Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters from either the movie or the book, Steven King was the writer and Johnny D. was the actor, if anyone really owns the character, it's them.
Morton Rainey checked his braces in the rear-view mirror, running his tongue across them. He hated having them adjusted. One would think that modern dentistry would've come up with a way to readjust braces without as much pain. He looked back out at the road, just as a familiar figure appeared out of the corner of his eye. A tall, lanky man in a black hat stood at the side of the street, a cigarette hanging out of the side of his mouth. Mort slammed on the brakes, the tires screeching as they slid to a halt on the pavement near the sidewalk. A car flew past him blaring it's horn. He spun around to look at the spot where the Shooter look-alike was standing, . . . only to see him not standing there anymore.
A panic overcame Mort as he turned around, slumping forward on the steering wheel. He ran his hands through his hair, absent-mindedly.
"Shit. Not again." he said, trying to regain enough composure to drive. He sped away from the curb and attempted to get home as quickly as possible. What are you so afraid of? You know who it is. It's you, Mr. Rainey. Mort pushed the voice out of his head. He tried to ignore that voice as much as possible. "Tod Downey" always said bad things, things that usually made a scary kind of sense. Mort much preferred the "voice of reason" as he called him. He knew he was MPD. One day after watching 60 Minutes, all the voices in his head agreed with each other for once. He didn't really remember when it had all started, "the silent partner" had that secret tidied away somewhere else in his head. He pulled into the driveway and hurried into his cabin. His rattled nerves made it difficult to use the key and open the door. Mort sat on the couch and looked at the phone, contemplating what to do. A stack of cards with Sheriff Dave Newsome's name and number lay next to the phone. Pick up the phone, call the police, the voice of reason said, do you really want to go through this again?
"No, It wasn't him. I, I'm just under the stress of working on my new story. That's all." Mort said, attempting to calm himself, "I am not having another breakdown." Bullshit, the voice said. He pushed it away and busied himself with washing the dishes. He couldn't call the police anyway. The sheriff was convinced he'd killed Amy and Ted, and he either called or came over every week, so it was only a matter of time before Mort was arrested for something he didn't do. But you did do it, the voice of Tod Downey poked at him from the back of his mind. Shut up, he tried to quiet all the voices stirring in his head. A cup smashed on the floor as he reached up to cup his hands over his ears.
Mort went up the stairs to his study after cleaning up the broken mug and opened the file of his new story. A man with a mental illness trying to live a normal life even after tragedy hits him where it hurts, that was the idea anyway. He stared at the screen trying to make it work. He had been staring at the same paragraph for the better part of a week. He ran his tongue across his braces, the roots of his teeth still throbbing somewhat. Mort poked at the keyboard a little, forgetting the incident on the street, concentrating, instead, on the storyline he had created. After an hour of indecision as to where to take the main character, he took a break to watch a little television. As the set flickered to life, the five o'clock news' top story came on.
"And the investigation into the disappearance of Amy Rainey, former spouse of author, Morton Rainey, and Ted Milner, local Real Estate Broker, continues," the newscaster said", If you have any information as to the whereabouts of both Amy Rainey and Ted Milner, please contact your local authorities." A picture of the two of them hugging flashed on screen just before Mort turned the T.V. off, aggravatedly. He stamped back upstairs, determined to make his storyline work. If Jack Snow could find a way to make his life return to normal, so could he.
'Jack looked at the thorazine prescription, trying to decide whether he should pick it up from the pharmacy or not. I'm fine, he thought to himself. But you're not fine, a voice in his head replied.'. . . . . . Mort just couldn't decide what to do next. Should Jack have a breakdown, or should he be a strong mentally ill hero? What to do. . . . He tapped his fingernails on his braces, pensively. At times like this, he used to smoke, but for the past three months he had been smoke free. Such a messy habit anyway.
'Jack tried to force the voice out of his thoughts, willing himself not to--' Mort erased that sentence, unhappy with it. He prodded the keyboard, creating and erasing unsatisfactory sentences for the better part of the evening, until he finally collapsed in his bedroom and drifted into a dreamless sleep.