Christmas is a season of warmth and joy, even for families like mine who didn’t traditionally celebrate. At nine years old, I knew Christmas as the time of year when we drank peppermint-laced hot chocolate and played board games while the snow fell quietly outside.
That particular Christmas, however, would stick to my memory—not for the sweetness of cocoa or the traditions we made, but for the stranger who appeared outside our window.
That night, after I spotted the man on the sidewalk—his crooked smile and missing teeth flashing like some sinister greeting—our household shifted. My dad’s immediate reaction to lock the doors and close the blinds wasn’t just precaution; it was fear.
And fear is contagious. When the knock came minutes later, his tense, deliberate movements reinforced the weight of the moment.
“Don’t you remember me?” the man had said, his voice low but clear enough for us to hear from the living room.
Dad slammed the door shut without a word, his face pale. Mom’s expression hardened, though her eyes darted to the windows as if expecting them to break at any moment. My brother and I were ushered to bed with uncharacteristic haste, the night’s festive mood replaced by the kind of quiet that made even the smallest sounds feel deafening.
The days that followed were full of whispers. Neighbors talked of seeing the man, a disheveled figure wandering the snow-covered streets, always with that same strange smile.
Mrs. Callahan, our neighbor two houses down, described him as “off,” like he didn’t belong. He’d asked her for food, she said, but something in his manner—his lingering gaze, his deliberate words—unnerved her enough to shut the door in his face.
By then, the man was a specter haunting the neighborhood. No one seemed to know where he came from, but everyone felt his presence. Then the real stories began to emerge.
I overheard my parents talking late one night, their voices hushed but urgent.
“He recognized me,” Dad said. “I don’t know how, but he did.”
“What are you talking about?” Mom sounded frustrated, but there was a nervous edge to her voice.
Dad hesitated before answering. “He used to live around here. Years ago. He… wasn’t right in the head, you know? Always talking about seeing things that weren’t there, saying stuff that didn’t make sense. But then there was that… incident.”
“What incident?” Mom pressed.
Dad sighed. “It was before you and I moved into this house. He broke into the Hendersons’ home. They found him standing in their living room, just… staring at the Christmas tree. He didn’t take anything, didn’t hurt anyone. He just stood there, smiling, until they called the cops. The way they talked about him after that… it was like he carried something with him. Something dark. And that night, Mr. Henderson died in his sleep.”
Mom didn’t respond, but the silence between them was heavy. I clutched my blanket tighter, trying to understand what Dad meant. What could someone carry that made people afraid of him even years later?
The answer came two nights later.
It was late when I woke up to a sound that sent chills down my spine—a soft tapping on the living room window. I crept out of bed, drawn by equal parts fear and curiosity. From the hallway,
I could see the silhouette of a man through the curtains, his head tilted as if listening for movement inside. My heart pounded as I watched him step back, his face illuminated briefly by the streetlamp outside.
His smile was still there, but his eyes—they were wide, unblinking, and hollow, like they were staring through everything, even the darkness itself. And behind him, in the faint glow of the snow-covered street, was a shadow. But it wasn’t his. It was something taller, darker, moving independently of the man like it was alive.
I gasped, the sound betraying my hiding spot. The man turned his head sharply toward me, and in that moment, I knew he had seen me. Not just through the curtains, but into me, like he could peel back my thoughts and fears with that smile.
“Don’t you remember me?” he whispered, though his voice seemed to echo unnaturally in the stillness.
I stumbled back, my movements clumsy with terror. My dad appeared in the hallway, his face grim as he grabbed my arm and pulled me away from the window. He didn’t speak, but I could feel the tension radiating from him as he locked every door and checked every window twice.
The next morning, the police were in the neighborhood. The man had been found in the woods nearby, curled up in the snow, mumbling incoherently. He was taken to a facility for observation, and the authorities assured everyone there was no danger. But the neighbors’ fear didn’t fade, and neither did mine.
Later that week, Dad admitted the truth. “When I saw him at the door,” he told Mom, “I saw it again. That shadow. It wasn’t human, and it wasn’t his. It’s like… it was following him. Feeding off him.”
“Do you think that’s why he’s like this?” Mom asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
Dad nodded, his gaze distant. “I think it’s been with him for years. And now, wherever he goes, it follows. They say that if he ever sets foot in your house, death will follow.”
I never saw the man again after that Christmas, but his presence lingered in the form of whispered warnings and uneasy glances toward the woods.
Even now, as an adult, I find myself avoiding dark windows and quiet streets during the holiday season. There’s something about the combination of stillness and snow that reminds me of him—and of the thing that followed him.
Because in the end, it wasn’t just the man who scared us. It was the feeling he carried with him, like a cold draft slipping under a locked door. A feeling that whatever haunted him might one day decide to haunt someone else.
