The Haunted Shield
1
Don Hannigan strolled through the crowds on the street, whistling to himself. His brown suit was a little more tattered, his tie a little more holey, but he was still the same ghost that had he had been when he had started to haunt Church Hill in the forties. He should have passed on like others do, but he enjoyed his unique existence.
Hannigan had even been an unknown member of the Guardians of Justice during the second world war. It pained him that his comrades had retired for the most part after the conflict had ended. Only Nightmare and the Blinker had kept up the good fight after Joe McCarthy's HUAC had named heroes as un-American. Others had taken the Guardians' place, but they were the first to try and make a difference.
Hannigan had always loved Church Hill. He regretted that he had never found the right girl, started a family, before he died. Sometimes he imagined what it would be like to have a son, or daughter, roam the streets with him.
You missed a lot of things when you were dead. That was the biggest drawback to the whole thing, unless you counted not being able to move to your next incarnation. You had to want to let go for that, and Hannigan wasn't about to do it.
Hannigan gave the people he passed through chills as he leisurely floated down the walk. He smiled, glad that so many could feel his ectoplasm and respond to it.
Hannigan decided to hit the mall, and girl watch for a bit. He was semi-retired, so didn't go looking for trouble like he used to do when he first died. He had mellowed a little he supposed.
Maybe he was suffering a burnout from being a ghost. He could just go to his final reward and take his judgement. He was sure he could get into heaven. He hadn't really done anything bad when he was alive, and the need for vengeance and justice had been dealt with long ago.
Hannigan shook off the morbid thoughts with a shrug of his shoulders and a smile for the unseeing world. He wasn't ready for everlasting peace and harmony when he could still take an interest in what was going on around him.
2
Another ghost walked the streets of Church Hill. It wasn't as coherent as Hannigan, remaining a column of air that rotated invisibly as it drifted through the people who came in contact with it. Sometimes it wanted to be released so bad, but found that no matter what it did, it still remained in the living world.
This was the ghost of Jack Buckler.
Jack had found an incantation during World War II while still a living reporter. It made him stronger, faster, and tougher. He ran into a monster and was killed in action. Only he found himself in this half state between life and death. He could influence the living enough to bond with a host and still protect the city as Johnny Shield.
Sometimes that wasn't enough.
Sometimes he wanted to touch things when he wasn't fighting. He wanted to walk the streets without the obligation of returning his body to the person he had possessed. He wanted to interact with people without his mask cutting off his ability to talk.
The swirling air paused in its path. It seemed to swell, then contract in a sigh. He had chosen to be a hero, had put his life on the line, and lost. He still continued, and still did what he could. Everything else was a longing that he knew would never happen.
It was better to be a semi-immortal than a dusty memory.
Still it would be nice to be really alive without the glamour he used. One day would be almost enough for him to really take in things, talk to someone, maybe even drag race one more time.
Or it could just make his situation all the more intolerable when his day finally ran out. He would be worse off than he was now.
Maybe he should look for some trouble. All of this thinking was depressing him to no end.
3
Something shifted beneath Church Hill. It was a small movement akin to a sleeper rolling over in bed. A small bubble formed, popped, and something floated toward the surface.
It had been imprisoned for so long, sleeping deeply. The emotional vibrations it felt were enough to keep it on a starvation diet. Every now and then, it wanted more but its condition kept it from taking an active hand, so to speak, in feeding itself.
Every now and then, a dream split off and headed to the surface. That would stir up the ants, which would cause them to make more food for it, which would allow it to enjoy its sleep.
Sleep was a comfort to it after so many years. The last time it had walked the surface, men were still monkeys. Reality bent to its whims. Then the Shining Ones engaged in battle with it. They devised a prison that it could not escape, and imposed an eternal slumber to keep it from testing its bonds.
Still it dreamed, and sometimes its dreams took on a personality of their own when they touched the waking world outside of the cell. Once they became real, it could no longer see them, or feel them with its imprisoned mind.
That also meant that the dreams would be able to express its rage and loneliness without any other emotion, or calculation. The realized dream would be a monster of destruction let loose on the waking world. It would be up to the monkeys above to try and stop its dream.
If it had been awake, it would have deprived amusement from the situation.
It turned, rolling over in its sleep. It twisted around like a dog settling on a cushion. Its mind drifted to other places, other times, dreaming of events that didn't happen, never could happen, or happened in ways unthought of by the inhabitants of those worlds.
It couldn't change those things, couldn't do anything real but watch in its sleep. Still it learned things from the mites that lived in those places like a scientist that studied a virus to learn how to exterminate it as efficiently as possible. Someone would learn how to move things where they should be to open the door to its prison. Then it would dream no more.
Until then it would sleep and try to enjoy its dark cage as much as it could while dreaming of events that were beneath its notice when it was awake.
4
Don Hannigan, the Haunter, felt the vibration without knowing what it really meant. He had been a ghost for a long time and knew when unnatural forces had been called into play. It was a tugging on his ectoplasm first, then vast chills, then a feeling of dread.
He had gotten these feelings when he had gotten close to things ghosts were not meant to know. That was bad news in his book.
Don flew upwards, scattering birds to flight with his chilly passage. When he was high enough to see most of the city without interference, he spotted the origin of his bad feeling. It didn't make him feel better with the discovery.
Smoke streamed from the mouths of people on the street not far from the giant clock that overlooked Church Hill. The black cloud grew as the bystanders fell to the sidewalk. It could almost be a poison gas attack, but Hannigan knew he was the only who knew what was going on.
The smoke was really ectoplasm, the stuff of spirits, and something was stealing life from the living to produce the growing mushroom he was watching in disbelief. Limbs expanded from the still forming body of the thing as the Haunter plunged forward in hopes of trying to stop it. The comatose victims could die with that much of their lives stolen without warning. He had to do something to stop the theft.
He just didn't know what.
Don plunged through solid obstacles with the speed of thought. The thing turned a leering expression at him as it hulked invisibly over the material world. Eyes of lantern light turned to follow something on the ground. It stomped after whatever had drawn its interest.
Don decided that maybe a ram would get its attention back on him, and not on the innocents in the way. The city couldn't afford to have a spirit monster suck all the life from its citizens, nor could any of its normal protectors stop this thing if they got close to it.
It was up the former Guardian to do whatever he could to take back the ectoplasm it had stolen as best that he could. There was no one else that could help him.
5
Johnny Shield winced at the giant black cloud that formed a thing of dinosaur proportions in the middle of Church Hill. It was five, or six, blocks over, but its influence made him cringe when he saw it towering behind a building. He realized it was made of ectoplasm as he started forward to get a better look.
Johnny floated through buildings to get a good look at his new opponent. He didn't like the fact that the living dropped like flies as the thing passed. It was sucking away their lives to give itself strength and size.
If he got too close, it would do the same thing to him twice as fast.
His body was nothing but ectoplasm, ghost stuff. He needed a body to fight that thing, and needed it quickly. The problem was everyone close by had already succumbed to its spell.
Johnny pulled himself ahead of the life sucker, and headed for the nearest still breathing body he could find. His shell should protect that person if he could get whomever he could get to say the incantation. He could feel a clock running down as he saw a guy staring in fear at the pedestrians hitting the sidewalk. Johnny put his indistinct hand in the man's chest, urging the new patsy to say the chant that would join them.
Johnny Shield flexed gloved fingers again as he tried to decide what to do. He only had to buy a little time before the Leaguer, or Jack Dragon, showed up to deal with this mess. The double man looked around for something he could use as a distraction. His faceless mask froze when he saw an idling dump truck, the driver slumped over the wheel.
Johnny rushed to the truck, wrenching open the door. He placed the driver on the sidewalk out of the way. The silent avenger got behind the vehicle's wheel, and shifted into gear. He pressed the gas down. The wheels caught the asphalt as smoke rolled from the exhaust stack.
Hopefully the ghost monster was solid enough that a collision would knock it off balance.
6
The Haunter frowned as a dump truck flung itself across his path as he paused to get a bearing on the life stealer. He watched as the conveyance slammed into the ankle of the oozing monster at about forty miles per hour. The ghost was not surprised that the heavy Mack passed through the rippling flesh without slowing it down.
The surprise came when Johnny Shield landed light on his feet moments before he would have ridden the truck to his doom. As it was, he had to stagger away before his ectoplasm and the life force of his host had been sucked away to nonexistence.
"Physicality isn't going to help," said Hannigan to himself as he swooped down on the scene. "I need to think of something else."
"Hey kid!," Hannigan shouted as hard as he could. Sometimes he had problems communicating with the living. "Maybe you should take off while I think of some way to save the day."
Johnny Shield shook his head, either to clear it, or to give a negative answer. The ghost wasn't sure which. The silent avenger straightened, flexing his hands, and working his neck with a crackling.
"You can hear me?," said the Haunter.
Johnny nodded.
"Are you going to take off?," Hannigan asked, hovering over the street, watching the progress of the mass destruction engine.
Johnny shook his head.
"All right," said Hannigan. "We can't hit him with our hands, and physical stuff. We need something that works on the ethereal plane, something like electricity, or extreme gravity. You know what I am saying?"
A nod answered the question. The double man headed for a building, using a fire escape to get to the roof. Even with the protection of a body, he had almost been taken apart. He couldn't get close again if he wanted to continue his strange existence.
A long range weapon was the thing he needed, but he couldn't see any way to build one as he used the roofs to survey the carnage left in the wake of the ectoplasm monster.
7
Don Hannigan appeared on the roof top next to his new partner. It was obvious that he was looking for something they could use on the monster. The ghost didn't see anything himself.
He didn't see how he could generate a massive lightning bolt in the middle of the city when he had no bad weather, and couldn't control the weather. There had to be something he could do. All of these people would die without a solution to the problem.
That was unacceptable to the former accountant.
Too bad everything was underground in the tunnels along the subway.
Hannigan saw a spike of metal sticking out of a roof a few blocks away. If they could use that for a conductor, all they had to do was get some juice from somewhere. What would be ideal for that? Having a metal spike in the head wouldn't stop that monstrosity.
One step at a time.
He wasn't sure that he and the kid could even knock that tower down on their own.
"Hey, Johnny," The Haunter said. "What do you think about that tower over there?"
The silent avenger squinted at the metal antenna. He nodded in agreement. He turned and raced across the roofs, moving faster than their huge enemy. The double man had to get there first otherwise the trap would fail because the thing had already moved by.
Johnny Shield bounced to the other side of the street, leaping to the base of the antenna. He studied the oncoming ectoplasm as he pressed against the metal. He was strong, but not strong enough to budge the heavy lattice tower. The idea was a bust.
Johnny's eyes fell on the cables running into the metal tower. He had another idea. He didn't know if it would work. On the other hand, he didn't have anything to lose.
Johnny pulled the cables from the heavy tower, glad that sparks jumped when the ends danced in the air. That meant he had something he could use. He just needed something to carry the exposed ends where he wanted them to go.
Johnny looked around. An antenna floated to where he stood, the cross top pulled away. Maybe this will work after all.
The silent avenger took the metal pole from his ghostly colleague. He wrapped the two cables around the makeshift javelin. He didn't have as much reach as he wanted. That meant he would have to get close to the ectoplasm drainer.
This was going to be as dicey as anything he had ever done. He didn't want to lose his host and his existence, but that weighed little against the people dropping in the streets. It had to be done, and he was the only one who could do it.
Johnny Shield waited on the edge of the roof. His javelin was in his hand with the live wires secured from the metal. He hoped that the building current running through the cables would do the trick. It was his only hope at the moment.
Johnny waited as the ectoplasm monster made its way closer to where he stood with the antenna in his hand. He tried to relax as the thing approached. One wrong move and that would be it. He wasn't going into that dark night without company.
The monster rolled forward into Johnny's sights, not concerned with what a flea could do to it. It barely noticed the piece of metal jabbing into its face at the end of his throw. The electrical cords sank into its rubbery flesh without effort.
Nothing happened.
The silent avenger hastily looked around for something else that he could use. He had hoped the current in the two cords would do something. It was the only thing close to lightning he could procure.
"Looks like we're out of luck," said the Haunter.
Johnny shook his head, trying to think of something else. Those exposed cords should have done the trick.
"Would you look at that?," said the ghost at his elbow.
Ripples ran across the monster's face. The center was the javelin and its payload. Flakes drifted away from the cords. The pieces flew away from the shrinking ectoplasm monster, returning to their owners as fast as light.
"We need to lure it where there is a better aboveground source of electricity," said Hannigan, spectral hand rubbing a jaw. "Something we can drop on it a lot easier than this thing."
Johnny looked around. His blank eyes centered on a huge neon sign advertising a new movie coming to the city. It looked like it needed the amount of juice he was looking to use to his own advantage. All he needed was to get the monster there after he had made sure he could use it.
"You can't be thinking what I think you're thinking," the guardian of justice said. "There's no way either one of us could knock that down. We don't have the power."
Johnny grabbed the ghost, reaching into Hannigan before he could draw away. The Haunter found himself chanting something he couldn't remember. Then he was looking out through someone else's eyes.
"This had better be reversible, buddy," said the captured spirit.
Johnny ignored the phantom grumbling as he leaped across the skyline. The monster had taken a good hit before pulling loose from the javelin in its face. It lumbered after the more agile, faster triple man. That was what he expected and planned to use to his advantage.
Johnny landed next to the sign after using the surrounding buildings as a highway above the city's streets. The ectoplasm monster was right behind him, swinging a three-fingered fist at the silent avenger. The ghosts contained inside the sleeping host shuddered as the limb closed on them. That thing was draining their life forces without even touching them.
Johnny dodged back, waiting for the follow-up swing he knew was coming. The other hand spread its fingers to claw at him. He dropped back out of the way. Both ghosts noticed they were right beside the main power line feeding the large sign they wanted to use as a weapon.
Johnny waited patiently, his blue and red shell grimy from his efforts. His featureless mask hid any pain from the proximity of the creature. He knew he didn't have long, even with the Haunter joined with him.
This could be the end of both of their dead existences.
The ectoplasmic drainer swung with its long arm, the substance of its balled hand splashing against the brick wall beside Johnny as he got out of the way. It kept going, passing unhurt through that main cable. The silent avenger grabbed the power line, sinking into the skin of the thing. Blue gloved hands pulled the cable out of its socket in a shower of sparks. The end of the live wire hit the monster's hand and froze in midair as electricity joined it to the walking dream.
The spontaneously generated monster screamed, the sound cutting through those who could hear it. Glowing eyes glared at the silent avenger pulling himself away from its skin. The electricity coursing through its arm started separating its stolen lives away from it in an increasingly powerful storm of flakes looking for their rightful owners.
"We need to get out of here," said Hannigan, still hanging on in the piece of mind that he had been placed when Johnny had activated his chant to join them together.
Johnny nodded, dragging them clear. His face had been sealed away by his death, but his eyes were grinning as his bigger opponent shrank under the grip of its shock treatment. Some of the flakes touched him, and he knew that was stolen pieces returning to its owner.
Not bad for a guy killed fifty years ago by a hideous zombie cannibal. He hoped no one expected him to repeat this experience. One giant monster medium in a century was all that he wanted to deal with until he finally gave up the ghost and went to his reward in the next life.
"I couldn't have done better myself," said Hannigan, smiling. "Now let me loose."
Johnny reversed the joining, becoming three separate beings again. His host collapsed on the rooftop, stunned by how his flesh had been chewed on while his brain had been blacked out. The two ghosts saw a golden streak in the sky over head and knew they were no longer needed.
"Let's let the living take care of themselves for a while," the Haunter said. "I have to recharge after that."
The column that had once been Jack Buckler nodded in agreement.
epilogue
It slept in the cage created before such a thing as humanity decided to walk the face of the Earth. It dreamed of far places and near, no barrier able to stop the power of its mind's eye from simply watching the lesser creatures that were below it like bugs were below them.
It dreamed things that could wander at will, not bound by its restraints and closed cell.
Sometimes one of its creations met something that objected to its being. The dream occasionally took on a life of its own, protecting its integrity and self will. Sometimes it was destroyed by those that knew what it was, by the heroes that watched over their fellows like shepherds over their flocks.
Pain would turn the dream into a nightmare for the sleeper. It shuddered, trying to roll away from its torment but trapped by the special bonds trapping it in place. Its mind drifted deeper, sinking below the level of dreaming into a temporary blackness. It would be some time before it rose to the surface enough to dream something living into being again. The memory of its creation being electrocuted would stay with it for a long time, and it would remember the two ghosts responsible.
It couldn't touch them from its dark prison, but there were other creatures that could, if given the right opportunity. All it needed to do was wait until it could touch the waking world again with its thoughts. Then it could dream allies to its cause. Then it would have a certain measure of revenge against those roaming dead.
If its allies were blind enough, maybe it could arrange its freedom from its ancient hole. It could reshape the universes that it could reach with one thought. Everything would bow to it, and then it could defeat the Shining Ones, if they still existed, and spread beyond its stepping stone in all directions.
That was for the future.
Not even thoughts of revenge could keep its mind from hiding from the destruction of its servant by the dead men.