It sounds like someone’s being murdered in the laundry room. There’s a lot of yelling going on. I frown, trying to play a first person shooter game. It’s hard to concentrate through all the yelling.
I pause. Is someone really being murdered in the laundry room?
Might as well go check it out. I head out of my dorm room and go down to the laundry room. The screams are starting to peter out by now. But I’d better take a look anyway.
I try to pull the door open. It doesn’t budge. I start banging on it.
“What are you doing?” The RA, Jeff, asks. I wonder when he got here.
“It sounds like someone’s dying in the laundry room,” I reply, still trying to get the door open. “I need to get in.”
“Looks like it’s locked, genius. Only the other RA, Elizabeth, has the key,” Jeff says.
“I said, it sounds like someone’s dying in here!” I retort. “Hang on!”
I got pretty strong during my time in the service. I bash open the door and go inside the room.
“Halt! I charge you with vandalism!” Jeff says, following me in.
Everything seems in order in the laundry room. The washing machines and dryers are churning as always. But when I peek inside one of the dryers, I groan with sadness.
“Sweet Jesus,” I say. It looks like someone has melted inside it. There’s blood and chunks of flesh on every inch of it. I haven’t seen anything so terrible since my service. So that was what all the yelling was about.
“I’m not cleaning that up,” Jeff says.
“We need to call the cops,” I tell him. “Someone’s been murdered!”
“Could have been an accident,” Jeff assures me.
“Call them anyway, dummy!”
“It’s their day off. They’re at the beach. What do you need with them anyhow?”
“Never mind,” I retort. “Do you have the footage from the security cameras in your office?”
“Yes, but that footage is for RAs only,” Jeff replies.
“Well, seeing as though you’re going to do jack shit about this, I suppose I’ll have to step up.” I walk out of the laundry room and head down to the RA office. The halls are so clean and quiet. You’d never guess that someone had been murdered in the laundry room a few minutes ago.
I find the RA office and go inside. “Breaking and entering! Breaking and entering!” the RA snarls. “You should be expelled from this university!”
I ignore him and sit down in front of the office computer. “Let’s see…” I pull up the security camera footage for the laundry room. Sure enough, there’s Elizabeth standing with her friend Gia.
“Hey, Gia!” Elizabeth chirps. “There’s something funny in this dryer. Mind taking a look for me?”
Gia sticks her head in it. “Looks fine to me.”
Elizabeth stuffs Gia into the dryer. “Hey! What the hell?!” Gia asks.
“You miserable bastard, Gia!” Elizabeth snarls. “You’ve been sleeping with my boyfriend!”
“What?!” Gia replies, shocked. “How’d you know?! I mean-”
“See you in hell!” Elizabeth retorts. She turns the dryer on. Gia starts screaming. Elizabeth heads out of the laundry room and locks the door behind her.
I exhale and sit back in the chair. My God. This just went from bad to worse.
“It’s always adultery, eh, Abel?” Jeff asks.
I ignore him. I rise to my feet and head out of the room.
“Now what?” Jeff asks, following me.
“What do you think?” I shoot back, heading up the stairs. “We need to confront Elizabeth.”
“We?!” Jeff cringes. “Can’t we call the cops?”
“You said they were on vacation!” I reply, turning a corner.
“Can’t we at least try?” Jeff whines.
I ignore him and go down the hall. We reach Elizabeth’s room. I pound on the door.
“Open up!” I shout.
To my surprise, Elizabeth opens up. She’s wearing her headphones like she doesn’t have a care in the world.
“What’s up?” she asks nonchalantly.
“You killed Gia!” I accuse her instantly.
She freezes. Her eyes go wide. Too wide. She tries to compensate.
“What the hell?” she asks, faux confused.
“Don’t play stupid with me, murderer!” I retort, shoving her into her room. “You killed Gia, and now you’re going to jail!”
“Jail?” Gia asks. Before I can react, she pulls out a Glock and aims it at me. “Not alive, I won’t.”
I try to steal the gun from her. She’s stronger than I think and for a second, we struggle with it. Suddenly, it goes off. I freeze. She freezes. We both stare at each other, wide-eyed.
Then Elizabeth falls to the ground, dead instantly. The gunshot wound is a profusely bleeding hole in her stomach, dirtying the floor around her. Her eyes have turned to glass. For a minute, I breathe heavily, staring at my enemy’s remains.
Jeff pipes up from where he's standing in the doorway. “I’m not cleaning that up either.”
I glare at him. Elizabeth's blood is dripping off my face.