EDITOR'S NOTE: After a year of waiting, here it is: our excerpt from Ouroboros, available at Horror-Mall.

He stretched his chin up as he shaved, the razor creating a scratch over three days worth of whiskers. He dunked the razor in the sink full of water, tapped the razor against porcelain to loosen dislodged hair, then began a new sweep.

A board creaked on the other side of the bathroom door.

Tom froze in mid-shave, his jaw extended to the left, his eyes riveted on his reflection in the mirror. He didn't move, didn't flex a muscle. He strained to listen.

The house went silent. A minute passed. Two minutes. Tick tock.

He let his breath out. His mind reasoned. It was an old house. Cold weather had arrived (no thanks to open bedroom windows thanks to mind-numbing fugues) and the foundation creaked and settled. Roof nails popped, eaves groaned, and wood retracted in the way so that doors no longer stuck from summer humidity. He shook his head and started shaving again. He had the moustache area and a spot below the left ear to complete. Then it would be a wipe with a hot, wet facecloth and he'd be ready for the day.

Squeak.

This time it sounded like the release of pressure coming off a board. He had the distinct impression that someone stood on the other side, as aware of him listening as he was of the sudden noise.

Tom lunged at the bathroom door, anger pressing in at him. If he wasn't going to be a prisoner in his house, he had to abolish these mind games. Confront uncertainty. Look fear in the eye. Settling foundations were not footsteps, wind was not a mournful sigh, and rattling windows were not fingers prying to get in. A snake in the house was just that -- some wayward animal having dropped into his basement.

He hauled the door open and stared into the hallway.

Everything looked the same as it had before he'd stepped in to shower. His broom and dustpan rested against the wall. He glanced from room to room, chest heaving. Furniture waited in place, the house quiet. Outside, a siren picked up in the distance. Ambulance, maybe, or police cruiser. The window at the end of the hallway had filled with morning light, allowing its stained glass ornament to throw a prism of color across the floor. A cobweb caught on the end of a curtain rod twirled in the draught created by his sudden movement. He stared at the web, gossamer and dust-coated, spinning like a child's

(rubber ball in an old nylon stocking, bouncing against the side of a building, BabCo. Rubber Company -- peas porridge hot -- peas porridge cold -- peas porridge in the pot nine days old -- some like it hot -- 'whack!' -- some like it cold 'whack' -- some like it in the pot -'whack'- nine days old)

"Shut up!" he screamed at the repetitive insanity of the chant. He edged closer to his bedroom, drawn there for a reason he couldn't explain.

Cold.

It was so damned cold in the room again, even though he'd shut the blasted window and had cranked up the furnace thermostat while he'd been downstairs eating breakfast. His face remained partly unshaven, the soap creating a filmy runway down the left side of his jaw and neck.

His window was open again.

The sash had been pushed all the way to the top so that the day gusted in, wind smelling of damp leaves and chimney smoke. He knew he'd secured the latch at the top. It wasn't the kind of window that might spring open on its own, not like those modern casement things in modern bungalows. This was the old sash and frame farmhouse-style window, the kind that you had to barrel your shoulder against and heave if you hoped to lift it. It always stuck.

He stood with his mouth open, feeling his happy thoughts cave in against this harsh, undeniable reality.

"I didn't open the fuckin' window," he said. Tears welled at the back of each eye. "I know I didn't." He began to shake.

Movement darted from his peripheral right and he whirled, hands coming up, the razor his only weapon.

So caught was he by the open window that he hadn't looked at his bed. It was empty, devoid of the effigy where he'd left it before his shower. The Dorothy figure was gone. His closet door also hung open, revealing limp clothing dangling from hangers like de-boned bodies left to rot. Had he left it that way, or had he shut it? He couldn't remember and the surreal terror of 'Did I? Didn't I?' circled his mind with the violence of bats evicted from an attic. He felt afraid to look in the closet, to see why it might be open. What might wait in there for him? What new animal or paper face issuing breath that smelled of decay and dark promises might leap from between sets of shoes and folded trousers? Or her lipstick-coated photograph face, the lipstick real blood this time, the paper curling back from the edges, its colors fading with rot and time; it would blow a pestilent whisper at him. Come kiss, come kiss.

A rank odour of wild apples freezing and rotting in nearby fields blew in over a trace of wood smoke. He heard the sound of the swing pick up out in the yard.

Skree-ka, skreeeeekaaa.

His mind gibbered. It's windy outside.

...silver bells and cockle shells and pretty maids all in a row...

Where was the Dolly Doll? His feet criss-crossed over boards, sliding with the leathery sound of old slippers as he felt dragged towards the maddening open window, forcing him to look into the yard. Wind ripped at him, freezing his skin and drying the soap on his face so that it made his cheeks feel tight and painful. It was truly an October wind, a week away from Halloween, jack-o'-lanterns, and the smell of old candle wax melting into pumpkin flesh. His hips rammed into the ledge and knocked the breath out of him.

The Dolly figure sat on the swing, looking up at him, its eyes dark holes, its lipstick a crimson laceration like a knife wound. Its hand-less arms clung to the chains of the swing. Fat, lumpy hips melted into the wooden seat. The figure twirled as the chains linked, paused, unfurled to link again. Around and around, endlessly, forming circles beneath the day.

He smelled blood. He glanced down and saw that his hand had curled shut around the razor, squeezing it. Simultaneously, he felt something slide around his ankle like a tightening leather bracelet. He felt afraid to look down.

But he did.

It was the snake; the one he'd put outside.

"What are you doing back again?" he managed before he felt his knees fold and he collapsed, landing halfway across the unmade bed, his bleeding hand forming a perfect red circle into the virgin white linen.