The Smiling Man

The Beach

I had already been to Pre-K before and had only one friend, Matt, but he wasn't going to my new school, so I started out with no friends. Not that I cared much, it's not like I couldn't make friends. Everyone could in Kindergarten. My dad was a teacher there and I already knew some kids. One was kid was named Jack, he was the son of the superintendent, but I had only talked to him one or two times, and he seemed like a jerk. My dad walked me into class the first day and the Jack kid wasn't in my class. I looked around to decide where to sit, and I saw a kid waving me over. I recognized him from one of my dad's meetings. He was the science teacher's kid. He was sitting with a blonde girl and no one else. I walked over because I had decided to sit with him. At least I knew him, his name was Ryan.

"Hi, I remember you, Colton right?" Ryan asked me, and I nodded. The way the desks were set up had two desks facing each other and another two desks facing each other right beside each other. Ryan waved down someone else behind me and another blonde girl came and sat down, her hair was curly unlike the other girl's.

"Hi, I'm Macy," said the girl with the straight blonde hair, "and that's Alexis, she doesn't talk much," she said, and my little brain was confused on how they already knew each other.

"We're teacher kids too, and we all went to this pre-school.You must have went somewhere else?" she asked me.

"Yea, I went to somewhere a few miles away," I said, "My dad sent me there because, well, really I don't know why," We all laughed a little bit. Kids would laugh over anything. I only really was good friends with Ryan the rest of that year, but I was still friends with the other two. Ryan and I did everything together, because we were best friends. I stayed over at his house a lot, and unlike me, he lived in the middle of nowhere, so we had woods to explore. Whenever he came to my house, we had nothing to do, so I always went to his. By this time, I didn't see much of the smiling person anymore, just some nights, and I had all but forgotten the encounter with him that night. So I just had fun with Ryan.

He lived by a pond and there was an abandoned house next to it. It was our own personal beach as we saw it, and the house was our beach house. The house was more like a hut really, just one room raised a bit off the ground, but it worked for me. I remember that it always changed after we left but I just assumed that Ryan went by himself when I was gone, that wasn't the case though. One time, we wanted to go at night, but we had to sneak out. Of course, it's not like it was that far away, and we were only six. Though it wasn't that hard to get out, just walk out the front door really. It wasn't locked or anything.

"You ready? This is gonna be so fun!" I heard little Ryan's voice say. It would have been great, and we would have got caught, but that would have been better than what actually happened. We got ready, in our swim suits and everything, and headed out. It was only a little bit into the woods, so it took about five minutes to get to our "beach" once we entered the woods. I grabbed the giant, heavy, blue flashlight we grabbed from our bag. I turned it on and we walked to our house and set up camp. We packed everything you needed to camp with: food, water, and stolen matches. The matches were to start a fire, and that's where we started. A fire. It was pretty big for two six year olds, but now that I think back, it wasn't unmanageable, just right for us.

"You sure we should start a fire? What if my mom sees it? We'll be in trouble," Ryan told me, and I should have listened. I still gathered dead leaves and wood and put it in the fire pit we made, which was just a circle of rocks. He started to help after a little bit, it doesn't take much to convince a six year old to do something. Once we had what looked like enough, I lit the match, and started the fire. For awhile, we just stood around and watched it. We were both surprised that it had actually worked. After ten or fifteen minutes of just watching the fire, I decided we needed snacks and drinks. I grabbed two bags of chips and two bottles of water for us out of the house, which was just a few feet from the fire. I grabbed the stuff and could swore I heard rustling coming from the back corner of the room, but I still thought I just had a hyperactive imagination, so I just wrote it off like it didn't happen. I walked out and Ryan wasn't there, but I heard splashing. I could see a little bit of the water from the faint glow of the fire, but I couldn't be sure, so I grabbed the flashlight. I pointed it where I saw the splashing.

"Ryan? Are you swimming? Ryan!" I called for a bit then something resurfaced.

"Ya, it's me, don't worry, I'm fine," He said, laughing because of how scared I had been.

"C'mon man, you can't scare me like that, you know what happened the other night," I told him, referring to the hair incident. His face went dark and he felt bad. I could see it in his eyes.

"Come in here, the water's great!" He said in his happy tone, since the sorryness had already left his system.

"Okay, I coming!" I said, because I wasn't mad anymore, and forgot why I was mad in the first place. I ran to the water and jumped in. It was just warm enough but not to hot. I loved it. We played for awhile but then I heard rustling behind me. We both turned and I saw a standing figure. It wasn't moving, just standing still. It had on feature though, a smile, a creepy, ominous smile that could devour you in one bite if it wanted to. It was right next to the fire and I realized what was in his hands, well, he had something in each. In his left hand, which closest to the fire, a bucket. In his right, he had a flashlight, our flashlight. I screamed and he dumped the contents of the bucket on the fire.

"Ryan, what are you doing!?" I screamed, because he was swimming in the direction of the person. I was swimming in the direction of the house, because that's where safety was.

"I need to talk to him," Ryan said, in a soft voice, which I could barely hear over my splashing. I got to the shore and had decided to go get Ryan, but I couldn't see in the darkness. I ran in their general direction and grabbed one of the rocks by the fire pit and armed myself. Of course a little six year old couldn't do much to a fully grown person, but I didn't know that at the time. I heard Ryan get up from the shore and ran to him.

"We have to go, we have to!" I yelled at him but he kept walking. I made an executive decision. I picked him up, but he kicked and screamed. I realized he was light enough to pick up, but thrashed too much, so I had to make another executive decision. I took my rock and hit him over the head. He fell into my arms and I started running as fast as I could to his house. Of course, with a person that ways almost as much as you in your arms, you can't go that fast. I got to the edge of the woods and decided I was going to tell him it was a crazy dream. Then I remembered the bag. Now, I wouldn't have gone back for the bag now but I did back then because I felt he would no it wasn't a dream if he went back and saw our bag. Plus, it was my school backpack, so I had to get it. I sat down Ryan and ran back to the house. I stood outside the door and ran in crying. I grabbed my bag but felt a blunt object hit me on the head, and I was knocked out cold.

I woke up to sunlight coming through the windows of our beach house.

"Oh my god, it was only a dream, I knew he wasn't real. I looked around for Ryan but he wasn't there with me. I grabbed my bag and walked out and saw his sleeping body at the edge of the woods and extinguished fire with a bucket and flashlight beside it. It hadn't been a dream. I ran and grabbed the flashlight. I looked at my arm because I felt a stinging pain. I had the number "4" carved into my skin.

"What, what's this," I had, confused once again. I ran over to Ryan, because my fear then was that if we didn't get back in time, we would be in trouble, that was my only concern back then. I shook Ryan awake, but before he awoke, I saw a number "5" carved into his arm. Both of our numbers were cut deep into our arms. I had to think of something to explain this to him and his parents. He woke up but I acted like I dropped a rock on his arm.

"C'mon man, you cut me," He told me.

"Yea, yea, wasn't last night fun?" I asked, to see if he remembered it.

"Yea, we swam and lit a fire, it was fun, but we need to get back before my parents wake up," I agreed and we headed back to his house, not to speak of that day for a long time.