The Roommate: A Horror Story

Chester kicked the lowest step, hoping to knock the snow from his shoes. He hated winter. His teeth chattered and his hand shook as he tried to guide his key to the lock. The warmth on the other side of the door seemed to be taunting him.

He heard the sharp click and his clumsy, gloved hands scrambled for the doorknob. He leapt inside and slammed the door behind him in Jack Frost’s hideous face. The wind howled as it blew across the covered porch. He flipped the deadbolt and collapsed on the couch. He was cold, hungry, and exhausted.

It had been an extremely long day. His first class had started at 7 o’clock sharp that morning. Within ten minutes, he’d watched helplessly as the snow began to fall steadily, filling in the space between the surviving mounds from the last storm.

He trudged from one building to the next with his head held down against the tiny white flakes that stung his face. Little white specks covered the front of his coat before melting away.

After lunch, the hours at his on-campus job seemed to drag on for years. There was never enough movement to consider himself busy, yet naps were always interrupted as soon as the thought entered his mind. Like his father, his dark brown hair began showing silvery interruptions at an early age. Unlike his father, his had started just before his twelfth birthday and spread like shattered glass. Chester didn’t look in the mirror much because it only reminded him that he wore it all just as heavily on his face. The work study job didn’t help.

He was finally home. Or as close to home as he had anymore. Moving from one parent’s house to the next and then back to school again, he felt like a transient. The constant motion gave the world a blurry look and kept him from establishing any permanent type of anchor. It was unsettling in the best of times and nauseating in the worst.

He lay in a puddle on the couch for a long time. Hunger began creeping in from the periphery of his vision until it finally moved him to swing himself up onto his feet and mosey into the kitchen. He opened the refrigerator and crouched to see what delicacies were waiting for him. He was horrified to find a few pieces of cheese and some pasta from the week before the only things that greeted his eyes.

For the past two weeks, Chester had been readjusting. His roommate from the previous three semesters decided it was time to take a break from school and “find himself”. Chester was skeptical of any enlightenment found while waiting tables at a sports bar but he certainly wasn’t going to say anything. His new roommate was from way up north. Even after a fortnight, they were still trying to hash out a way through the language barrier.

Chester’s new roommate was a classical pianist. In his room, he’d play beautifully for hours, filling the whole apartment with lush sound from his keyboard. He always seemed to be on his way to meet up with friends to “compose some music”. Chester would joke with his friends that he was afraid he’d come home some day to find his apartment littered with musicians, sheet music and powdered wigs.

Chester loved music and had little problem with the incessant practicing. More often than not, he enjoyed it. What Chester did have a problem with was his new roomie’s habit of staying up through the night, periodically breaking the cover of his room to eat whatever he could find in the apartment. Chester had been waking up to find more and more of his food disappearing. Just yesterday Chester had politely given a verbal cease-and-desist request. Clearly, the apologies and assurances that it wouldn’t happen again hadn’t meant anything. They’d established early on a system of alternating who bought the things they both used (paper plates, toilet paper, etc.). He’d hoped that any of the other’s foods one might happen to eat would logically fall into this category. No dice. The grocery list on the side of the refrigerator was long and arrogant.

His roommate was gone. Chester dug through cabinet after cabinet until he finally found a package of two Pop Tarts. He was hungry enough that he didn’t care. After “dinner”, he began to look around the common areas of the apartment, taking stock of the damages. He was about to use the bathroom when he noticed they were out toilet paper and running extremely low on liquid hand soap.

Chester, angrier than he had words to describe, threw his arctic gear, still wet, back on and grabbed his keys. He slammed the door behind him and began planning exactly what he would say when the time came. This was too far. His teeth were chattering again by the time he heard the deadbolt click again.

His mind was racing as he walked towards a friend’s apartment down the block. It had been one of those days for the past week straight.

Chester stepped up to the door and knocked three times in rapid succession. Before his knuckles rapped against the door the third time, it hit him like a freight train on a tight schedule. All of his angst intensified and immediately spun in a new direction. It was his turn to go shopping.