The camera at the back of the lot had been cheap, but it worked.
Luis checked the footage every morning with his coffee. Most nights it showed nothing—moths, the neighbor’s cat, the occasional car turning around at the dead end. On the fourth night the timestamp read 2:11 when the shape entered the frame. It came from the alley side. Two long white legs. No visible arms. The body was small and sat high between the legs, almost like a head with nothing under it. The legs bent in places that should not have bent. It walked across the gravel, slow, the feet lifting higher than they needed to. At the edge of the light it paused. The upper part of the body tilted, the way a person tilts when they are listening. Then it continued out of frame toward the storage units.
Luis watched the clip three times. He told himself it was a person in a costume. He told himself the legs were stilts. He saved the file and did not mention it to anyone. That afternoon he moved the camera six feet to the left so it covered more of the alley mouth. He also started leaving the floodlight on.
The next night the shape came back at 1:47.
It entered from the same side. This time it stopped directly under the floodlight. The legs were longer than Luis had thought. The knees—if they were knees—bent backward for a moment while it shifted its weight. The small upper body turned toward the camera. There were no eyes he could see. There was only a smooth pale surface that caught the light and held it. One leg lifted. The foot hovered. Then the whole thing took two steps closer to the lens. The movement was silent on the gravel. Luis watched the live feed from his kitchen table with the volume up. He heard nothing except the low hum of the floodlight. The shape stayed in frame for forty-three seconds. At the end of that time it turned, the legs folding and unfolding in a way that made the upper body bob, and walked back into the alley. The floodlight stayed on. The lot stayed empty.
Luis did not sleep. He drove to the lot at 4:10 with a better flashlight and the old .22 he kept in the truck. The gravel showed two sets of prints. They were narrow. The toes were long and slightly splayed. The prints started at the alley, crossed the lit circle, and stopped three feet from the camera pole. There were no prints leading away. He followed the alley to the street. Nothing. He checked the storage-unit doors. All locked. On the lowest door, just above the concrete, he found a single pale smear the width of a palm. It was dry. When he touched it the residue came away on his finger like chalk. He wiped it on his jeans and went home. He left the floodlight on and the camera running.
At 2:03 the following night the live feed showed two of them.
They entered together. The second was smaller. Its legs were shorter, the upper body closer to the ground. They walked side by side across the gravel and stopped under the light. The taller one tilted. The smaller one copied the motion a second later. Neither made a sound. Luis sat with his hand on the mouse and did not move. The taller shape took one step toward the camera. The leg extended. The foot set down without a crunch. It stayed there. The smaller one remained beside it. For a full minute they faced the lens. Then the taller one lifted a leg and set the foot on the camera pole. The metal creaked once. The upper body leaned in until it nearly filled the frame. The pale surface where a face should have been pressed close to the glass. Luis saw no eyes, no mouth, only the smooth curve and the faint reflection of the floodlight. The feed pixelated. When it cleared, both shapes were gone. The pole was empty. The gravel was empty. The timestamp kept running.
In the morning the prints were there again—four of them this time, two sizes. They ended at the base of the pole. The camera housing had a long, clean streak across the lens, as if something soft had been dragged over it. Luis did not wipe it off. He stood in the lot with the sun up and watched the alley mouth. From somewhere past the first storage unit came the soft, rhythmic sound of long legs walking on concrete, unhurried, already turning back toward the light they had learned how to stand under. He did not go look. He already knew that if he checked the footage from the night before, the moment the feed pixelated would show the pale surface splitting, just slightly, into something that might have been a smile.
