The Smiling Man

He was there again. I thought I had finally gotten rid of him. I guess you could say I had been chased by him for weeks, although he had never come toward me.

He was just there.

Always just at the edge of sight.

Always there.

He was featureless as best I could tell. He was a large hulking figure in black clothes that just stood and stared. I could never make him out clearly, except for a white face and a large smile.

In the beginning, I’d tried to be coy about it. I tried to ask people if they saw the big thing at the edge of sight, but no one did. They told me that my eyes were playing tricks on me. I tried to convince myself that my eyes were playing tricks on me, and that he wasn’t always standing there.

Just there.

I tried to get him to react once. I screamed at him and pled with him and begged him to leave and asked him what it was he wanted and asked him why he was always following me, but he never responded. He just stood and stared and smiled that eerie smile.

In the days preceding the appearance of The Smiling Man, I’d lived a normal life. I was single and liked to go to bars after work with my friends or coworkers and have a couple drinks and loosen up. We always went in groups to stay safe. Usually, people left us alone and let us drink and dance without any problems. About a week or so before The Smiling Man appeared, I’d been approached by someone in a bar, a little mousy guy with dirty blond hai, and he’d asked me to dance and asked if he could buy me a drink. I turned him down as politely as I knew how. He didn’t seem too upset, but I’d thought I’d felt someone watching me ever since. At first, I thought it was him, but then The Smiling Man appeared.

Always following

Always there.

For a while I wondered if the guy in the bar was The Smiling Man but the more I saw of him, the less sure of that I became. The guy in the bar was short and slim. The Smiling Man was hulking and had no features beyond the white face and the ever-present smile.

I tried everything to get rid of The Smiling Man, or to outrun him, or anything I could do to get away from him. Nothing worked. I tried moving, and I thought that worked for a while. He disappeared for a day or two, but it didn’t take him long to find me again. I saw him in the distance outside my window. I cried and screamed and threw rocks at him, hoping it would get him to go away. It didn’t.

He was still there.

I decided to buy a gun. He was in the distance looking in the shop window as I bought it. I took it and stuffed in in a brown paper bag and dashed out with it. I hoped he wouldn’t see it, but I was sure that he would. I took it to the range shortly after I bought it. I hurried in my car and in the building, driving as fast as I could, and rushing into the building, still hoping in vain that he wouldn’t see me.

Somehow,

Some way,

He was still there.

I was shooting at the paper target at the end of the lane. When he appeared, he appeared out of nowhere, like he never had before, he appeared at the end of the lane.

The bullets went right through him.

Like he wasn’t there.

He just stood and kept smiling. Unchanging.

I screamed and cried and asked him what he wanted. No one saw him. I was escorted out and asked not to return. On the way home, things changed.

For the first time, he started walking toward me. There was no change in his expression. He just lurched forward in a slow, steady gait with an outstretched arm.

I collapsed, crying and pleading.

I don’t know how, but somehow, some way, I managed to scramble up and run off.

When I looked up, he was finally gone.

I ran to my new apartment, panting and walking behind me. He was gone.

He wasn’t there.

I scrambled to pack and rush out again. Tonight, I was going to go to a hotel. I would find some way to kill him.

I went back outside and looked around.

He was there.

Behind me this time. He’d never been behind me before. Why were things changing. What was happening? I turned and planted my feet like I’d been taught when shooting. I emptied the gun into him, and he fell.

He was dead.

He was gone.

I got in the car and called the police. I told them I had heard shots outside the apartment and gave them my number. I would wait for them to call back. I checked into a hotel a few miles away. I bought a newspaper. I would start looking for another apartment. I would have to move out of the place. I looked out the window. I decided to take a walk. It was safe. I’d shot him. He was dead.

I took a deep breath and wandered through the streets, as I approached a dark alley, I heard a sound behind me. When I turned around, there was nothing there. It must have been a stray cat or dog. When I turned around, I fell to my knees in tears.

He was there.

He stretched his hand toward me. It was as ghostly white as his face. The smile remained unchanging. He lurched toward me. I cried and pleaded and asked him what he wanted. In less than a moment, I felt something behind me grab me, and I felt something cool and sharp graze across my throat.

#

I don’t know how long I was asleep. When I woke, I was stiff, and walked with a lurch that I couldn’t quite manage. I looked out and saw someone in the distance, just beyond my line of sight. It took me a moment to recognize him. It was the man from the bar. It had been him after all. He was The Smiling Man. He was approaching someone in front of him. He held out an old straight razor. The person in front of him was on their crying and pleading and begging the man to leave them alone. He wouldn’t back off. I reached my hand out and tried to lurch forward to help the person screaming on the ground.

I couldn’t get there in time. The man with the straight razor approached the person screaming and crying on the ground. He slit the person’s throat in a swift, heartless motion. The body crumpled the ground in front of him. I stared at them.

It was then that recognized the crumpled body on the ground. It was then that I realized:

I was there.

I was The Smiling Man.