(A/N: This is one of my... stranger fanfics... so I won't really have any comments except for the Disclaimer. Just thought you'd like to know. Enjoy, and please R&R!)

Disclaimer: I own nothing except Samantha, Alexa, Jenna, and Erin. (sigh)

1

A girl with long, dirty blonde hair reaching just past her shoulder-blades and bright green eyes sat in her room, staring at her computer screen. "Starting it's the hardest," she muttered, and erased the few, unremarkable lines she had chosen to start her story with. "And I thought the ending was supposed to be the most difficult."

"No, just the most important," said a voice behind her. Spinning her chair around, the girl found herself facing another young woman with black hair and gray eyes. It was her roommate, Jenna. "Having trouble with your masterpiece, Sam?" she smiled.

Sam crossed her arms, pretending anger. "Of course not!" she exclaimed indignantly. "How could you even say such a thing?" She hid her smile behind her teeth.

"Well, if you're not going to sit and struggle some more with your career, you might want to call your friend back. Alexa called a few minutes ago."

Sam frowned and uncrossed her arms. "Why didn't you answer for me?"

Jenna looked at her askance, almost as if there were something wrong with her. "You know I hate using the phone."

Sam knew, all right. If there was one thing Sam had learned from living with Jenna, it was that some people just did not like phones. If there were a club for the Phone Haters, she thought, Jenna would be the president, no questions asked. She let an irritated sigh escape her lips as she picked up the phone and dialed the number for Alexa's cell phone.

"Hello?" came Alexa's voice through the phone. "Sam?"

Jenna left the room to let Sam talk to her friend in peace – and privacy. She took care to shut the door behind her. "Yeah, Alex, it's me. You called?"

"Yep. Erin and me are at the coffee shop. You wanna come hang out with us, or are you writing again?" Alex's voice was made crackly by the bad reception.

Sam closed the empty writing program thankfully. "No, I'm not really doing anything. I'll be there in about ten minutes, okay?" She had no problem with taking a break from her writing – or, in this case, her struggling.

"See you," Alex said, and Sam hung the phone up. She was about to walk right out the door when she caught a glimpse of her reflection in the mirror. Seeing as she was still dressed in her pajamas, Sam quickly changed into jeans (comfortable ones, complete with holes in the knees even), a jet-black tee-shirt with the Aerosmith logo on the front, and muddy black boots. Finally, she dragged a brush and comb through her hair before walking out into the main room of the apartment. She reached for the door to the hall of the complex.

"Where are you headed?" Jenna asked, poking her head out of her room.

"The coffee shop, to meet Erin and Alex. Wanna come?" Sam asked as she opened the door. The question was merely meant for politeness; she already knew what the answer would be.

"No thanks," Jenna replied, giving her a very dry look. "Have a good time." Agitatedly, she disappeared back into her room.

Sam took a deep, calming breath and locked the door behind her. She had gotten the answer she'd expected, though it wasn't the one she was hoping for. Jenna had never come with her to any social activities whatsoever. She had never even spoken to Sam's friends, which had always irked her, even angered her at times. Jenna was an extremely solitary person, and – as far as Sam knew – she didn't have any friends or social life at all.

Sam hastily walked down the corridor and took the elevator downstairs. Why do you even try? asked a voice inside her as she took the elevator down to the first floor. Do you really believe that she actually wants to meet your friends? She couldn't answer, and therefore didn't. Instead, she concentrated on walking.

A group of gossiping women passed her as she stepped outside of the building. One of them stopped her, grabbing her arm with a thin but apparently strong hand. "Say, have you heard any news about that psycho man?" she asked in her raspy, old gossiper voice. Sam didn't ask who "that psycho man" was, for everyone who had lived in the state of Maine for more than a day knew who he was.

"No," she answered simply, and tried to walk away. She wanted this to end as quickly as it began.

The old woman held her back, keeping her hold on Sam's arm. "You know, they still haven't found those bodies. I do hope the police solve this soon. He's too close for comfort." She shuddered.

How do you know he's guilty? How do you even know he's real? Sam thought in spite of herself. She almost said it out loud, but at the last minute she decided it was best to keep her thoughts to herself, as always. Instead, she nodded over-politely, pried the lady's fingers off of her arm forcibly, and continued on her way down the sidewalk as quickly as possible without resorting to running. She hated the rumor about the killer writer with a passion, and always tried to push it completely out of her mind. Somewhere deep inside of her, she knew it wasn't going to go away that quickly, but at the moment that didn't seem to matter.

She reached the coffee shop soon after. A girl with cropped brown/blonde hair and hazel eyes – that was undoubtedly Erin – was sitting in a booth and talking to another young woman. This person had long, waist-length dark brown hair and light brown eyes, and her name was Alex. Catching sight of Sam, the two girls waved as she joined them.

"So, what's up?" Alex asked after the greetings, noticing that Sam was slightly pale. "Something wrong?"

Sam made a face, trying to be calm and yet disgusted. She hoped she was a good actress. "Some ladies just had to talk to me about the new rumor on the way here."

Erin gave her a dirty look. "You should take it more seriously, Sam. His house isn't too far away from your apartment complex."

Don't you think I know that? Sam took her drink from the waitress. Don't you think I care? Casually, she said, "I know, I know. I just don't believe he did that. It's just a rumor after all."

Erin rolled her eyes at her. "You should at least be concerned. Just how do you think that rumor got started?"

Sam had thought of this before as well, and she had an answer. "It could have been started by someone who just hated him a lot." It wasn't a very good or a very persuasive answer, but it was something nonetheless. Knowing this, too, she began studying her drink intensively.

Alex cocked her head, looking at Sam thoughtfully. "That could be possible," she admitted, "Besides, you usually can't trust rumors."

"Oh, give me a break!" Erin cried, slamming her drink down on the table irritably. "Amy and Ted have been missing for two weeks now. No one knows what happened to them. The motives are all there, and everything points to him. And don't forget the car they found in the lake – it had his watch in it, for crying out loud!" And car keys, Sam added silently.

Alex nodded in conformity. "Weren't there two bodies in it?"

"Tom Greenleaf and some cop, I think." Erin took a sip of her Cherry Coke as she began to calm down.

Sam thought, His name was Greg Carstairs. She raised her eyes to look at them, finally finished with her meaningless inspection of her Mountain Dew. "Can we please change the subject?" she asked in a quiet voice, something cold stirring in the pit of her stomach. Mildly surprised, Erin and Alex nodded. After a moment of silence, Sam thought of something to say. "I heard that David Bowie's coming out with a new album." Her voice sounded cheery but fake, even to her own ears – but at least it started a conversation.

The three girls spent the rest of the day walking around the town and talking, a nice comfort compared to the usual routine of chores, work, food, and sleep. The next day, however, Sam found herself staring blankly at her computer again, once more plagued with the curse of writer's block.

"Why don't you ride your bike through that path in the woods?" Jenna suggested when she saw her roommate's problem. "You always seem to get inspiration from that."

He lives there, Sam recalled immediately. She raised her eyebrows at Jenna. "But that's where he lives," she protested in a small voice. She wasn't scared as far as she was concerned – but she was uneasy about it.

Jenna put her hands on her hips in slight exasperation. "So what? You said it yourself: those rumors probably aren't true." But they could be, reflected Sam. "Besides, you need to start this story... and you don't want it to sound cheesy."

Sam weighed the choices against each other, seeing a scale in her mind's eye. "I guess you're right," she returned at length, and changed into a pair of ratty old jeans, a black tank-top, and her black boots. She twisted her hair into a messy bun behind her head that fell out as soon as she put her hand down at her side. Oh well, who cares? she thought, and left her hair down. Catching Jenna's look, she explained, "I don't want to ruin my good clothes."

"Your bike must crash a lot, then," Jenna commented wryly, and went into her room. Sam, shaking her head, pulled her bike out of the storage room and walked it down the stairs and out of the complex. She then mounted her bike, and soon she was riding through the woods Jenna had mentioned. Before long, she was deep in thought, trying to think of the perfect, flawless way to start her latest novel. So deep in thought, in fact, that she was too distracted to realize how close she was to the house of the man who was rumored to be crazy and have murdered four people. She was also too distracted to notice the fallen tree in the middle of the bike trail. She was instantly brought back to reality as her bike slammed into the trunk, sending her flying forward head-over-heels. She landed a few feet away from her bike. Slamming into the ground, she lay still and sprawling her back, having lost consciousness on impact.