Dance Dance Dance by Haruki Murakami

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 .. . shuf-fle ..., like he was wearing slippers or something. The foot-steps 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 eleva-tor's dead? Thank god, when I finally got back there, the red floor-number light and call buttons were lit up and every-thing. The elevator was on the ground floor. I started pound-ing 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 jam-ming 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 experi-ence 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