The Gearbox Chime

The first time I heard the chime, I thought it was a faulty alarm on one of the forklifts. A thin, metallic ringing, like a spoon tapping a glass, but deeper, coming from the far end of the warehouse where we stored the old engine parts. It would happen maybe once a week, always at the same time—just after the lunch whistle, when the shop was quiet and the only other sound was the hum of the fluorescent lights.

I worked at the Meridian Maintenance Depot, a sprawling prefab building on the outskirts of a town that didn’t even have a name. The nearest petrol station was twenty miles down a two-lane road that cut through miles of cornfields and faded billboards. The building itself looked like a giant metal shed, with a cavernous workshop on one side and a cramped office on the other, connected by a long hallway lined with tool cabinets. It was just me, three other mechanics, and a guy named Rick who managed the parts counter.

We all blamed the wind for the creaks and the occasional bang of a door slamming. It was a windy area, sure. And the voices? We’d hear what sounded like a worker calling out from the far end of the shop, but when we’d walk over, there’d be no one there. We’d chuckle, say it was the wind playing tricks, or maybe one of the guys talking to himself. It was harmless.

But then the chime got louder. Last Tuesday, I was in the office going over inventory reports, and the chime rang out clear as a bell, cutting through the stillness. It wasn’t a forklift alarm. It was rhythmic, almost melodic, like a music box but warped, with each note slightly off-key. I got up and walked into the shop, but the sound stopped as soon as I crossed the threshold. The guys were all at their stations, eyes down, pretending to be busy. I asked if they heard it. They just shook their heads and went back to work.

The next day, something moved. I had left my toolbox open on the workbench, and when I came back from the break room, my 19mm socket was missing. I searched everywhere, under the bench, in the drawers, on the floor. It was gone. I chalked it up to someone borrowing it and forgetting to return it. But then, at the end of the day, I found it sitting in the middle of the main aisle, polished to a mirror shine, like it had been cleaned and placed there deliberately.

The chime started coming more often, whenever I was alone in the office. I’d hear it, and I’d get this overwhelming feeling that I was being watched. I’d open the office door and find the hallway empty, but the air would be cold, as if someone had just walked past me and left a trail of frost.

This morning, I came in early to catch up on paperwork. The sun was barely up, painting the sky in shades of gray and orange. I unlocked the main door and stepped into the echoing silence of the warehouse. I flicked on the lights, but one of the banks in the middle flickered and buzzed, throwing the far corner into harsh shadow. I headed to my office, but as I passed the parts counter, I noticed something odd. The dial on the big temperature gauge—the one that controlled the heating for the entire building—was spinning slowly, back and forth, as if an invisible hand was toying with it. The needle on the pressure gauge for the air compressor was bouncing too, even though the compressor was off.

I tried to convince myself it was a power surge, but then I heard it. The chime, but this time it was coming from inside my office. I pushed the door open, and the sound stopped. On my desk, in the center of the blotter, was the missing socket. And beside it, a small gear, one of the dozens we’d taken out of a broken transmission last week. But this gear was pristine, as if it had been machined yesterday, not salvaged from a rusted heap.

I picked it up. It was cold, impossibly cold, like it had been sitting in a freezer. The teeth of the gear were etched with tiny symbols, too small and intricate to be from any manufacturer I knew. They looked like scratches, but deliberate, like a language of thin lines and curves.

I dropped it as if it burned. That’s when I noticed the temperature in the office had plummeted. My breath fogged in the air. The lights flickered. And then, from deep within the building, I heard the clang of metal on metal, like someone was working in the shop, even though I was the only one here.

I grabbed a flashlight and crept toward the shop. The sound was rhythmic, a hammer hitting an anvil, but the blows were too precise, too perfectly timed. I reached the door that led into the main bay and peered through the small window. The shop lights were off, but the emergency exit at the far end was propped open with a tool chest, letting in a shaft of pale dawn light. And in that light, I saw it.

A shape, hunched over the workbench, its back to me. It wasn’t human. It was long and thin, with limbs that bent at strange angles, and its skin—if you could call it that—was the color of tarnished copper, with seams running along its joints like the panels of a boiler. It was working on something, its fingers moving with mechanical precision, and as it worked, it hummed. Not a tune, but a low, droning hum that almost sounded like it was mimicking the chime.

I must have made a sound—a gasp, a shuffle of my feet—because the thing stopped. It slowly turned its head. It had no face. Instead, there was a smooth metal plate with a single round lens, like an old camera, and it was focused directly on me. The chime rang out, loud and piercing, and the thing rose to its full height, which must have been eight feet tall. It took a step toward me.

I ran. I didn’t stop until I was in my car, engine running, speeding down the gravel road. I didn’t look back. I called Rick, but he said he hadn’t seen anything, and he laughed at me for being spooked by ‘some mechanical noise.’

I didn’t go back. I quit the next day, without explaining, and I moved in with my sister in another state. But last night, I heard the chime again. It was faint, but unmistakable, coming from the closet in my bedroom. I opened the door, and there, on the shelf, was a small gear, identical to the one I’d found on my desk. It was cold, and on the floor beneath it was a faint trail of copper-colored dust.

I don’t know what it wants. But it’s not done with me.