As I, accompanied by my fearless companion, enter the laundromat, I’m immediately struck by the musty smell of dampness and mildew. The air is thick with the scent of stagnant water and worn fabric. I look around, taking in the sight of rows of old washers and dryers, some of which appear to be on their last legs.

  As I begin to explore, I notice one of the washers humming along steadily, its rhythmic thud filling the air. Nearby, a dryer is making a strange, dry hacking sound, as if it’s spent too many years smoking unfiltered cigarettes. .

  I follow the scent of dampness and find a pipe leaking water onto the floor. I kneel down to investigate, Spot exploring alongside me. As I work on tightening the pipe, I can’t help but feel like I’m being watched. The air seems heavier somehow, and the lights dim.

  Suddenly, the dryer that was making all the noise starts shaking and thudding against the ground. I turn towards it, and the dryer door pops open. Smoke starts billowing out and a torrent of towels spills out, flowing across the floor like a liquid. As they move, they begin to squirm and writhe, taking on a life of their own.

  My eyes widen in horror as the towels start piling up into a humanoid shape. The figure reaches towards me, it’s “eyes” burning cinders deep within the towels. I hear the towels rasping against each other, growing louder until it becomes a menacing laugh: “heh, heh, found you.”

  As I stood there, transfixed by the towel monster’s malevolent gaze, Spot let out a fierce growl and charged at it. The towels seemed to sense her presence, and they turned so that Spot landed behind them.

  It turned back to me, every movement shedding thick smoke into the air, every moment the laundromat becoming darker and darker.

  I knew I had to do something, in my moment of indecision, a stream of towels wrapped around my upper body. Hot, so hot, I could feel my old burn scars hurting underneath my clothes. The towels began to pull me closer to the “eyes”. I tried to fight, I grabbed for anything, and I felt the pipe I’d been working on. I held on for dear life.

  I could hear Spot growling and attacking from the other side of the monster. As I was holding on to the pipe, I could feel it start to bend. Water started trickling out of the impromptu fix. With a great effort the towel monster slammed me into the dryer that it was birthed from. I could see fire within it, swirling, and calling to me. I almost listened, thankfully the pipe I was holding on to came with me. Water began flooding the laundromat, and the towel monster.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  As the water flowed underneath the monster it started dissolving, the soot began being washed away. The dryer became a normal dryer again. All of this happened around me as I beat that monster with the broken water pipe.

  I kept hitting what was now just a pile of wet towels. Thankfully there was a drain in the floor that took care of the flood. Gasping for breath I went over and shut the water valve fully. “I guess this is going to be a bigger fix than expected.” I laughed to myself.

  I sat down at one of the clothes folding tables and began taking stock of the damage. From what I could tell there wasn’t actually a fire. None of the towels were burned, the dryer didn’t have any signs of melting like you’d expect. The only signs that anything happened were the broken pipe and the wet towels. Oh, also, a very pissed off Spot. She was hiding all the way on the top of the maintenance room back shelves.

  She had a small patch of fur on her front paw that looked singed. I also realized that my old burn scars were hurting pretty bad too. I looked under my shirt and saw some red skin and a few popped blisters right where I’ve had burns before.

  Hmm, weird.

  At some point as I was looking into my shirt a young woman had wandered into the laundromat. She was very pale and had a questioning look on her face.

  I gave her a sheepish grin, “uh, hi, I’m Kit, new manager around these parts.”

  It must have been quite the tableau, me holding my cat, and also looking down my shirt, on a pile of what could be her towels.

  “Are these your towels, by any chance?” I asked, hoping to move this along.

  She gave me a calculated look and replied, “uh, no. My stuff is in this washer right here.” She pointed to the washer that had been running when I first entered the laundromat.

  I deposited my cat on a dry patch on the floor, went back over to the maintenance area to see if I could find what I needed.

  “Perfect, this is what I wanted.” I grabbed a magnetic placard that read “Out of Order” and slapped it onto the dryer that had tried to eat me.

  “Don’t use that one, it ,” I looked around in a paranoid fashion, “tried to eat me,” I nodded. The woman smiled nervously, “I’ll keep that in mind, thanks.”

  I stuffed the wet towels into the trash, grabbed my cat, and went back to my apartment to change.