Smile

Chapter Eight: In The Rain

My sanity slowly detached itself over a period of weeks, I was losing my mind and I couldn't find a way out.
Every night I'd see that face, and even if I felt home, it was almost like Stockholm syndrome.
Smiler was the most prolific yet understated person or creature I had ever met, it was like he didn't care yet cared so much.
Smiler never spoke a word, he said all he needed with his face and the markings on the wall.
Ryan would work all day, and I'd be left at home, alone, with Smiler.

Once I awoke in the middle of the night to Smiler standing over me.
I was a little spooked at first, but soon intrigued.
Soon, I noticed I wasn't anywhere I recognized, and I felt high up in the sky.
He pulled out a piece of paper which read, "I have something to show you."
I followed Smiler and he led me to a kitchen knife, before handing it to me.
He carved into the wall, "Slice downwards."
I knew what this meant, he meant to slice down on my wrists.
I began to drag the blade across my arm, a little scared yet not too scared to draw blood.

I woke up yet again inside of an alleyway, covered in rats, roaches and rain, before Smiler appeared once again holding what appeared to be some sort of giant gummy bear, handing it to me and motioning to eat it.
I stared at it, it felt oddly warm.
Something was off.
I cautiously took a bite, before tasting a foul coat of fur and feeling liquid in my mouth.
I immediately spit it out, before looking at it.
It took me a second to realize, but the gummy bear wasn't a gummy bear...
It was a rat.
Suddenly, the rain started to pour heavily, and Smiler let out a raspy, dark and disgusting chuckle.
The rain felt heavier, and I noticed a foul stench...
As I sniffed the rain on my shoulder, I almost vomited, before realizing... it was raw sewage.
The filth splattered onto my clothes like blood to a wall, sticking onto me and still going strong.
Smiler emitted the inhuman laugh once more, before carving into the wall...

"SMILE!"

"What the hell is wrong with you, Dale?!" Ryan shouted as he came home to the trashed apartment, carvings all over the walls.
"I have something I've been meaning to ask you," I stated before rising up from the garbage, "How does one find happiness?"
"It doesn't come to you, Dale," Ryan explained as he sat his briefcase down, "It takes time. It takes effort. Not everyone has everything handed to them on a silver platter and I know sure as hell we don't, you even more than me. You have to get a job, Dale, you have to support yourself, you have to get the things that you desire and maybe at one point you will be happy. But you won't he happy digging up trash and carving smiley faces into the walls. It never gets you anywhere."
"You're right," I replied as I pondered his advice, before lifting myself off of the ground, "If I want to be happy I have to make myself happy."
"What are things that you like, Dale?" Ryan asked me before starting to clean up the mess Smiler caused.
"The paranormal, poetry, cigarettes," I listed off as he gave me a weird glance, "I like talking to people but they don't like talking to me. I hate being depressed."
"Write poetry, investigate the paranormal, stop smoking and talk to new people," Ryan told me, before tossing a garbage bag down the chute, "And whatever you do, Dale, don't give up."
"I always do."

When I awoke, I was standing over my own body, viewing from high in the air.
I knew this phenomenon when I saw it, so I looked at my hands and sure enough... I was Smiler once again.
I tapped my body to try and wake it up in a desperate attempt to escape, but right before I did my body suddenly burst out into laughter, chuckling in my face and coughing into it.
My body continued laughing, smiling as wide as humanly possible, before its mouth began to rip and tear at the seams, creating a smile of its own.
Now my body was laughing and crying at the same time, black tears rolling down its eyes as my mouth destroyed itself and I laughed uncontrollably.
"Are you having fun?" My body asked me in a slightly raspier version of my voice, "Are you happy yet?"
In a panic, I began to choke my body, holding it down as the life faded from it, but it fought back and bit me with teeth covered by no lips.
"Consume thyself," my body told me as it hissed an inhuman noise at me, "Eat the flesh of your own."
I screamed, and all that escaped was the gurgling, dark noise of Smiler, before everything faded to black.

I woke up in a parking lot with no clothes on, and next to me was another person.
I slowly rose from my concrete bed to check on whoever was beside me, but I soon noticed a large gash in his face.
Blood poured out of his wound, and his body was cold to the touch.
I was slathered in mud from head to toe, with nothing but a torn piece of cloth on me.
In the person's head, there was a carved smiley face.
It was Smiler.
I knew it had to have been Smiler, there's no way it wasn't.
I had 13 missed calls from Ryan, and as I listened to the voice mails something became evident.
I had been gone for a long time.
The voice mails started 4 weeks ago and ended the day before I woke up.
I had been gone for a month.
It was now December in the small city of Dirtville, Oklahoma, and the temperature dipped below zero multiple times while I was out.
Ryan figured I had killed myself but in reality, I had no clue what I was doing.
I stumbled into a nearby store and asked them if I was in Dirtville.
They said yes.
On the top right corner, I spotted a television with a news broadcast on it about the new smiley murders...
All 4 of them.
My blood ran cold as they pronounced a serial killer on the loose, and I knew that serial killer was Smiler.
"Can I get you anything?" The clerk asked me sarcastically, "Maybe some clothes?"
"That would be appreciated," I responded before leaning on the desk and listening to the reports.
"An elderly couple in downtown Dirtville noticed a strange noise coming from their neighbor's yard, so they checked out the window, and what they found was disturbing," the news anchor explained on TV, "They saw a grown man, naked and smiling with a grin that the couple insists could only be the work of The Devil."
On the screen there was a composite sketch, and the sketch didn't look like Smiler at all...
It looked like me.

"Something's wrong," I told the clerk when they walked back into the room, "They're saying I did the Smiley murders!"
"Well did you?" The clerk asked, before handing me my clothes.
"No, I swear to God I didn't do it," I stammered, "But I know who did... Or what did."
"Could you explain?" The clerk asked me, settling me in.
"Ever since I was a little kid, maybe 11 or 12, I've seen this creature following me. Most of the time it was once every couple months, but recently it's been getting worse and worse," I explained to the clerk, "I see it every day. That same goddamned smile, staring at me through my eyes and looking deep into my soul. He did the Smiley murders, I know that he did because I saw it."
"And what's this creature's name?" The clerk continued questioning as I explained my situation.

"His name is Smiler."