Terrified, Julie woke up in the dark. There was no noise. Then she heard Steve’s voice, “Julie, are you OK?” He sounded worried. “Steve, where am I?” Steve didn’t answer for a minute. He needed to find out how much she remembered. “Julie, honey, I think you fell and hit your head. Do you remember what happened before that?”

She thought back. “You came into my office and said you needed blood. You had me put it in a man in the morgue. I thought he was dead. Then the man woke up and smiled at me.” Steve laughed, “That’s a pretty incredible story. I guess it does explain why they found you in the morgue. You must have been looking around and slipped on something. I’m just glad they found you.” He got up and turned on the lights in his office.

Julie went home and got into bed. She couldn’t sleep. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw the man smiling at her. That night at work, she couldn’t focus on anything. If someone spoke to her, she felt like she’d jump out of her skin. Luckily, it was a busy night and no one seemed to notice.

The rest of the week went by uneventfully. Julie decided Steve must have been right. She had fallen and dreamed everything. She settled into her new position and got to work.

She was scheduled for the night shift for the first month. She was having trouble adjusting her schedule, so Steve prescribed something to help her function effectively at work. At least that’s what he said. He wouldn’t tell her what it was, but it seemed to be helping.

She started to have horrible nightmares. They always involved putting a lot of blood into someone and having them appear to come back to life. Steve was always in them. He seemed to have some strange power over her in the dreams.

Finally, Julie’s director came to see her. He was concerned that she seemed to be having trouble adapting to her new position. Her reports were disjointed and poorly written. Her staff had reported that she seemed to be in a trance most of the time. The director told her that he was putting her back on the day shift and if he didn’t see an improvement in two weeks, she would be terminated. She was devastated.

Steve called Julie, “I’m really disappointed, Julie. I thought you were the right person for the job. But I guess I was wrong.” She was in tears when she hung up. She didn’t understand what was happening. Hard as she would try, she couldn’t even remember most of what had happened since she started at St. Simeon’s.

A week later she was called to her supervisor’s office. She figured it was the end of her career at St. Simeon’s. She knocked on the door and was surprised when a police officer opened the door. “Are you Julie Newberry?” Flustered, Julie answered, “Yes, I am.”

“You are under arrest on suspicion of trafficking in human body parts. Anything you say…” Julie went numb. They hadn’t been reviving the dead; they’d been resuscitating their “donors”.