Night Shift

“The Mangler” is a third-person narrative about Officer John Hunton’s investigation into a swath of gory deaths at an industrial laundry facility. Hunton responds to the report of a laundry worker, Adelle Frawley, being pulled into the Hadley-Watson Model-6 Speed Ironer and Folder, nicknamed “the mangler” (81). Hunton is physically repulsed by the sight and senses a faint malignancy from the large industrial machine. Inspector Roger Martin confides in Hunton that he wishes he had found something wrong with the machine to shut it down. Martin relays a similar story of an old ice box (refrigerator) that entombed a dog, a boy, and six birds. He concludes that “it’s a spook” (84). Distraught, Hunton shares the case with his professor friend, Mark Jackson. Jackson jokes that the machine is haunted.

A few weeks later, Jackson tells Hunton that the machine injured another woman in an accident with the steam line. In his investigation of the machine, Hunton discovers that the mangler was involved in several other disturbing incidents, even though all the safety reports were clean. The accidents started after young Sherry Ouelette cut her hand on the machine and bled on its components. Jackson suggests that they find out whether Sherry was a virgin because according to lore, virgin blood is the common denominator in