The Smiling Man

Window Crawler

 I pulled the blankets back towards my body when I felt them being pulled off of me by my dad. The air felt colder than it had the night before, but my fan wasn't on. I checked the normally closed window by my bed. It was slightly open, just slightly. I cursed myself for leaving it unlocked, knowing someone from the outside had done it. It must have been one of the two stalkers that hunted me.

"First day of fourth grade," my dad said, with a fake excitement. I saw the dark circles resting under his eyes. He hadn't slept the night before. He hadn't been sleeping much this summer at all really.

"Why is it so cold in here?" He asked, rubbing his hands together as I got out of bed to grab my clothes I had gotten out the night before. I made a conscious effort to look as confused as he did. I hadn't told him about the stalkers because it would worry him out of his my mind and we would definitely move away. We would do that at the end of this year anyway though. He left and I got ready for school, closing my window in the process. I had already planned a sleep-over at Matt's house with Jack. We hadn't all been in one place too often because of conflicting times, so it would only be the second or third time we had all been together at a non-school related thing. We drove to school and I went to my first class, and this year we had multiple classes. I walked into a sad sight. Matt wasn't in this class, Jack was, but Matt wasn't. We had gotten lucky the past two years by all three having the same classes, but our luck must of ran out this year. Not that I believed in luck.

"Hey, Matt's not in this class, I already checked the student sheet outside her door just to make sure he wasn't late. You were on it, but Matt isn't," Jack ran up and told me as soon as I walked in. I had already also checked the student sheet, but I didn't want to burst his bubble, so I didn't mention it. I sat by Jack, trying to make the most of things and remembering that we having a sleep-over at some point in the near future, not that weekend though because of conflicting schedules. I had already mentally decided that we wouldn't go outside after dark because we had all had experiences that would haunt us forever. Well, not forever. I looked at my wrist and saw a fading number "4" faintly there. I hadn't had a physical experience since second grade with Matt, but I still got a chill any time I thought about it. I dreaded going to school anymore, it wasn't the same without Matt. Jack was there, but it still felt different.

After I painfully waded through two weeks of school, the time came that we would have a sleep-over. Matt ran in the room after school was over and my dad drove us from the school to Matt's house. Well, their new house. He had moved after the incident with the toothless man. His parents didn't know what happened, but they were still scared and didn't believe our story so they moved. We got there and Matt's dad greeted us at the door, but he was leaving for the weekend. We were staying until sunday night because there wasn't a reason not to.

"What you wanna do?" Matt asked when we got there, and Jack got a giant grin on his face. A malicious grin that meant he was up to no good.

"What," I asked, thinking that he was going to break the pact we made not to go outside after dark, and the sun was setting. He pulled a board out of his bag, the size of a Ouija Board.

"Is that what I think it is?" I asked getting excited, and Jack nodded his head. I had always wanted to try one, but my dad wouldn't ever let me use one because they scared him. Matt was getting excited to but his parents didn't say he couldn't. I didn't expect anything to happen, but they were still cool looking.

We laid it out after we locked Matt's bedroom door so his second grade brother wouldn't roam in. We did the starting stuff and started asking questions. We kept messing with each other and moving it ourselves, but after awhile I wanted to know if it actually worked, so I made them stop. It didn't work, but I did hear taps and knocks coming from his window. I thought it was my imagination, but I should have known better. We kept on going and time flew by without us knowing, and in what felt like ten minutes, it was 1 A.M. and we thought it was 8.

"Woah, maybe a ghost was messing with our minds and making us slow down time?" Jack said trying to be funny and scare us. It worked of course, it doesn't take much to amuse a fourth grader. Then a crash happened.

"What the hell just happened?" Jack asked as we turned our heads to the window. It wasn't broken but something had hit it hard. Then I heard the unlocked window start to slide open from the outside.

"You have a screen on your window right?" I asked in my terror filled voice.

"No," Matt whispered in a voice that wasn't scared, more interested.

"Go, now, let's go!" I screamed and grabbed them both by the arms. We left the room after unlocking the door just as a leg swung over the window under the curtain. We ran to Matt's little brother's room and closed the door and locked it. We could explain why we were sleeping in there because it was also the toy room, so we could say we were playing. I heard the door handle jiggle, and closed Matt and Jack's mouths because I knew they would scream. They weren't very persistent though, because they stopped after only a few seconds. Then I heard a scratching. A scratching that went on for what felt like hours. I knew what it was, exactly what it was. We fell asleep to the sound and were awoken to the screaming voice of Matt's mom.

"Why are there carvings in this door?" she asked pointing at the door that had been scratched into last night. While Matt explained I said I needed to go to the restroom and left, but only to see if my guess about was on the door was right. I was. The numbers 2, 3, and 4 were carved into the door the exact same way they were carved into our wrists.

The Summer Between Fourth and Fifth Grade

I overheard my dad and Matt's mom talking about something when I went over.

"I have to transfer him, I got a job in this new school and we have to move, I'm sorry," I stopped mid-sentence talking to Matt. I ran outside to where they were talking and looked at my dad.

"I'm moving schools?" I asked in an accusing voice. He nodded his head and I felt my world crumble around me. I wouldn't be at the same school as Matt or Jack anymore.