Have you ever heard the legend of the Grinning Man? I have. When I lived in the South as a kid, everyone at school would tell the tale of the Grinning Man. Back then, scaring the wits out of each other was all the rage. They’d tell you how he would stand outside your bedroom window at night and watch you as you slept, his mouth stretched into a wide, unsettling smile. Of course I never believed them. I never understood how anyone could stand outside a second floor window. It was way too high for even the tallest person to see through. Besides, there was nothing to be afraid of. All the stories said that he was seen in the North of the country. Why would he ever come here?
That all changed a few years later when my parents relocated us to Seattle. On the last day I spent with my school friends, we reminisced about our younger years together, and they all took great pleasure in reminding me to watch out for the Grinning Man. Still, I laughed it off. I don’t believe in the supernatural.
Or at least I didn’t.
The first week living in Seattle I slept horribly. The rain pounded on the windows all through the night, keeping me awake. Having come from New Mexico, I had no idea that it could rain so much in such a short time. My family had moved us into a ground floor condo, and the shadows from behind my thin drapes were causing me to feel a sense of unease. I didn’t want to admit that I was nervous of the things my friends had told me, but rather that anyone could be peeking into my bedroom window during the night.
Nothing happened for the first couple of weeks as I settled into my new home. I managed to get used to the sound of the rain, and came to find it was actually a rather soothing sound. The flickering shadows still freaked me out, but I had learned to ignore them.
It wasn’t until a few weeks in that strange things began to happen. The first night I saw him was in the middle of February. A light drizzle was quietly tapping against the window, not out of character for Seattle weather. That’s when I heard the taps. At first I dismissed it as being a few larger raindrops among the drizzle, but as the tapping persisted it became harder and harder to deny that there was a distinct pattern to it, unlike the random falling of raindrops against the glass.
I didn’t want to look behind the curtain to find the source of the tapping, but an overwhelming sense of curiosity came over me and I found myself walking toward the window. Perhaps I subconsciously wanted to prove to myself that nothing was there. It took everything in me to throw open the curtains to reveal whatever was outside.
I froze.
I wanted to scream, but my body was suddenly incapable of producing a single sound.
Outside my window stood a man. A man with no defining facial features other than bulging eyes that glowed with the faintest of white light, and a sickening grin that stretched from one side of his face to the other. His face was pale and smooth, shining from the raindrops that made it glisten in the moonlight. Two black pupils were hyper focused on me, as he looked into my eyes and I looked into his. I managed to get my legs to work, and stumbled backwards onto the floor. My whole body shuddered in terror at the realisation that his eyes had followed my movement and his deep black pupils were now facing downwards onto the floor where I was sprawled. Without taking my eyes off him, I lifted myself up onto my bed and pulled to duvet over me. For what felt like hours, I watched him and he watched me. I wanted to close the drapes so I wouldn’t have to see him, but my whole body was paralysed with fear. I don’t know how, but eventually I managed to slip away into a restless sleep.
In the morning, the man was gone. Outside of my window were two inhuman looking footprints left deep in the mud. No tracks leading to the window, and no tracks leading away. The prints looked as if there were only two toes, and had no curves like a human foot. I never told my parents. They’d just tell me it was all my imagination, blame it on the stress and upset of moving away from all my friends to a new city on the opposite side of the country. Heck, they’d probably even try to put me in therapy. I didn’t even tell my friends, as I knew they would think I was making it up. So I kept my night-time watcher to myself.
The next night, I went to bed at dusk, while there was still the faintest glow of sunlight outside. I set up a camera on my desk, hidden among some things, and faced it toward the window. I left the drapes open and went to sleep as fast as I could, ignoring the dread I felt knowing that he might return to watch me as I slept.
In the morning I reviewed the footage captured by my camera and, sure enough, there he was again. My camera recorded nine hours of him staring at me through my window. As I mindlessly sped through the recording, I noticed something. The man’s eyes had moved. Somewhere around the six hour mark, he had shifted his gaze onto the camera instead of me. How the hell did he know it was there? A shiver ran down my spine and I sped through the remaining footage as quickly as possible.
The next few nights were the same. He’d stand there in my window watching me, noticing the camera earlier and earlier each night. Those glowing eyes pierced the darkness of my room and I began to wonder if he was ever going to leave me alone.
However, last night was different. The man never showed up. I scoured ten hours of footage of me sleeping, and there was nothing. I can’t say I wasn’t relieved to find a glimmer of hope that I could once again sleep in peace.
And so, this brings me to tonight. Tonight was different again.
Before going to bed, I set up the camera one more time to make sure he was gone for good. I slept for a couple of hours before I was awoken by a shuffling sound near the end of my bed. I was half asleep, so I thought I had imagined it at first. Trying to go back to sleep, I heard it again, but this time it was much closer. Groggily, I turned over slightly.
Two white glowing eyes met my gaze.
Just like the first time I saw him, I froze.
There, at the end of my bed, the man was towering over me, staring down with his piercing eyes. I could have sworn he wasn’t this tall when he was at the window. The man was well over six feet in height, and he had bony limbs that seemed ready to grab me. Somehow, his grin seemed even wider than usual.
In a panic, I yanked my duvet up over my head as if it would protect me, just like a small child hiding from the monsters under their bed or in the closet.
I’m still under the duvet, and I can see his eyes through my sheet as I write this. All I can do is pray that the police find my camera if I’m missing in the morning.