Mr. Jared is the kind of person you don't quite feel right about, and you don't know why. There's something a little off about him, and even though he seems a perfectly nice man. Part of this is because he looks strange. He's pale, much too pale. His skin is like milk under ultraviolet light. It's unnerving to look at. He's also unnaturally tall.

Mr. Jared is not the sort of person you want to come home to, and find him sitting and having coffee with your mother- which, of course, is exactly what I found him doing one day after school.

"Hello, Annette." Mr. Jared said amiably. He set down his coffee mug and turned to look at me, smiling. "How are you today?"

"Uhmm… just fine, thanks. Yourself?" I stammered, unsure of why Mr. Jared was in my kitchen, drinking my coffee, and talking with my mother.

"Your mother tells me you're taking a software design class in school?"

Correction: Talking to my mother about me.

"Yes. Mr. Huntington is a great teacher. We-"

Suddenly, Mr. Jared jerked in the chair and spilled his coffee. I made a move to get a towel and clean it up, but Mr. Jared flipped out of the chair and began writhing on the floor like a fish out of water. He twitched a few more times, gasped, and didn't move again.

"Oh. My…" I couldn't think of an appropriate deity to reference here so I just let the words hang in the air. "Mr. Jared…?"

Mr. Jared lay still. Meanwhile, my mother sat at the kitchen table and sipped her coffee and read the school newsletter.

"Mom."

"Hmm?" She murmured distractedly, humming along with the radio.

"Mom!"

"Yes, dear?" She asked, not looking up from the newsletter.

"MOM!"

She finally looked up from the stupid newsletter. "What, Annette? What is it?"

"MR. JARED JUST FREAKING DIED IN OUR FREAKING KITCHEN." I screamed. No, scream isn't strong enough for what I did. I screeched. I shrieked. I was a banshee, announcing to all that Death had visited our house.

My mom peeked over the newsletter at the prostrate form of Mr. Jared. "So he has."

Excuse me? A man just died in our kitchen and all my mother can say is "So he has"?

My mother started to get cross with me. "Yes, Annette, Mr. Jared has apparently had a heart attack and has passed on. How unfortunate. Such things happen." Here she shoved a house key and a flash drive into my hands. "Go and unlock Mr. Jared's front door, dear, and make a copy of his C drive. I'll call an ambulance."

My jaw dropped and smacked the floor. "…What?"

Almost as an afterthought, my mother added, "And you better feed his dog, too. The dog food is in the garage."

My brain had switched onto autopilot for a few moments, but now it was back on manual and demanding answers. "Wait, what?! What happened to Mr. Jared and why are you so casual about it?! Why am I going to his house! What's on his computer? And why do you want it?! How do you know where he keeps his dog food?"

If Mom was cross before, now she was fuming. "Young lady. You will do as I say because I said it. You will get answers in due time. In fact, if you do what I tell you, you'll find out for yourself. Now go."

I stumbled over to Mr. Jared's brownstone house in a daze. It took me three tries to fit the key into the doorknob because my hands were shaking so badly. Briefly I wondered if I was going into shock.

When I finally got into the house, I was a little surprised at how messy it was. There was laundry, dirty and clean, everywhere; dishes in the sink; unpacked groceries on the table.

And through an open door in what looked like an office, there was a computer.

WHUMP! I was knocked off of my feet from behind. I screamed, and a lamp came crashing down after me.

My attacker licked my face. It was only Bilbo, Mr. Jared's English Mastiff. I was familiar with Bilbo, because I was always the one who had to clean up the mess he left in our yard. He's a big, friendly dog, which was odd, because Mr. Jared was never really a friendly guy. This line of thinking reminded me that Mr. Jared was currently lying dead on my kitchen floor. I quickly picked myself up and brushed the Bilbo-slobber off my face.

The lamp was done for. I pushed the broken lampshade aside and walked through the open door to the office. Bilbo followed me, happily telling me just how pleased he was to see me. I made a mental note to find the garage and the dog food (like Bilbo would let me forget) after I carried out my task with the flash drive.

Mr. Jared's office was like the rest of his house—little messes everywhere. Now that I looked more closely, I could see that the tables were wiped, the windows (which were open, causing the curtains to flutter) were sparkling clean, the floors were swept, and there wasn't dust anywhere. It seemed that Mr. Jared was apt to abandon projects like unpacking the groceries and doing the laundry and just never got around to finishing the chores. In between the little messes on the otherwise dust-free desk was a relatively new PC, a Windows 7. I scoffed inwardly—I'm a Mac. Feeling suddenly bold, I sat down in the office chair behind the desk and shook the mouse to wake the computer up. The default screensaver vanished and was replaced by Microsoft's default wallpaper, surrounded by default icons: a thoroughly boring computer. I plugged my flash drive into the USB port and waited for the computer to register the new hardware. I spent the next few moments locating the C drive and prepared to copy it.

Teke. I thought I heard something, like a soft footfall. I glowered at Bilbo. "Quit making noises, boy. You're scaring me."

While the C drive was being transferred to my flash drive, I poked around Mr. Jared's computer files. Apparently he wrote some code, because there were some expensive versions of Eclipse and Java software on his computer. Not the free-trial-for-thirty-days versions, either, but the $29.99-per-month upgrades that only serious programmers used.

Teke, teke. That sound again. Bilbo was sitting in front of the door to the hall, waiting for me to finish and feed him. He hadn't made the sound.

Ding. I jumped. But it was only the computer, telling me that the transfer was complete and that I could safely remove my hardware. I yanked the flash drive out of the USB port and shoved it in into my pocket, then quickly pushed the chair into the desk. Too quickly—the bang that resulted seemed to be the loudest sound in the world. I quickly left the office and shut the door behind me.

I started towards the garage door to find Bilbo's dog food, when I started hearing the teke, teke, teke again. I was really getting creeped out. I dumped the dog food into his bowl and started for the front door when I became absolutely certain that someone else was in the house.

Oh. My. God. There was someone else in the house. I started twisting the class ring on my finger—a nervous habit I'd developed. There's someone in the house there's someone in the house there'ssomeoneinthehouse. I forced myself to take a deep, calming breath. I couldn't leave through the garage: that door opened to the wrong street, and because of the fence, I would have to go a whole block out of my way to get home. I would have to leave through the door I came in—the front door.

Bilbo's loud crunching and grunts of happiness as he ate his kibble suddenly ceased. He looked up and growled, glaring at the open door leading to the rest of Mr. Jared's house. Bilbo suddenly darted inside, and I foolishly ran after him. I was not, however, so foolish as to call out to him.

I slinked around through the hallways, trying to remember if the front door was through the living room or through the laundry room.

Teke, teke, teke.

Whatever, laundry room it was.

No, dead end, I didn't want to end up in the guest room! I turned around and slipped through the living room. I wondered where Bilbo was. He had run off somewhere. I should have stayed with him! English Mastiffs are not the most active watchdogs, but they are intimidating, especially when they drooled as much as Bilbo did. It gave the impression that he was hungry… for you.

I felt warm breath on the back of my neck.

"Boo."