Saturday, August 14, 2010

Horror in the Laundryroom

(Image courtesy of filmsinreview.com)
I can still remember the first slasher films I ever saw, although it's taken me an hour and a lot of random internet surfing to remember the title, Silent Scream.

All I really remember are a lot of terrifying moments in a big rambling seaside house. And then a horrible screaming madwoman escaping from an attic, all wild black hair, wild eyes and wildly swinging knife blade.

The heroine, the now-iconic Last Girl Standing, was forever walking into a room, down a hallway or out in the yard and suddenly finding horribly mutilated, bloody dead bodies (cue alarming violins). And screaming really loud.

She would reach into dark holes and shadowy recesses, from which things would grab her and pull her in.

In fact, she did all those stupid things that Scary Movie would later spoof, for example, in the banana scene.

When I got home that night after going to the movies, my mom asked me to go get the laundry out of the dryer, which was out in a detached garage.

I walked out into the cool night, flicked on the dim light in the garage, and looked over at the still-humming dryer, far off in the shadows.

Standing there in the doorway, I surveyed the darkened interior and thought of all the places a homicidal maniac might hide, behind the shelves, under the car, in the many dark corners.

In those days, we were already taught to be scared by events that occurred around us, horrifying true events that took on legendary proportions as we talked about them. Just two years earlier, a stranger brutally raped Mary Vincent, a teen runaway hitchhiker, cut off her arms and left her for dead on the roadside.

The orange groves in the town where I lived were legendary crimes scenes, and if we had to bicycle past them at dusk, we would do it frantically.

So with all those thoughts in my tender head, I slowly entered that place of noise and shadows.

As I approached the dryer, I saw something behind it, something large, flesh-colored and . . . trembling.

A dead body? A severed leg? My heart was racing, my ears ringing. What was it?

Did I turn and run back into my house screaming? No. Family dynamics in my childhood home didn't allow for any of that. Unless I was actually dead, I was expected to return to the house only if I had the clean laundry in my arms.

So I had no choice but to solve this mystery myself.

Swallowing my terror, I edged closer to the vibrating heat of the dryer and cautiously peered behind it.

I half expected to see bloody horror back there. At the same time, the back of my neck prickled as I half expected something to grab me from behind.

But here I am to tell the story, so we all know no homicidal maniac lurked in my garage that night.

My dad had attached one of my mom's old nylon stockings to the dryer vent to catch the lint. When the dryer was going, the stocking filled with air and lint, filled into the shape of a human leg, bouncing gently in the dusty, cobwebby shadows behind the dryer.

Sighing in relief, I loaded the warm clothes into the basket, shut off the light and went back into the house. My parents never knew.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Like usual, most things we're afraid of don't have a leg to stand on...doesn't make me less terrified of 'em though.

steviewren said...

My imagination went into overdrive on many lonely nights when I was younger. I'm able to keep it in check much better the older I get and I like it that way. I hate getting those creepy images in my head at night. So I'm careful about what I watch, but I have read a few scary books. Somehow, reading about it and seeing it are two different things for me.

\ said...

Lovecraft?

Indie said...

Haha, Suzy, sure enough.
Kym, LOL, me either.
Stevie, I cannot watch scary stuff at all. I can read about it, but even then, I can get spooked.

RME said...

K, my first horror movie was 'Terror Train' with Jamie Lee Curtis (didn't remember her *lol*). And man, did I learn my lesson! I went to the movies with my best friend. Andrea and I were like 14 back then, and the movie was rated PG16. It was so horrible, spooky, goosebumpy ;-) that I swore to myself to never, ever go into a movie being under age! *giggle* My second horror movie was 'The Fog'. I was visiting with family back then. My cousin and I rode our bikes to the next village (that was in Holland). We were really afraid having to ride the bikes back home at night time! So when on the way home somebody in the dark night nearby was coughing loudly, I almost rammed my bike into hers, pulling over to the left, and I almost forced her riding downhill into a large ditch. *lmao* It was real creepy for us. And nowadays, watching 'Carrie' I still can't watch it alone, and I still think she's grabbing for my ankle... *booooooooooooooh* R.

DreamNT said...

thank you for sharing.It is a very good article and it is very good. It is a great article and very interesting.









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