Growing up my father was a kind gentle man and my mother was an old soul who adored me more than anything else in this world. My mother passed away when I was six at least that is what I keep telling myself, there is no way she is still alive, Right? My father won’t talk about what happened and told me it was a sickness and that is why she left. As I got older I realized the women on my mother’s side disappeared when they turned 36. So many strange things surrounded my family and I have come to a conclusion, it has to do with that stupid clock I know what I saw that night. A huge grandfather clock has been passed down to each generation, it looks ancient and the only time the cuckoo bird comes out is when something or someone wakes up. Although my father wouldn’t talk about the night my mother disappeared, I will never forget what happened.
The only reason I remember this night so well is because my mother and father were taking me to FunLand in the morning for getting all A’s on my school report card. The excitement I felt was like no other feeling I had yet experienced, maybe this is why I couldn’t sleep. The clock was placed in the hallway and all it ever did was tick. I tried to close my eyes but as the time got closer to 3 AM a horrible sense of dread washed over me. I had fallen asleep at some point and groggily rubbed my eyes, looking at the clock next to my bed I saw the time was 2:59 AM. I rolled on my side with my back facing the door before trying to go back to sleep.
The sudden fear I began to feel was unlike anything else and before I knew it the clock began to chime signifying it was 3 AM, the cuckoo coming out caused me to jump 6 feet in the air, well not literally but you know what I mean. This was the first time it had happened, well at least in the six years I had been alive. I began to chuckle in my bed before laying back down, but the next sound I heard caused my heartbeat to quicken. Curious about what the new creaking noise was, I quietly crept from my bed. Sneaking to my door and slowly pulling it open revealed something of a nightmare. A spiderlike creature was slowly coming out from below the clock where the pendulum swings, every time I opened that door there was nothing in there.
It wasn’t until the thing came completely out that I noticed the spider’s top half was a woman. I didn’t have a good chance to see it before I hit a creaky board. The sudden noise caused the creature to whip its head in my direction, my blood turned ice cold as I jumped behind a cabinet, luckily it didn’t see me or at least it didn’t care about my presence at the time. Staying hidden in the shadows I watched as the creature headed towards my parent’s room. I wanted to scream, cry, kill it, do something. But all I did was watch. I was frozen in fear as I watched it come back a few minutes later, dragging a cocooned sack. I needed to see what it had, as I began to silently move closer to where it was I watched as the creature put the cocoon down and began to open the clock, and slowly go back in head first.
As the spider was trying to maneuver itself into the clock I got a rush of adrenaline and bravery making my way over to the cocoon. What I saw will haunt me for the rest of my life, there she was my mother wrapped in the spider cocoon. Everything but her nose and eyes were covered, I could hear the panicked breaths spilling from her nose. Her eyes darted around, wide with fear finally locking onto mine. She began to scream and yell but the noise was muffled by the spider’s web. She started trying to thrash, crying I pulled at the web trying to claw her out of it. It wasn’t until a huge leg slammed me hard against the wall I noticed the spider had been alerted to my presence.
My entire body was on fire, the pain I felt was unlike anything I had experienced in my entire life. I didn’t care I had to get my mother, my head was pounding and I noticed blood beginning to pool around where I had hit the wall, and that is when I noticed it. I was paralyzed from the waist down. Fighting the pain I began to claw my way over to her screaming for my dad. I was helpless as I watched the creature grab her and descend into the clock once more. Before it was fully inside light flooded the house and I heard my dad yelling, the creature turned towards me and that’s when I noticed what was on the top half of the spider. I was frozen in fear as I looked into the eyes of my grandmother, well at least I think it was.
At the time I had never met her, she disappeared a long time before I was born, but I was shown photos of her. It looked almost identical to the photos I was shown. The only difference is that the thing looking at me had eight eyes, and a mouth full of sharp fangs, not teeth, it was as if the eyes and mouth had been cut out. I heard my dad running towards me, he rushed to my side and began to panic.
“Anastasia what are you doing, what happened?!”
Tears began to fill his eyes, but there was no time.
“Mom get mom, over by the cl..”
Looking over I noticed they were both gone and the clock had been closed once again. The next few hours were a blur. I had a complete breakdown and was never the same. It took me eight long years to be able to walk again, and that is with the assistance of a cane and my service dog Bo. I heard the doctors inform my dad I would never be able to fully walk again without assistance of some kind, I would never be able to jump, swim, run, or play again. Now imagine breaking that news to a 6-year-old. The story I told time and time again was the reason I had been put on so many medications. Everyone told my dad that seeing my mom leave broke me and to cope I made up a story to lessen the pain of being abandoned. My dad took it harder than me, he was completely heartbroken.
If it wasn’t for me he would have perished a long time ago, I became his world and he dedicated his life to helping me walk again. Unfortunately on my birthday last year, he took his own life, he tried to hold on as long as he could but his heart was never the same after my mom disappeared all those years ago. After my father passed away I inherited the house. My first order of business was to find that clock and throw it away, but it was no longer in its place. I searched and searched but was unable to ever find it. I guess my father threw it away before I had the chance to, good riddance.
I guess the reason I am writing this is because a few days before my 36th birthday I began to hear some things, I wasn’t sure what it was at first but the tick-tock I had come to know was unmistakable. For a German Shepard Bo was the exact opposite of the quirks that come with the breed. He never barked, never growled, and he never showed his teeth to anyone or anything. He acted more like a cat and his favorite thing to do was go to the park and watch the ducks, but on that first night a few days before my birthday when things first began to happen he was different. Upon hearing the noises he quickly rose from his spot at the end of the bed and positioned himself over me, the hair on his back was standing up and the growls coming from him were unlike anything I had heard before. He began to bark and show his teeth, facing the darkness that spilled in from the open door.
Bo began to bark uncontrollably before I heard the sound of scratching it was as if eight legs were skittering across the floor towards me. I quickly clapped my hands which turned on the lights in the room, yet nothing was there. Once the lights were on Bo calmed down, still staring at the open door. The next day I began to search the house from top to bottom without finding a single thing to explain the ticking or the scratches, not a clock or animal in sight to blame the cause on. I called my boyfriend to calm my nerves. He was an old childhood friend who turned into my boyfriend shortly after our first year in high school together, and we have been inseparable since. He lived here with me but has been in his hometown of New York City, New York due to his mother falling ill.
His father passed and with no siblings, it was up to him to take care of her. We live in Aspen, Colorado so being so far apart has been hard. The next few days went on as they usually do, but I kept hearing the tick-tocking and scratching. Bo had become uneasy every time the sun began to set, I decided I couldn’t stay in this house anymore, not alone. Not to mention it was the day before my birthday and just like every year I had a sleepover with my best friend Amira giving me an excuse to leave. She lived about 10 minutes away from me so this was a common occurrence. When I knocked on her door she opened it with a smile and a glass of wine. Bringing me into a hug was all it took for me to feel at ease, something I hadn’t felt all week. I had been a little on edge without Bo. He hadn’t been feeling well so the vet was going to keep him overnight. With only my cane and railings to rely on, I made the best of it. As I began to make my way to the bedroom to put my stuff away I heard the familiar sound of tick-tocking and immediately stopped and headed towards the source. In the kitchen, there was an antique grandfather clock, identical to the one that used to sit in our hallway.
“Amira, what the hell is this?”
I tried to sound calm but my words came out in shaky breaths. She popped her head into the kitchen and looked at what I was talking about.
“Oh this old thing, cool right?”
She moved into the kitchen and continued while pulling a chair out for me to sit on after she saw me wobbling. After I sat down I was able to catch my breath. After sitting down she continued.
“I found it at a garage sale yesterday and was in love.”
Trying to calm down I inspected it, there was no way it was the same one. I assumed my father disposed of it, and although the stories I told were passed off as nothing but a Child’s imagination, I had a feeling my father didn’t believe that. Not wanting to spend another second around the clock I began to push myself up.
“Well it is time for me to unpack so we can get this party started”
Amira squealed with glee and gave me a hand. We spent the night drinking, snacking, telling stories, reminiscing, and watching our favorite movies from when we were younger. We had stayed up until it hit midnight so we could celebrate my birthday and at that point, we were beyond exhausted and headed to bed. I quickly fell asleep only to wake up to an all too familiar sound. Tick Tock Tick Tock Tick Tock. Glancing at the alarm on the nightstand I saw it was 2:59 AM, Amira was still snoring next to me. It wasn’t until the all-too-familiar sound of the cuckoo went off that I began to panic. The window was open and a breeze had blown the curtains up a little letting the light emitting from the streetlights flood into the dark bedroom. That was when I saw something big in the corner.
I opened my mouth to scream but nothing came out. I tried to move but again nothing, it was as if I was fully paralyzed but I knew it was my fear taking over. I couldn’t do anything but watch as a shadow slowly moved across the wall towards me. I felt it begin to wrap me in something and I knew what was about to happen. I couldn’t see anything in the darkness but I could smell something foul, like rotting flesh close to my face. I knew this was it for me, that was until my phone on the nightstand began to ring and Jake’s picture flashed on my screen. At that moment the creature was stunned and I got a sudden rush of adrenaline and somehow managed to jump up and get to the door. I pushed myself past my limits and screamed in pain as I forced myself to go as fast as I could.
I heard legs begin to come after me, descending on me before I could reach the door. I knew it was the end for me but the lights in the living room suddenly turned on showing me what it was that was chasing me, what I saw broke me entirely. The screaming that had now drawn the attention of the creature was my escape. Looking back one last time I managed to get out the door as it descended on the blood-curdling screams that emitted from Amira. I had no idea if she would survive or not. I made it into the front yard screaming before the neighbors ran over to assist me. Once I was at the police station, they informed me of the news. No one believed my story, I was eventually convicted of Amira’s murder. They grilled me for hours asking how I did all of those sick things, they told me it looked like someone tied 8 pieces of rope to her and ripped her apart in 8 different ways.
I tried to tell them it wasn’t a rope it was a spider-human hybrid, tell me how do you think they took it? That is why I am writing this from an insane asylum for criminals. They pinned the murder on me despite there being no evidence and the fact they could not explain the way I had supposedly killed her, they just wanted a conviction to ease the mind of the other people living in the community. Jake has been amazing and visits me every day with Bo, they refused to let me keep him. I know she-I mean it is coming to get me, I think I know where all of the women on my mother’s side have gone, I don’t know how or when this started happening, but from the research I have been able to do, the disappearances at least the ones being recorded dated all the way back to 1825. On my way to the visiting area, I noticed a grandfather clock outside of my room in the corridor, the same clock that has haunted me all my life. Knowing that it wasn’t there before showed me that my time on this earth was coming to an end. I made the hard choice of saying goodbye one last time to Jake and Bo holding them far longer than I usually did, being locked in my room wouldn’t allow me to escape this time.
To answer how I found out where the women were going is due to when Amira turned the lights on before I fled. I saw her, the spider had replaced my grandmother and in her place, it wore my mother’s decaying corpse. For 30 years it wore my mother’s corpse as a head or maybe it was a mask. But now that the corpse was barely usable it was looking for me. I never knew being infertile would have been a blessing, I hope I will be the last victim of this monster. The ticking has begun and I swear I just heard the sound of the clock creaking open.