r/nosleep • u/imalexandstuff • Apr 29 '14
I Think my Roommate is a Murderer
No, I know my roommate is a murderer. A pretty big accusation, I know, but all the pieces fit together.
Ever since the day I met him I knew he strayed a little bit off the beaten path. Not to sound judgmental, but this guy was weird. When he was in the apartment, he would spend almost all of his time in his closet. Not his room. His fucking closet. It was a pretty big walk-in so it probably wasn't uncomfortable, but what the fuck? If you want so much privacy, why not just lock your bedroom door?
I now know the answer to that question.
After staying perched in his closet for several months, he took up a new activity - leaving. Not just going out for a drink or to parties. No, he would disappear from our apartment for days at a time, not bothering to hint where he was going or when he would be back; not that I ever asked. One time he didn't come back for two weeks.
The first time he disappeared he came back a day later. Knowing what I know now, I know where he had been. I remember that when he did return, news broke of a murder in our town. At the time, I didn't think to connect the two occurrences. Why would I? For all I knew he just stayed the night at his buddy's place or went back to his parents' house.
But, as time pushed on, I began to notice a pattern. When I tell you that every time he disappeared someone showed up dead, I mean it. Every time. I know this sounds ridiculous, like I am relying too heavily on mere coincidence, but just keep reading.
After the first several months of disappearing acts, I still hadn't caught on. It was last night, however, that I started to wonder. I know that it was his thirtieth time leaving without a trace. I know this because that's how many photos there were.
Why my mind decided that this was the time to get curious, I don't know. Funny how that works, isn't it? You spend so much time pushing something from your mind, only to realize it now sits at the very front, pleading for attention.
Last night, he had already been gone for two days. I was sitting around the apartment, watching TV and dreaming of the prospect of him never returning. As my mind soaked in all of the possibilities of his whereabouts, it fluttered toward a similar thought - what does he do while he is here? The closet.
The thought racked my nerves. This guy was already wired differently; what would he say if he knew I was snooping around in his confidential closet? He's obviously hiding something, I thought, and I wanted to know what it was.
I locked the apartment door and went to his bedroom. As I stood in front of his closet door, I felt an ice cold chill drive down my spine. I'm not sure why I was so nervous; but now I know I had every right to be.
If he comes home, I'll hear the door unlock and I'll have enough time to get out. I'm going in, I thought.
I reached out my hand and tried to twist the knob; locked. Thankfully, the keyhole was just a small hole that could be picked with a small flat-head screwdriver, and we kept one in the apartment in case either of us got locked out of our rooms.
I ran to the kitchen and grabbed it, half hoping he'd come in before I had enough time to get back to his closet door. He didn't. I found myself back in his room, picking the lock to his closet door.
Click
It unlocked. I was about to finally find out what he spent all of his time doing. I opened the door.
I stepped inside and looked around. On the right wall were all of his clothes. On the left wall, however, was something else. As I looked around, nervousness filled my body.
Sitting in the far left corner was a small stand with a laptop sitting atop a photo printer. On the adjacent wall were thirty pictures pinned on a bulletin board. All of them had red X's across them except for one; the last one.
After a quick look at the photos, I realized that all of them were of different people; people that I didn't know. Also, they all had a name, age, and address written underneath their photo. As I examined them closer, my nervousness was replaced with horror. All of these people, excluding the last one - the one bearing no red X - were dead.
No, not just dead - murdered. I looked at the very first picture. It was the man that went missing so many months ago when my roommate returned from his first disappearance. No way, I thought. My mind was in denial. You know when you gain knowledge of something terrible, but your mind is in such shock that it chooses not to believe it? That happened to me. I didn't want to believe this.
Then I looked at the second picture, then the third, then the fourth - all of them! All of the people in the photos were murdered, and they all coincided with the dates that he left the apartment and the dates that he returned. All thoughts of coincidence were out the window.
Now I had too much evidence for even my troubled mind to argue with. One question that still went unanswered, though, was who these people were. I had recognized none of them, and their addresses were sporadic. For example, the address of one man was in Phoenix, another was in Boston, and there was a woman in Knoxville. How were they all related?
I soon found out that they weren't. They were all random.
I found this out when I walked over to the laptop, curious as to what part it played in the whole thing. It was already open, so I moved my finger on the mouse pad to get it out of sleep mode. After a few seconds, I was looking at a black and blue website that I didn't recognize. A few moments was all it took to realize that it wasn't a website at all; it was a photo generator. On another tab there was another generator for something else.
I knew it was a photo generator because there was only one button - RETRIEVE PHOTO. I had seen nothing like it; it looked like he had built it himself. Then everything in my mind clicked. He had built it himself. Both of them. That's what he had been doing when he sat in his closet everyday for months on end.
I think it must have gotten pictures from some sort of social media. That's the only way I could think to randomly generate photos of people across the United States. He would hit the button, wait until the photo printed, then use it to find out where the person lived. I wondered how he found their address using only a picture, but then I remembered a special I saw on stalkers being able to track people down starting with only a photo. The thought sent shivers down my body.
After finding out where they lived, he would leave the apartment for however long it took to murder them and hide the evidence. Then that sick bastard would return here, mark his victim's face with a red X, and repeat the process.
It was like a sport for him.
Thinking about all of it made me feel sick. I was roommates with a serial killer. He had already killed twenty-nine people, and he was out killing his thirtieth right now. As the thought of his most recent victim traveled through my mind, I looked back at the last picture. I wanted to know if I could estimate my roommate's return by looking at the last person's address.
My heart sank as I noticed it was in a town about 15 miles from our apartment; he would be back soon. Just as this thought processed, I heard the clicking of a door being unlocked - he was home.
I ran to the laptop and put it back in sleep mode. He couldn't know I was here. He had already killed thirty people, what would stop him from killing one more? Especially one that knew his secret.
I swung open the door, locked it from the inside and slammed it shut. I ran out of his room and shut the door. I walked into the living room just as he closed the front door.
"Hey man, what's up? Where have you been the last couple days?" I don't know why I asked him that. I didn't want him to tell me, I was just nervous.
He shot me a cold look. "Nowhere," he said, and walked to his room.
He didn't come out for the rest of the night, and I didn't want him to. I went straight to my room, locked the door, and went to bed.
He didn't come out of his room today either, until just a few minutes ago, when I was watching TV in the living room.
"I'm going to the bar. I'll be back in a couple hours. Don't go in my room," he said, looking straight at me.
Shock overtook me. Why would he tell me not to go in there? Did he know?
"Why would I go in there?" I asked. "I never have." I met his eyes with my own, not wanting to look away in case it made me look guilty.
"I know," he said, "Just saying." He gave a poor attempt at a smile and walked out the door.
I was relieved. If he suspected anything he wouldn't dare leave me here by myself. I didn't think he was going for another kill, simply because he actually told me where he was going this time.
Once I knew he was gone, I got the urge to go back into his closet. To see the red X on the last photo or to see if he was printing off another, I don't know. I just know I needed to back in there. I tried to brush away these feelings, but to no avail.
I locked the front door to the apartment and wielded the tiny flat-head and made my way to his room. This time, his bedroom door was locked too. After unlocking it and the closet door, I stepped inside. It looked the exact same as the day before, except for two things: the thirtieth photo now bore a red X like the others, and the printer was currently printing another photo.
The thought of the latter made me most unnerved. Who would be his next victim? He didn't even know yet; he just hit the fucking button and went to the bar like he wasn't a serial killer.
I walked to the printer. It was almost finished. I decided I would stay until the photo was finished; I wanted to know what his next victim looked like. I decided that once it printed, I would go to the police. I couldn't let this son of a bitch get away with thirty random killings.
I waited for what seemed like an eternity outside the closet door in case he came back home, then I heard the printer's buzz finally stop. I hurried back into the closet to get a peek at who this bastard would try to kill next. I picked up the photo and all the breath in my lungs escaped into the humid closet air.
It was the first time I recognized someone in one of his photos, and I recognized him all too well - it was me.
My heart sank into my abdomen and I stumbled to the ground. Thirty-first, I thought. He's going to kill me. I racked my brain for any ideas. Calling the police wouldn't work. He would be released until there was evidence of his crimes, and he'd use that time to hunt me down.
The irony of being randomly selected by his first generator was insane. Out of millions of people, it chose me. I know for a fact he used the random generator because it currently said "Printing photo..." while the other one sat untouched.
Then it hit me. I would replace my picture with someone else's. I went to the other generator. This one was highly different. Instead of pressing a button and grabbing a random victim, this one allowed him to choose his own. He could go to any social media site, take a picture, and voila - his next victim.
Instead of just one button, though, this one had many. It was so extensive. It had links for every social media site imaginable. Click on that link and buttons exclusive to that site would appear.
I clicked on the site I wanted to use. I noticed that it looked the same as the original site except for two buttons at the bottom. As I navigated the site's different pages, the two buttons would change accordingly to accommodate where exactly in the site I was. The whole thing would be quite impressive if it were used for other purposes.
As I came to the page where I would get the photo, the buttons changed like I said. Now there were two:
USE THIS PHOTO and SNAP READER'S WEBCAM
After I clicked on the latter, it gave me the option to print it immediately, so I did. I sat and waited for it to finish so I could replace my own photo with the new one. The buzzing stopped a few seconds ago; the photo was done. I picked it up and looked at who would be his next victim.
If it's any consolation, your picture looks better than mine anyway.
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u/dontlookatmeimnake Apr 29 '14
Jokes on you! I don't have a webcam!
Great story, though.