Alix and the Haunted Clothes Dryer

Alix slowly dropped the last quarter into the slot and...nothing happened. She looked around nervously, a bit sheepishly, which was out of character for her, and giggled to herself. Turning back to the machine, she selected “low heat” and started the dryer. Haha, haunted clothes dryer. How stupid! she thought to herself, snorting, and returned to her shiny plastic chair by the window to dive back into the steamy existential romance novel she brought with her to pass the time.

Gustav stared deep into Melinda’s dull, empty, unamused eyes. The way she looked straight through him always made him rock hard, and today was no different. In fact, none of these days were different. Every day had been the same for as long as he could remember...

The dryer’s timer buzzed loudly in the empty laundromat, wrenching her from Gustav’s strong embrace. She walked to the machine and was alarmed to find it empty. What the?? Alix had been alone in the laundromat since that mom and her two kids left while she was loading the so-called haunted dryer. Yes, she was caught up in her book, but she’d have noticed someone walking in and taking her clothes. Checking the surrounding machines just to be sure she wasn’t mistaken about which one she’d used, she found them all empty. Her instinct was to be angry, but the load was all just black work clothes, and she could’t really muster the energy to support any kind of rage over grease stained yoga pants and tee shirts. She glanced around the shop until she found a phone number on a cracked and yellowed sign plastered high above the bank of dryers:

For customer service Issues call this number between 12-5pm:

The sign was so old, she was almost surprised there were enough digits. She dialed up the number and, after three rings, was sent to one of those impersonal voice mail recordings that just repeats the number you’ve dialed and asks you to leave your message.

Hi, my name is Alix, my number is ........ I’m down at your laundromat on 2nd Avenue, it’s Tuesday at around 11am, and someone, I think, stole my clothes out of one of the dryers here. I’m hoping you have security footage or something I could look at. I see cameras here, not sure if they’re on or not. Could you give me a call back and let me know? Thanks.

Hanging up, she realize that, even if there was footage of someone stealing her clothes, it was doubtful the local police would rank the crime very high on their list of priorities. At this point, it would be easier to just go buy some new work clothes. Sometimes, life makes decisions for you that you should have made for yourself and those work clothes really did need to be replaced. Shaking her head at the wasted morning, she grabbed her smut from the shiny, too small plastic chair and headed to Target.

******************

Two hours, and nearly two hundred dollars later, Alix was pulling up to her house when her phone rang.

“Hello, is this Alix? You called about some missing clothes?” The voice on the line sounded small and, somehow, very far away.

“Yeah, that was me.”

“Can I ask, do you know which dryer you used? Which number, I mean?” The tiny voice begged, Alix’s brows furrowing briefly at the sound.

“Um, yeah. It was number 18.”

If she hadn’t, just seconds before, turned off her car’s engine, she wouldn’t have heard the small gasp at the other end of that long line. Alix Meyer, strong, powerful, take-no-shit woman, suddenly wanted very much to not be on the phone with this person anymore.

“18, you say? Well, that...um, that’s a tricky machine, young miss. Lot’s of issues with that machine over the years. Can you remember what setting you used? I mean, did you dry your clothes on high heat, by any chance?” How, in the course of less than a moment had that voice grown larger and closer? Just hang up, Alix. You don’t need those clothes. Let it go.

“Um, yeah no. I used the low heat setting. How does that matter if someone stole my clothes?”

Like a rubber band being pulled tight and then suddenly released, the voice returned to it’s place, small and far away, “Low heat. Hmmm. Pity.” The line went dead.

The fuck?!

As she stared at the screen of her phone for a moment, watching the lock screen image reappear, the image of Alix and her big goof of a pup, Plato, a violent chill rushed up her spine. Had she been one for scary movies, she’d have recognized this moment and that strange, modulating voice for the harbinger it was. Still, somewhere deep inside, the correct amount of unease bubbled like the morning’s first coffee in her stomach. The unease didn’t fade as she carried her new work clothes, new striped sheet set, frame for a piece of art she’d been meaning to hang, four avocados, multi grain bread, flour, charcoal face mask, tasseled throw blanket for the couch and box of lightbulbs into the house.

******************

Plato, who was usually there to greet her, seemed enthralled with something happening in the backyard. In their new home, which was isolated, far from town and without another home in sight, there was always some animal or another wandering near the house, giving them both something to look forward to just outside their window. That was one of the things she’d come to love about the place. It was quiet and could seem lonely, at first glance. But, there was life everywhere out here. Footprints of all shapes in the earth and snow. New birds to see flitting in the trees nearby. New sounds, different to the sounds of neighbors, cars, roommates, schoolchildren and firecrackers that had been the white noise of her old home.

She had decided not to disturb Plato’s window gazing, she knew he’d come find her when he was ready, but a passing glance at the window revealed something quite unexpected. Plato was not bird watching, and no deer has come to nibble at the grass nearby. As she drifted closer to the window, she saw a large T-shaped pole that had absolutely not been there that morning, or any other morning. As she passed her dog, nudging his front paws off of the window ledge, she saw another pole, parallel and identical to the first, standing maybe 20 feet from it’s mate. This, alone, would have been enough to scare her, but what happened next made that earlier chill spread from her spine to every other inch of her body, freezing her to the spot.

Between the two poles ran five lengths of rope or twine. Clothesline. Pinned to the new clothesline were her clean, if overly used, work clothes. Focusing on something that would not make her lose her currently tenuous grip on sanity, she counted and found there were two shirts missing. For some reason, this bothered her. As she began to realize the ridiculousness of focusing on missing work clothes on a phantom clothesline in her backyard, a slim figure shuffled to an empty space in the line and pinned up one of the missing shirts.

She was not tall, this woman. Were they next to each other, Alix thought she might have a good six inches on her. Her hair was fully white, but still quite thick, parted down the middle and pulled back tightly in a bun at the nape of her neck. She wore a plain dress, something Alix’s grandmother might have called a frock, with tiny green flowers, sleeves that covered her wrists, and buttons that ran all the way up to her throat. At her waist was wrapped a simple white apron that fell almost to the hem of her long dress. Bistro length, was yet another nonsensical thought that popped into Alix’s overloaded mind. The woman’s dress nearly covered her pointed black shoes, with just the toes peeking out from underneath.

The figure turned, looking towards the window where Alix stood. Her grey, delicate hand shot to her heart, and the woman sighed and then laughed nervously, as if she, and not Alix, had every right to expect to be alone and unobserved in this place. Her face did not frighten Alix, as she had expected it should. In fact, the woman’s face seemed quite kind and open. Had she been a customer at her restaurant, Alix would have expected a pleasant interaction based solely on the woman’s face. The old woman seemed to compose herself, chuckling and smiling at the silliness of being startled, then put up a single just-a-second finger to Alix, still frozen in her place. The woman, elderly, but quite spry, Alix observed, toddled back out of view and returned a moment later with the final missing shirt, pinning it up next to the last. Turning again to Alix, she waved her hand to the clothes on the line, in her best impersonation of one of those 1950’s car models at automobile conventions, a look of pride on her face. Alix, only slightly less frozen than she’d been a moment before, raised her hand in a wave and nodded her thanks to the woman, who, smiling, turned to pick up her now empty laundry basket, and strode away from the house, fading with each step, until she had vanished.