Authors Note: I now own Secret Window on DVD. Lol. So I’ve decided to delete the old story and write a new one. I really don't like the old one anymore, it had it's moments, but for the most part... think of it this way. It was sinking in quicksand and although I tried to save it, I wasn’t willing to dive in to get it back.

Authors Note 2: I hope you think this one’s better and that it has possible potential as a story. No more post office girl, I saw her again in the movie and wow, totally not what I remembered her as. Lol.

It all started with a hat, a simple black hat that reminded him of a dairy farmer from Mississippi that he had once seen on a book signing tour. Amy had been with him, one of the few times she had ever accompanied him anywhere other than Maine. Putting the hat on he had felt different, like seeing the world in black and white. Right and wrong, there was no in between or fine print at the end to spell out a person’s failures.

He had made it out to be a joke, of course, it was to him then too. Ha, ha, laugh at the crazy writer, right? Wait, but he wasn’t crazy then... or maybe he was. After all it would take someone not completely sane to think the thoughts he had at any rate.

But then the question came... was anyone really normal? Wasn’t that the issue of the year, defining normality. He had loved Amy, and a part of him still did, but wasn’t that in the vows he took? To love, honor, cherish... till death do they part. Rather her death in this case, did the vows say anything about... oh perhaps, the groom murdering the bride?

He felt he was well justified. He honored her, he did every morning as he watered the garden in her name. He even did her, and Ted now that he thought about it, a service. Now they wouldn’t ever be parted, right comfy they were, and would remain. Forever.

If he took the time to think about it, he supposed that there had always been something wrong with him. His parents thought so anyway, he was too quiet, he didn’t like to be around other people they said. Even as a child he often spent time alone drawing pictures and walking around the countryside of Pennsylvania.

Mort didn’t remember much of school from after fifth grade, just notebooks and binders full of his stories. School wasn’t a place to learn, it was another place to write. A change of scenery was needed when something was to be written otherwise life would stay monotonous and how would he ever get anywhere?

His grades suffered and as much as his parents threatened, they took the laptop from his room so he wrote on notebook paper with pen and pencil. They took the notebooks and he would write on anything he could find, he kept them all together and transferred it back to regular paper when he got to school.

None of the other kids interested him, they all led remarkably boring lives. So did he for that matter, but he wrote about wondrous places where things happened to his characters on a regular basis.

Windows. Windows had never been a good subject to bring up around him. There was a major competition that the school had tried to participate in. One of the model high-schools in the county, until a teacher took away his paper while reprimanding him to pay attention.

His books crashed through two strong windows of the classroom, a pen was thrown and it lodged itself in the wall near her head, he had cornered her against the side of the classroom and demanded she give his binder back before anyone had time to do more than blink in astonishment.

Trembling and fearful she did as he requested and when the contest judges heard about it they resigned their attention elsewhere. The school had lost a ten thousand dollar raise because of him.

Mort hadn't cared, the woman had no right to touch what was his and after packing up his things he calmly had left the classroom with no intention of ever going back. That had been the senior year of high-school for him, and as a result his family moved to Lake Tashmore, Maine for a change of pace in hopes of changing their son.

He sent in one of his stories to a small publishing company and received his first ever rejection letter. That hadn't bothered him because he knew there were other opportunities out there. He revised, edited, and sent his story to another, bigger, company. They accepted it and he got his first advance within a few days.

Over the next few months he had his book published with the name Morton Rainey in bold under the title ‘Silhouetted Light.’ Everything changed after that, he became a well known author and the teenager from Pennsylvania was forgotten in lieu of the new talented, sophisticated, yet still innocently ‘country’ man from Maine.

Mort Rainey leaned his head back against his new desk office chair and grinned at his recent addition to ‘Sowing Season.’ Publishers had loved his editing and the new ending, they clamored for a sequel to find out exactly what happened to Todd Downey.

He was more than happy to oblige, he too was curious as to what was going to happen to him. Nothing stayed perfect forever because perfection was just an illusion. The ending was very good... for now, but he had to equal that with another one that would be even better.

Mort Rainey, or John Shooter as he now preferred to be called, was glad to finally be free of all the restrictions society had placed on him. It had taken him thirty some years to finally shed all the ties that bound him to what he ‘should’ do and what ‘should’ be done.

He lived alone and liked it that way he could very well do what he wanted now. To hell with everyone else, and that’s where they’d end up if they involved themselves in what didn’t concern them. Morton was still there somewhere under the surface, but John had made sure that anyone and everyone who cared about the poor country kid was obliterated.

Ken Karsch was gone, Tom Greenleaf was dead too, Amy and Ted... well, it was pretty obvious what had happened to them. It was a thrill everytime he thought about one of his readers picking up Sowing Season and thinking that the plot and characters were fictitious. They would marvel at the genius of the story, no he wasn’t trying to be boastful, not knowing that what they were admiring had really happened.

He rubbed his jaw in slight annoyance, everything that needed to be straightened out was. The braces had just come off yesterday, which explained the pain in his jaw. The weights were safely stored away now that he had lost the twenty pounds he wanted too. He was the correct weight, frame, and while that couldn’t be said for his state of mind, everything he had control over was... well, controlled.

John had done everything possible to ensure his continued existence and would do whatever was needed to stay on top of things. Mort was too weak-minded, in his opinion, to do anything other than mope around and refuse perfectly good cigarettes. He cared too much about the woman Amy, she had gone off with another man and was punished accordingly.

Nope. John folded his arms across his chest and sighed deeply. Nothing could shatter what he had going for him now. With that thought still in his mind the green phone sitting on his table in the living room began to ring.

“What in tarnation!” he muttered brushing off stray ashes on his black pants, he thought he had unplugged the thing before he started to write. He bounded down the stairs and sat on the brown upholstered couch while picking up the receiver.

It was a major disturbance and he had always made sure to unplug the phone jack before turning on his computer. There was nothing more irritating than a phone that wouldn’t stop ringing just as the ideas started to circulate. After the incessant chatter stopped the ideas would too leaving him with nothing but a nearly blank screen and horrible writing.

“H’lo?” he asked allowing the annoyance to make itself known in his voice.

“Don't you dare speak to me in the condescending tone, Mort Rainey.” He heard a feminine voice tease on the other end, “I’ve tried calling you for days, you can't tell me that you’ve been writing all this time.”

“Yeah, I have been actually.” John replied, “Sorry ‘bout the phone and all, darlin’ but what did you expect? You’ve heard about the new story, I’d imagine.”

“Jeez, you must be in major writing mode to have such an accent.” He heard her chuckle, “But yeah, I wanted to call and congratulate you on that. Getting over... well, anyway, it's good to see that you’ve finally stepped out of the closet.”

“Stepped out and burned it down.” He laughed, “I plumb forgot that you were getting back from that trip to Europe. How was it?”

“Great! I got so many pictures developed and the magazine’s going to pay me for nearly all of them! Can you believe it! There must be hundreds of shots here and they want them all!”

Annmarie ‘Willow’ Tosiath had been his friend now for- with sinking heart he realized that she would notice the drastic change Mort had undergone since she left. Within a few days she would hear the rumors and gossip around town and come searching him out for answers. He couldn’t have that happening, but he wouldn’t be able to kill her either.

She was the one who had been there for him throughout whatever happened in his life, he never minded when she called or stopped by suddenly no matter what he was doing. There was always time to spend with her, and he might have even proposed had she not had a boyfriend and Amy been his wife.

“I’m really very happy for you, Annie.” He sighed, “Can I call you back in a little while though? Some loose ends I need to tie up.”

“Sure, I’ll be here.” He could almost hear her smile, “Don't unplug the phone, promise?”

“Alright.” He hated the sick, surging feeling in his stomach. All he wanted to do was get out, away from the cabin, and past everything that wanted to bring Mort back! He had all the memories and Annie wasn’t the type to leave things be. He would do what needed to be done though, even if more of his sanity was put to the test.

Authors Note 3: I watched the DVD twice now and there’s a part in the movie, if you watch it with Closed Captioning on, where they talk about a school and broken windows or something. I had to pause the DVD to write this and I don't know if I got it all right. Something about sisters or whatever, but I took it and ran with it... this is the result. Lol.