I’ve always been a somewhat lonely person growing up. I come from a more rural area. I felt limited and out of place there; I wasn’t like most of the people I grew up with, and in a town where everyone knows everyone, it isn’t exactly easy to find new people to hang out with. I wouldn’t say I was bullied or anything, per se, more just that one girl nobody really hung out with.
So when I graduated high school, I jumped at the chance to move to a big city. My parents disagreed with me, as I wasn’t going to college and they didn’t think I had the skills to succeed in such a different place. I had no idea what I would really do there, but I was determined to make it work no matter what.
I ended up moving a few states over into a downtown area. My grandma, who was the one person in my town who I felt understood me, had given me a significant amount of money with which to make do until I could figure out my job. I ended up renting a two-bedroom apartment, with the confidence that I could quickly find a roommate to share the cost.
In hindsight, I admit I was quite naive with everything. I barely landed a minimum wage job as a barista, and socially, things didn’t get much better than home. It was a different kind of loneliness; being surrounded by more people than I’d ever seen in my life, yet having no real human connection. I realized I didn’t really fit in there, either. Maybe the problem wasn’t where I was from; maybe I just don’t get along all that well with people in general.
As my money began to ran thin, I was getting desperate. As much as I was unhappy here, I couldn’t stand to face the shame of my family; my parents for being right and my grandma for trusting in me.
That’s when I met Em. I had seen her in the coffee shop I worked before, but never actually interacted with her. One day, she sat down next to me while I was on my break. I always took my break alone, and had gotten used to scrolling on my phone by myself, so I was a little startled.
“Sorry to scare you. Mind if I sit here?” she asked.
“No, no, of course not,” I replied, still a little confused.
As we continued small talk, the difference between her and I grew increasingly apparent. She was confident, charming, never missing a beat. I was nervous, awkward, struggling to keep up. I kept thinking that at any moment she would realize I wasn’t worth talking to and end the conversation. But she didn’t.
“Hey, this might be a kind of out of the blue question, but I’m actually looking for a place to live right now. Do you know anyone looking for a roommate?”
I almost jumped out of my seat at the offer. “I have a spare room!” I blurted. Then, feeling embarrassed, I said, “But… I don’t know anyone else who needs one.”
Her smile beamed at me and she stuck out her hand. “Hello, new roomie,” she said.
She moved in two days later. She didn’t have a whole lot of things to take with her, saying she liked to travel as a minimalist. She also convinced me to continue paying the rent while she paid me her half directly, rather than putting her on the lease. Now I know why that was a red flag, but at the time, I was just happy to have someone to live with and would take practically any arrangement.
During the first week, things were great. She was the first person around my age to ever seem happy to be around me and want to spend time with me. I warmed up to her and started feeling comfortable hanging out. We stayed up late drinking wine and watching movies, we got lunch together, we did all the things I always imagined friends did.
However, as time went on, even I began to notice some… odd behavior. She constantly asked personal, extremely specific questions. At first I was elated to talk about myself for once, but sI began to get a little weirded out. It’s not that she was fishing for my deep, dark secrets or personal trauma or anything. It was questions such as asking if I had ever taken self-defense courses or how often my grandma checks in on me; things that seem innocuous but gave me an uneasy feeling as they piled up. Maybe it wasn’t the questions themselves, but how she seemed to respond. Superficially she seemed engaged, but somehow I could tell she was more focused on the information itself then building a relationship with me.
On the flip side, she never really divulged a whole lot about herself. She was a wizard with small talk, and could go on about her interests and favorite things and all that. But I never really learned about her as a person. I had no idea where she came from, what her family was like, why she moved here, anything like that. In all fairness, I didn’t ask a whole lot, and when I saw her dance around topics I figured it was best not to probe. Still, it was strange to me that I shared all of this information but didn’t get the same from her.
Then there was the fact that she seemed to always want to spend time around me. Don’t get me wrong, it was great to have a friend, but I realized that I enjoy some personal space too. Sometimes it was as simple as her doodling in her notebook in my room. We wouldn’t even be having a conversation. I would be winding down for bed, and she’d just be sitting there, as though she couldn’t do that on the couch or in her own room.
Lastly, I found it odd that I seemed to be her only friend here. Don’t get me wrong, I know I have no room to speak there. I just figured with how outgoing and social she was, she’d have, you know… more of a social life. Thinking about it, she actually seemed to get somewhat uncomfortable the few times we went out to places like bars. She’d always put us in corner areas and would steer people away pretty quickly; nicely and charmingly, but showing we weren’t interested in meeting new people. Me being me, I didn’t really notice at the time, but in retrospect, it was pretty controlling behavior, like she didn’t want anyone else in our circle.
These things were off-putting, sure, but like I’ve said, I was essentially an outcast living with the only real friend I’d ever had. I didn’t know what healthy relationships looked like or what was normal or not. Besides, I figured, I was a strange bird, and maybe despite her outward charisma, she could be just a little out there too.
Going into maybe the third week we had known each other, she abruptly said she had a salon appointment and had to run some other errands, and that she wouldn’t be back until pretty late; midnight at the earliest. I had an opening shift the next morning, so I was going to hit the sack early, and I told her I’d see her after work tomorrow.
At first, I was honestly a little relieved to have a night of relaxation to myself. But as I prepared for bed, I had this nagging feeling in my gut. She never did things without inviting me, even simple trips to a convenience store or to get fast food. In fact, she barely did that kind of thing at all, rather just tagging along with me when I did. I couldn’t help but feel like something was wrong.
She hadn’t seemed upset, and the rest of the day had been normal. Nothing really could’ve happened that would put her in a mood. And, midnight was still quite aways away; it was only six. What could she possibly be doing for the entire night?
I went to bed anyway, trying to shake it off, and fell asleep. I’m usually a heavy sleeper, but that night I kept drifting in and out. At one point, half-asleep, I thought I heard my door creak. Groggily, I sat up, rubbing my eyes. A figure was in my doorway. Figuring it was Em coming back, I said sleepily, “Em, I’m trying to sleep. I said I’ll see you tomorrow.”
As my eyes adjusted, though, a shot of adrenaline pumped through me. The person did not look like Em. They had a totally different haircut and color, and seemed to be wearing some kind of poncho. They held an object in each hand and had a medical mask over their face.
I leapt back, scared out of my mind, letting out a scream. As I grabbed the pepper spray from my window sill, the figure started protesting. “It’s me, it’s Em!” she said, raising her hands. “I was just trying to prank you! A little scare, haha! Sorry, I’ll… let you go back to sleep now.”
I stared at her as she crept away from the doorway, not breaking eye contact. In one hand, she had a syringe, and in the other, she held what looked like some kind of small club. My heart was still pounding. “What…” is all I could manage. Her eyes studied me like a predator. There was no sign of joking around, no laughing and taking off the outfit or anything. I was not looking at the bubbly friend I knew, but a puma who had been spotted before it pounced, its dinner ruined.
As she backed out of sight I said loudly, “I’m going to give my grandma a call,” and dialed 911. Part of me thought it really was a prank gone wrong and I was being overdramatic in my sleepy state, but I was sick with terror and wasn’t taking any chances. As I talked to the operator, I heard things frantically being moved around. I told them my roommate was acting really strange and scaring me, and they said they’d send a car over to make sure everything was okay.
By the time the officers got there, she was long gone. Vanished, without a trace. All of her personal belongings packed up, her car off the side street. Almost as if she had never existed.
The investigation revealed a lot of disturbing things. At first, they thought maybe she had a psychotic breakdown. That maybe she was schizophrenic and had an episode or something. But as things went on, they connected more and more dots. I wasn’t the first roommate she’d lived with in the past couple years. But I was the only one still alive.
As it turned out, they found her in an abandoned basement on the outskirts of town. There, they found the evidence of two brutal killings that she had journaled about and photographed. She was arrested and taken into custody, and she would end up admitting to those murders and that she was going to do the same to me.
She said she liked to find lonely, helpless victims, cut off from friends and family, that she could earn the trust of without drawing attention. Her first had been a man, a guy so desperate for a girlfriend he was pleading on online forums and begging women at bars to give him a chance. Sad, pathetic, isolated, he was a perfect victim. The second had been a college student whose immediate family had died in a car accident, causing her to drop out and move here. Again, another easy target.
And then there was me. A small-town reject with no friends and barely a family. Naive and at the edge financially and emotionally. She had studied me for awhile. She had quite the knack for reading people, identifying me as a potential victim the first time she came into the shop.
Finally, though, the law had caught up with her. For my part, I had to testify against her. The thing I remember most distinctly was the look she would give me in the courtroom. It wasn’t a look of hate or malice. It was a look of hunger. She glared at me like I was a slice of cake she wasn’t allowed to touch. While the whole process was traumatic, that stare will never leave my head.
I don’t think I’ll ever live in a big city again. I’ve learned it’s a much larger and darker place out in the world than I thought. And, somehow, I know Em is in her cell still thinking about me. I’ll always feel her emaciated gaze every time I go to sleep.