Clutching the blatant threat in one hand, Justin rushed upstairs to check on his wife. Seeing Susan lying safely in their bed, he laid the crumbled paper on the bedside table. Picking up the magazine she had been reading when she fell asleep, he placed a kiss on Susan’s forehead. Laying the magazine aside, he turned off the light before getting into bed and then wrapped his arms around her. Justin’s last thought as he drifted off to sleep was, “Not if I have anything to say about it.”

Later that night, Justin lay awake in bed, staring at the moonlight reflecting on the ceiling, unable to quiet the thoughts racing through his mind. Trying to force his body to relax, he focused on listening to the stiff rustle of the curtains brushing against the wardrobe as they billowed in the gentle breeze. Closing his eyes and straining his ears, he could just distinguish the faint metallic tick of his watch coming from across the room where it sat atop the wardrobe. Justin could finally feel himself drifting off to sleep, when he was startled into full awareness by sudden and complete silence.

Springing into a sitting position and surveying the room in a quick sweeping glance, he was surprised to see the curtain appeared frozen in place, mid-billow. No longer hearing the tick of the watch, he swung his legs out of bed, walked across the room and picked up the timepiece. Turning it over in his hand, Justin noticed with surprise that the watch had stopped. Thinking that the battery must have died and unable to understand the frozen curtain, Justin was slowly returning to bed when he saw something outside the window in his peripheral vision.

Moving over to stand before the window, he pulled back the curtain and gasped when he realized the object he had seen was a barn owl, frozen in mid-swoop with its talons extended and its wings stretched wide. As he stared out the window in shock at the immobilized bird of prey, Justin felt the hairs stand up on his arms and noticed the temperature begin to drop in the bedroom. Wanting to show Susan the owl, he turned and knelt on the edge of the bed, grasped her shoulder and gave her a gentle shake.

“Susan, wake up. You have to see this.” When he received no reply, he shook her harder and called her name louder. Still getting no response, he quickly checked for a pulse, but could not find one. He watched to see if she was breathing and when unable to notice the rise and fall of her chest, he exhaled sharply and was taken aback when his breath formed a white cloud of condensation.

Just as he was leaning over Susan to breathe for her, a gravelly voice spoke from behind him. “Do not worry about her. She will be unharmed. I have frozen time, so we will not be disturbed.”

Justin turned around quickly and saw that a bluish grey fog had formed in the room and was coalescing next to the wardrobe. As the fog thickened, it slowly began to take on a human shape, then it solidified into the appearance of an elderly man who was wearing turn of the century clothing. Or at least what was left of him wore what remained of them. With a shocked gasp, Justin slid off the bed and landed with a thump on the floor.

Standing before Justin was Archibald; the remains of his dry, rotten flesh and brittle, porous bones wrapped in the time ravaged cloth of his burial shrouds. While he stared at the ghastly visitor, the rotten flesh began to moisten and drip as it slowly repaired itself and the tattered clothing began to mend. Within moments the older man appeared as he had both in life and in the faded photograph that Justin and Susan had looked at the previous night.