THE ROOMMATE WHO NEVER EXISTED

"You're sure somebody lived in this room?" The officer stood in the empty spare bedroom, wondering whether I'd been conned, or whether there was something wrong with my head.

Because the place was spotless. Not a single trace of anyone living in there. But three months ago, a man had sat across from me and signed a rental agreement.

He paid me three months in cash, and after that he never came out of that room. Every day I left the food I'd ordered for him outside his door.

And the next morning, right on schedule, it was gone. If this tenant never existed, then how do you explain the thick stack of cash and the signed agreement?

Chapter 1 I'm a freelance illustrator. It was my fifth year in Houston, and the only thing going up faster than my drawing skills was the rent.

To split the load, I'd rented an old twobedroom, onebath place with a living room. I took the bigger bedroom and put the smaller one up for rent.

Third floor, top floor, no elevator. The upside was the quiet. The downside was the summer heat, and the stairs.

The listing sat there a month, and almost nobody came to see the place. It was either the stairs or how old the building was.

Right when I was about to give up and carry the whole rent myself, Gordon Bowers showed up.

He was tall and very thin, in a dark hooded jacket, a baseball cap pulled down low, almost covering half his face. I showed him the spare bedroom. It wasn't big.

Northfacing, a few simple pieces of furniture. He just stood in there for a moment, then nodded. "This works. I'll take it." The whole thing took less than five minutes.

He was so easy about it that it left me a little dazed. "Three months' rent up front, plus a month's deposit.

That work for you?" He nodded, reached into his backpack, and handed me a thick manila envelope. "Count it." I opened it up. Brandnew hundreds, stacked in a neat block. I froze.

Who pays rent in cash these days? "I—I don't have one of those counterfeitdetector pens," I said, embarrassed. The half of his face below the brim seemed to smile. "Relax.

It's not fake." While we were signing, I got a look at the photo on his driver's license, and that was the first time I really saw his face.

Gordon Bowers, twentyeight, with an address in some small town elsewhere in the state, a town I'd never heard of. He signed, took the key, and said: "I'm moving in tomorrow.

I don't have much, I can handle it myself. One other thing—my work is a little unusual. I need absolute quiet. I don't leave my room much.

I'd appreciate it if you didn't disturb me." At the time I just thought I'd gotten lucky. A roommate who liked quiet, stayed in, and paid without a fuss.

For someone like me—works from home, no good with people—he was the "perfect roommate." I nodded over and over. "No problem. Don't worry, I'm quiet when I'm drawing.

I won't bother you at all." The next day he moved in with hardly anything to carry and shut the door. From that day on, that door might as well have been welded shut.

I never saw it open again. That first week I didn't think anything of it. I'd told him up front to leave his trash bags outside his door and I'd take them down when I went out.

Utilities split down the middle, settled monthly, and I'd tape his half of the bill to his door. But a week went by and there was never a bag outside his door. Nothing at all.

I got curious. Did the guy not eat? Out of something I couldn't name—concern, or maybe just wanting proof he was still alive—I added a chickenandrice plate to my order that day.

Chapter 2 I sent him a text. [Gordon, haven't seen you come out at all, so I ordered you some food. It's outside your door.] I waited a long time. Nothing came back.

But the next morning when I got up, the chicken and rice was gone. I let out a quiet breath. He just didn't like answering messages, that was all.

After that, every few days I'd order an extra plate when I ordered for myself and leave it by his door. And still I never got a reply from him.

Never heard a sound out of his room, either. Only, the next morning, the food would be gone. The walls in that old building were paperthin.

The couple next door fighting, the kid downstairs crying—I heard all of it. But out of my roommate's room, not one sound, ever.

If the food hadn't kept disappearing outside his door, I'd have started thinking nobody lived in there at all. I brought it up with my girlfriend, Nyla. She's not a detail person.

She heard me out and didn't take any of it seriously. "He's a worldclass shutin who can't stand people, that's all. Sleeps all day, up all night—that's normal, isn't it?

You send him food, he eats it. Means he doesn't mind you. That's a good thing." "But," I said, getting to the part that bothered me, "he has to shower, use the bathroom.

I've never even heard the water run." "Maybe he's quiet about it. Or maybe he waits until you're asleep to use the bathroom." Nyla squeezed my cheek. "Stop overthinking it.

As long as the rent shows up on time." Nyla had a point. I did what I could to keep my mind from running. And so the days went by.

I drew, I ate, I slept, and every so often I "fed" my mysterious roommate. We might as well have been living in parallel worlds.

The one place they touched was that takeout quietly disappearing outside his door. Then the first month's utility bill came.

I looked at the numbers and a chill went straight up my back. The usage was almost exactly what it had been when I lived here alone.

Which meant that in a full month of living here, he had used almost nothing. How was that possible? He never turned on a light? Never used a computer? Never charged anything?

Never even… flushed the toilet? Never took a shower? That night I couldn't sleep. I put my ear against the wall and listened for a long, long time. Still nothing.

A thought came up on its own, and I couldn't stop it: Whatever was in that room—was it actually a living person? There was also a smell I couldn't describe.

Very faint, but it got into everything. Not exactly a stink. More like dust and rotting wood and some kind of chemical, all mixed together. It wasn't always there.

It came in thin threads, late at night, out from under the door next to mine. The first time I caught it I was in the living room, working on a piece.

It went up my nose and cut my train of thought clean off. I went to his door and smelled again. Stronger. My first instinct was to knock and ask.

But my hand had barely come up when I remembered what he'd said. I'd appreciate it if you didn't disturb me. What if he was running some kind of chemistry experiment.

Or using some special solution. That was his business. Would knocking be out of line? I backed off again. But it stuck in me like a splinter. Chapter 3 I started getting twitchy.

I walked around my own apartment on my toes, afraid of making noise. I kept catching myself listening at his door for something, anything.

I even bought a voice recorder and, before I went out, tucked it under the planter by his door. The second I got back I put on headphones and turned the volume all the way up.

There was nothing on it but neighbors' footsteps going up and down the hall and wind moaning through the stairwell. Past that, nothing.

I played it back over and over, and finally, after hours of silence, I caught something faint. A sound with a perfectly steady rhythm. Tap, tap, tap.

Very light, like someone tapping a fingernail against a board, over and over. It made my skin crawl.

I called Nyla right away and told her. "A tapping sound?" She paused on the other end. "Could it be… mice?" "No," I said immediately. "It's too rhythmic.

It's like… Morse code." Saying the words "Morse code" out loud, even I knew how ridiculous I sounded. Nyla's voice came back gentle and worried. "Babe, don't spiral.

Old building, old pipes—they expand, they contract, they make noise. That's normal. Have you been pushing too hard on a deadline?

You need to take breaks." "No, Nyla, I keep feeling like… something is really wrong." "Then go knock and ask him.

Or just call the police, tell them you think something's happened to your roommate in there." Call the police? I hesitated.

If they came and he was just asleep, or doing some strange piece of performance art. What would that make me? A neurotic landlord harassing his own tenant? "Forget it.

Maybe I really am reading too much into it." In the end I caved. After we hung up I went back to listening to that faint, onandoff tapping through the wall.

It felt like that damn silence and that eerie little rhythm were driving me out of my mind an inch at a time. I started searching online. Roommate acting strange.

Roommate never leaves his room. Most of what came up were posts about depression and social anxiety. Some people said you should check on them, knock, try to talk.

Others said do not bother them, respect their space. And then somebody shared something worse.

A tenant who killed himself in his room and wasn't found until the body had rotted and started to smell. I shot up out of my chair. That smell!

Could it be— I didn't let myself finish the thought. The fear spread and wrapped tight around my heart. I stopped caring about any of it.

In one burst of nerve I ran out and knocked on that bedroom door. No answer. The idea got louder in my head. I couldn't wait another second.

I ran back to my room and dug out the spare key. My hands were shaking. I knew it was wrong. But another voice inside me was screaming: Open that door! Find out what's in there!

Key in hand, I crept to that bedroom door. The sound of it going into the lock was enormous in all that dead quiet. My heart was in my throat. I turned it, a little at a time.

Click. The lock opened. Chapter 4 I had my hand on the cold knob, took a breath, and was about to push the door open. Tap! Tap! Tap!

The knock at the front door hit me like a thunderclap. I jumped. Yanked the key back out on reflex.

After our call, Nyla hadn't felt right about leaving me alone, so she'd come by after work.

She walked in, saw the key in my hand, and knew exactly what I'd been about to do. "You were going to let yourself into your roommate's room?

That's not okay!" "I—I was just worried. Worried something had happened to him." I fumbled the explanation out, my face burning. "If you're worried, you call the police!

Or the building manager! You open up somebody's room like that, and if he finds out, he can sue you!" Nyla was upset and angry both.

I couldn't lift my head under it. "I know… I just kept scaring myself and I lost my head for a minute." Nyla sighed and came over and took my hand. "I get it. But not like that.

If he's the type to make an issue of it, this gets ugly, and it kills any trust between you two." She pulled me back to the living room and made me a cup of tea. "Relax.

Stop working yourself up." "Honestly, it's simple. In three months, when the agreement's up, if he wants to renew, you find a reason and say no.

And if he doesn't renew, it's all over anyway." I held the cup and nodded. With Nyla there I settled down.

Maybe she was right and every bit of the fear was coming out of my own head. Maybe I was overthinking it. I should act like a normal landlord.

Take the rent, keep my distance, respect his privacy. I put the spare key away and made myself get back to a normal life. I stopped listening at the wall.

Stopped paying attention to the faint tapping. I even made myself ignore the smell when it drifted out. Hold out one more month, I told myself.

When the agreement was up, this mystery of a roommate would be out of my life. The days went by in a strange kind of calm.

The food disappearing outside that bedroom door was the only proof he existed. Then there was one week left on the three months.

I sent him a message. [Gordon, our rental agreement is almost up. Are you planning to renew?] Same as before. No reply. So I wrote the same thing on a note and taped it to his door.

The next day the note was gone. And still nothing back from him. On the last day of the agreement I couldn't sit still. Would he leave? How would he leave?

Would he disappear without a sound, or come out and say something to me? I waited until late that night. The door stayed shut.

The next day I knocked on it. "Gordon, are you in there? The agreement's up." No answer. I knocked again, louder. "Gordon Bowers! Can you hear me?

Rent's due—or if you're not renewing, you need to be out today!" Dead silence in that room. I panicked. That idea shot up out of my head again.

What if something really had happened to him in there? This time I didn't hesitate. I called 911. The police got there fast. Two young officers.

Chapter 5 I laid it out for them as plainly as I could: my tenant hadn't come out in three months, I couldn't reach him, and I was worried something had happened to him in there.

Sergeant Moreau, the older of the two, heard me out and frowned. "Three months without coming out? You're sure he's been in there the whole time?" "I—I order him food a lot.

He eats it." Sergeant Moreau and his partner traded a look. There was some doubt in it. "Let's open it up and see.

You have a spare key?" "Yes." Sergeant Moreau took the key and waved a hand at me. "Stand back a little." He put it in the lock, turned it, and the door opened.

A heavy smell rolled out at us. Not the faint mixed smell from before, and not the smell of a body, the way I'd imagined it. It was disinfectant. Thick enough to sting.

Sergeant Moreau pushed the door wide and went in first. The younger officer and I came in behind him. When we saw the room, all three of us froze where we stood. The room was empty