TIME WILL TELL by Aaron B. Larson 
Published in Classic Pulp Fiction Stories #81 

Tick, Tock 
As soon as I heard those sounds I knew I was in trouble. Tick, Tock 
The sound was coming from the darkened hall outside my study's doorway. Coming from the old Grandfather clock. The clock that hadn't run since before I was born. 
Tick, Tock 
I remembered the story. My father had been moving the clock into this house when someone had run into him. causing my father's hand to slip. The Grandfather clock had fallen, cracking the glass as well as wrecking the works. 
Tick. Tock 
My father, being the sort of man he was, went ahead and moved the clock into the house, into the spot he had picked for it. My father had never been the same after that day. Mother said that he had just kind of folded up, stopped working, died a fez, years later. 
Tick, Tock 
I still lived in that ancient house, my parents both dead, the big old house falling apart around me. Everything in disrepair, disrepute -- dissolving into disgrace. I had walked by that Grandfather clock, with the big crack crawling across its face and its dangling, broken guts, a million times in my life. I had never heard it make a sound. 
Tick. Tock 
My father had said his broken luck had come from the broken clock. Something had changed now though. The clock was running. Focusing my eyes, peering through the darkness that enveloped that clock, 1 could see that the crack in the glass had disappeared. The clock was running and its broken face was mended. Something had changed. 
Tick, Tock 
I felt the same, but the house felt different. More solid, more secure. The wallpaper was no longer in tatters, the rug no longer threadbare. I didn't feel drafts around my feet anymore, nor smell rot and mildew from.piles of papers and books surrounding me. The house was the same house, yet a different house. It was as if my father's fall from fortune had never happened, 
Tick, Tock---Thud! 
A footstep. The sound of a footstep coming down the darkened hallway, coming toward my study, coming in rhythm to the infernal ticking of that once silent clock. No one should be in the house but me. The doors were locked, I should be alone. 
Tick. Tock, Thud 
Whoever it was, they were getting closer. Coming closer down the corridor. Coming closer to the solitary circle of lamp light that pooled around my chair. "Who's there?" -- I tried to yell it, but it came out a whisper. 
Tick, Tock, Thud 
The footsteps were coming closer. Whoever it was would be in my doorway at any moment. I tried again to yell, but this time nothing came out. I tried to get up out of my chair -- I'm not sure why. Perhaps to run? Perhaps to fight -- but I found I couldn't move. Couldn'move an arm, a leg ... a finger. 
Tick, Tock, Thud! 
The person was in the doom,ay now. Coming into my study, coming toward me. I couldn't see his face, it was still in the shadows. My heart, which had been pounding in my chest, seemed to drop through my feet and leave me behind. The world had grown silent except for: 
Tick, Tock, Thud 
The man was in the light now, still coming toward my chair. Better dressed than I, smooth shaven, prosperous looking. Walked straight and tall with confidence that radiated off him like a man born to faith and fortune. Something was wrong alright. First the clock, and now this. 
Tick, Tock, Thud 
The man was me. As he sat down in his chair, in his study, in his house, I had a moment of realization. Something had changed in the past. Whether on purpose or by accident, by time traveler or demon. History had changed. 
The clock had not fallen. 
THE END