Hi there, I’m not really sure where to begin but I guess the start would be the best place. My names Mike and I’m currently in my third year of university studying history. The events I’m about to describe took place last year (my second year).
Towards the end of my first year, I had a serious fall out with my group of friends for reasons I don’t really want to get into. Due to this I couldn’t move in with them so I had to find someone else to live with. I found an ad on Facebook for a group of friends who needed another person to fill the bedrooms in their house. I met up with them at a pub first and they seemed nice, their names were Louis, Milly, Sam and Amanda. Things went well and by second year I was moving my stuff into the house with them and we started going on nights out and such. My room was brilliant, nice and large with a double bed and an old oak wardrobe drilled to the wall. There was a small hole in the wall but I discussed it with the landlord and we both took a time stamped photo to ensure it wouldn’t harm my deposit. The year got off to a good start, until one month in….
A girl who went to the same university as me was found dead in some bushes in the park. The brutality of the crime however, shocked the city. Her neck had been slashed wide open, to the bone. She had been sliced in two and her organs torn out and thrown around the area. The body was covered in bruises on the arms, legs and her head. Most disturbing of all, her eyes had been gouged out and were nowhere to be found. The crime shocked the city and a huge police investigation was launched but they came up with nothing. Anyway, as happens, time went on and being students we were more preoccupied drinking as much as we could for as little money as possible. It stopped showing up in the news and everyone sort of moved on. Until exactly one month later when another body was found.
An unfortunate railway engineer found what was left of her in the undergrowth by the tracks, her body left in exactly the same state as the last one. Then, a week later, another body showed up. Now people were getting scared. All the victims were very similar, all three were women in their late teens/early 20s. They were all similar height and had long blond hair. This was particularly scary to housemate Amanda who fit the description. She was terrified of being attacked despite the rest of us doing our best to calm her. It killed me seeing her so scared, we had started seeing each other (a terrible idea I know) and things had been going well. It was awful watching her have nervous breakdowns all the time and she always insisted on company when she was going out which I was more than happy to oblige.
Two months later, one more body had shown up and the police were still clueless, everyone was terrified and the streets were empty every night when I went out for my nightly run before bed. Amanda and I had been getting on well to begin with but things had gotten strained, she was still scared but the fact we lived together made things difficult. One night we had a really bad argument which ended with her slamming her door in my face screaming it was over. I was really pissed off and upset, I’d been doing so much for her only for this. I stormed downstairs and threw on my running gear. Opening the front door I slammed it hard behind me, so hard I heard the bolt splinter and fall to the ground. I cursed, that was coming out of my deposit. Shaking my head with anger, I turned around and started my run.
The next day, I phoned the landlord nice and early to tell him about the lock and ask for a new one. He sighed but agreed and said he’d be right over. He arrived surprisingly quickly, his fancy red BMW sprawled across the pavement. He repaired the lock quickly and left without saying much, nothing out of the ordinary, he was a very quiet guy who kept to himself. Following this, I went through to the kitchen and began preparing a nice, fancy breakfast for Amanda. Despite what she had said the night before, I’d heard it all before and I knew if I made the gesture we’d be able to move on… again. I took the food upstairs and knocked on her door which swung open…
We all had to leave the house for a few days while forensics searched every square inch of it. Amanda’s body was found in exactly the same state as the others, her empty eye sockets staring at the ceiling. I had to go home to my parents and I didn’t leave my room for days. The police said they suspected the killer had simply walked through the front door on account of the broken lock and when they said that I’d simply collapsed into the chair behind me. Everyone had told me it wasn’t my fault as can be expected but I told them all to leave me alone. I wasn’t in the mood for their sympathies. The investigation got even more intense, for a serial killer to just waltz into someone’s house and kill them. The entire city was terrified for themselves and their family. Me? I stayed locked in my room, opening the door for food and drinking for the next two weeks.
By the time I returned to uni I had already arranged new accommodation, as had my remaining housemates. I was moving into my own student apartment, I was done living with other people. As soon as I got back I started packing my stuff. I had just finished when I accidentally bumped into a large stack of boxes, causing some books piled haphazardly on top of them to fall against the wall. I froze in shock as this happened as a section of the wall rattled and moved. I edged forward and examined it closer. There was a slight groove around a square section of wall and when I peered closer, there was a tiny little hatch nestled behind the old wardrobe. I flicked it up and pushed on the square of wall. It swung open revealing a very cramped crawl space. Inside I saw a large box nestled away in the corner with an old camera on top and a sleeping bag laid out next to it. I looked up and felt my heart sink as I saw a hole in the wall, the hole in my bedroom wall. I opened up the old storage box and screamed. I screamed and I crawled as fast as I could to get out of that nightmarish space, the space where he’d been. Where he’d watched me.
The trial was massive. The police had done a thorough job and they had a field day with the treasure chest of evidence from his hiding space. The student landlord accused of being a serial killer. The police presented the courts with all the evidence they’d gathered, from the stack of photos in the chest, both of me, and of the dead bodies of all the victims. On top of this they found a bloody knife which forensics matched to the crime scene and perhaps worst of all. A glass jar of ammonia with the missing eyeballs of every single girl who had been murdered. It was a unanimous decision to put him away for the rest of his life, despite the fact he had cried like a baby, insisting he had never killed anyone.
I think looking back, I miss Amanda, sorely, but it gets better with every day that goes by. And I’ve started to see that it was a toxic relationship. Still hurts me though. I won’t ever go with a private landlord again either, nor will I rent a room without thoroughly checking every square inch of it for some secret room. Then again, I guess I did get kind of lucky finding my landlords little hiding place.
After all, I needed to stash the evidence somewhere didn’t I?