ToothTaker

No one knew where the man came from. No one agreed on what he was. He wasn’t a vampire—his teeth were too rotten for that. Not a werewolf—he didn’t howl, only laughed. And he wasn’t a ghost, though he drifted through the world like one.

Whatever he was, the mind strained to define him. Looking at him felt like trying to remember a nightmare that still clung to your ribs—but refused to come into focus.

His stare hollowed people out. His skin was the color of bruised denim stretched over something too angular to be human. And his stench… thick, oily, rancid—like burnt manure soaked in something freshly dead. A scent that crawled into the sinuses and refused to let go.

He wasn’t a talker. He just appeared:

in alleys no one walked through at night;

in frozen woods where hunters swore they heard footsteps behind them;

at windows that no one remembered leaving unlocked.

But folklore spreads fastest where isolation breeds imagination.

They named him:

The Ghost of Winter.

The Reaper’s Twin.

Hell’s Left Hand.

But the name whispered most—never shouted—was the one he carried with pride:

ToothTaker.

_THE NIGHT HE CAME TO THE BAR_

The blizzard outside screamed like a thing in pain. Snow hammered the bar windows with such force the bottles rattled on their shelves. No one inside had been able to leave for hours—roads vanished under drifts, cell service gone, the storm turning the world into a white coffin.

And then the front door opened.

Not pushed. Not forced. Just… opened. Quietly. Effortlessly. As if the storm itself bowed and held it wide for something ancient and important.

A man floated in—feet hovering an inch above the floorboards, fog spiraling around his ankles like obedient spirits. Conversations died mid-word. One man dropped his beer. Another whispered a prayer into his cupped hand.

ToothTaker drifted to the center of the room. Turned in a slow circle. Smiled wide enough to make his cheeks split.

Glass shattered somewhere in the back.

His neck snapped toward the noise—too fast, too sharp—like a hinge overdue for oil.

Behind the counter stood the bartender: young, fragile, sweat pouring off him as if he’d been held over an open flame.

ToothTaker’s smile widened until his gums bled.

“Aren’t you going to ask what I want?” he asked, voice sweet as mold growing in forgotten food.

“S-sir… y-yes. Of course. What can I get you?”

The man leaned in. Every crack between his teeth held black rot, as if he stored old meals there like trophies.

“What would you drink?” he murmured.

The bartender swallowed. “I… don’t drink, sir.”

The counter thundered as ToothTaker slammed his fist down. The bottles jumped. A woman screamed and fell, clutching her chest.

He paced in a slow circle, clapping his hands like a carnival barker gone rabid. His laughter rolled through the bar, vibrating the glasses, making the lights flicker.

“Nonsense! You children don’t live anymore. You hide. You fear. You behave.” He curled a crooked finger. “Not tonight.”

A coldness swept through the bar—colder than the storm, colder than a morgue drawer, colder than the breath of something that has waited centuries.

“Tonight,” he whispered, “you will drink until your legs forget you.”

He vaulted over the counter, moving in a blur that left an after-image. He rummaged through bottles—beer, vodka, tequila—tossing them aside like cheap toys.

Then his face lit up.

A fanatic’s ecstasy.

“Mead,” he breathed. “Now the party can begin.”

The bartender, shaking, grabbed two glasses and set them down.

“Don’t do it!” a woman screamed.

She was small, fiery red curls bouncing around her face, her old dress clinging stubbornly to her figure.

ToothTaker eyed her with two kinds of hunger.

“Well.” He winked. “A beauty.”

He poured the mead. Blew her a kiss. She recoiled.

He adored rejection. It flavored the air.

The bartender lifted the glass with trembling hands.

ToothTaker slid the second glass toward him.

“Drink, boy.”

The young man hesitated—then drank. Because refusal only meant he would not see another birthday.

ToothTaker tilted his head back and poured mead down his throat like it was blood. He slammed his glass down—

—and the bar doors exploded inward.

Smoke. Bootsteps. Shouts. A storm of confusion.

When the haze lifted, ToothTaker had the bartender in a chokehold, a jagged glass shard pressed to the boy’s throat. Blood trickled in a thin, stuttering line.

Five men stood in the doorway. Guns raised. Faces carved with exhaustion, trauma, and something worse—something like remembrance.

Sheriff Caldwell walked forward. Thick jaw, cigar clenched between his teeth, scar slicing across his cheek, one eye hidden beneath a patch.

“Alright, ToothTaker. Let the boy go. Lets not make this another mess.”

ToothTaker grinned with all his ruined teeth.

“Sheriff Caldwell. Always arriving one body too late.”

The shard bit deeper. The bartender gasped.

“Please don’t!” the red-haired woman cried.

Before anyone could act, ToothTaker flung the bartender aside, snatched the woman by her hair, and pulled her close. Her scream died in his delighted moan.

He inhaled her scent like a sommelier admiring a rare vintage.

“Mmmm… untouched by death. How… precious.” His voice rattled glass. “But worry not. I fix all flaws.”

He dragged a long tongue across her cheek, black and tough like sandpaper. She trembled violently.

Caldwell barked into his radio.

“Code 8! Repeat, Code 8! Get me backup now godammit!”

Deputies spread across the room like ants.

ToothTaker dropped the glass shard.

Reached into his coat.

And pulled out a pair of pliers large enough to tear off a horseshoe.

“Ohhh,” he crooned, lifting her chin. “Look at those pretty little teeth. Gorgeous, absolutely gorgeous.” His breath was hot and rotten. “I was going to take the boy’s… but yours? Yours are special.”

She tried to scream. His hand crushed her jaw shut.

A shot burst into the ceiling.

“Drop her dammit!” Caldwell barked.

ToothTaker tilted his head.

“Or what?”

Caldwell didn’t repeat himself.

ToothTaker dragged the woman toward the back door, her heels scraping long lines through the dust.

“You couldn’t save the others,” he sang softly. “And you won’t save her.”

He licked her face again, slower this time, eyes rolled too the back of his skull like a shark.

Then—

Darkness.

The lights snapped off.

Screams. Chairs crashing. Bodies slamming. A gunshot ricocheting like a furious hornet.

Then—

Light.

The woman was suddenly behind the deputies, pale and shaking. The bartender beside her, clutching his throat.

Everyone had been moved.

Everyone except ToothTaker.

He stood where he’d been—alone, panting, baffled, enraged.

“How?” he roared. “HOW DID YOU DO IT? GIVE HER BACK! SHE’S MINE!”

Sheriff Caldwell’s smile was a thin, ghostly blade.

“Not tonight. Not this time.”

The deputies opened fire. Every bullet landed. ToothTaker convulsed. Split. Collapsed behind the counter in a spray of something that hissed like boiling tar.

“Everyone stay back!” Caldwell warned.

He approached the mess carefully.

There was no body.

Only a pile of trembling green paste that bubbled like hungry acid.

“What… the hell is that?” a deputy asked.

Caldwell said nothing. He didn’t know.

But deep down, he understood something he would never admit aloud:

Whatever ToothTaker was… bullets didn’t kill him.

They only banished him.

Sent him somewhere else.

Somewhere darker.

Somewhere waiting.

_MONTHS LATER_

Children began waking without their two front teeth.

Parents found tokens beneath the pillows.

But not quarters they’d placed themselves.

Teeth.

Human ones.

Adult ones.

From mouths no one could match to missing-person files.

And sometimes—far out in the snow-choked streets—

a laugh echoed through the night.

The direction changed each time.

As if it came from everywhere.

Or nowhere at all.