Smile

I hate my life. I just made some new friends at this stupid school, and now I have to move again because of my father’s stupid new job. We’re moving to the other side of the country. I just wish we could stay in a town for more than a few months, but no. Every job just gets better and better, so we have to move. I’d been doing some research on the new town we were moving into. I’ll just say that there are some pretty messed up headlines for this place. Most of them about kids going insane, some murders here and there. Nothing shocks me anymore considering some of the places that I’ve been.

When we arrived, I got out of the U-Haul truck, and looked up at the huge mansion-looking house.

“Really? Is a house this big necessary for your ‘needed office space’?” I say in sarcastic tone, looking at the dead grass surrounding this house.

“Jordan, watch your tone!” My mother hisses at me.

“He’s just going through his puberty years.” My dad says, chuckling under his breath.

“Doesn’t matter. He shouldn’t be disrespectful.” My mom says, and I walk into the house carrying my things. I I look around the dark house, and at the peeling wallpaper on the walls. There are still several pictures of the old family that lived here before they left. My parents walk into the house behind me holding some of their stuff, and I look at them questioningly.

“Do you know what happened to the family that was here? Back in 1950-something?” I ask.

“We do, but can we discuss it at dinner? We should get most of our stuff away first.” My father says, and I agree. I walk upstairs, pick a smallish square room, and set my boxes down. I look around the empty room, and put my hands in my hoodie pockets. Along one wall, there are three windows. Two are square, and one is an oval. On the opposite wall, there are two wooden closet doors that look like they could turn to ash at the touch. There is a small bed along the wall next to the closet doors, and a huge wall space. I open the box with my posters of bands, and look up. A boy, who looks to be about 17 or 18, was standing in front of me. He had dark hair, blue eyes, and an ugly stained blue shirt with a black jacket. He wore ripped jeans, and brown muddy boots.

“O-Oh. I didn’t know someone was in here..” I said cautiously, standing up. The boy just looked at me. He didn’t say a word, and he didn’t move a muscle. He just stared at me.

“You gonna talk, or..?” I said, inspecting him a bit. He looked like a normal teen. Except for his unnaturally thin body and pale skin, and the bottom half of his face is covered by a mask.

“Okay… Well I think it’s time you left,” I say as I bend down to pick up another box to set it on the bed. When I stand back up, I’m the only person in the room. Everything is normal, except for muddy boot prints where the boy was standing.

“That’s…odd…” I look around the floor to see if he left anything else, but there were no other prints. I look over at the bed, and see a bit of white sticking out from under the sheets. I walk over to the bed, pull out the paper, and turn it over to see a photo. A photo of a family. There was a mother, father,two sons, and a daughter. Almost immediately, I recognize one of the sons. It was the boy who was just in my room. I turn the photo over again, looking for a date.

“July 18th, 1952…” I read aloud to myself, and I look around the room once more. That’s… impossible. I know what happened to this family. They were killed. I wanted to tell my parents this, but of course ‘it has to wait till dinner’. I know that it was one of the children that murdered the family, but I just… I just can’t remember which one it was… Joseph, I think. That’s all I can remember from my research about this family. I set the remaining boxes on my bed, and unpack. I open the closet doors carefully, and see that there is still some old clothes from the family. The top half of a mask, some jackets and button down shirts, and some pairs of shoes and boots. I put my clothes on the hangers inside, and put them away. I also put some stuff that has no place in my room on a shelf at the top of the closet.

We decided to get takeout from a nearby Japanese restaurant. As I scarf down some teriyaki chicken and fried rice, my mothers says something quite interesting.

“Jordan, we know you’ll hate us for this,” She begins, as I look up at her.

“The family that was here before us… They were murdered..”

“Oh. I knew that already.” I say, and go back to eating my chicken.

“What? Excuse me, but I don’t remember-” My father starts, but remembers about my obsession with history.

“You did your research, didn’t you..” He says, looking down.

“Of course! Can’t move into a new house without any kind of warning without doing research.” I say, eating more chicken and rice.

“Did you know that one of the sons were convinced that he was telekinetic?” I say with a bit of a chuckle. My parents can’t help but laugh a bit, too. After dinner, we go to our bedrooms, and sleep.

After having several awful nightmares of rapid, flashing images, I jumped up awake, at around 2 AM. I look around the room, then rub my eyes. I look at my feet, to see a doll at the foot of my bed.

“The fuck..?” I say quietly to myself, not wanting to wake up my parents. I slowly sit up, and lean over to the doll. It’s beady eyes seem to… follow me. I pick it up, look at it, and throw it under my bed. When I go to sit up on the bed, the boy from earlier is right in front of me. His face is inches from mine. I yelp, and jump back. After a minute…

“Wait… are you..?” I ask in a whisper.

“My name… is Joseph…” I hear a voice from behind me say. It was raspy and low in tone, and was creepy in general.

“You’re the..”

“Yes, I am…” He says, without moving his mouth.

I start to tremble. He should be dead. This shouldn’t be happening.

“Oh, I’m dead alright. And don’t worry. You can join us.” He says. He takes off the mask, to reveal a terrifying smile. It stretches from ear to ear, and it’s held shut with stitches. He opens his mouth to show his full smile, and breaks the stitches in the process. Black chunky blood starts oozing out of the cuts in his cheeks, and he holds up his hand.

“You’ll just need some… modifications..” He says, smiling evilly. I start to back up, but hit the headboard of the bed. He spreads his fingers, and my mouth opens. He slowly clenches his fist, and my cheeks start to burn. I start to scream as the corners of my lips get torn in half. Surely enough, my dad bursts through the door.

“Who the hell are you?!” My father screams. He grabs his shotgun, and fires. The bullets pass straight through the creature on top of me, and the black blood drips on me. The creature clenches his fist harder, and my cheeks get even more torn. My father runs up, and hits this thing in the head with the butt of the gun. He falls back, and grunts in pain.

“Jordan, get out of here! Go to your mother!” My dad yells. I get up, and run to my parents’ bedroom. I grab my mothers arm, and hide in the closet with her. We hide behind layers of clothes. I can see my mother and a sliver of the door to the bedroom. We are completely silent, a warm blood drips down my cheeks and onto my shirt. The black blood from that… that thing is still on me. We hear three shots of the gun, then a loud thud. After a few seconds, that demon walks into the room, holding my father’s arm. He drops my dead dad the the ground, and wipes his bloody hands on his jeans. I look at my mother, who is crying into her shirt, and hold one finger to my lips. She nods, and covers her mouth. Joseph, as he calls himself, smiles again. He walks over to the closet, and opens the doors. My and my mother hold my breath.

“You humans are so idiotic.” He holds his hand up, snaps his fingers, and my mother gets dragged out of the closet. He holds his hand up, and my mother practically levitated into the middle of the room. He makes some sort of twisting motion with his hands, and my mother’s legs snap backwards. She gives out a blood curdling scream, and I cover my ears and cry. This is just a dream… This can’t be real… This is impossible! My mother drops to the floor, and, with one foot, Joseph steps on her throat. My mother’s screams go silent as I watch the life escape from her eyes.

“Two down, One to go.” Joseph says in his low, demonic voice. He gives out a loud cackle. He takes out a needle and thread, and starts to sew his own mouth up again. I pull out my phone, and silently call 911.

“Hello. This is 911. What’s your emergency?” The dispatcher asks.

“H-Help me.. There’s… There’s someone in my house…” I say in a whisper. I look at Joseph as he finishes stitching his mouth.

“Alright. We are tracking your address now, and the police should be there in about 5 minut-” My phone’s battery depletes.

“Dammit!” I whisper yell to myself.

I’m a goner. I think he sees me. His blue eyes are staring at me through my closet door. I can see his stitches that line his psychotic smile, and they make me sick. I can see the dark energy flowing from his hands as he looks at me. I don’t know how long I’ll survive anymore. The police should be here in 5 minutes, but I know he’ll have me dead before then. I hold back tears as I see my mother sprawled across the floor, her broken legs out of view. He holds up his hand, and she goes flying away, out of sight.

“Mom!” I scream, covering my mouth right after. He looks at the closet, and walks towards me.

“I know you’re in here, you little brat!” He says as he rips the closet doors apart. I scream for someone, anyone, to come and help, but everyone’s dead. He grabs my arm, and throws me out of the closet. My head crashes against the window, and cracks the thick glass. He walks over to me, his brown stained boots making prints on the hardwood floor. He raises his hand, clenches it into a fist, and the last thing I hear is my neck snapping, and everything went black.