This is my first attempt at a Secret Window fic. More a trial run than a proper story, although it may develop. All and any criticism welcome: flames will be used to add interest to the story later on. ;)

Title will hopefully change, as this one is pretty awful...

I own only the plot, and that is only an extension of the film. : ( Wish I owned Johnny...: )

The Window Has Opened...

Missy Mouse

Dave Newsome stepped into the lakeside cottage. It was dark. His shoe crackled on broken glass and what was left of the curtains fluttered in the chilly breeze coming off the lake.

"Mr Rainey?"

No answer. The cushions on the sofa were gone. The drinks cabinet was no more than just an empty oak box. Stepping gingerly deeper into the domain of Tashmore Lake's most infamous resident, the Sheriff withdrew a torch and peered into what passed as a kitchen.

The cupboards were literally bare. One door hung off its hinges, waving about gently in the gusts blowing through the shattered window. The tap dribbled water into the metal basin, with a haphazard slapping noise that quite un-nerved him. Flicking on the torch, and drawing a gun, he headed for the stairs.

The dust on the stairs clearly hadn't been cleaned since Mrs Garvey had taken fear of her employer. But there was a trail. Not one set of footprints, but a well used path, worn through the dust. Dave Newsome began the climb.

The desk was lying on its side. The laptop had gone, presumably with the contents of the drawers that dangled precariously from their runners. Shards of glass spread out from the bathroom doorway like a frozen river, twinkling in the banal torch light. Still curious, but becoming less so by the minute, wishing his curiosity wouldn't help him find anything, Newsome peered round the bathroom door frame. The mirror was in pieces, half still in the frame, the rest leering his fragmented reflection up at him from the floor. The shower door had a gash down it, leaving a darker hole in the already night–black room. The house was deserted, unless...

The unforgiving light went in first, hitting corners of furniture and shining off the metal bed frame. Newsome started slowly. He raised the light up the bed, noting how the covers moulded, screwed up and finally...

...Revealed an indent in the covers and mattress that suggested someone slept there. Or used to.

"Mr Rainey?"

But 'Mr Rainey' had long since departed. Flicking the light switch caused nothing to happen in a spectacular way. The power had been cut. By the light of the torch, the Sheriff could see that glasses, lamps and all the other household accessories lay decorating the floor, like a bizarre carpet of porcelain and glass shards. As the man retreated from the vacant tomb of a bedroom, a stray gust caught the shower door in the bathroom. Dave Newsome shrieked as the cacophony of tinkling glass rattled the plastic bathtub. Taking the stairs too many at a time and too fast to count, he spiralled, terrified out the front door.