Johnny Graphic and the Etheric Bomb

by D. R. Martin

  “I know you’re trying to protect me,” said Mel. ”But we need to make more money. Megatherian Studios looks like the best chance that we have.”

  “At the risk of repeating myself,” Dame Honoria said, “I would be only too happy to pay your mortgage for as long as needed.”

  Mel gave Dame Honoria a vigorous hug and kissed her on her fuzzy cheek. “You are a wonderful, wonderful old dear,” Mel said with a sad smile. “And I love you absolutely to bits. You’ve been so good to us since Mom and Dad disappeared. But we cannot accept any charity. The Graphic family does not accept charity.”

  As Mel released Dame Honoria, the older woman nodded slowly, accepting defeat.

  Johnny couldn’t help piping up. “Dame Honoria, aren’t you worried for yourself? You’re in danger, too.”

  “But I’m not seventeen,” Dame Honoria said. “I don’t have a whole half century ahead of me. And with my sweet Percival gone these last five years, much of life’s joy has faded.”

  Johnny knew just how awful it felt to lose two parents. But Dame Honoria reminded him that it couldn’t be much easier to have your only child taken away. On that very same terrible night, in that very same terrible place that took Will and Lydia Graphic. They and Percy Rathbone, literally torn out of their tents in the deep of the night during a raging blizzard on Okkatek Island.

  “Will you be staying in Gilbeyshire, then?” asked Johnny.

  “First to Neuport, then Gilbeyshire,” answered Dame Honoria. “Finally, on to my dear old Gorton Island. I’ve work to do with Sir Chauncey. By then, perhaps, this terrible business will have blown over.”

  Dame Honoria sniffled. She reached into her handbag and pulled out a lavender linen handkerchief, then dabbed at the corners of her eyes. “Well, the air stewardess is looking at me rather severely. So I suppose I’d best get on board.”

  She embraced and kissed Mel, then shook Johnny’s hand. He could tell she wanted to hug him, but was grateful that she didn’t. Getting hugged by old ladies was not one of his favorite things.

  “Godspeed, my dear ones,” said Dame Honoria, and tottered up into the blue and silver flying boat.

  Chapter 5

  Johnny’s window seat gave him a clear view of the bottom of the Night Goose’s vast starboard wing, along with its four engines. Mel plopped down next to him and quickly nodded off to sleep.

  As usual, she was wearing her “protective coloration,” as Uncle Louie described it. This time it was a beige silk blouse, gray gabardine trousers, scuffed brown moccasins, and white ankle socks. Over her shoulders she’d tied an old gray cardigan sweater. With all these neutral colors, thought Johnny, his sister almost disappeared. Of course, that was just how she wanted it.

  “Solitary” didn’t begin to describe his sister. Mel only left the house to do a job—like that haunting up in Hector Town—or to hit the research library at the Zenith Institute of Etheristics. Her two best friends from school had steady boyfriends now, so she rarely saw them anymore. Johnny wished that Mel didn’t have so much to worry about. She deserved to have some fun, too.

  Before long, a tugboat chugged up, and slowly towed and nudged the giant aeroboat out into the taxiing channel. Johnny watched the process with fascination. When the tugboat retreated, the Goose’s eight engines roared to life, one after another, making a tremendous noise. The airliner proceeded south, then made a broad U-turn into the main north-south runway. As soon as the aeroboat’s nose was put into the wind, the takeoff run began.

  Johnny yanked off his fedora and stuck his face right up to the porthole. His heart pounded. He loved to fly—so long as it wasn’t on a ghost horse. The dark water foamed white under the Goose and trailed off behind it. Buoy lights flashed by. The wing gradually lifted, pulling the pontoon off the water. On the far side of the bay, lights atop grain elevators and iron ore docks winked red in the night. Long, low lake boats sat in broad pools of yellow light, taking on wheat and soybeans and corn. Headlights zoomed up and down West Bay Road.

  With a mild lurch, the giant seaplane lifted up from Zenith Bay, gained some altitude, and turned gently toward the west, right over the vast Acme Iron Works, glowing red in the night. Then the Goose began its slow climb to ten thousand feet. Johnny could see Zenith’s nighttime glow disappear back to the east.

  Johnny pulled out his backpack from under the seat in front of him and extracted a plastic bag from one of the outside pockets. A wicked grin danced across his face.

  A few days earlier he’d visited Zoltan’s Costumes and Makeup, hoping to spot some nifty disguises for work. He made Zoltan show him the new line of human-hair mustaches from the Kingdom of Ithia.

  “You’re too yunk for deese, Chonny,” Zoltan had told him. “You look zilly.”

  Johnny glared at the elderly shop owner. “I still want it. Everyone likes to know what they look like in a mustache.”

  One glance in his bedroom mirror told him that Zoltan knew his stuff. Johnny looked plenty “zilly.” But he had an alternative use in mind for the hirsute decoration.

  As Mel and most of the other passengers slumbered, Johnny pulled the object from its bag. He daubed it with spirit gum. Then he leaned over and delicately placed it on his sister’s upper lip, pressing lightly.

  Heart pounding, he withdrew his fingertips. Would it hold?

  Mel snored a little and rolled her head to the side.

  “Gotcha!” Johnny whispered, digging out the new issue of Astounding Stories with Duke Donegan. He reached up, flipped on the light, and started to read. Before long, he was snoring, too.

  * * *

  It was the same nightmare he’d been having for years. Ever since Mom and Pop vanished on Okkatek Island.

  He was lost in the wilderness. Scrambling for his life through deep snow. And, of course, he was stark naked.

  He staggered along the bank of a frozen stream and heard the howling of the ice wolves that pursued him. He could almost feel their hot breath on his shoulders. He could almost sense their long, yellow fangs going for his throat. He spun around and saw the first wolf break through a screen of pine trees, surging toward him.

  Then out of nowhere came a great BOOM.

  Someone was shooting cannonballs at him.

  Another thunderous BOO-OOM resounded through the wintry woods.

  Time, Johnny’s dreaming self decided, to wake up.

  He winked open his eyes and felt instant relief.

  It was okay. He was in his seat on the Night Goose, heading for La Concha. Everything was—

  BANG.

  BOOOOM.

  The explosion came from outside the cabin. Johnny’s heart, pounding like a bass drum, leapt up into his throat.

  He peered out the porthole and the most amazing thing happened.

  One.

  Two.

  Three bronze arrowheads punctured the bulkhead next to his seat.

  Whunk.

  Whunk.

  Whunk.

  Inches from his right ear.

  Then they dissolved into wispy nothingness.

  Chapter 6

  Tuesday, October 8, 1935

  Airborne over the northern Plains Republic

  Horrified, Johnny saw that one of the propellers had stopped turning, the engine trailing smoke. Down below, ghost riders in pointed helmets circled and swooped.

  He had to wake up Melanie. Fast. He swiveled and punched her in the arm.

  “Aaaa-oow!” She jumped up out of her seat and banged her head on the overhead compartment. She whimpered in pain. “You little worm, I’m going to wallop you!”

  “Trouble!” Johnny snapped. “Big trouble! Window! Now!”

  Growling and rubbing the rapidly forming knot on her head, Mel leaned over and looked out. It didn’t take her long to comprehend their dire situation.

  “We’re under attack,” she gasped. “By Steppe Warriors!”

  Johnny took another look, just in time to see the ghost soldiers plummet earthward and out of sight. Almost all
of the one hundred and twenty seats in the big passenger compartment were occupied. Several people had woken up, peeking through the portholes on both sides. Air stewardesses and stewards brought up the lights and circulated, reassuring people that everything was under control.

  Johnny knew all too well that they were lying.

  “I’m going up to the flight deck,” Mel said.

  Johnny stared up at her, his mouth beginning to form the sound “Oops.”

  He’d forgotten about the mustache.

  “What?” Mel snapped.

  “I’m coming with,” he announced, grabbing his camera bag and sticking his Zenith Clarion press card in the band of his fedora. A fellow never could tell when there might be a newsworthy shot that needed taking.

  The stewards and stewardesses were so occupied with the other passengers that they didn’t notice Mel and Johnny sneaking up the steep, tight ladderway and onto the flight deck.

  “The Goose is Johnson Aircraft’s safest flying machine,” bellowed the frizzy-haired woman in the left-hand seat up front. “One of the safest in the whole world. The Goose has never crashed. Now, tonight, we have two engines blow out within seconds of each other. Two more and we go down.”

  She must be the pilot, Johnny thought. She had on headphones and a microphone, and probably didn’t need to shout. But he couldn’t blame her. He’d be shouting, too.

  “Dash it, Danny, we have to get down on the water,” the pilot continued. “Summit’s five hours west. That’s too far. And we’re too big to splash down anywhere else—we might never get airborne again.”

  The co-pilot, sitting in the right-hand seat, carefully worked some levers at the bottom of the main control panel. Their radioman sat behind them. He seemed to be broadcasting an emergency call.

  “Then it’s gotta be back to Zenith, Hilda,” the co-pilot shouted.

  Johnny jammed his elbow in Mel’s ribs and gestured at the pilot. “Tell her what’s happened!”

  Beet-red in the face from embarrassment, Mel took a very deep breath and yelled, “Excuse me!”

  With headphones on, neither of the pilots, nor the radioman, could hear her. No one had even noticed the two youngsters.

  So Johnny decided to take charge. Mel was just too shy sometimes. He tramped over to the radio operator and tapped him on the shoulder. A wiry, middle-aged man with a prominent Adam’s apple, the fellow jumped almost a foot out of his seat. Ripping his headphones and mic off, he gaped at the two siblings. “You can’t be up here,” he said. “Get back to your seats right now, or you’re in big, big trouble.”

  “Everybody on this aeroboat is in big, big trouble,” Johnny barked back. “We think we know what happened, why your engines conked out.”

  “You know what?”

  “My brother here saw what happened,” said Mel in a loud voice.

  “You’re not pulling my leg, are you?” asked the radioman.

  “We’re deadly serious,” Mel replied.

  The radioman lurched to his feet and quickly got the pilot’s attention. She glared at the two young interlopers and said that this had better not be a joke. “A hundred thirty lives are in danger here,” she warned them.

  Mel sucked in another deep breath. “Ghosts are shooting arrows at your flying boat, ma’am.”

  “Captain Merrick!”

  Mel cringed. “Sorry, Captain Merrick. My name’s Melanie Graphic and I’m an etherist, a ghost wrangler. From what I can see, we’re under attack by ghosts shooting etheric arrows. They’ve pierced an engine—”

  “Two engines,” the co-pilot said, looking up at Mel. He was a trim young man with olive skin and almond-shaped eyes. “But how can their arrows hurt us? If they’re ghosts?”

  “Because some living person has given them the job of shooting us down,” answered Mel.

  Johnny saw the co-pilot’s eyes suddenly focus intently on Mel’s upper lip. Uh-oh, the young photographer thought, he’s noticed the mustache. Hope he doesn’t say anything. Because this sure wouldn’t be a good time.

  “And I think they’ve put some arrows through the cabin walls,” Mel continued. “I’m very much afraid they’re after yours truly. I belong to a group called the Hausenhofer Gesellschaft. Steppe Warriors have murdered six of our members. The only theories we have are that—”

  Captain Merrick cut her off. “Am I right to assume that your theories won’t provide any practical help right now?”

  “Um, well, no,” said Mel.

  “Then forget ’em, Miss Graphic. Is there anything you can do?”

  “I think my ghosts are already on the job, Captain.”

  “Your ghosts?”

  Johnny piped up. “Horse soldiers, Captain. First Zenith Cavalry Brigade. Dead since the First Border War.”

  The captain shook her head in disbelief. “At least,” she groaned, “it will be an interesting way to die.”

  Chapter 7

  Galloping along outside the flying machine, Colonel Horace MacFarlane went from one of his horse soldiers to another. Giving them their orders.

  “Form a perimeter,” he shouted in the blasting wind. “All ’round. They’ll be back. Don’t chase ’em. That’s what they want. At all costs, keep ’em away from Commander Graphic and her brother. Let’s show these people what the First Zenith Brigade is made of!”

  The Steppe Warriors had darted up from below and down from above—perfectly coordinated, highly effective tactics. They came standing in their saddles, arrows nocked, bowstrings pulled and released in blinks. Took just a matter of seconds. Caught us properly by surprise, the colonel thought.

  The boys did get off a few shots with their revolvers. But the attackers were too swift. As quickly as they’d come, they slipped away.

  Having never been in a real fight with ghosts before, the colonel recalled what he knew of the laws of the ether. Specters use the same weapons that they used when they were alive. And a bullet or arrow wound still smarts something fierce, even if you’re a ghost. But it can’t kill a specter, who is already dead. One death, that’s all a fellow gets. However, an etheric head or leg sliced off will cripple a ghost for eternity. Chop him to tiny pieces, and he will find himself in the most horrible torment imaginable.

  Not for the first time, the colonel marveled at how well things had turned out for him. He certainly never could have imagined being dead these seventy years and tonight finding himself in a battle among the clouds. It felt excellent, fighting the good fight yet again.

  Of course, no sensible person would ever want to get stuck in the ether. You couldn’t eat. Couldn’t drink. Couldn’t smell. Couldn’t taste. Couldn’t sleep. Couldn’t dream. Most of all, the colonel missed breathing. He ached to feel the sweet friction of air going down his throat, into his lungs and out again.

  You couldn’t touch or hold anything. Couldn’t play the piano. Couldn’t cradle a baby to your chest. Unless a living person asked you to.

  For the first sixty years of his death the colonel felt cut off from anything vaguely meaningful. He’d wished many a time he could kill himself—and have another chance at dying properly. Which, alas, he could not do. And if you don’t vanish into the great unknown, you’re trapped in the ether forever.

  Then he had met someone up the shore of Great Lake, north of Zenith. About ten years ago. Someone alive. Someone who changed everything for Horace MacFarlane.

  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, stand
ing 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—”