Hardy Detective Agency featuring Hardy Boys Fan Fiction

Frank looked up and gasped. There was no body. Joe had been right. Callie was gone. Shaking all over, he stood up and began pacing, almost hysterically. Joe sat on the floor where he had fallen, watching, worrying. He had never seen his brother lose control like this. Of course, nothing like this had ever happened before, either.

“Frank?”

“Something is definitly wrong with this place,” Frank said, to no one in particular. “I know…I know…I saw her. She was…” His voice cracked, but he cleared his throat and forced himself to continue. “She was…hanging…by her…and she…oh, Joe, it was horrible! And then that monster…it came…Joe, it was you!”

Joe stared at his older brother with a look that clearly said ‘You’re crazy’. “Frank, I’m not a monster. I’m your brother.”

“But, Joe, I told you…the thing that came for me. It told me…told me that I could never hurt it. I loved it too much. And it said that Callie got…got what she deserved. She was always ‘making me blow you off for her’ and ‘she didn’t like you’.” He saw a look of mild surprise and guilt mingling on Joe’s face and asked, “Joe? Do you really feel that way?”

Joe shook his head, smiling slightly, almost doubtfully. “No, of course not, Frank.” He changed the subject abruptly. “Do you know what I think?”

“What?”

“We need to get out of here.”

***

“I’m sorry, but you cannot get out of here.”

“What?” Joe glared at Betty, defiance in his eyes. They had just relived their horrific experience to her, and the whole time, her face had remained emotionless. “We can leave, and we will! We told you what just happened. And right now, we don’t even care how, we just need to get away!”

“What you saw was nothing,” Betty said slowly, her violet eyes cast downward.

Frank looked at her suspiciously. “What do you mean, nothing?”

“Fates far worse than you can imagine will await you if you leave now. Stay the night, and if you survive, you can go home in the morning.”

Joe looked at her, disbelieving. “What do you mean, if we survive?”

Betty did not answer, but glanced at the old grandfather clock propped against the living room wall. “It’s nearin’ midnight,” she said darkly. Frank didn’t know how she could have told, for the timepiece seemed to be broken; none of the hands—not even the second hand—were moving. “I sure hope Garret and Jared get home soon. I don’t want them to get caught out there by…him.”

“Okay, that’s it,” Joe said, losing control. “I want to know who ‘he’ is.”

“No, you don’t.” Betty was staring at the brothers with a look of pleading terror. “He doesn’t like to be known. He likes to work in secret, to plot seperately, so that when it is time…”

There was a banging on the door. Betty’s face paled. “It’s him.”

Backing away from the door, a sickening shock flooding over his body, Joe asked, “Couldn’t it just be your husband and brother?”

“No. They don’t do that. Only he does.”

Another bang. This time, Frank took a few steps back. “What should we do?”

Bang. Bang. Bang.

“Nothing,” Betty said. “Absolutely nothing.

***

He stood outside of the door, a grim smile forming on his mouth. He stopped pounding on the door. His job was done. For now. The woman knew he was here. Surely, she hadn’t told them anything. They weren’t supposed to know about him. That is, until they were on their knees, pleading for death.

***

The knocking stopped. “What was that about?” Frank asked, relieved that it was over. He didn’t know what had come over him and his brother; normally, they didn’t scare easy. But as soon as the first pounding noise reverbrated through the inn, they had been irrationally petrified.

“Would you like some dinner?”

“What?”

But Betty had already made her way into the kitchen, beginning to prepare a meal. Joe turned to his brother. “Something is very, very wrong here. First the visions. Then this. There is someone out there. I don’t know who—or what—it is, but I have a feeling we are in big trouble. And Betty is so strange—one minute, she’s talking about ‘him’, whoever ‘he’ is, and the next she’s offering us dinner and acting like nothing ever happened.”

“I know.”

There was a shuffling sound at the door. The boys glanced over to see a piece of paper slide under the door. Cautiously, they made their way to the exit and picked up the paper. Unfolding it, they saw two lines scrawled in nearly illedgible print, the paper splattered with a red substance that looked too much like blood.

“Read it,” Frank said.

Joe looked down, and in a low, hoarse voice, began to read, “’Where nightmares thrive. Where your fears come alive.’ What is that supposed to mean?”

The boys were so engrossed by the slip of paper that they did not notice Betty staring silently at them from the kitchen doorway. After she had listened to Joe read the first two lines of the poem aloud, she slipped back into the kitchen, a frigid fear clutching her heart.

It was happening. Again.

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Disclaimer

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.