Time lies.
It skips when we're asleep.
It slips when no one's looking.
But in Gravesend, time doesn't just slip.
It hides.
---
I came to this nowhere town to forget the ticking.
To bury the grief.
To outrun the minute that shattered my life.
But Gravesend had its own clocks.
And every single one of them was broken in the exact same way.
---
I arrived October 28th, just before dusk.
The sky hung low like a bruise, and the air tasted like rust.
Gravesend was quiet—too quiet for a town preparing for Halloween.
No kids in costumes.
No decorations except for rows of identical pumpkins, placed in clusters of five outside every door.
Each one perfectly carved with blank faces.
No smiles.
No jagged teeth.
Just… watching.
---
My rental home sat at the edge of town, overlooking the old clocktower, its stone face stained black with time.
The owner left no welcome note.
Just keys, a map… and one instruction scrawled on the bottom of the page:
> "Keep your windows covered on the 31st. Especially at midnight."
---
I laughed at first.
Old town. Old superstitions.
But even as I unpacked, I noticed it:
Every clock in Gravesend skipped midnight.
I tested it.
11:59 PM… tick.
Next tick—12:01 AM.
I checked my phone.
The oven.
Even the town square's giant clocktower.
All skipped.
All complicit.
Except one:
The pocket watch my wife gave me before she died.
An antique I'd fixed by hand.
It ticked true.
Which made me wonder—
What was the town hiding in that one missing minute?
---
I asked around the next day.
No one gave a straight answer.
At the diner:
"Tradition's tradition, hon. Some things are best left alone."
At the hardware store:
"Just a quirk. Town's got personality, s'all."
At the library, an old man named Ellis lowered his voice:
> "Midnight doesn't exist here. Not anymore."
---
I should've stopped.
Should've left Gravesend that day.
But I didn't.
Because deep down, I didn't come here to forget time.
I came to trap it.
---
That night, I sat by the window, notebook in hand, pocket watch ticking softly.
Outside, the town gathered in silence.
Every man, woman, and child—wearing gray cloaks, walking barefoot, lanterns dangling from their fingers like glowing mouths.
They stood in a circle around the clocktower, unmoving.
The streetlamps flickered out.
Then silence.
No wind. No insects. No sound at all.
My watch ticked.
11:59 PM.
---
I held my breath.
The second hand slid forward—
11:59:59…
…
…
Then—tick.
12:01 AM.
No chimes. No transition.
A gap.
Two minutes… simply gone.
The cloaked townspeople turned in perfect unison and walked back to their homes without a word.
---
I flipped through my notes.
The watch had recorded every second.
No missing time.
It remembered midnight—when nothing else in this town did.
And that scared me more than anything.
---
The next morning, someone slipped a note under my door.
A single sentence, handwritten in ink that looked too dark to be pen:
> "Your watch is lying. Or you are."
---
I tore down to the clocktower.
The door wasn't locked.
Inside, a spiral staircase led into the heart of the tower, where gears should've turned like thunder.
But instead, I found a mechanism made of bone.
Not brass.
Not iron.
Bone—carved and polished into gears.
Each one etched with names I didn't recognize.
A cold light pulsed from the center.
I moved closer.
A lantern, just like the townspeople carried.
Unlit—but breathing.
That's the only way I can describe it.
It pulsed like a heart.
---
And on the far wall?
Hundreds of names and dates, written by hand.
Every Halloween—one name.
Until this year.
This year, it didn't say a name.
It said:
> "Outsider."
---
I backed away. My legs trembling.
The watch in my pocket ticked louder now.
Each second like a hammer on bone.
And then I heard it—
The chime.
One single toll of the clock.
But it wasn't midnight.
It was now.
The floor beneath me shuddered.
The lantern glowed faintly blue.
And the gears began to grind in reverse.
---
I ran.
Out the tower.
Down the square.
Past the silent houses with blank-faced pumpkins.
Back to my rental.
Back to the room where nothing was safe anymore.
---
I closed every curtain.
Wound the pocket watch.
Sat on the floor.
Waited.
---
11:59 PM.
This time, the air inside the house changed.
Thickened.
My breath came out in clouds.
The floorboards bent inward, as though something heavy was pressing upward from beneath.
I held the watch close to my ear.
Tick…
Tick…
Tick…
Stop.
---
The second hand froze.
Then began ticking backward.
The room darkened.
My shadow moved in the wrong direction.
And then…
From the hallway—
Footsteps.
Slow.
Dragging.
---
I stood, blade in hand, heart climbing my throat.
The door creaked.
And standing there in the doorway was—
Me.
Gray-robed.
Mouth stitched shut.
Eyes full of clocks.
And behind him…
A dozen more.
All of them wearing someone else's stolen time.
---
One of them whispered:
> "You shouldn't be awake."