Chapter 4 - "Signal Drift"

When enough people hear the ticking, someone always starts counting out loud.

Ashbrook had been quiet for years - quiet enough that the worst violence came from property disputes or bar fights that ended with more bruises than paperwork.

But now the hush felt off. Not calm - compressed.

Like the town was holding its breath before a scream.

Detective Marcus LeClair leaned back from the whiteboard, thumb pressed hard into the bridge of his nose.

Two victims. Two clocks. Same incision. Same eerie stillness.

Different times.

Which meant different intent. And maybe escalation.

“People are starting to talk,” he muttered.

Across the office, Brandt didn’t look up from the coroner’s report. 

“People always talk.”

“Not like this. Reddit threads. Podcasts. CrimeTok's chewing on this already. That YouTube guy - you remember him from Danner’s case?”

Brandt glanced up, annoyed. 

“The one who named his show UnderTheVeil and wore a ski mask in his living room?”

“That’s the one. He’s back. Posting twice a day.”

Brandt snorted. 

“He also thought Eloise Danner was three people in a trench coat.”

“Sure. But even broken clocks are right twice a day,” Marcus said. He tapped the board. “He’s not wrong about the carving. It's surgical. Intentional.”

The room settled into stillness. Overhead lights buzzed faintly. Outside, wind knifed through narrow streets.

Brandt finally said, 

“We need another body before we start drawing conclusions.”

Marcus turned slowly. 

“You’re waiting for proof. But what if the proof is already being buried under hashtags and misinformation?”

Brandt met his eyes but said nothing.

Marcus kept going. 

“We’re already behind. Whatever this is - it’s leaking into people’s heads. Into their feeds. You think this ends with a third victim? I think that’s just the opening act.”

Brandt folded the report and walked to the whiteboard, but he didn’t argue.

-

It happened at 8:15 a.m.

In a quiet second - grade classroom, a substitute teacher knelt beside a girl sketching silently at her desk.

The girl had filled her entire page - line after line - with clocks.

Each one different.

Each one missing the minute hand.

Some with numbers. Some just with slashes.

None of them marked the same time.

When the teacher gently asked what it meant, the girl replied without blinking:

“I dreamt them.”

No one told the detectives.

Not yet.

-

A YouTube video - over 1.3 million views - played on loop in a dorm room three states away.

“This ain’t random,” a breathless voice whispered. “It’s architecture. Clean. Mathematical.”

“This isn’t Danner. This is someone building something. Something timed.”

The voice dipped to a hush:

“This isn’t killing. This is construction.”

-

A teenager swiped through TikTok in the backseat of her parents’ SUV.

The video showed a man in a pale-blue office, smiling with forced calm.

“Let me be clear: these are isolated incidents. There’s no cult. No message. This is just fear doing what fear does - turning shadows into symbols.”

The girl didn’t follow him.

She just watched it again, staring at the image overlay at the end - a clock drawn in chalk on a sidewalk, filmed outside a church in Ashbrook.

It had no minute hand.

And it hadn’t been there the night before.

-

He didn’t speak. He didn’t post. But he listened.

To the panic.
To the logic.

To the spreading myth that was no longer his alone to control.

He watched a shaky livestream of a woman breaking down.

“My cousin had the mark. Funeral home found it prepping the body. No second hand. Just the hour.”

She stared through the screen, eyes hollow.

“What does that mean?”

He wrote in his notebook:

Hour only. Removed early? Incomplete?

Then beneath it:

Correctable.

He closed the laptop.

No joy. No thrill. Only calibration.

The long refinement of a system most would never recognize-until it activated.

The Law didn’t demand spectacle.

Only obedience.
Only precision.

-

Marcus stood by the precinct coffee machine, scrolling headlines on his phone.

Former Danner Scene Defaced in Vandalism
Memorial Removed After Graphic Clock Graffiti
"Law of Precision" Trends on CrimeTok

He walked back into the bullpen, screen held out like evidence.

“Brandt,” he said. “We’re not ahead of this. We’re chasing it.”

Brandt glanced at the screen, eyes narrowing. 

“Like a wave.”

Marcus nodded grimly. 

“Or a clock tower ringing. People don’t look until the hour strikes.”

Brandt folded his arms. 

“Then we’d better listen-before the next bell.”

-

The site was still blank. Still sterile.

No title. No usernames. Just a white screen with one line of text:

They’ll call it madness. But it’s always been math.

But now, in the bottom-right corner:

[ 42:13:09 ]

A countdown.

Blinking slowly.

Unstoppable.

Below it, a second line appeared, as if answering the silence:

You have all been late before.

The timer ticked down.

And down.

Waiting.