The rain had slowed to a needle-fine drizzle, but Brookhaven still smelled like wet metal and rot. Streetlights flickered, casting trembling halos over the empty sidewalks. Killian McMiller stood in the middle of Caldwell Street, breath clouding in the cold air, eyes locked on the narrow alley ahead. Somewhere in the maze of brick and shadow, the second killer was moving.
Hill McCallister's voice crackled through the earpiece.
> "I've got eyes on the service door. No movement yet. But something's wrong… the air feels wrong."
Killian knew exactly what Hill meant. It was that pressure in the atmosphere — not weather, but anticipation, like the whole city was holding its breath before a scream.
Then, from somewhere deep inside the building, a muffled metallic clang. Not loud. Almost deliberate.
"Stay put," Killian ordered. "If he's here, he's making us hear him."
They approached from opposite sides. The old textile warehouse had been abandoned for years, windows boarded up, front doors chained, but the walls were covered with crude graffiti — not the usual gang scrawl, but symbols. Jagged lines. Repeating spirals. A crude clock face with its hands stuck at 4:37.
Killian's gut twisted. "Hill… he knows."
Before Hill could reply, the service door eased open with a slow, deliberate creak. Not a rush. Not a surprise. An invitation.
They entered.
The interior was pitch black except for a single strip of light at the far end. The beam illuminated something dangling from the ceiling — a chair, suspended upside-down by heavy chains. In the chair's seat, duct-taped in place, was a woman's body. Her face was hidden by a burlap sack marked with the same clock symbol.
Hill moved toward her. "If she's still alive—"
The chains rattled violently. Both men froze. Somewhere above, in the steel rafters, something shifted. A shadow. Movement like a spider scuttling overhead.
"McMiller…" Hill's voice was low, tight. "…we're not alone."
And then, from the rafters, a voice. A whisper so soft it was almost swallowed by the dripping rain outside.
"Three hours… fifty-two minutes."
The sound came from everywhere and nowhere at once. Killian drew his gun, his eyes tracing the steel beams above.
"Show yourself!"
No answer. Just the faint, rhythmic scrape of something dragging across metal.
The woman in the chair let out a sudden, muffled cry beneath the burlap sack. She thrashed violently, the chains creaking and groaning as if ready to give way. Hill reached up to steady her, but the second he touched the tape, the overhead shadow dropped something.
A phone.
It hit the floor with a dull clatter, screen already lit. A countdown timer stared back at them — 03:52:00 — and it was moving.
Hill swore under his breath. "It's the same damn clock—"
A deafening clang interrupted him, as if a sledgehammer had struck the rafters. Then another. The whole structure seemed to shudder with each blow.
Killian aimed upward, but saw nothing. Just the black void between the beams. The whisper came again, closer now, almost right above them.
"Tick…"
A second later, from the far side of the warehouse:
"…tock."
They weren't chasing one man in the dark. They were being herded.
Hill pulled a knife and sliced the tape binding the woman. She collapsed into his arms, sobbing through the sack. But when Killian ripped it away, the woman's eyes were wide with terror, staring not at them… but past them.
Killian turned.
In the far corner, barely lit by the strip of light, stood a tall figure wearing a crude papier-mâché mask shaped like a cracked clock face. In one hand, a long hooked pole. In the other… a blood-smeared bell.
He didn't move. He just tilted his head — slowly, mechanically — as if weighing them.
And then, without a sound, he stepped backward into the shadows and was gone.