"Alright, Colin, that's enough for today," Mrs. Cunningham says as she stands up from the kitchen table.

She kind of reminds me of a librarian in her tweed pencil skirt, blouse, and thick-framed tortoiseshell glasses. She even has her silver-stained brown hair up in a tight bun with only a couple of loose strands. She's very thin and showing her age of course. Skin starting to sag and frown lines becoming more pronounced. I've been in her apartment before and seen a framed photo of her at a young age with her sister—I assumed since they looked so much alike—and she looked so youthful and vibrant, which made me wonder about how people age. Will that happen to me?

"Okay, any homework, Mrs. Cunningham?" I ask. I've never asked but she says to call her Mrs. I've never seen a Mr. Cunningham. There aren't even any photographs of a spouse at her place that I could tell.

"Oh yes, I want you to write a biology essay on jellyfish, the topic of which could be anything you want but at least one page, Colin. I also would like it if you could do the geometry problems at the end of seven, please," she shoulders her bag as she says this.

"Will do, Mrs. Cunningham." I smile at her and she slowly returns it. I'm not looking forward to writing an essay on stinging squishy sea creatures. What would I even say? I suppose I could borrow Joanna's laptop to do some research. She won't mind at all but knowing her she'll try to distract me from the task. I don't think I would mind this time.

"Good, now I'll see you Monday afternoon," she says as I walk with her to the front door. I merely nod in agreement and bid her farewell as she walks to the elevator to go to the top floor where she lives unless she has somewhere else to be. I've wondered if she has Tweed Skirt and Gaudy Glasses conventions she likes to go to. I bet there's a guild.

I wait a few minutes before I snatch up my keys and step out locking the door behind me. I ride the elevator down to the lobby again but this time to get the mail.

I say hello to Marcel the doorman who is at the desk inside having a late lunch when I exit the elevator. He nods with a mouthful of pastrami and rye bread, juices of a tomato dripping down his chin. I realize then that I haven't eaten anything since breakfast. I rub my stomach a little as I enter a small room.

The room has golden little mailboxes covering three out of the four walls about mid section to nearly the ceiling. I locate the proper key on my ring of keys and start to make my way toward the box with the number and letter 12B. However, my eye catches another box just as I do. 14C. If I could get into that mailbox would I find vials of blood and the November issue of Gothic Weekly? Probably not but ever since Joanna spoke of the new tenant I've been extra curious. It could be because how long it's been since we had a new resident but in the past I had never been this interested. It may be because he's some kind of mystery and I do love a good mystery.

I shake my head and unlock our mailbox. I find a couple of bills, some soliciting mail, and a card from Granny. It's probably for my birthday in a week. She probably sent a ten-dollar bill and some leaflet with a passage from the bible on it. She does it every year. I actually haven't seen her since the Christmas when I was fourteen going on fifteen. Since then she's retired and apparently living in some gated elderly condo place in South Florida but I don't think she really likes us that much.

Suddenly a chill runs down my spine and the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

I barely swallow a thick lump of saliva as I cautiously glance over my shoulder when I hear footsteps. I see a very tall figure barefoot in slightly frayed black fitted jeans and a black sweatshirt with the hood up. The skin on his hands and feet are remarkably pale, in fact they look snow white. As I note the nails on his fingers are slightly longer than my bitten back ones, I realize he has just put his key in and unlocked the 14C mailbox. I swallow again.

As if he could sense that I was staring at him, he turns his head quickly in my direction. I freak of course because I was being rude and it looks like, at least from behind, the kind of guy to gut you in your sleep or something. My heartbeat speeds up as I stare into the dark emptiness of my mailbox. A second later I am overwhelmed with sharp chills traveling up and down my spine continuously. It's a feeling I've never had before. They spread out like spider webs from my spine and along my sides to my stomach where it feels like butterflies or maybe bats is a better metaphor in this situation flying around crazy as if tripping on acid. It's frightening but for whatever reason feels kind of amazing too. Dangerously euphoric is probably a good description.

I take in a sharp breath and finally whip around and press myself against the metal on the wall ready to face the weird man and figure out what the hell is going on. Unfortunately, I find myself alone again. He's disappeared and I feel rather silly.

Was that a fluke or did that guy do something to me without even touching me? What the hell is he?

                                                        ---

After I dropped off the mail at the apartment, I took the stairs two at a time to Joanna's floor bursting at the seams with the need to tell her what just happened to me in the mail room. I hurry as best I can down the hall in blue fuzzy slippers till I make it to her door and knock rapidly. My heart is still racing as if I just ran a marathon but I can't help but let my eyes wander further down the hall to where a door that reads 14C happens to be. I lick my lips nervously and knock again. Almost immediately after the second rapid knock, a frowning Joanna opens the door and crosses her arms.

"What's with the excessive knocking? Got ants in your pants?" She raises a blonde pierced eyebrow. When did she get that? It's not important now.

I ignore her weird likely rhetorical questions and I push past her into her apartment. The place is decorated much like her, colorful and artsy and stylish. She has some of her paintings hanging up on the wall, the ones she couldn't part with, and an almost out of place collection of Calico Creatures on a bookshelf against one wall in the living area. I have teased her a bit about those.

I flop face down onto her crimson suede sofa and pull a purple fuzzy throw blanket around me. My body is still tingling a little with the remnants of that bizarre encounter. I shiver a little and tighten into a ball instead. I feel a weight shift on the end of the couch not occupied by some part of me. A hand touches my arm above the throw and I hear Joanna say, "Hey, you okay?"