The Reincarnation

Ralph Bishop saw the lights in the cafeteria flicker. He reached for the phone, calling Patty. Dr. Persey answered.

“The lights just flickered down here. What is going on?”

“Nothing, sir. Everything is under control.”

Bishop knew the man was lying. In the background, Bishop could hear people, what sounded like hundreds of them. They sounded like an out of control mob.

He got up and walked toward Patty’s station. As he walked through the hallway, he looked into the rooms. He immediately stopped. He saw a patient lying in bed asleep, and another person, white as a ghost, poised over the patient like a vampire, gasping for breath.

He went to the next room and saw the same thing. The next room revealed more.

In the next room was his son. He had somehow gotten onto the bed and was on top of the patient in it. Bishop opened the door and turned on the light. His son cringed, and turned his head to face his father. The boy hissed, letting out an extravagant, sated sigh, and Bishop saw the patient in the bed underneath him – dead, blue in the face. He closed the door quickly and locked it.

“Look at them all. It’s so sad.” Laura was wishing she didn’t have such a great view of what was unfolding before her. Young people, children and teenagers mostly – only here and there a young adult – were swarming the Lab. They had bottlenecked in the doorway and spilled out into the parking lot.

“They’re so young,” Donna added. “I had no idea it would be like this.”

“Goddamn Church,” Laura muttered. “What the fuck do they think they’re doing?”