The silence that followed the show was thicker than stage makeup. It clung to Carson Hayes, a cold, heavy shroud of ozone and burnt wiring. The crew had scattered, whispering, glancing over their shoulders at the shattered set. Hayes himself was bundled into his town car, his tie askew, the taste of dry panic still metallic on his tongue.
He had no memory of being taken home. One moment, he was staring at the bright lights from the emergency signs; the next, he was in his penthouse bedroom.
The Dream of the Perpetual Audience
Sleep did not come; it seized him like a physical assailant.
He was back in the studio, but the cameras were gone. The room was empty save for one thing: a massive, tiered audience bleacher that stretched up into the unseen rafters, filled with people. They weren't cheering or even speaking. They were simply smiling.
Every face—thousands of them—was turned toward him, each one wearing the exact same expression: a wide, unnervingly perfect, fixed smile. It wasn't joyful; it was a mask, stretched taut across bone and gristle. The eyes behind the smiles were flat, obsidian discs, utterly devoid of recognition or warmth.
Carson tried to speak, to call for his producer, Frank, but his voice was gone. He could only hear a noise that seemed to emanate from the collective audience—a faint, dry, rasping sound, like fingernails dragging across chalk.
He noticed the air around the smiles was shimmering. As he looked closer, the horrifying truth dawned: the smiles weren't static. They were expanding. Slowly, infinitesimally, the muscles of the faces were pulling tighter, stretching the skin, revealing more and more gum and teeth. He could see the stress fractures forming in the enamel, the dry cracks forming at the corners of the lips.
They're going to split, a voice screamed in his mind. The skin can't take it. They're going to tear.
The pressure in the room built. The rasping sound intensified, becoming a unified, horrible hiss of air forced past too many teeth.
Then, one of the smiles, a woman in the front row, reached its breaking point. Her cheeks didn't tear; her face cracked, the sound like thin ice fracturing. The smile widened impossibly, swallowing her entire lower face, leaving behind a jagged, crimson-edged hole and a sound that was pure, horrifying giggle—high-pitched, manic, and utterly empty.
Hayes bolted upright in bed, slick with sweat, the sound of the cracking face echoing in his ears. The digital clock read 3:33 AM. The room was dark, but he could swear he still smelled a faint trace of ozone and that cold, metallic tang of the stage.
The Contagion of Joy
The next morning, the terror had receded, replaced by the dull ache of exhaustion and a professional need to get back to work. He decided to walk to the office—to "re-ground" himself.
As he stepped out of the elevator, the building's doorman, an ancient man named Sal who usually grumbled a terse greeting, turned and saw him.
Sal's face, normally a roadmap of chronic fatigue, was transformed. His eyes were wide, and his lips were pulled back into an enormous, glistening grin. It was the same smile from the dream—too big, too perfect, showing too much tooth.
"Good morning, Mr. Hayes," Sal chirped, his voice unnaturally bright. He held the smile, unwavering, for five full seconds, his eyes never leaving Carson's face.
Hayes flinched and hurried past, muttering a thanks. The smile had felt heavy, threatening.
He crossed the street and spotted a barista at the local coffee shop. The young woman was leaning out the window to hand a latte to a customer. When she turned back, she saw Carson. A millisecond of normal expression—boredom, maybe—flickered across her face, then was violently overwritten by the Smile.
She mouthed the words, "Have a nice day," but the smile was so large that the sound was distorted, coming out as a breathless, strained hiss. She held a cleaning cloth in her hand, and Hayes noticed she was nervously wringing it—her knuckles white, her body tense, completely contradicting the aggressive joy plastered on her face.
The Office of Eeriness
When he arrived at the studio complex, the horror intensified. The security guard, the receptionist, the intern rushing by with scripts—all of them wore the Smile. It was a silent, infectious epidemic.
He found Frank, his producer, in his office. Frank was on the phone, his back to the door, talking in low, worried tones.
"Yes, the footage is gone... everything's corrupted... they're saying static overload..." Frank was saying.
Carson finally relaxed, relief washing over him. Frank looked normal. Stressed, yes, but no horrifying grin.
Frank hung up and spun his chair around.
"Carson! Thank God. Look, we need to talk about..."
Frank's voice trailed off. His face, initially creased with concern, smoothed itself out. The worry lines disappeared, the tension around his eyes evaporated, and his lips began to stretch. It was a visible, sickening physical transformation, happening in real time.
"Frank, stop it," Carson pleaded, backing away.
The Smile Frank adopted was the most grotesque yet. It was his own face, but the expression was utterly alien. His eyes rolled up slightly, and the sheer effort of maintaining the enormous, jaw-straining grin brought a fine sheen of sweat to his brow.
"About what, Carson?" Frank asked, the sound coming out as a low, wet gurgle from the back of his throat. He reached out and gently grasped Carson's arm. His grip was too strong.
"I think we just need to laugh it off," Frank hissed, and his grip tightened until Carson cried out. "It was just a little unscripted moment. We just need to keep smiling, Carson. Don't you see? The laughter is the only thing that makes it bearable. You taught us that. You taught the world that."
Frank's head cocked slightly, and his Smile grew wider, pushing the boundaries of his face.
Carson tore his arm free, leaving a raw, red welt where Frank had touched him. He scrambled backwards, his gaze locked on Frank, who made no move to follow, simply remaining seated, his head slightly tilted, his monstrous, ecstatic grin radiating pure, silent malevolence.
Carson ran. Down the hall, through the main lobby, past the smiling, silent gauntlet of crew and staff. He burst out onto the street, breathing the polluted air like it was salvation, and flagged down a cab.
He looked back at the studio entrance. The entire security team, the front desk attendant, and Frank himself were standing shoulder-to-shoulder in the doorway.
All of them were smiling.
And as the cab pulled away, one of the smiles, high up on the second floor, seemed to move. It was the face of the lighting technician, and it winked—a slow, deliberate, hideous wink that conveyed not affection, but a chilling, final certainty.
The world had found its joke, and the joke was on Carson. The irony had become an epidemic, and the only symptom was the Unending Smile.