Chapter 1

Jason Conner pounded his fists on the edge of his desk once as he stared at the computer monitor in frustration. "Moooom!" he shouted in a petulant voice.

He heard no response, largely because his door was closed. With his lips curled into a sour frown, he shot up from his chair and stomped across the room. He pushed his glasses up his nose and made a single swipe at his flyaway black hair. He tore open the door to his bedroom, revealing a sign tacked to it on the outside that read "Captain's Quarters".

He shouted down the stairs. "Mom!"

"I don't want to hear it, Jason," came an irritated woman's voice from below.

"Plug the cable back in, Mom!"

"No. I am not going to have you wasting another day cooped up in that room when it's a beautiful day outside."

"I just want to post this message!" Jason cried in a strident voice, which cracked on the last syllable. "Come on, Mom! You know if you leave that disconnected too long, it takes ages for the modem to get another IP from..."

By this time, Jason's mother had appeared at the bottom of the stairs. She looked up at her son in annoyance. "Stop talking gobbledygook," she warned. "You know I don't understand it."

"Only because you don't want to," Jason said darkly to himself.

"What was that, young man?"

"Nothing, Mom."

"Don't get smart with me, Jason. Turn off that computer and get yourself outside."

Before Jason could voice another protest, his mother had turned away from the stairs.

Jason had to exercise a great deal of will not to slam the door, for he knew that would just bring his mother upstairs and earn him both a lecture and a loss of the privilege of leaving his door closed. This would have been worse than just losing his internet for a day.

He sighed despondently and closed the door quietly. As he stepped away from the door, he hugged his arms briefly across his bare chest. He had risen only a half hour before, and had barely pulled on his jeans when he had seen a message on the Star Trek forum to which he had to respond. Now the finished treatise sat on his screen, still trying to reach the server across a now nonexistent connection. As he stared, the error message appeared as it gave up.

Jason dropped heavily into his chair and reluctantly saved the message to send later. He sat back in his chair and folded his arms again.

He didn't think this was at all fair. He was fourteen, for God's sake! Certainly that earned him the right to use the internet as he pleased. Only a few months ago he had to plead for the right to keep his door closed in order to insure that he could indeed use the internet for anything he wanted. He was sure his parents would raise hell if they knew of even half the things he had downloaded to his computer.

At this thought, he glanced over to the side and pulled open a drawer. He reached under a notebook and pulled out a small photo of a striking redhead with a wide and mischievous smile. The name under it said "Heather Sovert".

Jason had cut the picture from last semester's high school yearbook. He uttered a sigh. Sometimes it seemed foolish to him to keep her picture like this. He was not naive enough to think that he had even the slightest chance with this sixteen-year-old girl. Any hopes he had had about that had been dashed when, in a moment of weakness, he had confided his infatuation with her to his friend Richie. The boy had snorted derisively and had said, "Man, no way she'd even think about goin' for a nerd-boy like you. I doubt she even knows you exist."

This did not stop Jason from entertaining his own fantasies about her, however. With the hormones of puberty still raging through him, these fantasies were rarely platonic in nature.

Jason quickly put the picture back when he felt an uncomfortable stiffening under his jeans. Now that his mother had ruined his plans for the day, he could not afford to let himself get too excited without having the chance for any relief. His thoughts of Heather had driven him to seek a substitute in the form of whatever pictures of other redheaded girls he could find on the internet.

He finally shut down the monitor and rose from the chair, studiously ignoring the mirror on the inside of the closet door. He hated how lean and gangly his body looked, and did not want to be reminded of how thoroughly unattractive he believed he was. He almost considered wearing a long-sleeve shirt despite the fact that it was the middle of July, just to hide the thinness of his arms, but he knew that would just make him miserable by midday.

His face fell as he glanced around the room. If Heather ever saw this room, she would likely burst out laughing. Sometimes it embarrassed even Jason himself. The walls were festooned with posters of technical diagrams from starships from Star Trek; his dresser, desk, and any other flat surface occupied by models and miniatures related to the same, or to any of his other science fiction or fantasy obsessions, such as Doctor Who or Lord of the Rings. Even Richie snickered at it anytime he saw it.

He opted for a plain pullover shirt and quickly headed out the door before his mother could lecture him again.

The air was already quite warm when he stepped out into the morning sunshine. The rest of his little suburban subdivision in the northeast corner of Haven was already awake and active. He heard the rumbling of a lawnmower down the street, and some younger children played in a yard just across from his house.

Jason frowned as he walked towards the street, hands thrust into his pockets, shoulders slumped. Just what did his mother expect him to do with his day? Jason hated living in Haven. Even after nearly three years now, he still resented his father for moving them here from the big city where he grew up. At least in the city, he could visit one of several nice museums or the planetarium. Haven had nothing. The move had mystified him. As a neurosurgeon, his father had a lucrative career in the city. Why accept such a drastic cut in pay just to offer his services to this little sleepy burg?

Jason peered at the activity in the other yards and made a face. He hated suburban life most of all.

He turned away and started down the street towards the far edge of the subdivision. As he walked, the street curved gently towards the right, aligning itself more due east towards the edge of town. The sounds of suburbia mercifully faded behind him. Yet as he approached the intersection, another sound took its place.

From somewhere around the corner he heard a yipping bark. Moments later, a small stick sailed into view and clattered across the pavement, followed closely by a scampering little mongrel of a dog.

Jason froze as he watched the black-spotted white dog eagerly chase down the stick, accidentally kicking it further away from himself twice in his enthusiasm to pick it up. Jason recognized the dog as a stray that many of the kids in the neighborhood would play with and feed scraps when their parents were not watching. Unfortunately, most of the kids that the dog tended to like were the worst of the bullies that Jason had to deal with at school.

The dog finally managed to get the stick in his mouth and turned to dash back to his master-du-jour. Jason was relieved when he saw it was his friend Richie.

"C'mon, boy!" Richie called out. The somewhat scatterbrained dog was momentarily distracted at the sight of Jason and tried to turn in several random directions at once. Finally the dog set himself right and made straight for the freckled, tousle-haired boy standing on the corner. Richard Gardner wrestled the stick from the dog's mouth, the dog jumping into the air and barking excitedly.

Richie turned and lifted a hand towards Jason. "Yo."

Jason waited until Richie had thrown the stick again before approaching his friend.

"Hey, I tried to IM you before I left the house," Richie said with a smirk that seemed to be permanently etched onto his roundish face.

"Mom made me get off the computer," Jason said glumly. He watched nervously as the door scooped the stick into his mouth and started back towards them. He didn't care for dogs quite as much as most kids did, though this one was friendly enough (and small enough) to be tolerable. He managed a small smile as Richie wrenched the stick from the dog's mouth and sent it sailing away again. "So what's his name today?"

"Today, his name is Tramp," Richie said with an impish smile.

"Yeah, I guess he looks like one, doesn't he?"

Richie snorted. "I think he'll answer to anything long as you feed him at some point. The other day I called him 'hey stupid' all day and he didn't care. So how'd you piss off your Mom this time? She catch you wankin' off to porn or something?"

"No," Jason said firmly, feeling his cheeks grow warm. Richie just snickered. By this time, the dog had abandoned the stick. He tore off after a squirrel, barking madly. Jason watched and sighed. "I hate summer."

"You're weird."

Jason and Richie could not have had a stranger friendship. They were opposites in nearly every way. Jason was more an intellectual, shunned sports, and loved school, save for the other students. Richie was really into sports and cars, loathed school, and was fairly popular among his peers. Richie was much more muscular as well, and it was only when he had put them to use fending off several bullies that had started to beat on Jason his first week at Haven High School that Jason had thought him more than just another dumb jock.

Admittedly, Richie had simply taken pity on the poor kid and didn't think much more of it until Jason offered to tutor him in math as repayment for his kindness. Richie, who had never garnered more than a D+ in his life at math, pulled a B- that semester thanks to Jason.

"Yeah, fine, I'm weird. But I just don't have anything to do."

"Hey, dummy, the stick is over there!" Richie called out to Tramp, who was barking up at a squirrel he had just chased up the tree. Tramp stopped, glanced to Richie, and took off after the stick again. "Shit, what a stupid dog. It's a wonder no one's run over him."

"Hey, you wanna go somewhere?" Jason said. "I've got some money, we can go catch a movie or something."

"Nah, I'm meeting some pals for a baseball game in the park. You can come and watch if you want." He grinned. "I'll hit a foul ball to you or something so you can save it and sell it for lots of money when I get to be famous."

So being a baseball star was his ambition this week, Jason thought. Richie changed his plans for his adulthood like others changed their socks. "Always thinking of your friends, huh?"

"Yep, that's me. All heart and shit like that."

"Who's going to be there?"

"Aw, don't worry about it, dude. I'll watch your back."

It was unfortunate that Richie tended to hang around the very people that gave Jason grief at school. Yes, with Richie around, it was unlikely they would shove Jason around, but that would not stop them from taunting him. He didn't think he could take that today.

"I'll pass," Jason said in a low voice, thrusting his hands deeper into his pockets.

Tramp finally returned the stick to Richie, though he dashed in a circle around the boy's legs a few times before allowing the stick to be taken from him. "Fuck, you're so dumb!" Richie laughed, but the dog just wagged his tail all the more and barked in anticipation, eyes watching the stick. "Jason, don't be such a wuss," Richie said as he flicked the stick one way and then the other, making the dog think he threw it. This drove the dog into a frenzy, making him leap into the air after the stick, which was held just out of reach. "You can't let them fuck with you like that."

"What do you expect me do to, beat on them?"

Richie sighed and looked at his friend.

"Anyway, they just think you hang out with me as a joke."

"C'mon, man..."

"Do you?"

Richie made a face. "Do I what?"

"Do you just hang out with me as a joke?"

"No, dude, I don't. What made you think that?" Tramp's barking grew so furious that Richie gave in and threw the stick as far as he could. It landed past the intersection and partially up the drive that ended in the cul-de-sac at the end of the street. "Look, you want the girls to notice you, don't you?"

Jason paused, confused by the sudden turnaround in the conversation. "Huh?"

"I mean, you want the real thing, don't you? So you don't have to keep wankin' off to..."

"I said I wasn't... !"

Richie just gave his friend another maddening grin. "Yeah, yeah. Anyway, you wanna get girls to like you, right? Like they do me?"

Jason rolled his eyes. He has his doubts that half the stuff Richie told him of his alleged sexual prowess was true, especially considering they were both the same age.

"Then act like they expect you to, man. They don't want guys that just sit with a computer all day. We play ball at the park, we get girls watching us by the end."

Jason sighed. He knew of one girl that he thought unlikely to be watching a ballgame.

"Well, all right," Richie finally said. He looked down. Tramp had returned the stick to him and was leaping about in his enthusiasm for more playtime. Richie yanked the stick from the dog's mouth and handed it to Jason.

"Huh?" Jason said.

"I can't take him to the park, he'll just keep trying to play with everyone or go chasing after the ball. You play with him."

"But I don't..."

"Oh, fuck, just take it, okay?" Richie said in irritation. Jason reluctantly took the stick. Richie shook his head. "Shit, you gotta stop being afraid of your own shadow, okay? See ya later."

Jason turned and watched his friend walk away and down the cross street towards the park as Tramp yapped at Jason's feet.

Now Jason really was starting to wonder about their friendship, or if they really even had a friendship in the first place. Richie certainly never wanted to hear about Jason's interests. If Jason talked about it for more than a minute or two, Richie would accuse him of "nerding-out" on him again. Jason could no longer tell if he meant it in jest or not.

In his frustration, Jason threw the stick as hard as he could down the street into the cul-de-sac, hoping to interest the dog in the squirrels again. His throw came up shorter than any of Richie's more leisurely ones had, which just increased Jason's frustration.

Tramp dutifully returned the stick to him as Jason wandered further down the road. It grew very quiet as he left the intersection, tall trees rising up around him like sentinels. He could hear little more than just the gentle sound of the breeze through the treetops. He passed into shade as he walked far enough for the morning sun to duck behind the tallest of the trees at the end of the street, a long shadow stretching over him.

Jason set his sights on those trees and the dense foliage beyond them when he next tossed the stick, hoping Tramp would find something else of interest instead. In his attempt to hurtle the stick as far as he could, however, his throw was wide and missed the mark, clattering across the blacktop and coming to rest in front of the small house just off to the right.

The dog scampered merrily after the stick, and after a few attempts got it into his mouth again. Just as he was about to head back towards Jason, he suddenly paused and turned his head towards the house.

Tramp's tail stopped wagging, his ears flattening against his head as a low growl rose from the back of his throat.

Curious, Jason started forward, keeping his eye trained warily to the right, wondering if Tramp had just seen another dog or perhaps a stray cat. Tramp dropped the stick from his mouth and began barking in a cadence nothing like the playful yaps of only a minute ago.

Then the dog did something that made Jason freeze in his tracks. Tramp backed up, whining and cowering before giving one last cowardly yelp and bolting away from the cul-de-sac. He burst past Jason in a blur of peppered white fur, disappearing around the corner of the intersection in seconds.

Now Jason noticed the unnatural quiet, the shadow of the trees like a weight settling over him. For a brief moment, he felt a chill against his skin despite the summer heat.

Jason had never seen anything spook that dog that badly. The silence around him felt leaden, and the shadow of the trees unnaturally cool. He tried to shake off the creepy feeling that was coming over him, for he did not understand what could be causing it. It was not like there was anything remarkable ahead anyway, save for that small house at the end of the street.

He advanced cautiously as the house came into view. The house itself was a simple, box-like two story home with a steep, peaked roof. A square-shaped lawn in front was surrounded by a black, wrought-iron fence, a single, ram-rod straight sidewalk leading from the front door to the gate and the street.

He suddenly felt uneasy. The house seemed more like a caricature, a house that a child might draw in crayon or build from basic Lego blocks. A door and a window were equally spaced on the first floor; two windows precisely above these and precisely the same size and shape on the second floor; another of the exact same variety of window under the peaked roof for the attic.

Jason could not recall anyone ever living here. Yet the house was neat and maintained, the windows were sparkling clean, and the lawn was beautifully manicured.

Despite his own vague anxiety, Jason could see nothing that could have caused the dog to grow so fearful. He muttered to himself in agreement of Richie's assessment of Tramp's intelligence and was about to turn away when his eye did finally spot something unusual.

The front door of the house stood open.

Chapter 2 »