The apartment itself sat in an old apartment block sandwiched on both sides by more apartments made out of brick that gave a dusty look to this part of town. Inside the apartment was nothing out of the ordinary it consisted of an open living area/kitchen, two bedrooms, a bathroom and a small balcony that had a fire escape which led down to the street. The last residence here were an elderly couple who since moved to a retirement home and before them lived two brothers that drove buses on the local bus system so the apartment had no unusual history to it.
The settling in period went as fine as it could go, Jackson had made friends and got himself a good paying job, Duane also seemed content with his new school and surroundings. The weeks and months pass by with ease as the emotional attachment with the old house started to drift, only to be replaced with a new found bond to this apartment.
Jackson who had problems in the past with sleep mainly due to his wife passing started to find his sleep was getting better and most night's he would drift off without worry, but he started to notice something. He would just start to fall asleep when he would hear the faint sound of a ticking noise, almost like an old clock but a lot faster, "tick tick tick tick tick tick" this would happen only when the room was completely silent and speed up as if it had a pulse. The funny thing about it was that once Jackson became frustrated with it or would get up out of the room then it would stop. Maybe it was something in the pipes thought Jackson but it seemed to happen at the exact time every night as if in tandem with his sleeping pattern.
This slowly started to become bothersome so he set up a dictaphone that he bought earlier that day and once it became night he started to record. He could hear the ticking noise clearly but when he went to listen to the recording nothing came out, no ticking, nothing! The next day on his way to work Jackson was scrolling through his phone and was stunned to what he had found, there was a picture of him sleeping on his phone. He was alone in the apartment that night.
He knew not to mention this to his son or anyone else as he knew how this would sound, this was on his mind constantly he tried setting up camera's but nothing could be seen. A few nights later the ticking had gotten louder, it was as if it was right up against Jackson's ear,it turned into a thumping sound "thump thump thump thump thump thump" until it started to ease away "thump........thump..........thump" it went eerily quiet not even the sound of traffic passing could be heard, all Jackson could hear was his thoughts scrambling.
He eventually asked Duane casually did he ever hear a sort of tick tock noise like the one clocks make to which Duane shook his head and looked at him strangely implying that he didn't know what his dad was talking about. That night Jackson lay in bed awaiting the return of the familiar sound, it became almost like a nightly ritual (He would hear the noise, stay up and try figure it out then it would ease away and he could sleep then) and on time it started. Tonight it never eased, it grew louder and faster the thumping had returned which led to a bang coming down to hall by Duane's room.
He stepped out of his room walking slowly towards Duane's room while also following the noise, he slowly eased open Duane's bedroom door which started to creak. On the bed sitting upright was Duane who frighteningly said " Daddy there's someone under my bed" Jackson looking scared but equally curious so he knelt down tucking his head slowly under the bed and he heard trembling whispers of "Daddy there's someone on my bed" he stood up walked back a few steps and froze.
Jackson was found a few days later dead in his apartment by work friends who stopped by to check on him, there never was a son called Duane it was thought that he was suffering from a bad case of denial and a personality disorder after the trauma of losing his wife and Duane was a fabric of his imagination made up to help him deal with the loss.The ticking noise was deeply rooted in his head mimicking how he was feeling when he learned of his wife's cancer, the days were like a clock ticking away until the inevitable happened. He was found lying on the kitchen floor nails eroded away from scratching at his face which looked as if it was after being mauled and a knife stuck in his heart presumably to symbolise how he felt.
No comments:
Post a Comment