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Writer
Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: San Diego, California
Posts: 46
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The SMiley Face (a horror story)
Any comments suggestions appreciated and thanks in advance! Anything confusing or whatever...please, tell me. thanks again!
“It’s that goddamned smiley face.” Said Ben Caswell, brushing back the wave of blond hair that always seemed to be falling into his eyes. “Just looking at it makes me want to smash the computer and run away.”
“Maybe if you actually spent your time writing rather than playing Minesweeper, you wouldn’t be having these problems.” Said Kelly, Ben’s oldest friend and newest girlfriend.
“Kelly,” Ben sighed, taking another sip of coffee, “You know I don’t want to waste my time playing stupid games on the computer, but it helps me think of new things to write…and it’s fun.”
“Whatever.” Kelly said, shaking her head and smiling slightly. She glanced at the watch that resembled a metal wristband, “Okay, going to be late if I stay any longer. So, just try to stay away from the smiley face, okay? I’m sure you’ll be fine.”
“Right.” Ben stood up and gave Kelly a peck on the cheeks. “See you later, then.”
“Bye.” Kelly grabbed her leather purse from the cheap red chair and left Ben’s house, flashing a smile just before she shut the door and got into her black Dodge pickup. A minute later the engine roared to life and backed out of the driveway, leaving Ben alone with his house and the stupid grinning smiley face on his computer.
Ben had nothing against smiley faces in general. In fact, he rather liked the happy yellow faces and had a few of them in his home. Like the gigantic coffee mug sitting on his kitchen counter, for one, and the millions of smiley faces that made up his computer background, for anther. But something about that particular one was just so…wrong and…sinister was the only word for it. The way it changed every time you clicked on a square and seemed to tear away its calm happy mask and show the monster beneath, the way its eyes became two “x” whenever you made a mistake and the way its mouth always seemed to be frozen in a scream when you held down the mouse…
Maybe Kelly was right, Ben thought, maybe he just needed to stop thinking so much. He was sure that if he made himself sit down in the office swirl chair in front of the screen for the whole day and not get up, he would have some nice writing done by the end of the day without playing the game once.
Ben got up and stuffed the mug into a cabinet. He would worry about cleaning it later, for now he needed to write and face the smiley face…or rather, stay away from facing the smiley face and just writing. He sat down at the computer and minimized the Minesweeper window without looking at it, and opened the Word file. After reading back on the page, he smiled and began to type.
Frank gasped, “Who…who are you?”
The woman he thought he had come to know and love smiled. It was a dark and unnatural smile, one that sent little caterpillars crawling up his back. “Ah, Frank, my love,” she said, “You’re asking the wrong question. It’s not who I am that’s important…it’s what I am.”
And what was she? Ben wondered, drumming his fingers against the base of the keyboard. A demon, yes, he had known that for a while now, but what exactly and how the hell is sweet and gullible Frank going to react to this? Then his right hand that rested on the mouse moved of its own accord and stopped at where the Minesweeper icon lay near the bottom of the screen, and killed off every thought he had before. Ben groaned and closed his eyes. He couldn’t, not now. It was a bad habit from the start, and now all this business with the smiley face…it would be a horrible decision to reach down and open it, and he flicked the mouse away and began to write again.
Only no words appeared on the screen, not even the letters F-R-A-N-K that would soon be followed by an action such as said, or screamed, and the mouse moved back to the icon and threatened to click itself if somebody didn’t do it first. Kelly’s words filled his head, and Ben reached for the mouse to move it when another voice spoke up, this one teasing and angry at the same time. No way you’re going to listen to some stupid woman when you know better, right Ben-O brother of mine? Listen, playing a little game on the computer isn’t going to hurt you and you need it to get rid of writer’s block. Besides, if anything happens--which it won’t—you can always close it and leave, nothing ventured is nothing gained, right?
Maybe, but this time Ben thought Kelly was right. He moved the cursor back to the word file and thought about what Frank would do. Then he noticed that the title bar for Minesweeper had begun to flash black and white quickly, drawing his attention. Ben blinked, and stared at the title bar. It stood still as it had when he first left it there, and he let out a sigh. Suddenly he knew what Frank must do to avoid too much telling of Millie’s history, and his fingers flew on the keyboard.
The title bar flashed again. Ben froze in mid-word and looked down. There was no doubt about it, black, white, and back to black again all in a matter of seconds. Ben thought of shutting down the computer and leaving the house, but knew it was never going to happen. He moved the cursor back on the bar—which had stopped flashing as soon as the cursor landed on it—and clicked.
It was the last thing he ever did.
Kelly fumbled for the key that opened Ben’s house and got it into the keyhole, turned it, and heard door opened with a soft creak. The sound felt wrong and dangerous in the empty house. She shivered despite the warm air that greeted her and quietly shut the door behind her. She looked about the room--exactly the same as she had last seen it--and sighed. Cause of death: natural causes, the doctors had said, but Kelly didn’t see anything natural on Ben’s face when she found him. That face frozen forever in an expression that could have been a scream or a laugh…
The room brought back memories. Why that morning they had been having breakfast in the kitchen and talking about…what had they been talking about? Kelly couldn’t remember. It was something about his writing, something about the computer? She shook her head and her glance landed on the computer sitting innocently on top the white writing desk. It still hummed, and probably never been turned off. Was the computer where Ben had been before he died? Kelly thought it was more than likely. Now the computer seemed to be the only thing alive in the house besides her and felt creepy. She approached the dark screen and moved the mouse.
For a second nothing happened, then the humming of the monitor grew louder and the dark screen saver erupted into tiny black glass pieces that shattered across the screen. Kelly stared at the image she now saw, unable to look away even though she knew that it would probably be the end of her. Then something inside her broke and she began to scream. She tore her eyes away from the screen and fled back to the door, twisting the ancient doorknob both ways and kicking on the door. “OPEN GODDAMN IT!” she shrieked, and glanced back to realize that the thing that had been on the screen a moment before was now out, like a giant monster balloon waiting to suck her in and that horrible grin…she pounced on the door and slammed her fists against it, praying to god that it would open, wishing it would open more than anything else. But the door was jammed and wouldn’t budge, and as she looked back the thing came closer, closer and stripped off her sanity and will to live layer by layer, almost throwing them apart completely.
Kelly began to cry, knowing that tears couldn’t help her, that nothing could help her now but not wanting to give up. She looked around frantically as the thing stood inches away and seized the lamp from the end table. She tore off the plug and flung it at the thing, and watched as it bounced off without the slightest damage. The monster thing laughed, its whole body quivering and its grin spreading wider until she thought it was going to burst out of its face. Desperate, Kelly looked around for any route of escape. Her only chance was a window a few feet away to the right, and even though she knew the chances of her making it was about the same as her chances of winning the lottery, she was willing to take a shot. With the strength she never knew she had, Kelly lifted the end table by the door and threw it at the glass window.
With a loud thud it hit the glass and reflected back to the carpeted floor. Ben had been serious about security in his home. She looked around for something else to throw, but knew it was too late as something wet and slimy and soft and horrible touched her back. Kelly closed her eyes and waited for death, now praying that it will be a quick one and one without pain.
She didn’t know that what she was about to get was a million times worse than death, and it too, was going to last forever.
The smiley face rested in the Minesweeper window, satisfied. It thought that pretty soon the people who programmed the game was going to have to change the name of it to Headsweeper, and grinned at its own joke. And why not? It didn’t have a worry in the world, not one. Sure, the rumors would float and spread about this being a haunted house, and people would talk of a dangerous computer in the house, but sooner or later they would all forget. It would be another two tombstones in a graveyard, another two loved ones gone from this world. But hey, people live, people die, it was the circle of life and you couldn’t stop it, although you could speed it up. Ha ha.
Besides, the smiley face had means to travel. Who cared which computer, which home and which writer or doctor’s life it jumped in. Someone was going to find the little black boxes on the sides too much like the countdown of a time bomb and give the smiley face another chance to add another friend to the collection.
So it waited, grinning, one eye black, one eye red. A lip that curved up in a smile, one that you never wanted to turn into a grin. And yeah, it changed whenever someone clicked on a box and its mouth became a circular hole that could take in anything, but no one had to know that. It was patient. Patience was a virtual in the human world, and it needed the blood to fade away before it could move again. After all, it wouldn’t do for some little girl to play a game and find that the game’s narrator dude was all bloodied up and a monster that could kill, right?
Nope, it wouldn’t do at all.
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