by D. R. Martin
“Now Iris, does Petunia help you much?”
“I do!” Petunia exclaimed, zooming around and landing right in front of Johnny. “Even though I’m smaller, I’m still her big sister.”
Everyone burst out laughing, but Petunia didn’t seem to mind.
Iris chuckled. “And she constantly lets me know it. You know, if she were alive, Petunia would be eighteen.”
That hit Johnny like a ton of bricks. Petunia would be about the same age as Mel. A young woman with a whole life before her. What a horrible thing, for a kid to die so young. Life and death could be so baffling and unfair.
Johnny pulled out his pocket watch and was surprised at how quickly the evening had gone. It had been fun talking and learning more about each other—it felt like barriers were coming down. Maybe things would go smoother from now on. At least Johnny hoped they would.
He couldn’t stifle a huge yawn. “You know, guys,” he said, “I think we ought to try to catch some ’s. Tomorrow could be a long, dangerous day.”
Finally, they were going to do what they had come here for. They were going into the lair of the bog zombies.
Chapter 24
Wednesday, February 5, 1936
MacFreithshire
Everyone was up by six the next morning, ready to roll.
One by one, they followed Centurion Quintus through heavy fog and brambly woods. He warned them to keep very quiet, in case the zombies had scouts in the area.
But Johnny was preoccupied with something else. He was worried that the fog would prevent him from getting good photos of the bog zombie camp.
Of course, he had to stay out of sight. He didn’t want to repeat the disaster back at the train wreck, when his flashbulb attracted a zombie attack.
Johnny couldn’t help but think that he might be the first and only photographer to capture these scenes. He could just imagine Mr. Cargill’s reaction—especially when the Zenith Clarion scooped all the newspapers in the whole world.
Johnny’s daydream of journalistic glory was interrupted by a whispered command from Quintus: “Down on the ground, all of you! Low as you can get!”
The Imperial officer’s voice carried a tone that made Johnny instantly obey. Since Nina couldn’t hear Quintus, and couldn’t read his lips without her goggles on, Johnny had to grab her and pull her down. Everyone else hit the dirt, too. And just in time.
Because Johnny could see a pair of bog zombies not thirty feet beyond them, hustling their way through the undergrowth. If the creatures happened to look off to their left, they almost certainly would see Johnny and his companions—even with everyone on the damp, mildewy ground.
Johnny held his breath as the zombies vanished behind some trees. He realized he had gotten so close to the ground that he had some of the forest dirt and dried leaves in his mouth. But instead of spitting them out and wiping his mouth on his jacket sleeve, he waited until he thought it perfectly safe. Better to eat the crud than make any noise.
Slowly, Quintus rose from his hiding place beneath the soil. “All right, we are in the clear. Come along now.”
Within ten minutes they were lying prone on a heavily wooded hill that overlooked what must have been a large farmyard. Johnny could see the foundations of several structures that had been destroyed or torn down. Two barn-like buildings were intact, however, and there was a large pen packed with hogs, oinking and squealing away. And in the distance, behind a screen of stately elms, stood a hulking old country mansion. The real estate, in itself, wasn’t that remarkable. It was what was going on there that set Johnny’s pulse zooming. He scanned back and forth with Nina’s binoculars.
There were scores, if not hundreds, of bog zombies and ghosts milling around, standing in clumps, coming in and out of many tents. Their coalesced voices made a sort of grating rumble and nagging hiss in the air. Johnny spotted a troop of Steppe Warrior ghosts at the far end of the big farmyard. One of them was Burilgi, for sure. That eyeless mug was unmistakable. Johnny shifted the binoculars slightly to the left and gasped. There stood Checheg, the one-armed girl warrior.
How about that? he thought, his spine tingling. The gang’s all here.
Johnny had to get a shot of this incredible scene. He rolled on his side and began to extract the Ritterflex from his camera bag. But before he could even open the viewfinder, someone slapped his hands and camera down into the dirt.
“Not now,” Marko growled. “You’ll have to show yourself over this ridge to get your shot. If just one of those zombies or ghosts happens to be looking this way, we’re all goners.”
“I wasn’t gonna stand up,” Johnny whispered angrily. If Marko had damaged his camera…
The others watched the confrontation in silence, looking a little alarmed.
“Listen, Johnny, I know you have to take risks to do your work. But you could get the rest of us killed, too. Like you nearly did after the train wreck.”
Just last night, Johnny had thought that he and Marko were starting to get along better. But now the guy was on his case again.
Johnny was getting ready to throw some choice words back in Marko’s face. But then he caught sight of Nina shaking her head at him, scowling. He knew that look: Don’t do it, she was saying. Don’t be stupid. Wrong place, wrong time.
He took a couple of deep breaths, and glared at Marko. “Okay. If I can’t take my shots here, then where?”
Marko nodded, as if to say, Glad you’re being sensible. He briefly rose up and looked around, then withdrew back down below the ridgeline. “I think over there, off to the left. You sneak down through the undergrowth and use the old farm equipment to hide behind. You get your shots, and then we all get out of here. This dump gives me the creepy-crawlies.”
Johnny had to agree that Marko’s plan was a good one. But before he took his pictures, there was an important piece of business to discuss.
“Nina,” he said. “Can you locate this place on your map?”
“Yeah, I think so,” Nina answered.
A ghost cleared his throat. “You don’t have to.”
Everyone twisted around and blinked at Raj.
He had been lying behind them on his belly, chin in his hands—like a kid listening to the radio on his own living room floor. He looked a little pained, though. He had been complaining about the stubborn headache he had.
“This here is Bilbury Hall, near the village of Digginsham. Former family seat of the old Earl of Pilt. Anybody who knows west central MacFreithshire will know where it’s at.”
Iris beamed at Raj. “You, my friend, are brilliant.”
“Absolutely, mate,” Marko agreed.
“The problem,” Johnny said, “is how do we get this information back to the authorities, now that we’ve lost Rex Ward and our SGS guys?”
“And besides, we’re miles from anywhere,” Nina said. “It’d take a couple of days to even hike back to Chippington.”
“But what other choice do we have?” Iris asked.
“I’ll go.”
They all looked at Raj again.
“I can fly back to Higgsmarket in a few hours, if I don’t get lost in the fog. Then I’ll just hunt around until I find the right blokes to tell. Maybe Captain Ward’s back there already.”
Petunia looked like she was about to cry. “But you’re my best friend, Raj. You can’t go!”
“Don’t you worry, Pet. I promise I’ll be back before you know it.”
Johnny knew Raj’s idea was the best option that they had. “I think Raj is absolutely right. He should leave immediately. The sooner we get word through to the authorities, the better.”
Marko nodded. “Agreed. Finding this lot of zombies is why we came. Be a waste not to finish the job proper.” He turned to Nina and Iris. “Ladies?”
Iris, looking a little dubious, said yes.
Nina, too. “Raj is our best bet. I say we send him off.”
With a few words of farewell, Raj slipped away down the hill, into patches of fog, and out of
sight. Johnny supposed he would soon be flying hundreds of feet up in the air.
Marko rubbed his hands together and grinned. “Now let’s get Mr. Graphic his newspaper photographs.”
* * *
While the others lay hidden twenty or thirty feet to the rear, in the weeds and brambles, Johnny crept forward until he was underneath a giant, rusting steam tractor. Quintus had come, too. They were partly hidden in yet more nasty weeds and thistles. Johnny had never, ever worn filthier clothes than these. He could hardly wait to get out of them and into a nice, hot bath. But that might be a while yet.
From his vantage point under the tractor—right beneath the boiler and next to one of the giant iron wheels—Johnny could see zombies and ghosts milling around. He could shoot from this spot.
Quintus made one of his grumbling sounds. “If I only had my century here with us, we would make short work of this mangy Eldurian mob.”
“Your what?” Johnny whispered. What was the wraith talking about? His century?
“My hundred men true and strong.”
Of course! Johnny thought He’s not talking about a hundred years. Quintus was a centurion. Made sense that his unit would be called a century.
“The finest troop in the whole Ninth Legion,” the ghost continued. “None fiercer, none braver. The Eldurians took us only with overwhelming numbers, and then by ambush. Five hundred against one hundred.”
Now that sounded like a story Johnny wanted to hear. But first he had to get these shots. He flipped open the Ritterflex’s viewfinder, peered through it, and focused to infinity. He pushed his index finger against the shutter button. Click. Then came whiz-snap, as he rotated the lever on the side of the camera forward to advance the film, then backward to cock the shutter. Johnny repeated the process three times.
Just as he was closing the viewfinder, he saw something appalling out in that farmyard of horror.
A group of zombies and ghosts was herding six kids across the open space. Those boys and girls looked awful—dirty, hungry, scared out of their wits. They were being pushed and prodded toward one of the barns. They were shoved inside through an open door, and Johnny heard more kids screaming from inside.
So that’s where they’re keeping them!
There was still no telling why the zombies wanted kids. Johnny was betting it wasn’t to make meat pies. And it didn’t make sense to kill them and zombify them. They were too small to make good fighters. What could the reason be?
Whatever it was, wouldn’t it be great to spring all those kids and get them out of there? An idea began to form in Johnny’s head, a totally nutty idea that he hoped the others might like as much as he did.
Out of nowhere, Johnny heard a girl yelp in shock and surprise. As he turned around to look, he bonked his head on the bottom of the steam tractor’s boiler. Stars formed before his eyes, and through them he saw his worst nightmare coming true.
A bog zombie.
Charging through the undergrowth, heading toward the farmyard.
With Nina Bain squirming and screaming under his right arm.
Chapter 25
Johnny had to rescue Nina!
He scrambled forward on his hands and knees, still beneath the old tractor. His only thought was tackling that zombie and freeing his best friend.
He made it only a few feet, when someone grabbed his left leg and hauled him—like a fish being reeled in—back under the tractor’s boiler. Johnny was about to holler a protest. But a rough, semi-transparent green hand came slapping onto his mouth with a thwaaap, muffling his angry words.
“Shut up, boy!” Quintus hissed in his ear.
Johnny struggled a little, his mouth still covered, but the ghost was way too strong.
“Don’t be a fool,” the centurion continued. “You can’t save her. Not just yet. We have to get out of here. Now is the moment for withdrawal, not attack. One soldier and a gaggle of children have no chance against such foes.”
Johnny stared, horrified, to see Nina—still kicking and screaming in her captor’s arms—disappear into a roiling mob of bog zombies.
Then the most horrific, terrible, gruesome thought took over his mind. They’re going to kill her! Eat her! My best friend in the world! How could I have let this happen?
“We go,” Quintus growled. “Now.”
Johnny barely managed to grab his camera and bag as the centurion dragged him back from under the abandoned steam tractor. A moment later, they caught up with Marko, Iris, and Petunia, who had retreated back to the hillock they’d started from earlier. Everyone looked horrified.
Infuriated, Johnny glared at Marko. “What happened? How could you let Nina get caught?”
Marko glared back. “Don’t blame me! It was your stupid friend that put her own stupid neck in the noose.”
Johnny wanted very much to punch Marko right in the nose. But he held back. There’d be time to set him straight later on.
“You’re saying it was Nina’s fault?” he asked incredulously.
“She was complaining about not being able to see what was going on,” Iris explained. “I think she snuck off for a better view.”
“She was such a nice girl,” Petunia sighed. “I’m going to miss her.”
Was a nice girl? Johnny sure wasn’t going to write off Nina so quickly. She was still alive, and he was going to snatch her back.
“That zombie just got lucky,” Marko said defensively. “Must have stumbled across her in the weeds.”
Johnny was still fuming. “Well, why didn’t any of you try to stop her from going?”
Marko’s shoulders slumped. “I didn’t know she’d gone, until I heard her scream.”
“So much for our crack security escorts,” Johnny grumbled. “I thought your job was to keep Nina and me safe.”
“Enough!” Quintus whisper-shouted. He looked like he was quite fed up with quarrelsome kids. “Vituperation doesn’t help. We have to get out of here. The abominations may already have begun prying our secrets out of that girl, and it’s not wise to stay. We need to make a plan for her rescue. But not here.”
Johnny snorted and glared at everyone, even poor little Petunia. Reluctantly, he nodded.
“Let’s go then.”
* * *
Hundreds of feet behind them, they could hear crashing and growling and hollering in the woods. The zombies had clearly figured out that there were more kids to be captured, and were on the hunt. Quintus led Johnny and the others quickly away from the environs of Bilbury Hall. After a couple of breathless miles, Johnny was the one who spotted a stone house on the bank of a small creek.
After they scampered across an open field, they nipped into the house. It looked as if it had been recently abandoned. From the photos on the shelves, Johnny figured an old couple had lived in it. There were shots of a white-haired woman and a bald man surrounded by what were no doubt their children and grandchildren.
Plenty of canned food in the larder suggested that this couple left quickly, probably fleeing the zombie infestation. Johnny, Marko, and Iris silently ate a lunch of beef, potatoes, and peas, with soda crackers and evaporated milk. Johnny knew he had to keep his strength up. But just thinking about Nina made the food taste like cardboard. He had to force himself to swallow each bite.
Finally, Marko spoke up. “Right now, Raj is probably briefing the authorities in Higgsmarket. I say we sit tight and wait for help to arrive. The army or the police could be here in a day or two. Agree?”
Johnny was in a foul temper. He couldn’t help but think that this was all Marko’s fault. If he hadn’t stopped Johnny from taking his shots of the zombie mob from the top of that hill, they wouldn’t have snuck down below, near the old steam tractor and far closer to disaster. Nina wouldn’t have been there, wouldn’t have been tempted to crawl off for a better view. Of course, it was dumb of her to do so. She should have known better.
But what good would it do to tear into Marko now? The damage had been done. Johnny’s best friend was in a t
errible fix. If he lost her for good, he’d never, ever forgive himself.
Johnny finally answered Marko. “That is, if Raj can persuade anyone to listen. He’s just an unknown ghost boy. Why would they trust him? Unless he manages to find Rex Ward or Colonel MacFarlane, I wouldn’t count on the cavalry riding to our rescue.”
Marko didn’t argue. “So what are our options?”
Johnny knew exactly what he had to do—no matter how dangerous.
“I’m going to sneak in there alone, and get Nina out. You don’t have to come. You didn’t sign up to risk your skin on a dangerous bet. Not fair to expect it of you. And Iris can’t be much help with that busted arm of hers. I got Sparks into this mess, and I’m gonna get her out.”
Petunia zoomed right up into Johnny’s face. “Don’t do it, please. They’ll catch you and eat you.”
Johnny gave Petunia a smile. What a cute little ghost she was. She reminded him of Bao. “Sorry, kiddo. But I gotta do this.”
“If it were me over there in that barn, and I were alive, I would never want Iris to come for me,” Petunia said.
Johnny understood what she meant. Someone whom you’re very fond of would never want you to risk your own neck on her behalf. He guessed that’s what love was all about. Not that he thought he “loved” Nina. But he liked her a lot. And he wanted to be best friends with her for the rest of their lives. But unless he acted quickly, Nina’s life might not last too much longer.
Johnny patted Petunia on the head. “It’s okay. I promise to be careful.”
Petunia frowned and floated back to her sister, pouting.
“Pet’s right, you know,” Marko said with a tone of discouragement. “No good can come of it.”
Johnny’s irritation flared again.
“Of course some good can come of it!” he snapped. “I can save Nina’s life! And if I can’t, I don’t really care what happens to me.”
Marko wouldn’t look Johnny in the eye. Iris and Petunia glanced at each other, seeming quite uncomfortable at the fire in Johnny’s words.
“There will be time for reproach another day,” said a deep, papery-sounding voice.