His dad was already grinning. “Ready for work?”

“Can I at least put my bike away first?”

“Against the wall by the bathroom.”

“I know. I’ve done it a million times.”

“You’re going to have a fun afternoon!”

He did not have a fun afternoon. There were no customers, and after about an hour, he ran out of things to do, so he spent the rest of the day browsing shelves he knew by heart while his dad and Gary chatted by the front counter.

Even school was preferable to this. He didn’t understand how his dad could spend all day every day cooped up in here, and Nick vowed that as soon as he graduated he would put Montgomery in his rearview mirror and move somewhere cool. Los Angeles, New York or, heck, even Austin.

Of course, he would need to get a rearview mirror first.

He definitely needed that car. And then he’d need to win a scholarship to a decent college in a decent city, because unless they hit the lottery, the only thing his parents could afford to send him to was Montgomery JC. The problem was, he wouldn’t be able to get a scholarship without teacher recommendations. Which were going to be pretty tough to come by unless his situation at school started changing pretty quickly.

Life was getting complicated.

“You okay back there?” his dad called.

“Fine!” he called back.

He put the horror movie book he’d been perusing back on the shelf. Hearing an unexpected noise behind him, he turned, startled. There came a quiet knocking from the other side of the wall.

It was mid-afternoon, and his dad and Gary were ten feet away, but the sound still gave him goosebumps. He thought of that vague dark figure moving behind the window next door and imagined it positioned on the other side of the wall, tapping with a claw-like finger in an effort to get his attention.

“Hey, Dad!” he called. “Come here!”

He’d hailed his father out of panic, but it occurred to him even before his dad came over that since there was going to be a new bank on the other side of the wall, they were probably just starting construction.

Still, he found the noise unsettling, and when his dad heard it and wondered what was going on, the two of them and Gary walked outside and peered through the dirty windows of the nascent bank.

The space was empty, no one there.

“Rats?” Gary suggested.

“Too regular for rats,” his dad said. “It sounded like someone tapping on the wall, maybe looking for a stud or a beam.”

Nick popped back into the bookstore. The noise was still audible. He hurried outside to tell Gary and his father.

“It has to be something in the walls,” his dad acknowledged.

“Better hope it’s not termites,” Gary said as they walked back into the shop.

It wasn’t termites, Nick knew. He didn’t know what it was, but his dad was right. It sounded like builders. The fact that they could all hear the tapping while none of them could see anything did not sit well with him, and rather than stay by himself in one of the aisles, Nick hung out with his dad and Gary by the register.