Children have been going missing for centuries.
Doreen Callahan never thought that she would be one of them.
The bookworm had heard rumors of 'the men with clocks in their bellies' since she was a little girl: the men that haunted each and every child's waking nightmares - their darkest dreams and haunted memories that came to kidnap them in the middle of the night.
Clockwork men.
And they had come for her.
It was night and the crickets were softly singing their high notes and mournful songs. The stars shone innocently from the heavens. The little farmhouse stood where none but nature could harm it. The lights from the nearby city lit up the sky to the south and cast eerie shadows over the unplowed fields of the Iowa landscape.
Two figures, silent except for the soft whirring and ticking of a sound like a clock stared at the house before slowly making their way towards it.
Doreen Callahan woke with a start. Something was not right. Something was wrong. Something was rotten in Denmark as Shakespeare would say. She cocked her head to the side and listened intently to the common household noises that filled her home at this time of night. The sound of the air conditioner nearly drowned out the sound of her parents' snores. The grandfather clock downstairs chimed 1:00am and a soft whirring sound was calling for her to go back to sleep.
The room was pitch-black due to the fact that Doreen drew the blinds every night and closed her door to allow for no light to enter the room – she slept better that way – and she could see nothing.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
This was not a normal sound. Something was not right.
Slowly, Doreen reached over to switch on the lamp that lay on her bedside table and her eyes widened in shock and horror.
What met her eyes made her believe just about every fairytale and science-fiction story she had ever read.
There, by her door, were two men – half-machine and half-human. Their faces were half gone and their movements were slow and jerky. There was a soft ticking sound that emanated from their abdomens.
Doreen was frozen with shock and found it hard to speak - to even think. However, the seventeen-year-old-girl was saved from speaking when the two men spoke simultaneously.
And their words – other than their actions - struck fear into her heart.
"The King of Crickets has requested your presence."
Doreen's scream was cut short as they seized her and slammed the back of her head with heavy hands.
