Is there some issue with the permits? Is there some issue with the ground? Maybe they accidentally dug into an electrical line? A water pipe? A water vein? What do you even call it? Is there even a way to measure it? To measure their lack of progress? For what? To report back to the professor. Yes, that’s it. I must report their progress.

But then, wait. Am I then a snitch? Am I prepared to be a snitch?

Snitches get stitches.

That’s weird. That just jumped into my head. How do I even know that expression? What am I? A hardened criminal? From C-block? (Whatever that is.)

I’m about to contemplate the intricacies of digging a foundation when—

BANG.

The screen door clanks in its frame from the direction of the pantry, and I feel a sudden draft of air.

I try to regain some sense of composure, but there is Mike, everyguy Mike, standing not two feet away from me. Quite frankly, a little too close. Where the heck did he come from?

I think the rule is . . . you announce yourself. Then, when the other person acknowledges you, you step forward and begin the conversation. This guy is a little too close. This guy is a space invader.

“Oh, hi. Yeah, no, I was just—”

(Spying on your friends.)

(Analyzing your digging progress.)

(Judging your rate of progress.)

“I was just—cleaning the window here.”

He looks at me.

I don’t have a sponge or a rag or nary a paper towel. I don’t have window cleaner, or any kind of cleaner whatsoever in my hand or anywhere near me.

Normal Mike keeps staring at me.

Okay, this is just getting weird now.

Yes, I know I just made up the most ludicrous excuse of all time but, seriously, pipe up, mister!

He stays looking at me, his eyes almost a bit . . . I want to say . . . glassy. Maybe just kind of unfocused. Like he’s looking at me but not looking at me. Almost like he’s looking through me.

I gotta say, Mike is a pretty basic guy and this is definitely not basic behavior. We have left station stop Basic and gone straight to Weirdoville.

“Um . . . Mike?”

He stands there.

“Helloooooo. Anybody home? Mike? Earth to Mike? Come in, Mike?”

And yet nothing.

Alright, folks, now I am officially starting to get freaked out. Before, that was like a minor snafu. But this . . . this is getting a little into dead-eyed White Walker territory.

I take a tentative step backward and the sound of the floorboard, on a scale of one to ten of creaking is probably, I would say, at about a hundred.

CReeeeeEEEEEAAAAK.

Somehow the impossibly loud sound of the floorboards wakes him from his zombie state and he looks around him in confusion. Flustered.

“Um . . . hello? Are you okay? Mike?”

“What? Oh, um . . . I just. Wait. How’d I get in here?”