I remember when I was younger grandad and me would always go see a movie whenever we got to visit. It didn’t happen often; my parent’s busy schedule and the drive were enough to make our little rendezvous a scarcity that only happened monthly. However, when all the planets had aligned and luck was in my favor, I got to watch a movie with grandad.

The movies we went to see were if I’m being frank, quite terrible. Being around eleven my grandad felt the need to take me to see age-appropriate films much to the detriment and annoyance of my younger self. But ultimately it was the time I got to spend with my grandad that was the most important to me, the film was just a bonus- like the cherry on top of an ice-cream shake. However, there was one thing that always seemed to way down the excitement of my visits.

At the end of the hallway in grandad’s house was an old grandfather clock that sat in the shadows of the corner. Its wooden frame reached to the sky just missing a collision with the ceiling. I can still remember the dark wood that it was neatly constructed out of, and I distinctly recall its angry metal face. I always wondered why they called it a ‘face’ when I could find no mouth, nose, or even eyes on it. Despite it having no discernable way to see me I could just tell the thing was looking at me. In the night the glistening metal face seemed to have the watchful eyes of a predator in the bushes waiting to pounce out and attack its prey. I was terrified of that grandfather clock, but worst of all was the noise that it would make.

Gong! Gong! Gong!

Every hour on the hour it would ring out diligently to scream the time to whoever dared to listen. In the bedroom where I slept, I recall being woken up every single hour to the cacophony of ringing and trying to muffle the noise by nearly suffocating myself with a pillow. But nothing would stop the machine from doing its designed duty and my sleep suffered for it. But I never really brought it up with grandad, I probably should have told him how much it bothered me. He was a nice man and would have done away with it if he had known the grief it caused me, but my young mind was too proud to admit my fear of such a silly thing. So, I ironically suffered in silence to the sound of time passing.

But one night something was different. Me and my grandad had just gotten back from the theater, this time I had barely managed to convince him to take me to see a grown-up movie. I think grandad started regretting the choice after the second or third decapitation. But soon it was over, and we found ourselves tired and filled to the brim with popcorn.

It was late so grandad decided to tuck me in and wish me goodnight before he journeyed off to sleep himself. I lay beneath the blankets of the bed, an old creaky thing that seemed to be on its last legs. I worried that one day it might collapse while I was still sleeping and I would be woken up to the sound of my bones breaking, but nothing dramatic ever happened like that- at least where the bed was concerned. As I slowly fell asleep, I heard the clock sound the hour off.

In my head, I counted out each ‘gong’ just like I had always done before. “Ten,” I thought to myself as I snuggled my head into the pillow.

But suddenly I got a chill down my spine and my sleepy eyes opened with alertness I had never experienced before. I knew that grandad’s house wasn’t exactly new, and that cold air would often seep between the cracks to provide me with my share of shivers, but this wasn’t that type of chill. It was the type of chill you get when you know someone is watching you, the knowledge that some danger was lurking somewhere in the dark.

I lay on my side with my back facing the door, a terrible thought crossed my mind that maybe someone had silently snuck in without me realizing. If that were true then they would have to be standing over me even now watching, or perhaps waiting for some unheard cue. Everything inside me wanted to spin around and see if someone was there but in the back of my mind a little warning was sounding off.

I had seen what my cat would do when they were playing with a toy or hunting some unfortunate creature, they would sneakily narrow their shoulders and lower themselves to the ground and wait for the thing to make a move before they would attack. I wondered with dread building in my chest if whoever was in my room was doing the same thing to me. Were they waiting for me to move or make a sound so that they could make me their prey? It was settled, the only thing that I could do was to stay still and pray for them to go away. I closed my eyes and tried to hold my breath the best I could, but I could feel something getting closer to me and it took all my resolve to not spin around and face them.

Gong! Gong! Gong!

The startle of the noise broke my concentration and in a fierce panic, I spun around to face my predator. In my mind I knew I was dead, I had moved, and now they had every reason to take their prey. But all that I saw behind me was my dark empty room staring back at me. My heart sputtered like the engine on a failing car as the feeling of danger in me subsided. But as I lay down to try to get back to my sleep, I came to realize that the chill, that awful warning of danger, hadn’t gone away.

Gong! Gong! Gong!

I realized with confusion that the chiming of the clock had yet to stop. I had counted the gongs to myself, and they were well past eleven or even twelve, something was wrong. I stood up from the bed with some hesitation as I put my feet down on the painfully cold floor. I crossed my arms across my chest hugging myself in an attempt to calm my nerves, but it didn’t work. I reached out to grab the door handle, but without any warning, the chiming stopped.

At first, I was relieved, the nightmare was over, and I could return to bed. But something deep within me was curious, something wanted to know why the clock had chimed so long and why this feeling down my spine was still there. So instead of going back to bed, I opened the door. I peeked my little head out and looked left and right like my parents had taught me about crossing the street. But this was no street, this was a hallway that held something I certainly did not want to cross paths with.

At the end of the hall sat the wretched thing, looking down at me like it had done many times before. With a shudder of horror, I realized that the feeling wasn’t warning of anything in my bedroom. No, the hunter didn’t lurk with me in the darkness of my room, they were out here the whole time waiting for me to come to them. I had moved and they were.

Gong! Gong! Gong!

The chiming began again as the face of the grandfather clock began to darken into a sickly black color. It seemed like something from behind the metal exterior had begun to melt and was now oozing out between the cracks and the seams of the old machine. It began to drip down the wooden exterior, droplets tip-tapping to the ground like water from a faucet. Soon a puddle started to form, and it slowly began to grow larger and larger. The dark sludge slowly slinked closer to me like a shadow being cast from afar. I stood unable to move, unable to think, and unable to cry out for someone to help me. The chiming of the clock seemed to rattle through my bones and up to my throat where something held my voice shut with a dark grip of force. I was helpless and that’s exactly what they wanted me to be.

The clock had now become hidden behind the dark waxlike ooze that had leaked from it and the shadows seemed to consume it into the black void of the hallway. Slowly something began to rise from the puddle, something that was rising to meet me face to face. It is difficult to put into words what my little eyes saw, thinking back to it nowadays everything here seems hazy like a dream that has almost been forgotten. But the one thing I distinctly remember, the thing that haunts my dreams and shames my nightmares, was the eyes. They were round and bright, almost glowing in the deep darkness of its body. Both looked at me with such glee and delight but even as a frightened child I could tell that there was no kindness behind those eyes. Those eyes only existed to witness the dread and terror that they would create and cherish every single moment of it.

In my petrified state I couldn’t help but realize, “Oh no, these are the eyes of the clock.”

Gong! Gong! Gong!

For some reason, the sound of the clock ringing in my ears was enough to break me of my fear and the grip around my voice was released. “Grandad! Grandad!” I shouted falling into a ball on the ground and covering my eyes with my hands. “Grandad please! Help me, please! Make them go away! Make it stop!”

Gong! Gong! Gong!

I felt a creeping hand reach across my face. A slow yet forceful weight gripped both of my hands and yanked them away from me. I closed my eyes as tightly as I could and did the only thing that I felt I could do, “Help me, please! It’s hurting me! Grandad help!”

Gong! Gong! Gong!

I felt something slowly creeping around the edges of my eyes, trying to find some crevasse or some hold to force itself in. It found one when my eye’s started to water from the intense tears that I began to cry. Slowly I felt my eye being peeled open and I screamed at the very top of my lungs.

“Oh my god! What’s wrong?” My tear-filled eyes opened to see my grandad hovering over me with a look of absolute horror on his face. He had just found his grandson balled up and weeping on the floor of his hallway as he had come out of his room to get a glass of water. “What happened? Are you okay?”

He knelt beside me a took me into a big comforting hug and I had never been more pleased to see anyone in my life. It took me a long time before I could even say anything from beneath the blanket of tears and the strain the screaming had on my throat. “It was horrible!” I explained. “There was this thing! It was a monster, grandad, I swear I saw a monster! It tried to get me, but I screamed, and you came and scared it away!”

Grandad held me tighter in his arms, “Oh, it’s alright now. You were just having a bad dream.” He heaved a deep sigh. “ I knew I shouldn’t have taken you to see that movie, it must have scared you so bad. But we all have nightmares sometimes, kiddo, dreams that we think are real but they’re only in your head. Grandad used to get them all the time when he was your age.”

I shook my head, “No.” I said defiantly. “It was real! The clock was chiming like it always does at night, but this time it kept going so I went to see what was wrong! I was so scared, it tried to open my eyes and I couldn’t stop it! Grandad, is it gone now? Please tell me you scared it away!”

Grandad looked down at me with an expression that I had never seen him use in all my life. “What?” He said, his voice dropping the tone of comfort that he had been using. “What did you just say?”

I sniffled and tried to answer, “I came out of my room because the clock wouldn’t stop ringing like it normally does, and there was a monster!”

“But you must be confused.” He said, a look of utter confusion and dismay spreading across his face. “That clock is broken my dear, it’s never worked from the day I got it.”