Like a living thing it lurked in the spare room quietly clicking away to itself. No one knew about it save for the boy and he told no one. What would have been the point of telling? Had he told they would have called him mad, a strange child with a tenuous grip on reality the adults would have remarked. Sometimes even he doubted the existence of the thing. During the day the room stood silent and empty except for the presence of a chest of drawers, a single bed and a wardrobe. The homely presence of the furniture, solid and dependable reassured the boy during daylight that all was well in the house. When the sun shonne on the walls the horses imprinted on the wall paper filled the child with delight. He imagined them galloping across sunlit green fields their long mains blowing in the wind. He galloped with them wild and free, nothing could hurt him, his spirit was one with the sky and the wind.

At night the thing came. Click, click it said crouching in it’s corner coiled and ready to pounce. The thing never left it’s lair but the knowledge of the loathsome presence filled him with dread. Click, click it said waiting patiently in the dark for it’s prey.

Looking back he never could recall having entered the room. Some how or other he was there in the presence of the unspeakable clicking thing. It never spoke, perhaps it was incapable of speech, the thing merely bided it’s time and when the time was right struck like a beast launching itself upon his prey. Click, click the machine whispered to itself it’s tentacles reaching for the boy’s neck. Choking he fought with the thing. It was strong but he always managed to wriggle away somehow. Perhaps the thing wanted him to escape. Like a cat which takes pleasure in catching a mouse, releasing it and giving chase once more the thing would let him go only to wait, patiently for the next tussle.

He called it the strangling machine on account of it’s propensity to choke him. Click, click, click echoing down the years the thing reached into his nightmares, filling his brain with the terrors of the night. Click, click click …  …