The Click

 Arthur sat frozen in the high-backed velvet recliner, sweat instantly freezing on his brow as the quiet of the parlor was punctured by a sickening, mechanical rhythm.

*Click.*

It came from deep within his right shoulder. It was heavy, rhythmic, and utterly alien.

At first, he thought it was a pinched nerve, a sudden spasm of arthritis. But as he tried to shift his weight, a wave of blinding agony ripped through him. The joint was locked solid, seized by a preternatural stiffness that felt less like muscle tension and another word for petrification. When he forced his arm to move by a fraction of an inch, bone ground against bone with a dry, splintering crunch—followed immediately by a second, louder sound: *clack-click.*

The interior of his shoulder sounded like a pocket watch being crushed in a vice.

A cold, wet sensation began to spread beneath his shirtsleeve. Not blood—or at least, not yet. It was thick and viscous, smelling faintly of machine oil and rancid tallow. The skin over his right scapula tightened until it looked translucent, stretched drum-tight over something violently expanding beneath the surface.

Arthur stared in horror as the outline of his shoulder began to change. The smooth slope of his deltoid was distorting, pushing outward into sharp, jagged angles. Something was unfolding inside him, tearing through the muscle fibers with the methodical, unhurried cruelty of a clockmaker assembling a monstrosity.

*Tick-tick-tick-click.*

The pace accelerated. The pain shifted from a burning ache to a white-hot screech of tearing tissue as a narrow, razor-sharp edge of blackened brass forced its way upward through the meat of his armpit, slicing outward from the inside.

He tried to scream, but his jaw locked with a matching, metallic pop. He could no longer feel his hand; his fingers were twitching in erratic, jerky spasms, jerking upward like strings pulled by a dead puppeteer.

In the suffocating silence of the dark room, the final restraint gave way. With a sickening wet pop and a metallic screech that echoed like a dying bell, a cluster of barbed, oil-dripping iron cogs tore completely through his skin, bursting from his shoulder blade. They spun wildly in the dim air, showering the wall behind him in dark, sluggish drops—while deep inside his chest, the winding mechanism began to chime for the hour.