Naked Tao by Robert Grant

froze in place, listening for any sound that would explain the now familiar odors. The last few drops of a fresh pot gurgled from a coffee maker.  I heard nothing else so I peeked cautiously inside the door. 
    A mountain of a man, obviously Tiny, was lying in a pool of blood, his meaty hands around a combat knife buried in his chest. I rushed to his side and dropped to my knees. Tiny’s head rolled in my direction. His pupils were large and unfocused. Blood trickled from the side of his mouth. He tried to speak, stopped, and then gurgled something that sounded like “Mung”. 
    I wiped his mouth with my shirt tail and I put my hands around his to stop him from pulling out the knife. “Don’t,” I said. “Just hang on. I’ll get help.” 
    I dug into my pocket and pulled out my iPhone. It squirted from my blood soaked hand and landed on the floor a few feet away. A thin stream of blood squirted from the edge of the wound. “Damn,” I cursed. 
    I needed both hands to stop the loss of blood. Tiny needed medical attention fast. How was I going to get help? I had to make that call. Tiny’s life depended on it. Trying to keep pressure on the wound with one hand, I stretched the other hand toward the phone. Just as my fingertips reached it, a foot came out of nowhere and kicked it across the room. The phone bounced off a metal file cabinet and spun out of reach on the other side of Tiny. 
    In the corner my eye, I saw a sandaled heel pivot and point in my direction. I instinctively rolled under a hard back kick that would have crushed my chest, and slammed hard into the attacker’s supporting leg.  The maneuver worked. His knee gave way and he crumbled to the ground. 
    I thought I had him, but quick as a cat, he popped to his feet. I lurched at him with blood soaked hands, but missed. The miss cost me dearly. I never saw the foot that slammed into my ribs or the hand that grabbed my throat a second later. Before I could retaliate, his knee pinned my arm to the floor. This guy was fast. 
    Instinct is to pull away, but Ch’ing had trained me well. Instead of trying to yank my arm away from him, I rolled in the direction of the pinned arm and slammed a palm into the back of his elbow. It worked. He grunted in pain and released my throat as he tried to tumble away from me. 
    I followed close behind, but he caught his balance and I caught his fist in my sore ribs. Grimacing in pain, my hand clutched at a cracked rib. It was instinctive, but the wrong move because it gave him a chance to roll to his feet and flee the room. 
    I wanted to follow him, but scrambled back to Tiny instead. His pupils were fully dilated. The bleeding had stopped. I checked his pulse. It confirmed what I already knew. Tiny was dead. My second death in two days. What was happening? People around me were dropping like flies. 
    There was nothing I could do for Tiny, but I could do something about his killer. Determined to catch him, I pulled the knife from Tiny’s chest and scrambled after the killer. I didn’t make it far before I slipped on the blood soaked floor and crashed head first into the door jam. The blow brought me to my knees, stars dancing before my eyes and then I blacked out. 
    I’m not sure how long I was out. When I came to I remember gingerly touching my brow and feeling something wet.  I looked at my finger tips and saw blood.  I vaguely remember thinking I needed a doctor.  I stuck a hand into my pocket to call one, but couldn’t find the phone. 
    I was disoriented. It was the sight of Tiny’s body that brought it all back. I pulled myself together as best I could, grabbed my phone and the knife before staggering out of the office. I headed for the door marked “Authorized Personnel Only” which opened into a long corridor. I was pretty sure it was the direction the killer took thanks to the blood stains on the floor, but the trail he left didn’t last for long. 
    The passageway was lined with doors. As I