THE LAUNDRY ROOM

The laundry room was on the third floor in building A, though it was technically in between A and B, but that didn’t matter. It was a decent sized room – the apartment building was new and each apartment was a cookie-cutter copy of the last, so this was about the same size (if a little smaller). Instead of a living space, several old-style heavy duty washers and double-stacked dryers ate up the space with their presence and the constant thrum of clothes being sanitized.

Very few students did their laundry at night, and this was ideal for Irene. In her first year at college, having not made very many friends and having been saddled with a social roommate who didn’t have enough time in her schedule for a new comer, Irene had found intense enjoyment in the smaller tasks that she had taken for granted at home. Every Wednesday night, around eleven, she would gather up a week’s worth of dirty clothes, some spare change, and her detergent and make the journey down a flight of stairs to that room. She could hear the thrum from outside in the hall, almost like a patient creature purring as it waited for its next meal.

It was routine for her – pick a washer, pile the clothes in (of course, after separating whites and colors), add detergent, add coins, hit on. A five minute process had become a balm of simplicity in a complicated world. Tonight, however, it seemed that everyone had something that needed to be washed; the only washer still available was one in the far back corner, number E6. The fluorescent lights in the back of the room grew dimmer and hummed slightly in an annoying fashion, perhaps having not been changed in some time; as she moved towards them she noted a distinct rise in the dirt level of the walls.

Where the walls were white in the front, they slowly darkened to an off white, then to a pearl, before settling on brown and cracked. She dragged her bag of laundry over to the last washer and set the detergent on the lid, where she noticed someone had carved the numbers “666” on top. Sometimes she loved the ingenuity of the typical college coed, but tonight the humor was wasted on her.

Opening the lid, she started to pile in her clothes with a smooth motion – tonight it was colors, having left her whites back up in her room. For some reason, colors always outdid the whites, but since it was two separate piles she’d simply bring them down when it was time to switch the colors over; this was her way of ensuring she still had a washer and dryer to use. While still musing over her laundry plans, abruptly her sleeve snagged on something inside the body of the washer, holding her arm fast. Irene paused, looking down into the washer and trying to decipher what had caught her.

A few tugs did nothing to release her arm, and when she tried to reach in with the other there simply wasn’t enough room for her to see or maneuver. Finally, she jerked her arm, finding nothing else that could be done, ripping the sleeve up to her elbow but releasing her arm. Examining her arm, she let out an exasperated sigh before leaning into the washer to see what could’ve caused it, knowing so she wouldn’t snag again. If it was bad enough, she’d wait until another washer was available so as not to mangle her clothes. She tilted into the tub so that the dim light from the fluorescent tubes allowed for her to see the bottom – there were only a few items of clothing, which she scooped up and out of the way before she felt what it was. The bottom of the washer boasted something odd – the grating that made up the bottom of the tub seemed more pronounced, something like prongs sticking up, almost like…a blender.

A scream sounded down through the hallway, permeating each wall of the apartments more slowly than the last until it had trickled out completely. No one in the building took any notice.

Kevin, a senior attending the same college, banged open the door as he dragged in his own load of laundry. If he didn’t do it now, he’d be wearing the same pair of pants for two weeks, and his girlfriend Samantha would really start to get on his case. He surveyed the room, muttering to himself about how no one else had had the consideration to leave one washer empty for his use, and as he was about to give up, he noticed the one in the back was empty. As far back as he could remember, it was always empty.

He had heard a few stories, but there were always urban legends, and his frat brothers were especially big on re-telling them every time they had a camp out or a pool night or a card game…Shrugging it off, he dragged his load of laundry to the back of the room, noting the difference in tone as he moved deeper into the room. It really was quite unnerving. How bad could one more day wearing the same pants be? He could at least do his laundry in the day light.

Samantha’ll kill me…or worse, dump me…he thought miserably and finally got to the washer. Actually, it looked like someone was in the middle of using it. There was detergent all over the floor, and a full laundry bag, some of the clothes spilled down onto the floor. But the washer wasn’t moving – perhaps they had forgotten to turn it on? He noticed that the change indicator was at zero, and so he put one hand on the lid, fingers just barely brushing the scratched numbers on the smooth surface.

Maybe he should just leave it, after all, it looked like – one peek isn’t going to hurt. I mean, it’s not even on. Over his trepidation, he flipped back the lid and looked inside to see eyes gape back up at him. A homely blond girl, doused in blood and other unmentionables – well, just her head, actually, along with an assortment of flesh, intestines, and partially shredded organs – staring up at him with wide open, unblinking eyes. Soap suds and a small amount of water, which was more blood than water, made an obscene mockery of a washer in mid-process. Kevin jumped back almost instantly, letting go of the lid and letting it bang shut loudly.

Grabbing his clothes, he decided that Samantha would have to deal with the smell.