The House of the Dancing Dead

They danced the night I came, as they did each night: The ancient ones: the old ladies with their pasty, painted faces, the old men leading them slowly as a scratchy melody wavered and whined from the old phonograph's huge horn. This was a Danse Macabre -- grotesquely doubled in the mirrored walls, eerily elongated in the flickering shadows. What was I doing here? Masquerading as another woman, waltzing in the arms of a pale man who claimed me with his icy eyes and cold hands. Would I still be warm, young -- and alive -- after a year in this HOUSE OF THE DANCING DEAD