Creepypasta Compilation

The Song and Dance Man

aid, “Folks, it’s time for the dance so come on in. Come on in, everyone because it’s time for the dance to begin.” And with that, he hopped down from his crate, grabbed it up with the fiddle and darted through the tent flaps.

Sarah, Bill, Sam and I nearly got mowed over in the rush to get inside, but we were still the first ones in. We stopped short when we pushed aside those big old tent flaps, but were quickly driven inside.

It was huge inside. There was a hardwood floor beneath our feet that looked like it must be oak, a dark, dark oak polished to a mirror shine. There were candles in holders all along the tent-pole posts and when I looked up, I couldn’t see the ceiling for all the darkness. It was like looking up at a starless night sky, where the moon didn’t dare show her face.

The crowd kept driving us and more and more people poured in. It wasn’t just the young people either. There was Missus Crenshaw, our Junior year English teacher who was in her fifties. There was Mr. Hoskins the principal. There was the good old Revered Harper, still looking embarrassed, but also like he couldn’t help himself. It really was the whole damn town. Hell, even the mayor was there with his wife, standing and talking with the chief of police.

Soon everyone was inside and the murmur from all the talking was nearly deafening. It was already getting warm in there and I was feeling cramped and claustrophobic. We were all looking for the Song and Dance Man, to see where he had gone. No one looked up, so no one saw him until the first pull of his fiddle bow.

He was there, on the center tentpole, sitting on a small, wooden platform, about twenty feet off the floor. God knows how he got up there, because there certainly wasn’t any ladder goin’ up. He dangled his feet over the edge and held his fiddle in one hand and the bow in the other. The fiddle and bow seemed to be made of that same dark wood that the floor was and gleamed in the candlelight like a thing alive. I almost doubted that the fiddle even needed the Song and Dance Man to make its strings hum.

We all looked up at him and he grinned and jumped to his feet while the crowd gasped, worried he might plummet into their midst.

And then he began to play.

He made those strings sing. I haven’t heard anyone play like that before or since and I thank God for that every day. It made the air around us crackle and spark. It loosened the joints and jolted the mind. You felt the urge to move deep in the bone, buried in the marrow. I grabbed Sarah’s hands and we began to move across the floor and everyone followed suit. Some with partners and some without. Some doing the foxtrot, some doing a waltz and some of us doing the twist. We dance, moved, shucked, jived, rocked and rolled.

I passed Reverend Harper moving his feet in a clunky boxstep with Eloise Grendel, an old battle-axe of a Catholic. I saw the mayor’s wife waltzing with Dan Adams, one of our firemen.

I swirled with Sarah, moving across the floor, bumping and jostling with the people around us. It was hot and getting hotter in there and it wasn’t long before it smelled of sweat and bodies moving against bodies. I felt dizzy, but we kept dancing together, kept dancing and not stopping. It was awhile before I realized that the Song and Dance Man was singing too, but in a language I didn’t understand.

He lorded over us, standing on that platform, making his fiddle sing and sing. His bow rose and fell, slid back and forth, side to side. He played like he talked. No breaks, no pauses, just a manic deluge of tunes while his tongue curled around words that had no business being said in this world.

I gave my head a shake as I spun with Sarah and I realized my legs were tired. My feet ached and my lower back was beginning to throb. I checked my watch and realized we had been dancing for a solid hour. I shook my head again, trying to shake off the dozy feeling that was clouding my thinking.