The Ghost Doctor

CHAPTER 5 – Echoes of the Dead

Smoke clawed at Justin’s throat as he and Lydia sprinted through the fractured tunnel. The air pulsed with sirens and collapsing stone. “Keep left!” Lydia shouted over the roar.

Justin stumbled over a fallen pipe, clutching his side. “We’re boxed in!”

“Not yet!” She slammed a maintenance door open with her shoulder and dragged him through. Behind them, the passage caved in, sealing the way with a wall of dust and fire.

For a long moment, neither spoke. Their breath came in ragged gasps. Then Justin whispered, “He’s dead.”

Lydia’s expression hardened. “So are we if we stay here. Move.”

He nodded, but his gaze lingered on the smoke. For an instant, he swore he saw Marcus’s silhouette standing in the haze, eyes glowing faintly blue, lips moving in silence. “Justin?” Lydia grabbed his arm. “What is it?”

He blinked, and the image vanished. “Nothing. Just, let’s go.”

They followed a service stair up into the underbelly of the city. Water dripped from the ceiling; somewhere above, traffic rumbled like distant thunder.

Lydia found a grate and peered through. “We’re under Eastline Station. We can surface in the storage yards, crowded enough to lose them.”

“Fine.”

She started climbing. “You look like you saw a ghost.”

He hesitated before answering. “Maybe I did.”

“What do you mean?”

“When I healed Marcus earlier… I felt something. Memories, fragments, like his body remembered dying.”

“That’s not possible.”

“I’m past possible,” he said quietly.

They emerged behind a row of rusted cargo containers. Rain hissed down in cold sheets. Floodlights swept the rail yard in slow arcs. “Stay low,” Lydia whispered.

Justin crouched beside her. His fingers trembled; faint light pulsed beneath the skin again. Each flash brought flickers, faces in the rain: the girl from the mall, the child at the dock, Marcus’s broken stare.

He pressed a hand to his temple. “They’re in my head.”

“Who?”

“The ones I healed.”

She frowned. “Hallucinations. Shock.”

“No. It’s more than that.” His eyes unfocused. “They’re showing me something.”

“Justin, you need rest”

He suddenly grabbed her wrist. “The Prime Minister’s daughter, she wasn’t an accident victim. She was planted. I saw it. She was monitored before the crash.”

Lydia froze. “How could you”

“I saw her memories. Just now.”

“That’s insane.”

He looked at her, voice low and certain. “So is waking the dead.”

A harsh electronic buzz cut through the rain. Lydia cursed, pulling out a small device. “They’re scanning for residual heat signatures. We’ve got two minutes before this place lights up.”

Justin exhaled, shaking. “Then we need a safe house.”

“I know one,” she said, eyes narrowing. “But you’re not going to like it.”

“Why?”

“It belongs to the one person who’d sell your secret for a headline, my editor.”

He gave a bitter laugh. “Figures.”

Another scan pulse swept overhead, bathing the yard in blinding white.

Lydia grabbed his sleeve. “Decision time, Doctor. Run or trust me?”

Justin glanced toward the flickering faces still haunting the edge of his vision.

“Neither,” he said. “We start fighting back.”

The safehouse was an abandoned print shop buried beneath a row of derelict buildings near the river. Rain hammered the tin roof as Lydia pushed through the door, flashlight beam slicing through the dark.

“Charming,” Justin muttered, stepping over scattered newspapers. Headlines screamed from the floor: POLITICAL SCANDAL ROCKS HEALTH MINISTRY.

“It’s off-grid,” Lydia said. “No surveillance, no heat signatures, no questions.”

Justin glanced at the faded ink on the walls. “Your editor runs his operations from a morgue?”

“Pretty much. He thinks paranoia’s a virtue.” She pried open a drawer and pulled out a medkit. “Sit.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re bleeding.”

He looked down at the gash on his arm, he hadn’t even felt it. “Doesn’t matter.”

“Humor me.”

He sat. She cleaned the wound in silence. The sting grounded him, but only barely. The faces still flickered in his vision, translucent, whispering words he couldn’t understand.

Lydia noticed his distant stare. “You’re somewhere else again.”

“They’re talking to me.”

She froze. “The echoes?”

He nodded. “I can hear fragments. Marcus said the code was transmitting, what if the data isn’t leaving me… but coming to me?”

“That’s not how tech works, Justin.”

“It’s not tech. It’s biology.” He flexed his hand; blue light rippled across his veins. “They didn’t just engineer healing, they engineered memory transfer. Every person I save leaves an imprint.”

She leaned back, processing. “So what, you’re carrying people’s souls now?”

“Memories, instincts, emotions, whatever you want to call it. But Marcus was right. They used my DNA as the base. I’m the living archive.”

Lydia rubbed her temples. “That’s not a gift. That’s a curse.”

He gave a hollow laugh. “Tell me about it.”

A knock shattered the moment. Three slow taps. One pause. Two more. Lydia stiffened. “That’s not my signal.”

Justin rose. “Then whose is it?”

She didn’t answer. She just reached for her sidearm. The door creaked open, an older man stepped in, trench coat soaked, face half-hidden under a hood.

“Relax,” he said. “If I wanted you dead, you’d never hear the door.”

“Name,” Lydia snapped.

“Davenport. I’m with The Ledger.”

Justin frowned. “You’re her editor?”

“Used to be.” Davenport’s eyes flicked to Justin’s glowing hand. “You’re the miracle doctor, huh? I’ve been reading your file since before the blackout.”

“Then you know staying here puts a target on your back.”

Davenport smirked. “Kid, my whole life’s been a target.” He tossed a data drive onto the table. “Pulled this from a Helix satellite before they wiped the servers. It’s your blood, your code.”

Justin picked it up. “Why bring it here?”

“Because someone wanted me to. Said you’d know what to do with it.”

“Who?”

Davenport’s expression hardened. “She didn’t give a name. But she said to tell you one thing: the girl at the mall wasn’t the first.”

The words hit like a detonator. Justin’s eyes flared bright blue. Images flooded his mind, hospital rooms, cold metal tables, rows of patients with his blood in their veins. One face stood out: April.

He staggered back, breathing hard. “Justin?” Lydia caught him. “What did you see?”

He met her gaze, voice trembling with fury. “They experimented on her. On April. Before the crash.”

“Your ex?”

“She wasn’t just collateral. She was part of the program.”

Lydia’s pulse quickened. “Then she might still be alive.”

He looked at the drive in his hand, the code shimmering like liquid fire. “Not if they finish what they started.”

Outside, lightning split the skyline. Somewhere far above the city, a server came online, the Helix network reawakening.

And in the storm’s reflection across the window, for just a heartbeat, April’s face appeared behind Justin’s own.