Each week, I send out a story via my email newsletter. Each story is around 1000 words, sometimes less, sometimes more. The stories are in a variety of genres: supernatural, thriller, sci-fi, horror, and sometimes romance, and all of my stories typically feature a gay protagonist.
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This is story number 44 of the series. Enjoy!
A Dance with Death
The footsteps behind Johnny matched his own, step for step, through the whispering darkness of Thornwood Forest. When he paused to catch his breath, they stopped. When he quickened his pace, they followed suit with unnatural precision.
Johnny clutched his wicker basket tighter, the elderberry wine sloshing against the glass. Twenty-one years old today, and here he was, celebrating alone in a haunted forest because he couldn’t bear another pitying glance from the villagers of Willowbrook. Poor Johnny, their eyes always said. Still unmarried, still dreaming of things decent folk don’t speak of.
He’d been planning this midnight picnic for weeks—not just any picnic, but a ritual of sorts. Tonight, he would finally work up the courage to write the letter. The one he’d been composing in his head for three years, addressed to Thomas Hartwell, the blacksmith’s son who’d left for the city without ever knowing how Johnny’s heart hammered whenever their eyes met across the market square.
The footsteps stopped.
Johnny spun around, his cloak billowing like raven wings. The moonlight filtered through the canopy in silver threads, illuminating nothing but empty shadows and twisted oak branches. His breath came in sharp puffs of mist.
“Hello?” His voice cracked embarrassingly. “I know you’re there.”
A figure stepped out from behind a gnarled tree trunk as if materializing from the bark itself. Tall and gaunt, draped in a tattered black robe that seemed to devour the moonlight. In one skeletal hand, he carried a scythe that gleamed like polished bone, its blade singing a low, mournful note in the night air.
Johnny’s heart stopped, then kicked back to life with violent force. The basket tumbled from his numb fingers, cheese scattering across the forest floor.
“You’re—” His tongue felt thick as leather. “You’re Death, aren’t you?”
The figure inclined his cowled head, shadows pooling where his face should be. “I am known by many names,” he intoned, his voice like autumn leaves scraping across stone. “The Grim Reaper, the Pale Horseman, the Collector of Souls.” He paused, and Johnny could swear he detected a hint of sheepishness. “But you may call me Stanley.”
Johnny blinked. “Stanley?”
“Mom’s choice. I lobbied for Thanatos, but apparently that was ‘too pretentious for a nice Jewish boy from Brooklyn.'”
Despite the ice in his veins, Johnny found himself fighting back hysterical laughter. “Your mother is Jewish?”
“Was Jewish. She’s been dead for about four thousand years now. Still sends care packages though—you’d be amazed what the postal service can accomplish across dimensional barriers.” Stanley shifted his scythe to his other hand. “But I digress. I’m here on business, Johnny Whitmore.”
The sound of his full name on Death’s lips sent a chill deeper than winter through Johnny’s bones. “My time’s up, isn’t it?”
“I’m afraid so. Consumption, actually. It’s already taken root in your lungs—you’ll start coughing up blood within the week. Nasty way to go, really. I’m here to offer you something cleaner.”
Johnny’s legs nearly buckled. Consumption. The disease that had taken his mother when he was twelve, leaving him to grow up alone with his distant father. He’d been so focused on his loneliness, his unrequited love, his dreams of escape, that he’d never noticed the subtle shortness of breath, the way his energy flagged by evening.
“I can’t,” he whispered. “I can’t go yet. There’s so much I haven’t done. I’ve never told anyone who I really am, never kissed the person I love. I’ve never even left this goddamn village.” His voice cracked. “I’ve never lived, Stanley. Not really.”
Stanley leaned against his scythe, studying Johnny with what might have been sympathy. “Well, there is one loophole. A provision in the cosmic bylaws, you might say. If you can best me in a challenge of my choosing, I’ll grant you a reprieve. One full year to do with as you please.”
Hope blazed in Johnny’s chest like a candle flame. “Anything. Name your challenge.”
“A dance.” Stanley’s grin was a slash of white in the darkness. “A tango, to be precise. If you can keep up with me until sunrise, you win. If not…” He shrugged eloquently.
Johnny’s heart sank. He’d always been clumsy, tripping over his own feet at harvest festivals while other couples spun gracefully around him. But what choice did he have?
“I accept.”
Stanley flourished his scythe, and a ghostly melody began to weave through the trees—haunting and beautiful, full of minor chords and mournful trills that seemed to echo from the very stones. He extended one skeletal hand to Johnny, palm up.
Johnny shrugged off his cloak and stepped forward. The moment their fingers touched, ice shot up his arm like lightning. Stanley’s hand was smooth as marble and twice as cold, but his grip was surprisingly gentle.
“Shall we?” Stanley murmured.
The music swelled, and they began to move.
At first, Johnny stumbled constantly, his feet tangling, his hips stiff with terror. The cold radiating from Stanley’s body made his teeth chatter, and his breath came in sharp puffs that crystallized in the air between them. But Stanley was patient, guiding him through the steps with surprising grace.
“Relax,” Stanley murmured, his voice like wind through cemetery gates. “Feel the music. Let it move through you.”
As the night wore on, something extraordinary began to happen. Johnny’s movements became fluid, his body responding to the haunting melody as if he’d been born to dance. The cold no longer bit at him—instead, it felt like diving into a mountain lake, shocking but exhilarating.
Stanley spun him out, then pulled him back in close. This near, Johnny could see beneath the cowl—not the skull he’d expected, but a face both ancient and ageless, with eyes like chips of obsidian that held the weight of every soul that had ever lived.
“You’re lonely,” Johnny gasped during a particularly intricate sequence of steps.
Stanley’s eyes widened slightly. “What makes you say that?”
“The way you dance. Like you’ve been waiting centuries for a partner who could keep up.” Johnny’s feet moved of their own accord now, his body remembering steps he’d never learned. “How long has it been since someone talked to you like a person instead of a monster?”
“Longer than you might imagine,” Stanley admitted, dipping Johnny so low his hair brushed the forest floor. “Most people are too terrified to form complete sentences.”
They spun beneath the stars, their shadows merging and separating like lovers in an eternal waltz. Johnny lost himself in the rhythm, in the unexpected warmth of Stanley’s presence, in the wild joy of moving his body with perfect precision. For the first time in his life, he felt truly alive.
But as the hours passed, exhaustion began to creep in. Johnny’s legs trembled with effort, his lungs burned, and sweat froze on his skin the moment it appeared. Stanley’s steps grew more complex, more demanding—a test of endurance as much as skill.
“Getting tired?” Stanley asked, his voice carrying a note of genuine concern.
Johnny stumbled, nearly falling. Stanley caught him effortlessly, their faces inches apart.
“Not a chance,” Johnny panted, though his vision swam with fatigue. “I’ve got too much to live for.”
Stanley’s grip tightened. “Tell me. What will you do with your extra year?”
Johnny’s heart hammered against his ribs. “I’ll write that letter. I’ll tell Thomas Hartwell that I’ve loved him since we were boys. Even if he rejects me, at least I’ll have been honest about who I am.”
“And if he doesn’t reject you?”
“Then maybe I’ll finally understand what it means to be happy.”
Stanley’s eyes softened. “You know, in all my millennia of existence, I’ve never met someone quite like you, Johnny Whitmore. Most people beg for more time so they can accumulate wealth or power. You just want to love and be loved.”
“Is that so unusual?”
“Rarer than you might think.”
The music began to slow, and Johnny realized with a start that the sky was lightening in the east. Dawn was breaking, painting the forest in shades of gold and rose.
Stanley released him, stepping back with a formal bow. “Well played, my friend. You’ve earned your reprieve—one year to live, to love, to leave your mark upon this world.”
Johnny’s legs gave out, and he sank to his knees in the scattered leaves, his whole body shaking with exhaustion and elation. “Thank you,” he whispered. “Stanley—thank you.”
“Use it wisely,” Stanley said, his form already beginning to fade with the morning mist. “And Johnny? When I return in one year’s time, I hope you’ll have stories to tell me. I suspect they’ll be worth hearing.”
“Will you… will you miss me? This conversation, I mean?”
Stanley paused, half-transparent now. “More than you know. It’s not often I get to dance with someone who sees me as more than a nightmare.”
“You’re not a nightmare,” Johnny said firmly. “You’re just doing your job. There’s honor in that.”
Stanley smiled—a real smile, warm and genuine. “Perhaps we’ll dance again someday, Johnny Whitmore. When you’re ready for that final bow.”
“I’ll try to make it a good one.”
With that, Stanley vanished entirely, leaving Johnny alone in the golden morning light.
Johnny picked up his scattered belongings and began the long walk back to Willowbrook, his steps light despite his exhaustion. He had work to do—a letter to write, a heart to bare, a life to finally begin living.
As he crested the hill overlooking the village, Johnny pulled out a scrap of parchment and began to write:
Dear Thomas,
There’s something I need to tell you, something I should have said years ago. I know this might change everything between us, but I’ve learned that some things are worth the risk…
For the first time in his life, Johnny Whitmore was dancing to his own rhythm. And it felt like coming alive.
THE END