Haruki Murakami - Dance Dance Dance

«Anyway I was in the elevator and the door opened and I stepped out like always. I didn't think anything of it, I mean, who would? It's something that you do all the time, right? I stepped out like it was the most natural thing in the world. I guess I was thinking about something, I don't remember what. I think I had both hands in my pockets and I was standing there in the hallway, when I noticed that everything around me was dark. I mean, like absolutely pitch black. I turned around and the elevator door had just shut. The first thing I thought was, uh-oh, the power's gone out. But that's impossible. The hotel has this in-house emergency generator, so if there's a power failure, the generator kicks on automat­ically. We had these practice sessions during training, so I know. So, in principle, there's not supposed to be anything like a blackout. And if on the million-to-one chance some­thing goes wrong with the generator, then emergency lights in the hallway are supposed to come on. So what I'm saying is, it wasn't supposed to be pitch black. I should have been seeing green lamps along the hall.

«But the whole place was completely dark. All I could see were the elevator call buttons and the red digital display that says what floor it's on. So the first thing I did was press the call buttons, but the elevator kept going down. I didn't know what to do. Then, for some reason, I decided to take a look around. I was really scared, but I was also feeling really put out.

«What I was thinking was that something was wrong with the basic functions of the hotel. Mechanically or structurally or something. And that meant more hassle from the management and no holidays and all sorts of annoying stuff. So, the more I thought about these things, the more annoyed I got. My annoyance got bigger than my fear. And that's how I decided to, you know, just have a look around. I walked two or three steps and—well, something was really strange. I mean, I couldn't hear the sound of my feet. There was no sound at all. And the floor felt funny, not like the regular car­pet. It was hard. Honest. And then the air, it felt different, too. It was ... it was moldy. Not like the hotel air at all. Our hotel is supposed to be fully air-conditioned and management is very fussy about it because it's not like ordinary air-condi­tioning, it's supposed to be quality air, not the dehumidified stuff in other hotels that dries out your nose. Our air is like natural air. So the stale, moldy air was really a shock. And it smelled like it was . . . old—you know, like when you go to visit your grandparents in the country and you open up the old family storehouse—like that. Stagnant and musty.

«I turned around and now even the elevator call buttons had gone out. I couldn't see a thing. Everything was out, completely, which was really frightening. I mean, I was entirely alone in total darkness, and it was utterly quiet. Utterly . There wasn't a single sound. Strange. You'd think that in a power failure, at least one person would be calling out. And this was when the hotel was almost full. You'd've thought a lot of peo­ple would be making noise. Not this time.»

Our drinks arrived, and we each took sips. Then she set hers down and adjusted her glasses.

«Did you follow me so far?»

«Pretty much,» I said. «You got off the elevator on the sixteenth floor. It's pitch black. It smells strange. It's too quiet. Something funny is going on.»

She let out a sigh. «I don't know if it's good or bad, but I'm not especially a timid person. At least I think I'm pretty brave. I'm not the type who screams her head off when the lights go out. I get scared but I don't freak out. I figure that you ought to go check things out. So I started feeling my way blind up the hallway.»

«In which direction?»

«To the right,» she said, raising her right hand. «I felt my way along the wall, very slowly, and after a bit the hallway turned to the right again. And then, up ahead, I could see a faint glow. Really faint, like candlelight leaking in from far away. My first thought was that someone had found some emergency candles and lit them. I kept going, but when I got closer, I saw that the light was coming from a room with the door slightly ajar. The door was pretty strange too. I'd never seen an old door like that in the hotel before. I just stood there in front of it, not knowing what to do next. What if somebody was inside? What if somebody weird came out? What was this door doing here in the first place?

«So I knocked on the door softly, very softly. It was hardly a knock at all, but it came out sounding really loud —maybe because the hallway was dead quiet. Anyway, no response. I waited ten seconds, and during those ten seconds, I was just frozen. I hadn't the slightest idea what I was going to do. Then I heard this muffled noise. I don't know, it was like a person in heavy clothing standing up, and then there were these footsteps. Really slow, shuffle ... shuffle .. . shuf­fle ... , like he was wearing slippers or something. The foot­steps came closer and closer to the door.»

She stared off into space and was shaking her head.

« That was when I started to freak out. Like maybe these footsteps weren't human. I don't know how I came to that conclusion. It was just this creepy feeling I got, because human feet don't walk like that. Chills ran up my spine, I mean seriously. I ran. I didn't even look where I was going. I must have fallen once or twice, I think, because my stockings were torn. This part I don't remember very well. All I can remember is that I ran. I panicked. Like what if the eleva­tor's dead? Thank god, when I finally got back there, the red floor-number light and call buttons were lit up and every­thing. The elevator was on the ground floor. I started pound­ing the call buttons and then the elevator started coming back up. But much slower than usual. Really, it was like this incredible slug. Like, second . . . third . . . fourth ... I was praying, c'mon, hurry up, oh come on, but it didn't do any good. The thing took forever. It was like somebody was jam­ming the controls.»

She let out a deep breath and sipped her drink again. Then she played with her ring a second longer.

I waited for her to continue. The music had stopped, someone was laughing.

«I could still hear those footsteps, shuffle . . . shuffle . . . shuffle . . . , getting closer. They just didn't stop, shuffle . . . shuffle . . . shuffle . . . , moving down the hall, coming toward me. I was terrified! I was more terrified than I'd ever been in my whole life. My stomach was practically squeezed up into my throat. I was sweating all over, but I was cold. I had the chills. The elevator wasn't anywhere near. Seventh ... eighth . . . ninth ... The footsteps kept coming.»

She paused for twenty or thirty seconds. And once again, she gave her ring a few more turns, almost as if she were tuning a radio. A woman at the counter said something, which drew another laugh from her companion. If only they'd hurry up and put on a record.

«I can't really describe how I felt. You just have to experi­ence it,» she spoke dryly.

«Then what happened?»

«The next thing I knew, the elevator was there,» she said, shrugging her shoulders. «The door opened and I could see that nice, familiar light. I fell in, literally. I was shaking all over, but I managed to push the button for the lobby. When it got there, I must've scared everyone silly. I was all pale and speechless and trembling. The manager came over and shook me, and said, 'Hey, what's wrong?' So I tried to tell him about the strange things on the sixteenth floor, but I kept running out of breath. The manager stopped me in the middle of my story and called over one of the staff boys, and all three of us went back up to the sixteenth floor. Just to check things out. But everything was perfectly normal up there. All the lights were shining away, there was no old smell, everything was the same as always, as it was supposed to be. We went to the staff lounge and asked the guy who was there if he knew anything about it, but he swore up and down he'd been awake the whole time and the power hadn't gone out. Then, just to be sure, we walked the entire six­teenth floor from one end to the other. Nothing was out of the ordinary. It was like I'd been bewitched or something.