Two Days Ago

I really should have known better… I mean, if you’re being stalked by a supernatural serial killer who is out for your blood, you don’t stay home alone. And that’s exactly what I did, because… I’m an idiot. I thought there’d be more warning than that, another appearance of the Smiler. No such luck. I’m just thankful I’m still alive…

Right, so… Two days ago. That’s when it started, right after school… I had gotten home a bit early. Mom had called me, saying she was picking up my brother and sister for a doctor’s appointment. I… still don’t know why I went there alone. I should have stayed with Lois and Will…

Everything was normal for the first few minutes. I fixed myself a sandwich and was going to get started on homework. But… after a little while, something felt off. It was… too silent. No birds chirping, the neighbor’s dog wasn’t barking for once… Even passing cars made less noise than they normally do.

I started walking through the house, wondering if it was just the room cutting off the sound from outside. And then I started to hear something else – footsteps. My first thought was that they were just an echo, but… I’d hear them even when I wasn’t walking. I tried to pinpoint the sound and determined that it must be coming from upstairs… And then I realized that this was the new house and we didn’t have a second story. Someone was walking on the roof.

And then it stopped, just like if you snapped your fingers. I checked outside to see if it was some sort of animal (I knew it wasn’t, ugh I’m so stupid) but couldn’t see anything up there.

I walked back inside and… I felt this presence behind me. It’s that kind of feeling you get when you know you’re being watched, the kind when you know you’re not alone in the room. I started walking down the hallway and I could feel the floor behind me press down as if someone was stepping on it.

I turned around.

Nothing there.

I was startled at the sound of my brother’s stereo turning on. Static came out at first, and then it gradually became the sounds of children laughing… It sounded like the sort of thing you’d hear within a playground, I guess. I stepped into my brother’s room, going to turn it off… but I started to notice something else about the laughing. It… it sounded like it at first, but I listened more, and they… the children were screaming. Wailing at the top of their lungs… I… I don’t know why it took me so long to do it before, but I got out my cell and started to call the police. I backed into the hall, staring at my brother’s room in horror as the sounds of screaming became the only sound I could hear.

And…

And I felt it behind me, blocking the hallway. I… I had bumped into it..

The thing’s… arms… they wrapped around me in this mockery of an embrace. I felt it rest it’s head on my shoulder (if that’s even possible with its mouth..), and… there was this sickly sweet smell, an overpowering scent of flowers. I wanted to gag, but… Oh, gosh, just thinking about it makes me smell them again. ;_;

I couldn’t move if I wanted to.

It reached its… ‘hand’ out (I use the term ‘hand’ loosely, because all I saw was a long sleeve) and it took my phone. In my shock, I hadn’t even managed to call the police. Stupid, stupid, stupid…

I started to feel it move down the hallway, dragging me with it. It was like coming out of a daze, that tiny little movement… I started praying at first, then tried to work my hand in my pocket…

“Hey,” I heard someone call.

It was so… unexpected. I thought… well, I thought we were alone…

The thing let me go, throwing me against the wall. I… got a better look at it, though I’m not sure if I want to remember it anymore.

It looked like the guy the police had caught last year – Wallace? - but… the proportions of its face were off. The smile seemed to be normal when you looked at it from the side, but when I turned my head to the point where its face was in front of me, the smile was larger than its head. Its eyes were worse, though… I couldn’t see them, but I just felt this wrongness each time I tried to look up at them. The… best thing I can think of describing it… It’s like a different cartoon. Like… you’re watching a cartoon and all of the characters look like they’ve been drawn the same way, but suddenly there’s a new character who has been drawn and animated in a different style and you don’t immediately notice it, but you realize that something’s off.

It was wearing something different than the other times I had observed it… It was wearing a dark brown corduroy jacket with a red pin in the shape of a heart – and I believe there was something like a white flower in the middle of the pin – attached to its collar. It was wearing dark blue jeans with splotches of red… I don’t want to think about that tiny detail, though…

I turned away from it, looking at my rescuer. I recognized him almost immediately.

“Arthur-”

“Looking for me, right?” he said to the Smiler. He didn’t even turn to look at me. “Here I am. Just remember what happened to the other one.” And then he took out a knife from his jacket pocket.

The Smiler started walking towards him, its lips parting. And… oh dear God, the teeth… It was like seeing a shark’s maw, except multiplied by infinity…

I reached into my pocket and took out the mace that one of my commenters had suggested, spraying it right into the thing’s face. In retrospect… this wasn’t a good idea, especially because the thing doesn’t have eyes like we do. It stopped and I swear I heard it chuckle before it continued down the hallway.

I felt someone grab me from behind, putting a hand over my mouth. He dragged me down the hall and into my room.

“Well, that’s not the dumbest thing you’ve done today, but it was brave.”

The voice came from a man in his late thirties or early forties. He was unshaven, haggard, and his clothes had patches all over them. In his other hand he carried a revolver. He let me go, placing a finger to his lips as a way of saying “Keep quiet”. He went to the door and looked out of it. I could hear the sounds of a scuffle going on in another part of the house.

“Stay here,” he said. And I was left alone again. I backed into the farthest corner of my room, trying to find anything to protect myself with. The sounds of the fight started to come closer, and just as I took out the pocket knife in my backpack, Arthur was thrown through the door.

The Smiler walked through the doorway, and I could hear that sound again – almost like a chuckle, but it wasn’t coming from the Smiler. It was… it seemed to be coming from everything around us, like objects were moving and forming together to make a sound like a chuckle.

Arthur jumped to his feet and started to back up. “Well,” he replied; I could tell he was out of breath at this point. He looked as if he were about to say something else, but closed his mouth. He brought his knife out in front of him, but there was no way he was going to win against that… thing. And he knew that, as well; I could tell by the look on his face.

“You’d think these things would be more aware of their surroundings.”

A gun went off.

The Smiler looked… startled. Something about it changed – the confident pose, I guess – and it turned around. The older man was standing there, revolver pointed at it. Arthur took his chance, plunging his knife into the spot where a human’s heart would be.

And then… there was this… sound, this pitch. It’s similar to that noise when you put a microphone near a speaker, or two microphones together… that high pitch sound. It made me collapse on the ground, clutching my ears. And just like that, it was over. The Smiler was gone, and Arthur and the older man were sitting on the floor, breathing hard.

“Two down,” Arthur whispered, placing the knife in his jacket pocket. He winced, and I could tell there was a large gash on his chest. The older man took a glance at it and tilted his head. “Tried to rip it out,” Arthur replied, getting to his feet. The older man nodded and did the same.

“We need to get out of here, Art. If the neighbors didn’t hear the scuffle, they heard the shot.” The older man turned to look at me, but said nothing. Arthur nodded and glanced at me, as well.

“Sarah, I’ll explain everything later. You’re safe for the time being – that thing isn’t going to come back for a little while.” I didn’t reply; I was… in shock, I guess. Arthur smiled at me. “You’re going to be okay. Update your blog so I know you can meet somewhere.”

And like that, the two were gone, out the back door.

I… I don’t know how they got in, or how they were suddenly there to help me out, but I’m not complaining. I could be dead – or worse – if not for them.

The police arrived within a few minutes. I… couldn’t tell them everything, of course. They understood, I believe. Mom, Drew, and Jane appeared a little while later. Mom was in hysterics, asking what had happened and crying… Jane didn’t even know what was going on and started crying, as well. Drew was silent, looking at the house. I… I think he figured it out before the other two.

Anyway… we’ve been moved into a hotel. “For our safety,” they said. Yeah, right…

Well, Arthur, if you can see this… I’m going to be at the church. Meet me there, I guess.

To everyone else:  I’ll update later tonight/tomorrow on my meeting with Arthur.