Creepy - Day 26 - The Smiling Man

Episode Date: October 26, 2017

I use to take walks...***Presented by: Drift & Ramble (https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/drift-ramble-podcast/id1126484216)***Credited to: blue_tidal***Sound design by: Steve Blizin Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

I hope you've all been enjoying the 31 days of horror. Please consider supporting the podcast as a donor at patreon.com slash creepypod. Rewards range from early release dates to commercial free episodes to special, classic patron-only stories, stories that will never appear on the regular feed. Don't worry. Even once Halloween is over, the show will go on. And it will go on thanks to you, the listener.

That's patreon.com slash creepy. creepy pod. Thank you so much for listening. And thanks for being creepy. This is creepy. A podcast dedicated to sharing the most famous chilling and disturbing creepy pastures and urban legends in the world. Whether these stories truly happened or our simply fabrications is for you to decide. These stories may contain graphic depictions of violence and explicit language. Listener discretion is advised. Creepy presents the 31 Days of Horror.

Day 26. The Smiling Man. Credited to Blue Title. About five years ago, I lived downtown in a major city in the U.S. I've always been a night person, so I would often find myself bored after my roommate, who was decidedly not a night person, went to sleep. To pass the time, I used to go for long walks and spend the time thinking. I spent four years like that, walking alone at night,

and never once had a reason to feel afraid. I always used to joke with my roommate that even the drug dealers in the city were polite. But all that changed in just a few minutes of one evening. It was a Wednesday. somewhere between one and two in the morning, and I was walking here at Police Patrol Park quite a ways from my apartment. It was a quiet night, even for a weeknight, and with very little traffic and almost no one on foot.

The park, as it was most nights, was completely empty. I turned down a short side street in order to loop back to my apartment when I first noticed him. The far into the street on my side was a small street. silhouette of a man. Dancing. It was a strange dance. Similar to a waltz, but he finished each box

with an odd forward stride. I guess you could say he was dance walking. He headed straight for me. Deciding he was probably drunk, I stepped as close as I could to the road to give him the majority the sidewalk to pass me by. The closer he got,

the more I realized how gracefully he was moving. He was very tall and lanky and wearing an old suit. He danced closer still until I could make out his face. His eyes were open wide and wild, head tilted back slightly, looking off at the sky. His mouth was formed in a painfully wide cartoon of a smile. Between the eyes and the smile, I decided to cross the street before he danced any closer. I took my eyes off of him to cross the empty street. As I reached the other side, I glanced back, and then stopped dead in my tracks.

He had stopped dancing and was standing with one foot in the street, perfectly parallel to me. He was facing me, but still looking skyward, smiles still wide on his lips. I was completely and utterly unnerved by this. I started walking again but kept my eyes on the man. He didn't move. Once I had put about half a block between us, I turned away from him for a moment to watch the sidewalk in front of me. The street and sidewalk ahead of me were completely empty.

Still unnerved, I looked back to where he'd been standing to find him gone. For the briefest of moments, I felt relieved until I noticed him. He had crossed the street and was now slightly crouched down. I couldn't tell for sure due to the distance in the shadows, but I was certain he was facing me. I had looked away from him for no more than ten seconds, so it was clear that he'd move fast. I was so shocked that I stood there for some time, staring at him. And then he started moving toward me again. He took giant, exaggerated, tiptoed steps as if he were a great.

cartoon character sneaking up on someone, except who's moving very, very quickly. I'd like to say at this point I ran away or pulled out my pepper spray or my cell phone or anything at all, but I didn't. I just stood there, completely frozen as the smiling man crept toward me. And then he stopped again, about a car length away from me, still smiling his smile, still looking to the sky. When I finally found my voice, I blurted out the first thing that came to mind. What I meant to ask was, what do you want? In an angry, commanding tone. What came out was a whimper. What? Regardless whether or not humans can smell fear. They can certainly hear it. I heard it in my own voice, and that only made me more afraid.

But he didn't react to it at all. He just stood there, smiling. And then after what felt like forever, he turned around. Very slowly. It started Dan's walking away. Just like that. Not wanting to turn my back to him again, I just watched him go until he was far enough away to almost be out of sight.

And then I realized something. He wasn't moving away anymore. Nor was he dancing. I watched in horror as the distant shape of him grew larger and larger. He was coming back my way, and this time he was running. I ran too. I ran until I was off the side, road and back onto a better road with sparse traffic. Looking behind me then, he was nowhere to be found.

The rest of the way home, I kept glancing over my shoulder. I was expecting to see some stupid smile. But he was never there. I lived in that city for six months after that night, and I never went out for another walk. There was something about his face that always haunted me. He didn't look drunk. He didn't look high.

He looked completely and utterly insane. And that is a very, very scary thing. to see. Welcome to the Drift and Rumble podcast. Each episode will explore true stories and American legends. From the pages of history, we'll look at the people, places, and events that helped shape a nation. First, he created a death mask of Big Nose George using plaster of Paris, which depicts the man's prominent proboscis and mustachioed face, as well as his now earless head. Next, they removed the top half of the unfortunate criminal skull and the crudely sawn-off skull cap was presented to then 15-year-old Lillian Heath who was a medical assistant to Dr. McGeeve.

Lillian, here is a gift for you. Well, thank you, doctor. I shall cherish it always. Well, this brain looks perfectly normal. That a 15-year-old girl was present at this dismembering may not be that much of a shock to those interested in the medical profession, but the anatomical gift was morbid at the very least. But strangest of all was when Osborne removed the skin from George Parrott's thighs and chest and sent it to a tannery in Denver with specific instructions to be made into a pair of shoes and a medical bag. Stories of survival, notable frontier men and women, explorers who struck at

Ridge and the outlaws that stole it from them. So, saddle up or settle in for the Drift and Ramble podcast. For more information, including pictures and videos of the stories told on this podcast, or to suggest stories for future episodes, please visit us at CreepyPod on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, or email us. All stories told on this podcast can be found at creepypasta wiki.com and are protected by a Creative Commons license. Some rights reserved unless otherwise stated.