By: Breanna Glover-VanRensselaer
He washed the red smears off his hands, then sat down at his computer and began to type. Things with his last roommate just hadn’t worked out.
He wrote:
Room for rent, $600, at 1200 Serial Lane, Salt Lake City, Utah. Includes:
A furnished bedroom, with a queen-sized bed. Don’t flip over the mattress.
A garage full of power tools. Not available at night.
An updated kitchen. Don’t eat the meat in the freezer.
A huge back yard. Sorry, the grass is dug up.
A shed on the property. You may hear some noise coming from it at night, but just ignore it.
You can use my car sometimes, if you need to, but only during the day. I drive a white Volkswagen Beetle.
You can have guests over, because I have many visitors. They’re always gone by morning.
He heard a whimper behind him. He got up from the desk, dealt with it, and then it was quiet in the house again. He returned back to his ad. What else to include to really hook someone? He decided to write a bit about himself.
I’m a single, white male with dark brown hair, no facial hair, and light blue eyes. I’m quiet and charismatic. I go by Ted, and I prefer a female roommate. Girls are just so much easier to handle. But I promise you I won’t try to hit on you. I’m sure you’re not my type.
Behind him, the television was playing the local news. The anchor was reporting about a young college student named Beth who had gone missing a few days prior while walking home from the bar. On the screen, her distraught parents pleaded that if anybody had any info, to let the police department know. Ted smiled. He decided to lay out some specifications for his new roommate. He couldn’t live with just anyone, after all.
My ideal roommate would be in her twenties or thirties. She would be quiet and clean. If you’re new to town and moved here all on your own, that’s great.
There. Perfect. He was sure the replies would start pouring in. He just had to clean up his latest mess first. He hoped it wouldn’t stain the floor. No one would like that.
A week later, there was a soft knock on his front door. He opened it to see a girl in her early twenties, wearing a backpack and carrying a duffle bag. A run down car was parked in his driveway. She looked timid. He liked timid.
She had been the second person to respond to his ad. The first had been a man in his early forties, and that just wouldn’t do at all. She had paid him her deposit, which he promptly spent on a new blow torch.
That night, he offered to make her dinner. A welcome present, he told her. If she noticed that the chicken alfredo tasted a little off, she didn’t mention it. When her eyes began to look a bit glassy, he said to her, “Would you like a tour of the house? Let me show you my garage.”
He couldn’t wait to test out his new blow torch.
Biography:
I am a 20 year old Public Health student who enjoys reading and writing in my spare time. I like dystopian novels, fantasy stories, dark comedy, and anything that has to do with magic.