Ok, these author's notes get a little boring after a while. Basically I'll tell you if I own anything, which at the moment, I don't.
I'll leave you in peace until such time as I want to annoy you... ;-)
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Dave Newsome returned a few days later. There was a new clear patch in the dust. Third stair up from the floor, next to the railing. There were also pieces of ripped paper covering the floor. Hundreds of stories. Hundreds of words set loose into the cobwebbed corners, the unreachable crevices and the darkest knotholes. They sat, watching the Sheriff balefully.
He conducted another search of the house, in broad daylight, with at least one flood light in every room that the cables would reach. Everyone had a torch, another torch and four sets of batteries. Newsome had a hat with a flashlight on it. The whole force scoured the place with light, feeling safe in the artificial brightness they had created. There was no dark for evil to hide.
No one dared go into the cellar, though.
The floodlights wouldn't reach, and no one was quite that keen on convicting the mad author.
During the afternoon, when everyone was beginning to think things of a nasty nature might actually happen a lot earlier than twelve, and more like four, so they'd better hurry away, someone heard something. The person had been feeling brave and overconfident, and had actually stood next to the cellar door. He gave a statement to the other officers:
"It sounded like a snore, sir!"
So, now there was a raging beast locked in the cellar as well...
They left too quickly to take the floodlights. Newsome's hat was still rolling on it's curved top when John Shooter shut the cellar door quietly behind himself.
"Ah, they would leave their things behind."
The thick Mississippi accent filled the room with a nasal drawl. John Shooter avoided the lights as if they were poisonous. He slipped round to their base, and tugged the wires. The light died, but the thrum of the generator outside continued. Dusting himself neatly off, he turned to tidy away the impurities caused by the less sensible man living there.
When Mort emerged, he could see the flood light silhouettes. Cold, clammy and scared of his own head, he stumbled towards them. Shoving the plugs home, he was temporarily blinded by the beams of light. The light...
It was clean, and so bright it scorched his brain through his closed lids. Inside his mind, he heard Shooter scream.
"Go to Hell Shooter."
Mort stepped out from behind the light and looked up at it. He felt his eyes overload and then everything went black. But he could still see the light in his mind's eye, and he could feel Shooter squirming in agony.
Stop it you idiot!
No.
Do as I say! For God's sake I told you to murder and you did it! STOP IT!
"No."
Mort saw the other reflections of himself. They crawled from under the sofa, lounged in the chairs or lunged at him from the empty air. Mort shut his eyes and smiled. The blackness became darker and he could feel their confusion, his own confusion. They weren't there.
He waited until the soreness of his eyes dulled. Opening them produced a thousand different coloured patches of blurred vision, any of which Shooter might have loomed out of. Eventually they cleared, and he looked at his home in cold, brash floodlight. He was alone.
He checked the kitchen, the bedroom, and the bathroom. He checked the cellar and the little room off of it. Mort returned to the sofa and shut his eyes. Then after waiting about five minutes, he leapt up, turned to face the light and opened his eyes, wide as possible. His brain screamed at him...
His brain.
Hello?
....
Anyone there?
...
Completely alone.