The Cuckoo Clock

When spring cleaning started for David’s family, the last thing they’d expected to find was an antique cuckoo clock. David found it odd that neither he, nor his parents, had seen it before. When they had finished for the day, his father went down to the basement and returned to the foyer with a box of nails and a hammer. David’s father held the nail up against the wall. KA-THUNK, KA-THUNK, KA-THUNK, the hammer pounded. David flinched at each strike of the hammer.
As soon as David’s father had the cuckoo clock set up, David walked up to it to take a closer look. The dark brown surface had a red tint, and seemed to be crumbling around the edges, as though someone had held a match up against it. The numbers seemed smudged, and the hands rusted. He heard gears grinding, and a small blue bird popped out from the door at the front, a distorted melody coming from the mechanism.
The clock seemed interesting at first to David, who wondered how such an old piece of equipment produced sound. It quickly became annoying though, as he could hear it clicking from anywhere in the house. And most annoying of all was that little melody. The only ones who didn’t seem bothered by the clock were David’s parents. They said he was exaggerating, making stuff up because he didn’t like it. David always thought of denying it, but what they said was half true. David did indeed hate the little clock.
Then, the trouble around the house started. At first, it was minor things, like someone dropping a glass, or David being unable to sleep. Then things became more dire, like David dozing off in class, or that he kept feeling a prickling sensation, as if someone was watching him. The most disturbing thing, though, was that he kept hearing the clicking of the clock. TICK. TOCK. TICK. TOCK. David heard it everywhere. At school, in the shower, on walks in the park; the clicking even worked its way into his dreams. David felt like there was something terribly wrong with the clock, so one day, while both of his parents were out of the house, he decided to take it apart.
He unhooked the clock from the nail and took out the screws. He carefully lifted the cover up and set it down on the coffee table. David peered inside and gasped. The only pieces that were in there were the axle that held the clock hands and a small wooden box that was nailed together. David puzzled how this was possible, but put the cover back on. He considered telling his parents, but they would probably scold him for taking it apart without their permission.
In the weeks that followed, David became sleep deprived and paranoid. He would flinch any time he heard the melody play. His grades dropped from A’s and B’s to C’s and D’s. The words "time," "clock," and "bird" made David clench his fist and grit his teeth. He had talked to the school counselor, but she had given him a look of suspicion that said, “What are you, crazy?” When David could sleep, it was far worse than his waking hours.
In his nightmares, David would dream of an old man who worked a wooden cuckoo clock, using his pet bird as a model. David would always awaken in a cold sweat, heart pounding. On more than one occasion, David would hear raspy breathing that seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere at once. The last large development would happen two months later, unbeknownst to everyone who knew David.
On June twentieth, after an exhausting day of school and another bad grade on a test, David stepped into his room to start doing his homework. On the wall next to his bed, gouged into the plaster were the words: TIME’S UP. David turned around to face a creature that was not quite a bird, but resembled a feathered robin chick, and the same old man from his dreams. As David stared at the monster before him, he could see that the ticking was coming from the creature itself, whose neck vertebrae rotated as it stared David down, and raising both front clubbed legs, brought them down into David’s heart.
EPILOGUE
The ghost of the old man from David’s dream stared down at the still body of what was once a middle school boy. He shook his head sadly and faded away. The creature that had caused the death took one last look at David and it, too, faded from visibility. David’s body was dragged into the closet, never to be seen again.
Category:Ghosts
Category:Items/Objects