I can still see the Craigslist listing clearly in my mind. Without skipping a beat, the title read in large, bold letters: ROOMMATE WANTED.
This intrigued me. At the time, I was looking for a roommate and had just gotten into college—my dream college, UF, University of Fairhope. I clicked the listing and it popped up with different information about the guy that you had to put on listings. I forgot a lot of the information now but it had really basic stuff, including their email address but not their name. I searched the listing but couldn’t find any name. This struck me as very odd but didn’t make me think too much. As I would come to find out, all of the information on the website wasn’t linked to any existing website.
* * *
My father and I drove over to the apartment that I would be spending my entire college in. I had accepted the offer from the roommate posting on craigslist—talking with the guy for a couple of minutes before deciding to go with it. He seemed nice enough, plus he was covering a couple hundred more for the rent. The car stopped outside of the apartment building and we got out of the car, loaded my luggage onto a cart, and brought it into the lobby. Hugging my dad before I left the apartment. I watched as he got back in the car, started it up again, and drove off down the road before turning at the intersection and disappearing completely from my vision. I turned and brought the cart into the lobby before heading into the elevator. The lobby was deserted at this time of day.
The elevator stopped with a jerk. The two doors slid open with a creeeeaaakkkk. I got my cart and pushed it out of the elevator and onto the hallway. I stepped out with the cart as the elevator doors shut and continued up another level in the apartment building. One of the first things I noticed about the apartment building was the smell, there was a certain smell in the hallway that started to give me a headache. It smelt of too much perfume—the only word close to what it smelt like.
I continued down the hallway, pushing the cart before stopping in front of room 217. I pulled out a piece of paper from my pocket—I had written down the room number and the address before we left, just in case we got lost—and checked the room number again. Room 217, I thought and looked back up at the chrome-plated numbers hanging on the door. It read 217. My hand extended from the cart and reached for the door handle—
—the door swung open, with such ferocity that I thought the door almost flung off the hinges. My hair flung in front of my eyes before I pushed it away. Standing in the doorway of room 217 was my roommate. One of them at least. She didn’t look sketchy, not at all. This person was Nancy Cruz. She was maybe ten years older than I was, but she reminded me of my mom’s friends—and that comforted me.
“Hello,” Nancy said before realizing who I was. “Oh… Hello! Hey! You must be the new roommate!”
“That’s me,” I smiled and she smiled back.
“It’s so nice to meet you,” Nancy flashed a toothy smile. “I’m Nancy Cruz.”
A bad feeling seemed to roll in my stomach, like nausea. I swallowed to keep the feeling down. “I’m Pamela.”
“Well, hello, Pam,”
Nancy looked down at the cart. Her eyes darted back up at mine. “Do you need help with that?
“Please,” I moved aside and Nancy took the cart. She wheeled it inside the apartment. I followed in behind the cart.
Luckily, the smell from the hallway was faint inside the room. I took in a deep breath before exhaling through my nose. Nancy started to take my bags off the cart and pile them near my bedroom door. I still stood there, looking around the apartment. Another feeling, like before, hit me. Rolling and turning in my stomach. She isn’t right, I thought. The thought echoed back through my head.
She isn’t right.
* * *
Later, when Nancy finished taking the bags off the cart, I walked over and started to put them into my new bedroom—which consisted of an already made bed, a dresser in the corner, A empty bookshelf sat pressed against the wall, and a desk in the corner near the window—as Nancy wheeled the cart back out to the hallway. She walked back into the apartment and shut and lock the door.
“Are you sure that you should leave the cart out in the hallway? Shouldn’t you bring it back to the lobby?” I asked, calling out into the hallway.
Nancy’s voice floated out from the kitchen. “Nah, it’s fine. The bell boys come around and collect them every day.”
I didn’t answer, instead of turning back and continuing what I was doing. Putting clothes into the dresser and starting to stack my Stephen King books onto the bookshelf.
The next time I turned around to walk out of the room, Nancy was standing in the doorway. I jerked back, shocked, and she chuckled—pressing the back of her hand against her mouth to stifle her laughter.
“Sorry for scaring you,” Nancy said, “just wanted to help out.”
“It’s alright. Don’t worry about it.”
“But yeah, I wanted to help out just in case you needed my help,”
I looked down at the boxes before looking back at Nancy, still standing in the doorway. Her lips still pulled back into a smile.
“It’s alright, I’m doing good on my own,” I said, and quickly interrupted her to add another thing. “Thank you though,”
“It’s alright, that’s what roommates are supposed to do. Aren’t they?”
I nodded. “Yeah, that’s true.”
Nancy’s smile faded and she walked away from the doorway and back into the apartment. I followed her to the doorway, standing there for a moment before turning back and walking into the room. Shutting the door as she walked away.
Before she walked away, she noticed another door at the end of the hallway. A door that wasn’t her bedroom or the bedroom. It was another bedroom.
What else could she be hiding from me? I thought. I ignored it, pushing it to the back of my head—continuing to put away my books.
There was a lot more that she didn’t tell me about.
As the days passed while I stayed at the apartment, everything seemed to be going fine.
I occasionally talked to my parents on the phone whenever I wasn’t busy doing schoolwork or hanging out with friends. My life seemed to be normal, and I wanted it to stay that way. Of course, there were some things. Some that my mind would think about—thinking about the things that don’t even matter, but my brain needed something to think about—which mostly was about the mysterious third roommate. The roommate’s door that I saw the first night that I moved in. I had tried, on different occasions, to get a better look at the roommate but I never could. This seemed to be leading up to the night before tonight, the night when Nancy and I had dinner together. The “big plan” was for the mysterious third roommate to join us.
Two lit wax candles sat on the table, both in the middle of the table. I was on one side and Nancy was on the other, looking uncomfortably into my eyes. She rarely broke her gaze—her piercing blue eyes never left mine. I chuckled nervously and took a sip of wine from the glass sitting next to my plate.
“Did you have any roommates before? I asked. My voice seemed to echo through my head like an empty corridor.
Nancy giggled. “Yeah, why do you ask?” She smiled like I had unlocked a secret that she had forgotten about for years—but a memory that would give her good, sweet, happy memories.
“Oh,” I racked my brain for a response that would suffice, “just curious, that’s all.” I smiled and Nancy smiled back.
Nancy’s eyes left mine
(finally holy shit it’s been an hour just looking into this woman’s eyes)
and to the roommate’s door at the end of the hallway. She seemed… impatient? I studied her face some more—she was still looking at the door—and couldn’t find much emotion.
“Do you know when they’re going to come out?” I asked, and Nancy turned to face me. Her face contorted with anger.
“He,” Nancy corrected.
“Pardon?”
“He,” Nancy said again.
“Oh, have you met him yet?”
“Yeah, I have,” Nancy said, her anger starting to fade from her face. “I saw him before you came to the apartment.” She giggled.
It struck me as very odd for her mood swings—an obvious sign that this woman wasn’t right. I was starting to catch on by now, but still not very suspicious. I sat in the seat for another minute in silence. Nancy looked back at the roommate’s door with stupid fascination.
“What was he like?” I continued to try to make conversation. At this point in the dinner—even though dinner wasn’t served yet, and it started to seem like there wasn’t dinner at all—I didn’t know what to make of anything.
“Great guy,” Nancy said, turning back to look at me, “really cute too.” She smiled, remembering the memory of him.
“Did you have any previous roommates?” I said, still trying to make conversation.
“Didn’t you already ask that?” Nancy said
No, you bitch, I didn’t say that. Why are you trying to avoid the question? I thought—my face still wearing a fake smile. “Oh, right, sorry about that.”
Nancy scoffed, annoyed, and looked back at the door. My eyes drifted there eventually as well. The next time I looked back at her—aware that she could have been staring at me—she stood up from the table, something soaked into the lap of her pants. It was wine. She had spilled wine onto her pants.
“Shit,” She continued to mutter under her breath. She grabbed a napkin from the table and wiped her pants off with it. The wine barely came off but she continued to wipe.
I stood up from the table—my legs pushing back the chair I was sitting on—and walked over to her. “Do you need help? Are you alright?” Judging by her anguish I wasn’t sure if she had spilled poison on her.
“No, no, it’s fine.” Nancy threw the white napkins, now pink and full of wine, onto the table at her plate. She turned and walked out of the room to the bathroom—where she opened the door, went inside, and shut it behind her.
I stood there for another minute in the silence—I could hear the sink run inside the bathroom, the water splashing on the ceramic bowl—before walking out of the room and back into my bedroom. As I shut my bedroom door I could hear the sink turn off from inside the bathroom. The light in the hallway was still on.
I pulled the bed sheets back and climbed into bed. My iPhone sat on the bedside table. I picked it up and opened Facebook. I clicked on the search bar and typed in NANCY CRUZ; surprised that I still remembered her last name after all this time. An account came up and clicked on it—starting to scroll through the different posts that she made. Most were of vacations, and pets that she used to have
(in another life, I thought)
before she moved into the apartment. I continued to scroll before I reached the bottom of her account. The oldest post was only from two years ago on Halloween. I scanned the post in passing before immediately returning to it.
The post was of Nancy and two other people. One was a man, the other a woman. They were all wearing costumes. The man was wearing a vampire cape with a white powdered face. The woman was wearing a bee costume. Nancy, in the middle of the group, was wearing nothing. Just ordinary clothes. My eyes looked down at the caption—where underneath she had tagged two people, presumably the people in the post, but I didn’t bother looking at it—which read ROOMMATES FOREVER! This hit me with a sickening feeling of deja vu, rolling and moving through my stomach. I turned off my phone and put it face down on the bedside table. The feeling started to wash away but seemingly grew worse as I looked at the bottom of my door. Through the crack of light, shining into the room, I could see a pair of shoes in front of the door. Blocking the light in the hallway from coming inside the bedroom.
Someone was standing in front of my bedroom door.
My heart started to race, pumping loudly inside my ears—which beat hot with blood. That’s the third roommate! I thought, was this how I was going to meet him? I laid my head back down on the pillow and stilled the beating of my heart. I breathed slowly in and out. Not before long, my heart rate was normal again.
The person that was standing in front of my door turned and walked away, the light finally returning.
After ten minutes, my eyelids—heavy with sleepiness—shut and I fell asleep. The only thought that I had while drifting off to sleep was: I wonder if someone is watching me right now.
I then started to dream.
“I’ll be leaving for an hour or so,” Nancy yelled into the apartment. Her voice floated out of the living room as I came out of my bedroom. I had just finished my homework, and now waited for the weekend. I walked out of the hallway and to the living room. Nancy was standing at the front door, wearing a yellow rain slicker—something that made sense to be wearing, even though a little childish looking, since it had been raining non-stop for the past two days—buttoned up.
“Alright,” I said, “how long will you be gone?”
“Not long, an hour or so.” Her teeth—stained yellow, something that I had noticed then—pulled into a grin. “What were you planning on having some friends come over? Throw a big party?”
I smiled back. It wasn’t funny in the bit but didn’t want her to break out into the same anger that she had before. “No, reason.” A long silence filled the room. Nancy was still grinning. “Well, you got to be going now.”
Nancy’s smile faded to nothing. Without saying anything she turned around and walked out of the apartment into the hallway. Shutting the door behind her with a slam. I stood there for another moment, listening as she stormed down the hallway to the elevator, before walking back to the hallway.
As soon as I turned the corner to walk down the hallway, the roommate’s door at the end of the hallway caught my eye. Should I finally meet my roommate? I thought, taking a step closer to the door. Then another step. And then another. I was practically floating towards the door. After a minute I reached the door. I carefully pressed my ear against the door and strained my ear to listen. From inside the bedroom, I could hear music. I listened closer. They were playing Funky Town by Lipps Inc. So someone is inside there, I thought. I took my ear away from the door and turned around, going to walk back to my bedroom but stopped.
There was a figure standing at the entrance of the hallway.
Their body was a silhouette. They were trapping me in the hallway. The figure stepped closer and into the light. Their clothes became visible—my heart almost beat out of my chest.
It was Nancy.
Her rain slicker was wet
(so she was outside, I thought)
as well as her boots. Both are coated with a fresh layer of rain. Her rain slicker still had raindrops rolling off the bottom onto the carpet. Muddy footprints tracked from the door to where she now stood.
“What are you doing?” Nancy finally confronted me. She seemed to step closer to me, closing me in even more in the hallway—I wasn’t sure if that happened or if the light was playing a trick on me.
“Just seeing if the roommate was awake, I was going—”
“Josh.” Nancy interrupted.
“… Josh …” I said, nodding my head, just so she would understand that I understand that she’s fucking crazy.
“His name is Josh,” Nancy said, and this time she did step closer. “What are you doing anyway? Do you think I spy on you whenever I am doing something?” She didn’t give me enough time to respond—instead, she continued ranting. “You think I just stand outside your door and listen to you, swearing and talking to your friends on the phone? Do you think that when we were kids we would swear our heads off? ‘Hey John, do you want to see the FUCKING movie tonight?’ ‘I don’t know Nancy can’t you FUCKING understand what I’m saying you dumb BITCH?’ Do you think that’s what we did!”
Nancy finally stopped talking. She hitched her stomach as she gulped air. I still stood there, flabbergasted. My throat quivered to find words and say them but I couldn’t. My knees felt like Jell-o. She was right, I did swear when talking to my friends, but how would she know that? Was she listening in on my conversations?
Nancy finally caught her breath and turned away, out of the hallway and back to the door. She grabbed her wallet—not a purse, a black leather wallet—the thing that she had forgotten, and left, slamming the door behind her as she walked out.
I turned and walked away from the roommate’s door. He hadn’t come out the entire argument between us. Either he was sleeping, didn’t want to deal with it, or was just shy. The music was still playing from inside the room as I walked into my bedroom. I shut the door and looked for a lock on the handle. There wasn’t one. Hopefully, Nancy doesn’t come back angry, I thought, laying down on my bed.
I picked up my phone, still laying on the bedside table, and opened it. The battery was full. Good. I opened Facebook and clicked on the search bar. I typed in NANCY CRUZ again. I clicked on the same account I had before. I went to the same post as before and looked at the accounts tagged. None of the accounts had their actual names in them. I clicked on the top one and more photos came up. Photos of the guy in the picture. I read the caption of the newest picture, slowly. Thinking over the words. I noticed that the girl in the photo was the same person from the group picture on Nancy’s account.
The caption read: PARTYING ALL FUCKING NIGHT WITH ETHAN AND SABRINA.
I guess Nancy didn’t like people that swore.
There was a weird smell in the apartment.
That was all I could remember from the start of the day, everything else is just a blur. Nancy had gone out to get groceries while I stayed back at the apartment—even if I wanted to go I couldn’t. We hadn’t talked until the fight we had two days prior. Nancy had been gone for an hour and a half until then. After she left the rain started, the wind with it. It whistled and blew against the house. The rain was heavy, hitting against the roof of the building and bouncing back—reminding me of camping with my family when I was younger.
I was sitting at the table in the small dining room where Nancy and I had once had dinner, waiting for our “third guest”. I smelled the odour coming from the hallway. It seemed to come from the bathroom, not a surprise since Nancy had used it before she left for the grocery store. The smell was still bothering me though—seemingly never leaving my nose. I turned my phone off and left it on the table as I walked into the hallway. I stood at the beginning of the hallway, looking down. The entire hallway was dark. The wind got heavier outside.
All of the doors inside the hallway were closed except for the door at the end of the hallway.
* * *
I sat in the dining room, looking into the kitchen. My phone was out—I was texting one of my friends. We had plans to hang out the next day. Nancy was getting ready to leave for her grocery shopping trip. She grabbed her manly wallet and headed for the hallway. I didn’t bother following her with my eyes. Instead, I looked back down and continued to text. I still listened, though. The door opened and then shuffled through a drawer before the door closed again. Nancy came walking out of the dark hallway and went back to the kitchen. She got her shoes on and walked out of the apartment into the hallway, shutting the door behind her.
That was the last time I ever saw her.
* * *
A shrine.
I don’t even know if that would be the right word for something like this but whatever it was, I knew the real source of the smell.
Two bodies were cut open and laid in the middle of the third roommate’s bedroom. Their bodies were cut open from the chin to the navel. Their intestines and organs were laid out on the hardwood floor of the bedroom. The bodies and organs were rotting. God knows how long they were there—possibly a couple of months, the same amount of time that I lived there.
She was waiting to add me to the shrine.
In the corner of the room were two high-power air filters. Both of them were not running—making the smell come back out. A speaker sitting on the bedside table was still playing Funky Town in a loop, covering up the ambiance from the air filters. Looking at the faces of the bodies, I noticed another thing. I looked closer and realized that it was true.
Both bodies were of the two roommates in Nancy’s post on Facebook.
I looked up at the wall. My eyes scanned over something I hadn’t noticed before. I gasped. My heartbeat started to slow. A sentence was scrawled across the wall in blood: ROOMMATES FOREVER!
I seemed to analyze everything in the room in seconds before I inhaled through my nose and the smell hit me. I backed out of the room, not shutting the door, and turned to the corner of the hallway. I retched and threw up everything in my stomach into the corner. Chunks of meat and vegetables. My mouth, throat, and tongue stung with the taste and smell of stomach acid as I turned away from the door and ran out of the hallway—continuing going until I was out of the apartment. As I stood on the sidewalk in front of the building, the rain beating down on me—wetting my clothes, I looked up to the fourth floor. My eyes scanned the windows before I found a silhouette standing in one of the windows. They were waving, looking down at me. I could have sworn that it was Nancy standing there, but it wasn’t.
Instead, Nancy was driving on route 467; heading for California.
As I sat in the investigation room, a large overhead fan blew wind into my hair. No one was inside the room yet. As I was escorted into the room, I didn’t see anyone that looked like a detective. The image of the two bodies, mutilated, never left my mind—an image that probably couldn’t get out of my mind for another couple of years including therapy.
The doorknob leading into the investigation room clicked and turned as a key was inserted and taken out. A detective walked into the room. In his right hand was a large black case, on the side read SMITH CORONA. I watched the case with curiosity as he placed it on the table, sat down, and slid it to the side of the table. I thought of the different things that could be inside the case, one of them being a lie detector.
“Hello, I’m detective Parchant. I want to talk to you for a moment.”
I tried to say something—I DIDN’T DO IT! IT WAS THAT BITCH NANCY—but nothing came out of my mouth. Just like when I was fighting with Nancy in the hallway.
“It’s fine if you don’t want to talk, after everything you went through, I understand.” Det. Penchant said, taking a photo out from his pocket. It was a polaroid. He put it on the table, slid it across, and I picked it up.
“Do you recognize her?”
The photo was of Nancy.
I nodded my head. Det. Parchant took the case and opened it. He took out an old smith corona typewriter. He placed it in front of me where I was sitting at the desk. I looked up at Det. Parchant confused. He looked back at me, into my eyes. He was taking a stack of fifty sheets out from the typewriter case.
“Since you can’t talk, I want you to sit here and type out everything that happened to you while staying with her and everything that you know of her. You can add some more information later. Be detailed.”
I looked away from Det. Parchant and to the typewriter. I lifted my hands off the table and placed them on the keys of the typewriter. I looked into the blank sheet loaded into the typewriter. I thought. Thought about everything that happened either strange or out of the ordinary while I stayed at the apartment. I started to write.
I can still see the Craigslist listing clearly in my mind. Without skipping a beat, the title read in large, bold letters: ROOMMATE WANTED.
I continued writing, unaware that I had started to cry.