The Tuxedoed Man in the Hall

Three nights ago, the clock on the microwave read 3:00 AM, and the silence in our rented farmhouse was so thick you could choke on it. My younger cousin Mateo and I were the only ones home, and our satellite internet had died hours ago, leaving us with a dead zone of boredom. The TV was nothing but static, and the only thing left was an old true crime podcast I’d downloaded about the Dunblane tragedy. I asked Mateo if he wanted to listen, and he shrugged, ‘Better than staring at the wall.’ We plugged in my earbuds and split them, huddled on the couch like two scared kids at a campfire.

Fifteen minutes in, a thunderous crash erupted from the kitchen—glass shattering, wood splintering, as if a whole shelf had collapsed. My heart slammed against my ribs. I yanked out the earbuds. ‘Did you hear that?’ Mateo’s face was pale, but he nodded, ‘Yeah, you want me to go check?’ I grabbed his arm. ‘No. Wait five minutes.’ The clock ticked. The house groaned. We sat frozen, listening for any other sound.

Then Mateo turned his head, slow and deliberate, like a mechanical doll, and stared down the long, dark hallway that led to the bedrooms. His eyes went blank, unfocused. He didn’t blink. For five minutes, he just stared into that blackness, his breathing shallow. I whispered his name, but he didn’t respond. Finally, he spoke, his voice flat and hollow, ‘There’s a person down there.’ A cold dread washed over me. ‘What? Are you joking?’ He didn’t look at me. ‘No.’

I squinted into the dark, but saw nothing. Yet my skin crawled. Mateo’s description came out in a monotone: ‘He’s wearing a white tuxedo, a button-up shirt, a black tie, and shiny black shoes. His face… it’s distorted. Like it’s melting, but not in a normal way. His eyes are two dark holes, and his mouth is just a slit.’ I laughed nervously, ‘Stop messing around.’ But Mateo was trembling, and his hand gripped the couch cushion so hard his knuckles were white.

Then the hallway light flickered on by itself. And there he stood. The man in the white tuxedo, just as Mateo described, but worse. His face was a mask of stretched flesh, the skin sagging off the bone, revealing glistening muscle and something darker underneath. His eyes were not holes but empty sockets, and his mouth was a thin, lipless gash. He didn’t move, just stood at the threshold, his head tilted slightly, as if listening.

I grabbed Mateo’s arm, and we bolted for the front door. But the door wouldn’t open—it felt like something on the other side was pushing against it. We ran to the back door, but it too was jammed. The windows were sealed shut. We were trapped.

We retreated to the living room, our backs against the wall. The man had taken a step into the hallway, his leather shoes making no sound on the wooden floor. He moved like a ghost, gliding, and the air around him grew cold, frost forming on the walls. He stopped at the entrance to the living room, and for the first time, he spoke. His voice was a low, wet rasp, like a corpse trying to speak through a throat full of mud, ‘You shouldn’t have listened.’

He started to advance, his feet leaving no prints on the dusty floor. We were frozen, unable to move, as if his gaze had turned our blood to ice. He reached out a hand, and his fingers were too long, the nails black and cracked. He touched Mateo’s shoulder, and Mateo screamed—a raw, primal scream that died quickly, replaced by a gurgle. Mateo’s face began to distort, the flesh rippling and melting, his eyes sinking into his skull. He collapsed, twitching, and then was still.

The man turned to me, that slit mouth curving into something that might have been a smile. ‘You’re next,’ he said. I wanted to run, but my legs were numb. He stepped over Mateo’s body, and I saw my reflection in his empty sockets—my own face, pale, terrified. He reached for me, and the world went dark.

I woke up the next morning, lying on the living room floor. The sun was streaming through the windows, and the house was quiet. Mateo was gone. There was no sign of him, no blood, no disturbance. The kitchen was spotless, as if nothing had ever crashed. The hallway was clean. But on the floor where Mateo had fallen, there was a single black leather shoe, shiny, menacing. And in the walls, I could hear a faint, wet breathing. I got out of that house and never looked back. But sometimes, in the dead of night, I hear that rasping voice: ‘You shouldn’t have listened.’ And I know he’s still there, waiting in that dark hallway for someone else to hear the crash.