Johnny Graphic and the Etheric Bomb (25 page)

“Anyone can go on an exercise program and build up his muscles,” said Johnny, kicking at the white sand.

“That’s what I thought, as well. But I noticed other things, too. He used to have a weaker jaw and a slightly receding chin. Exercise cannot account for that. Nor the dank forest smell Percy exudes whenever he comes into a room. Most peculiar.”

“Where are you going with this, Dame Honoria?” asked Johnny, now waking up. This was beginning to sound a little weird.

“I don’t like that look on your face,” Mel told her.

“Bad news and my features don’t go well together, do they?” The noblewoman gave a desolate chuckle. “This morning I took a close, hard look at my son and finally something very obvious leapt out at me. I don’t know how I could have missed it.”

Mel regarded her old friend. “Yes, what was it?”

“The color of Percy’s eyes has changed. From blue to brown.”

Johnny shook his head. This made no sense. “It’s impossible to change the color of your eyes, once you’re old enough. Some babies’ eyes can change color, but not adults’. Right?”

Dame Honoria nodded. “You know what I think it means, my dears?”

“Maybe he’s someone pretending to be Percy,” Mel suggested with a hesitant tone. “Someone living who knows a lot about your son. Someone who can imitate his voice. Enough to fool a very hopeful mother.”

“I wish you were right, my dear,” replied Dame Honoria, nodding. “But this person knew things that only Percival could have known. He was able to recite part of a poem my son composed as a little chap. How could an imposter have known it?”

Johnny pondered that. Dame Honoria was right. Even if this person—supposing he wasn’t Percy—had somehow held Percy in captivity for five years, he couldn’t fool Dame Honoria. Because it would have been quite impossible for the culprit to have learned every little obscure detail from Percy’s childhood.

So if this wasn’t someone else pretending to be Percy, if it really was Percy, but he didn’t look remotely like his old self, then—

“Percy’s got a new body,” Johnny blurted out.

“My thoughts exactly,” Dame Honoria agreed gravely.

“If he’s gotten a new body it means his old one died. On Okkatek Island or somewhere else.”

The old lady nodded again, shutting her eyes firmly against the tears that tried to seep out. It appeared that she hated to even think about her Percy dying. Despite all the vile things he had done, he still was her Sweetums and thinking of his death must have pained her greatly. Any mother would feel the same, thought Johnny.

“Which means he didn’t pass beyond the ether,” Johnny continued. “He became a ghost.”

“I believe so,” Dame Honoria concurred.

“And as a ghost, Percy somehow took over someone else’s body. Hard to imagine taking over a living person’s body. So probably he possessed a body that had just died.”

“I confess that I am thinking along the same lines, Johnny,” the old lady said.

“But that’s supposed to be impossible. Right? First Impossible Thing. No ghost can come back to life.”

“It’s
supposed
to be that way,” said Mel. “No ghost should be able to reanimate and inhabit their own dead body. But we never considered the possibility of a ghost possessing somebody else’s dead body.”

“Highly improbable,” said Dame Honoria. “But sitting upstairs in my house, held prisoner, is evidence that such a thing may have taken place.”

“It seems Percy has found a way,” observed Mel. “He’s a very, very smart man. His mother’s son…”

Dame Honoria sniffed and acknowledged Mel’s sideways compliment with a nod. “And in the world of fantasy and legend what do we call a dead body that has come back to life? Or unlife, if you prefer?”

“The technical name for it,” said Mel, “would be ‘revenant.’”

A strange feeling that combined dread with exhilaration surged through Johnny. He was witnessing a historical moment, an occasion when the whole world changed. Something new and frightening had come into being. A horror that used to exist only in comic books and radio serials now, it seemed, had become real. What it meant, he couldn’t say. He was only a kid with a camera. But this would be an event that he would remember forever.

“There’s another word you can use,” Johnny said, scarcely believing it. “Percy is a
zombie
.”

Chapter 50

Sunday, November 3, 1935

Gorton Island

“My name is spelled F-R-A-N-K-L-I-N F-F-O-R-B-E-S. Two f’s in the surname. Eccentric spelling, I guess. The second f is silent. I am twenty-one…erm…
was
twenty-one years old. Got my degree from Albertville Polytechnic, in metallic engineering. Graduated just six months ago. Not a very long career, eh?”

The slender wraith with thick blond hair grinned nervously at Mel and Johnny, then jabbered some more.

Johnny, Mel, and the ghost were sitting around a bamboo table on Dame Honoria’s front verandah. Danny was behind Mel, leaning against one of the beams that supported the roof. Every once in a while he hovered in over her shoulder, to read her notes about what the ghost had said. Johnny was glad that Mel could have some time with Danny. It seemed she liked the guy, and so did Johnny. Mel hadn’t had much luck with boyfriends, but maybe this time would be different.

This, however, was no romantic date. Johnny wondered how they were ever going to extract the important facts out of this poor ghost, if he wouldn’t stop babbling on and on without getting to the point. Mel was too polite. If you’re a real newshound, you’ve got to be a little pushy. Otherwise you’d never get the story.

Johnny took a deep breath and rapped his knuckles sharply on the table. Franklin Fforbes and Mel both stared at him quizzically.

“I think we have enough background information, Mr. Fforbes,” Johnny said evenly. “Can we please move on to the actual events that brought you to this unfortunate situation?”

The wraith gave a nervous laugh. “I apologize. I do tend to blather. And please call me Frank.”

“Sure thing, Frank. But we’ve gotta get your story down before you go floating off.”

“I assure you that I have no intention of floating off. Miss Graphic said she’d help with my family. My present circumstance will be a terrible disappointment to them.”

“Understood, Frank. Now let’s begin with how you were recruited into this secret project. When was your first contact with government agents?”

The specter ran his fingers through his dense blond hair, then scratched vigorously behind his right ear. “Here I am, all— all— all
dead
. And I’m still itching. I just don’t understand how—”

Johnny groaned with exasperation. “
Frank!”

Franklin Fforbes grimaced. “Sorry. Okay, the question was, how did I get sucked into this disaster? Well, late last winter one of my professors called me into his office to meet a man who needed a metallic engineer. He called himself Mr. Smith, and he said he represented an important government research project. It paid very well. If I got the job, I had to swear—under penalty of imprisonment—to never tell anyone what I did. It sounded exciting.”

“What did Mr. Smith look like, Frank?”

“I can tell you, he gave me a little chill. He was a tall man, kind of tubby. His head was perfectly, shiny smooth, not a hair on it. He had a white pencil mustache. He had what I would call piggy eyes. And one of his hands twitched constantly. He didn’t seem like a man you would want to mess with.”

Johnny and Mel’s eyes locked and simultaneously they pronounced, “Santangelo.”

* * *

It took even longer to get answers out of the two scientists who were still among the living.

The woman was named Doctor Doris Dinglemann. Stout, red-faced, and loud, she sounded like a badly played trombone. The man was tall and willowy, with tightly drawn features and washed-out blue eyes. His voice was soft and reedy. Emil LaGrange let the woman do most of the talking—as if he were used to it. It turned out they were far more afraid of the people they worked for than the people who had rescued them. So mostly they refused to answer Johnny and Mel’s questions.

But they became especially agitated when Johnny started reading them what Franklin Fforbes had said about the etheric bomb.

“He can’t do that, can’t say that,” Doctor Dinglemann bleated. “He signed an oath of absolute secrecy.”

“He’s dead,” Mel spat. “Thanks to the people who sent you here. And there’s nothing anyone can do to him anymore. He’s released from any legal obligations.”

Suddenly Johnny remembered something that Miss Beale, the
Clarion
’s managing editor, had told him about—a technique that reporters can sometimes use to get reluctant interview subjects to help with stories.

“Okay, Doctor Dinglemann,” said Johnny, hoping this would work. “If you’re afraid of the big bald guy with the white mustache—”

Both the man and woman went utterly pale.

“—you don’t have to say anything. But if you agree with what Frank told us, all you gotta do is nod. Disagree—shake your head. Don’t know—shrug your shoulders. We just want confirmation. You don’t have to say a word. Simple as that. Then if someone asks you what you told us, you can say, ‘Nothing. Didn’t say a word.’ And you’ll be telling ’em the straight truth.”

Doctor Dinglemann and Emil LaGrange whispered in each other’s ears, then stared at the brother and sister. They didn’t look the least bit happy, but both of them nodded.

* * *

Percival Roderick Gorton Rathbone spent the two days before their departure locked in the upstairs guest room, guarded by Zenith troopers. He preferred a diet exclusively of meat—mostly canned mackerel and tuna, as that was all that Dame Honoria had in her larder. He slept not at all.

Johnny, Dame Honoria, and Mel tried twice to loosen his tongue. The first time produced nothing but a few useless, monosyllabic responses. But the second time he provided tiny slivers of information and one expression of semi-regret.

“Your etheric bomb did a terrible atrocity to thousands of the ghosts, for whom you claim to be an advocate,” Dame Honoria said. “How do you feel about that?”

Percy sighed, and with those new, unreadable brown eyes, he contemplated his mother. “Unfortunate, of course, Mummy, that they didn’t pass beyond the ether. I wish that they had.”

It amazed Johnny that Percy’s voice sounded exactly as it had before, despite its apparent emanation from someone else’s larynx.

“But they suffer for a greater good,” continued Percy. “No different than soldiers suffering in war.”

“And what good is that?” snapped Johnny.

Johnny knew all too well that Percy had always despised the Graphic family. Mel had told Johnny that her theory was that Percy believed they had wormed their way into his mother’s affections—somehow displacing him.

As if to confirm it, Percy almost snarled at Johnny. “We mean to free the ghosts from their subjugation, and give them a place to live upon this earth—dead
and
undead alike.”

It was almost too incredible. If Percy was a zombie or a revenant, and therefore undead, he had just declared openly that there would be more like him coming. The looks on Mel and Dame Honoria’s faces showed the same shock of realization.

“By ‘we’ do you mean yourself and Miss Worthington-Smythe?” asked Dame Honoria.

Percy thought a moment before answering, then nodded. “Yes, of course, Mummy, that’s exactly what I mean.”

“And perhaps you can explain what that woman is doing in this rather incriminating sketch which Melanie and Johnny have shared with me,” Dame Honoria continued. From a pocket she withdrew the rolled-up drawing that Mongke Eng had left behind, then showed it to Percy. “You will recognize Will and Lydia Graphic. By the look of it, on Okkatek.”

A black expression flitted across Percy’s face. “That blasted contessa,” he growled. Then he composed himself. “Who’s to say it’s even real? She may have faked it. Made it up out of her imagination.”

Johnny suddenly lost his temper. “You’re lying, you rotten creep! You know what happened to our parents and you’re keeping it a secret. If they’re dead, tell us. If they’re alive, tell us where they are!”

The zombie only smiled, which made Johnny even angrier. Not wanting to give Percy the satisfaction of seeing how riled he was, Johnny simply shut his mouth and looked away.

But Dame Honoria had one last comment. “What baffles me, Percy, is how you persuaded the Steppe Warriors and other ghost assassins into following you, as their khan, their leader. Why in the world did they believe you?”

Percy shook his head, as if he couldn’t quite believe how dense Mummy could sometimes be. “They haven’t had a khan, a ruler, in centuries. No one else had tried to help them to escape the ether, to go to their Eternal Blue Sky. So when I came along… Well, when people are desperate and hopeless, they’ll turn to any leader who offers them a better future.”

The three interrogators were just leaving the room when Johnny heard a barely audible comment come out of Percy’s mouth.

“Oh, poor Mummy,” the prisoner hissed in a whisper. “You have no idea what Sweetums has in store for you.”

Out in the hallway, Johnny immediately told Dame Honoria and Mel what he’d just heard.

The old lady shut her eyes and shook her head. “Oh my dear, he is a handful, isn’t he?”

Chapter 51

Wednesday, November 13, 1935

On the road between Zenith and Capital City

Johnny peered out into the night, staring at the blacktop rushing beneath the headlights of the big newspaper truck. He was squeezed in between Mr. Cargill and the bearded truck driver. They had left Zenith at 3 o’clock in the afternoon and it was now about midnight. They were out in the middle of nowhere and wouldn’t arrive in Capital City for another seven hours.

A lot had happened back home while Johnny was away. Mr. Cargill had been thrown in jail for printing their stories on the etheric bomb. He’d told Johnny it wasn’t too bad, being stuck in the hoosegow. He’d been able to play poker with the other inmates and didn’t have to eat any vegetables—Mrs. Cargill being awfully big on vegetables. He served five days, but he said it had been worth every minute of it to get those stories into print.