Benny’s fingers were thick and calloused. He lost his sight to a flash of white heat ten years ago. Since that day, the world was a cold and silent place. He needed the clocks to feel alive. If the ticking ever stopped, Benny felt like he was buried under six feet of dirt. He lived for the metal heartbeats of the machines on his workbench. He needed the noise to remind him that he was still breathing.
A man named Vince came into the shop on a Tuesday. Benny knew the name because the man whispered it like a secret. Vince smelled like expensive soap and old copper. He dropped a heavy gold watch onto Benny’s velvet work mat. The sound was wrong. It didn’t thud. It clattered like a bag of dry bones. Benny’s heart did a slow, heavy roll in his chest. He felt a sudden coldness. This watch was not a normal timekeeper.
Benny picked it up. His sensitive fingertips traced the casing. The metal was scarred. He popped the back open with a thin blade. Usually, a watch felt like a tiny, busy city. This one felt like a trap. There was a gear in the center that shouldn’t have been there. It was jagged. It moved with a weird, hitching rhythm.
“Fix it,” Vince said. His voice was smooth like grease. “It keeps stopping at the wrong moments.”
When Vince left, Benny began to take the watch apart. He felt the teeth of the gears. He counted them by touch. One. Two. Three. Four. He stopped. The irregular gear had a pattern. It wasn’t meant to tell time. It was a mechanical lock. As Benny turned the crown, the gears clicked out a series of numbers in a secret code.
He used his braille typewriter to punch the numbers out. They were coordinates. They pointed to a spot in the deep woods near the old creek. Benny felt a stinging in his eyes. He remembered the radio news from last month. A girl named Sarah had vanished near that creek. The police found nothing but a discarded shoe.
Benny’s breath came in short, jagged bursts. He felt like a panicked pufferfish. He reached for the next gear. He traced the teeth. More numbers. Another spot by the highway. That was where a boy named Marcus had gone missing two years ago. The watch was a map. It was a diary made of gold and steel. Every time the watch stopped, it was marking a grave.
The shop felt smaller now. The ticking of the hundred clocks on the walls grew louder. It sounded like a thousand tiny hammers hitting his skull. Benny realized the truth. Vince didn’t want the watch fixed. He wanted to show off. He had brought his crimes to the only man who couldn’t see the blood on his hands.
But Vince had made a mistake. He didn’t know that Benny could “see” the gears better than any man with eyes.
Benny reached for his telephone. His hand shook so hard he knocked over a jar of tiny screws. They scattered across the floor like rain. Before he could dial, the bell above the door didn’t ring. But the air in the room changed. The smell of copper and expensive soap returned. It was thick. It was heavy.
“You found the secret, didn’t you, Benny?” Vince asked.
Vince wasn’t across the room. He was standing right behind Benny’s chair. Benny could feel the heat from the man’s body. He could hear the soft, wet sound of Vince’s breathing. Benny’s heart felt like it was being squeezed by a cold fist.
“I don’t know what you mean,” Benny whispered. His voice broke.
“Don’t lie. Your fingers are still touching the gear. You have the numbers on that paper.”
Vince’s hand landed on Benny’s shoulder. The grip was tight. Benny felt his bones groan under the pressure. The killer’s fingers were long and thin.
“I liked the idea of a blind man holding my secrets,” Vince said. He leaned in close. His breath smelled like peppermint. “I thought it was poetic. But you are too good at your job, Benny. You’re a very curious man.”
Benny looked into the blackness of his own eyes. He felt the weight of the heavy gold watch on the table. It was the only weapon he had. He reached out, his fingers searching for the metal casing.
“The watch is beautiful,” Benny said. He tried to keep his voice steady. “But the mainspring is about to snap. If it snaps, the code is lost forever. You want the code, don’t you?”
Vince hesitated. The grip on Benny’s shoulder loosened just a little. “Fix it then. Fast.”
Benny picked up a sharp, pointed tool used for cleaning pivots. He held the watch in his left hand. He felt the tension in the springs. He wasn’t fixing it. He was winding it too tight. He was turning the key until the metal screamed.
“What are you doing?” Vince asked. He leaned down, his face inches from Benny’s.
Benny didn’t answer. He waited for the specific click. The moment where the metal couldn’t take the pressure anymore.
The spring snapped with a sound like a gunshot. The internal gears exploded outward. The jagged, irregular wheel flew through the air. Benny felt a spray of something warm and wet hit his cheek.
Vince let out a choked, gurgling cry. He fell back. He hit the floor with a heavy thud. Benny sat still. He listened.
He heard the sound of Vince scrambling on the floor. He heard a wet, slapping noise. The gear had hit the man in the eye.
“I can’t see!” Vince screamed. His voice was high and thin. “I can’t see anything!”
Benny stood up. He felt his way around the workbench. He knew every inch of this room. He knew where the door was. He knew where the shadows lived.
“Now you know how it feels,” Benny said.
He walked toward the door, leaving the killer crawling in the dark. But as Benny reached for the handle, he heard a new sound. It was a soft, rhythmic clicking. It wasn’t coming from the clocks on the wall. It was coming from Vince’s pocket.
Benny froze. He realized there wasn’t just one watch.
The room went silent as the killer stopped screaming. Benny heard the sound of a man standing up. He heard the metallic slide of a knife being pulled from a sheath.
“I have more than one way to mark the time, Benny,” Vince whispered.
Benny reached for the door, but his hand found only empty air. The killer had moved the chair. Benny was lost in the middle of his own shop. He turned around, spinning in the dark. Every tick of the clocks felt like a countdown.
*Click. Click. Click.*
The sound was right in front of his face. The killer was winding a second watch. Benny was trapped in a forest of ticking ghosts, and the man with the knife was the only one who knew the way out.