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The Dance-Walking Stranger: A Night Owl's Tale of Terror · Shallow Nights: Scary Bedtime Stories

• 0:31
  About five years ago, I lived downtown in the major city in
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  the US. I've always been a night person,
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  so I would often find myself bored after my roommate, who was
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  decidedly not a night person, went to sleep.
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  To pass the time, I used to go for long walks and spend the
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  time thinking. I spent four years like that,
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  walking alone at night and never once had a reason to feel
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  afraid. I always used to joke with my
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  roommates that even the drug dealers in the city were polite.
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  But all that changed in just a few minutes of 1 evening.
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  It was a Wednesday, somewhere between 1:00 and 2:00 in the
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  morning, and I was walking near a police patrolled park quite a
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  ways from my apartment. It was a quiet night, even for a
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  week night, with very little traffic and almost no one on
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  foot. The park, as it was most nights,
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  was completely empty. I went down a short side street
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  in order to loop back down my apartment.
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  When I first noticed him. At the far end of the street on
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  my side was the silhouette of a man dancing.
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  It was a strange dance, similar to a waltz, but he finished each
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  box with an odd forward stride. I guess you could say he was
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  dance walking headed straight for me.
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  Deciding he was probably drunk, I stepped as close as I could to
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  the road to give him the majority of the sidewalk to pass
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  me. The closer he got, the more I
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  realized how gracefully he was moving.
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  He was very tall and lanky and wearing an old suit.
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  He danced closer still until I could make out his face.
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  His eyes were open wide and wild, head tilted back slightly,
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  looking off at the sky. His mouth was formed in a
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  painfully wide cartoon of a smile between the eyes and the
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  smile. I decided to cross the street
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  before he danced any closer. I took my eyes off of him to
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  cross the empty St. As I reached the other side, I
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  glanced back and then stopped dead in my tracks.
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  He had stopped dancing and was standing with one foot in the
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  street, perfectly parallel to me.
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  He was facing me, but still looking skyward, smiled still
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  wide on his lips. I was completely and utterly
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  unnerved by this. I started walking again, but
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  kept my eyes on the man. He didn't move.
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  Once I had put about half a block between us, I turned away
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  from him for a moment to watch the sidewalk in front of me.
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  The street and sidewalk ahead of me were completely empty.
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  Still unnerved, I looked back to where he had been standing to
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  find him gone. For the briefest of moments I
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  felt relieved until I noticed him.
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  He had crossed the street and was now slightly crouched down.
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  I couldn't tell for sure due to the distance and the shadows,
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  but I was certain he was facing me.
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  I had looked away from him for no more than 10 seconds, so it
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  was clear that he had moved fast.
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  I was so shocked, and I stood there for some time staring at
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  him, and then he started moving toward me again.
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  He took giant, exaggerated tiptoed steps as if he were a
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  cartoon character sneaking up on someone, except he was moving
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  very, very quickly. I'd like to say at this point
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  that I ran away, or pulled out my pepper spray or cell phone or
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  anything at all, but I didn't. I just stood there, completely
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  frozen as the smiling man crept toward me.
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  And then he stopped again, about a car length away from me, still
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  smiling his smile, still looking to the sky.
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  When I finally found my voice, I blurted out the first thing that
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  came to mind. What I meant to ask was what the
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  fuck do you want? In an angry, commanding tone.
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  What came out was a whimper. What the fuck?
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  Regardless of whether or not humans can smell fear, they can
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  certainly hear it. I heard it in my own voice.
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  That only made me more afraid, but he didn't react to it at
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  all. He just stood there, smiling.
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  And then, after what felt like forever, he turned around very
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  slowly and started dance, walking away just like that.
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  Not wanting to turn my back to him again, I just watched him go
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  until he was far enough away to almost be out of sight.
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  And then I realized something. He wasn't moving away anymore,
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  nor was he dancing. I watched in horror as the
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  distant shape of him got bigger and bigger.
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  He was coming back my way. He was coming back my way.
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  And this time he was running. I ran too.
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  I ran until I was off the side road and back onto a better lit
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  Rd. with sparse traffic looking behind me.
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  Then he was nowhere to be found. The rest of my way home, I kept
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  glancing over my shoulder, always expecting to see his
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  stupid smile, but he was never there.
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  I lived in that city for six months after that, and I never
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  went out for another walk. There was something about his
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  face that always haunted me. He didn't look drunk, he didn't
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  look high. He looked completely and utterly
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  insane, and that's a very, very scary thing to see.