His eyes shifted back to the clock.
A couple of minutes past midnight.
Not thirteen o'clock at all.
Stupid. Stupid idea, thinking it could be thirteen o'clock. Musta just miscounted. Reaching up to the glass door that protected the face, he fumbled with it for a second, then managed to pull it open.
He pushed the minute hand forward until it pointed at the three.
But instead of striking the quarter hour, the clock once more began chiming the hours.
Once again, Ted counted.
Again the clock struck thirteen times.
Ted backed away from it, though his eyes remained fixed on its face, as if held there by some unseen force.
As he watched, the hands began to move, and once again the clock began to strike.
A trick! It had to be some kind of trick!
The hands couldn't be moving as fast as it looked like they were-it was impossible.
But as the minute hand came around to the nine, the clock once again tolled thirteen times.
Still unable to tear his eyes from the clock's face, Ted watched as the hand moved inexorably toward the twelve. Unconsciously, he held his breath as the clock began striking for the fifth time. As the deep chord reverberated through the house-once, twice, then thrice-Ted realized that something else was wrong.
The clock still read midnight.
But the minute hand had made a complete revolution! He knew it had! He'd watched it!
– five, six, seven times the clock struck.
Broken. That was it-the thing was just broken!
– ten, eleven, twelve-
Ted waited, his breath still trapped in his lungs, as the note faded away and silence descended. Finally, when he could hear it no more, he slowly exhaled. Turning away, he raised the bottle once more to his lips.
And once more the clock began to strike.
The bottle dropped from his hand. "Janet?" His wife's name slipped unbidden from his mouth. Then he whispered it again: "Janet, help me."
The last tolling of the clock died away. Before it could start again, Ted snatched up the bottle-half of the contents had already drained out onto the carpet-and stumbled out of the living room, pulling the doors closed behind him.
He moved across the huge foyer and into the dining room, pushing its doors tightly closed.
Safe.
Even if the clock started to strike again-
Even before the thought was fully formed he heard it again. But not muffled-not like it was coming from another room at all.
He whirled around.
And there was the clock! Standing against the opposite wall, between the two windows that looked out toward the wilderness behind the carriage house. Ted's heart raced as he told himself it wasn't possible, that the clock was still in the living room, that there wasn't any clock in this room, at least not one like this.
Its tolling grew louder, echoing through the room. Once again Ted dropped the bottle and clamped his hands over his ears, but the striking of the clock grew ever louder-so loud that with every chord it felt as if spikes were being driven into his ears.
Crazy!
He was going crazy!
Fumbling with the latch on the heavy dining room doors, he finally threw them open again, and fled back into the huge entry hall. But the sound followed him, and he realized his mistake-now he was hearing both clocks.
"Janet?" he called out again, instinctively invoking the name of the one person he'd always been able to rely on. "Janet, where are you?"
Upstairs. She was upstairs, in their bedroom.
Got to get there! Got to get upstairs!
He started up the flight, stumbling on the first step and barely catching himself on the mahogany banister. A wave of dizziness swept over him as he pulled himself back upright. His stomach felt queasy.
Drank too much. Drank just a little too much.
Hanging onto the banister with both hands, he pulled himself up a few more steps.
And the tolling of the clock struck him again.
Sagging to his knees, he peered up into the gloom, and there, on the landing, he could see it.
The clock!
The same clock that had been in the living room and the dining room.
"Nooo…" he wailed, his voice cracking as a sob of fear choked his throat. Turning away from the tolling clock, he stumbled back toward the foot of the stairs, but missed his footing completely on the third step, reached for the banister, missed again, and tumbled down the stairs, his right shoulder wrenching painfully as he sprawled out on the floor of the entry hall. Ignoring the pain in his shoulder, Ted scrambled to his feet, stumbling from one room to another, searching for some place-any place-that would be free of the terrible striking of the clock. Everywhere he went the clock was there, tolling the impossible hour time after time until it felt as if every part of his body was being subjected to the blows of the hammer.
Finally there was only one door left, and Ted stumbled through it.
He was at the top of a steep flight of stairs leading into the basement. The darkness below him yawned like the gaping mouth of some great beast, and Ted fumbled for a light switch, found one, and flipped it on.
The darkness below was pierced by a beckoning light. His heart still pounding, the terror of the impossible chimes still battering at him, Ted lurched down the stairs until he came to the bottom.
And still the terrible tolling found him.
"Stop it," he whispered, jamming his hands against his ears, but now the sound seemed to come from inside his head itself, throbbing inside his skull, falling into rhythm with his heart.
A stroke!
That was it!
He was having a stroke!
The pain in his head ballooning, he stumbled through another door. Once again he tripped, and this time when he fell to the floor an agonizing knife-twist shot through his right wrist. Screaming, Ted clutched at his wrist.
Another wave of dizziness hit him, and his belly heaved. As the contents of his stomach shot from his mouth, he dropped to the floor and felt the heat of his own vomit on his cheek.
The rancid fumes caused him to puke again, and then, rolling over onto his back, he began to sob.
"No-" he pleaded, his voice breaking and choking.
"Don't want to die. Don't want to."
But he was going to die-lying in the dark chamber with only a few rays of light leaking through the door. He knew it.
With Janet asleep upstairs, he was going to die.
Die alone, die drunk.
Dead drunk.
"No. No. Nooo." A whisper. A sob. "Help me… please, help me. Someone, please help me."
He retched again, and then again. He struggled to move, at least to slither away from the pool of vomit in which he lay, but any movement he made was pure agony.
Then, from somewhere deep in the darkness surrounding him, he saw something.
From somewhere hidden in the darkness a mist was rising. A mist that seemed to be illuminated from within, as if a thousand candles were burning unseen in the strange fog. As he stared at the fog, a face began to take shape.
A powerful face, with glowing eyes that bored into the depths of his soul.
A hallucination.
That had to be it-he was hallucinating.
Or dying.
That was it-his life was ebbing away, and this was a spirit come to lead him into the mists of death.
"Help me," he whispered once again. "Please help me."
The mist itself seemed to reach out to him, and he felt a touch-a burning touch-on his cheek.
A voice spoke. A whisper. Neither a woman's voice nor a man's, something unearthly yet distinct. "Will you give me whatever I ask?"
Ted stared up into the glittering eyes. "Yes," he whispered. "Oh, God, yes."
The terrible tolling in Ted's head eased.
The nausea in his belly calmed.
"Anything," he pleaded once again. "I'll do anything. Just help me."