The Smiling Man In Black
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The Smiling Man In Black

The Smiling Man In Black: story facts
Published on Creepypasta.com April 2008
Length 833 words · about 4 minutes to read
Story level Short
Reader rating 8.5/10 from 1,046 votes
Category Beings and Entities
4 minute readClassicQuick Read













Rating: 8.55/10. From 1.05K votes.
Vote breakdown
  1. 10588 (56.2%)
  2. 9184 (17.6%)
  3. 868 (6.5%)
  4. 755 (5.3%)
  5. 624 (2.3%)
  6. 523 (2.2%)
  7. 419 (1.8%)
  8. 322 (2.1%)
  9. 214 (1.3%)
  10. 149 (4.7%)
How scary was it?

When I was younger, I lived with my father and his mother. I was the only child, a girl at that, and my father was very protective of me. My grandmother, on the other hand, hated me. At first, she would just yell at me and shove me around when dad was at work. It escalated, quickly after he started working longer house to make ends meet. I rarely saw my father at that point. For 4 years, she did things I can’t even bring myself to really think about, not enough to write it. For those 4 years, I prayed and prayed for release. I prayed and wished for her to die. To God, to whoever would listen. My dad probably would have believed me if I’d had a chance to talk to him, but she’d made me feel as though I were an abomination over the years that, I couldn’t bear it anymore. After she killed my kitten and made me bury it, at the age of 13, I attempted suicide by hanging myself inside my closet.

Apparently, I didn’t know what the fuck I was doing and the bar in the closet that I tied myself to fell on my head and knocked me the fuck out. I pulled myself up and headed to sneak into the bathroom without the monster cunt to catch me and give me another beating. As I left my bedroom, I caught a whiff of something very fucking rancid, like vomit, burning flesh, and blood, mixed together, warm. I knew all of these smells fairly well, considering what my grandmother did to me, and I thought for a moment it might have been my imagination, or her making something disgusting for me to eat to torture me more. While I recognized the seperate smells in a way, I’d never smelled something like this.

As I got closer and closer to the stairs overlooking the living room, which was right across from the bathroom, I started to hear something. Faintly, I remember hearing it a few feet back, but suddenly it seemed so much louder. My head was pounding, my heart was pounding, and all I could hear was gurgle, smack smack, squish squish, RIIIIIIIIIP. The mere idea of peeking over the stairs and into the living room was suddenly so profoundly frightening that I almost just went back into my bedroom, but strangely enough, it was amazingly easy to just do it anyway.

What I saw in the living room will never leave me for as long as I live, in more than one sense.

Also read: The Devil Game

My grandmother was lying on the ground. There was someone wearing black kneeling over her. They were both covered in blood. The person’s head was moving rhythmically over its hands, which held what I the relized was some organ in her body. The person didn’t look up, and I was scared silent.

There was so much blood. So, so much blood.

The sound of gnawing, the smacking mouth, the snapping of her organs at they were ripped from my grandmother’s body (what was left of it), the brutally grotesque sight of her chest cavity having been torn open, of her body being consumed little by little filled me with terror I had never known before. I didn’t know what to do. It ate her body, slowly, seeming to enjoy every bite it took, its body swaying and moving so unnaturally that I couldn’t even think it was human.

I couldn’t stop watching, I couldn’t run away, the sheer terror of it choked the scream I would have let out. It stopped, I stopped. It looked up at me after what seemed an eternity, releasing the contents of its mouth. Gorey pieces and blood, some brown at that point, covered most of its face. What I could see of the face, it seemed to be male, very pale in patches. Where eyes were supposed to be were black pits, pits that seemed to dilate, expand and retract. He had no lips, but his mouth twitched, like some kind of hologram going in and out, slowly smiling, the smile expanding beyond normal human ability. I vomited and fainted.

I woke up, my father was home and worrying over me. My grandmother’s body was gone along with all of the blood. “Where’s grandma? Where is she?” I kept asking him, until I had to stop, from the look in his eyes. He told me her heart was bad, and she was “in heaven now”. I couldn’t believe it. That was impossible, right? Did I imagine that whole thing?

At her funeral, on the way to her burial site, I saw the man again. He looked more human, but I knew it was him. I remembered that smile. That day, I smiled back.

I still have dreams about that man, sometimes I think I see him in public. Even when I don’t see him, I can feel him there. He’s always there, watching me.

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182 Comments

  1. This is one good creepypasta. I want to know what happens afterwards, though. Does he stalk her, waiting for a chance to kill her himself? Or does he act as her guardian sentinel for the rest of her life?

  2. The thing here is, the poster of this story is a regular on /x/, and treats this story as if it were fact. They’ve referenced it several times in their posts, and although almost everyone is skeptical, they’ve stuck to their guns.

    Maybe, just maybe, the creepypasta we read on here have some basis in fact sometimes.

  3. I was about to say I felt sorry for grandma when I re-read it and realized she was a evil bitch.
    Where can I purchase on off these people-eating guardians?

  4. pretty good. nice story, quite subtle though.
    it’s actually good that it ended up that way rather than having a cliche twist ending.

  5. Very good story! Another twist could be that the man in black turns out to be the father. Last two lines could have been omitted, still great entertainment!

  6. amazing story. i’ve read it three or four times on different occasions and each time it’s creeped me out to the point where i’ve had to turn around and look behind me, even if it’s daylight in a well lit room.
    awesome job.

  7. First creepypasta that sent shiver’s down my spine. Also, who cares if there’s offensive language in there, the girl had a messed up life. What do you expect from her? Speaking proper English?

  8. This seems like the classic fairy tale to me. Young girl is abused by an older female relative. Something bad happens to older female relative. Girl has happier life. The End. This flow gives the reader closure, and the girl smiling back makes for a very good twist on a “happy ending.”

  9. I’d hang out with the man in black. He sounds like he’s a pretty cool guy, eh mutilates an evil grandma and doesn’t afraid of anything.

  10. I love how the girl smiled back at the end. No matter which way you read this story, it always seems to come out to the same conclusion – something came to her defense in the most gruesome way possible.

  11. This was a great story, with a great plot.

    A demon who kills an abusive grandmother in a horrific display of blood and gore… turns out to be simply answering the prayers of a girl who can’t stand her life in a household where she is mentally and physically abused.

    A guardian angel, demon, or otherwise, it seems that this entity had sympathy for this young girl, or maybe he just has a taste for darkened shriveled, souls. Either way, the grandmother deserved it, the girl needed it to happen, and the entity liked the taste. It’s a win-win.

    1. That’s exactly what my comment had, but I worded it differently. What I thought happened was that the little girl had a Guardian Angel. After seeing her attempt suicide, poor thing couldn’t bear to see the pain any longer. So it probably hired a Demon to manifest into a physical form and “dispose” of the grandma. Probably felt guilty about doing it, but it knew that it had to be done.

  12. Long Creepypasta = awesome. I wish there were more CPs that had the balls to draw you in like that. Reminded me of the “Are You Afraid Of The Dark” style of storytelling. Well done.

  13. Good one, it would have been better if it had the twist that the kid WAS the demon, possessed by the spirits as a result of his attempted suicide and desperation. That could be a movie plot…

  14. That was interesting. Now if only we could have someone like that in real life to help the people who really need it.

  15. What the fuck is up with all these people complaining about foul language in these stories? Did someone leak this site to a bunch of christian private schools or something? Fucking Crhist on a stick.

    1. It’s not that it’s offensive, but it comes off as childish. It seems like the writer – and you – are trying to sound cool and edgy by using “fuck” a lot. It’s sad, and in no way compensates for actual writing skills. I enjoyed the story, it was decent, but no one past 7th grade is impressed by swearing.

      It’s not that swearing can’t give a story some depth, but this was not the case. If for example a character is walking by an alley at night and sees the smiling whatever in this story standing there, shouting “oh fuck!” before starting to run makes absolute sense.

  16. Person above me, get over yourself and learn to spell. Fowl = Foul. Write = Right. You = 13 year old boy. Just STFU and GTFO unless you’re actually going to contribute fucking something.

  17. I’m having trouble even reading this. It’s horribly (I stress horribly) written to the point where I can’t take it seriously, there is FAR too much fowl language, and it just sounds terrible. I’m going to finish it, and after this paragraph what I post will be written AFTER I read it, but so far it’s just… bad.

    I was write to feel that way. The second half is written better, but jesus clean up that first section, it’s appalling. Not a bad story, but jeeze…

    1. I do agree about the foul language in the second paragraph but other than that I think its a really good story, I give it 9 out of 10.

    2. There was like 4 instances of words considered foul. If you are offended by those words then you shouldn’t be on this website. The story was written well, if you have such a harsh opinion of this story then ignore it and move on, or even better, get off the god damn website. This is a horror story website, meant for people over the age of 18 or someone who has their parent’s permission and can handle this stuff. If you don’t like the fact that someone said an adult word then just get off the internet now.

      1. Wait, I’m supposed to be 18 or have permission? OMG, I’m sorry! I didn’t know. Otherwise, I concur wholeheartedly with your comment.

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