A/N: Loved it toward the end of "Secret Window", when Rainey was completely bugfuck and openly became John Shooter. That whole breakdown scene with the mirror and him hallucinating -- that was fantastic cinema! (Am borrowing it as a useful plot device. See previous disclaimer.)

=======================

The man stood in front of the mirror over the fireplace, compelled to focus on his reflection. His ears were tingling; it felt a lot like being very angry, but right now, Mort was more scared than anything else. Outside, it was a beautiful day, and he could see the blue-clad figure in the green boat rowing back across the lake.

John Shooter glared at him from the looking glass. "That was not real swift, pilgrim, not at all. First off, you were rude to a lady. Secondly, you hurt her feelin's. Worst of all, you lied to her. Right now, if I could lay you out with a shovel upside your head, I would. Lucky for you, I cain't. Now you listen to me, and listen good, 'cause if I have to tell you again, you ain't gonna like the lesson.

"I'll fix things up with Miss Cooper. She comes by here again, I don't care if you're carving stone tablets at the personal request of the Almighty, you are gonna be polite to her and act like a gentleman. Yes, you are. And right now, you are gonna sit down and read that book of hers, cover to cover. Next time you see her, you're gonna be able to carry on a civilized conversation with her about her story. It's a good one, I can tell you. Who do you think wrote that review she's so proud of?"

"I don't have time for that," Mort said aloud. "I've got work to do!"

"If you printed that mess of yours out, you could always use it to wipe your ass. You've got nothing but time, Mr. Rainey. You might as well improve your mind."

"Why?" Mort persisted.

Shooter sighed. He looked pityingly back at his host. "I thought you were smarter than that. You want her thinking you're a crazy man like everybody else in town? And what if she marches in there this afternoon and tells the sheriff you had words with her? What are you gonna do then?"

"Why did she have to build her damn house right there?" grumbled Mort.

"It's a free country. Her house isn't doing you any harm. I suggest you get used to it."

Mort picked up the book in question and sat down on the couch with it. Shooter intimidated him enough that he wasn't about to defy him. Thoughts of what might happen if his darkness was unleashed again turned his stomach. (Okay, okay, I'll read the damn book.) He couldn't admit, even to himself, that Shooter was 100% right about the lame attempt at a novel that was talking up 360K on his laptop.

The few first pages were slow going. Mort wasn't a big fan of historial fiction, and so far, this was set just before World War One, in a small southern town, and he had no idea where she was going with it. John Shooter counciled patience. Mort had the sense of someone reading over his shoulder....a part of him was reading all this for the first time; something deeper was rediscovering it. She wrote well, choosing words economically. Her characters were distinct. Images came vividly to life without puffing into long, drawn-out passages for the sake of pretty verbage. Conflict was creeping into the tale, and he turned another page, feeling tension.

At page thirty-two, Mort stretched out full-length on the couch, not even aware of his action. His eyes travelled steadily across the page; holding the volume with one hand, he slid a pillow behind his head with the other, settling in for the duration.

By the time he turned the last page, it was almost too dark to read without turning the lights on. Mort blinked. His head was still crowded with people and events that had long been history.

"Now, you see, I told you it was a fine story," the voice intoned. "Been a long time since you've come close to writing anything that good. Hell, I don't know if you ever wrote anything that good."

(Oh, come on, Mort told himself. I wouldn't go that far.) He knew that much without a voice in his head: any writer, especially one in the middle of a creative drought, is going to look enviously at what some other writer has successfully set down on a page when it's well done and looks effortless.

Joints popped after his long inactivity as he got up off the couch and stretched. In the distance, he could see her house, its white paint greyed by twilight, silhouetted against the inky pines. Light came thru the row of multi-pane windows that charecterized the lake-facing side of the cottage.

Mort looked across the cove and wondered what his new neighbor was doing now.

=====================

Next: Shooter's the guy who's always in control. Who'da thought he'd have a phobia about answering machines?

.