The Brass Dryer

The old laundry room in the basement of St. Anne’s dormitory always smelled of bleach and rust. That’s where my roommate, Vicky, and I found the dryer that didn’t belong. It was a squat, brass monster with a glass porthole, tucked behind a pillar of moldy boxes. The label on the side read ‘HAVEN’ in peeling gold letters. None of us had seen it before, and the janitor swore he’d never brought it in.

It was a dare that started it. Nate, the guy from the floor above who wore black band tees and carried a deck of tarot cards, claimed he could get it to work. We all gathered around, the air thick with dust and the hum of the fluorescent lights. He fiddled with the dials, which clicked like old clocks, and after a moment, the drum began to turn with a low groan. Inside, something white tumbled—a piece of paper? A scarf? It was barely visible in the dim light.

‘I bet it reads fortunes,’ Vicky said, half-joking. She opened the door, and the drum stopped. The white object was a card, the size of a tarot card, but blank. I picked it up. The cardboard was cold, freezing, like it had been in a deep freeze. I dropped it, and it fluttered to the floor. When I looked up, the dryer door was shut, and the dial was now pointing to a symbol I’d never seen before—a circle with a line through it, like a noose.

Nate laughed nervously. ‘Okay, that’s creepy.’ He turned the dial back to off, but the machine clicked and started again, spinning faster. The glass porthole fogged from the inside. Vicky pressed her face to it. ‘There’s something in there,’ she whispered. I pushed her aside. Inside, the drum was empty, but the walls were covered in a thin layer of frost, and in the center, a handprint—small, like a child’s—was melting against the glass.

We fled. We stuck to the common room, pretending it had been a prank. But that night, Vicky woke me up. ‘The dryer’s running,’ she said. I listened. From the floor below, a rhythmic thumping, like a heartbeat. We went down, despite every nerve screaming not to. The laundry room door was ajar, and the brass dryer glowed orange from the heat inside. The dial had spun to a new setting: ‘YOUR TRUTH.’ The drum turned, and through the glass, I saw a figure—a woman in a long, grey dress, her face pressed against the inside, her mouth open in a silent scream. Then the drum stopped, and the woman was gone.

Nate was the first to crack. He admitted he’d found the dryer in a junk shop, that the old owner had said it was ‘possessed by a dry spirit’—something that fed on secrets. He’d brought it to the dorm to prove he wasn’t afraid. Now he was. We decided to get rid of it. We dragged it outside, into the freezing November night, and left it by the dumpsters. For three days, nothing happened. Then on the fourth, Vicky found it back in the laundry room, clean and humming, its dial pointing to ‘CONFESS.’

I should have prayed. I was raised to believe in angels and demons, and I knew this wasn’t an angel. But I was curious, like a fool. I asked it a question. I asked, ‘Does Nate like me?’ The machine whirred, and a card slid out from a slot I hadn’t noticed. It was a photograph—a polaroid of Nate, with a red heart drawn on his forehead, and below, in handwriting that wasn’t mine or his, the word ‘YES.’ My blood went cold. I showed it to Vicky, and she turned white. ‘I didn’t know you liked him,’ she said. ‘I didn’t,’ I lied. But I did. I’d been hiding it for months.

The dryer began to laugh. It was a dry, rattling sound, like leaves skittering across pavement. We ran, but the laugh followed us through the halls. That night, I couldn’t sleep. I kept seeing the photograph, and I kept hearing whispers from the walls. The next morning, Nate was gone. His room was empty, bed unslept. Vicky and I found a new polaroid on the dryer’s glass: a picture of Nate, his expression frozen in terror, and a caption: ‘HE KNEW.’

We tried to destroy the dryer. We filled it with rocks and turned it on. The drum spun, the rocks clanged, but nothing broke. We poured bleach, then holy water I’d stolen from the chapel. The machine only steamed and chuckled. In desperation, Vicky threw a Bible at it. The pages caught fire, and the fire spread to the drywall. We barely escaped the blaze.

The firemen found no dryer, only a scorch mark shaped like a hand on the wall. Vicky and I moved out. We never spoke of it, but I still dream of that machine. And sometimes, when the night is still, I hear a faint tumbling sound, like clothes in a dryer, and a voice that whispers my name—not the way a friend would, but the way a predator tastes its prey. The brass dryer is still out there, somewhere, waiting for its next truth. And I’m afraid of what it already knows about me.