LeeKav

Part 1 - Harry
It was Thursday night. I was laying in bed, not sleeping but trying to. There was a ticking noise somewhere in my room that was driving me crazy. It was like a clock working over time. Ticking twice a second. -tick, tick, tick, tick-. I covered my ears to block the sound, but it just kept going. Same speed, same volume. Rolling restlessly in bed, starting to feel a little bit insane. I stood abruptly up, knocking a glass of water on my bedside table onto the floor. I didn't bother cleaning it up for the time being. It was only half full, anyway. I was far more concerned with finding the source of that damned ticking noise. I turned the lights on and started tearing my room apart. Where was it!? I opened draw after draw and opened their contents.

I sat back on my bed, deciding that I needed a new approach. I couldn't just recklessly tear my room apart, that wouldn't get me anywhere. I had to be smart and methodical about it. I started trying to think logically about what could be causing it. I looked at my alarm clock, it was out of batteries, couldn't be it. And anyway, it didn't tick. Why did I think it would be my alarm clock. I guess I just associate ticking with time. Odd that. By that point I could no longer hear the ticking noise. I listened intently, but heard nothing. I decided it was safe to go back to bed.

Ten minutes passed. I was not asleep yet, but getting their. That is until it started again. -tick, tick, tick-. "God dammit!" I yelled, jumping out of bed. I flicked the light on and glared angrily at my room. It stayed silent, as if to say "What'd I do?". It knew what it did. I searched furiously for quite some time before giving up. Then it hit me: Why don't you just sleep in another room. "Gee, that took you a while" I muttered. I walked into the lounge room and collapsed on the couch. -tick, tick, tick-. "Dammit!!!" I yelled jumping up. I was furious now. The house was messing with me. Where the hell was that sound coming from.

I sat thinking. There was a clock in the dining room, maybe that was it. But this was faster than any clock I had ever heard, and I had never heard that clock from my bedroom before. Despite this I marched into the dining room, grabbed the clock and smashed it on the floor. But the ticking continued. Back into the lounge room I went and slumped on the couch. "What the hell is it?" I asked. Nothing replied. I kept trying to think what it might be, but my thoughts were always interrupted by a steady -tick, tick, tick-. By now I had given up. I decided to go for a walk.

I grabbed my coat and headed for the door, but before I got their it burst open. There was no one their, but I swore I felt something move past me. A presence I could not see. It swirled around me as the ticking grew progressively louder. I stumbled and fell to the ground, gripping my head. It was like nothing I had ever felt before. The ticking just kept getting louder and louder. It felt like my head was going to explode. I stood back up, and ran into my bedroom. That strange presence I could feel but not see followed me. I opened one of my dresser drawers and fumbled for my gun. Finally! I got it. But what was I going to do with it. I could not see this thing. I shot randomly around the room in a fit of rage. Finally I couldn't take it any more. I put the gun in my mouth and pulled the trigger.

Part 2 - Henry
It was Friday morning. One more day of work to get through and then it was the weekend. This put me in a good mood as I got out of bed and put on my shoes. Walking to the kitchen to make breakfast I started making plans for the weekend. I should catch up with John I thought. I hadn't seen him in a few weeks. John is a good friend of mine. We have been pretty close since primary school. Now we were both 26 and working full time. I decided that I would call him when I got off of work and see if he wanted to catch up and have a beer. As for Saturday and Sunday, the news had told me yesterday that the weather would be nice and sunny all weekend. Perhaps I would go fishing. Yeah, that would be a nice way to spend a weekend; fishing in the sun. Maybe I would borrow the boat from the local Angling Club. I was not a member of course, but my father was. Feeling satisfied with my plans for the weekend I poured myself a cup of coffee, and put some toast on.

I sat at my kitchen table, waiting for my toast to pop up. I looked up at the clock. It was 7:00. I didn't have to leave for fifteen minutes. I was reaching for the paper but stopped abruptly. I had a sudden compulsion to look back at the clock. I glanced back at the clock as it turned to 7:01. For some reason it's ticking really got into my head. What was it about it this morning that was so painful to listen to? I ignored the ticking and started reading the paper when my toast popped up. I folded the paper and stood up. I lightly spread some butter over the toast and sat back down. I was trying not to look at the clock. Something didn't feel right. I suppressed these thoughts and finished my breakfast.

I slipped my shoes on and decided to leave early. I didn't feel comfortable in my home right then, for what ever reason. I started the walk to work. I always walked. I am no fitness freak, but I like to do small things -like walking to work- to maintain my fitness. I rounded the corner into Abbot street, where I saw 4 police cars and an ambulance parked outside of a house. I gurney was taking a body bag -presumably with a body in it- out to the ambulance. I walked over to the police officers -I had time to spare. I left 10 minutes early- and asked them what was up.

"We can't be entirely sure at this time, but we suspect this was a suicide." said one of the officers. He looked to me like he was the guy in charge, perhaps because he was the oldest. "Oh dear" I said before starting to turn away. I walked halfway past the house before stopping and turning to look at the house. There was a ticking sound coming from inside the house. Like the sound my clock had made during breakfast, only about twice as fast, and louder. It felt like it was drawing me closer. I kept staring at the house. Then I felt a strange presence. It was whirling around me. The ticking was cut off when one of the officers spoke "Is everything alright?" he asked, and the presence went whirling away like somebody had blown a balloon to it's full capacity then released it into the air without tying it. "Yeah. Fine" I said and walked away.

I felt weird. By this point I had completely forgotten about calling John. Completely forgotten about my plans of fishing. What the hell had just happened. What was that ticking sound? I pushed these thoughts deep into my mind then went on my way to work. I couldn't stop thinking about what had just happened.

What ever the fuck just happened, it was not cool. It felt like there was a ghost or something. I personally do not believe in ghosts, but that if ghosts were real, they would feel a lot like that. Y'know, the whole 'creepy unseen presence' thing. It actually felt like something was...I don't know, grabbing me? It was trying to pull me down. And that ticking! That really got into your head. It was like a clock on acid place up against a megaphone, or thirty.

I pushed this out of my mind as I got to work. I work as a teacher at the university of Melbourne, Humanities Department. I deal a lot with sociological matters, as well as social and behavioral science. It's not so bad. Good pay, good holidays. I like my co-workers.

"Henry! Can you help me out with something?". It was my fellow teacher Rodney Cavanaugh. I followed him into his office and sat on the opposite side of his desk. He sat down. "I've been doing some research into the increased suicide rate in Victoria. I have to say, my findings are not even close to what I expected. Something really weird seems to be going on. Three people who have failed to commit suicide in the last few months claimed that they were being driven insane by a loud ticking sound. They have all been institutionalized. Further more-". He was cut off by the bell signaling the start of the days first period. "Dammit. Well, take this" he demanded, handing me a notebook from his desk. "If you get some spare time read it" he said. "It is a collection of articles and some research notes". He then hurried of to his first class. I tucked the notebook under my arm and did the same.

Part 3 - The Notebook
I opened the door into my first class pleased to see that all of, or most of -it was hard to tell just by looking- were already there. My first class on a Friday is Sociology. I put Rodney's notebook on the desk for the time being and marked the roll. Three of my thirty students were absent. I addressed the class.

"Okay then class. Today we will be continuing our work on moral panic. If you do not finish the assignment today it becomes homework. Remember that this assignment is perfect preparation for your upcoming essay on the topic "To what degree is the public response to terrorism a result of moral panic - Is terrorism as imminent a threat as the media claim? Discuss. If you have a problem ask me" I said. Usually I would talk for a bit longer than that but I was eager to read Rodney's notes. I was especially curious as I had heard the ticking first hand. Those people weren't crazy, there was actually a ticking, and I knew that. But the problem was helping Rodney prove it.

No one had any question so I sat down and opened Rodney's note book. The article on glued neatly into the first page was titled Survivor of failed suicide claims he was driven insane by a loud ticking noise. It explains that the man had tried to kill himself by plunging a knife into his skull, it stopped on the bone and he passed out. It also explains that those close to him said that he had shown no previous signs of suicidal tenancies and actually seemed quite happy and stable. It contains a first hand account from the man himself: "I was just watching TV at home by my self when it happened. All of a sudden there was this...this ticking. It was incredibly loud and it felt like it was drilling into my head. And then something started squeezing in on me. It was crushing me. I could barely breath. It was so horrible that I just took a knife from the kitchen counter and drove it into my head.". This I found disturbing. What would of happened to me if that officer hadn't disturbed the process? And more importantly could this thing still be after me. Is it not satisfied with it's unfinished work? These thoughts made me scared and paranoid. I glanced quickly at my class and was relieved to see that no one was watching me.

I returned to reading. Rodney had written some notes underneath the neatly glued in article. His hand writing was impressively neat. It seemed he was a little bit of a perfectionist about his work. Which was good, it made finding information in this notebook easy. It was a pleasant change from the tattered untidy notebooks of my students, which I often had to read. His neat writing noted how similar these circumstances had been to other incidents. His family and friends had said that he seemed happy and shown no signs of being suicidal. That's because he wasn't I thought. The ticking drove him to it. Then again most articles I've read about people committing suicide say that the victim didn't seem suicidal. Regardless, I believed it on this occasion.

Rodney had even given the ticking sound a name; orologio veloce. I assumed he had just translated something into a foreign language to make it sound flashy. I guess it worked because 'orologio veloce' sounded kind of scientific.

I turned over the page to find another neatly glued in article. This one was titled Double suicide in Dandenong. This article turned out to be less interesting. These two succeeded in killing them selves, and had no stories of ticking to tell. But one interesting fact was brought up. The clock in the room they had committed suicide had stopped. Maybe it was nothing, but it sure got me curious.

I closed the notebook and looked around the room. That is when I noticed something quite peculiar - The clock in this room had started going double time. Nobody else in the room seemed to notice this. It didn't take long to figure out why. They were all moving double time as well. Everything had sped up. Is it possible to speed up time? Clearly so.

Everything started to swirl nauseatingly fast. I once again felt as though my head was going to explode. Everything gradually became a swirl of gray, and then I passed out.
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I kind of hate that story, and as such never finished it.