Johnny Graphic and the Etheric Bomb (5 page)

He remembered that moment as if it were yesterday. He had been sitting on a jagged gray boulder when he heard a small voice say, “Hello, mister. What’s your name?”

Looking up, he saw a skinny young girl standing before him, perhaps six or seven years old, in a summer frock of pastel green. She had sad hazel eyes, with little flecks of amber. There was a spray of freckles across pale cheeks, and she wore long black hair plaited down her back. The colonel’s heart had stopped pumping six decades before, but he could have sworn that it started up again when the girl talked to him.

“Colonel Horace MacFarlane,” he had said, standing up to his full six feet. He doffed his campaign cap and bowed. His blue officer’s jacket had holes and blood stains from the shrapnel that had killed him. He observed with interest that the child didn’t seem scared.

“And to whom do I have the pleasure of speaking, young lady?” he asked.

“Melanie Graphic.”

“Very pleased to meet you,” the ghost said.

Melanie Graphic kicked at the pebbles underneath her feet. “We’re having a picnic down the beach, Colonel. Want to meet my mom and dad and little brother? They can see ghosts, too.”

“I would be honored,” the old soldier replied.

It had been absolutely the best day of Horace MacFarlane’s afterlife.

And as he finalized the Brigade’s defenses, the colonel was determined that tonight should be the best night.

The lives of Commander Melanie and Master Johnny depended on it.

Chapter 8

“Why does that kid have a camera?” Captain Merrick asked, finally noticing Johnny’s Zoom 4x5. “I don’t allow pictures to be taken on my flight deck.”

“My brother’s a news photographer for the
Zenith Clarion
,” Mel explained.

Upon hearing that, the captain gave Johnny one of those disapproving looks that he knew so well. He’d seen it many times since he’d started in the newspaper game. He could almost read her mind:
Why aren’t you in school? You’re missing the best years of your life, young man.
Johnny was so tired of that attitude.

“I’d
really
like to take a few shots,” he explained. “This is big news, Captain. Just a couple of pictures of you and your co-pilot. If we make it through, you’ll be glad you agreed.”

The co-pilot prodded Captain Merrick in the shoulder. “Let him take his pictures, Hilda. Can’t do any harm showing the heroic pilots at work, can it? The boss might even like it.”

Johnny took the co-pilot’s point and hammered it home. “It’d be a swell thing to have for the history books. I mean, this attack is a big deal and everyone’s going to want to see a photo of you and your co-pilot, Mr. ummm—”

“Officer Danny Kailolu,” the young co-pilot said.

“All right, all right,” the captain agreed with a frown. “Just a few shots. That’s all.”

Johnny understood only too well that this was no comic book adventure. If the Steppe Warriors took out two more engines, the big flying boat would go down—with Mel and himself and everyone else on board. But that didn’t mean that he should stop doing his job. If everyone survived, he knew these shots could end up on front pages all around the world. And the two pilots would be big heroes.

He squeezed by Melanie in the dim, cramped cabin, sneaking another peek at her fuzzy upper lip. He groaned under his breath, regretting his stupid prank. How was it she hadn’t noticed yet?

Johnny held the Zoom 4x5 up over his head, aimed down at the captain and co-pilot, and pressed the shutter release. The bulb made an audible
pooosh
sound as it went off, blasting the cabin with light.

After a few more shots, the captain told him to go back to his seat. But Johnny argued that having another pair of ghost-seeing eyes up on the flight deck could only help. Again, Danny Kailolu took his side and the captain yielded.

“Now get ahold of Jonesville,” she ordered the radioman. “Have them telegraph Babbitt Tower. We should be getting back on toward dawn. Tell ’em we have two engines out. Nothing about ghosts and cavalrymen and bows and arrows. No details!”

Captain Merrick gently turned the steering yoke toward starboard and began the Goose’s long, slow about-face. The deck tilted, the stars shifted lazily in the sky, and the moon disappeared for a time, reappearing on the other side when the aeroboat arrived at its new course and altitude.

Mel and Johnny leaned over the pilots’ shoulders, scanning the night sky. The troopers of the First Zenith Brigade held position all around the giant flying boat, shimmering eerily in the moonlight as they galloped along. Johnny wished the captain and Danny could see them. It was an amazing sight.

With absolutely no warning, a rain of silvery arrows plummeted out of the heavens—making a dreadful drumbeat on the aluminum skin of the aircraft.

“Here they come again!” Johnny screamed.

He saw the attacking Steppe Warriors do everything they could do to bring down the giant flying boat. And the First Zenith Brigade did everything possible to keep them away.

The two opposing troops of ghost soldiers circled, shifted, soared, and dived through the moonlit sky.

Bows snapping. Arrows flying. Revolvers banging. Sabers slashing.

Somehow, the dead combatants managed to keep up with the flying boat, which was cruising along at about two hundred miles per hour. They were easy for Johnny and Mel to see because—like all ghosts—they glowed green in the dark. Of course, the captain and the co-pilot couldn’t see a thing.

Before long, only the colonel and one of the Steppe Warriors were pounding along in front of the aeroboat. The rest of the battling specters seemed to have fallen behind.

The two remaining ghost soldiers slashed and cut at each other. Again and again. Thrusting, chopping, parrying. It scared Johnny, thinking what could happen to the colonel.

Finally, with a spot of luck, the colonel won the advantage, hacking his saber deeply into the Steppe Warrior’s neck. In a flash, the colonel’s opponent tumbled off his mount and vanished from view.

Johnny blinked, and the colonel disappeared, as well. Johnny was amazed that so much could happen in just a matter of minutes. The sky had been raging with battling ghosts, but now it was calm and empty in the moonlight. A beautiful night to be airborne.

Johnny glanced at Mel—still, alas, solidly mustachioed—and said, “I don’t see them anymore, do you?”

Mel shook her head. “They’re all gone.”

“Gone?” the captain asked in her loud voice. “The ghosts are all gone?”

“Well, for now,” Mel said, scanning the sky. “They went at it pretty hard at first, then fell away. I bet by now they’ve gotten scattered all over the place.”

“You think we’re safe then?” the radioman bellowed from his panel of controls.

Mel shook her head. “Not by a long shot.”

“Who was winning?” the captain asked.

“Since we haven’t crashed,” Johnny said, “I’d wager that the colonel and his troopers put up a pretty good fight.”

That’s when engine number one on the starboard wing let out a resonant BOOM, like a giant firecracker under a garbage can.

“Blast it!” Captain Merrick swore. She leapt up out of her seat, glaring at the flame and smoke billowing from behind the slowing propeller.

“Starboard one,” Danny Kailolu shouted, glancing out of his side window. “Shut her down!”

The captain pulled back one of the throttles with a loud snap, and rapidly flipped a series of switches on the broad control panel.

Just then a woman’s blood-curdling scream came from back in the passenger cabin.

Johnny rushed to the flight deck door, threw it open, looked down, and gasped.

“
Mel-a-neeeee
…” he yelled. “You’d better come here!”

Chapter 9

From the flight deck steps Johnny and Mel watched an astonishing and frightful scene play out in the passenger cabin.

Facing away from them was a Steppe Warrior with braided black hair down his back. He moved purposefully among the center rows of seats. He held his horse’s reins in his left hand and the animal followed along docilely. The wraith was hunting for someone among the agitated passengers—through whom he passed invisibly, with no one realizing it.

In his right hand he gripped a curved sword, tipped backward, resting on his shoulder. The blade dribbled black oil on the head of a sleeping passenger. Maybe that sword is what damaged the third engine, thought Johnny.

In the aisle off to Johnny and Mel’s right, a steward was trying to revive an unconscious young woman. Johnny figured that she must have been the source of that awful screech—no doubt she could see ghosts. And he didn’t blame her one little bit for fainting.

Johnny whispered beseechingly in Mel’s ear. “Get back up on the flight deck, Sis. I’ll try to get rid of him.”

Mel sharply shook her head just one time and stepped down into the passenger cabin.

Before Johnny could say anything more, Mel hollered, “I think you’re looking for me!”

The eyes of every passenger rotated from the woman who had been screaming—now unconscious—to Mel. Johnny knew just what they all must have been thinking: Apparently there was a second lunatic escaped from the asylum. Another young female,
but with a mustache
.

A few passengers answered her declaration, assuring her that they
weren’t
looking for her. A slim, ruddy-faced steward began to approach Mel. But Danny Kailolu had just come down from the cockpit and ordered the man to leave her alone.

The Steppe Warrior slowly turned and regarded Mel with empty, bleeding eye sockets. Johnny had never seen a ghost so terrible to look at. And Johnny had seen many ghosts.

“Sir, we need to talk,” Mel said, quaking in her moccasins. “Who sent you? Why are you killing my friends? If you have a problem, I’m certain we can come to some reasonable arrangement.”

Johnny wished Mel had not done what she just did, but he was prepared to get between her and the ghost, if he had to. He wondered, over the course of a few heartbeats, what kind of weapon a Zoom 4x5 camera would make.

The wraith dropped the horse’s reins and walked slowly forward toward Mel, through center seats and passengers, halting fifteen feet short of her. Peering out through his stomach was the face of an elderly female passenger, unaware that she and the medieval assassin simultaneously occupied the same space.

The Steppe Warrior held his gaze—such as it was—on Mel. Then he tilted his head in amusement. A ghastly smile turned up the corners of his lipless mouth. He chortled deeply, menacingly.

“Do all the women in your family grow such splendid mustaches?” he hissed.

Johnny shuddered and stole a glance at his sister. She looked quite baffled. An idea popped into his head straight out of nowhere. Mel’s life might depend on what he was about to do. Hoping no one would notice him, he slowly sidled off to the left aisle.

“What?” said Mel. “Mustaches?” She put a finger to her upper lip and gave a little gasp.

The Steppe Warrior’s dreadful smile vanished. He moved toward Mel, raising his saber for the killing stroke.

Johnny swiftly brought his camera up and jammed down the shutter release. The flashbulb went off, creating a dazzling burst of light. Almost all the passengers blinked wildly, some rubbing or covering their eyes. And just as Johnny had hoped, the explosion of light distracted the Steppe Warrior for several very precious seconds.

Snarling with anger, the ghoulish specter pivoted to his right and lunged at Johnny with his oil-blackened sword. Johnny leapt backward, stumbling and falling into the lap of a startled tourist.

No one but the Graphics and the Steppe Warrior witnessed what happened next.

With a furious shout of “CHARGE!” Horace MacFarlane and Buck came blasting through the back of the cabin. The colonel slashed powerfully at the flank of the little Steppe horse with his saber. The terrified animal screamed piteously and dove straight through the cabin floor.

The eyeless Steppe Warrior turned, roared, and launched himself straight at the colonel, blade aloft.

But the colonel had too much momentum and speed. As the Steppe Warrior’s blade came up in a vicious backhand, the colonel’s came down with full force, parried it, and sliced his opponent’s upper arm.

Before the colonel could come around again, the Steppe Warrior shrieked in pain, then dropped like a rock through the cabin deck. Just as his Steppe pony had.

For a moment, Johnny—struggling to his feet, apologizing to the poor tourist who had caught him—thought the colonel was going to pursue the Steppe Warrior. But the old horse soldier halted in mid-passenger cabin, leapt off Buck, and rushed to Mel.

“Are you all right, Commander?” the ghost officer asked with a tone of extreme concern. “Are you hurt?”

Johnny arrived a second later and asked a similar question.

Then it was Danny Kailolu’s turn. “Miss Graphic, what just happened?”

Wide-eyed and dazed, Mel looked from the colonel to Johnny to the co-pilot. She gestured at the empty air over the first rows of seats, where dozens of shaken passengers were chattering away. “He didn’t want to talk,” she said with a look of shock. “He was going to kill me. He was
actually
going to kill me.”

Somehow, Johnny managed to quickly flip his camera’s film holder and snap in another flashbulb. With a flare of light and another
pooosh
he took a picture of Mel’s startled face.

“Who was going to kill you?” Danny asked, almost as wide-eyed as Mel. “One of the ghosts?”

“I think that I need to sit down,” Mel said, going frighteningly pale.

The co-pilot managed to catch her just as she blacked out.

Chapter 10

Tuesday, October 8, 1935

Zenith

The Zephyr Lines Night Goose came in over Zenith Bay just after dawn, battered and cruising slowly, having lost three engines. She splashed down in the South Bay and was met by a flotilla of tugs, police launches, and boats with news reporters and curiosity seekers. Johnny watched the whole business from one of the starboard windows and took several pictures.