Phoebe's work uniform was discovered in one of the machines. The young woman herself, however, was nowhere to be found.
On the morning of this baffling discovery, Mrs. Chan arrived well before daybreak. She always did. The fifty-year-old Chinese woman liked to inspect the premises first thing to ensure that it was spotless. After all, she believed she paid a pretty penny for "the girl" and her services. Mrs. Chan expected polished floors, sparkling bathrooms, glistening washers, and windows free of streaks and smudges.
On this particular morning, she was also looking forward to enjoying that wonderfully serene silence which only the wee hours of the morning bestowed upon her little corner of the world. But as she entered the laundromat, Mrs. Chan stopped dead in her tracks. An unexpected sound surprised her. She flinched, listening.
It was the unmistakable hum-and-thrum of a tumbling dryer.
Mrs. Chan frowned. The cleaning girl worked overnight, but never past four in the morning. That was their agreement.
What sort of nonsense was this then? Could the girl still be on the premises? Mrs. Chan would give her an earful. The miserly woman refused to pay for extra hours.
But she hesitated in the doorway. Something about this whole thing didn't seem right. For a moment, she felt her body refusing to move from the doorway. Her eyes beheld the lone dryer on the far wall, spinning madly. Beneath its rhythmic hum, she heard also a rattling.
Finally, gathering her nerves, Mrs. Chan thrust herself into the laundromat. Locking the door behind her, she crept towards the spinning dryer.
The machines, mounted along the far wall, seemed to observe the woman's careful approach. The round chrome doors with their inset glass faces glinted with unusual sharpness in the dim morning light. Drawing nearer, the rattling within the spinning dryer became more pronounced. Mrs. Chan pictured loose teeth being shaken in a plastic cup.
Then she noticed a strange liquid leaking from the spinning machine. It was dark.
It was neither. As she walked up to the dryer, she saw that the leaking liquid was black. It dripped in slow, thick rivulets, like molasses, towards the floor, where it terminated in a black pool. And in that pool lay a pair of white shoes.
She recognized them right away. They were part of the girl's uniform.
The girl always wore the same thing for her shift: a light-blue A-line dress with brown buttons down the front, and white canvas shoes, the very ones which she saw lying in the black puddle.
The dryer cycle suddenly ceased with a thump. Mrs. Chan jumped. The machine's heavy hum-and-thrum faded. The strange teeth-rattling sound coming from within slowed, then stopped altogether, and the eerie calm of the wee morning hours filled the laundromat.
Mrs. Chan now understood that something terrible had happened. But she did not know how she knew, or even what it might be. For a moment, the same feeling from the doorway gripped her, and she stood rooted in place, paralyzed.
Then she reached up a hand, which she discovered was trembling, and touched the dryer door. Her fingers hesitated, then pulled at the handle. Mrs. Chan leaned forward slowly and looked inside.
It was nothing. Nothing at all. For some reason, she had expected to find something grotesque, but it was only the girl's work uniform after all.
She breathed a sigh of relief, then wondered why she had expected the worst. Surely, there was a simple explanation.
Nevertheless, the woman found herself ringing for the police. The dispatcher on the phone seemed not to understand the explanation, and when the two police officers showed up, Mrs. Chan struggled to explain the severity of it, to convey how strange it all seemed.
The police officers, for their part, listened patiently, though for them the only unusual thing was the Chinese women's obviously disturbed state of mind. As far as they were concerned, there were no signs of a break-in, nothing was stolen, and there didn't appear to be any real evidence of a missing person, as the old Chinese woman kept insisting.
"We'll keep an eye out for her, Mrs. Chang," one of them said, snapping his notebook shut.
The other said, "If you hear from her — this, uh, Phoebe Miller girl — let us know, will ya?"
And two departed, exchanging knowing glances, and laughing privately to themselves about the hysterics of these crazy women.
Neither of them had bothered to investigate the black gunk leaking from the dryer, nor to wonder at why the dress inside would be streaked with sharp stains of the same color. And the loose buttons scattered in the dryer? They'd been ripped off the fabric during the tumble dry.
These damn Chinese laundromats. Everyone knew their cheap machines were the worst.
Mr. Holloway lived at the top of the hill. He rented a unit there at an apartment called the Meadows, which had two advantages.
One: the rent was not terribly expensive.
Two: the high school where Mr. Holloway taught history was a brisk two mile walk from the Meadows. Just down the hill, across a quiet intersection. It allowed Mr. Holloway to walk to and from work, which he did most days.
All of this aside, Mr. Holloway could find nothing to like about the Meadows. Actually, he hated the place. It wasn't just the bad plumbing or the finnicky front gate which at times refused to open, or even the fact that the rat-like landlord, Mr. Gibson, always found a way to shift the cost of repairs from himself to his tenants. No, there was something else...
The unsightly Meadows seemed to Mr. Holloway to sit within an eerie fog, a dark cloud of foreboding air. In the evenings the place looked downright ominous. At night, Mr. Holloway avoided stepping outside at all costs. Even the little courtyard, with its raised brick planter full of pretty flowers, could not dispel the feeling that the place was haunted.
Coming home after work, he would begin his ascent up the hill towards his unwelcome home. Above him at the top of the hill, the Meadows waited, watching him. Mr. Holloway would stare back, unsettled by the sight of the building. Then the sinking sun behind him would usher twilight over the Meadows, and in these moments the perturbed history teacher would find himself thinking of the Battle of Ball's Bluff.
It was during the Civil War. A Union scout returning from a reconnaissance mission informed his superiors that he'd seen a Confederate camp down the river. The order was given to raid the camp at once. Union soldiers were dispatched on boats and sent down the river towards the enemy.
Only, what the scout had seen turned out to be an illusion. Nothing more than a mirage created by a combination of gnarled trees swaying in the wind and the misty shadows surrounding them.
The scout's honest mistake led to a massacre. Virginia infantry regiments, who were positioned above the river upon which the Union soldiers were now traveling, spotted the Union soldiers at once. The men were trapped on the water like lame ducks. The Virginia men picked up their rifle-muskets and proceeded to unload their weapons. The river ran red with blood.
All because of a few shifting shadows and bent trees.
It was two weeks before the girl at the laundromat disappeared that Mr. Holloway was walking up the hill towards his dreary home, thinking about these things. His eyes, as always, looked upon the Meadows overhead. Behind him, the sinking sun was ushering twilight over the trees and buildings. And the exhausted high school teacher was thinking to himself how much the swaying shadows of the trees overhead looked like men hunkered around the apartment building. He pictured these tree men scratching at the front gate, picking at its lock, and sneaking in and out of the miserable place like thieves.
Perhaps it was because his mind was on such morbid thoughts that what he saw did not immediately startle him.
A ragged shape moved. It pulled itself from the shadows of the trees and moved, like an injured dog, across the road. Mr. Holloway blinked, believing it to be a trick of the shadows. Then the last light of evening faded from the sky and the shuffling shape disappeared entirely before the man's eyes.
When he reached the Garden Oaks front gate, he found what looked like muddy boot-prints on the sidewalk. His eyes followed their path into the center of the road but could make out nothing more in the darkness.
A dog, he decided, as he furiously pulled out his key and fumbled with the lock. As always, the key refused to turn.
A twig snapped nearby — or Mr. Holloway imagined that it did. He struggled with the lock until finally, it turned. The frightened man pushed his way inside and slammed the gate behind him with enough force to ensure that it stood securely between him and the dog — if dog it was.
For a moment, he stood there, afraid even to move. His gaze lingered on the other side of the road, where the boot prints had been leading. He thought he detected movement there. Squinting, his eyes made out a looming figure, swaying side to side. Or was it pacing?
The nervous man backed away from the gate, keeping his eyes on the shadowy presence.
Then he heard another snap of a twig, closer now.
Mr. Holloway did not think he could move so fast. He practically flew across the courtyard and up the creaking staircase towards his tiny unit on the second floor. When he had finally entered his room and locked the door, he threw on the lights and collapsed into the uncomfortable living room couch, breathing a sigh of relief.
Immediately, he felt silly. He laughed at himself, thinking of the Battle of Ball's Bluff, and of the scout's ridiculous error.
Coward, he said to himself, rising to make himself a pot of coffee. He still had papers to grade.
Just shadows and trees, he told himself.
And yet, while he sipped his coffee and leafed through his papers, he was conscious of a mild gratitude. With all of its bad plumbing and irritating locks, and despite that cheat of a landlord, Mr. Holloway gave a silent thanks for his four walls, and for the safety of the detestable Meadows.
IV. The Lion Tamer At Night
