The Smiling Man

The Road

I was being awoken by my dad early in the morning.

"What do you want?" I asked in an annoyed voice, because I had no idea why I was being woke up so early in the morning.

"Don't you remember? It's your first day of first grade, isn't that a hard thing to say?" He asked, but I stared at him because his attempt at comedy was disgraceful. I swung my legs over my small, twin size bed and grabbed the clothes I had laid out the night before. We always were over prepared, but my dad liked it, so it didn't really bother me, just a minor annoyance. My best friend, Matt, still hadn't got into my school, so I still didn't really want to go. Ryan and I hadn't talked much since the "beach", so here I was going into first grade friendless and bullyable. I didn't ride a bus because my dad worked at the school as a teacher, so I just rode with him, which was fine with me. I brushed my teeth and took a shower and did everything else to get ready for school. I looked down at my wrist and still saw the scar with the number "4" carved into my arm. It wasn't visible when I wore a hoodie, but it definitely was when I was wearing t-shirts, which I would be until it cooled down on October. So I normally just hid it with a band-aid, and my dad never questioned me about it. Ryan's "5" was still on his arm too, but he hadn't really talked to anyone since that happened. Even though he didn't remember, he still looked like he was haunted by something.

"You ready?" I heard my dad yelling from the first floor, just as I put a band-aid on.

"Yea, I'll be right down!" I yelled back, loud enough for the neighbors to hear probably. I ran down and hopped in the car, ready for torture, I mean school to begin.

I walked into class and noticed Ryan was there, so he was in another class, but there was what looked like a gang of seven year olds. I remembered who they were from last year, bullies. They all were a lot bigger than the rest of us, but they had never messed with me and Ryan. I don't know why, neither of us were big, but they never did. I did notice a new face in their group though, Jack. The superintendent's kid who I had spoken to only a few times at teacher meetings was in their gang. He was a lot smaller than all of them though, even smaller than I was, and he didn't look like a bully, he looked more like a nice guy. I was guessing he joined their group just not to get beat up, but I was wrong. I looked around and saw that none of my friends were in that class. I had a few others, Alexis, Macy, and a kid named Paul. We talked some, mostly only when Ryan was sick or didn't show up to school. Which happened a lot after I went over that last time. He missed at least ten days of school after that, and he always looked tired and scared. The bullies all looked evil, except Jack, who just looked confused.

All the desks had at least one person in them, so the option of sitting alone was off the table. I walked to a table with a girl and sat down. I knew she was quiet because she had been in my class last year, and I never heard her speak. I think her name was Alyssa, because of roll call in the mornings, and she did talk some, just not a lot.

"Mind if I sit here?" I asked Alyssa, and she nodded, but didn't speak. I grabbed my folder and got ready for class. The day went by fast, and so did the next few weeks, until I befriended Jack in an odd sequence of events.

"Hey you little dumbo," One of the bullies yelled at me outside the cafeteria. I kept walking of course because this was a daily thing. The five real bullies would all throw insults and Jack would stand behind them looking like a lost puppy. They hadn't tried to beat me up, until this day.

"Don't ignore me you dummy," One of them said, but their insults were terrible, so they didn't affect me. Then I felt the pain of a rock hitting the back of my head, and I hit the ground.

"What the?" I asked in confusion, because they hadn't ever done anything like that to me before.

"What are you doing man, you just said you were gonna call him names, you can't d-" It was Jack but I heard his body hit the ground. I got up and grabbed the rock that hit me in the back of the head and walked over. Jack was lying on the ground, bleeding from the top of his head, knocked out.

"What did you do?" one of the bullies said to the guy who hit Jack. I took the rock in my and and hit him with it on the shoulder
"Ow, stop, I just didn't want him to think he could back talk me," he said as if he was their king. The other bullies ran off and I just chucked the rock as hard as I could at his chest.

"Ow!" he screamed. I picked up Jack and walked him to the infirmary, and I noticed the amount of blood pouring out of his head. It was a lot. When I got to the infirmary, the nurse said she could fix him up and I could leave. So I went on with school.

"Hey, sorry about those kids, they're not my friends, I just couldn't get out of their group once I was in, and I was was wondering if you wanted to be friends. I'm guessing they'll let me out now," Jack said to me as I walked out of my class and went to the bathroom.

"Yea, I need some friends now, I haven't had one since, well it's been awhile I guess," I said, because I didn't want to bring up Ryan again. I needed a friend since I hadn't gotten much sleep since the beach, but I also just needed a friend to talk to. So I decided it would be okay.

I started staying with Jack and his mom everyday after school and always went to his house on the weekends. I only saw the smiling person when I was at my house, and only outside my window, it hadn't come in my house since my hair disappeared so I wasn't sleeping, but I wasn't super scared.

"Hey, wanna see my science project?" Eli, who was one of Jack's other friends.

"Sure," I would say. I knew he took pride in his science since it was his favorite subject. It was a sculpture of a tower made entirely out of sugar cubes. I was going home with Jack that day, and was ready to go. His mom had finally agreed to letting Jack and I to sleep overnight in his woods, and we could explore the whole time. That's what we loved to do, explore. It would be the first time sleeping outside since the night with Ryan, and I thought I was ready, I was wrong once again.

"Ready to go?" Jack asked after we had all our supplies. He had a phone just in case, but his mom didn't know that the sim card was broken, which we did, but we just felt like rebels doing it without a connection to the outside world.

"Bye mom," Jack said, happy as ever.

"Bye," his mom said to us. We walked out of his house and into his woods. We swam in a creek for a while, then kept going.

"It's getting dark, we. Woah look!" Jack said. He was pointing towards something that I couldn't make out. Then I saw it. It was the edge of the woods.

"Woah, let's go look!" I said. We were both really excited and saw a road.
"Look, a road," Jack said, surprised.

"And an abandoned house. Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Jack had asked me. He wanted to sleep there, but I really didn't. I thought that if I didn't agree, he wouldn't be my friend anymore. Now I know that wasn't the case, but I didn't back then.

"Sure, let's g-" I started to say, but I heard rustling behind me.

"Woah, let's get over there," He said, because he could hear it too.

We made it over to the house and set up our blankets and pillows. We had crossed a road, but no one ever was on that road at night, so we weren't in any danger. Well at least not in any danger of getting hit by a car.

"You ready to sleep? It's late," I asked Jack, but he was already asleep. We both went asleep in the living room, even though there was extra rooms, we were way to scared to sleep in separate rooms in an abandoned house.

"Oh my god!" I woke up to Jack screaming. He wasn't where he went to sleep, but he was in the house somewhere.

"Jack?" I asked, and got a reply quickly.

"Back here," he said, coming from the hallway. I walked down it and to what looked like a bathroom.

"Look outside, there's someone there, and it has a big smile. What is it?" Jack asked, and my heart sank. I hadn't told Jack about my stalker in fear of losing him. So it wasn't my imagination. Jack was the first person to actually see the smiling person other than me. It started walking towards us. Jack passed out, but I didn't, I guess I was used to it. I heard the front door open, then it slammed shut.I heard footsteps then I blacked out from the fear.

"Woah! We have to get out of here before he gets us, and look at our arms. You have a "4" and I have a "3". What's this, and there was a person last night with a smile, we have to go," Jack woke me up yelling it at me. He was waving his forearm at me and sure enough, there was aa "3". I looked at my arm and where my scar had been was a fresh cut. It was another "4". All our belongings were also strewn across the floor.