by D. R. Martin
Word of Ozzie Eccleston’s fate—shipped in a wooden box to Old Number One—gave Johnny a good laugh. Let the guy try to mooch a free hamburger and beer on an abandoned tropical island.
The two-hour drive went quickly, interrupted only by munching on sandwiches and sipping of tea from thermoses.
The long limousine finally rolled to a stop at a checkpoint manned by soldiers of the Royal Army. A lieutenant with an improbable baby face peered into the back of the auto in a self-important manner. Dame Honoria explained that they had been summoned to meet with the king, on a matter of national security.
Looking at the odd group, the young officer rolled his eyes and shook his head.
“Ma’am,” he said, “I’m sure his majesty would enjoy a chat with you, but I’m afraid he’s rather busy this evening.”
“Lieutenant McKenzie,” a man’s voice barked. “What is going on here?”
As if he had some kind of powerful spring down his spine and legs, the lieutenant jumped to attention, rotated to face someone whom Johnny couldn’t see, and snapped off a very crisp salute.
“Some civilians, sir,” he yelped. “I’ve told them they cannot be admitted to Castle Henry under the present circumstances. Sir!”
“Have they identified themselves, Lieutenant?”
“Yes, sir! A lady called Dame Honoria Rathbone and her companions, sir!”
“Lieutenant, you are dismissed. I’ll handle it from here.”
“Yes, sir!” The young officer snapped off another salute and strode away.
Then a somewhat familiar face appeared in Dame Honoria’s open passenger window. It took Johnny a second or two to remember the man.
“Brigadier Stafferton!” he exclaimed.
It was the fly-fisherman from the day of their first visit to Castle Henry. He had been at the same creek where they had enjoyed their picnic lunch. The wounded brigadier had told Johnny that he was waiting for his next assignment, which was top secret. Now Johnny knew what that assignment was.
“We’ve been expecting you and your friends, Master Graphic,” the brigadier said. “Please follow me.”
They trailed behind the brigadier’s olive-drab vehicle and parked next to it, by a single-story, wood-frame building off to the west of the big mansion. Johnny and the rest filed into a cramped office filled with cabinets, desks, and several soldiers banging away on typewriters. In the corner was a fancy shortwave radio setup, which caught Nina’s attention in a big hurry.
The brigadier sat down behind a gray metal desk and invited his guests to pull up chairs opposite him. “Tell me first about what you saw in the sky this afternoon, then everything else.”
Dame Honoria cleared her throat. “I was under the impression that we were to speak directly to his majesty.”
“His majesty regrets that he will be unable to meet with you this evening,” the brigadier explained. “For purposes of his personal security, we have placed him in a secret and safe location within the castle. We have a whole regiment deployed around the perimeter, nearly a thousand men. Circumstances have changed since you were in touch with his assistant earlier today. Whatever intelligence you provide will be relayed to him promptly.”
Johnny and Nina recounted their shock and horror up in the air when they saw the flying ghost force. Then they told about their various encounters with Percy and his henchmen—particularly what Nina had heard and seen while held captive in Bilbury Hall. Johnny noted that Nina had been able to dispense with one of the bog zombies by smashing it in the knee. The soldiers here, he said, might want to know about that tactic.
Suddenly, the baby-faced lieutenant rushed into the office.
After coming to attention and saluting his commanding officer, he blurted out, “Reports from pickets, sir.”
“Yes, Lieutenant McKenzie?” the brigadier said, looking at the young soldier with concern.
The lieutenant gulped and steadied himself. “Sir, we’re being surrounded. Zombies and ghosts by the hundreds. On all four sides of Castle Henry. The major requires you at the command post immediately!”
Chapter 39
Friday, February 7, 1936
Castle Henry
All of a sudden, it was as if Johnny and the others didn’t even exist.
The brigadier jumped to his feet and snapped at the radioman in the corner, hunched over his equipment. “You heard the lieutenant. Notify the Ministry of War that we’re threatened with attack. And the rest of you—to your posts!”
Then the brigadier and the lieutenant led an exodus from the cramped office. Except for the radioman, all the soldiers working there headed outside, grabbing rifles that were leaning against the wall by the door and snatching battle helmets from pegs.
Dame Honoria groaned. “It looks like my darling Sweetums has put us right into it, again!”
Johnny noticed that, at last, Dame Honoria was pronouncing her former term of endearment for her son with a tone of bitter sarcasm. What must it be like to have your own flesh and blood become a megalomaniac? For a few seconds, Johnny tried to imagine Mel as a dark force of evil. The thought was so ridiculous, he almost laughed out loud.
Nina was rubbing the temples of her head with her fingers. “Maybe those ghosts we saw this morning weren’t even heading for Royalton.”
“Maybe Percy has been after the king all along,” Mel said.
Johnny suddenly had a very scary thought. “Or maybe Percy has enough ghosts and zombies to attack several places at once.”
“Well, we can’t let him capture the king,” Mel declared. “Snatching the head of state would give Percy incredible power to extort concessions.”
Johnny stood up and started to pace. “So what can we do to help?”
“These are professional soldiers, Johnny,” said Dame Honoria. “Not too likely they would appreciate having women and children manning the battlements with them.”
“But we have more experience fighting zombies and ghosts than any of them,” Johnny protested. “They need to know that zombies have weak knees and you can finish them off—at least release the ghost inside of ’em—by decapitation. And Sparks could tell them her idea about the zombie skin.”
Johnny looked at Nina for confirmation and suddenly noticed that she appeared uncomfortable, almost sick. He knew that her right arm still hurt a bit and was sometimes numb, from whatever had happened to her in Bilbury Hall.
“Are you okay, Sparks?” he asked, worried about her. This had been the day from hell, and it looked like it would stretch long into the night. Nina probably wouldn’t have a chance to rest anytime soon.
“I’m all right,” she answered. “Just a little pooped.”
“Tell them about seeing the bog zombies and the potion,” Johnny urged. “It might be important.”
Nina turned to Dame Honoria and Mel, who both looked quite interested. “Before they took me upstairs to the room where they held me, I saw them doing something kind of weird in the kitchen at Bilbury Hall.”
Dame Honoria nodded encouragingly. “Yes, my dear, go ahead.”
“Well,” Nina began, “they had tubs of some kind of thick cream or soft wax. The zombies took it, and rubbed it all over their faces, hands, arms, and legs. And it was as if it made them more flexible. After they put it on, they kind of stretched, as if they’d been stiff or something.”
“Hmm, I wonder,” Mel said.
Dame Honoria raised her eyebrows. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“Well, it does seem a bit obvious. Those corpses have been in the bogs for a thousand years, under the cold, damp pressure of the peat. What if, when they come up into the regular atmosphere, their skin starts drying out? What if they need some kind of cream to stay limber?”
“Yes. If their skin dries out too much, it would be very difficult for them to move, much less make mayhem.”
“Did you see them doing anything else, Nina?” Mel asked.
“No,” Nina replied. “Some of them started to take their c
lothes off, to put on more of the cream, I guess. That’s when I pretended to pass out. I didn’t want to see any of those naked, wrinkled-up, disgusting dead bodies.”
“Very understandable,” Dame Honoria observed.
“There’s one other thing,” Mel said, almost to herself. “The reason those bodies were so well preserved is that the bog environment prevented bacteria from decomposing them. Wonder what would happen if they were exposed to a solution of some type with a high bacteria count.”
Johnny could almost see the wheels turning around in Mel’s head. What was she coming up with?
“It’s important that we tell the brigadier what Nina saw,” Dame Honoria intoned. “There may yet be time to act upon her information.”
* * *
Johnny was afraid the brigadier would forget all about them, seeing as how he had his hands full commanding the defense of Castle Henry. And they did sit in the office for a while, darkly communing with their own thoughts. Johnny paced. Mel hunched over in her chair, chin in hand, probably pondering some kind of anti-zombie tactic. Dame Honoria had shut her eyes, pretending to sleep. And Nina just looked beat, drooping in her chair.
So far they had heard no gunfire, no sounds of conflict. Johnny figured that meant the ghosts and zombies surrounding the great estate had avoided contact with the brigadier’s troops. But just after midnight, Lieutenant McKenzie came rushing in and breathlessly asked a question.
“The brigadier said that he saw the ghost soldiers from the First Border War when you arrived this evening.”
“They’re just outside,” Mel said. “Colonel MacFarlane and fourteen troopers.”
The baby-faced lieutenant looked immeasurably relieved. “The truth of the matter, miss, is that while we have some lads from the Special Ghost Service and a handful of regular troops who can see ghosts, we are a bit short in that department. I am confident that we can handle the, uh, zombies…” He shook his head as he uttered that word, as if his military training had never prepared him for such a situation. “But we surely could use the help of your dead friends to defend against any ghosts that we may be facing. And your good selves, as well, if you’re willing to go into harm’s way.”
About time we were asked to help, Johnny thought. “We’ve been in harm’s way pretty much steadily since the beginning of October, Lieutenant. Ghost assassins, mid-air battles, blindness, the biggest bomb ever…”
The lieutenant seemed a stoic sort of guy, but he looked a little shocked at Johnny’s litany of perils.
“Some of the things we’ve seen and done have to remain top secret for many years to come,” Mel added. “That’s the honest truth. We’d be in big trouble if we told you what.”
Johnny couldn’t tell if the guy believed Mel or not. But he was definitely serious about getting them in on the action. They all trooped out of the office, across the courtyard, and into a large army tent that smelled damp and mildewy. The brigadier was in there, talking intensely with a group of soldiers—officers, sergeants, and enlisted men. When he saw Johnny and the others, he waved them to come over.
Lieutenant McKenzie snapped off a salute. “Our friends here have granted your request, Brigadier.”
“Good, good, thank you all,” the brigadier said. “Now, my lads here can see ghosts.” He gestured at the soldiers he had been talking to. “With your permission, I would like to divide up your Border War troopers and place them with these men. We’re going to attempt to cover the entire perimeter of Castle Henry. That is about three miles of line. The mission is to minimize any infiltration of ghosts. Will that be agreeable?”
Mel and Johnny turned simultaneously to the colonel, who had followed them in.
“You heard the man, Colonel,” Mel said. “Is that okay?”
“That would be absolutely splendid, Commander,” the colonel answered. “The boys are itching to have another go at the enemy.”
“And the rest of you can do tremendous good,” the brigadier continued, “by taking places at observation posts along our perimeter. I’m promised reinforcements by morning and we need to hold Castle Henry until then.”
This time Dame Honoria answered for the group.
“You can count on us, Brigadier. But before we leave for the… Well, for the front… My young friend here, Miss Nina Bain, has tactical intelligence about some of our adversaries’ potential vulnerabilities.”
Chapter 40
Saturday, February 8, 1936
Castle Henry
Johnny was huddled in a hastily dug foxhole with Lieutenant McKenzie and Sergeant Clegg. Off to either side were other soldiers in other quickly excavated hollows in the open field south of Castle Henry. They all had weapons, of course. Sabers, bayonets, and rifles. A machine gun off to the right. And Clegg had his double-barreled Old Equalizer.
For his part, Johnny would have to rely on Basil’s cricket bat. But now he had a good idea how to use the thing. He planned to whack a few zombie knees.
Tall light poles scattered around the estate cast dim illumination over the grounds. The bounteous stars above offered a bit more visibility. Not much to see by, Johnny thought, but probably enough to reveal any hulking shapes charging at them.
As for the ghosts, Johnny and Sergeant Clegg would scan for their telltale green glow, then warn the soldiers if they spotted any. It would be hard for any attacking specter to hide his glimmer.
The first sign of action came on toward one in the morning. Johnny had dozed off for a while, when Sergeant Clegg woke him with a nudge to the shoulder. “Ghost lights out there,” the Zenith trooper whispered. “A half dozen of them. Coming in toward us slow and steady. Behind them, some bog zombies, I think.”
Johnny told Lieutenant McKenzie about the incoming forces and where they were. The officer called over to the machine gun crew and said something like “commence probing fire at your eleven o’clock.” Johnny understood that to mean a bit to the left and across the field. He had heard nothing from other posts around the perimeter—no shouting, no gunfire—so this would be the first action of the evening.
Suddenly, the machine gun stuttered a dozen shots at the spot Johnny had described, red tracer bullets slicing through the night. The racket was loud and shocking. Then the gun repeated itself—tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat.
There were guttural shouts and barks of anger from across the field. The machine gun had stung the advancing wraiths a little, it seemed. It was hard to shoot ghosts when you couldn’t see them, but a spray of slugs gave you a decent chance of hitting them a few times. The point was not to stop them, but simply delay them a bit.
“The ghosts have retreated,” Johnny reported, surveying the field with the binoculars that McKenzie had given him. “The zombies, too.”
That was when a machine gun erupted off to the north. Another probing attack, Johnny supposed. Then silence.
Johnny thought about how nerve-wracking it would be to live the soldier’s life. Waiting. Wondering. Anticipating the next attack. And just when you start to relax, BOOM. You’re caught off-guard. Never knowing when your number would be up.
It made sense to conduct these kinds of random attacks, he figured. You caused your enemy to feel jittery. And jittery foes might make bad decisions.
But if Johnny had been in Percy’s position, he would have sent the entire force of zombies and ghost warriors at them all at once. That type of attack probably could overwhelm the defenders in a single wave.
What happened next made Johnny wonder if Percy had somehow figured out how to read his mind. For out of the darkness on the other side of the field came ranks of ghosts, charging forward. Some on horseback, others on foot, still more flying under their own power. Behind them loped the zombies, waving axes and bludgeons and other brutal-looking hand weapons. There must have been hundreds of them.
Johnny and Sergeant Clegg simultaneously warned the lieutenant. He shouted to his machine gunner, and the man’s terrible weapon clattered to life, making a deafening din.
; But the bullets seemed to have little effect this time—the ghost warriors kept coming. Johnny was sure they would be overrun, until the very last second, when the wraith force retreated once again. What was the enemy up to? Were they just testing the king’s defenses?
Lieutenant McKenzie began talking on his portable radio unit, briefly explaining the situation. He listened for half a moment. “Yes sir,” he said into the hand piece. “Understood.” Then he jumped to his feet and shouted, first in one direction, then the other. “Pull back to the next position, lads.” Johnny could hear soldiers up and down the line relaying the order.
They were making a tactical withdrawal. Not retreating, Sergeant Clegg told Johnny, but going to a position where they could more easily delay, or perhaps even defeat, their adversary. Johnny wasn’t sure if this would work, given that the adversaries were ghosts and zombies. But it seemed the best chance they had of surviving this night alive, until reinforcements arrived.
Johnny darted back up a narrow lane with several dozen soldiers, his cricket bat in hand, the binoculars bouncing on his chest. Up on his ghost horse, Sergeant Clegg brought up the rear, ready to keep any pursuers away with his Old Persuader. They all made for the big barns.
Johnny joined Nina in one of the structures. All the lights were out. Dozens of horses could be heard moving nervously about in their stalls, snorting and whinnying. The place reeked with a weird, sour smell.
Electric pumps and hoses had been set up by the open windows. A dozen Castle Henry workers, in their blue workmen’s coats, stood ready by the pumps. Several soldiers gripped the hoses and spray nozzles.
The king’s workers were mostly older than the soldiers, and certainly far older than Johnny and Nina. But behind those weatherworn faces and gray hair, Johnny saw pure grit and determination. He figured they were as outraged as anyone at such an attack on his majesty, and were willing to give their lives to defend their monarch.