hardy boys fan fiction

RAGING WATER RESCUE
hardy boys nancy drew fan fiction
by

CQB & AAR-BEAR

Chapter 2

hardy boys fan fiction

THE CHAPTERS

INTRO

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

As soon as the girls were on their way, Joe began trudging along the swollen water as fast as he could.  He knew Frank and he knew his brother, like himself, was a survivor.  

“He’ll fight the water,” Joe encouraged himself. “He’s probably clinging to a tree or a floating log somewhere.”  

At one point, the ground became too unstable for Joe to go on.  He had to leave the water’s edge and move back onto the trail.  Keeping the rushing water sound to his left, Joe began jogging rapidly on the much more solid ground along the trail.  

* * *

Frank had felt himself slip into the icy cold water and was amazed at how it grabbed him.  The current was even stronger than he imagined.  

He tumbled around in the dark, murky water, not able to tell where the surface was.  ‘Float,’ he told himself, hoping that his body would move toward the surface.  

Just when he thought his lungs would burst, his shoulder hit something.  Frank reached up and grabbed the object, pulling himself upwards.  

He hung on to the large tree trunk, gasping for breath.  Looking around, Frank had no clue how far he had traveled.  He looked down the raging water ahead of him, but saw no escape from the torrent.  

As the brown waves tossed him around the bend, Frank saw the water ahead divide.  If he could steer his log toward the smaller ribbon of water, he might be able to climb out.  

Frank kicked frantically, pushing with all his strength toward the smaller fork in the water.  “Yes,” he cheered as his log veered off, out of the main steam of water.  

Exhausted by the effort, Frank put his head down and closed his eyes for a minute.  

* * *

Joe looked ahead through the trees and almost did a dance for joy.  On the path ahead was an old wooden bridge that crossed the flooded creek.  

As he neared the structure, Joe felt certain that Frank would have found a way to grab onto one of the bridge supports.   

Joe stepped hesitantly on the bridge.  It groaned and creaked beneath his feet, shifting slightly.  Biting his lip, Joe backed off the bridge.  He wouldn’t be able to help Frank if the bridge fell in and him with it.  

He retrieved the rope he’d used earlier for Callie and tied it to a sturdy tree.  The other end he secured around his waist.  He took off his backpack and set it beside the anchor tree.  

“Hang on, big brother,” Joe said as he stepped onto the bridge again, “I’m on my way.”  

* * *

“I’m gonna check on the sandbags,” George Curtis told his mother as he stepped out the front door.  James jumped up and followed his older brother out the door.  

Grace Curtis smiled.  She was glad her sons were close to each other.  They really needed each other, since their Pa died four years earlier.  

“I’m very lucky, I guess,” Grace said softly to herself, “I don’t know two brothers that get along as well as my boys.”  

George moved through the soaked grass to the sandbags that were now keeping the swirling brown water at bay.  He decided they’d better add another layer of bags to be safe.  

James seemed to read his mind and started for the shed, pulling the wheelbarrow with him.  They quickly loaded the wheelbarrow and mounted the bags on top of the ones already in place.  

They were ready to go back inside, when James noticed something floating along the river.  He squinted and studied the large tree trunk carefully, his eyes growing wide.  

“We need our boat, quick!”  

George glanced to where his brother had been looking and saw a young man laying unconscious across a floating log.  He raced to the side of the house and heaved their small outboard boat toward the muddy water.  

Grace glanced out the window to see what was taking the boys so long.  Her heart dropped to her stomach as she watched them push their fishing boat into the swirling flood.

Her eyes followed their every movement as she ran to the porch. She watched them saddle up beside a dead tree that was floating past.  Grace saw them lift a body from the tree and place it in their craft.  

She knew the boys wouldn’t be able to fight the raging current.  They wouldn’t try to come back upstream.  Instead, they would continue down stream to where the original creek bed was wider.  The water would be slower there and much easier to navigate through.  There, they would make shore and help the flood victim they had found.  

Grace ran to the old station wagon behind the house.  The old engine coughed to life and she headed down the road, pulling over and parking as close to the flooded valley as she dared.  

The boys had already grounded their boat.  George pulled the unconscious man into a fireman’s carry while James pulled the boat up and wrapped the anchor around a tree.  

The boys saw their mother’s car and hurriedly, they scrambled towards it.  

* * *

Joe cautiously crawled along the upstream side of the bridge, looking for any sign of Frank.  If Frank had made it this far, Joe knew he would try to grab onto the bridge somehow.  Joe carefully checked each support, each joist for Frank’s dark hair or yellow rain poncho.  

When he reached the far end of the creaking structure, Joe’s heart was heavy.  There was no sign of his brother.  

Taking a deep breath, the 17-year-old Hardy brother wasn’t about to give up.  He began checking the opposite side of the bridge just as methodically.  

Something caught the blond teenager’s attention and Joe quickly shifted his weight to reach between the railings.  He snagged the dark object in his right hand.  

As he began lifting it, Joe instantly recognized Frank’s backpack, but before he could even think about what its discovery meant, the bridge shifted with a sickening crunch.  

With his arms still through the railings and his hands still clinging to the backpack, Joe found himself tumbling into the raging water head first.  

The railings were pulled away from the bridge by the torrent of water and Joe felt as if his arms were being ripped from their sockets.  He let go of the backpack and kicked his feet off of the disintegrating bridge.  Joe broke the surface of the brown water and gasped for precious oxygen.   

The water was pushing hard against him, as were pieces of the bridge, but they weren’t moving down stream.  

‘The anchor rope!’ Joe realized.  Joe quickly weighed his options.  If he stayed put, the girls might eventually come this way with help.  On the other hand, to get out on his own, he’d have to remove the rope from his waist and possibly be pulled away by the rushing current.  

Feeling the chill of the water already getting to him through his soaked clothing, Joe opted for the second choice.  He couldn’t get back on the trail side of the water, but if he could tie his end of the rope to this part of the bridge that was already stuck, he could crawl across it to the other bank.  

Teeth chattering, Joe managed to unknot the rope and fasten it to one of the supports.  He then climbed on the precarious structure and began moving toward the bank of the flood.  As he neared the end of what was left of the bridge, he jumped the four feet across the water’s edge to the soft ground beyond it, rolling as he landed.  

Joe sat up and watched, just as the rope snapped and the bridge was pulled into the rapidly moving water.  He glanced longingly at his backpack, now on the other side of Dutchman Run.  

The full impact of the situation threatened to come crashing down on him.  He was stranded with no supplies.  He was physically and emotionally drained.  He was wet and cold. But most of all, he was sure his brother…his best friend and partner, was dead.

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