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glanced back at the mirror. Dr. Woodrow was normal in the reflection, now. Nina’s heart galloped.
    “What?” Dr. Woodrow’s voice was sharp. “What did you see?
    Tell me!”
    “I, um . . . I . . .” Nina floundered. The doctor advanced upon her, her gaze intensely focused. “Try to relax,” Dr. Woodrow crooned. “Just breathe. What did you see? Picture it in your head. Describe it to me.”
    Nina cowered back. No one touched her, yet she felt . . .
    groped. A rough hand pinching and prodding, but not her body.
    In her mind.
    She clenched her teeth, and generated a burst of mental energy. Imagined swatting the offending, prurient hand away.
    The sensation eased. Dr. Woodrow blinked, frowning. “Roy!”
    she called. “Get in here! I think she’s going into shock.”
    The two doctors muscled her out of the bathroom, seizing her by the elbows and hustling her along and out the door of the medical suite.
    What the hell? Did she have a hallucinogen in her system?
    The rotting corpse image had been bad enough, but the sensation of groping in her mind made her feel violated, unclean. She wanted to bathe.
    Lights reflected off the floor in a blinding streak that made her eyes sting. She coughed. “Didn’t you say that your lab was upstairs?”
    “Yes, it is,” Dr. Granger said.
    Nina craned her neck as the doctors muscled her along, pulling her almost off her feet. “But the elevators are in the other direction.”
    “Oh.” Dr. Woodrow’s laugh tinkled like out-of-tune bells.
    “The elevator are out of order. We’ll take the stairwell. It’s quicker.”
    Nina had left her glasses on the bedside table, but through the myopic fog, she could see people walking into elevators, others walking out. These people were lying to her.
    She twisted out of their grasp. “Just a second. Let me run back to my room. I feel naked without my glasses. And my phone.
    And purse. I’m expecting a call. An important one. It can’t wait.”
    “I’ll get them.” Dr. Granger’s deep voice made shivers ripple up her spine. His pale eyes were laser pinpoints. “Wait here.”
    She took off. “No, I’ll do it!”
    She sprinted back, the soles of her sandals squeaking as she spun around the doorjamb, and lunged for her glasses, phone and purse. She shoved the glasses onto her face with hands that shook violently. When she burst out, the doctors were closer, and oh God, both were corpses now, rotting skull faces contrasting grotesquely with their spotless white doctors’ coats. Orange nylon ribbons with name tags hung around necks with peeling skin, de-caying flesh, exposed tendons. The smaller corpse had straw-like tufts of blond hair adhered to her red-smeared, discolored skull.
    “Ms. Christie? Are you all right?”
    The bell-like feminine voice issuing from that skeletal maw was the final jolt that set Nina sprinting, a blur of raw panic.
    Thrumming heartbeat, pounding legs. People veered out of her path if they were lucky. Many weren’t. She plowed into several, veered around rolling gurneys. Narrowly missed running down an old man tottering on crutches. The corpses gave chase, calling to her. She sacrificed a fraction of a second to check how close they’d gotten when she neared the elevator. About four yards behind her, human again, but the feral glint in their eyes was as chilling as the festering ghoul faces had been.
    Who the hell were they? What were they?
    She timed her pounding progress toward the elevator. People filing out, now in . . . the click, the hum, door starting to close—
    now!
    Suck in the gut. Slide in sideways. Yelling faces, thudding feet, bore down on her as it closed. They pounded the door, from the outside.
    Nina fell against the door, panting. Sweat ran down her back.
    Her raw, whooping gasps filled the silent elevator. All eyes were on her.
    She wanted to beg for help. But no one had seen those walking corpses but her. That was her own private hallucination, and the medical personnel here would