Hands Of Time [Chapter 3]

To my horror I see a black van outside of my house. My mind reels at light speed, trying to find an answer to a question that I didn’t know yet. I blurt out to myself, “I love my children”, I want my children, why have they come to my house.” Then out loud I yell to myself, my hands grabbing the hair on the sides of my head, “this has to be a mistake”! All of a sudden silence rules the airwaves, you can hear a pin drop, but instead I hear something much louder, the van doors outside slamming shut. I chop my words off so as not to be heard from the intruders outside. Four men had exited a black van, they were now standing on my front sidewalk, lighting cigarettes and laughing. They were all dressed in black army uniforms with a swastika insignia on both shoulders. Even in their laughter, their faces seem hard, cold and cruel, anything but humorous. Their laughing faces seem more sinister and heartless then comical and jovial. I don’t know who called them but the death squad was just outside of my house. They were here to take an unwanted child from my home and that child would never bother anyone again. But I didn’t have any unwanted children, I screamed in my head. I quickly ran back into the kitchen and frantically looked into the terrified faces of my wife and children. I tell my wife to take my two oldest children into their bedroom and hide them underneath their beds. I then grab my two little ones, one under each of my arms, and run them into their bedroom. When we get to their room, I hug them tightly and whisper into their ears that everything is going to be all right, but they need to hide for a while, and they need to be very quite. They each squirm underneath their beds and I quickly slap the face of the clown on the wall, killing the light in their room. Quickly I run back out into the hallway and look at the clock. What seemed like an eternity is only a little over a minute, Grandfather’s face now says 5:59 p.m. I look to the front window and instinctively allow my gaze to lead my feet there. My whole body is tense as I await to hear the doorbell ring or pounding on the door, to shatter the silence of my nightmare. But as I reached the window again I see that the men outside are not coming towards my house, but are still smoking, talking and laughing. My head shifts towards my wife and again I ask her why are they outside? She starts to cry again and tells me that she doesn’t know what is going on. Just then the clock begins its hourly ritual. The first gong nearly causes me to jump right out of my skin! Six-o-clock! As the chime’s ring from within the clock they also simultaneously begin going off inside of my head. Recognition! Illumination! Suddenly, it came to me! I understood why the soldiers were here. The clock was ringing for it’s 6th and final time when a loud noise from upstairs brings my attention to the ceiling of the room. For some reason I don’t want to check to see what the cause of this sound is, but my body instinctively begins to be drawn to the attic door, like a pin to a magnet.