Johnny Graphic and the Attack of the Zombies Read online

  The ghost leveled his piercing gaze at Johnny. “That, Master Graphic, is a question that we hope you and Miss Bain will be able to answer.”

  Chapter 6

  Tuesday, January 28, 1936

  Royalton, Royal Kingdom

  After a well-earned night of rest at the Hotel Chelmsford Park, Johnny found his way down to the dining room for breakfast. He was the last to arrive at the table.

  Nina and Uncle Louie were marching through plates piled high with fried eggs, bacon, sausage, and cold toast. Mel and Dame Honoria had already finished eating and were sipping tea. Johnny wasn’t that hungry, so he decided to have a bowl of porridge with toast and jam.

  “I have some urgent business to attend to,” Dame Honoria announced. “So I will be leaving for Wickenham in a few hours. Given that the fog has stopped most travel to the north, I suggest the four of you take a day or two to enjoy the metropolis.”

  Nina looked like she had died and gone to heaven. “Oh, I’ve wanted to visit the Queen’s Library forever. They have the original Carta de Iuribus on display there. That document laid the groundwork for the beginning of all democratic government.”

  Chewing on a piece of toast, Johnny looked at Mel. “Did we bring enough money to see shows and exhibits?”

  “This is my treat,” Dame Honoria said, removing several large banknotes from her pocketbook. “You deserve a chance to tour this great city. I’ll be taking Bao and Evvie, but the colonel and his men will stay here, to keep an eye on you. And do be careful—we just don’t know who or what might be lurking out there. Remember that Percy could have spies planted anywhere.”

  With that warning in mind, the four visitors spent the day as tourists, inspecting Royalton on a grand sightseeing excursion. Johnny felt like a millionaire riding around in the big town car from Gorton’s Little Pills Limited, the company that Dame Honoria owned. They saw the King’s Palace, the great Regency Park and Reflecting Pool, Dorrminster Abbey, the Queen’s Library, and the vast Smithson’s Department Store—where Mel and Nina both made a few purchases. At the Royal Gallery, Johnny met one of his favorite painters. Nearly four centuries dead, Antonio Cirelli haunted the museum every day, telling people who could see ghosts the story of his famous portrait of 1525, Ragazza con una mela—Girl with an Apple.

  The great city, in fact, looked as if there were nothing badly amiss only two hundred miles to the north. People thronged the sidewalks, going about their business, carrying umbrellas to deflect the light drizzle that had come in from the west. From a second-story teashop window, Johnny took some pictures of the hundreds of water-glistened umbrellas, as they jostled this way and that.

  Uncle Louie decided to stay at the hotel that evening, complaining of sore feet from all the walking they’d done. And he wanted to write a letter to his girlfriend, Flo, back in Zenith.

  Johnny persuaded Mel and Nina to go with him to a musical production of Captain Justice and the Hawkmen, in Royalton’s famed theater district. The show let out at eleven o’clock. Johnny had been utterly enthralled. To see the captain and the chief of the Hawkmen flying around the stage on wires, battling away while singing splendid tunes—well, he’d remember it forever.

  The trio emerged out onto the sidewalk with all the other theatergoers. The rain had stopped, but everything was glinting and glittering with the dampness. Colorful theater marquee lights blinked and winked up and down the street.

  “I figured out a shortcut back to the Chelmsford,” Johnny announced, when they finally got away from the crush of people.

  “Well, then,” Nina said, “let’s go.”

  Mel shrugged. “Lead on, Mr. Graphic.”

  As Johnny set off, Mel turned and shouted back to the colonel and Sergeant Clegg, both mounted on their horses. The two dead soldiers had enjoyed the show hovering above the stage.

  Johnny led them at an energetic clip. They turned right, then left, into an empty flea market. They were almost to the end of it, practically within sight of Chelmsford Park, when the slender figure of a pretty, blonde woman walked by them.

  “Good evening, Mr. Graphic,” she said in a very quiet voice.

  And she was gone before Johnny had a chance to even say “Hello.”

  He had caught a brief glimpse of her face under one of the market’s weak gaslights. Where had he seen her before?

  He didn’t have much time to think about it. Because right then, three hulking figures loomed up in front of them, blocking their passage. Johnny didn’t have a good feeling about this.

  “C-c-can we do something for you?” he stammered.

  The three figures stood silently, not replying.

  Mel stepped in front of Johnny and Nina. “If you don’t mind, gentlemen, we need to get back to our hotel.”

  “I sure hope this isn’t a mugging,” Nina whispered into Johnny’s ear.

  Actually, it was much worse. A point made emphatic by the rusty axes the thugs withdrew from beneath their formless coats.

  That’s when the colonel and the sergeant trotted up on either side of Johnny, Mel, and Nina. The horse soldiers’ sabers made a metallic whishing noise as they came out of their scabbards.

  “What do you want?” Johnny hoped his voice didn’t give away how scared he was.

  One of the interlopers threw back its hood and revealed a dark, leathery face that looked a thousand years old.

  That’s when it struck Johnny. Like two hammer blows.

  The woman he’d just seen was Pamela Worthington-Smythe. Percy Rathbone’s special friend and co-conspirator. The face in the floatplane door on Old Number One three months ago.

  And these fiends blocking his way had to be bog zombies!

  Pamela must have been spying on Johnny and his companions. Percy Rathbone might even be around here somewhere.

  Johnny was jolted out of his very brief paralysis by a most welcome voice.

  “Master Johnny, Commander, Miss Nina. Please move back. We’ll handle these characters.” Colonel MacFarlane’s voice was tinged with deep contempt.

  The colonel on Buck and Sergeant Clegg on his ghost horse clattered past the kids on the glistening cobblestones, toward the approaching brutes. The two cavalrymen briefly made eye contact. The colonel nodded and they charged.

  In a few heartbeats, they were on top of the bog zombies, their blades flashing in the dimly lit flea market.

  The zombies fought back with their axes. Johnny was horrified to hear the terrible scream of Sergeant Clegg’s horse when one of those rusty weapons grazed its flank. The sergeant tumbled off his saddle and lost his saber. But he quickly pulled out what he called “my Old Equalizer,” the double-barreled, sawed-off shotgun that he wore on his right thigh.

  As one of the three zombies charged him, Clegg hoisted the gun and fired.

  The zombie’s head blew to pieces. A ghost popped out of the leathery body as it sagged to the cobblestones. It was a Steppe Warrior, though not one that Johnny recognized. The ghost came at Clegg, sword drawn. The sergeant recovered his saber just in the nick of time, and the two ghosts slashed away at each other. Oddly enough, the bog body seemed to shrivel and shrink.

  “We have to get out of here,” Johnny yelled, his adrenaline pumping. “The colonel and Clegg can take care of things.”

  “No argument here,” Mel snapped back.

  Nina groaned. “That man’s head exploded!” Without her etheric goggles, she hadn’t seen what caused the ghastly sight. “Oh, maaaan… Here we go again!”

  The three young people pivoted around and ran in the opposite direction from the fight. They were almost to the end of the old flea market, when two more hulking figures appeared out on the cross street, blocking their way. Behind them, cackling with laughter, stood Pamela.

  They were trapped.

  The two monsters trotted toward them with un-zombie-like briskness, their terrible features hidden by their hoods.

  Johnny desperately looked around for some kind of weapon, anything that could slow the zom
bies down. All he saw was a loose cobblestone by the brick wall to his left. Well, it was something, anyway. When he plucked it up, he noticed a nearby shop. A hardware store, its dusty windows full of implements and tools. He lifted the rough, rectangular stone and heaved it through one of the windows, making a loud percussion of broken glass.

  “Are you nuts?” Nina looked shocked.

  Johnny shook his head violently. “Something to fight with.” He pointed at tools inside the smashed window. “Just don’t cut yourself on the glass.”

  He darted over and grabbed a sturdy shovel with a sharpened point. Then he jumped nearly a foot in the air when the roar of another shotgun blast filled the flea market. He turned quickly and saw a second bog zombie slump to the pavement, releasing another ghost—some kind of medieval knight.

  Sucking in a huge gulp of damp air, Johnny turned back to face the two zombies at his end of the flea market. Instead of waiting for them to attack, he bolted toward one of them.

  He hefted the shovel and positioned it over his shoulder.

  Before the bog zombie could lift its axe, Johnny swung the shovel like some big-league home-run hitter.

  The edge of the shovel blade caught the creature on the left side, making a meaty thunk. Johnny hopped backward, thinking it best to stay out of range of that nasty-looking axe.

  The zombie stood there, appearing only slightly dazed. It threw back its hood, revealing a face out of a nightmare. Dark as old leather, oddly contorted, with a large dent above its squashed left ear. It stared at Johnny with dead black eyes. The thing seemed rather annoyed with him.

  Meanwhile, out of the corner of his eye, Johnny could see that Mel was holding her own—having had the good luck to find a length of steel pipe in the shop window. She was parrying her bog zombie’s blows and keeping it safely away.

  For her part, Nina had simply ducked into a doorway, out of sight.

  Johnny was about to take another whack at his bog zombie, when someone shouted from out on the street.

  “Oy there! What’s this all about?”

  Startled, both Johnny and his foe glanced to see who it was.

  There stood a Royalton policeman, in his dark-blue uniform and peculiar high-domed helmet. The red-bearded copper had his wooden baton in hand, and looked like he was willing to use it.

  Johnny was the first to respond. “These, these…”

  He suddenly shut up, because he wasn’t supposed to mention “zombies” to anyone.

  Instead, he hollered, “These people attacked us, officer!”

  The policeman gasped, having now seen the oddly shriveled bodies sprawled at the far end of the flea market. Johnny got the impression that the man could not see the colonel or the sergeant. The policeman yanked out his alarm whistle and began blowing on it. The piercing tone of the thing must have carried for blocks.

  Pamela had already vanished. The zombies that Johnny and Mel had been fighting also dashed away, as did the remaining creature that the colonel and Clegg were closing in on.

  For a long moment, the policeman couldn’t take his eyes off the defunct zombies sprawled on the cobblestones. Then he turned to Johnny, Mel, and Nina, glaring.

  “I think you young people are going to have an awful lot of explaining to do.”

  Chapter 7

  Wednesday, January 29, 1936

  Gilbeyshire, Royal Kingdom

  Johnny was picnicking with his parents on a rocky beach on Great Lake. They were all laughing and talking and having a fine old time. Suddenly, without so much as a word, Mom and Pop began to walk up the shore. Johnny tried to follow, but he was caught in something like quicksand. He shouted for them to stop and help him. But they paid no attention. They continued to amble into the distance, growing smaller and smaller and smaller.

  “Pop!” he panted. “Mom! Don’t go!”

  Someone grabbed him by his left shoulder and shook him. The lake scene dissolved away. When he opened his eyes, Nina was sitting next to him, still holding his shoulder and looking mildly worried. Johnny realized he was in the backward-facing seat of the Gorton’s company town car, heading for Dame Honoria’s estate. Through the back window he saw the colonel and his troopers galloping behind the vehicle.

  Nina peered at him. “Johnny, you were having a bad dream.”

  He rubbed his eyes with his knuckles. “Well, it wasn’t bad until the end.” He blinked out onto the rolling landscape of Gilbeyshire, green and fertile under a light overcast. “How long till we get there?”

  Uncle Louie was sitting opposite Johnny, next to Mel. “Shouldn’t be long now, kiddo.”

  It was only mid-morning, but Johnny was exhausted. They had spent the better part of the night in a locked room at Moorland Yard, the Royal Kingdom’s national police headquarters. For several hours, it seemed they were under suspicion of killing two unidentified people, whose heads had been blown off in the Bixford Flea Market. Johnny was dying to tell the officials exactly what had happened, but he, Mel, and Nina had agreed that they should stay mum until someone came to help them. The whole business of the zombies was supposed to remain highly classified.

  The colonel and Clegg had stayed with them in jail all night, too, but they had been under strict orders from Mel to do nothing. They were in enough hot water as it was, without causing any further ruckus.

  It was almost breakfast time when Rex Ward finally showed up with an undersecretary from the Home Office, who ordered their release. According to Rex, the constable who had arrested them had been put on temporary leave of absence. He was told not to speak about the incident to a single soul. The authorities were indeed keeping the matter of bog zombies under wraps.

  Uncle Louie, who had fallen asleep early the night before, wasn’t even aware that the trio hadn’t made it back to the hotel, until the Home Office called his room at four a.m. He told Johnny he would have given anything to have been there when they were attacked. “Those bozos would have found out what a left hook and a right jab could do to their ugly mugs.”

  Johnny loved his uncle. But he didn’t think even a big strong guy like Uncle Louie could take on five reanimated bog men with axes.

  It sure was no coincidence that Pamela had shown up with the zombies at precisely the same time that Johnny, Mel, and Nina were walking to their hotel. She had known exactly where they were. She was Percy Rathbone’s number one helper—and girlfriend, too. And Johnny wouldn’t be surprised if the pair had spies all up and down the country.

  The last time Johnny had seen him, Percy had made it perfectly clear he despised the two Graphic siblings. Johnny couldn’t figure out why—he hadn’t even met Percy before the guy died on Okkatek Island, on the same trip where Johnny’s parents had disappeared. But for some reason, Dame Honoria’s son held a grudge against Mel and Johnny. And it was such an intense grudge that he wanted them dead.

  If things had turned out differently last night, Percy might have gotten his wish. And poor Nina would have been a victim, too.

  Everyone decided that it would be best to cut short the sightseeing and leave immediately for Dame Honoria’s country house, Wickenham. Now that Pamela and the bog zombies knew Johnny and Mel were in Royalton, they might well try to ambush them again. It would be safer out of the metropolis.

  Uncle Louie looked up from his copy of The Morning Standard. “Hey, look at this.” He folded the newspaper back on itself, and then folded it again before handing it to Johnny. He jabbed at a little four-inch story in the middle of the page.

  Johnny squinted at it. “It says that three foreign tourists were set upon in the Bixford Flea Market by ruffians. They defended themselves, and two of the five criminals died. The other three escaped.”

  Nina took a look at it, too. “Well, it’s not inaccurate. It just doesn’t tell the whole story. The whole story would read, ‘Two creepy bog men get their heads blown off.’”

  Johnny nodded. “That would make a better headline.” But he knew if word of the bog zombies leaked out, there could be ma
ss hysteria and panic. It was important sometimes to protect the public from the hard facts, he supposed.

  Everyone in the back of the limousine was quiet for a moment. Out of nowhere came a ferocious growl.

  A little embarrassed, Johnny shrugged. “Sorry, that was my stomach. Kinda hungry, I guess. Haven’t eaten since before the show.”

  All of a sudden Nina sat up straight. “Look, look! Is that it, Mel?”

  “Yes, it is,” Mel answered. “The Gorton family home. I still remember it from when I was little, almost thirteen years ago.”

  Finally, Johnny thought, leaning over Nina to see. He caught his breath. Wow!

  There stood Wickenham, crowning a verdant hill just a mile or so to the southeast. It was constructed of cream-colored stone, with a broad central section and two wings. Dame Honoria had once told Johnny that it had been built over two hundred years ago.

  The sprawling old mansion had special meaning for Johnny. It was in a room upstairs where he had been born twelve-and-three-quarters years ago. It was sure a lot niftier place to get born than Zenith General Hospital.

  A few minutes later, the limousine pulled up in front of the mansion’s broad entry staircase. Dame Honoria was waiting for them, along with a dozen or so servants—all lined up, as if for military review. Maids and pages and butlers and cooks. Some of them were alive and some were ghosts.

  Everyone piled out of the automobile and climbed the stairs up into the big country house. Johnny was even more impressed when he set foot in the grand foyer full of statuary and paintings. There were lots of battle scenes and bare-chested ladies. How could you walk around here without stopping to look at artwork all the time?

  “Now, before we have our lunch, I think we should gather in the library,” Dame Honoria announced. “I want to hear everything that has happened.” Leading them across the grand foyer, she glanced over her shoulder at Johnny, Mel, and Nina. “I understand you had quite an interesting stroll back from the theater last night.”

  Now that was an understatement, if ever Johnny had heard one.

  The library was on the main floor corridor to the left of the foyer, and was just as impressive, in its own way. Books were shelved from floor to ceiling. There must have been ten thousand of them. And several folding banquet tables had been set up in the center of the room. They held a number of boxes filled with papers and books, which Dame Honoria explained had belonged to Percy. Every scrap was to be gone through, looking for clues. That was going to be a heckuva job. Johnny didn’t envy Dame Honoria and Mel the task.