Story 1109: The Screaming Clocktower

At the heart of Wraithmoor stood a clocktower no one dared approach. Once a proud sentinel above the town, it had long since fallen into decay—its brass bells twisted, its face frozen at thirteen past midnight. But the real horror wasn’t what time had done to the tower.

It was what the tower did to time.

Each night at that impossible hour, it screamed.

Not the groan of rusted gears or wind in rotted rafters—no, this was the shriek of a soul in agony, echoing across rooftops, worming into dreams, curdling milk in its jugs, and driving animals mad in their stalls. No one remembered when the screams began.

But Evelyn Blackmoor intended to end them.

She reached the tower under a bleeding dusk, its shadow stretching like a noose across cobbled streets. The front door, made of blackened iron, hung open. The air inside pulsed with static, like a storm held in suspension. Her boots echoed as she climbed the spiral stairs, each step taking her closer to the impossible hour.