Shuddering, Tom stood from his bed. He'd been asleep, but a feeling crept up his spine that he couldn't shake. He didn't know what it was, but something was wrong. He walked to the hallway, and looked in on his daughter. She was peacefully sleeping in her bed. He shut her door and proceeded to his son's room. Tom's son wasn't in bed, his comforter and pillows were on the floor.

Tom's heart skipped a beat, and his face went cold. He went into his son's room, and turned on the light. He looked under the bed, in the closet, and out on the balcony. There was no sign of his son.

He went back into the hall and ran downstairs, where he saw him lying in the living room floor. "Oh thank goodness." Tom breathed a sigh of relief and rushed to his boy. "What are you doing down her, Kenny?" he said, lifting him off the floor.

"I heard a noise and it scared me. I knocked on your door, but you were asleep. I was scared so I came downstairs to watch tv, and I fell asleep."

Tom held his son close, and rubbed his back. "It's ok, son. You can sleep with me the rest of the night." He carried Kenny up to his room, and laid him down in his bed. "What kind of noise did you hear?"

"It sounded like a big dog was scratching at my window." Kenny said, with fear in his voice.

"It was probably just the wind, son. Try and not think about it, go to sleep." Tom said. His boy rolled over and fell asleep almost instantly. Tom laid awake, worried this might become a persistent problem.

Tom woke up the next morning, and Kenny was still asleep. He decided to go take a look out of Kenny's window, to see what could have made the noise. There were no trees by there, so he couldn't figure out what could have been scratching at the window.

He looked, and there were indeed scratch marks on the window, but nothing was outside. He climbed out of the window onto the roof to look around, to see if there was anything that could have made such marks and noises, but he didn't see anything. He climbed back in and drew the shades closed, so Kenny wouldn't see the marks.

He walked passed his daughter's room, and she was still sleeping. He smiled in at her, and went back to bed.