The sharp pain caused his knees to buckle and his eyes to water; his back, chest, and forehead were all drenched through with cold sweat. He was standing in a dark corridor, empty gurneys lining both sides. Old and scarred medical clipboards hung from the wall he was using to support his weakened body. He looked down at his lab jacket and dark slacks and saw that both were streaked with blood. He took a deep, painful breath and slowly moved his feet deeper into the corridor, standing now less than twenty feet from the office he shared with two other detectives who worked out of the science lab. He felt as if he were drowning in a sea of his own blood, the betrayal of his body so fierce and so sudden that it was all he could manage not to shout out and curse the strange and deadly disease coursing through him like a snake down a canyon road.Andy Victorino, a young man who had devoted his life to the study of the dead and the information they could pass on to the living, was now staring down at a cold slab, and his eyes could see only his own face gazing back.
