The Smiling Man

I am the Smiling Man
This is the most terrifying experience that I have ever had. I still have nightmares to this day. I am still very traumatized. I still don’t know who this person is, where he is, or how mentally messed up he was, but all I know is that he calls himself, “The Smiling Man.”

So this started as I was walking home from work on a shady sort of town, a walk I still regret. I remember how vividly everything looked. The cloudless sky was an inky black, and I remember the street lights didn’t help at all with the darkness. I remember checking messages and texts as the time read 11:09 P.M. I remember how good of a day I was having until it happened. I had just gotten a raise. I was smiling and feeling great.
That’s when I heard some faint, but noticeable footsteps. I remember stopping dead in my tracks for only a second, but kept moving but faster this time. Not as fast as to have the person notice behind me, but as fast as I could just get away from them.
I get super paranoid sometimes because I had an experience when I got robbed once, and ever since, I’ve been very jumpy and not completely trusting anybody. I always feel like the robbery is going to happen to me again someday.
So I started to walk a little faster and started reassuring myself in my head. He’s probably just a guy also walking home, you're fine. Just relax. You're only two blocks away. Just keep walking. That’s when I notice the footsteps behind me were getting faster, as well as mine. I heard them getting louder, as they came closer. Shit, shit, shit! This can’t be happening.
That’s when I made the worst mistake of my entire life: I ran.
I started running as fast as I possibly could. I almost tripped, and dropped my phone. I didn’t care. This guy could literally kill me. That’s when I realized: Wait! I’m a man, and acting like a child. I’m being ridiculous. I need to confront this asshole, and get my phone back! So I stopped and turned around. I could see my phone’s glow a good ten feet back. I remember seeing the guy running directly at me and stopping as he was five feet away.
He was the most terrifying thing that I have ever seen. The light was very dim, but I could still make out everything about him. He was wearing a black and white striped suit. And his face. His face was tilted and had the biggest, most terrifying smile I’ve ever seen. It was showing what looked like a thousand of yellow, green, disgusting, crooked teeth. And his eyes were big and black like the sky that night, and seemed to be staring right into your soul, making you want to gouge your own eyes out. His skin was milky pale, almost completely white and albino. His hair was black and messy, bloody, and greasy, I could see broken twigs in it, and it probably had a lice infestation. He started laughing maniacally and I remember being terrified. But the last thing I remember before I woke up in the hospital with a broken neck is, “Hi. I’m the smiling man.”