by D. R. Martin
Behind him, Johnny heard a saber being pulled out of its scabbard. Marko was readying for a fight.
“We’re lost,” Johnny admitted, avoiding the question of permission altogether. “And we just want to get out of this blasted bog onto solid ground. We’re going north to the Blackcombe Bog.”
The ghost lowered his eyebrows and scowled. “People your age should not be journeying there. The place is crawling with abominations of dead flesh and vile spirit. I have seen them and destroyed them when I could. The gods do not allow such creatures to exist.”
So, Johnny thought, someone had given Quintus the power to act in the physical world. That meant his sword could cut and kill. Johnny began to edge back a little farther, eyeing his cricket bat lying uselessly on the ground. He wondered if Marko had any experience fighting with sabers.
By this point, Nina had put on her etheric goggles. “We’re going to help defeat them, Mr. Quintus,” she said confidently.
“A small troop of children?” Quintus huffed.
Johnny knew they didn’t have time to argue about whether kids could fight zombies. He had to find out if this character was friendly or not.
“We mean you no harm, Mr. Quintus,” he said. “We want to leave this bog as much as you want us to. Could you just show us how to get out of here and heading toward Blackcombe Bog?”
The specter frowned. “If I lead you in that direction, I would be leading you to your doom. Should they take you, the abominations will show no mercy.”
That’s when Johnny figured they had nothing to fear from this ancient ghost. After all, he could have cut them to pieces as they slept. And now he was expressing concern about their safety.
“Don’t worry,” Johnny said. “We’ll do fine with the zombies. But we sure could use your help finding our way out of here.”
The ghost warrior nodded and sheathed his short sword. “Very well. I suggest that you sleep until first light. I will guard you. Then I shall lead you out of the bog, as you wish.”
* * *
Centurion Quintus was good to his word, and nudged everyone awake as the omnipresent fog began to brighten. Johnny had already tired of canned pork, but gobbled some down for breakfast. He did not want to be hiking on an empty stomach.
Everyone seemed relieved to be ending the unanticipated exile in the bog. Before they left, Marko pulled Johnny aside.
“Sorry I popped off about your girlfriend yesterday,” he muttered. “Shouldn’t have said all that. I guess I just needed some rest.” He clapped Johnny on the shoulder and walked away.
That apparently was what passed for an apology from Marko. Well, Johnny thought, it’s better than a punch in the nose. And he was too surprised to say that Sparks wasn’t his girlfriend—just his friend. Jeez, he liked Sparks a lot. But “girlfriend” sounded way too serious for a guy his age.
With Quintus leading them, they wended their way through the bog in close single file. Johnny fell in right behind Quintus, followed by Marko, Nina, and Iris. Raj and Petunia floated above them. It almost seemed that the centurion was taking them in circles, as they hopped from one piece of ground to the next. But less than half an hour later, Quintus announced that they were now all standing on solid earth—no mushy murk beneath their feet anymore.
“Well, Quintus,” Marko said. “Thanks for saving our bacon, mate.” He stuck out his hand to the centurion, who stared at it as if it were a dead fish.
Nina trotted over to Marko. “You’ve got to give him the Imperial salute. Only proper.” She turned to the ghost, extended her right arm with fist closed, then brought the fist to the left side of her chest.
It was the first time Johnny had seen anything like a smile appear on Quintus’s face, as he returned Nina’s salute. Then everyone else saluted him in the same manner.
“I’m curious about one thing, Mr. Quintus,” Johnny said. “Who’s giving you your power to touch the real world?”
“I have been given the gift by nineteen different people during the centuries of my death. While they were alive, I could touch the real world. But after each of them died, I lost these powers until I found another living person who would enable me. Sometimes I waited for decades.”
This guy has seen twenty centuries of history, Johnny realized. In person. It absolutely boggled the mind.
“Presently I am in debt to a boy who now must be an old man,” Quintus continued. “When he was only ten years old, he asked me to help his father defeat thieves and brigands. As long as that boy lives, so do I—so to speak.
“Now, I bid you farewell. The evil place you seek is to the north and west. The road is just over that hill. It will lead you there.” He pointed to a prominent knoll some distance away, just visible through the lifting fog. “Follow it for eight or ten hours, and the monsters’ camp will reveal itself. But take care to remain unseen. The creatures especially covet children.”
Johnny recalled a disquieting image that had haunted him ever since Angus the groundskeeper had opened his mouth. Stews and pies made of kids.
Quintus rotated around and began to float away, back over the bog, when suddenly a tiny, whispery voice spoke up.
“Don’t go, Mr. Quintus,” Petunia said. “Come with us. Pretty please?”
Petunia’s entreaty surprised Johnny, to say the least. But the little girl ghost made a lot of sense. What a great idea. It would be smart to have a fighting man along with them, now that Rex and the colonel and his men had been lost. Two swords and a cricket bat—especially in the inexperienced hands of Johnny, Nina, Iris, and Marko—probably wouldn’t be much of a defense against attacking bog zombies.
“We could sure use your help, Mr. Quintus,” Johnny said, winking at Petunia.
Marko looked around at the others and nodded. “Wouldn’t you like another chance to take a whack at those abominations, Quintus?”
The ancient soldier, his dark features scowling, turned and looked from Marko to Johnny to Petunia. The fact that he had even listened to them was a good sign. Slowly a predatory grin appeared on that dark, dangerous face.
“I don’t know what ‘whack’ means, my young friend. I hope that it signifies an action similar to ‘disembowel’ or ‘eviscerate’ or ‘decapitate.’”
Johnny jumped in. “It does if you want it to, Mr. Quintus.”
Marko agreed. “As the only one here who is almost a copper, I have no problem with that.”
Petunia floated right up to the Imperial soldier, staring him in the face. “So you’ll come with us, Mr. Quintus?”
He grunted, but in a friendly sort of way. Then he did something quite unexpected.
He reached out and tousled Petunia’s long blonde hair.
“You know, you look a lot like the little girl I left back home in the Imperium. Gone now these two millennia. And as long as you have asked so respectfully, I shall agree.”
* * *
They were back on one of the country roads. In this position, they were more vulnerable to the zombies. But after their recent experience in the bog, no one wanted to travel through the wild land again. Johnny sent Raj to the rear and Quintus forward to warn them of any potential danger.
The moment their feet hit the pavement, they set off at a brisk pace. The road, to Johnny’s relief, was constantly curving through little hills and dales, so they would be hard to see from any distance. The momentary lack of fog was a relief, but unfortunately it gave them less cover.
Not long into their morning march, Raj came racing up to them.
“They’re coming up behind us, a bunch of zombies and their prisoners,” he warned in his papery ghost voice. “Get yourselves hidden!”
Johnny and Nina found a spot behind an advertising sign that proclaimed, “Gorton’s Little Pills—Good for the tricky tummy.” The others found places nearby and they all waited.
The first thing Johnny heard was the clumping of boots, then the guttural voices. The next sound that hit his ears shocked him down to his bones. A kid’s voice, a bo
y. Pleading.
“Please let me go, mister. Me mum’ll be worried sick about me. Anyways, they haven’t any money for a ransom.”
Johnny looked around the side of the sign. A bunch of zombies were herding eight or ten children up the road. The kids were tied together. Johnny couldn’t tell which one was asking for his mother. They all looked bedraggled, dirty, and hungry—and plenty scared. As soon as this dreadful parade passed out of sight, Johnny huddled with the others.
“They’re going to eat them, aren’t they?” Iris whimpered. “Just like Angus Snodgrass said.”
“You don’t know that,” Marko said. “You’ve no way of knowing that for sure.”
“But why else would anyone want to grab a bunch of whining, complaining children?” Raj asked, making quite a reasonable point.
“Well, whatever the zombies have planned for them,” Johnny said, “I think I know what we have to do.”
“Right,” Marko said. “Follow those kids.”
Chapter 23
Raj and Centurion Quintus took turns tailing the zombies and their captives, then reporting back. Johnny and the others trailed well behind. Within hours the zombies and captive kids passed onto the Great Durstan Moor, heading due north through increasingly patchy fog. Johnny was not happy about this route, as they lurched off the road into the tall grasses, bracken ferns, and undershrubs. He remembered what it felt like to get lost in that bog, and worried about a similar fate out on this vast moor, the biggest in the Royal Kingdom.
A bit later the group stopped for a breather in a little vale that cut across their path—a good spot because it hid them from sight. Johnny took the opportunity to grab a few pictures of Marko, Iris, and Nina as they rested. Then he climbed a bit higher for a shot of the moor itself. He was leaning over, looking down into the viewfinder of his Ritterflex, through the little magnifying lens, when someone cleared his throat.
Johnny jerked upright and looked around. Just to his right was Quintus, gazing at him with that grim expression he always wore. He was standing at ease, with his legs spread and his hands gripped behind his back.
“Yes, Mr. Quintus?” Johnny said. “What’s up?”
As a two-thousand-year-old guy, the dead soldier clearly didn’t understand modern slang expressions. But he only made one grumpy sound, then started to talk.
“I have found the enemy’s encampment,” he said.
“You’re kidding!”
There was a scowl darker than usual. “You don’t believe me?”
Johnny really had to watch how he spoke with this wraith. “Sorry, of course I do. I don’t mean to doubt you.”
Quintus gave a mild “harrumph,” then continued. “Apparently their track across the moor was a shorter path than the road.”
“A shortcut?”
Another grumpy sound came out of the ghost’s throat. But he did nod. “Yes, they were able to cut their journey short.”
“So we don’t have to stay on the moor much longer?”
“No, we do not. But as it is late in the day, I advise against approaching their camp until the new morning. Moreover, I have found a place for you living folk to shelter.”
Johnny almost said “You’re kidding!” again, but bit his tongue.
“That’s excellent news, Mr. Quintus. Let’s go tell the others.”
* * *
It felt awfully good having a roof over their heads for the night, even if there were a few drafty holes in it.
Quintus had discovered an abandoned granary on the edge of dense forestland, built of rough, gray stone. It was about the size of Birchwood, Johnny’s big brick house back in Zenith. It was cavernous inside, but way better than sleeping out in the cutting wind that had come up.
Before it became totally dark, Johnny explored the place and found bales of unused burlap sacking. He figured it was meant to hold the barley that was stored there.
“MacFreithshire is famous for its whiskey,” Marko explained as they sat around the fire that Nina had made on the dirt floor. The smoke went right up through one of the holes in the ceiling. “They make it out of barley and send it around the world.”
Raj rubbed his hands in front of the fire, as if he could actually warm them. “MacFreithshire whiskey ain’t cheap. But they say it’s awful good.”
Johnny had once tasted whiskey, stealing a sip from Uncle Louie’s glass. And Johnny failed to understand its appeal. He had nearly spit the stuff out but, of course, had to swallow. The disgusting smoky flavor and an awful burn down the throat made quite an impression on him. He couldn’t imagine that it would taste any better when he got older.
After they ate a meager supper from the last of the cans Angus Snodgrass had given them, the adventurers sat awhile around the fire. Johnny and Nina hunched cross-legged on the dirt floor. Iris sat in a rickety wooden chair, cradling the cast on her left arm. Marko perched on a small crate. Raj kept rubbing his hands over the fire. Petunia leaned against Iris, resting her head on her sister’s right shoulder. Quintus had gone outside to patrol, keeping an eye open for marauding zombies.
Raj spoke up first. “Tell us about this Percy Rathbone bloke, Johnny. He sounds like a right nutter. Why’s he making so many people and ghosts miserable?”
Johnny sighed and told how, ever since he was young, Percy thought that ghosts should be treated better than they were. “After all, his mom, Dame Honoria Gorton Rathbone, had always been a fighter for the rights of women. And I guess Percy wanted his own cause. He wrote a book about the rights of ghosts, but no one paid attention. That made him bitter and he became more fanatical. He built the etheric bomb, and I guess he planned to use the thing to blackmail some country into giving ghosts their own place to live.”
“He even persuaded some of the top officials in the Plains Republic to help him,” Nina added. “But I don’t think they knew what he was planning to do with the weapon.”
“He only managed to blow up one bomb before we captured him,” Johnny recounted proudly. “But he still blew thousands of ghosts to bits. Not a good fate for a ghost.”
Raj shuddered. “Don’t even want to think about that.”
Johnny knew that being trapped in the ether in a thousand tiny pieces would be a horror to any ghost.
“Unfortunately,” Johnny said, “Percy escaped his zombie body and now he’s at it again, making trouble here in MacFreithshire.”
“But what’s his problem?” asked Iris. “Why does he keep doing these things?”
Nina shrugged. “I think he’s just a spoiled brat who wants a lot of attention.”
Johnny smiled at Nina’s simple reasoning. “I’m not sure anyone can say why anymore. Not even his mother can figure it out. But I think he really feels he’s doing something good for ghosts.”
“He’s convinced them that he can help get them out of the ether,” Nina said. “That’s why Burilgi and Checheg are so loyal.”
“Who are they?” asked Raj.
“They’re ghost Steppe Warriors,” Johnny said. “And two of his most fanatic followers. They both tried to kill my sister. Checheg is a girl warrior, but she’s as fierce as any man. Mel even chopped off her arm, but Checheg still won’t give up.”
“So,” Marko said after a long silence, “how’d you get to be a news photographer?”
Johnny was caught off-guard. Before this, Marko had not shown much interest in the newspaper game. So Johnny told the story of his passion for news photography and about the things he had done since leaving school last summer.
Then it was Iris’s turn to ask about Nina’s history. She listened intently to that sad, sad story. Mother died in childbirth. Orphaned when her father was killed in an automobile accident.
“You poor dear,” Iris said. “And here I am, with more family than anyone needs—four sisters and three brothers.”
Nina stared at the fire. “It really hasn’t been that hard for me. You can’t really miss something you never had. And except for my dad, I never had a family.”
<
br /> Johnny looked surprised. “Hey, what about me? I’m practically your cousin.”
“Oh, yeah. I forgot about my goofy almost-cousin.” She gave Johnny a cross-eyed look and stuck out her tongue.
Johnny grinned and turned to Marko. “Your turn now. How did you get to be an official escort for journalists?”
For one of the first times since Johnny had met him, a slight smile appeared on Marko’s lips. He wiped his thick, black hair off his forehead and nodded.
“Well, I live with my Uncle Oren, and he’s a copper, an inspector with the Higgsmarket constabulary. Always admired the man and wanted to be a police officer myself someday. Took it in my head to be his eyes and ears out on the street, when I wasn’t in school. My uncle’s come to rely on me, in certain types of situations.”
“You still in school, Marko?” Nina asked.
“Naw, Uncle took me out a year ago. Thinks someone my age should be learning a trade—my trade being police work.” He puffed up a little, proudly. “Anyways, I know how to read and write and figure numbers. That’ll do. Don’t need school no more.”
So Marko turns out to be a bit like me, Johnny thought. Out of school early and hard at work. Maybe the two of them had a tough time getting along because they were too much like each other. That was often the case with similar personalities.
Nina stared intently at Marko. “What about your parents?”
“Dad spent most of his time inside the bottle. MacFreithshire whiskey, in fact. Don’t even know where he’s at now. And Mum was always sick. I tried to take care of her, but she finally passed. I ended up in the orphanage. Having etheric vision didn’t make me many friends there. The other kids thought I was odd. By and by, Uncle Oren took me on.”
There was nothing Johnny could say that would make any difference. And he didn’t want to probe any further. Marko had lived a tough life, but it didn’t seem he was looking for sympathy.
So Johnny turned the conversation in yet another direction.
