#roomer

Anyway, I’ll start at the top. My parents and my sister died in a car crash and I was in a pretty dark place for a while after that. I think I lost almost an entire year to drinking. That portion of my life was pretty much a blur. I made a lot of bad decisions, and a friend finally set me straight. I got a new job to replace the one I’d lost. I turned a new page in the book of my life and slowly recovered from there.

The one thing I hadn’t screwed up in the year post-crash was burning through all the money I’d inherited. Our family was never rich—my parents were that sort of vanishing middle class Generation-X types. I was raised to live within my means and I never lost the habit. Not even when I lost a year of my life to booze.

Even after cleaning up, I was tempted to sell our family home and move to an apartment. The place was always so quiet and dreadfully empty since the crash.

You know how some people describe silence as deafening? That’s what it was like. I think part of the downward spiral to the bottom of the bottles was just to drown it out. I wasn’t even partying, just bingeing on vapid shows and mediocre movies between work and withdrawing from life. But I digress.

I stayed in our home and could stand it less and less. I had been shopping around for an apartment to move to until my friend suggested I should renovate the place and section it into apartments, then rent out the bottom one. The inheritance was more than good enough to cover this and the guy at the bank confirmed this would be a sound investment—better than selling the place.

So I went through with it.

I kinda enjoyed that period of time when contractors were constantly filling the place with life again. The hammering and drilling and sawing. The shuffling of the electricians. The tinker-tanker sounds that a plumber made. After about half a year, all the work was done and the old house was in awesome shape.

Bright white walls, all-new wiring and fiberglass throughout the place, pristine water pouring from the faucets. Instead of that sleek and—I’m sorry, in my opinion cold—modern sort of look and feel, I had decided on a more quaint and cozy design when having the contractors renovate and design the place.

Aside from some keepsakes, I got rid of all old furniture and gave most of my family’s things away to charities or friends. I started feeling at home again. Finally satisfied with the state of the house, I read up on how to rent out the place, got some counseling, and worked out all the details. Then I went online.

For the next year, things were great. I got back into dating, enjoyed my job, and rebuilt every relationship my alcoholism had eroded up until then.

The renting went great, too. Well, for the most part, if you ignore the one single incident with some rude jerks who left a mess and tried to get away without paying. It was a real headache and a hassle and I almost stopped renting out the bottom apartment because of them, but decided against it.

I should have, though.

The roomers usually only stayed for short periods of time, like a weekend, a week, or a month. Outside of when I met them for the first time and got them settled in, and sent them off once their time was up, I had little contact or exposure to them. Working full-time and visiting my friend often meant I hardly spent any time at home.

So here’s where things got weird. I apologize for taking this long to get to this, but you have to really understand some important details. I lived alone. I was a recovering alcoholic. Deep down, I still felt vulnerable. But most importantly: because life was good, I wasn’t paying attention.

I should have paid more attention to the red flags that kept popping up.

The weirdness began when this really handsome guy started renting the place downstairs. Obviously, I’m not going to use his real name, so let’s call him Jeff.

Jeff was not only attractive, he was charming. He seemed to be pretty bright. I remember meeting him for the first time, as he stood there in khaki cargo shorts and a pink polo shirt, and thinking I wouldn’t mind having him stay around longer. And my heart skipped a beat when I learned he wanted to stay indefinitely.

We haggled a bit over the rent costs but settled on something that we were both content with. The prospect of having him as a roomer for an indefinite amount of time was looking to be a lot less of a hassle than the constant in-and-out that had been common with the roomers from the online service so far. And I sure as hell didn’t want a repeat of that couple of jerks I mentioned above.

After Jeff moved in, I didn’t see much of him. At the time, I regretted not getting to know him any better because I wasn’t seeing anybody else. But I also thought it might be a can of worms, and I didn’t feel like being pushy. Despite his appearance, Jeff turned out to be very private and a bit of a recluse. He rarely had any company over, and was a very quiet neighbor.

Till this day, I don’t even know where Jeff got the money nor what kind of work he was doing. All I know is that it took me several months before I noticed that I always only saw his company come—but never leave.

This never dawned on me until I saw him drive off in a car in which a young woman had arrived to visit him. She had dark rings under her eyes, wore some raggedy clothing, and looked a bit like a slob, if I’m being honest. My first thought upon seeing her was that he might be selling drugs, which alarmed me. But the real red flag was waking up before my alarm clock went off the next morning, and seeing not her, but Jeff leave the apartment, and witnessing him drive off in her car. I never saw her or that white car ever again.

I tried my best to find a rational explanation for that—anything that didn’t involve him being a drug dealer and murdering his guest. How could I have just called the cops on him? Jeff always paid his rent on time and was never a burden. He even asked one time if it was okay for him to buy and install a new washing machine in his apartment, rather than asking me to take care of that.

The suspicions never went away, though. They only got worse. Whenever I was at home and I heard a car pull up, I watched Jeff’s visitors with heightened awareness. I started wondering how paranoid I must have looked if anybody had noticed me staring out the window, with the lights off and peeking through a crack between the curtains. I started taking notes, just in case my worst fears came true and I’d ever have to tell the cops.

Without exception, I never saw his guests leave. At ungodly hours, Jeff would drive away with their vehicles if they hadn’t arrived on foot in the first place. One time, I decided to use a sick day and stay up all night to see him return after driving off in someone else’s car.

Sure enough, I saw Jeff returning hours later. On foot. He looked up at my window where I stood, watching him. And although I think it’s impossible that he could have seen me—we didn’t lock eyes or anything—it sure felt like he did. My heart pounded so hard it wanted to explode. Seeing him glance up at my window scared the hell out of me and I stopped spying on Jeff for the next few weeks.

He never bothered me, but this whole situation was beginning to plague me. I started having awful nightmares and I felt like I needed to do something. I didn’t feel like sharing the burden, so I didn’t tell anybody about this. I didn’t want to sound like I’m crazy. I didn’t want to be laughed at. All I knew was that I couldn’t go on like this.

I started losing sleep which caught up to me at work. It was a problem. I had trouble staying awake at my desk. The days went by in a blur and it reminded me of my year of heavy drinking, especially in the phase before I lost my previous job. One day, I stood before the door to Jeff’s apartment, master key in hand.

I remember trembling. Worse, I remember the weird smell.

I hadn’t gotten close to the door to the bottom-level apartment in a long time. Just a few steps away from it was this smell. Pungent and sweet, it reminded me of my friend’s grandparents’ home—which taught me that this was the smell of moth balls. There was also a hint of alcohol in the air, but not your garden variety for drinking—more like the medical sort which you use as rubbing alcohol.

“Hey.”

Judging by Jeff’s facial expression, I must have jumped a whole foot off the ground in shock. He sported a smile somewhere in between what must have been pleasant surprise and—what I think now—sadism.

Carrying one of those recyclable grocery bags in one hand, he walked up to me and to the door while asking, “Anything I can do for you?”

I stammered out some lies about wanting to see if he needed anything. As I lied my way through the conversation, I fabricated this story of wanting to go visit some relatives for a week, and that I was just checking up on him as well as informing him in case anything came up. I couldn’t tell if Jeff was buying my crap, but I was already considering what to do come next week to make my lie convincing—using up some sick days and going on a short vacation didn’t sound like the worst idea to me.

Jeff insisted he needed nothing, and thanked me for being such a good home owner. He really appreciated the privacy, he said. What I didn’t realize while I stumbled through this phony exchange, was that I unintentionally bought enough time for him to open the front door to his apartment.

That sweet pungent smell really hit my nose hard when he did. It burned in my nostrils. I could feel them flare and I knew he saw it as his gaze swept down to my nose and back up into my eyes as we talked.

As it was winter and already after dark, and he had no lights on inside, I couldn’t really make out any details inside his apartment. It just seemed like a lot of motes of dust floated in the air.

I saw something move inside. About the size of a chihuahua or a cat, I couldn’t tell. It peered out to the entrance where we stood and the dim light from the street reflected on a set of small eyes. The thing darted around a corner and into the living room, out of sight. When Jeff flicked the entry hall’s light switch on, there was nothing there.

But I knew what I had seen. And the shiver down my spine, and my jumble of thoughts afterwards told me that it was no dog or cat. Furthermore, I had never seen Jeff bring home any pets, and I sure as hell never heard any noises from his apartment to suggest such a presence.

He caught me staring into the entrance and quickly locked up behind him. The smile on his face didn’t reach his eyes anymore, and I was seriously afraid now.

I really did end up going on a short vacation the week after that. Just packed up and went on a cross-country road trip. Saw the Grand Canyon. Couldn’t get my damned mind off of the weird things that were piling up. At the very least, I wasn’t having any nightmares. Funny enough, I slept like a baby in the motels and hotels where I laid my head down to rest, even though I always used to have trouble sleeping on travels or in other people’s homes when I was younger.

So I couldn’t clear my head or make sense of all I’d been witnessing with Jeff, but I had reached a decision. I would wait for him to dispose of a visitor’s vehicle one night, and sneak into his apartment to find out what he’s hiding there.

I had to get rid of Jeff. I had to find something in there that would justify calling the cops on him.

It was a good idea, but my plan didn’t work. The simple reason was that I didn’t see Jeff have any visitors in the following days. Or weeks. I was now losing sleep but for a different reason: I was watching Jeff come and go to buy groceries once every couple of days, observing his every move and waiting to see him do anything incriminating, much like that wheelchair-bound guy in that Hitchcock movie. But he never did anything downright suspicious in and of itself. I seriously began to wonder if I wasn’t going crazy; if I had really experienced all these things.

I would check my own door’s locks twice or three times. I worried he might visit me when I’m sleeping. And I worried that his weird pet might become a problem.

Instead of just watching, I listened more. The more I paid attention, the more Jeff’s apartment was as quiet as a tomb—I heard more from neighbors a house away. I don’t think I ever heard him watching any television. I found it bizarre that he spent so much time at home in complete silence.

Alcohol in public places stared back at me, as if it was taunting me to drink it. While I struggled to resist the temptation, I constantly wondered if I hadn’t long caved in and been lying to myself, that all the weirdness of the past months was to blame on me relapsing and fooling myself into thinking I’d been sober all that time. That’s how messed up I felt.

So I changed my plan. I just had to. His grocery runs were much shorter than whenever he had gotten rid of visiting cars, but I had to make do. It gave me about thirty minutes if I wanted to be cautious and err on the shorter side of things.

I set my phone’s alarm clock to alert me in ten minutes, because that would have to do. I took along the largest kitchen knife, just in case Jeff’s pet was something dangerous that might attack me.

And I went down to his door once he left to go shopping one Tuesday. The smell was there and it was even stronger this time. So sharp and surreal that it made me feel a bit light-headed.

Again, I trembled. I shook like a worthless twig in a tornado. At first, my hand shook so badly that I couldn’t even get the key into the lock, then I almost dropped the keys altogether. Third try did the trick and I swung the door open, holding the knife in front of me like some idiot in a horror movie who was about to die.

It was broad daylight but the inside of his apartment was draped in pitch black darkness, as if he had covered up all the windows to prevent light from getting in. Not a single light was on. Further down the hall, I saw eyes, at the height of a cat, again. But it was not just one pair, it was several. I stopped counting after ten pairs of eyes. They stared at me, never blinking, but they moved. I realized they weren’t just reflecting sunlight from outside, they were kind of glowing.

Instead of shying away from me like the last time, more of them gathered in the darkness back there. Watching me. Then they crept towards me, closer and closer, and I began to see silhouettes and outlines, then clearer shapes as they came closer to the light. And to this day, I couldn’t really tell you what they were.

They moved on all fours but looked humanoid. Not like toddlers, but thin and lithe, somehow emaciated but strong in their motions. Their fingers and toes were long and clawed, clicking on the hardwood floors. They made no other sounds. They had strange mouths that split sideways and antennas on their head, like insects.

I must have been frozen with terror. I recall the foul taste on my tongue as I stood there, mouth agape, hyperventilating, and my heart pounding so hard that it wanted to escape through my gullet and jump right out of my own damned skin.

These awful creatures took their time to creep closer. They never got close enough for me to really see them fully. I never saw enough light on them to be able to tell you the texture of their skin. But I can tell you this, they looked dusty. Like the dust was flaking off of them, like they had been wallowing in a pile of dry dirt.

The fucking look of them still haunts me in my nightmares and even in my waking hours when I try to picture them. They stared at me and I knew they looked hungry. I can’t explain why, but I sensed a ravenous hunger from them. Or my mind made that up—I don’t really care to distinguish.

What saved my life was my alarm clock going off. My ten minute warning. These things jolted backwards and scurried away from me, keeping their eyes locked onto mine. But the sudden beeping sounds from my pocket frightened them and they retreated.

“Shit,” I heard Jeff say behind me.

I spun around just to see him drop his bag with his groceries all tumbling out onto the asphalt. Bottles of rubbing alcohol, boxes of moth balls, and stacks of packaged raw meat.

He looked as surprised and terrified as I felt that moment, but I had no time to really let that sink in. The world spun around me and I felt like throwing up—the overwhelmingly pungent smell, the nightmare creatures behind me, and feeling trapped in between Jeff and those horrid things. I could feel their presence behind me. I wanted to turn and look at them, as if that would stop them from creeping up on me, but I couldn’t turn my back on Jeff now.

“You weren’t supposed to see this,” he said in a trembling voice.

He lunged at me and I stabbed him in the belly with my knife. He grabbed my knife by the blade but I pulled back and stabbed him several times more until he stumbled past me into the apartment. I remember the look of shock on his face as he saw his own blood on his hands. He collapsed just inside the door and crawled deeper into the bowels of his apartment.

Those creatures shied back further, almost disappearing into the darkness. Except for those eyes. Those fucking eyes, they stared at Jeff and me, like frightened children. He reached out a hand towards them and gurgled something, but I couldn’t make sense of it. I thought I had injured him so badly that he couldn’t speak clearly anymore, but whenever I think back to it I have to wonder if it wasn’t some sort of alien language. I feel sick again, just writing about all of this now.

I slammed the door shut behind him and locked it.

I don’t know how I didn’t panic, but the things I did next make me wonder if I didn’t have it in me to become a serial killer. Sure, my heartbeat was racing a million miles a minute and I felt like I was seeing myself from the outside. But without running, I gathered up Jeff’s groceries and put them in my car. I hosed down the driveway to clean up whatever blood of Jeff’s had spilled there. I kept looking over my shoulder, expecting to see Jeff’s door open and him come out at me with a vengeance, those things in tow, but none of that ever happened.

Once I’d gotten all that out of the way, I packed a traveling suitcase and fled.

I didn’t just go somewhere to clear my head, I fled the country. I obtained a new identity and started a new life. I somehow succeeded at leaving all of this behind me, riding on wings of despair and fueled by the nightmares that want to follow me for the rest of my life. I’m poor now, but I’m alive, and I haven’t experienced any such thing ever again. So here I am, writing this story and getting it published to make a little bit of money on the side.

And also to warn you. If you see any of the thing I’ve described, you’ll know. You’ll know how to handle the situation better than I did.

I don’t know what happened to Jeff and I don’t know if I’m a wanted murderer now. I don’t very much care to find out. I stay away from cryptozoology crap, I avoid anything even remotely related to aliens, the supernatural, or religion. I don’t know what I encountered here—what festered in the apartment, and what might still be there. I don’t want to know.

But what I do know is that you need to pay attention.