A flash fiction story about liminal spaces and people
Elin chewed on the inside of her cheek, eyes glued on the timer of the dryer she shoved her wet clothes into.
45 fucking minutes.
She sighed.
At least the local laundromat was open 24/7. She hadn’t expected her dryer to shit itself five minutes into a drying cycle. If not for work in the morning, she would have gone straight to bed and let her damp clothes mildew. But the thought of missing calls and getting behind on her projects got her to gather her clothes and jump into her car.
“Fuck,” she mumbled and rubbed her eyes. She furiously blinked them.
Reaching into her pocket to retrieve her phone, the door chimes of the laundromat entrance rang. She glanced up and her eyes widened.
A gargantuan woman with heaps of hair obscuring much of her face stepped through the frame of the front door, ducking her head as she did so. The whole front of her tank top was splattered with blood.
She stared. And the woman stared back.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Goosebumps erupted across her flesh. She quickly averted her eyes and looked back at her phone. But she couldn’t see anything on the screen.
From the corner of her eye, she saw the woman pause and then approach the attendant to her right, their conversation hushed.
Every fiber in Elin’s being screamed for her to run. She took note of the exits (there was only one—the entrance), and slipped her free hand into her pocket, fingers tightening around her pocket knife she brought everywhere with her.
She slowly and quietly let go of the breath stuck in her throat.
There were a number of reasons someone’s shirt could be splattered with blood. The attendant wasn’t freaking out. All she had to do was mind her business, wait for her clothes to dry, and get the fuck out of here.
In all honesty, what shocked her more was the size of the woman. A walking brick house, who could easily throw Elin over her shoulder and—
Elin tightly closed her eyes and shook her head.
She had no time for nonsense. She glanced at the timer.
30 fucking minutes left.
The numbers blinked at her. Taunted her. Asked her why she waited until the last minute to do her laundry. A question she repeated over and over in her head.
Movement to the right. She dared not look, but the hairs on the back of her neck and arms rose. She fully intended to mind her business, but when she saw more movement, she couldn’t help but look.
An aisle behind her, where the washers were, the woman shed her tank top and threw it into a washer, leaving her chest near bare. Her bra and a necklace that fell between her breasts kept her as modest as she could be. Under the bright, white lights of the laundromat, the brown of her skin stood in stark contrast to everything around her. Her head turned in Elin’s direction.
Elin snapped her attention back to the dryer, heart pounding against her ribs and her cheeks hot. She wanted nothing more than to get the out of this place.
20 minutes left.
Elin closed her eyes and took a deep breath, pinching the bridge of her nose between forefinger and thumb. She could feel a gaze on her skin, hot and piercing. She didn’t dare to look anywhere else.
Time passed like cold syrup being squeezed from a skinny, plastic bottle.
Every time Elin glanced at the time on her phone and on the dryer, the numbers still taunted her. She chewed the inside of her cheek, keeping her breaths slow and methodical. All she needed to do was keep calm and keep her eyes to herself.
No fucking way was she going to be offed in some random laundromat by some freak. She didn’t survive this long to end up like that. She reached back into her pocket and toyed with the pocket knife.
10 minutes left.
Sweat accumulated on Elin’s back and under her arms. She put away her phone, eyes trained on the timer of the dryer. Where she stood, it was a straight shot to the laundromat doors. Fuck folding her clothes. She was going to toss them in her laundry bag and book it.
No point in dawdling.
Elin knew when to trust her gut. And her gut was screaming at her to get as far away from this place as she could.
1 minute left.
Standing up straight, Elin held her breath as she waited for the dryer to buzz. As soon as the dryer stopped spinning, she had her hand on the handle and tore the door open when the buzzer set off.
As fast as she could without making it obvious, she packed her warm, clean clothes into her laundry bag, hauled it over her shoulder, and scurried to the laundromat entrance.
But before she left, she felt a tug in her stomach. She looked over her shoulder.
Golden eyes stared back.
A static shock zapped through her system. She froze, a deer caught in headlights. She blinked. Weren’t the woman’s eyes brown?
The woman smiled, revealing the sharpest canines Elin had ever seen.
Her heart seized. And then her survival instincts kicked in. She rushed out of the laundromat and to her car, unlocking it, and throwing her bag into the passenger seat before getting behind the wheel and the peeling out of the parking lot.
The whole time, she couldn’t stop thinking about those golden eyes and sharp canines.
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