Smile Short Story

Chapter 1 Teddy's Birthday

In the Summer of 2008, it was my seventh birthday; my favourite day of the whole year. Whose favourite day isn’t your birthday, right? Considering it being my seventh birthday, it was initially a good luck number, well, following by what my mom said the day before my birthday.

She said that the number seven is one of the luckiest numbers ever. Which was probably the reason why I woke up at 5:00am in the morning from the excitement that excelled through my body. And then we waited for the times to pass, obviously doing fun in between before my party of course.

The party was hosted by my mom, six bounce houses scattered around on a fairly large hill in the area called point creek. In the eastern of America. It being a pretty desolate place, in a good way; peaceful being the word. I stand in front of my mom holding a camera in her hands. We always do this every birthday; starting it off with a photo, my parents wanted to do it on my birthday party for everyone to see me smile because she always says I had a nice smile.

‘Smile!’ My mom exclaimed, as my teeth appears, and my lips draws a smile. The light from the camera ignited, looking like a star of some sort from the shine, and it piercing my eyes, trying my best not to flinch for the camera. And then the flash disappeared, the picture rolled out of the camera like a tongue sticking out at me.

There was something else, in front of me, beside my mom in the distance in the forest, downhill. It was standing next to the tree, holding a balloon. It was a clown, it was roughly 9 feet tall, it had milk-white skin, no hair, no eyes, a colossal wide distinct inhumane-like smile ranging from earlobe-to-earlobe of the clown’s oval like ears, it also had a red spherical nose, oblong shaped head, yellow party hat with red stripes swirling to the top, a white ruffle around its neck, it wore a clown shirt that had yellow and red stripes going down the shirt and pants.

It was staring at me, as if it had a connection with my soul. A kid; one of my friends from primary school ran past, breaking my and the clowns eye contact from each other. As my friend has past, the clown was gone. I was confused, and then decided to blame on my imagination. I blamed it on my imagination because I would always get nightmares in my bed when sleeping and having a paranoia of monsters being under my bed. My mom would try to debrief the situation by letting me sleep with my mom and my dad. And tell me it is all in my head. She was right back then.

I went to go tell one of my friends Gabriel what I saw, just to spread some awareness, despite it likely being my imagination. ‘Gabe, I saw a clown!’ I said. ‘What like a party clown? That’s cool! Where is it?’ He exclaimed. ‘No, it isn’t what you think, like a killer clown!’ I sputtered. ‘You can’t scare me, Teddy.’ ‘No, I’m being serious I’m telling the truth!’ I spoke. ‘That’s exactly what a lair would say.’ My eyes shifted focus from his eyes, to the reflection of his glasses. And in the reflection, was the same clown. Looking over my shoulder. I span around swiftly, heart thundering in my chest . . . it was gone . . . again. ‘Are you okay?’ I span back around, opening my mouth about to tell him that I’m fine and that I’m going into the forest, to think and rest from my imagination playing tricks on me. But instead, ‘I just need a little me time.’

I sat on the grassy floor, my back leaning against the tree trunk. My hands pressed up against my forehead as I look down to the ground, as if I had a headache. Thinking about what I’ve witnessed back there. Terrified, stressed, perhaps traumatized. I looked up to the cobalt-blue sky, just to calm myself a bit.

But then I got afraid to look down to see what was there in front of me. I looked back down to the ground, closing my eyes. The weather had a dramatic change, it being windy. The moment I opened my eyes, was the moment I would never forget . . . There was that same clown still having the same balloon in its hand. It’s back turned towards me, walking towards the pitch-black tunnel.

The weather was brisk with a brief hint of fog comforting the air, and the wind dancing with the leaves. I stood up and approached the clown slowly. Every step, is another level of my heart beating faster. The clown stopped, I stopped to. The clown’s red balloon span around, and it spoke. ‘RUN.’

My eyes widened, ‘Can you do one thing for me?’ The clown spoke in a guttural and playful voice. ‘A-And what’s t-that?’ I asked. The clown began to turn around slowly. I know my imagination isn’t right. But there is one thing I am imagining that is correct. That, that clown has sinister and death written all over it. Its head twitching succinctly at me, as it simultaneously makes those cracking sounds that made my goosebumps stand on end, especially down my neck. Not like the smile already gave me it.

When it turned around. ‘And smile,’ its voice said deep and demonically. Its head began to twitch more, and its smile gotten a bit wider, despite it seeming impossible to say the least. And then it ran for me. I turned around as quickly as I could. Going to run away from it, but it was there. It grabbed my neck, and lifted me up.

That day, at that time was the last to hear of me, that day, my birthday, was the very day that I became, missing. And knowing that the clown looks at you in your eyes, sucking your soul. And the last thing to see from it was that massive smile. It always. Smiles.