THE CORRIDOR

After the long, exhausting day, not too different from any other Wednesday, Guiseppe Voite came home from his work at the local butchery, just around the corner from the very street he happened to live on. It was late, and Mr. Voite was too tired to worry about the time, as tomorrow was another day at the butchery, another day of work. Worn out, he decided to head straight for the bathroom, grabbing bits of slightly soiled, visibly rumpled, and yet not dirty enough for a wash garments, off of every and any surface he had once thrown them upon while in a hurry, this time even stopping to search the laundry basket for an old pair of grey socks. Mr. Voite lived alone, as he liked to remind himself every time he took a longer stare at the tiles in the shower, reminiscing in the lingering, sometimes even haunting thought of having no wife, no kids, no pet, nothing to care for, most of the time working anyways.

After he had taken his shower and changed into his beaten, yet surprisingly comfortable pair of bed clothes, he decided he would, like always, have himself a leftover dinner from the previous day while wasting away in front of the television, and once tired, eventually, too uncomfortable for the couch, head for bed and call it a night. However, that night, Mr. Voite was too tired to care for the slouchiness of the cushion or informality of his wrinkled clothes, and fell asleep right then and there, with a half-eaten meatball still in his mouth.

Guiseppe woke up suddenly from a noise, a faint scratching coming from the corridor leading to his front door, located from the living room slightly to the right in a way one could perfectly see whoever came in the house when visiting, whenever such a rare moment occurred. The television had gone static, filling the room with a harsh, cackling hiss, with the screen radiating a light bright enough to light the shadows, but not enough to draw them out. Mr. Voite's drowsy eyes had caught, not the attention of the static TV, but rather the corridor, where a black, funnel coat was hung on presumably a coatrack, with a pair of black, leather open lacing shoes right bellow it, and a top-hat above, accompanying the whole ensemble. It had not all been so strange to Mr. Voite if these weren't his clothes on the coatrack, as he owned no black funnel coat, business shoes or top hat. “Where had these clothes come from, who did they belong to?” wondered Guiseppe. “Had they been there, this whole time, and I'd been too tired to notice, too busy to care? And had I always had that coatrack so close to the living room and is that hat perfectly placed upright above the coat and the shoes perfectly fit to match a foot?”

Only then Guiseppe realized that the clothes were not hung, and rather perfectly placed together, and that they sat on something tall, something disturbing, something that Guiseppe only then realized, was not a coatrack, not even a man, but something that had a back arched like a hook, arched enough to have its arms stretched, touching the floor. A chill ran though Guiseppe's back.

The noise he had woken up to was the sound of nails, scratching alongside wood, moving slowly,

towards him,

towards Guiseppe.

He had finally taken a breath, had it not been for the unchewed meatball still in his mouth, now lodged in the throat, choking him without clear sight. His vision began to darken, when the flickering static bought the thing into view—only for a second, only enough for his fading mind to glimpse the twisted, unnatural being beneath the clothes.

The nails that had dragged along the floor now were curled inward, lifting as if savoring the moment. The arched spine uncoiled, stretching into something neither fully human nor animal. In a split second before the screen gave out, before the light vanished entirely, Guiseppe saw it – starring back, prideful of the pray he'd caught. One last look, and-

The television died. The room fell silent.

And Mr. Voite was seen no more.