A week had passed since she bought the house. She didn’t consider herself one for mansions, but a sturdy and beautiful house by the seaside was an offer she couldn’t bring herself to pass up. She found it truly difficult to understand why its owner had left it willingly, and offered a reasonable price. However, she did not allow this to worry her; people move away for any number of reasons. She was no stranger to the attractive concept of escaping one’s previous life by relocating, and knew that in order to fully escape, one must hide where most would never think to look, even if it said hiding place is right before their very eyes..
The man who sold her the house had taken all his furnishings with him, so the house felt bare and lonely upon her entrance. She ran her fingers along the smooth walls of the main hallway, admiring its detailed floral wallpaper design. She took simple pleasure in hearing the subtle creaks from the worn yet solid floorboards beneath her.
She paused by each room to peer in, and plan where she would put her coffee tables, lazy chairs, and floor lamps throughout the house. She created elaborate mental lists for carpets and paint jobs, curtains and bedspreads, but this was all pushed aside when she came upon a small room in one of the corners of the household. What caught her eye was the elegant grandfather clock that stood peacefully against the back wall of the room.
She approached it hesitantly, and was startled when it began to strike. One, two, three, four, five times its deep chime echoed through the empty corridors of the house. It was clear that the previous owner had mistakenly left it behind in all the chaos of the move. She reached for her cell phone in the pocket of her jeans to call him and let him know that he should come pick up the heirloom, but realized that he had left no means of contact for her to reach him. He’ll come back in a day or two when he realizes it’s gone, she thought to herself. Besides, it’s two hours too fast, and I don’t know how to fix the time.
By the time the sun had set beneath the ocean’s horizon, all her furniture had been transferred into her new home. She followed through with her detailed layout of furnishings, leaving the little room in the corner empty, apart from the grandfather clock, so it could be easily transferred out of the house when its owner returned for it.
She collapsed into bed just after eleven o’clock with a sigh of satisfaction. She was awakened in the early hours of the morning by four strikes of the clock, each seemingly louder than the previous. She sauntered down the stairs with the hopes of closing the door to muffle the sound.
When she reached the doorway, she saw a second clock identical to the original. Assuming she was hallucinating, she shut her eyes, willing the second clock to disappear, but when she reopened her eyes, she found not two, but three identical grandfather clocks, all neatly in a row. She merely blinked, and yet another appeared. All four began chiming randomly, the indescribable noise reminding her of her jumbled mind as she poured the poison into his drink, her hand and heart both shaking with uncertainty as she did so. Just as the deafening sound became too much to bear, she bolted upright in her bed, realizing what had felt so real mere seconds before was only a dream.
After lying unsettled in the dark for what felt like an eternity, she eventually drifted back to sleep. She spent the next day unpacking the boxes that were stacked high throughout the house. After much contemplation, she decided it would be a waste to leave a perfectly adequate room completely unoccupied aside from a grandfather clock, so she brought some boxes into the corner room to unpack.
Upon entering, she heard a slow ticking coming from the heart of the clock. She tried hard to ignore it, but finally glanced up when she heard the rhythm of the ticking quicken. She watched, puzzled, as the hands of the clock began spinning out of control in random directions, the glass covering its face seemingly a barrier protecting her from this unexplained chaos. The hands finally came into agreeance as they all came to rest on the number three on the face of the clock.
She attempted to carry on with the rest of her day, though the strange occurrence had nestled into the deeper parts of her conscience, and she felt a fear begin to creep in. Just as she had turned out the light to go to bed that night, she felt something pulling her downstairs. It was intangible, yet irresistibly strong. She climbed out of bed, and was drawn all the way down to the room in the corner.
An intense silver moonlight flooded the floor, illuminating the grandfather clock which cast a bold shadow in its wake. Its bronze pendulum swung with a swift grace and strength. She felt as though it was summoning her, and she soon found herself sitting on the floor, facing the pendulum in all its glory. It moved with such predictability, though she felt it could change its speed at any moment. As the sound of her pulse grew louder in her ears, she found that the pendulum’s swinging, the clock’s heartbeat, had settled into the same rhythm as her own. The two remained in sync even when she felt her pulse quicken to a point where she thought her heart would burst from her chest.
Such a fast and powerful, yet constant beat reminded her of the desperate escape she had made only a week before; of running without ever turning to look behind her, in fear of what she would see; not ever turning back with the hopes that she could outrun the atrocity she had committed; feeling her guts churn knowing that her time was running out before someone would figure out what she had done, before the consequences of her actions would set in.
She found herself in a trance, and had to will herself out of it to return to a clearer mindset. She returned to bed but refused to fall asleep in fear or anxiety, though she couldn’t tell which. She noticed that every hour the clock would strike just once. Knowing that she would have to investigate eventually, she made her way downstairs once more.
The clock struck as she arrived at the room, the low chime vibrating through the floor, through her feet all the way to her fingertips. She tiptoed over to it, and pressed her ear up against the cool oak, in search of a sound to signal that the clock had finally broken. At first, only silence filled the room. Then she heard a soft yet audible whisper, coming from deep inside the grandfather clock, yet at the same time buzzing within her head. They know. They know what you did. They know where you are. She backed away, shaking her head in disbelief. She stood expectantly, waiting to wake up from yet another bad dream, but this was a nightmare she was unable to escape.