That THUD THUD THUD sound everyone keeps hearing is the sound of my readers dropping dead from boredom.

There's not a lot that I seem to be able to do about it, except apologize. Again.

I do have a question though.

Why is it, do you suppose, that I keep returning to the scene of the crime even though I know that it's certainly haunted?

There is nothing there for me except uneasiness and fear, yet I still return every chance I get. The place manages to attract and repel me at the same time. It's almost like I can't really believe what happened there. What I did there. Maybe, I seem to think, if I pretend that it didn't happen then it will somehow magically become undone.

It's like I expect that, one of these days, I'll go back and see that everything is back to normal. That the ghost of my victim doesn't lurk behind every corner, crouch in every dark shadow. That it's all been in my head - some feverish nightmare, easily countered with a couple of aspirin.

In the movies, the people that stay in the haunted castle usually end up being victims themselves.