“Not anymore.” Dan prepared his vials and blades.

I smoothed the sheet over Mr. Brunner’s chest, brushed his hair back from his cool forehead. I could hear his voice, whispering about the things his dad had done in the war, asking if I could sneak him another Bond DVD from the office, promising he wouldn’t tell Tracy if I watched it with him.

“What the hell are you doing?” Dan pushed my hand away and moved in with a vial.

“He doesn’t have as many spots as Alan did.”

“Who?”

“The guy from yesterday.”

“Oh, no. He hasn’t been dead as long. There will be more tomorrow. This is good, really good—I can watch them develop.”

I looked away and held my breath as Dan held the vial to Mr. Brunner’s eye.

Another body lay stretched out on the next table: a young woman, naked, her eyes removed, barely visible through the darkness. Walking closer, I saw her eyes sitting on a tray next to her head, milky black. The skin around the eye sockets swelled with black pustules.

My breath forced itself out with a moan.

“That’s after five days,” Dan said. He had sealed his vial.

“She’s been lying here for five days?” Her hair fell around her empty face, dark and soft, dry leaves caught in its tangles. The bruises on her throat and thighs were as dark as the shadows where her eyes should have been. The skin along her jaw was red and blue, distended around a small oval with a cross in it.

“No one’s waiting for her. I can take my time and get the data I need. I haven’t had the chance to observe them this long before—to see what they do when left alone.”

“I hope it doesn’t hurt. What’s this mark here?”

“That’s nothing, leave it. And of course it doesn’t hurt, she’s dead.” He shook his head.

“That looks like—”

“I said leave it.”

“Is that Dad’s ring? Fuck, Dan, did you hit this girl?”

“She already had the spots, Greg, she was as good as dead already. I needed her to come to the lab. She was raving, she wouldn’t listen.”

“So you killed her?”

“I brought her here to watch her die, to see how it happened.”

“You’re sick. She’s lying here in Dad’s room with Dad’s ring punched into her face, and you can’t even see how sick this is.”

“That still bothering you, Greggy? That Dad didn’t want his ring pawned for booze? You think you should have it now you’re cleaned up?” He pulled it from his finger and held it out. I smacked it out of his hand. It bounced, ringing, rolling into the glue trap in the far corner.