Ghost Writer

Chapter Nine: Found but Lost

"We need to go back."

Mort tried to ignore the ever-annoying presence of John Shooter, who had taken up a permanent residence in his line of vision. It had been going on four months since that day on the porch when Anna had spoken Shooter's name with fear and awe. Four months since he had seen or spoken to Anna. He really wasn't prepared for how much he missed her.

"Did you hear me?"

"Of course I heard you!" Mort snapped then looked around to see if anyone had noticed. No, of course not, there wasn't anyone around to notice. He was in his fourteenth hotel room, just another stop on the journey of trying to disappear. He didn't know what state he was in anymore, other than the state of confusion. He was tired and weary.

"Well?"

"Well what?" Mort stretched out on the hotel bed and stared at the ceiling. "We can't go back. Not now. Not when I…"

"When you what?"

Mort draped his arm over his eyes. "Not when I remember what I did."

"Now you remember? It's almost two months shy of a year and you're only now remembering!"

"Yes, you southern son of a-"

A sharp rap on the door interrupted Mort. Was someone coming to complain about his shouting? Had he ordered room service and forgotten already? Maybe his credit card was finally maxed out.

"Mort?"

The voice was feminine, definitely. He didn't check in under his real name. With heavy steps, he made his way to the door and stared out the peep hole. The sight that greeted him was so startling he actually took a step back and looked again. Anna was standing there, dripping wet and shivering. He watched as she raised her hand and knocked again. He could feel the wood give under his hand. Fumbling with the chain, Mort threw the door open.

"Anna?"

She gave him a smile despite the chattering of her teeth. She pulled a wet copy of "Everyone Drops the Dime" from under her coat. "You owe me an autograph."

Mort motioned for her to come into the room. He didn't trust his ability to speak at this point in time. Anna stepped across the threshold and Mort quickly shut the door. He grabbed a couple towels from the bathroom and handed them to Anna. She gave him a grateful smile and started drying off her hair.

"You're a very hard man to find, Mort."

"How did you find me?"

Anna shrugged. "I have my ways."

Mort looked around the room and found Shooter had completely disappeared. It was strange, unnerving but definitely not unwelcome. "So, uh, how's your knee?"

Anna took off her jacket and wrapped the second towel around her shoulders. "Good as new, believe it or not."

"Why are you here?"

She sat down on the edge of the bed. "I told you, you owed me an autograph. Besides, it's been what, four months, since you left Tashmore Lake? I was getting worried."

"And everyone else?"

Anna grimaced. "They sold your cabin. Some middle aged couple from Manhattan bought it."

Mort nodded. He really didn't have any particular drive to return to the cabin anymore. Not with Amy and Ted buried under his corn patch. He groaned and covered his face with his hands.

"You know I told you I can talk to ghosts?"

Mort didn't move or answer. Anna continued anyway.

"Well, I think you can too."

He dropped his hand and sat down on the bed opposite of Anna. "Why do you think that?"

"The ghost that I've been seeing around the lake has been Amy."

"Is that how you know about John Shooter?" Maybe she didn't know everything. Maybe she just had a face and a name. Nothing more. But how could he risk her suffering the same fate that Amy had? He had to get far from her and make sure the distance took.

Anna looked down at the comforter. "Actually, I saw John Shooter before Amy kind of took me on a tour of her last minutes."

Before Mort could react to what she had said, Anna had grabbed his shoulders and kneeling on the floor, looking up at him.

"Amy had a chance to point you out as the murderer but she didn't. He pointed to John Shooter. She realized the same thing that I did. You were not responsible for the murders."

Mort stood up suddenly, shrugging out of Anna's ice cold hands. "John Shooter was a creation of my own imagination. It was my responsibility to keep him in check."

Anna pulled herself up from the floor. "That's where you're wrong. I did some research in the last few months. I had nothing better to do being laid up with my knee. With Amy's help, I was able to piece together who exactly John Shooter is."

"Wha…what?"

"John Shooter is a ghost. It's that simple."

Mort grasped at the glimmer of hope that Anna had given him. "Who is he then?"

"Apparently, there was a man named John Kintner, who had his story plagiarized by a fellow college classmate. The classmate changed Kintner's ending and spent quite a few years trying to bring charges against him but Kintner was killed during in a farm machinery malfunction before the case was settled. John Shooter is Kintner, he's just haunting the wrong author."

"Who was the author?"

Anna shrugged. "Already dead, killed by a drunk driver."

Relief and wonderment washed over Mort like hurricane sized waves. "Are you going to tell Shooter, or should I?"

"He's already gone. He knew what I had to say before I walked in."

"I'm not crazy?"

"No."

"Then where did I get the idea for 'Secret Window?'"

Anna smiled widely. "I guess you're just a ghost writer too. Amy said you wrote that short story at night and under the influence of Jack Daniels."

Mort cringed at Anna having that knowledge but nodded anyway.

"Well," she continued, "psychic activity is usually strongest at night. The alcohol dropped your defenses enough for you to listen to the story that John Kintner was telling you. Basically, you do what I do, you write down the stories that ghost's tell you. You're a ghost writer."

The feeling of happiness came over him but quickly receded. "What about Amy and Ted? I still killed them."

"No, John Shooter killed them. He just used your body to do it."

Mort remembered telling Ted that intimidation made him feel icky but suddenly intimidation didn't hold a candle to what Anna had just said. "Possession?"

"It's been known to happen in some cases."

He suppressed a shiver.

"Look, Mort, I'm here for another reason, as well."

Mort watched Anna's face grow serious. The temperature in the room seemed to drop slightly and he wondered what was wrong with the thermostat. "Hang on a second."

He stepped over to the air conditioner and found that it was still set on the heater setting and blowing out hot air. It struck him as strange and he lifted a hand to the window to see if there was a draft but found none. That was when he noticed the weather. There was a full moon shining in a cloudless sky. The parking lot was bone dry. He looked back at Anna who was still dripping droplets of water onto the rug. She saw the confused look on his face and sighed deeply.

"The favor that I want to ask of you is going to be time consuming."

Fear was starting to gnaw away at the corner of his mind. "What is it?"

"I want you to write our story, of how we meet and so on. I thought it was a nice story. Two broken people that learned how to fix each other. I only hope that you can fix the ending. I'd like to see it end a little happier."

"Why didn't it end happy?" The words tasted like dust and he practically choked on them.

Anna's eyes filled up with tears. "Last night, I went sleepwalking. I ended up down by your cabin and I fell into the lake again. Only this time, you weren't there to pull me out."