Donald would have to give the previous owner credit where it was due: They had tried their best to tame this animal. Which was to say, the interior was not quite as grotesque as the exterior had led him to believe. The floorboards were cracked, and splintered in a patchwork across the atrium floor like festering sores, but it was walkable. The floating staircase running up to the second story was, to his surprise, intact. He made a mental note to tread carefully on them the for the first few ascents.

What stood out to him most was the smell. Old houses, especially ones that had been in disrepair as long as this one had, had a certain stink to them. He had expected the lingering odor of mildew and dust, though he hoped black mold wasn’t lurking somewhere in the walls. No, what troubled him was the thin but distinct aroma of rot trickling from somewhere through the miasma of abandonment. Somewhere, he was going to find a minimum of one dead critter curled up.

He took a deep breath through his nose and sneezed. He suspected possum. It was usually a possum, as if they weren’t annoying enough alive. This wasn’t the first time he’d had to deal with death in a house. Hell, he’d flipped properties where there had been literal murders, and scouring out the stink of decay was always a nightmare. No amount of scented plug-ins would mask that: you had to get down and dirty.

He heard a soft creak and skitter from somewhere above him. Great, he thought, the whole ratty troupe came out for the wake.

Or, maybe, the murderer was up there, doing whatever cats did in abandoned houses.

Killed possums, he supposed.

Something else caught his attention.

A grandfather clock stood under the staircase in oddly pristine condition, it’s mustachioed (he had thought of clocks as having mustaches ever since Beauty and the Beast) shining defiant among all the wreck and ruin.

He frowned. Took a step closer.

Had it been an original part of the house? No, definitely not, it was too clean and well-kept. He couldn’t even see any cobwebs on the thing. The seller had assured him that no one had been inside the house in almost forty years, but the clock stood as evidence to the contrary.

After all, it was hard for him to imagine the average squatter hauling it in with them. It was more likely they would have pawned the antique for cash.

Which he had to admit was a funny image: A scrawny, foul-smelling fuck selling a beautiful clock like that to buy their cheap vodka or meth or whatever else it was they subsisted on.

Donald found himself entranced by it. It would be another colossal expenditure to get it repaired, but he could find it in the budget. Certainly the old pop-pop tick-tock wasn’t functional, but it would be worth every dollar. What prospective buyer wouldn’t be charmed by the musical clang of that clock?

Clang? Did clocks clang? Or was it more like a blang? Or a-

BONG! BONG! BONG!, the clock helpfully declared, loud enough to shake a flurry of dust from the ceiling.

To say Donald’s heart leapt would be an understatement. More accurately, it shot down into his penny loafers, bounced, and rocketed out of the top of his skull.

He leapt back and tripped, landing hard on his ass and scooting away. His face had been right up against the damned thing, when had that happened?

“Okay,” he panted, “so you work. That’s exciting and I appreciate-” BONG! BONG! BONG!

Donald scowled and pushed up from the floor.

“That’s great, but-”

BONG! BONG! BONG! BONG!

“I-”

BONG! BONG!

Donald quirked an eyebrow at the clock, which he had now decided was too exuberant for his liking. It wasn’t unusual for him to personify his properties and the scattered left-behinds found within. Except for anything that was actually trash, of course. Only things of value got to have personalities assigned to them. He would have to have someone assess the clock’s condition, then turned to-

BONG!

He turned back to the clock, hands on his hips.

“That was thirteen, dumbass. Is it thirteen o’clock? So after that whole song and dance, you’re still broken. Hope you’re proud of yourself.”

For what it was worth, the shiny brass face of the clock did indeed look proud.

If, perhaps, naive.