Turn My Short Story Into A Comic

Posted at 6:01AM, Jan. 5, 2009

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Below is the short story I wrote titled, "The Watch."

What I'm looking for is someone to convert this into a comic and help me realize it in a visual medium. Thanks.


I rang the bell three times. My finger pressed against the half-broken button, and slipped off a warm alien slime. My gut sloshed summersaults. Earlier, I’d never dreamed of ringing the bell of house 952, but I had a twenty riding on it, so I kind of had to. Not to mention that I’d have to earn the twenty bucks, if I ducked out.
I looked back towards the hedge where Todd and Andy, my two cohorts, were crouched and motioning me to stay put. I know, sounds childish, right? Fifteen-year-olds should not be playing a ding-dong-ditch variation of the “Bloody Mary” game - but that’s Hallington Way for you. One kid said he saw a light “flicker” inside house 952 and before you know it the place is now “haunted” and kids are daring each other to ring the bell and not punk out. I know it‘s silly, but Todd and Andy are the kind of guys who would never let it go if I walked away, no matter how badly I wanted to leave. The third ring was just as unnerving as the first. With each press I could feel my skin slip off the bell.
“Please don’t be home.” I thought. The door swung open. I gagged at the smell of rot and my eyes welled up. Through my tears I could see a man. Like a photo, he stood. Small in stature and dressed in brown tweed. He was motionless - framed by the termite-nested wooden door. Then his mouth twitched a smile and his twig-like body spidered. He barely moved, yet I saw random muscle spasms. I would have laughed, had I not been so frightened. Well, maybe not frightened. It’s kind of hard to gauge how I felt. Queasy might suit better.
“Can I help you?” A hearty voice boomed. A voice much too large to be the mans’ own.
I searched for the words. Before I could utter one, the old man had sat me at a kitchen table. I drummed my hands on the hard oak top.
He told me his name was Evan and he had been the local clock repairman, and that years ago, this dilapidated mess of a house once pulsed with life. A dusty old photo of two mop-topped boys and a curly-haired girl stared down on me from their place on the faded walls. I imagined the early morning scamper of these kids, who, as hard as they were to wake up on school-days, would spring to life in the early hours of the weekend to catch the latest adventures of their Saturday morning cartoon heroes. I could smell the crackle of bacon on a hot skillet and pancakes that were piled high on pastel-colored plates. One still sat unwashed on the nearby counter. A vase of brittle flowers sat on the kitchen windowsill, wedged between an old Scooby Doo thermos and the cabinet. It was obvious this house had once breathed with the passion of family home-life. Evan told me that ten years ago he would be lucky to get an annual visit from his children. The past five, he had had none.
“So how much?” Evan asked, as he leaned forward, resting his elbows on the tabletop.
I was silent - not sure what to say or ask.
“For ringing the bell. How much?”
No response. I twiddled my fingers.
“Come on, now.” He pressed.
“Twenty, sir.” I said meekly. A pause. He drew in a breath, sat up in his chair, and chewed on my confession. He clasped his hands together.
“I’d have held out for thirty,” he said after a moment.
He smiled and I eased up a bit and let out a timid chuckle.
Evan sighed, “Oh dear”. He looked at me. “Hey…”
“David,” I replied.
“David, would you do me a favor?”
I saw no reason to refuse and hesitantly offered my help. After all he seemed like a decent guy and, lonely… I felt kind of bad for him.
“Good, good.” He placed his palms flat on the table and slowly rose up in a stretch. “Here, follow me”.
He guided me through the disheveled kitchen. I had to sidestep a clutter of long neglected dishes, laundry, and garbage, which should have been tended to years ago. My shoes left prints on the dusty floor. The smell of rot, must, and mildew was so strong, I could barely breathe.
He led the way into what I assumed was the living room. A large old console TV filled the corner of a far wall - its rabbit ear antennae bent, and below the screen the knobs were missing. An aged monopoly board was folded over the armrest of an ancient couch. My gaze moved from the couch and fell on a coffee table with a horizontal crack that stretched the length of the top. On the table rested an almost decade old newspaper. The pages were yellowed and the ink was faded from age so that the entire print was almost unreadable. LOCAL… MISSING. I doubted that it mattered. Just small time news in a small time town.
Numerous timepieces seemed to have been thrown scatter-shot around the room. Some were smashed. All, apparently, forgotten clocks and watches that his customers had left and he’d never returned.
“You know that stopwatch over there belonged to John O‘Hara“, Evan said, a hint of pride in his voice. He gestured toward a large brass stopwatch that had partially sunk into a fold of a moldy chair.
“That’s one of the perks of being a clock repairman, you get to meet interesting folks.”
“You can have that if you’d like,” he said in passing. I bent down and gently plucked the watch off the chair and pocketed it in my jacket.
“Thanks,” I muttered.
Crunch. A sharp pain shot up my leg. I winced and bit my lip. I looked down to find that I’d stepped on an old alarm clock, its silver leg poked into my foot. I picked it up. Evan seemed oblivious as he continued to walk. I turned the silver clock over in my hand. Strange, I thought. Although it had lain, in at least half an inch of dust, it looked brand new. The hands on the face were still, stopped at 10:15. I wound the key and waited - nothing. The hands remained motionless. I set the clock down and followed Evan, who by this time had vanished into the next room.
I jogged to catch up and found myself in a smaller passageway. It was a small hallway off a room where a dozen more clocks hung on the wall. The wallpaper had peeled off in large sheets and draped to the floor. The floor, too, was littered with newspapers and spare watch parts. The clock-faces were all frozen at 10:15. The entire room eerily devoid of sound. Not a single tick. A work desk crouched in the corner; tiny watch parts and strange tools were almost hidden in the dust. A yellowed note was tacked on the wall - “Damn Ben Franklin.”
Evan looked back and followed my gaze towards the wall.
“Pardon that”, Evan said sheepishly. “Frustrating guy, Franklin was.” He sighed out a faint laugh. “Could you hand me that?” I pulled the note from the wall and gave it to Evan, who slid it into his pocket. “Ahead of his time, though. Made his own watch once, you know.”
“Franklin?” I asked.
Evan moved close, his voice lowered to almost a whisper. “Yeah, some wealthy fellow left it with me. He was hush-hush about the whole thing.”
I nodded.
“So get this, the guy gives me this watch, says he’ll pay me a small fortune to fix it and leaves.”
“And?”
“And, I wait two weeks for this guy to return and he never shows. I’m thinking I’ve got a marked watch, or hell, the thing’s police evidence and I’m holding it. How’d that look?”
I paused. “Pretty bad.”
“Worse.” He continued. “Turns out this guy, a William McKellen, had passed away a few days after dropping off the watch. So here I am stuck with this Franklin treasure, a huge piece of Americana, and frankly, I have no idea what to do with the damn thing. So what do I do?”
“Turn it over to the Historical Society?”
Evan chuckled. “Hell no, being the fool I am, I pocket the thing.”
He turned around and started to walk away. A million questions zipped through my head, but I simply followed.
He led me to the back door and, through the tattered screen, I could see a backyard, outlined by a stone perimeter and crowded with overgrowth.
“Grab a shovel, ” he said and bit his lower lip. He motioned to a collection of rotten-handled shovels, which hung from an old wooden board. Several large nails protruded haphazardly and the entire shelf that the board supported was poorly crafted and looked ready to fall apart.
I grabbed the second nearest one. Not because it was the best, and no, I didn’t have any reservations towards the other. Truth is, I tend to go for the second nearest of things. It’s an odd habit I picked up from grocery shopping with my parents. You never pick the first egg carton from the shelf. The best food is always in the back.
Shovel in hand, he led me out back. The yard was another casualty of time, so overgrown that we had to inch between evergreen thickets. Vines climbed the side of a cracked-cement birdbath that I was careful not to bump as we passed. A dirt drive wrapped around from the front and led to an open-wall carport that, like the tool shelf, was a poorly crafted home project.
“So what happened with the Franklin watch?” I blurted out.
Evan motioned me to be silent. He rushed over. “I became obsessed. Not the smartest thing I’ve done. I couldn’t think of anything else but how much money I could get from it. I would play scenarios over and over of how I could sell that watch and make a fortune for myself. Couldn’t sell it, though, that’s the irony of the whole thing. Soon as I’d try to turn a penny I’m sure McKellen’s family would demand the thing back. Funny thing is I guess I forgot about my own family. Just didn’t have time for them. Wife and kids left cause of it…”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” He paused for a moment and scratched his head. “Just don’t you go make the same mistakes I did.”
He let out a small sigh, “Eh, but anyhow, word about this little find got out. I’d assume from my wife chatting with her friends. So here I’m left, alone with this watch. Actually, got robbed cause of the thing.”
I was silent.
“Yeah, some kid probably thought he could get rich with the thing and broke in. You know that coffee table you were looking at?
“Coffee table? I asked.
“Yeah. The one by the newspapers.”
“Oh yeah, what about it?”
“That punk came in late at night. About your age, but not as bright. He didn’t bring a flashlight or nothing. Like Helen Keller pulling a heist, this kid was a dim bulb. So he’s fumbling around my house, right. Now, I’m not the neatest person, so low and behold, he trips over a chair and lands on the table. I hear this huge crash and needless to say, that’s what woke me up.”
We continued to walk.
“What’d you do?” I pressed.
“What any Central-Pennsylvanian at the time would do, I grabbed my gun and ran downstairs.
He rolled up his sleeve, revealing a gash along the side of his arm. I winced.
“Kid did have a knife, but I think the sight of the gun scared him off.”
“Wanna know the funny thing about it?” He leaned in closer and grinned. “I had the Franklin watch on me the whole time.”
We had reached the carport.
“There,” he pointed to an old car.
The car was a junk heap. Cinderblock wheels set on a Swiss cheese frame. Grass and foliage climbed the sides and you just knew it swarmed with bugs inside. Perhaps a raccoon had made its home there, nestled under the ratted seats. The cracked pleather chairs that spewed mold-foam from where long ago a dog must have clawed its way through. It was a large clunker of a vehicle. I could only imagine that it once brimmed with suitcases and eager travelers; and although the radio was busted, I imagined music hummed out of it, from young passengers who sang nonsensical songs in loud, tone-deaf voices. The seats had seen their fair share of soda stains and ice cream drips and I could almost hear their mother breaking up a backseat fight between her boys.
He pointed a spindled finger to the right of the car, to a small patch of grass and threaded weeds that was punctuated with small patches of barren ground and motioned for me to dig. I stared at the spot for a moment and hesitated. To be honest, I hated manual labor and the thought of digging made me ill, but I know I’d be kicking myself for not helping this guy. I kind of loathe that about myself.
I pressed the tip of the shovel into the ground. My entire weight shifted on this small strip of rusted metal and the dulled edge tore through the grass then wedged into the ground. It sank with effort, and it was hard to pull up a clump of sod. But after another shovel-full, the earth began to give more easily. The hard topsoil soon gave way to softer dirt, and then the digging was only slowed by small roots that snaked underground in vein-like fashions. The rough splintered handle chaffed against my palms. I gripped tighter and continued to dig. Ten minutes passed and I found myself shin-deep in the soil. I wiped my brow and heaved out a breath. Then I drove my shovel into the ground once more.
Thump. My shovel hit something solid.
“That’s it”, Evan exclaimed. I bent and brushed away the remaining dirt to reveal a thin layer of plastic. A shower curtain.
“Open it.”
I leaned over and ran my fingers across the white semi-transparent plastic. I dug my nails into it and began to peel it off in thick, strangely decayed patches. Huge long strips ripped out, stretched, and clung to my fingers. The curtain finally tore through. I was only a layer away from what lay inside. I unwrapped that last layer and found myself face to face with Evan. The corpse of the man who I knew stood behind me, now stared up from the ground, with hands pressed over his chest, and eyes open. A gold watch with a leather strap wrapped around his left hand, it too stilled at 10:15
“Ah, that‘s it!” Evan cried. He leaned over my shoulder and carefully removed the watch off the corpse and stepped back.
I turned around to face… nothing. Only an old forgotten house, an overgrown backyard, and a freshly uncovered grave. The milky white eyes of the now watch-less corpse stared up at me. Unmoving. Unblinking. In the uneasy silence I could hear faint ticking. I pulled the O’Hara watch out of my pocket and looked at the face - 10:16. Shaken, I stepped forward and stopped when something just below my foot glinted in the sun. The Franklin watch. I picked it up, wiped the dirt off, and saw that it too ticked at 10:16. I closed my fingers around it.
Then I sprinted, only to stop when I collapsed on the street to catch my breath. Todd and Andy rushed towards me.
“You guys didn’t leave?” I heaved. Todd laughed and socked me in the arm.
“And risk loosing a twenty while you duck out? Hell, no.” Andy pulled a Jackson from his wallet and reluctantly handed it to me.
“So what did you find?” Todd asked.
“Nothing,” I said as I tried to catch my breath. “The house is deserted.”
I thought to say something about the watch, then stopped myself. I tried not to think of Evan words “Just don’t you go make the same mistakes I did.” Instead I focused on fortune I knew I could make.
“What are you so happy about?” Todd asked.
I flashed the 20 and laughed. “I’m a Jackson richer, what’d you think I’d be happy about?”
Todd and Andy both scoffed at me and started to walk away. I slid the Franklin watch further into my pocket, and followed my two friends down the block.

Posted at 12:01PM, Jan. 6, 2009

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Just wanted to say I do like the story! I could script it, but I don't think I'm the right artist for the job. I wish ya luck, though. :)

Posted at 7:01PM, Jan. 6, 2009

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Cool and thanks. Yeah if you could point me to a good artist that'd be great.

Posted at 10:01PM, Jan. 9, 2009

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I'm interested in this, can I Draw this?