Ben Garrison strung the dripping prints on a short length of clothesline in his cramped darkroom. The first two rolls of film had been disappointing, but this roll…this one was incredible. He was back in the saddle again. Maybe he’d even be able to get a little bidding war started, though he wouldn’t be able to waste any time. His fingertips tingled with excitement, but his lungs ached from the fumes. He needed to take a break despite his impatience.

He took one of the prints with him, closing the door on the fumes and heading for the refrigerator. Of course, it was empty except for the regular array of condiments, some kiwi fruit he couldn’t remember putting in the back, a container of mystery goop and four long-neck bottles of Budweiser. He grabbed one of the bottles, twisted off the cap and returned to the kitchen counter to admire his masterpiece in the shitty fluorescent lighting.

A knock at the door startled him. Who the hell? He rarely got visitors, and he thought he had trained his meddling neighbors to fuck off. His artistic process was time sensitive. He couldn’t be disturbed if he had prints in the fix bath or a roll of film in the developing canister. No respect. What was fucking wrong with people?

He flipped all three locks and yanked open the door.

“What is it?” he growled, causing the small gray-haired woman to step backward and grab the railing. “Mrs. Fowler?” He scratched at his jaw and leaned against the doorjamb, blocking his landlady’s wandering eyes. Apparently he hadn’t trained everyone in this dilapidated old building to leave him alone. “Why, Mrs. Fowler, what can I help you with today?” He could turn on the charm when necessary.

“Mr. Garrison, I was just wandering by. I’ve been checking on Mrs. Stanislov down the hall.” Her beady eyes were darting around him, trying to get a glimpse into his apartment.

Several weeks ago, she’d insisted on accompanying the plumber to fix his leaky faucet. The old woman’s birdlike head pivoted around, trying to take in the African masks on his wall, the bronze fertility goddesses that adorned his bookcase and the other exotic trinkets he had amassed during his travels. That was when the money was flowing in, and there wasn’t a photo he could shoot that someone at Newsweek or Time or National Geographic wouldn’t pay top dollar for. He was the hottest new commodity to hit the photojournalism world. Now he was barely thirty and everyone seemed to consider him a has-been. Well, he’d show them all.

“I’m actually pretty busy, Mrs. Fowler. I’m working.” He kept his voice pleasant, crossed his arms to stifle his irritation and waited, hoping she could see his impatience through her trifocals.

“I was checking on Mrs. Stanislov,” she repeated, waving a skeletal arm toward the door at the end of the hall. “She’s been under the weather all week. There’s that flu bug going around, you know.”

If she was expecting some show of sympathy, they’d be here all night. That was above and beyond his ass-kissing ability, cheap apartment or not. He shifted his weight and waited. His mind wandered back to the print he had left on the kitchen counter. Over thirty exposures to finally capture that one image, that one—

“Mr. Garrison?”

Her small pinched face reminded him of the wrinkled kiwi fruit in the back of his fridge.

“Yes, Mrs. Fowler? I really must get back to my work.”

She stared at him with eyes magnified three times their size. Her thin lips pursed, wrinkling her skin beyond what he thought possible. Spoiled kiwi. He reminded himself to throw them out.

“I wondered if it might be important. That you might want to know.”

“What are you talking about?” His politeness had but one level, and she was pushing it past its limits.

This time she backed away, and he knew his tone must have frightened her. She simply pointed at the package he hadn’t noticed sitting next to his door. Before he stooped to pick it up, Mrs. Fowler’s tiny bird feet shuffled down the stairs.

“Thank you, Mrs. Fowler,” he called after her, smiling when he realized he sounded like Jack Nicholson in The Shining. Not that she would notice. The old bat probably hadn’t even heard him.

The package was lightweight and wrapped in ordinary brown paper. Ben flipped it around. Nothing rattled, and there were no labels, only his name scrawled in black marker. Sometimes the photo lab down the street delivered supplies for him, but he couldn’t remember ordering any.

He set it on the kitchen counter, grabbed a paring knife and started cutting the wrap. When he opened the lid of the box, he noticed the packing material’s strange texture—it looked like brown packing peanuts. He didn’t give it a second thought and stuck his hand into the box, feeling for what was buried inside.

The packing material began to move.

Or was it the exhaustion and too many fumes playing tricks on him?

In seconds the brown peanuts came to life. Shit! The entire contents started crawling out over the sides of the box. Several scurried up his arm. Ben swatted and slapped at them, knocking the box off the counter and releasing hundreds of cockroaches, racing and skittering across his living room floor.