The People You Meet

I should’ve known something was off when I first stepped into the flat.

The walls were too bare, the air too still. A suffocating silence clung to the space, like a held breath waiting to be exhaled. The previous tenant had moved out in a hurry, leaving behind only a vague warning to "keep to myself." But London’s rent prices don’t leave much room for pickiness, and sharing a flat with a stranger was better than living on the streets. At least, that’s what I told myself.

My new flatmate, Daniel, seemed normal enough at first, quiet, polite, distant. He worked odd hours, leaving early in the morning and returning late at night, always carrying a black duffel bag. I asked him about it once. "Just work stuff," he said, his smile not quite reaching his eyes. His voice was level, calm, but something about the way he clutched the bag made me uneasy.

That should have been the first red flag.

It started with little things. The bathroom door locked from the outside. The kitchen knives disappeared one by one. At night, I’d hear him moving around, his footsteps light but deliberate, like he was trying not to be heard. Sometimes I’d wake up and find small things in my room had been moved, just slightly, my lamp tilted at an odd angle, my books rearranged on the shelf. I tried to ignore it, chalking it up to nerves. Living with a stranger is always an adjustment, I reasoned. But then came the smell.

A thick, metallic scent seeped through the walls, sour and cloying. It reminded me of something I couldn’t quite place, a memory that hovered just out of reach. I mentioned it to Daniel, but he just shrugged. "Plumbing’s old," he said. "Probably rust in the pipes."

But rust doesn’t smell like blood.

One evening, I came home early from work and found the front door ajar. A cold wave of dread washed over me. Daniel’s duffel bag sat by the entrance, unzipped. My heart pounded as I peeked inside.

A knife. A bundle of rope. A set of latex gloves.

Before I could process what I was seeing, a voice came from behind me. "What are you doing?"

I whirled around. Daniel stood in the hallway, watching me with unreadable eyes. His hands were empty, but there was something in his expression that made my skin crawl, a quiet amusement, like he was enjoying my fear.

"I was just—" I gestured vaguely at the bag. "The door was open. I thought someone had broken in."

He didn’t say anything. Just stared. The silence stretched so long I thought I might scream.

Then, he smiled.

"You should be more careful," he said. "London’s dangerous at night."

That was the night I started locking my bedroom door.

Sleep became impossible. Every creak of the floorboards, every whisper of wind against the window sent my pulse racing. I kept hearing things, muffled thuds, hushed voices when no one else was around. I started checking the news obsessively, looking for reports of missing people. There were always some.

And then I found it.

A newspaper article buried in the back pages. A woman, murdered in her flat. No signs of forced entry. No fingerprints. Just a name: Claire Dawson.

The name of the tenant before me.

I couldn’t stay. I knew that now. I started packing, stuffing clothes into a bag with shaking hands. I’d leave that night, go anywhere but there. I’d stay with a friend, find a hostel, sleep on a park bench if I had to.

As I zipped my suitcase, the bedroom light flickered. The bulb dimmed, then went out entirely, plunging the room into darkness. My breath caught in my throat.

Then, a knock at the door.

Three slow taps.

"You’re awake," Daniel’s voice murmured through the wood.

I clapped a hand over my mouth, squeezing my eyes shut. The knob rattled once, twice. Then, silence.

When I finally dared to move, dawn was breaking. The flat was quiet. Too quiet. I opened the door and stepped into the hallway.

Daniel’s room was empty.

So was the duffel bag.

I didn’t wait to find out more. I grabbed my bag and ran, not stopping until I was outside, gulping in the cold morning air. I found a cheap motel across town and booked a room, double-checking the locks before collapsing onto the bed, exhaustion numbing my terror.

For days, I avoided the flat. I ignored Daniel’s calls and messages, each one more insistent than the last. Then, a single text chilled my blood.

"Come back. You left something behind."

I didn’t respond. Instead, I went to the police, handed them the newspaper article, told them everything. They humored me at first, taking notes, nodding sympathetically. But when they visited the flat, they found nothing. No duffel bag, no suspicious stains, no evidence of Claire Dawson’s murder ever taking place there.

And Daniel? He was gone.

His number was disconnected. His room was empty, as if he had never lived there at all.

I left London soon after, moving across the country to a place where rent was cheap and anonymity was easy. But even now, years later, I still wake up to the sound of three slow knocks on my bedroom door.

And I still wonder if Daniel ever really left.