Some antiques come with a history. This one came for Amy.
Amy didn't like people. 'Didn't like' might not have been strong enough. Amy hadn't left her house in eight months.
Her home was a small 2 bed, one bath in a quiet neighborhood. Anything she needed, she could have delivered. She had a standing grocery order for the third of every month. She had been quite happy with her life.
Her furniture was sparse but functional. The bedroom contained a bed, one dresser and a nightstand. Her living room was similarly set. So, when Amy woke one morning to the chime of a clock, she immediately knew something was wrong.
Sitting up in bed, she was frozen as the chime rang six times. Getting out of bed and shrugging on her robe, she crept silently down the short hall to the living room. There, in the corner that used to hold her Fiddle-leaf Ficus, was an old grandfather clock.
Amy backed up into her office and locked the door. Pulling up her security feed on her computer, she searched from 9 p.m. the previous night until she saw herself sneaking into the living room that morning. No one was on her full color cameras but her. No events recorded at all. The living room camera, mounted where the Ficus used to be, now sat just above the new clock, leaving the antique entirely out of view.
How had that thing gotten in there? She would never have owned a clock like that. No one would have given it to her, and she would not have gone out to buy it. Getting up from her desk, she unlocked her office door and went to inspect the clock.
It was…beautiful. The brass inlays on the clockface shone like new and the dark wood looked polished. Wherever this thing came from, someone had loved it. Unwilling to touch it, she leaned toward the middle section where the pendulum swung silently. She thought she could hear running water, and there was a faint smell of saltwater.
She went to the kitchen, as far from the clock as she could get while still keeping it in view. Leaning back against the counter, she stared at the antique. She could try dragging it outside. Maybe someone would take it if she left it on the curb with a sign reading ‘FREE’. It looked valuable, someone would want it. But it also looked heavy. Could she even move it on her own? And even though it was immaculate, it smelled like it had been dredged up from the bottom of the ocean.
Shaking her head at her internal monologue, she went back to the clock. She grabbed it on either side to test its heft. As soon as her palms made contact, what felt like a low voltage shock forced her to remove her hands. She jerked away so quickly that she stumbled backwards, narrowly missing her coffee table and a nasty fall.
The clock chimed once, signaling the half-hour.
Back in her office, she settled in her desk chair. She did a quick internet search and tried to find any stories of weird things appearing in people's homes. The results were mainly strange items found after someone bought a house, nothing like what happened here.
Amy couldn't think straight. Her thoughts raced, tangled with confusion and a growing sense of dread. Her routine, carefully curated and obsessively followed, was derailed. She decided to get back on track. Coffee and a shower were in order.
A hot shower was just the thing to calm her nerves. After toweling off her hair, she used her towel to wipe the fog off the mirror. Catching her reflection, she dropped the towel and stepped back, colliding with the door frame. Her hair, long and dark, now had a wide silver streak running down the left side. Without thinking, she touched the silver hair and brought it out far enough from her face to be able to see it without the mirror.
This couldn't be possible. She checked her bottles of hair product. They smelled the same as ever. Did the weird clock have something to do with this? She had heard of people having hair turn white after being frightened.
After grabbing some snacks from the kitchen, Amy barricaded herself in the office. She had to get rid of that clock, but how? She might have to call someone. Let them take it. She shuddered just thinking about some stranger in her home.
Just after 1 a.m., she was awakened by a beeping on her computer. She had fallen asleep in her reading chair in the corner. After taking a second to orient herself, she stood and moved the mouse, waking up the monitor. The beep had come from her security program. It was alerting her to activity on her property.
It was like her pulse had relocated to her ears as she opened the security app. The flashing of one of the selection buttons at the bottom of her screen drew her attention, her scalp tightened.
Event recorded.
One event: Camera 12. One minute, eleven seconds. Living room.
Amy hesitated with the cursor hovering over the recording. There couldn't be anyone inside her house. She had an alarm.
The alarm hadn't gone off when the clock showed up.
She hit play and the recording filled the screen. At first, there was nothing. Just as she was convincing herself that there must have been a moth messing with the sensors, she saw a person enter the frame. The camera had a view facing the kitchen and hallway, from above where the clock now sat.
Horror stricken, she saw herself emerging from the hallway and walking towards the grandfather clock. That was impossible; she had been asleep in the office. Did she sleepwalk?
As the other Amy stopped in front of the clock, her face tilted up to the camera suddenly. She jumped back in her seat.
The other Amy was smiling.
Her mouth began to open, slowly, impossibly wide. Then water gushed from it, streaming from her nose and mouth in a flood. It poured like a ruptured pipe, soaking the floor beneath her feet.
She raised a hand toward the camera—
—and the screen went black.
Local Woman Missing; Home Found Empty Except for Antique Clock
By Marisol Trent, Staff Writer
Ridgefield, WA – Police are investigating the disappearance of 33-year-old Amy Kerrigan, whose home was found abandoned earlier this week. Authorities were alerted after a missed monthly grocery delivery and concerned neighbors reporting a stack of uncollected mail.
“She was a regular,” said Logan Wren, a delivery driver for Green Crate Organics. “Always had the same order—almond milk, apples, steel-cut oats. Never opened the door, just waved through the window. But this time, the curtains were drawn and the house was... I don’t know. Off.”
Officers entering the home found no signs of forced entry or struggle. “The place was immaculate,” said Officer Gene Rourke. “Like no one had lived there in weeks. Power on, fridge humming, but not a single personal item left behind.”
The only object remaining in the otherwise sparse home was an antique grandfather clock, positioned in the corner of the living room. Officers noted a persistent smell of seawater throughout the residence, though no source was found.
The clock, which chimes regularly on the hour and half-hour, is currently being held in evidence, though no one has dared to wind it.
