The Last House on Maple Lane

In the autumn of 2019, I was a final-year occupational therapy student, assigned to a community mental health team in a quiet, coastal town in Oregon. The team was small, and we served patients with chronic, severe mental illnesses—schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, severe depression—but most were stable enough to live independently, albeit with support. My supervisor, a pragmatic woman named Dana, had a no-nonsense approach, and I was eager to prove myself. We visited patients in their homes, sometimes in assisted living facilities, but this day was different.

It was a grey Tuesday in November. The rain had been relentless for days, and the streets were slick with fallen leaves. Dana and I drove to a house at the end of Maple Lane, a dead-end street with only a few scattered homes, each set back from the road. Our patient was an elderly man named Mr. Ashworth, who had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia decades ago. According to his file, he was stable, but he rarely left his home and refused most forms of contact. This was his annual review, and we were to assess his ability to manage his daily activities.

The house was a Victorian-era structure, painted a faded grey, with a sagging porch and broken windows covered with cardboard. The yard was overgrown with weeds, and a rusty bicycle lay on its side near the steps. Dana knocked, and after a long pause, the door creaked open a few inches. A pale eye peered out from the darkness. ‘Who are you?’ a raspy voice demanded. Dana introduced us, and after a moment, the door swung open, revealing a gaunt man in a threadbare bathrobe. His hair was wild, and his hands trembled, but his eyes were sharp, scanning us with suspicion.

He let us in, leading us through a narrow hallway cluttered with boxes and old newspapers. The air was thick with dust and the smell of decay. We entered a living room where every surface was covered in clocks—dozens of them, all ticking out of sync. The sound was disorienting, a cacophony of time. Mr. Ashworth gestured for us to sit on a couch buried under laundry. He perched on a chair near a window, staring out at the rain.

‘So,’ Dana began, ‘how have you been managing with your daily routines?’ Mr. Ashworth didn’t answer at first. He kept staring out the window, his lips moving silently. Finally, he turned to us and said, ‘The clocks keep the time away. They keep the dark from creeping in. But it’s getting worse. The dark knows the house now.’ I felt a chill run down my spine. Dana, unruffled, asked about his shopping and cooking. He replied with clipped, vague answers, but his eyes kept darting to a closed door at the end of the room. I couldn’t help but notice it was covered in layers of duct tape, with strange symbols scrawled in charcoal.

After a while, Mr. Ashworth became agitated, muttering about ‘the visitors’ who came at night. He stood abruptly and said, ‘You shouldn’t have come. You’ve brought them with you.’ Dana tried to calm him, but he grew more frantic. He pointed at me and said, ‘She hears them too, don’t you?’ I didn’t know what to say. The ticking of the clocks seemed to grow louder, more insistent. Then, for a split second, I thought I heard a whisper from behind the taped door—a faint, high-pitched hum. I shook my head, convinced it was my imagination.

Dana decided we needed to leave, and we made our excuses, retreating to the car. As we drove away, she said, ‘Some of them have their own realities. We can’t enter them.’ I nodded, but the humming stayed in my head, a persistent buzz. That night, I couldn’t sleep. I lay in my apartment, listening to the rain, and I could swear I heard the faint ticking of dozens of clocks. I turned on the light, but the sound persisted. It was coming from my own head.

The next day, I called Dana, but she was busy. I decided to return to Mr. Ashworth’s house alone, thinking I’d left my notebook there. When I arrived, the door was slightly ajar. I pushed it open, calling out, but there was no answer. The living room was empty of clocks—every single one was gone, leaving only dust outlines on the walls. But the taped door was open, revealing a dark staircase leading to a basement. I hesitated, but curiosity got the better of me.

The stairs creaked as I descended. The basement was cold, and the floor was wet, with a strong smell of earth and something metallic. In the center, there was a table covered with an old sheet. Underneath, I found dozens of clocks, all broken, their hands frozen at the same time: 3:33. And on the floor, scratched into the concrete, was a message: ‘The time they keep is yours.’ I stumbled back, and as I reached the top of the stairs, I saw Mr. Ashworth standing in the doorway, a strange smile on his face. He said, ‘You found the clocks. Now they will find you.’

I ran out of the house, never looking back. I quit my placement and moved across the country. But the ticking never stopped. It’s there, in the quiet moments, a constant reminder of that house on Maple Lane. And sometimes, I catch a faint whisper, just at the edge of hearing, saying my name—the name I told Mr. Ashworth that day. It’s a name I never use anymore, but somehow, the dark knows it now.