Page 3

"Ungrateful little monster."

I dump the uneaten food and open a fresh pouch of 'Ocean Feast.' The smell of low tide gravy should turn my stomach, and yet it growls in protest; I haven’t eaten since lunch, too caught up in my thoughts.

She keeps meowing, wondering what the wait is, as if I'm gonna eat the disgusting chunks, so I diligently squeeze the contents into the bowl and set it down for her.

"If you wake me up tonight, it better be because that thing is empty, or because one of us is on fire, got it?"

She ignores me, instead quickly licking the broth from the bowl before starting on the wet chunks.

"You're welcome..."

Resigned, I rummage through my pantry for anything resembling food, knowing I probably only have ramen and Oreos. It’s not that I can’t afford groceries—it’s just another sign of how I’ve neglected everything except Mittens, since she’s the only one who ever complains.

I find the ramen, but not the Oreos… Well, ramen it is.

I set a kettle to boil in the kitchenette when I hear a soft thump from somewhere near my apartment door. At first, I think I’m imagining it—like so many other things today—but then it comes again, a little louder. Another moment passes, and this time there’s a grunt before the thump. The noises continue, and I find myself gripping the edge of the counter tighter with each one.

Honestly, it’s not an unusual sound for a New York apartment, even this late. The real problem is, only two apartments are on my building’s top floor, and the other is vacant. The groaning grows louder with each thump, inching toward my door and sending my imagination into overdrive. The only reason anyone would be on my floor is if they were coming for me.

The sad part is, I don’t even think of burglars or anything ordinary. No, my first thought is of that body in the museum, the idea that whatever curse I unleashed has finally come calling in the form of a limping, leathery husk.

The strained grunting is clearer now, practically at my door. I look to Mittens, who seems about as indifferent to the noise as she was to my rantings earlier. I should stay away, should hide, but something I can't understand deep within me pulls me toward the door until I'm struggling to press my eye to the peephole and... nothing.

I know I can't have imagined this. Imagining a fleeting thing here or there is one thing, but a low-growing groan?

The noise comes again, and then there's a loud grunt followed by a shadow flying past my peephole. Where the shadow lands comes a loud crash, and before my better judgment can stop me, I'm opening the door and peeking through as much of the gap as the security chain will allow.

"Who's there? Show yourself!"

A loud groan fills the hall, no longer the sound of creeping moans or exertion, clearly the sigh of someone in distress. "I think... I think I broke something."

I strain just enough to see a man in jeans, boots, and a white shirt prone across the hallway floor. Too alive to be a mummy, and if he is a robber, he doesn't seem particularly good at it.

"If I come to help you, you promise you won't rob me?" I tell him through the open door.

"I think you'd have an easier time robbing me right now." He groans as he struggles to roll over.

Confused, I shut the door to undo the chain, and when I open it, I flush with embarrassment as I'm faced with the mundane explanation for my mummy madness. The man is up now, stretching out his back, and in front of my door, bent at an odd angle, is a low three-seater sofa that was just out of view from my prior vantage.

"You managed to get that up two flights of steps by yourself?" I ask.

"Not without great cost to my lumbar," he replies as he inspects the upholstered obelisk.

A shy look passes over his face before he asks, "Uhm, do you think you might help me the rest of the way?"

I glance over his shoulder, past flaking paint and exposed wood, to the open door of the other apartment on this floor. "Oh. Oh! You’re moving in!"

Without thinking, I move to the opposite end of the couch and squat to lift. As he gets ready, we lock eyes. I notice he’s tall—about my height—and broadly built, which he’d have to be to get this couch up here alone. But as I study his face, something odd stirs at the back of my mind, a strange sense of familiarity that makes me linger on his features. Even as he awkwardly shuffles backward, his face is all I can focus on, more than where I’m stepping.

As I heft my end of the couch, I can’t stop studying his features: olive skin, thick stubble, even thicker black hair, and deep brown eyes set in a face of hard lines and sharp angles. It’s not that he’s handsome—plenty of people in New York are—it’s that he looks painfully familiar. Yet I know I’ve never met him before.

We get to his door and navigate around the corner with a surprising amount of ease. Clearly he's no stranger to moving in and out of walk-ups. Then, as we set down the couch against one wall of his utterly empty apartment, he locks eyes with me again.

From the way he squints, I can tell he's appraising me, studying my features, and seeing something in them the same way I just did to him. Then he blinks, and in an instant that appraising look is replaced with an unburdened smile.

"You are an absolute lifesaver." He reaches his hand across the couch for a shake. "Kevin, by the way."

I give a weak smile back. "Mary."