I heard footsteps. Finally, somebody else was down here. Hello? No answer. The footsteps continued, heavy work boots by the side of them. I started walking toward them, and the strange thing was, I never got closer. No matter how fast I walked, they stayed exactly the same distance away. Always around the next corner, always just out of sight. I called out again. Nothing, just footsteps. By then, I wasn't even thinking about the broken pressure sensor anymore. I just wanted another human being, another radio, another voice. I turned another corner, empty hallway. I heard the footsteps behind me. Then I spun around. Nothing. The corridor I just walked through was completely empty. The footsteps [music] stopped. Then every instinct I had told me to start running. Instead, I forced myself to stand still, take a breath, think. As Scott always said, panic was the quickest way to get lost. I closed my eyes for a second, listened. The generators, the ventilation fans, water moving somewhere inside the structure, and then faintly a radio. Andre >> Scott. I couldn't make out the words, only my name. I answered immediately. This is Andre. Static. Then >> don't move. >> The transmission was broken, but it was enough. I stayed exactly where I was. Less than 2 minutes later, Scott rounded the corner carrying another flashlight. You all right? I got turned around. I know. How'd you find me? He held up a small tracking receiver clipped to his belt. Your radio. On the way back, I asked him about the footsteps. He didn't even look at me. What footsteps? The ones I kept hearing. Scott was quiet for several seconds. Finally, he shrugged. Yeah, I've heard them, too. You ever figure out what they were? No. Were they another worker? I never found anybody. That was all he said. We finished the repair together. Took less than 5 minutes. As we climbed back into the main access corridor, I looked over my shoulder one last time. The tunnel was empty, completely still. Nothing chasing us, nothing standing in the darkness. Just another stretch of gray concrete disappearing underground. Now, maybe I imagine the footsteps. Maybe stress and isolation got the better of me. Maybe old tunnels play tricks on your ears. But I don't think so. Rule six. If you ever see red balloons floating out of one of the drains, run. By the time I learned the sixth rule, I'd stopped trying to decide which stories were real and which ones weren't. I had seen enough strange things to understand one simple fact. You don't have to understand a rule to follow it. You just have to survive long enough to learn why it exists. The sixth rule wasn't written anywhere. Wasn't in the employee handbook. Wasn't posted on a bulletin board. Scott didn't even tell me himself. I overheard it. It was just after 2:00 in the morning and a water mane had burst inside one of the lower maintenance galleries. Half the night crew had been called in to help shut off valves before the flooding reached an electrical room. For almost 3 hours, everyone was busy. Maintenance, security, engineers. Even supervisors were carrying pumps and hoses. By the time we finally finished, everybody was exhausted. A few of us ended up sitting outside one of the service buildings drinking bad coffee from paper cups while we waited for the maintenance report to be finished. Nobody was talking much. And then one of the older mechanics looked toward a storm drain near the edge of the roadway. Been about 9 years, he muttered. Another guy nodded. Closer to 10. Scott looked up immediately. Don't start. I'm just saying we're do. Nobody laughed. Nobody asked what he meant. The conversation simply died. About 5 minutes later, everyone stood up, threw away their empty cups, and went back to work. I caught up with Scott before we headed inside. "What was that about?" "What?" "The balloons," I said. He frowned. I didn't say anything about balloons. No, no, the mechanic did that. I overheard him talking about it. Scott stopped walking for a second. I thought he wasn't going to answer. And then finally, he said, "Forget you heard it." "So there are balloons." "No, you literally just there are no balloons." He interrupted. He unlocked the security door and stepped inside. The conversation was over. That should have been enough, but it wasn't. The problem with telling someone to forget something is that it's almost impossible to do. Over the next few weeks, I started asking around, not directly, just little questions. Nobody gave me a straight answer. Some people pretended they had no idea what I was talking about. Others simply changed the subject. One maintenance worker actually walked away in the middle of our conversation. That was unusual. The night crew talked about everything. Equipment failures, paychecks, sports, ghost stories. They never walked away unless the subject was balloons. About a month later, I finally got an answer, or at least part of one. Scott and I were inspecting one of the lower drainage galleries after a heavy rainstorm. Most people don't realize how much water moves through a dam besides the reservoir itself. Rainwater, groundwater, runoff, all has to go somewhere. The drainage system underneath the structure stretches for miles. Most of it is concrete tunnels just large enough for two people to walk side by side. Cold, wet, always echoing. We were checking for debris that might have blocked one of the grates. Scott stopped beside a rust cover drain cover and shined his flashlight inside. Clear. I checked the other one. Also clear. And then something caught my eye farther down the tunnel, maybe 50 yards away, something bright red. At first I thought it was a warning flag somebody had dropped. And then it moved slowly, floating. I narrowed my flashlight beam. It wasn't a flag. It was a balloon, bright red. It drifted upward from the darkness beneath a drain tunnel, as if someone below had just let go of the string. It simply floated there, silent, turning slowly in the stale air. I stared at it for several seconds before speaking. Scott. He was already looking. The color drained from his face. For the first time since I met him, I saw genuine fear. He grabbed my arm hard enough to make me stumble. We're leaving right now. He didn't raise his voice, but there was something in his eyes I'd never seen before. the kind of look people get when they've recognized something that they hoped they would never see again. He pulled me toward the tunnel entrance and I looked back one last time. There were two balloons now, then three, all of them rising silently from the darkness below. Scott grabbed my arm before I could take another step. And for just a split second, I looked back. Two yellow eyes were staring up at me from the darkness below. We didn't wait to see anything else. The steel door slammed shut and a single heavy impact echoed from the other side while we finished out the rest of our shift and went home that morning. But I have never forgotten that night. The strange thing is life eventually settled back into something that almost felt normal. Not normal by anyone else's standards, obviously, but normal for us. The water still turned red every night between midnight and 1. Every new employee still got warned about wearing earbuds outside after dark. The yellow lines were still repainted every few years. Nobody answered voices coming from the reservoir. Nobody entered maintenance tunnels alone. And nobody ever mentioned the balloons. You stop asking why after a while. You stop trying to solve every mystery. Instead, you learn the rules. You follow them. Then you go home. I think that surprises people. They imagine working somewhere like this would feel terrifying every single night. It doesn't. Most nights are completely ordinary. You check doors, replace light bulbs, walk your route, fill out paperwork, drink coffee, and watch the sun come up. And then you drive home like anyone else after a long shift. Sometimes months go by without anything unusual. Long enough that you almost convince yourself the older guys were just telling stories. Long enough that you start wondering if maybe you imagined some of it yourself. And then something happens. A faucet starts dripping just before midnight. A sound echoes across the top of the dam that shouldn't exist. A voice calls your name from the water. Footsteps follow you through an empty tunnel. Or you catch a flash of red just out of the corner of your eye. And suddenly every story you've ever been told comes rushing back. People ask me all the time if I'd ever take another job. Maybe someday. I've thought about it more than once. But then I ask myself a simple question. If I left, who would warn the next guy? Because nobody puts those rules in the employee handbook. You only hear them from the people who've survived long enough to pass them on. Maybe that's why they're still around. So, if you ever find yourself working the night shift somewhere old, somewhere built out of thousands of tons of concrete, somewhere with endless tunnels beneath your feet and miles of black water behind your back, listen to the old guy training you, even if what he says [music] sounds impossible. Especially then because every rule has a story. [music] [music]