The Tolling of the Bell

I promised a short story and a short story I will give. This particular short story I thought up while I was at university in a psychology lecture dealing with hallucinations, and then afterwards I began to think a little bit of Mr. E.A. Poe and Stephen King, some of my favorite writers and well...my brain gave me this little toot.


The Tolling of the Bell

Stan was a man. A practical man. Stan, being a psychology major, believed that every instance of what he called “supernaturalism” could be explained away by logical thinking. He was tall and thin, with raven-like features and piercing eyes that he enjoyed using to find out peoples secrets. And of course he loved to challenge their superstitious nonsense.

The clock was an interesting clock certainly. It was a great grandfather made of polished ebony with ivory trimmings on the base and on the exquisitely carved clock face, a pendulum of brilliant brass swung slowly beneath it as it ticked away the time.

It lay at the top of a staircase in Stan’s uncles house, it was nearly a mansion save that he didn’t have the garden, which used to belong to Stan’s grandfather. It was surprisingly dark, full of shadows but that didn’t bother Stan, he was unafraid of ghosts and ghouls. Since it was close to campus he’d decided that he’d live in it and probably spruce it up too. He liked his sense of style and thought it was a pretty good one to have, even if not everyone approved, he as happy with it. The boxes were piled up haphazardly all around the front hall and he was glad that his friends, Mike and Steve, had been there to help him. Mike was on a sports scholarship, playing rugby, but he had dreams of getting into medicine and becoming a doctor. God knew,
haha that’s a laugh,
that he was smart enough. And Steve was a musician to his heart. He didn’t have the strength or stamina for sports but he made up for it by writing the most beautiful music for his cello. He was so good in fact that he regularly did concerts at the local hall to help fund his college. They were Stan’s two best friends, indeed he loved them more than family seeing as how his family had done little to help him with his college dream and they were all superstitious fools anyway. His friends had always been there for him, ever since grade school all the way up to college, and he was proud of them for it.

The clock rang at quarter to seven that night. “Bloody nuisance” thought Stan, “never runs on time”. And he went back to his nightly schedule of studying and drinking scotch while his dog, Dinky, slept by his feet. Stan liked scotch.

He woke up the next morning with the beginnings of a hangover but at least his work was done and he wouldn’t have to worry about his schedule for his next exam. He fed himself and Dinky and then he settled down to read the mornings newspaper and do the cross-word since his psychology lecture didn’t begin until eleven. At half past nine his door rang, a haunting, mournful tone that would have been more appropriate at a mortuary than at his house. It was Steve, who looked like a man staring at his grave. “What’s wrong man?” asked Stan.
“He’s dead. Mike’s dead. He was hit in rugby and never got up again and now he’s dead.” And at that they both began to weep and mourn their good friend, who had died of a stroke while in a ruck during his game at seven the night before.

Stan missed his psych lecture that day as they arranged to bury Mike at his favourite spot, none of them believed in church, on a hill that overlooked the medical facilities, but only after they had donated what organs they could to the medical faculty. Mike would have wanted it that way.

That night Stan sat down with Dinky and stroked the dog. Sometimes he thought that Dinky might be smart but then the dog would do something like chase her own tail and that dispelled that notion. He looked at his scotch cabinet longingly and the dog nudged his hand with her nose. She knew him well and she felt when her master was in pain, the bad smelling drink seemed to make him happier and so she fetched him a bottle from the bottom shelf.

He woke up the next morning badly hungover, and took a drink to help ease the pain. Then another, and another. By his sixth scotch he was able to walk, if a little unsteadily, to where he kept his books. He hadn’t done the work but that was okay, he’d catch up with it tomorrow when his head didn’t hurt so much. He was just leaving when he heard the clock strike again. It was only nine o’clock.

He tried his best to concentrate but couldn’t. The clock was starting to unnerve him
that’s absurd, it’s only a clock!
and the death of his friend was still fresh in his mind. He caught a couple of words but ended up leaving early.

The uneasy feeling did not abate when he’d returned to his new home. If anything all it did was get worse.
Stop it! It’s just a clock, you’re scaring yourself over nothing. Associating a traumatic event with a coincidence, you learned that in first year! It’s not real!
Despite himself he was thoroughly drunk by that evening when he heard the bell ring again. This time it was a man and a woman. They were in uniforms.

The police sat him down and explained to him that Steve had been setting up for a concert at ten when a man, hopped up on drugs, charged in with a loaded firearm and proceeded to beat him and then shoot him. They had caught the killer and they wanted him to know that they would press charges, but the man thought that the killer had a good chance of escaping conviction on grounds of temporary insanity induced by mind altering substances in his system. Apparently the man had so many drugs pumping through his system that it was a minor miracle that he was alive. They didn’t tell him that though.

After the police had gone Stan broke down and cried for the first time since he was a child of four and his dad had beaten him. He wept and he mourned and he drank until he knew no more. His last thought was how much he hated the clock.

He continued drinking for the next couple days, missed all of his lectures and labs, and soon received a letter informing him that if he didn’t improve his grades he would have to drop out of the course. Of course Dinky was there for him the whole time, his last friend in the world, and he loved her so dearly. He held her and cried himself to sleep and all throughout it he thought about that damned clock
It’s only a clock
and what it had done to his friends
Nothing!
and if he was next
Impossible!


Four days after he had received the letter he was starting to feel better, he still cried and had nightmares but he knew how to cope with nightmares. They weren’t real and he could rationalize them again. He began to think about perhaps taking a vacation, he’d been working too hard and he’d been through some traumatic experiences that had certainly taken their toll on him
The bells…
possibly Hawaii, or maybe Tahiti, or maybe something in Europe. Yes Europe, and he’d take Dinky with him too. Maybe take some time in Paris to visit the Eiffel Tower, or up to Britain for the Tower of London
Tower of death…
No, not London. Maybe Piccadilly, he could spend some time shopping. With Dinky. His beautiful, beautiful dog.
Dinky….
The clock was ringing…

Without even thinking about it, at least not where he was aware of it, he ran to her room just under the stairs. She was gone. He checked the house and saw the front door open. He bolted outside, could he hear yapping? He could, he followed the noise and turned the corner where he saw Dinky. She was chasing a butterfly and had wandered into the local junkyard. He watched in horror as, unable to move or even speak, she caught her foot on some junk in the compactor. And then he heard the whine of the machine begin
Dinky!
He tried to get to her to help her out but by the time he had gotten there her back half was already inside the rapidly
Too rapidly
closing machine. He heard her painful whining and yelping and he tried to release her, he grabbed at the junk that was holding her and then when that failed he grasped her paws and tried to pull her free through sheer force.
DINKY!
She was three quarters of the way in the machine then and he could see the life dying in her eyes, her loving, devoted eyes looking back at him as he struggled to save her. She licked his face once and then was gone. Into the machine.
dinky…

He had nothing
Nothing
Nothing at all
Nothing
Nothing except that clock
That cursed clock, that evil clock
Yes, the clock was evil, it was cursed. It had robbed him of his best friends
Mike.
Steve.
and his beloved dog
Dinky…
It had ruined his life, once so passionately filled with care and joy for his work and his sanity.
Oh, he was sane. So very sane. He was so sane he was in it. In sane hahahahaha!
He didn’t care about the tears coursing down his face, all he felt was the agony of loss and he was going to make it pay.
Pay for what it had done!
Oh yes, it would suffer as he had suffered and it would hurt no one ever again!

He walked to the hardware shop after all he had all the time in the world now. He had no life anymore
What life?
No friends
What friends?
And all the time in the world to make that clock suffer. It had ruined his life but it would not ruin him. He would destroy it and his torment would end. He’d be free.
So free!
He bought an axe and, other than a surprised look by the cashier because he was still crying, went unmolested in his task.

He entered his home
That cursed home
With the axe in hand
That bastardized piece of clockwork would pay
And he could feel the loathing fuel his efforts, his anguish and torment fuelled his rage and he would use that rage to annihilate that damned, fucking clock. He’d turn it into kindling and then he’d burn it, it and the entire home, and he’d be free!
He took his time up the stairs,
after all he had all the time in the world
but as soon as he saw it he felt a sudden urgency to hurt it, to get the job done as if it was as distasteful to him as his beliefs had been. He swung the axe hard.

The clock tolled one more time and his hand slipped and he buried the axe-head in the wall next to the clock. He struggled to free it, all the while terrified of the tolling of the bells in the clock.
Ask not for whom the bell tolls…
He ripped the axe free but the effort was too great to control, he slipped and fell down the stairs, flinging the axe up to free his hand to stop the fall but it was too late. He tumbled down the stairs and when he looked up and saw the axe and heard the bells
It tolls for thee.
He knew no more.



The police, having stopped by to investigate reports of a gibbering madman entering the property, found the body lying at the foot of the stairs with a broken back and an axe buried in his chest. They deemed it an accident based on the damaged wall at the top of the stairs. They ruled that the death was caused by the fall and that the axe had perhaps simply slipped from his hand. But they couldn’t be certain which came first since the axe-head had been completely buried in the poor man’s chest, almost all the way through, and they couldn’t understand how it had gotten the force with which to nearly pass through him.

The house went up for auction, seeing as his parents had passed away and he had no next of kin. The house was sold to an old gentleman who had worked for the college and was looking forward to retiring. He liked the clock.