Page 62 of Shhh…It’s A Killer Story

The sweater hung almost to my knees, the sleeves swallowing my hands entirely, making me look less like a functioning adult and more like someone who'd accidentally wandered into the wrong wardrobe. It was warm, comfortable. Heavy in that oddly reassuring way only well-worn clothes ever managed to become. I undressed, folding the sweater and placing it on the shelf switching to one of my own.

I wondered if he owned more than one exactly like it. Probably. Detectives seemed like people who bought identical clothing just to avoid making decisions before coffee. He struck me as someone who ironed his shirts, maybe not because he enjoyed ironing. Nobody enjoyed ironing. But because wrinkles probably irritated him. Would he fold socks? Or simply shove them into drawers and pretend organisation was close enough? Did he alphabetise spices? Did he replace toilet paper before it ran out or wait until the cardboard tube stared back at him accusingly?

See, people always assume obsession begins with grand declarations. It doesn't. It begins with wondering entirely useless things. The colour of someone's toothbrush. How many mugs they own. Whether they leave cupboard doors open. Whether they apologise after stepping on the dog's tail. Curiosity. That's all.

At first, then it starts to burn like a flame inside your body, so excruciatingly painful until that person is near or you smell their cologne and the flame is tamed for only a little bit. It’s like an addiction. You need your next fix or hit faster than you can think.

I pushed myself upright and stretched slowly, joints protesting in tiny pops while sunlight finally reached across the wooden floorboards. Dust floated lazily through the beams like thousands of tiny ghosts with nowhere else to be.

"You should work."

Gerald cleared his throat dramatically.

"Deadlines."

"I don't have one."

"You gave yourself one."

"I regret that decision."

Frank pointed toward my desk.

"Joey's waiting."

My eyes drifted toward the laptop sitting patiently beneath the window. It almost looked offended. Writers develop strange relationships with unfinished manuscripts. Characters become roommates. Scenes become conversations. Entire chapters sit quietly in corners waiting for permission to exist. People often ask where stories come from. As though they hatch. As though one morning an author wakes up and thinks…

You know what? I'd quite like to emotionally devastate strangers today.

No. Stories are stubborn little things. They scratch politely at first then they start hammering and eventually, they kick the bloody door down refusing to leave until you've written them.

I padded across the cottage barefoot, the old floorboards greeting me with familiar creaks beneath each step. The kettle clicked on automatically because we'd reached that stage in our relationship where words were no longer necessary. It wasn’t true they haven’t invented something like that yet, but I’d like to imagine. Steam began curling into the air, gathering everything the soft click of the kettle being done called to me as I made my cup of coffee. Steam coming from the cup while I settled into the chair, fingers resting above the keyboard.

The cursor blinked. Expectant, like it already knew exactly what came next. Lucky thing. I didn't. I just wing it.

I took a slow sip of coffee, cracked my knuckles, stretching each finger. Wiggling my fingers above the keyboard, I closed my eyes, took a moment and opened them.

"All right," I murmured.

“Time to play.”

The keys began to clatter beneath my fingertips.

JOEY

Darkness settled over the room like a second skin, swallowing the corners until only fragments remained. A single bulb overhead buzzed and flickered, casting brief flashes of light before surrendering to shadow again. Somewhere behind me, a tap leaked with maddening precision.

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

The sound became its own metronome, measuring seconds no clock could keep. A chair scraped faintly across the concrete floor. You could hear the struggles as she figures out I have her bound to the chair. The chair was bolted to the floor. . There is no running away now.

The air smelled of damp stone, old wood, and rust. Dust drifted lazily through the narrow beam of light, disappearing each time the bulb dimmed. I turned a knife over in my hands watching how it glints in the light, I put my finger to the tip of the knife and pressed. Hmmm not sharp enough. Walking over to the whetstone I start sharpening. The whetstone whispered against the steel.

Shhk...