The Plague Ghosts of Doctor Thomas Johnson

Prologue: With These Word I Do Recount

It was the year of our Lord 1665, during the reign of King Charles II that the Plague once more descended upon London and was 2 months into the pestilence and the death toll was only rising higher. Most of the Doctors and Surgeons had fled the city and word was spreading that the King was soon to follow. Only the dead, the dying and the rats would soon remain. Most viewed the plague as a punishment from God, holy retribution in the form of diseased rodents that bite and scratch their poison into human flesh. To the body snatchers and many of the unethical brand of doctors, this was a reward from God, a chance to further the understanding of anatomy, to cut apart and defile the flesh that house our souls.

In the dim candlelight of my modest chamber in St. Paul’s Cathedral almost a year since the plague returned, I, Father Dominic feverishly scribbled my thoughts onto weathered parchment, the scratching of my quill the only sound in the oppressive silence of this room.

As I finished meticulously documenting my observations during the meeting with Dr Thomas Johnson earlier this day, I set down my quill, my hand trembling as I gazed upon the words. I massaged my sore hand and read over Dr Johnson’s accounts once more.

Chapter 1: Dear Father

“To Father Dominic,

As of 9 months ago, we took into our care at Bethlam Asylum, Dr Thomas Johnson, a doctor and surgeon known throughout the medical field in London as one of the forerunners of plague research and development of treating the pestilence currently running rampant through the city. Dr Johnson was committed to Bethlam Asylum on the basis his mind had unravelled during the autopsies of infected bodies and the general stress of The Great Plague.

He was found in the operating theatre of Christ’s Hospital screaming and babbling about ghostly apparitions that came to him during the autopsy of Beatrice Aldridge. Since his committal to our care, he has since refused to speak to another scientific mind only to request a religious one to hear his words.

We have approached you as we are aware that you admire the sciences as a member of the catholic faith and your past handling with cases of apparitions.

We hope that you can accept this request and meet Dr Johnson with haste.

The Bethlam Asylum

Chapter 2: Welcome To the Asylum

On the morning of the 19th March 1666, I arrived at the grounds of Bethlam Asylum. I was lead down the corridors towards his cell. I can only try to describe the conditions. I could hear the wails of the patients, crying out in differing tones of despair. The stench of faeces clung to the air. The place looks worse than the streets of London. It was so horrific, not even the rats who had brought the plague back to our city had dared to enter these walls.

We arrived at Dr Johnson’s room; the warden bid me to step back as the door was opened. He handed me my writing implements and once more bid me to enter the room. As I stepped over the threshold to the cell, I was completely unaware of the account I was about to hear.

Chapter 3: The Doctor Will See You Now

The once revered doctor and surgeon in London, was now consigned to a tiny squalid room. His skin had a very pallid complexion and sported unkempt facial hair. It was his eyes that chilled me. His light brown eyes, held a strange hollowness to them as if his soul had fled his body and left it behind, a puppet with no master yet its strings somehow still move.

I turned to the warden. “Close the door, I’ll be fine.” He raised his eyebrow but waved the guard away, When I heard the door lock, I turned back to Dr Johnson and took a seat on the chair next to the table. “Dr Johnson, my name is Father Dominic, I’m here to document your account of the events that transpired in July 1665.”

I waited for Dr Johnson to respond, he remained sitting on his bed, his dull eyes still showed no signs of life. “Dr Johnson?”

“Do you believe in Ghosts, Father?” His voice was hoarse.

“The Book of Mark teaches us that ghosts are merely demons come to torment us.” I kept my voice as gentle as I could. “However, I believe that you believe you have seen some yes.”

Dr Johnson’s eyes moved up to meet mine. It chilled me how full of life they now seemed to be. “Yes, I have heard and seen them.” Dr Johnson leaned back; he took a few long deep breaths. “I knew you would understand.”

I placed my writing paraphernalia onto the table, “Are your ready to tell me your side Dr?” Dr Johnson, moved backwards on the bed and leaned against the wall. I could see how skinny he had become. He closed his eyes “It was the 18 th July 1665. I was attending Christ’s Hospital when I was charged to carry out the autopsy of a promising young student who had succumbed to the pestilence only that morning.”

Dr Johnson shivered, he pulled the blanket around his torso and continued.

“It was around 9pm that the body was delivered to my operating room”

Chapter 4: Bring Out Your Dead

“Where would you like her Dr?” The pale orderly asked for the third time. Dr Johnson turned around, he had been lost in his thoughts, the day’s reports on the plague were weighing on his mind, only God knew that he was considering abandoning the city to its slow and painful death, however the pull of advancing science still held its grip on him.

“Place her in the centre next to the surgical tools, thank you.” Dr Johnson turned around and noticed the orderly’s pallor, “Might want to get a doctor to look at you too.”

The orderly finished moving the trolley, nodded and left the room at a very quick pace.

Dr Johnson turned to face his newest patient. "St. Luke, patron saint of physicians, bless this autopsy with clarity and insight, guiding my hands in pursuit of truth and healing."

Dr Johnson began the process of disrobing Beatrice, making notes on any marks that could be related to the plague. She was not too malnourished like many of his other plague victims. If anything, she seemed very healthy. Dr Johnson, turned her arms over to check the inner forearms and spotted an unusual marking on both wrists. They appeared to have been made by restraints, what kind was unknown. Dr Johnson noticed strands that had stuck to the dried blood from the wound, he moved to grab a pair of tweezers.

“Where am I?”

Dr Johnson, startled looked around the room. He could not see anyone except Beatrice’s body. “Hello? This room is off limits to limit the possibility of esposing my operating theatre to live cases of the plague.” Nothing moved.

He reaches behind to pick up the tweezers, keeping his gaze fixed on the room. A few more moments passed, nothing once again. He proceeds back to Beatrice, carefully extracting the strands, he holds them up to view them.

“It hurts doctor, please it hurts!”

Dr Johnson drops the tweezers; he turns on the spot looking for the source of the voice.

“Whose there! I demand you show yourself at once!” Silence encircles the room. He shakes his head, when was it he last had been outside? Perhaps he needed to step outside for a few minutes, then again stepping outside meant interacting with potential infected, what good would that do if he too succumbed to the pestilence? “If I’m going to become delirious, I may as well get on with the autopsy whilst doing so.”

He turned back to the body. His scalpel lay on the table. He always made sure he cleaned them after an operation, the shine to the blade always soothed his mind before the cutting began. He held it in his hand, caressed the smooth blade as he slid his finger across the flat surface. It was time to open Beatrice Aldridge to see what gifts for science she held.

He placed the blade just below her neck, and centred his pointer finger on the edge, “Shall we begin…” His words caught in his throat, he was looking at Beatrice’s face, her eyes were wide open and looking towards him but they had been closed when she was brought in weren’t they? He could not remember, the more he looked into those eyes, the more animated they seemed to come, Dr Johnson stared for as long as he dared before turning away. He shivered, rubbing both his eyes. As he looked back to Beatrice’s face, he fell backwards into the table of tools, the scalpel clattering to the floor. It was not the smile stretching from ear to ear now etched on her face, nor the blood that dripped from lifeless grey eyes, it was the spectral figure standing before the autopsy table, his translucent form bathed in an eerie, otherworldly glow.

His features are contorted in an expression of agony and despair, his eyes hollow and vacant, yet burning with an intensity that pierces the soul. Wisps of ethereal mist trail behind him, swirling around his form like spectres in the night, as if clinging to him in silent lamentation. Despite his ghostly appearance, there is an undeniable air of palpable anguish and unresolved turmoil that emanates from his presence, filling the room with a sense of foreboding and unease.

The ghost ran a shaking bony hand through Beatrice’s hair. He is unperturbed by Dr Johnson’s presence or simply did not acknowledge him. Dr Johnson gathered his splintered nerves and knelt slowly to grab his scalpel, his trembling fingers refusing to grip the tools, he could feel it the sharp blade nicking his fingers, felt wet blood drip across his skin. After a few failed attempts, his bloodied fingers found their grip on the scalpel.

The spectre’s body turned towards him as he straightened up.

Dr Johnson was able to get a look at the spectre before him. His features contorted in an expression of agony and despair, his eyes hollow and vacant. Tattered remnants of clothing cling to his spectral form, their fabric shredded and stained with blood. A prominent scar runs down his chest from top to his waist.

With an intensity that sends shivers down Dr Johnson's spine, The spectre’s voice radiates around the room. "Dr Johnson, you who wielded the scalpel with a hand stained by blood, you cut the flesh of the dead and the living to satisfy your lust to advance science. Look upon my flesh and witness your mark.”

Dr Johnson could only look on in terror as the spectre placed both hands on the side of the scar and pulled it open. The flesh ripping apart, tendons snapping, muscles straining before breaking, the spectres inside had been hollowed out, now only nerves, veins and arteries hung loose in the hollow cavity.

"You thought you could bury your crimes in the depths of the past, but the past has a way of clawing its way back to the surface, demanding retribution for the sins of the flesh."

The spectre screamed as its ethereal glow engulfed the room blinding Dr Johnson who shielded his eyes from the light. As the echoes of the spectre’s words faded, the room was plunged back into the dim candlelight and an oppressive silence, broken only by the hollow sound of Dr Johnson's rapid breathing.

He uncovers his eyes, the spectre has gone, he sees Beatrice’s body is once again lying in the position she was brought in as. He bolts for the door, but finds it locked, he pulls and pushes to no avail, had the porter locked him in? Why would he do that?

“You can’t run Dr Johnson...”

He freezes on the spot, aware that the room’s temperature has started to drop. Once again, he tried to force the door open.

“No where to hide Dr Johnson...”

"What do you want from me? I swear by all that is holy, why do you haunt me so? What is it that you seek? If it is justice you want from crimes you accuse me of, then let me defend myself as protected by Law to protest my innocence. But if it is my death, then take my life now and release me from this torment so I may find peace from this world of pestilence!" Dr Johnson cried out.

The ghostly voices retorted to this statement with an unrelenting intensity.

"Your hands are stained with the blood of the innocent! You think you can hide behind your mask of sanity, but we see the darkness that lurks within you! The cries of the departed echo in the chambers of your mind, a haunting chorus of souls you have wronged! Every incision you make is a reminder of the lives you have taken, a macabre symphony of death! The shadows whisper your name, a lamentation for the lives you have destroyed and the spirits of the dead demand retribution for the crimes you have committed, and they will not rest until justice is served!"

The operating theatre becomes deathly cold as the room is filled with the ghosts with various forms of surgical marks, missing limbs and signs of pestilence encircle Dr Johnson.

"Your hands are not those of a healer, but of a reaper, harvesting souls for your own twisted ends!"

In a voice thick with frustration and anger, Dr Johnson stood defiantly and screamed back at the ghosts. "How dare you accuse me of such atrocities! You know nothing of the pain and suffering I have endured, the sacrifices I have made in the name of science! I will not be judged by the whispers of the dead!"

“Then watch your flesh become infested by the pestilence you claim your victims suffered!”

Dr Johnson’s skin starts to burn under his shirt, he tears it off and looks on in horror as his skin begins to deform, the tips of his fingers blackening as necrosis set in, the skin falling away to show the muscles and bone underneath, bruises spreading across his skin as blood vessels started to burst, Dr Johnson gripped his head and screamed as migraines tore through his synapse and lit up his nervous system. His body temperature flared from intense heat to bone chilling cold.

Immobilised, Dr Johnson closed his eyes and cried out to his invisible tormentors, “Please, I beg of you, leave me be! I cannot bear this torment any longer! I will do anything, confess anything, just make it stop! Have mercy on me, I beg of you! In the name of God, please stop!”

“LOOK AT US MURDERER! LOOK AT YOUR WORK!”

He sobbed through his hands, “I can’t, please don’t make me…I’m sorry”

“Look at us and end this cycle.”

Dr Johnson opened his eyes and lowered his hands. Now surrounding him were only a handful of ghostly spectres, counting at least 20 in number.

As Dr Johnson looked upon the ghostly tormentors, his memories flooded back.

Chapter 5: The Fall of a Monster

The Brittania Herald – 19/03/2024

Dr Ethan Miller had become increasingly convinced that a modern-day resurgence of The Great Plague that befell London from 1665-1666 was occuring. Examination of his diaries showed a belief that he could identify the plague's victims by sight alone and he believed that his class of 20 medical students had fallen prey to the disease.

He invited them after class to a private party where he drugged them and subjected them to a series of live experiments, convinced that he could save them from certain death. Tragically, all students perished during their torture.

The horror of his actions soon became apparent, when relatives and friends of the students reported them missing and Dr Miller also never showed for classes in the weeks following. A search of the university grounds by sniffer dogs, 5 days after the initial disappearance led them to a makeshift operating theatre in a disused maintenance tunnel underneath the university grounds, where they found Dr Miller and the student’s bodies. Sources confirmed police found plans for further abductions.

During the trial, Dr Miller behaved erratically, screaming at the onset of The Final Plague that he was convinced had already began infected the residents of London. Dr Miller was found guilty for his crimes and remanded into custody of Bethlem Hospital where he will undergo treatment.

During his subsequent committal to Bethlam where he has been for the last 9 months, Dr Miller has not taken responsibility for his actions and has since withdrawn further into his delusion, now fully believing himself to be a 17th Century Doctor by the name of Thomas Johnson during the time of The Great Plague. Dr Colin Harris, the lead doctor on this case has been immersing himself into the delusion created by Johnson in an attempt to heal his mind from within.

As of this publication, no definitive explanation has been given for Dr Miller’s descension into madness. The current theory is Dr Miller suffers from undiagnosed Paranoia that progressed during his career as an Infectious Disease Specialist resulting in his plague themed delusion.

Chapter 6: A Broken Mind

I watched as in a moment of clarity and profound sorrow, Dr Ethan Miller, burdened by the weight of his guilt and the anguish of his conscience, spoke with raw honesty and heart-wrenching emotion:

"I stand before you now, stripped bare of the veil of madness that has clouded my mind for far too long. In the grip of my delusions, Oh God, I remember now that I committed unspeakable acts, acts that will haunt me until the end of my days. I stand here not as the esteemed physician you once knew, but as a broken man, consumed by the darkness that dwells within my own soul. I cannot undo the horrors I have inflicted upon those who trusted me, those whose lives I callously snuffed out in moments of madness. Their faces haunt my every waking moment, their voices echoing in the chambers of my mind, a constant reminder of the lives I have destroyed. I was blinded by my own paranoia, my own fear of a world consumed by disease, and in my desperation, I lost sight of all that was good and just.”

It was here that Dr Miller collapsed into the corner of his room. Tears streaming down his face as he cried before continuing with his revelation.

“For this, I can offer no excuse, no justification. I am guilty, guilty of betraying the sacred trust placed upon me, guilty of forsaking the oath I swore to uphold. But even in the depths of my despair, I cling to the faint hope that someday, somehow, I may find redemption for the irredeemable. To those whose lives I have shattered, whose dreams I have extinguished, I carry your memory with me always, a constant reminder of the unfathomable depths of my own depravity!"

His voicewas choked with emotion as Dr Miller laid bare the depths of his guilt and remorse, offering a glimpse into the tortured soul of a man consumed by his own demons.

Chapter 7 – Rest Now Doctor

As the midday sun came through the barred windows of Dr Miller’s cell, his quiet whimpers came out from his curled-up body in the corner of the room, I put down my quill. With a heavy heart, I looked at my parchment that was void of his account of both the ghostly occurrences that had plagued him during his examinations and the harsh revelations of his crimes committed before his arrest and the destruction of his world as he confessed to the 20 killings.

“Dr Miller? My name is Dr Harris, I oversee your treatment here at The Bethlem Hospital. Can you talk to me?”

I watched as Dr Miller remained in the corner of the room. I tried for a further 10 minutes to get Dr Miller to interact with me to no avail. I packed up my belongings and stood up to leave. “I will send in the nurse to get you settled again. I will talk to you again tomorrow.”

It was as I reached the door that I heard Dr Miller's whispered voice. "You cannot dismiss what I have seen, Doctor" he, his voice tinged with desperation. "There are forces at work here that defy all rational explanation.”

I sighed sadly as I could tell that his mind was already falling back into its delusion, a testament to the fragile tightrope between sanity and madness, Dr Miller was walking along.

I said softly, "I fear that the answers you seek lie not in the realm of the supernatural, but within the recesses of your own troubled mind."

His voice had regained some of its confidence, “My mind is not troubled, I must be released so I can continue my work, The Great Plague is upon us once again and I must stop it!"

I shook my head, sombre thoughts crossing my mind. "I will take my leave of you now Dr Miller, I can imagine you will want to rest now, I will return to talk tomorrow.

As I opened towards the door, he spoke to me one last time, a sense of malice in his tone. “Stop calling me Miller, my name is Dr Thomas Johnson and I alone will cure this world of the Pestilence that infects its every pore!"

I paused for a moment, “My apologise, I misspoke. Good day, Dr Johnson."

Dr Johnson had started to talk to himself in the corner of his cell, so I exited the room, there would be no more conversing now, I stood in the dimly lit corridor a heavy burden weighing upon my shoulders. I took one last look at Dr Thomas Johnson, a brilliant scientist now confined to these halls of madness, I nodded to the orderly who locked the door.

1 st Addendum by Dr Colin Harris aka Father Dominic

With a heavy heart, I turned and walked away, leaving Dr Johnson in the care of the hospital nurses. As I made my way down the echoing corridors, I held onto a glimmer of hope, a belief that even in the depths of despair, redemption was still possible. As I walked out of Bethlam into the afternoon sun, I knew that the battle for Dr Johnson's mind and soul was far from the finish line.

As of the evening of the 21st March 2024, Dr Ethan Miller has now been unsuccessfully treated a combination of 22 times with no signs of his delusion abating. Dr Miller firmly believes he is a late 17th Century Doctor calling himself Dr Thomas Johnson.

Due to the instability of Dr Miller’s mind, as always before the start of the next treatment session, he will be sedated and placed into the 17th Century operating theatre replica where he will then be awoken and the session stated.

I have requested that we continue inducing ‘Ghosts’ to try and bring his mind back to a degree of normalcy where he can understand why he has been committed to Bethlem Hospital. The severity of these ‘Ghosts’ will be significantly reduced as Experiment 22 has proven too intense for Dr Miller’s mind to accept. To maintain the illusion of being a catholic priest, I will ensure any interactions with Dr Miller continue as Father Dominic until such a time when Dr Ethan Miller is once again of sound mind and body.

I finish this addendum with the followning quote:

"Somewhere between sanity and madness lays a fine line, for some it is a tightrope walked daily, a fight for balance to be won or lost" – Zoe Heller.

The End.