Part 1 Shadow on The Clock Tower

[Whispered Intro, ticking clock] They say if you stand in front of the courthouse at night... just watch the clocks... [Slow, front-porch cadence] Back in my neighborhood, in the 70s, the old folks told it like this. Four clocks on that courthouse tower. North, East, West, and South. Four faces, same time, looking over the whole town. Until one day they weren't. A man was accused. Wrongly accused. A lie that traveled faster than truth. They didn't wait for justice. They made their own. On a southern branch, at 9 o'clock at night, they hung him. Right where that south clock could see. Next morning, the south clock had stopped. 9 o'clock. Straight on. They sent repairmen up. Good men with tools and ladders. Came back down different. One said something grabbed his ankle in the rafters. One saw a shadow, tall, moving through the clockwork where no man should stand. One didn't come back down at all. They reconditioned those clocks many times. New gears, new faces. North ticks. East ticks. West ticks. But South? South always stops. Always at 9. Investigators been called. Folks gone missing in that courthouse. No bodies. No foul play. Just... gone. So is it a folktale? Or something more sinister? Something still keeping time, waiting for a justice that never came? Listen close on a quiet night... you can still hear it... tick... tick... tick... stop.