Chapter 5 - The Laundry We Never Washed
David stared down into the dark metal throat of the floor vent, his fingers twitching against the edge of the rusted grate. The folded white t-shirts sat in a neat, symmetrical stack, completely dry despite the damp, freezing draft rising from beneath the foundation. He reached down, his fingers brushing against the fabric of the top shirt, and immediately recoiled as if he had touched a live wire.
"David, don't touch them!" Elena cried, grabbing his jacket sleeve and pulling him backward. "We don't know what's down there. Call the county utility line. Call someone!"
"There is no signal, Elena! Look at the phone!" David held up his cellular device. The screen was completely black, the battery indicator replaced by a small, blinking pixel shaped like an old-fashioned keyhole. "The towers aren't down; the device itself doesn't recognize that we're on any network."
"Because we aren't," a voice whispered from the dark corner near the refrigerator.
David and Elena spun around simultaneously. Mia was still sitting by the table, but her head was tilted at an unnatural, impossible angle, her eyes fixed on the empty space beside the broom closet.
"Mia? What did you just say?" David demanded, his voice cracking with a sudden surge of raw terror.
The little girl slowly lowered her plush bunny, revealing a small, jagged tear across the toy's chest where the cotton stuffing was spilling out like gray entrails. "That's not my voice, Daddy. That's the lady who was folding the laundry yesterday when you were at work."
Elena pressed her hands to her mouth, her eyes widening in sudden, agonizing realization. "Yesterday... David, yesterday afternoon the power flickered for exactly three minutes while I was at the grocery store. You were home alone with Mia."
"I was in the home office writing the quarterly report," David said defensively, though his voice lacked conviction. He remembered the silence of the house yesterday afternoon—a silence so heavy and complete that it had felt like wearing noise-canceling headphones. He remembered walking down the hallway to check on Mia and finding her bedroom door locked from the inside, even though she didn't know how to turn the deadbolt yet.
"You weren't writing," Mia whispered, standing up slowly from the floor. Her movements were jerky, as if her limbs were being controlled by invisible strings attached to her wrists. "You were standing in front of the hallway mirror, talking to someone who looked just like you, but he wasn't wearing his wedding ring."
David instinctively looked down at his left hand. The gold band he had worn for eight years was missing from his ring finger. He didn't remember taking it off. In fact, when he traced the skin with his thumb, the flesh felt smooth and unmarked, as if a ring had never rested there at all.
Before David could speak, the security monitor on the counter flickered violently. The screen cleared of static to reveal a brand-new live feed, labeled HALLWAY - CAMERA 03.
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On the screen, David himself stood in the dark corridor, staring directly into the lens with a wide, manic grin, holding a pair of heavy brass shears behind his back.
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