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The clock stopped hours ago but John can still hear it ticking.
It’s distant and rings in the back of his mind like church bells.
Silhouettes of hooded figures flash and flicker in his backyard and on the front porch, only getting closer over time. Like a scavenger circling a dying animal on its last breath of life, just waiting for the light to go out before it can sink its teeth in deep and tear flesh from bone. They’re whispering something, light and not quite tangible words like a language that doesn’t exist anywhere in this world. His ears strain to pick up anything comprehensible, but it makes his head ache and swell like a leech filling up with blood.
He tries not to listen to their whispers after that.
Tick.
Even as he retreats into the basement, diving further and further into the belly of the beast, he refuses to admit the obvious. He’s always known, buried deep somewhere in the most shameful part of his soul, that he’s a coward of the worst kind. One that refuses to admit how afraid they are even as the world crumbles around them and they tear themselves apart muscle fiber by muscle fiber until nothing remains.
He holds the key in his hand and a terrified face he knows all too well stares back at him in its reflection. His hair is a mess, his expression ugly, he wonders if he’s already in hell or just on his way there.
He doesn’t know why they’re here. He has nothing left for them to hook their teeth into. He’s already been gutted, left empty by time.
Tick.
He feels his knees smack into the ground before he realizes he’s kneeling. He lowers his eyes because even now he can’t bear witness to his sins. Even in the end, he still chooses to run.
“What do they want from me?”
She stares at him with eyes that aren’t there. A swirling miasma of red pulsates and throbs through his skull. He hears flies buzzing all around him. Maybe he’s already dead and has been for a long time. Maybe he’s already festering and rotten.
“Why are you tormenting me like this?” he begs.
He’s never been farther from God. God’s love was burned out of him that awful autumn night. He should have known he wasn’t the type of sinner God would care to save.
“I don’t know how you ended up here. I just wish this nightmare would end.”
“UNFORGIVABLE.”
—
Struck down from Heaven and shunned from Hell, John has nowhere to turn but inward.
—
The forest still towers over him, larger than life like some ancient, terrible thing. No birds sing solemnly, no wind whistles through the empty branches, no animals rustle through the undergrowth for protection. It’s only him in this hollowed out world.
The Martin house still lies abandoned at the edge of the forest, sticking out like a rotten tooth. Its door hangs open on its hinges, mouth open wide like something vicious—something that would grind you into sinew if you gave it the chance to. It knows that he has returned like a parasite that keeps coming back to feed and it’s still angry and resentful.
While deserted, the house was far from empty. The walls had witnessed so much, a silent, passive observer to so much misery and pain. He could hear the remnants of laughter echoing and cries without voices in between the scattered furniture. He could hear the screams that played on repeat in the holes in the walls. Even before Hell had tarred the family home, it had already been haunted by something far more insidious.
It had been waiting for him to return. And he could run far, far away and leave Sterling behind as nothing more than a God-forsaken memory but he could never escape that bitter, resentful corpse of a house. A maggot needs to feed, afterall.
Tick.
A statute of two twins stands before him like a guillotine. His chest heaves and he forgets how to breathe.
“Please, make it stop.”
Sweat beads down his forehead and he grinds his teeth into powder. Does God still hear him even here? Does God choose to ignore his prayers yet again?
“I’m sorry. It should have been me. It should have been me.”
Tick.
God loves all and God will be the first one to let the blade drop. He will tear you into bite-sized pieces because he is God and you have been condemned since birth.
(He followed her through the woods that night, rifle held tightly at his side like an executioner. The trail of blood through the grass led him down a lonely little clearing. She laid there almost peacefully, head dipped low and bleeding from all over.
He held the rifle up with shaky fingers and looked through the sight. And then it dropped limply to his side.
He still couldn’t do it. Why did he come back to that house? Why didn’t he spend the rest of his life trying to forget? Who was he to try to save anyone else when he couldn’t even save himself?
Amy wrapped a hand that did not belong to her around his ankle as he turned to run away again. Stay.
He left her there to die. And now God had done the same to him. A fitting punishment.)
Tick.
John kneels at the circle and holds his neck out.
The clock stopped hours ago, but he still hears it chime one last time.