Let’s Start Again

(A Backwards Horror Story)

“I wish I could turn back the clock, God. I wish I could just turn back the clock. Please let me turn back the clock”, said Billy, lying on the floor of Mrs Danvers's living room, staring up at the ceiling as blood gushed out of him onto her persian patterned carpet.

Then, suddenly, the hands of that old cuckoo clock started to turn; not clockwise but anti-clockwise and the man in the cuckoo mask pulled his carving knife up out of Billy’s wounds and, as blood crawled off of the carpet, defying gravity, and poured back into his wounds, the wounds just seemed to heal themselves up miraculously.

“No! Get away from me! Help!”, shouted Billy as his whole body flipped upright onto its feet and the last of his wounds healed up as the Cuckoo Man pulled his knife from Billy’s chest.

Then Billy saw the strange cuckoo masked man pull his knife out of Mrs Danvers's body and the old woman sucked a scream out of the air and back into her lungs as her bloody wounds and the knife tears in her long black dress automatically repaired themselves.

Then Mrs Danvers flipped back onto her high-heeled shoes and the Cuckoo Man walked backwards out of the living room door, lowering his knife as the door closed in front of him.

The clock struck thirteen then and a bell chimed thrice and, all of a sudden, things didn’t seem frightening anymore and he was standing in front of Mrs Danvers's fireplace looking at the strange clock on the mantelpiece that Mrs Danvers had bought from an auction.

“Very spooky, Mrs Danvers”, he joked, “One thing bothers me though. If this is a cuckoo clock. Then where is the cuckoo?”

“They say that it used to belong to an occultist! You know? A black magician”, Mrs Danvers informed him.

“No. In all my years as a horologist. I can honestly say that I have never seen anything quite like it”, replied Billy.

“Have you ever seen anything like it? A clock with 13 numerals instead of 12?”, asked Mrs Danvers.

“What a creepy, weird name for a clock?”, said Billy as he and Mrs Danvers backed away from her fireplace towards the door and Mrs Danvers turned and opened it.

“They call it the Cuckoo Man clock”, said Mrs Danvers.

Then they backed out into Mrs Danvers's hallway and she pulled the living room door closed in front of them.

“Don’t mention it. We’re always happy to restore old beautiful clocks, Mrs Danvers”, he replied.

“It’s so good of you to come out at such short notice”, she said as he backed towards the front door of her house and she opened it, letting him back out onto her doorstep.

Then Mrs Danvers shut and locked her front door and the hands on her clock started to turn clockwise once more.

Then there was a knock at the door and she unlocked and opened it.

“It’s so good of you to come out at such short notice”, she said, as Billy followed her into her hallway.

“Don’t mention it. We’re always happy to restore old beautiful clocks, Mrs Danvers”, he replied as she showed him into her living room, shutting the door behind them.

Then, shortly afterwards there was a scream from inside the living room.

“What are you doing?!”, cried Mrs Danvers in horror, “That clock cost me two thousand pounds!!”.

“Believe me, Mrs Danvers”, said Billy as he smashed the old clock into little pieces with a hammer, “It’s for the best”.