The Smiling Man In Black
| 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 |
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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Awesome pasta w/ awesome sauce! Will nom again!
Awesome pasta w/ awesome sauce! Will non again!
SLENDERMAN TO THE RESCUE!
@ person above me. The main character was a girl, and it never said her heart is bad. Her dad sayed so but we never know. He said that cuz he probably he didn’t want her to know so she would not be creeped out forever or summin.
I really enjoyed this story but who lets their grandma push them around? lol I mean surely a 13 year old boy could take a frail old woman who has a bad heart.
Looks like the devil heard your prayers.
Awh, I really like this. A beautiful mix of terrifying and heartwarming :) The guardian is both chillig and lovely :)
“I knew all of these smells fairly well, considering what my grandmother did to me”
“I’d never smelled something like this”
Oh wow that was just awesome!!!!!!! Its extra creepy!
I love this story. I don’t come here very often – once every two months – and when I do, I generally skim read. So I’ll happily admit that I didn’t “get” the ending until Fenn’s comment.
Then I went back and really read it.
Very nice little shiver up the spine there… Very thought-provoking…
Om nom nom.
A guardian angel/demon. Pretty nice idea. Hehehe.
Oh just reread. I see the “bad heart” explanation (clever pun). Nevermind. I think it’s open ended enough. I’m inclined to go with my second explanation above.
Thank god blood lust mentioned it. I was beginning to think that I was the only one confused. Are we to believe that her grandma wasn’t actually devoured. I mean her dad said she moved on, but it’s unclear what the “official” death. We can come up with a variety of possibilities for this but I think it’s just way too vague or makes this story less good than it could be.
Unless I missed something but I don’t think I did. Perhaps it was in her imagination. Perhaps the devouring was the hellish punishment and perhaps the narrator’s attempted suicide placed her in an temporary realm between this world and the next. Or maybe her grandma was a bloody mess and the dad covered it up…somehow…for some reason (thinking of a movie but it doesn’t work as well here since the grandma was eaten). Regardless I think it’s too open-ended
oh and @Yeah.. it’s “foul language”. “fowl” is a bird. Do not criticize someone’s work like a jerk, when you OBVIOUSLY can not write yourself.
@Yeah…. why would you talk about the story being so horribly written when you stated “I was write…” it’s right, you moron… kthnx.
I personally thought this was unique and GREAT PASTA!!!
bt pls clarify…. did d woman have a heart attack or not??
i once read about a child who was possessed by demons 2 write abominations on d net….lolz…so ds might b it… Mr. Welldone…ur looooong comment was insightful….
btw d story s a good one… if u r more interested, search up Narasimha…4 a similiar story…. n He\’s an incarnation of Lord Vishnu…4m hindu mythology….who protects his followers…. nt sum demon….
Please, in the future (a phrase I use loosely because your comment is four years old), do not comment from your phone.
If only someone made a video of this story! It would be cool! :D
That was awesome. If only the man in black were real, so many people could use a guardian angel.
Strangely sweet. :)
I guess that\’s what happens when you pray to \"whoever would listen\".
The swear words…I just interpreted that as the narrator slipping back into the heat of her memories. Maybe such language could have been more carefully placed, maybe not. One\’s train of thought could conceivably happen that way.
Heh, I still remember hearing about my coworker getting in a fight over swear words with one of the trauma victims whose group therapy she was supposed to be running. That didn\’t go over very well. :/
It was alright.
Mainly I wanted to be the 100th comment.
~Misdas
KNOCKED ME THE FUCK OUT
Mr Welldone, you are about the biggest freak imagineable, leave your house for once, get a hobby and some friends, seriously you should be in an insane asylum .
The second paragraph seemed to be written by a different person, honestly. Over all, though, this has been one of the better creepy-pastas I’ve read. :3
I don’t think I’d wish that thing on anybody. o_o
Interesting concept, but to be brutally honest, the execution was horrific. And I don’t mean the grandmother’s death, which was mediocre. The foul language was a turn off. I don’t mind swearing, but when it’ used pointlessly, it’ horrible to read. I do like the whole concept. Keep working on it, you have the potential.
Hurr, see what I did there? Compliment sammich. Good, bad, good. C:
Don\’t get me wrong, I say fuck all the time, but three fucks and a cunt in one paragraph and no usage of profanity elsewhere?
Srsly?
There’s some imbalance here.
Aside from the spelling problems, this is effing awesome.
It almost seems to me like the smiling man did her a favor by killing her frankly evil grandmother, then proceeded to watch over and protect her.
Scarily enough, the mystery man in this story me reminds very much of one of my two imaginary friends from when I was small, only my guy had a hat & black umbrella
Very good story, I love how the girl ended up as a kind of ‘friend’ to the man, nice & original