Once his feet were clean she allowed him in. The entry hall was long and Thea had installed a large hand sanitizer dispenser on either end. She pointed to the one closest to the front door.

"I have gloves on!" Paul protested.

"I saw you blow your nose out there, Paul. What's wrong? Are you sick? You know I don't allow sick people into my house," Thea said nervously.

"No, I'm fine," Paul lied. "I just had a tickle in my nose. It's from all the cardboard boxes."

"Gloves off, sanitizer on." Thea crossed her arms and stood watch until he'd done as she asked.

"Ok, I smell like I've been drinking on the job now. Can I finish this up?" He nodded in the direction of the kitchen.

"All right, but if I hear so much as a sniffle from you, you're out and I'm calling your manager," Thea declared. "It is a biological hazard to be sending sick people all over the city."

He pushed his hand truck down the hall, eyeing the second hand sanitizer dispenser as he passed by. "Hey Thea, this one's running a little low," he snickered.

Thea appeared immediately with a refill bag but was disappointed to find that Paul had lied. "I knew I'd just refilled that one! Public health is not a joke, Paul!"

Upon hearing his name used so casually once again from the mouth of a near stranger he became more irritated. "New company policy," he said to himself in the kitchen, "no wearing nametags in crazy people's houses."

Back near the front door, Thea was on her hands and knees wiping the wood floor where the hand truck had rolled with a cloth and a disinfectant spray. "Paul, I can't allow you to bring that cart in here again. It tracks too much dirt."

Her voice was sounding distant to him and his balance was wavering again, but with more intensity. Paul moved quickly to unload the boxes. This was more than a cold, possibly the flu. He pushed his hand truck into the hall and quickly slipped on a wet puddle of the spray that Thea had laid down. His head hit the floor with a thud.

"Oh my word!" Thea yelled and rushed to his side. His eyes were closed. "Paul! Paul, wakeup!" She shook his shoulders and gingerly grabbed his chin and moved his face side to side in an attempt to rouse him. She put her face close to his chest. He wasn't breathing and she could hear no heart beat.

Thea stood up and ran to the dispenser on the wall. She filled her hand with a small pool of the sanitizing goo. She smeared some around his mouth and on his lips and for good measure, smeared some on her own face. "Ok, Thea. As soon as he starts breathing you can stop," she comforted herself.

She checked again with the hope that he had started to breathe on his own, but he hadn't. Thea leaned toward Paul's face; her lips approached his slightly parted set.

Maybe it was the touch of skin on skin or just part of the reanimation process but as soon as she'd made contact, Paul returned to life. Thea screamed as his arms gripped her in a hug and he bit her lip.

With a strength she didn't know she had, Thea struggled free of his hold, opened her front door and ran from her house.

This time Thea was absolutely certain that something was wrong with her. Others had called her a hypochondriac in the past, but this was different. A man had drawn her blood with his mouth, a mouth that had been god knows where.

Two years prior she had a cancer scare, that no one else (not even the doctor!) thought was real. She had the weird looking mole removed just to make sure. Seven months ago she suffered severe burns to her lower legs, brought on by a close call with spontaneous combustion. The paramedics told her she had been sitting to close to a space heater. In between those two major incidents she was sick all of the time with any number of sneezes and sniffles that were floating around the neighborhood. That is why she had the dispensers installed and why she carried facemasks in her purse.

Blood ran from her cut lip and she was panting heavily after running three blocks. I must look insane, she thought. She pulled one of the masks from her purse and put it on. It would at least cover the wound; whether it made her look more psychotic she didn't care.

She neared the police station but kept walking. Before she could report the attack something had to be done to protect her body. There was a drug store just a few more blocks down the road; she could get what she needed there.

The door glided open for Thea and an employee in a red vest immediately greeted her.

"Can I help you find anything?" he chimed.

Thea felt she couldn't answer the question. Small talk would only allow the disease to spread faster through her body. Ignoring him, she grabbed a cart and moved with purpose to the personal health and hygiene aisle. She watched him out of the corner of her eye. When she was certain he'd moved on, she started chugging bottles of cough syrup.

Next, Thea picked up a bag of cough drops, ripped it open and unwrapped no less than ten of the herbal lozenges. She put the entire handful in her mouth and dropped the wrappers to the floor.

A security guard appeared at the end of the aisle. The man was bulky and an entire foot taller than Thea. He walked confidently but slowly toward her.

"Ma'am, I need you to put the merchandise down and follow me to the office," the guard calmly stated. Thea looked up at him in terror and shook her head in declination.

"I haf ta be helfy!" she cried out, cough drops spilling from her overstuffed mouth. "Healthy!" she yelled more clearly, collapsing to the ground amid the scattered lozenges, wrappers and empty plastic bottles.

The guard mumbled something into a radio he'd unclipped from his belt. Without warning he grabbed Thea and escorted her to the office. Thea was made to sit at the worn, Formica-topped table in the middle of the room while the guard called the police.

"Hi, uh, non-emergency. Yeah, I'd like to report a theft. Yes, the suspect is in custody. Yes, that's the address. Ok, thank you," the guard said into the office phone. He hung up and turned to face Thea. "The police are on their way."

Out in the drugstore, a manager and employee surveyed the scene of the crime. "Stanley, grab some gloves from the sales floor and clean these up," the manager directed as he nudged one of the sticky lozenges near his left foot. "And take this cart back to the front."

The employee did as he was told. With gloves hugging his hands he picked up the discarded cough drops and then found a mop to get rid of the tack they'd left on the floor. Just as he put the bucket and mop away, the police arrived to escort the woman to jail. He followed behind them, pushing the cart back to the front.

She struggled against the handcuffs and yelled at the policemen to wipe off the backseat before putting her into the car.

FREE CANDY.

"This isn't preschool, mommy."

"I know. Mommy forgot to pack you something to share for snack time. We'll go to preschool next, Maia," Annette explained.

She pulled her station wagon into the drugstore parking lot. After parking, she walked to the back door to help her daughter out of the car.

As they crossed the lot to the entrance, Annette noticed a police cruiser parked parallel with the curb in front of the store. Stupid shoplifting kids, she thought. But, as they walked into the store, two cops staggered by with the struggling culprit in their arms. Annette was surprised to see that it was a middle-aged woman with something red smeared on her face.

"Do you need a cart, ma'am?" a sales person asked as he approached, pushing one.

"Do you want to walk like a big girl, or ride in the cart?" Annette asked Maia, though she knew what her daughter's answer would be.

"Cart!" Maia screamed a bit too excitedly.

"Inside voice," Annette calmly reminded her daughter as she accepted the cart and lifted Maia into the child seat.

Annette walked aimlessly around the aisles. She maneuvered around a 'caution, wet floor' sign near the Band-Aids. "Hmm, what happened here?" she thought aloud.

"Something got spill-ded," Maia answered.

Annette smiled and focused on finding shareable foods. In the snack section she quickly passed by the pretzels because every other mom always brought them. Coming up with nothing suitable, she went to the refrigerated section to pick up some yogurts.

While Annette left the cart to hold open the door to the cooler, Maia found something stuck to the child seat next to her. It was red and round and looked like candy. "Mommy, can I have this?" Maia asked with the sticky cough drop already in her fingers and nearing her mouth. But Annette couldn't hear her daughter over the noise of the refrigerator, especially since the yogurt hadn't been restocked, forcing her to climb halfway inside to reach anything.

Maia put the cough drop in her mouth and was happily sucking away on it when Annette returned to the cart.

"What's in your mouth?" Annette asked.

"Candy," Maia said quietly.

Annette held out her hand and Maia knew that meant she had to spit it out. The cough drop fell onto Annette's hand. She searched her purse for a tissue to wrap it in but had to settle for a gum wrapper that barely encased it.

"Where'd you find it?" Annette asked, but she didn't really want to know the answer. Kids were always putting objects in their mouths, no matter how dirty they appeared to be.

"Here," Maia touched a tiny finger to the seat. Her finger stuck a little to the residue as she pulled it away.

"Uuugh," Annette moaned. "What have I told you about eating things?"

"Ask mommy first," Maia recited. "I did."

"Well Mommy has to hear you ask the question and she has to answer you, ok?"

Maia nodded and Annette pushed the cart to the checkout lanes.

"Just the yogurt for you, ma'am?" the sales person asked from behind the register.

Annette nodded and smiled. She didn't want to sound rude so she said as politely as she could, "Do the shopping carts ever get cleaned?"

Stanley wasn't sure so he thought for a second and replied, "I could ask my manager, if you like?"

"No, that's ok. She's late for preschool. Could you throw this away for me though? My daughter found it in the cart and put it in her mouth." Annette handed him the partially wrapped cough drop.

"Oh, I'm so sorry about that! Sure thing. Have a good day, ma'am." Stanley smiled his best smile as the woman and her child left the store. He looked down at what she'd given him. He could see the red of the cough drop peeking out through the silver of the gum wrapper.

"I sure hope that crazy lady wasn't sick or anything. That'll be a lawsuit right there."

SOMETHING TO SHARE.

"Alright! Now that all of our friends are here we can get started! Does everyone have their buddies?" Veronica Peters asked, as she looked around the room at the bouncy, messy-haired heads of ten 4-year-olds.

"Yes," the group of preschoolers responded as they calmed down and sought to hold their buddy's hand.

It gave Veronica the creeps when all the kids answered at the same time, especially when they did it holding hands. All Village of the Damned like, she thought. She was a non-traditional teacher and an even more non-traditional person outside of school, preferring the company of animals to people and spending hours reading about witchcraft and serial killers. If the parents of the preschoolers knew anything about her personal interests, they wouldn't bring their kids to her. She snapped a smile back on her face. "Let's all sit on the center rug and we can start sharing time. Does anyone have something they'd like to share?" she asked.

Most of the children were shy but she could always count on one or two of them to eat up the time by describing a toy they had lost or an animal they had seen at the zoo. A small hand shot into the air. "Danny, go ahead," Veronica invited him to speak.

"My doggy runned away," he said as he picked his nose. He then sat down, offering no more information on the absent pooch.

"I'm sorry to hear that. That's sad, isn't it?" she asked the other children. Many nodded in agreement. One girl, who was rather emotional on most days, started crying.

"It's ok," her buddy said to her.

"Does anyone else have something to share with their friends?" Veronica asked.

Without raising her hand, Maia stood up and started talking. "A lady got rested from the yogurt store."

"Miss Maia, we don't talk until we raise our hand and get called on, right?" Veronica gently reminded her, though she had little patience for Maia as the little girl often ignored rules. "You can spend five minutes in time out while everyone else plays."

Maia stomped to the time out corner while the other children scattered to different learning tables around the room. After five minutes, Veronica retrieved her.

"Go ahead and join the others," Veronica said as she watched the girl slowly rise and retreat to the empty finger painting station.

After thirty minutes of activities, Veronica called the children back to the center rug. "Today we are going to continue learning about animals. Does everyone remember the animals they chose yesterday?"

The children nodded.

"When I say 'go' I want everyone to pretend to be their animal. You can walk like your animal and make noises like it. Now, go!"

The children milled about on the center rug and slowly traveled to all corners of the room. One of the girls had picked a pigeon, which she called a 'pig-en', after having seen them in the park. She waved her arms around excitedly. Another child, a boy, was a bear. Danny, the boy who'd lost his dog, was a lion but he was copying the movements of the bear. Maia had picked rabbit, but she hadn't moved from the center rug.

"Aren't you going to hop around like a bunny, Maia?" Veronica asked her, but the girl looked tired. "Do you want to start nap time early?"

Maia shook her head and started to gently hop around the room. After a short time she too started copying the bear child's movements. Danny saw this and became angry.

"I'M the LION!" he yelled at her.

Veronica had been watching one of the smallest girls pretend to be a goldfish, but her head instinctively whipped toward the yelling voice. "What's wrong, Danny?"

"I'm 'posed to be the lion. Not her!" he yelled and pointed at Maia, whose fingers were gnarled into pretend lion's claws.

"Let's all pretend to be our own animals, children," Veronica said calmly as she looked at the clock on the wall. "Well, time's up anyway. Who wants a nap?" I know I do, she thought. She quickly laid out ten blue mats on the floor and watched as the kids picked one and closed their eyes. Veronica turned down the lights and exited the room into an inner hallway of the small building to find coffee.

Being so young, Maia didn't notice the changes her ill body was undergoing as she napped. She was sweating but goose bumps crawled along her arms. She tossed and turned until her body went numb and her breathing stopped.

Naptime was usually fifteen to thirty minutes depending on how long it took Veronica to get rid of her daily headache. Ten minutes into her midday peace she heard a scream from the classroom. She was about to open the door but Danny burst through it, crying.

"What's wrong?" Veronica asked him. "Did you have a bad dream?"

"I'M THE LION!" he yelled.

"I know you're the lion, Danny. Is Maia still pretending?" Veronica asked. Sometimes the children didn't go to sleep during naptime, instead choosing to wander the classroom and disrupt the others. The boy nodded his head and lifted his small arm to show her what Maia had done.

"The lion bited me!" he cried as the other children began screaming.

"Go to the first aid box by the sink, ok?" Veronica directed him as she opened the door to the classroom and turned the lights back on. There were a couple of children still lying on the mats, motionless. The rest of the class had sought refuge underneath the activity tables. Maia stood with one of the goldfish girl's arms in her hands.

"Maia, time out right now!" Veronica yelled at the girl.

At the sound of the teacher's loud voice, Maia started toward her. Her teeth were bared and she still held her hands out in front of her like lion's claws.

"Stop this!" Veronica screamed but Maia kept moving in her direction. The teacher knew she could overpower the child if she needed to but she feared a lawsuit from the parents. Indecision left her when Maia's tiny teeth bit down on her arm. Veronica picked up the girl and walked to the bathroom. She set Maia down inside the small room and closed the door as quickly as she could. She could hear the child clawing at the wood of the door but she felt nothing for her. Maia's lack of respect for her authority had gone on too long.

"Rose, can you bring me my purse?" she asked the goldfish girl. Dutifully, the child brought it to her. She pulled her cell phone out of the bag and with trembling fingers she found the contact listing for Maia's mom.

"Hi, Annette," Veronica said when the familiar voice answered on the other end. "You'll have to pick up Maia. I'm not sure if she's sick or something but she is acting very strange. She bit some of the other kids and then me...No, I haven't called any of the other parents yet...No, I can't put her on the phone. She's in the bathroom and I'm not letting her out until you get here...I told you, she attacked us...I don't know what's wrong! I'm not a psychologist. Please, just come get her." Veronica hung up and started down the list of other parents.

"Hi, Barry. Can you come back to the preschool and pick up Danny? I don't want you to be alarmed but another child bit him on his forearm...No, no, he'll be fine. It isn't bad at all."