The Clock That Counted Backwards

My name is Elias, and when I was twelve, my family moved to a decrepit farmhouse on the edge of a dying town called Hollow Creek. The house was a hundred years old, all sagging beams and peeling wallpaper, and it came with a peculiarity: a grandfather clock in the hallway that ran backwards. It didn’t just look wrong; the hands moved counterclockwise, the chimes only sounded at odd hours, and the pendulum swung with a lazy, deliberate motion that seemed out of sync with the world. My father, a historian, thought it was a marvellous antique. My mother thought it was creepy. I thought it was the most fascinating thing in the house.

That autumn, the rains came. Not the gentle drizzle of the coast, but a relentless, pounding downpour that turned the fields into quagmires and the dirt road into a river of mud. It started on a Thursday afternoon and worsened as the day wore on, the sky darkening to a bruised purple. By evening, thunder rolled across the flatlands, and lightning split the clouds, illuminating the skeletal trees that bordered the property. I was curled up in my room, reading a comic by the weak light of a kerosene lamp (the power had flickered out hours ago), when my father called up the stairs, ‘Elias, make sure all the windows and doors are locked tight. This storm’s going to get worse.’

I did as he asked, double-checking every latch, every bolt. The house groaned around me, but I felt safe. The rhythmic drumming of rain on the tin roof was like a lullaby, and by nine o’clock, I was asleep, my face buried in the musty pillow.

I woke with a start. The room was pitch black, and a cold draft slithered across my skin. My bladder was screaming at me, but the thought of leaving the warmth of my bed, of walking down the dark hallway to the bathroom, filled me with a dread I couldn’t explain. I reached for my bedside clock, a cheap digital thing, but its red display was dead. In the faint glow of a distant lightning flash, I saw the clock on the wall: its hands were frozen at 1:20 AM.

I tried to wake my brother, Tom, who shared the room with me, but he was a heavy sleeper. He just grumbled and turned over, muttering something about ‘the freaking storm.’ I lay there, staring at the ceiling, my mind racing. That’s when I heard it: a faint, rhythmic ticking, coming from the hallway. The grandfather clock. But it was downstairs, and the sound seemed to be coming from just outside my door.

Curiosity and fear warred within me. I needed the bathroom, but I was terrified. Slowly, I pushed back the covers and padded to the door. I placed my ear against the wood. The ticking was unmistakable. I took a deep breath, turned the knob, and cracked the door open.

The hallway was darker than the room, save for a sliver of moonlight that somehow pierced the storm clouds. And there, at the end of the corridor, stood the grandfather clock. But it wasn’t in its usual spot. It was facing me, its pendulum swinging with a sound that was too loud, too rhythmic. And the hands were moving.

As I watched, the second hand swept counterclockwise. The minute hand moved in a slow, jerky circle, also backwards. And then, the clock began to chime. But it wasn’t a normal chime. It was a low, resonant gong, like a bell from a sunken ship, and it sounded thirteen times. Thirteen. I counted. My heart hammered in my chest, and I felt a cold sweat break out on my forehead.

I backed into my room and slammed the door, my breath ragged. I needed to wake my mother. I stumbled to her room, not even realizing I had left mine, and shook her shoulder. ‘Mom! Mom, wake up!’ She stirred, her eyes fluttering open. She looked at me, her gaze unfocused, and then she smiled. But it wasn’t her smile. It was too wide, too sharp. ‘It’s time,’ she said, her voice a whisper that wasn’t her own.

I screamed and stumbled back, crashing into the hallway. And then I saw the clock again, now at the top of the stairs, its face breaking into a grotesque grin. The hands were spinning wildly, and the ticking was a frantic, chattering laughter. ‘Come,’ the clock said, its voice not human, but made of wood and brass and ticking. ‘Come see the time.’

I turned to run, but the hallway stretched impossibly long, the walls closing in, the clock’s laughter echoing. I heard my mother’s voice behind me, now normal, pleading, ‘Elias, run! Run to the cellar! It can’t get you there!’ I ran, my legs heavy, the hallway warping. I passed doors that weren’t there before, saw shadows that writhed. At last, I reached the cellar door, wrenched it open, and tumbled down the stairs into the black.

I landed hard on damp earth. Above me, the door slammed shut. The clock’s ticking was muffled, then faded. I sat in the pitch dark, shivering, clutching my knees. I must have stayed there for hours, until the storm broke and dawn crept in through a small grated window. I climbed back up, trembling, and opened the door. The hallway was normal. The clock was back in its place, still, its hands frozen at 1:20. My mother was in the kitchen, making breakfast. She asked why I was so pale. I told her the truth. She just laughed and said I must have had a nightmare.

But I know what I saw. And every night, when the clocks in the house tick, I swear they count backwards, waiting for the thirteenth chime. Sometimes, when I look at the grandfather clock, I see its face contort into that grin. And I know it’s counting down to when I’ll hear it again, and this time, it won’t stop.