When Rebecca found the old brass clock at a yard sale, it didn’t tick until she brought it home. No batteries, no wind-up key—yet its hands began to move that night. At 3:03 a.m., it chimed thirteen times. The sound was deep and wrong, echoing through the walls like a heartbeat. Then came the footsteps.
They started softly in the hall, growing louder, closer. Every night, at the same time, the clock struck thirteen and the footsteps returned. She threw it in the trash—yet the next morning it sat on her nightstand, hands frozen at 3:03, glass fogged over from the inside. She smashed it, burned it, even buried it, but it always came back—each time a little older, more decayed, its ticking slower but louder. Then one night it didn’t chime. The silence was worse. When she woke, the clock was gone—but footprints led from the corner of her room to her bed. The last tick she ever heard came from under her pillow.
