It was just after midnight when I decided to walk home. The streets were nearly empty—only the faint hum of distant traffic and the occasional hiss of a streetlamp breaking the stillness. I had stayed late at work, buried under paperwork, and now the city felt deserted, the air cold enough to sting the tips of my ears. My footsteps echoed against the concrete, a steady rhythm that made me feel both alone and exposed.
That’s when I saw him. A tall, thin man in a trench coat stood directly beneath a flickering streetlight. His hat was pulled low, shadowing most of his face, but I could still see his smile. At first, I thought it was just a trick of the light—a stranger waiting for a bus, maybe a late-night commuter. But the longer I looked, the more wrong it seemed.
The smile was too wide. His lips stretched unnaturally far, almost ear to ear. His teeth—there were too many. Not in the way someone with an unusual smile might have slightly crooked teeth. No, these were too uniform, too sharp, like someone had carved them from bone and set them into his mouth.
I kept walking, trying to convince myself that I was imagining it. Maybe I was just tired. Maybe the cold was making me see things. But then, under the wavering streetlight, he began to move.
He danced. Not in a fluid, graceful way, but with jerky, exaggerated motions, his limbs bending in ways that made my stomach churn. His elbows and knees seemed loose, almost disconnected, like a marionette controlled by an unskilled puppeteer. He swayed left, then right, head tilting too far to one side, then snapping upright with an audible crack. My pace quickened. I didn’t want to see more. But before I could look away, he stopped.
And turned his head toward me. The streetlight above him buzzed, then flared, illuminating his face fully for the first time. His eyes were sunken, impossibly dark, like the sockets were empty. And that smile—it stretched even farther now, revealing gums that seemed to glisten in the cold air. He didn’t move toward me. He just stared, the corners of his mouth twitching as if suppressing a laugh.
I bolted. The sound of my shoes hitting the pavement was deafening in the stillness, my breath coming in sharp, panicked bursts. I didn’t look back—not at first. I focused on the thought of my apartment building just a few blocks away, the safety of my locked door, the light of my living room lamp waiting for me. But halfway down the next street, my curiosity got the better of me.I risked a glance over my shoulder. He was gone.
Relief flooded me for a moment—until I reached my building. I stepped inside, climbed the stairs two at a time, my keys trembling in my hand. I turned the final corner into my hallway… and froze. He was there. At the far end, standing perfectly still. The trench coat hung loose around his too-thin frame, and that same monstrous smile spread across his face. My stomach lurched. My brain scrambled for logic—there was no way he could have gotten here before me. No way he could have entered the locked building. But he had.
I slammed my apartment door shut so hard the frame rattled. My hands shook as I turned the deadbolt and threw the chain into place. I grabbed my phone and called the police, my voice trembling as I explained that someone was in my building, that they needed to send someone now.
When they arrived minutes later, I opened the door cautiously. They searched the hallway, the stairwells, the building’s front and back exits. Nothing. No sign of him. One of the officers gave me a sympathetic look, the kind people give when they think you’re imagining things.
“Probably just a trespasser,”
He said.
“You should keep your door locked.”
They left, and I tried to convince myself it was over. The next morning, sunlight streamed through my blinds, making my apartment feel warmer, safer. I almost laughed at myself for being so shaken. But when I stepped outside, my blood ran cold.
Etched into the wood of my door, in long, uneven scratches, were two words:
DANCE WITH ME?
I stumbled back, my mind racing. The letters were deep, as though carved by someone with sharp, deliberate force. My landlord would kill me for the damage, but that didn’t matter. What mattered was that he had been here again. That night, I pushed a heavy chair under the doorknob and stayed awake until dawn, jumping at every sound. I thought about calling the police again, but what would I say? That a smiling man wanted to dance with me? That his teeth weren’t human? They’d think I was losing my mind.
The following day, I bought a small security camera and mounted it in the hallway outside my door. I didn’t sleep much that night, but nothing happened. The night after, I reviewed the footage. At 3:07 a.m., the hallway light flickered. For a moment, the feed went grainy, distorted. Then he appeared. He stepped into frame, moving with that same broken rhythm, limbs swaying and twisting. He leaned toward the camera, his face filling the screen. I could see every tooth now, jagged and gleaming. His lips moved slowly, shaping words I couldn’t hear.
Then he stepped back and began to dance again, spinning in place, bending backward until his head nearly touched the floor. After several minutes, he stopped abruptly, turned to face my door, and raised one long finger to his lips. The footage ended there. I called the police again, but when they reviewed the recording, it was blank. Just an empty hallway. They told me the camera must be malfunctioning. I know what I saw.
And now, every night, I hear faint music in the distance. A slow, haunting tune, like something from an old gramophone. Sometimes it’s closer. Sometimes it’s far away. But it’s always there. And when I pass a window, I catch glimpses of movement on the street below. A tall, thin figure. Dancing.
