#SpookyShowcase: Time by Kathleen Palm

Welcome to the 9th annual #SpookyShowcase, a Halloween artist and author showcase. A full schedule of submissions can be found here so you don’t miss a single entry for THESE DEADLY CURSES. Now, on to today’s submission!

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Time by Kathleen Palm

I fixed it. I think.

I hope.

Because my Emily will love it. She needs it. Something bright and happy in a world of chemo and doctors and dark and pain.

My black fingernails tap on the trunk as it pops open, adding to the evening song, the happy crickets and cicadas melding with the happy cries of kids on summer vacation.

My brown braid slides over my shoulder as I peel open the cardboard box.

The clock’s gold frame glints in the light of the setting sun as I pop open the glass front. I check the time on my phone, then move the hands to the correct positions. I should have tested it, but I wanted to get home. I couldn’t risk getting stuck at the office if it didn’t work, stuck trying a million other things to succeed. I’ve been staying late to repair it, staring at gears and reading the same books over and over.

I’m giving it to her tonight. It has to be tonight. Whether it works or not.

She’s so weak.

I grab the special key, the one that will give the clock life. “It’s all or nothing.”

With a sigh heavy with worry and exhaustion, I insert the round end and turn, the rusted spots rough against my fingers.

During one of my walks, my have-to-get-away walks, my need-a-break walks, my find-strength-before-I-crumble walks, I found the clock in a rickety gray building. One I hadn’t seen before, one tucked awkwardly between two cheerful, white-washed stores selling the everyday to the everyones.  

I keep turning the key, pouring all my hope into each twist.

I don’t really know why I went in the shop.

Maybe it was the name. Forever Things.

Forever. What Emily and I were supposed to have.

Maybe it was the way it mirrored the dark fear in my mind, in my heart.

In Emily’s eyes.

Maybe it was the way the piles of antiques and junk echoed my cluttered thoughts and feelings.

Feelings of helplessness. Of a search for answers in a world of questions, for magic in a world of doom.

The clock clicks with each turn of the key, and winding becomes more difficult as the resistance builds.

Two months ago, our lives changed. Altered. Shaken. Shattered.

And now we live in the wreckage. I keep turning as I glance over the trunk at our tiny blue house, glowing in the fading light. The windows empty. The porch light dark as if in mourning.

Emily’s been so tired. She must have fallen asleep.

I can’t stop the quiver in my lip or the way my vision blurs with tears. I’ve shed so many, too many and yet not enough. I give the key a last twist and wait.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

The sound of the clock tiptoes into the warm June evening. I shudder at a chill that touches my cheek, freezing the tear that clings there.

The chirp and hum of bugs stop. The everyday noise of cars and carefree summer laughter withers.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

The rhythmic sound fills the evening with unexpected unease.

A scream erases the beat, overwhelms it with terror. I jump and face the cemetery that covers the green field across the street. Fog creeps between the headstones. The mist catches the light of the sunset in swirls and wisps like the lost souls that linger there.

Shadows grow and stretch as night creeps upon the world. A gust rushes at me, sending the fog swirling and the grass waving. The sound of footsteps, heavy and threatening, accompanies the wind.

Something is coming.

But there’s no one. Nothing.

Cold creeps over my feet and up my legs, then, with a groan, it’s gone, the warm evening returning. The fog settles with the ghosts.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

The clock whispers from its box.

“What in the…”

Must have been an animal. I must have scared it.

My shoulders slump. I’m tired and possibly imagining things.

I shiver, clutching my necklace that hangs under my shirt. The crystals suspended from the chain always a comfort, especially as I stare at the cemetery.

Icy prickles tiptoe up my arms, covering me with eerie thoughts of death and endings and…

Stifling a sob, I turn back to the clock, rubbing my fingertips along my brow.

“To think we thought it was cool to live across from a cemetery.” I close my eyes for a moment and stop my heart from pounding. Too many nights googling how to fix a clock, too many days staring at gears and tools.

But I did it.

Finding the clock was fate. A beautiful thing, lost and forgotten. The shop-keeper, a man made of wrinkles, shadow, and a voice too deep for his thin shoulders to carry, told me the clock was merely waiting. That it does much more than count seconds. It sings and dances. Well, it did before something inside it broke.

But I loved it broken, the hands stopped, stuck in time. One moment forever. Never reaching the end of a minute, an hour, a life.

I prop the box on my hip and close the trunk.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

I bought the clock, but I couldn’t give it to Emily without its magic restored. So, I researched. I learned what I needed to fix it. To make it better. For her. For the time we had together. For the time we will have, if…when my Emily survives.

I had to try something. I had to do something.

Helplessness has been my constant companion for the last month and a half. Hope wears thin, like the old blanket Emily uses for warmth, for comfort.

Fumbling with the box…it’s heavy, heavier than I remember…I fish my keys from my purse and walk up the steps.

The door opens with a sad sigh and I enter. “Em?” I drop my purse and shuffle over the striped rug in the living room, then place the box on a table.

Emily is curled up on the couch, light blonde hair falling over her cheek, a cheek that used to be rosy. I flip on the lamp, and she blinks open her beautiful green eyes, eyes that used to shine.

“Gabby?” She pushes herself up to sitting, her arms trembling with the effort. “What is that?”

“A present.”

She smiles. It’s weak, but a bit of her old sparkle shows.

I take down the old clock, the chipped, brown timepiece that barely keeps track of the minutes, the one that was here when we moved in, the one we didn’t bother removing.

“What are you doing?” Her voice creaks with leftover sleep.

“Just wait…” I slide the clock out of the box and hang it on the wall.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

Emily sits up with a gasp. “It’s wonderful.”

“I always see you staring at old clocks.”

She sets her feet on the shaggy rug. “The power of time. The past, the present, the future. It just keeps going…forever.” A shadow flickers across her eyes as she stands, the crystals circling her wrist click and clack, the rune hanging from a strap at her throat sways.

I race to her side to help her cross the room. My arm slips around her waist, so small, so fragile. “Like us. Forever.”

Her mouth crinkles into a frown. “Oh, Gabby, we’ve talked about—”

The doorbell clangs, interrupting, but I don’t want to hear what she has to say anyway. I glance at the shadow in the frosted glass, someone on the front step. “Who—”

“I ordered pizza.” Emily gestures to the door. “Your favorite. I figured you’d be hungry and I’m not up to cooking…or eating, really. So…”

My stomach rumbles at the thought of pizza. “You’re the best.” I make sure she’s okay gazing at her clock, kiss her cheek, then shuffle backwards across the living room. “Be right back. Maybe after smelling it, you’ll want a bite…or a slice…”

As I head to the door and the promise of food, a click and a whir make me glance over my shoulder.

Emily steps toward the clock, her arm outstretched. “Whoa. What’s happening?”

Bright excitement of victory and joy cut through my exhaustion and worry as I open the front door. “It’s time for a song and dance.”

An unenthusiastic delivery person greets me with a snap of her gum and a slow blink of her brown eyes. She shoves the box at me, her gaze straying over my shoulder.

A few notes drift through the room.

She stops chewing. 

The lights flicker.

Her eyes go blank.

A haunting tune drapes over the space, over my mind.

A chilling breeze whips in the door. Footsteps thunder through the room.

Something is coming.

I can’t move, panic creeping at the edges of thought.

Something is here.

Pizza girl’s face twists, forming lines of alarm and dread, and she shakes her head as if in slow motion.

Shadows crawl over the floor and walls. The music builds, the song demanding attention. I shiver, my breath hanging in the air like the fog in the cemetery. The house shakes as if a giant crashes down the hall. The footsteps slow, then stop as a scream, a wail, a sound of pure terror rips through the room. All I want to do is call Emily’s name, go to her. And I can’t.

The tune ends. The lights return to their steady brightness. The shadows retreat. The wind dies.

But the anxiety lingers.

Pizza girl drops the box and stumbles back. “That’s…not…” Her voice trembles as she rubs her eyes and struggles to breathe. “I’m outta here.”

“But…hey!” I wave at her.

Tires screeching, Pizza girl rides off into the night.

I pick the box off the front step.

My hand shakes. I feel it. Whatever made Pizza girl run. I feel it lurking behind me. I grip my necklace, the crystals jabbing at my palm, and turn.

Emily stands, staring at the clock on the wall. Standing perfectly still, arm outstretched, fingertips inches from the gold frame. Her head turned just enough so I can’t see her face.

Cold horror seeps into my heart. “Em, she…just dropped my…”

Tick tick tick.

The steady count crawls into my mind and settles like a dark secret.

Tick tick tick.

I wander into the living room, dragging my feet across the rug.

Tick tick tick.

“Em? Do you still like the clock?” Questions sit in my mind like bombs. Did it work? The clock? Did it…

I shudder at the memory of the song, of the cold. It did something.

Motionless, Emily stares at the clock.

Tick tick tick.

I join her in gazing at the gold frame, at the bold black hands.

Tick tick tick.

Then I look at her. My body goes limp with fear. The pizza box hits the floor with a thump. “Emily?”

She stands, head tilted. Face blank. Her eyes white. Her mouth hangs open, like she’s screaming. A silent cry that makes my heart break.

I set my hands on her shoulders. “Emily?” She’s stiff like stone.

I run my finger along her cheek. “Wake up.”

No reaction. Her mouth frozen in that terrible soundless wail. Her eyes empty. She’s cold.

So cold.

I wrap my arms around her. “What’s happening?”

She doesn’t move, doesn’t breathe. A side-effect of the cancer, of the medication?

“My phone…call the doctor…” I spin in a circle. “Where is my phone?” My purse. I race to the door, get my phone, and pull up the doctor’s number, prepared to bring her here myself if I have to, but fuzzy lines crawl across my phone screen. A strange static drips from it. “What the hell?”

Tick tick tick.

I drop my phone and glance at the clock, then to my Em.

The clock.

Could it have done this?

I stretch my trembling hands to take it down, examine it. But it won’t move, as if the tiny screw holding it in place refuses to let go, as if it has fused with the wall. I step back, staring at the slim second hand as it ticks its way around. At the fancy black numbers. At Emily’s reflection in the shiny frame. I turn to her, holding her face in my hands. “Something went wrong.”

Tick. Tick. Tick.

I just wanted more time.

I couldn’t sit by and watch her die.

“Em? Em! Please! Wake up. Please.” I press my hands on her shoulders and shake her. “Emily!” Her shimmering bracelet of stones clicks and clacks. I made it for her. Healing crystals, just like on my necklace.

My body trembles as my terror builds. “Em…” I try to force her arm down, but it won’t budge. “Em!” Palms on her face, my fingers digging into her skin, I yell. I wail.

But she doesn’t react. She doesn’t move. Her empty eyes stay locked on the clock. Her unmoving fingers inches from it.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

The clock.

“I just wanted more time.” But I didn’t get what I wanted. I rush at the old clock, slamming my fists into the front, then dig my fingers into the wall behind it. It doesn’t move. I pull and tug. I wrap my arms around it and hang, determined to take the wall with it.

This isn’t what I wanted.

I let go and scan the room. I need something…a tool…

Stumbling over my sobs, I run to the kitchen and grab a knife. On my way back to the clock, I pass my Em, lifeless like a statue. The blade catches the light as I stab the clock and the wall around it, trying to pry it free. I pound the knife tip into the wall, into the gold frame, into the glass front.

Nothing. Not a scratch. Not a crack.

Just a steady tick tick tick.

My anger grows with each calm second that passes.

“This isn’t what I wanted!” I attack the clock, hitting it with my fists, with the handle of the knife, with the lamp on the table, the bulb shattering with a pop. Over and over, I hit it with anything and everything in the house. I try to destroy it. I want to destroy it.

But it doesn’t move. It doesn’t bend. It doesn’t shatter.

Surrounded by tools…knives, a hammer, a wrench, the remains of the lamp, and a kitchen chair…I quiver with exhaustion. My body aches.

With a wail, I pick up each thing and throw it across the room, the knife crashing into a ring of crystals, the doll in the center falling to the floor. The doll that looks like Em.

It was supposed to help.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

My cry of rage, of sorrow, of emptiness, fills the house with dark guilt. I wrap my fingers around the clock and pull, straining every muscle, but the front stays solidly in place. Hurt grows in my fingertips as the edges of the clock slice my skin. Shoulders trembling and fingers slick with blood, my grip gives, and I fall back, tripping and flailing until I land on the floor. Sharp pain bites my hip, my knee. My heart.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

I wrap my arms around my legs and sway, staring at the clock, at Em. “…time move slow…moment stop…” The words fall from my lips like daggers. The weapon that I used.

But it was supposed to give us time.

“My fault. All my fault.” I rub the blue pentacle on my palm, wanting to erase it. “For this will be my only will.” But this isn’t how it was supposed to work.

I gaze at my Emily, still and motionless. Maybe it did work. Maybe the cancer is just as frozen. But we can’t live like this. I slap my hands against the floor. “I’ll fix it. I can reverse it. I have to do something.”

Getting to my feet, I stumble to the spare room. To the closet and the books hidden behind extra sheets and towels and winter coats. To the books with strange symbols etched into the covers, with pages so worn they almost fall apart, with words so old they are nearly forgotten.

After two weeks, the doctor said Em’s chances weren’t good. She was losing the battle.

I had to do something.

My arms shake as I stack the books, then pick up the pile and return to the living room, to the clock.

At first it was healing crystals. Viking runes for health. Amulets. Talismans.

I dump the books on the floor and spread them out, flipping open covers and turning the pages. When my charms and trinkets failed, I turned to spells…witchcraft, voodoo.

I just wanted more time.

And the clock was perfect. The embodiment of time itself.

The spell wasn’t easy.

I flip through the pages. “I have to reverse it…undo it.”

Click.

The sound snaps through my focus, and I look at the clock.

The minute hand shudders to a stop on the twelve, and a whir creeps from the ornate frame as unseen gears jerk into motion.

I stand, mesmerized as the clock face shifts, comes apart, then forms new shapes that spin and dance. A few notes drip from the clock, a haunting tune that grows and wraps around my brain. I never noticed the lines drawn on the face, the ones that change as the pieces move, the ones that look like the symbols on my books.

I’m frozen in place, unable to turn away, to run.

The lights flicker. Cold wind crawls through the room, swirling at my feet and slithering up my legs. A scream accompanies a blast of air, sending my braid slamming against my cheek.

The symbols on the clock turn blood red.

Footsteps thump and crash. Long shadows stretch across the clock and the wall. Something comes. Something behind me.

Something I created with words and symbols and the power of want and need.

At the edge of my vision, I see my Emily. Stuck because of me.

I just wanted more time. And now I fear that the seconds will no longer tick. That I’ve run out of minutes.

Because I set something free.

That thing is behind me. I feel it lurking. Black shapes move across my vision. Like fingers…like claws.

The clock face stops spinning, its symbols glowing. The song slows. One awful note after another.

I scream as the black spreads until everything—

About the Author

Kathleen Palm began writing seventeen years ago, making her way from fantasy to horror while her husband and two kids watched in terror. If you wish to find her, look behind an opened book, in the dark watching scary movies, or chatting with friends on Twitter @KathleenPalm.

Her horror short “The Path” was published in Gothic Blue Book VI: A Krampus Carol, and “Revealed” appeared in Hellhound Magazine issue 1.