The Hat Man’s Ledger

My name is Adrian, and what I’m about to tell you is true, as true as the chill that still creeps up my spine whenever I think about it. It happened in the autumn of 1983, in a rented flat in the old quarter of Ghent, Belgium. I was nineteen, fresh out of a rowing club’s junior program, and I’d moved there to study art at the academy. The flat was on the third floor of a narrow, tilting building that overlooked a canal. It had high ceilings, a musty smell, and a landlady who warned me never to touch the boiler in the hallway. I thought she was just eccentric.

I’d been there for exactly a month when the first odd thing happened. I was cleaning the kitchen after a late dinner, scrubbing a pan that had seen better days, when I started to sweat. It wasn’t a warm night; the windows were open to the canal breeze, and I was in a thin t-shirt. But within minutes, I was drenched, my shirt clinging to my back, drops running down my forehead. I felt no heat, no fever, just a clammy, unnatural perspiration. I checked the thermostat—it read 16°C. I stood there, panting, my hands shaking, but I wasn’t tired. I hadn’t broken a sweat in years, even during the most grueling regattas. I tried to laugh it off, blaming the old pipes, but a knot of unease settled in my stomach.

The second week, I started seeing things out of the corner of my eye. A flicker of movement, a dark shape. I’d whip my head around, but nothing was there. It happened in the living room, while I was sketching, and in the hallway, while I was walking to the bathroom. Each time, my heart would pound, and I’d tell myself it was just my imagination. But the sensations became more frequent, and I began to feel as if I was being watched.

Then, one evening, I was reading in my armchair, and I saw it again—a blur at the edge of my vision. This time, I was ready. I snapped my head around faster than I ever had before, and I saw a man standing in the shadows near the bookshelf. He was tall, unnaturally thin, wearing a black hat with a wide brim and a long overcoat that brushed the floor. His face was in darkness, but I could feel his gaze on me. It lasted only a second, and then he was gone, as if he’d never been there. I sat frozen, my breath caught in my throat. I convinced myself it was a trick of the light, a coat on a hook, but I couldn’t shake the image.

From that night on, the presence became more tangible. I began to wake at 3:15 a.m. every night to the sound of soft footsteps in the hallway, the creak of floorboards, the whisper of fabric. I’d lie in bed, paralyzed, listening. One night, I dared to open my eyes, and I saw a tall silhouette standing in my bedroom doorway, hat brim low, coat billowing as if in a wind from nowhere. I blinked, and it was gone. I didn’t sleep the rest of the night, and in the morning, I found a thin layer of dust on the floor, but in the hallway, there were faint footprints leading from the front door to my bedroom and back. They were too large to be mine.

I tried to rationalize it, to convince myself it was a sleep disorder, a hallucination brought on by stress. But the sweating grew worse. It would happen at random moments—while I was making tea, while I was painting. I’d feel a cold draft, and then the sweat would pour off me, leaving my clothes soaked. I never felt ill, just terrified. I started to notice that the apartment felt colder than it should, and even the candle flames would flicker as if someone were breathing on them.

A fellow student, a girl named Lena, noticed my haggard appearance and asked what was wrong. I hesitated, then told her everything. She didn’t laugh; she looked at me with a strange intensity. She said that the building had a reputation. An old man had lived here before, a recluse who was found dead in his armchair, his face frozen in a scream, and no one had lived here since until me. She warned me to leave, but I was too stubborn, too fascinated by the mystery.

That night, I decided to confront the presence. I stayed up, sitting in the living room with all the lights on, my sketchbook ready. I knew it might appear. As the clock struck midnight, the lights flickered and died, plunging the room into darkness. I felt a presence behind me, and I turned, my heart hammering. There he stood, silhouetted against the dim light from the street, but this time he was closer, and I could see the details. His hat was old-fashioned, his coat a dark wool, and his face was hidden, but I could see pale, skeletal hands emerging from the sleeves. He raised one arm and pointed a long finger at me, and I felt a wave of nausea, the sweat pouring from every pore.

I grabbed my sketchbook and threw it at him, but it passed through him and clattered to the floor. He didn’t move. I backed away, out of the flat, down the stairs, and into the cold night. I ran to Lena’s place, banging on her door until she opened it. I was shaking, drenched in sweat, and I told her everything. She let me stay on her floor, and in the morning, we went back to my flat.

The flat was eerily calm, as if nothing had happened. But on the kitchen table, there was a leather-bound ledger, ancient and worn, that I had never seen before. Lena and I opened it. The pages were filled with names, dates, and descriptions of people, all seemingly ordinary. And at the bottom of the last entry, in a shaky hand, was a new line: ‘Adrian, 3rd November, 1983.’ That was today’s date.

We fled the flat, and I never returned. I never saw the man in the hat again, but to this day, I still feel a phantom sweat at the oddest moments, and I know that somewhere, that ledger is being written in, and my name is on a list I never wanted to be part of.

I still wonder how many others saw him, and what happened to them. But I never look at a shadow the same way again. And if you ever find yourself in an old flat in Ghent, sweating on a cool evening, remember my story and run. Don’t stay to meet the man in the hat, because once he’s seen you, he writes you down, and he never forgets.