I’m an undergraduate civil engineering student at a college, I won’t say which one specifically, but it’s in the northeastern United States. I share my apartment with one other person, Halle, she’s a biomedical engineering major. Neither of us were perfect roommates obviously, but I’d say we’re pretty good friends, having bonded over the difficulty of freshman year engineering courses three years ago. Two nights ago, I was sitting on our couch when Halle came out of her room looking ready to head out somewhere.
“Where you headed?” I asked absentmindedly, focused more on the Mario Kart race I was currently winning than on her.
“Doctor Evans sent out an email the other day, she’s running some kind of extra credit lab tonight. Marshall I swear to god this is going to suck and I don’t really want to go, but I could use the points.” She replied, sounding tired.
“Alright, have fun I guess. Whenever you get back I’m pretty sure you’re legally obligated to play a few races.” I gestured at the TV as I crossed the finish line in first place.
“Yeah sure, as long as you’re cool with fucking losing,” She answered already half way out the front door.
I got back to my game after she left. I played for a few more hours, tucking this weird late night lab she mentioned to the back of my memory. I know she had mentioned that she was practically failing this Dr. Evans’ class, it was like an epidemiology class or something, so I could at least understand why she needed the extra points. But it had to have been around 8:30 pm when she left, and having a lab that late was definitely not normal. I lost track of time for the next few hours, and before I realized it, it was almost midnight.
I headed over to the kitchen, threw a frozen meal in the microwave and thought about texting Halle to make sure she was okay when I heard the front door open. I looked out to our living room, and there she was. She looked like a mess, her hair was wild and she was all scratched and bruised, a large bloodstain on the front of her t-shirt.
“Shit, you okay? You look like you got in a fight or something.” I asked worried, as I reached into the freezer and tossed her an ice pack.
The ice pack flew through the air, across our living room, and smacked into her chest before falling to the ground. She made no attempt to catch it, instead standing still and staring at me wide-eyed. Then, she gave me a wide open-mouth smile and walked to her room. The way she moved was wrong though, every single movement was incredibly sudden and jerky. I figured she was tired and maybe tripped and hurt herself or something, I don’t know.
I asked her multiple times what was wrong, if she was okay, and about a hundred other things to that effect, but she didn’t reply and just stayed in her room for the rest of the night. I assumed she just needed a break and went to bed shortly after.
The next morning, I rolled out of bed at around 10 AM and started getting ready for class. The whole time I got ready, Halle’s door stayed closed, her room quiet. I figured I’d let her sleep in without being disturbed. I went to all my lectures that day, which caused me to return to the apartment at a little after 5 PM. The door to Halle’s room was still closed and her backpack was still exactly where it was that morning, so it was safe to assume she hadn’t gone anywhere yet.
“Halle, you need to come out at some point or I’m gonna assume you’re actually dead.” I yelled from the living room. “Could you at least say something so I know you’re okay?”
I waited for a moment, hoping I’d at least hear a grunt in response or anything indicating she was fine. After about a minute of waiting and getting nothing I decided I was going in there to check on her. She’s been known to sleep-in sometimes but this seemed a bit excessive.
I went over to her door and knocked, a reflexive courtesy I guess, but after the very first knock the door swung upon, and Halle was standing there staring at me. Once again, her eyes were wide and her mouth was open in an over-exaggerated smile. I won’t say it wasn’t a little creepy for sure.
“Fuck Halle, about time you answered, starting to think something was seriously wrong.” I said with an edge of irritation creeping into my voice.
“Yes… I am… fine now” She answered slowly and deliberately, as though seriously considering every word in her response.
“Alright, do you need anything? I mean you looked seriously fucked up last night, what happened?” I had about a million more questions about her behavior the last 12 hours or so, but she already seemed kind of drained and I didn’t want to overwhelm her, so I just settled for those two big ones.
“I tripped… at the lab… and smashed some glass. I am going out now… I am so hungry.” She responded, her words again distant and deliberate.
I muttered out a quick protest, insisting that I would go out and get something to eat and she could just chill in the apartment since she didn’t look much better than she did the night before. To be honest, she arguably looked worse than the previous night. She was still in her blood soaked clothes, her eyes looked tired and cloudy, and her skin had noticeably paled. And yet, despite all my complaints, she completely ignored me and headed out the door. I just sort of stood there stunned for a second before realizing she didn’t take her phone with her. Usually I wouldn’t have cared and let her figure it out on her own, but with how she had been the last day, I didn’t want her to pass out or something and not have her phone to call for help.
So I grabbed her phone, threw on my coat, and realized I don’t know where she’s going. I almost texted her to ask her where she was headed then realized “Oh yeah, I have her phone”. So I kinda just wandered around campus for a bit, checking out the 2 or 3 places I thought she might be (Namely our favorite hole-in-the-wall Chinese restaurant and the nearby Chipotle), but had no luck. After about an hour of searching, I couldn’t find her so I headed home and gave campus police a call to let them know to be on the lookout for her, just to be safe.
A few hours had passed, and the only updates I had gotten from the campus cops were basically that they had heard nothing. I waited out on the couch until around midnight hoping she’d come home at some point, and I accidentally fell asleep.
I was woken up suddenly a little after 2 A.M by a scream, high-pitch and agonized, ringing out over and over. The voice didn’t particularly sound like Halle’s, but I would’ve been stupid not to check it out, so I immediately grabbed the knife we keep by the door and headed out behind the dingy apartment building. As I was rushing out, the person kept screaming, pleading for help from anyone and anything. I whipped around the corner and looked down the alley behind the building and what I saw was hard to make out initially, but when I did, it sickened me.
I did see Halle, but she wasn’t the one screaming. The one screaming was another guy who lived in the building, maybe like two or three units down from Halle and I, I think his name was Henry maybe? Whatever his name was, he was laying on the ground, limbs splayed, and it looked like one of his legs was broken. Halle was on top of him, teeth digging deep into his stomach, tearing into him like a starving wild animal. Blood sprayed out of his body, with him screaming and trying to fight Halle off to no avail. After what felt like an eternity, he fell limp and lifeless. Seemingly satisfied with what she had done, Halle regurgitated something up into the open wound where his stomach was. It looked almost like a golf ball, but made of some fleshy material with veins running along it in all directions.
I’m ashamed to say I maybe could’ve helped the poor guy, based on his screaming he was alive for the majority of that. I had a knife I maybe could’ve gotten Halle off of him. but I just couldn’t bring myself to help. I just hid around the corner trying not to have a breakdown. After she was finished, she waited there for a long drawn out minute. Then, his body started to move with the same jerky motions I had seen Halle moving with before, almost like a puppet being drawn up by its strings. He stood up, seemingly undisturbed by his bleeding gut or broken leg.
“I… feel… much better,” he muttered in a similar glossy distant cadence.
“Good, spread the feeling,” Halle replied to him, still not sounding or speaking quite like herself, but sounding much closer than she did before. That’s the thing that worried me most, she seemed much more coherent and better at sounding like herself.
Just as I was about to run out of there, ready to run from whatever terrifying attack I just saw and never come back, Halle’s phone went off in my pocket. Her loud ass ringtone that I had heard a thousand times now ringing out through the otherwise quite night. I silently swore and tried to quickly silence it.
Both Halle and the other guy’s heads snapped in my direction immediately, catching a glimpse of me before I could fully duck back around the corner.
“Marshall… was that you?” The thing the had replaced Halle called out and she slowly started walking up the alley towards me.
“We… can make… you feel better,” The other one called out, its speech still noticeably worse than the one that had replaced Halle.
“Marshalllll, it’ll be good for you,” The first one called out as she continued to more closer.
I was paralyzed with fear for a moment, trying to will myself to run with no success. It was only when Halle was about halfway to me and she started running did my fear paralysis shake off. I ran away from the apartment, dropping her still ringing phone as I did, and they both broke off in a dead sprint after me. I think Halle was keeping pretty good pace with me, I was too scared of what I’d see to look back, but I could hear her footsteps slamming behind me, closer than I’d like. The other one, whether he could feel the pain or not, his leg was still broken. It took about three or four awkward steps towards me before its leg buckled, collapsing in a heap on the ground.
After running through streets that were only kind of familiar for five minutes, I got tripped up on myself and fell to the ground hard. The thing that was imitating Halle was on top of me instantly, clawing at my chest with her nails and trying to fully pin me down. Panicking, I fumbled for the knife in my pocket, trying hard to overwhelm my fear and steady my hands enough to get it out. I lashed out with my legs and planted a foot in Halle’s chest, knocking her off of me for only a few seconds. The few seconds was all I needed to grab the knife and plunge it into her upper thigh over and over again.
Feeling confident that she could no longer chase me, but not wanting to stick around, I continued running for another 20 minutes, fueled by nothing but cortisol and adrenaline. I ran until I got to my friend Devin’s dorm on the other side of campus, and frantically pounded on the door until he let me in. I must’ve looked terrible, panicked and bleeding from my partially sliced open torso. Devin could tell something was up and told me I could stay with him for a few days. I thought about calling campus police, but thought against it, as it would probably incriminate me more than anything else. I needed to get away from that fuckin place.
I don’t know if something happened to Halle at that night lab she went to, or if the night lab was even a real thing, but I just need to get out of here. I don’t know if these things are going to “spread this feeling” to the whole campus, but I’m not staying around to find out.