Joe woke to something cold on his brow. His head throbbed as he struggled to open his eyes. He found himself lying on the cold stone floor of the storeroom with Frank kneeling beside him with a wet dish cloth in his hand.

"Oh, why does my head hurt?" Joe moaned as he rolled onto his side with his hands to his head.

"Probably because you landed on your head!" Frank said as he patted his brother’s shoulder. "Are you okay?"

Joe squeezed his eyes shut for a moment and suddenly remembered what he’d seen. He gasped and lurched into a sitting position staring wildly at the door. Nothing was out of the ordinary.

Frank looked worriedly at Joe and tried to ease him to lie down again. "Perhaps I should call the doctor?" Frank began to stand up.

Joe tackled his brother around the knees and stopped him from going to the door. "Get me up and please don’t leave me in here by myself, Frank!" Joe pleaded as Frank regained his balance and gripped Joe under the arms, hauling him to his feet.

"You’re kind of freaking me out! What's going on, Joe?" Frank held his brother steady and lead them into the hallway. Joe was pale and shaky with his eyes huge and jumpy. Frank hadn't seen him like this since they were little kids.

At sixteen, not much scared Joe these days except too much homework, perhaps. Frank pushed Joe to sit at the kitchen table as he went back to the dishes. He’d listen when Joe was ready to talk. Right now he still looked to be in shock.

Frank busied himself with the dishes with the occasional glance over his shoulder at Joe who sat staring into space. The color returned to Joe's face and he calmed down as he stared at the familiar objects around the room.

"Frank, how old is this house? Do you know the history?" asked Joe suddenly as Frank put the last dish on the rack.

Frank wiped his hands and sat opposite his brother eyeing him curiously. "Well, Morgan told me it is about six hundred years old and used to belong to the castle that now lies in ruin a mile from this site. Morgan’s family have lived in it for the last four hundred years. I don’t know who lived here before that. Why do you want to know all this?" Frank asked as Joe blinked hard trying to take in all he was told.

"Just curious, that's all" Joe decided not to tell Frank what he saw thinking maybe it was just his imagination playing tricks on him. He took a deep breath and tried to snap out of his dreamlike state.

"Lets take a walk, I need to clear my head" said Joe as he stood up and pressed his fingers to his temples.

They strolled around the expansive grounds and ventured into the woods as the sun set. The boys were comfortable in the outdoors and loved going on hikes and camping.

Frank made a mental note of the way back through the trees as he walked alongside his brother and enjoyed the balmy air. They had only been house sitting for a week and so far it had been uneventful.

The village nearby was quaint with very friendly locals. They had ventured to the castle ruins and explored thoroughly.

The woods were dense and dark and seemed to take in hardly any light even in the brightest part of the day. The trees were old and grew close together with their gnarled roots jutting haphazardly through the soil.

As the sun vanished on the horizon, the wood became shrouded in a soupy blackness that made the boys come to a stop.

"I guess we should go back. I can hardly see a foot in front of me. It’s so dark!" said Joe as they turned to head back the way they came.

Frank suddenly froze in mid stride causing Joe to bump into him. Franks breath caught in his throat as he strained to listen to something that seemed to be waiting in the darkness around them. Joe peered over his brother’s shoulder and looked back the way they had come.

"What's wrong, Frank?" he whispered as his heart began to thump faster. Frank cocked his head and listened hardly daring to breathe.

The silence was deafening around them. From somewhere ahead he heard a barely audible snarl. Franks heart hammered in his chest and Joe gripped his shoulder sticking as close as possible to his older brother. Their eyes watered as they strained to penetrate the utter blackness before them.

A low growl rumbled somewhere ahead of them and two yellow eyes slowly blinked back from a few yards away. The rising moon briefly cast an eerie light through the ragged branches overhead revealing a large wolf-like creature creeping towards them through the trees.

 

The Hardy Boys belong to Simon and Schuster and the Stratemeyer Foundation. The Hardy Boys Fan Fiction authors of the Hardy Detective Agency have just borrowed them for an adventure or two. The authors promise to put the boys back when they are done with them. The authors do claim copyright to the original characters in this story. Please do not borrow original characters without express permission of the authors.