From his porch, Danny was certain he saw movement in the house across the street. That didn’t make sense. The place had been empty for months, ever since the last family was evicted. Yet in the faint glow of the streetlamp, he could make out the shape of a hunched old woman in a black cloak, standing perfectly still in the window.

Just a trick of the light, he told himself. The lamp cast odd angles, and shadows had a way of pretending to be people. Still, the longer he stared, the more wrong it felt. Uneasy, he stubbed out his cigarette and went inside. It was around eight, the hour he usually smoked, the hour he always told himself the night was still young.

An hour later, a storm tore through the neighborhood, brief but violent, rattling his windows and leaving the air heavy. Danny couldn’t sleep. He blamed it on money troubles, though beneath that worry pulsed something he couldn’t name. 

Each time he shut his eyes, he saw the cloaked figure waiting in the shadows across the street. Worse, in that fragile state between wakefulness and dreams, his mind conjured grotesque visions: faces stretched like wax, hands crawling like spiders, a whisper calling his name.

Near midnight, restless, he rose and stepped onto the porch. The storm had left the world glistening and still, the only sound the occasional buzz of cars from the highway. And there, still there, the figure. This time, twin yellow eyes glowed faintly in its shadowed face.

A chill rippled through him. Yet instead of retreating, he found himself drawn forward, as if tugged by invisible strings. He crossed the street. The air grew colder, the night denser, every step harder to take, like wading into deep water. The figure seemed to tilt its head, beckoning. And he heard it, faint, intimate, inside his skull: Closer. Yes, Danny. Closer.

At the threshold of the abandoned house, the figure vanished. Nothing remained but the dark, yawning doorway. Relief and embarrassment flooded him. Of course, it was nothing. Of course. He turned to leave.

The door creaked open.

A hand, ice-cold and iron-strong, clamped around his wrist and yanked him into the dark.

Danny Rodriguez was never seen again. Neighbors whispered, police investigated, but the house remained silent and empty.

To this day, the curtains stir when no wind is blowing, and sometimes, late at night, a figure in a black cloak can be seen waiting at the window, watching. But no dares enter the way Danny did.

The End