The Smiling Man

About five years back I lived downtown in a big American city. I've always been a night owl, and my roommate very much was not, so most nights I'd end up wide awake and restless after he'd gone to bed. My solution was simple: I'd go out walking. For hours sometimes. Just me and the empty streets and whatever was rattling around in my head.

I did that for four years. Four years of wandering around alone after midnight, and not once did I ever feel unsafe. I used to joke with my roommate that even the drug dealers in our neighborhood were polite. You get a certain rhythm to it, walking the same dark blocks night after night. You start to feel like the city belongs to you at that hour, like nothing in it could surprise you.

That feeling died in about five minutes, on a single night.

It was a Wednesday, sometime between one and two in the morning. I was a good distance from my apartment, cutting past a park that had regular police patrols. It was quiet, even by weeknight standards — barely any cars, almost nobody on foot. The park itself was dead empty, the way it always was.

I turned down a short side street to loop back toward home, and that's when I saw him.

At the far end of the street, on my side of the sidewalk, there was the shape of a man. Dancing.

It wasn't normal dancing. It looked a little like a waltz — that boxy, turning pattern — except at the end of every box he'd take this strange little lunge forward. He was dance-walking, basically. And he was coming straight at me.

I figured he was drunk. I hugged the curb to give him most of the sidewalk, and as he got closer I started to notice how weirdly graceful he was. He was very tall and thin, dressed in an old suit that hung off his frame. And then I could see his face.

His eyes were open so wide they looked like they might fall out of his head. Wild. His head was tipped back just slightly, like he was staring up at the sky — except there was nothing up there to look at. And his mouth. His mouth was stretched into this enormous, painful-looking cartoon grin, way wider than a face should ever go.

Between the eyes and that smile, I decided I didn't want him getting any closer. I crossed the street.

I had to look away to cross — it was an empty road, but you still watch your feet — and when I reached the other side I glanced back.

I stopped cold.

He wasn't dancing anymore. He was standing with one foot out in the street, lined up exactly parallel to me. He was facing me, but his head was still tipped back, still staring at the sky. The smile hadn't moved.

I was completely unnerved. I started walking again, but I kept my eyes locked on him. He didn't move. Not a twitch. I put maybe half a block between us, and then I turned away for just a second to check the sidewalk ahead of me.

Empty. Nothing there.

I looked back at where he'd been standing.

He was gone.

For about half a second I felt relieved. And then I saw him.

He'd crossed the street. He was on my side now, slightly crouched down. It was dark and he was far enough away that I couldn't make out the details, but I knew — I was absolutely certain — that he was facing me. I hadn't looked away for more than ten seconds. There was no normal way he could have covered that ground that fast.

I just stood there, stunned, staring at him. And then he started coming toward me again.

He was taking these huge, exaggerated steps up on his tiptoes, like a cartoon villain sneaking up on somebody. It should have looked ridiculous. It didn't. Because he was moving incredibly fast.

I'd love to tell you that I ran, or pulled out my pepper spray, or grabbed my phone — anything useful at all. But I didn't do any of that. I just stood there, frozen solid, while the smiling man crept closer and closer.

Then he stopped. About a car length away from me. Still grinning that grin. Still staring up at the sky.

That's when I finally found my voice. What I wanted to say, what I tried to say in the angriest, most commanding tone I could manage, was "What do you want?!" What actually came out of my mouth was a thin little whimper: "Whaaat…?"

You know how they say animals can smell fear? I don't know about that. But people can definitely hear it. I heard it in my own voice, and hearing it only made me more terrified. He didn't react at all, though. He just stood there. Smiling.

And then, after what felt like an eternity, he turned around — very, very slowly — and started dance-walking away. Just like that, like nothing had happened.

I wasn't about to turn my back on him, so I stood there and watched him go. I watched until he was far enough down the street to be almost out of sight.

And that's when it hit me. He wasn't getting smaller anymore. He wasn't dancing, either. I watched the distant shape of him get bigger and bigger, and I understood, all at once, that he was coming back toward me.

And this time he was running.

So I ran too.

I ran until I was off that side street and back on a wider road with actual streetlights and a few cars going by. I spun around, gasping — and he was just gone. Nowhere. The rest of the walk home I kept jerking my head around to check behind me, bracing myself to see that stupid grin floating in the dark. It was never there.

I lived in that city for another six months after that night. I never went out walking again. Not once.

His face still gets to me when I think about it. He didn't look drunk. He didn't look high. He looked completely and utterly insane. And let me tell you — that is a very, very scary thing to see.