Hardy Detective Agency featuring Hardy Boys Fan Fiction

A/N: The words in bold is the disjointed thoughts of one of the victims in the gingerbread house. The rest of the normal prints were the Candyman and the other 12 victims. This chapter might be a bit confusing, but it is written for mood rather than for reason, and outline what was happening in the house.

CHILDREN OF THE GINGERBREAD HOUSE

He sat there alone and dreamed of his sister. He sat there smiling as he imagined himself seeing his sister again. And while the Candyman dreamed, the Children of the Gingerbread House ran and sat and screamed.

oooooo

There were glimpses of events that made no sense.

She lost her. How could she, when she promised to look after her always? But she lost her, her baby sister. She could not deny it.

Now she was searching. She had been searching a long while now.

She had no idea how long she had been searching, but she knew it had been a long while.

Exhausted. She was totally exhausted.

She was giving up. She knew she shouldn’t, but she was giving up. She had given everything and had nothing left in her. That was when she heard that voice in her head whispering sibilantly: “Come my child, allow me…”

A red haired woman, stumbling from room to room searching, always searching, till her bright green eyes turned dull…

He failed.

He choked back a sob as he stumbled on and on. It did not matter anymore where he was heading. It did not matter anymore where the others were. Someone he cared for very much was dead and it was his fault. It was his bright idea and it failed and he died. He loved him and he killed him with his so-called perfect plan. It was his fault.

It was his failure and it was his fault. That thought reverberated in his mind, obliterating all else. Nothing else mattered to him anymore.

Tears blinded him as he continued forward until he walked smack into something hard and cool. He stopped to stare uncomprehendingly at it for a moment. Something from that silvery surface called out to him. Something in that silvery surface beckoned to him. He peered into the silvery lightness and gasped. He pressed harder against the surface and was delighted to see a pair of familiar blue eyes set against the background of a familiar house beckoning to him.

The silvery surface shimmered, and he pushed through to grab his beloved brother in a bear hug. He was home with his loved ones and he was happy to stay there for a long, long time.

A dark haired and dark eyed lad, stepping away from a mirror with blank eyes…

She thought she’d put all those memories behind her, but somehow they surfaced again. Those spirits were coming for her for vengeance.

She said she would replace that damaged part. But she forgot. She forgot and there was an accident. People died.

They told her it was an accident, but she knew.

She knew.

She saw shadows coming from the walls towards her. The shadows were coming for her. Her elder sister could not protect her this time. She scrambled into a corner and curled into a ball to protect herself. It did not work.

The shadows crowded in on her. There was nowhere for her to run. There was nowhere for her to hide. The shadows were all around her.

She screamed.

In the midst of an ancient forest, an edible Gingerbread House glows eerily in the pale moonlight…

Terror was coursing through him.

He could hear terrified screams from the other side of the door. That was his sister screaming for him. He redoubled his efforts to break down the walls. He kicked; he threw his full weight against the door. He thought he might have broken his shoulders but he ignored his pain his blue eyes bright with unshed tears and continued kicking. The door held.

Soon, the screams stopped. The silence was so much scarier.

He continued to work on the door. He continued yelling for his sister to hang on.

A long while later, totally spent, he sank slowly onto the ground, too tired even to cry.

There was a little girl with big bright teary eyes, in a strange dress, waving desperately to her brother…

She was panting for breath. She was being pulled down a long corridor by her brother. She was really too tired to run but her brother was urging her on. So she gritted her teeth and focused on putting her feet one before the other.

They were being chased. Something was chasing them. That something was not what she wanted to think about at the moment. She kept her eyes on her brother and just ran.

Then suddenly…

He knew he was sleeping, so he must be dreaming, and those disturbing images disturbed his thoughts…

He remembered there was a point in time when he was scared. He remembered there was a point in time when he could feel panic rising. That was when he was racing from room to room to room, trying to find a way out. That was when there was desperation in him still. He remembered that feeling of desperation. How the sense of despair slowly crept up upon him and before he knew it, everything about him seemed so hopeless.

He knew he was never going to see home again.

He closed his eyes and imagined he was home, working and sweating in the arid heat, his dark curls matted and dusty, sticking uncomfortably to his forehead…

Tired, he was tired and so he let those glimpses flash on as he let himself be led back deeper into dreamland…

She was wandering aimlessly from room to room.

It was always the same. In one door, and out through another. In one door, and out through another. And again, in one door, and out through another.

She was weary. She wanted to be, for awhile, a damsel in distress. She felt like just sitting down somewhere and bawling her heart out. She stifled a sob and angrily swiped away her tears. Tears were useless in this case.

“I am with the police academy, dammit! And nothing’s gonna stop me from graduating!” She muttered grimly out loud as she forced herself to stand up again and to continue moving.

Before him was a dark haired girl with the sweetest smile…

The walls were closing in on him. He could feel the walls closing in on him.

Please, Lord, let me find a way out… He prayed as he stumbled through yet another door into another room.

He could not help but notice that each room seemed to be getting smaller and smaller over time. Or was that his own mind playing tricks on him? He didn’t know. He didn’t know!

He knew one thing and one thing only. He needed to get out. And soon. Before his own mild case of claustrophobia overtook whatever was left of his good sense and left him a whimpering child.

Or worse.

He struggled to breathe as the rooms grew ever smaller. Then there, finally! A window at the end of the corridor! Sunlight! He could see blessed sunlight! He crawled towards it. Was it his imagination or was the window shrinking before his eyes? He crawled faster, and faster still. He ignored the pain in his arms and his hands. He gave all he had, but it wasn’t enough. The window shrank and shrank into nothingness before his eyes.

The tears were streaking uncontrollably down his cheeks as he clawed wildly at the brown sticky walls. He gasped for air. He choked. It wasn’t long before dark spots appeared in front of his eyes. He could hear cackling laughter as the dark spots grew ever bigger, obliterating his sight.

He did not even have a chance to scream.

Was he walking? Yes, he was dreamily following a dark haired youth before him. They just came out of a room together…

The three of them sat facing each other in an empty room; two females and one male. Each was trying to be brave but each could see the barely concealed fear in the other’s eyes.

“We have to keep moving,” said the light haired female, her voice quivering just a little.

The male nodded in agreement as he fought to repress a shudder. “No point waiting here and starving to death…”

“We have to find a way out before HE comes back,” the dark haired female mumbled desperately as she stared at the other two. “I cannot take any more…” She crumbled. “I can’t stand it; the smell, the music, the endless doors…”

The other two stared helplessly at each other. They had just lost possibly their best chance, they knew. They had made a concerted attempt to get out of the House, and had failed. Failed miserably, and now there were only three of them. That was all they could remember. Those two brothers were good; they were just like their fathers. But the house knew. The house knew and picked them off first. First the younger, then the elder. And soon it would be their turn…

“But damned if IT thinks that I am going down without a fight,” the male swore. Turning to the other two, he told them in a firm voice, “Come on, we have to keep on trying. As long as we are still breathing, we have to keep on trying. It is as the brothers said; all it takes is one of us getting out and we win…remember? All it takes is one of us getting out and the House loses…”

‘Bloody meaningless philosophical BS. but you know what, Frank? It works…’ the male mused tiredly as he watched the dark haired female pick herself up and follow him towards a door…

He missed the fact he remembered a name.

How strange, to be sleeping and yet walking. He must be sleepwalking. Yes, that’s a logical conclusion, he mused. Then he wondered who the woman in that room was…

He was running.

He ran from room to room.

He had been running for a long time now. How long he remembered not, but it was a long time. So long he could not remember why he ran.

He could not even remember who he was.

Did that matter? he asked.

Who was he asking? he questioned.

Someone, he answered.

Someone who? He wondered.

He slowed to a stop.

Why was he running? He asked again.

He was going to someplace, he decided.

Yesss.... Something whispered to him.

He tilted his head to one side and strained to hear beyond the soft music playing in the background beneath the background.

You’re almost there…a sweet sing-song voice called out enticingly to him.

He looked up and saw a door before him. It was different from all the other doors. This door was a beauty. It shimmered and shimmered with colors and shadows. It opened and he walked through.

It was a large and spacious room. It was an empty room. There were strange markings on the floor. No, it was not truly empty. There was something at the end of the room. He walked to the end of the room and peered into the silvery surface. He saw a set of wild blue eyes staring back at him. But wait; there was something else beyond those two eyes. He stared harder into the silvery mist and he saw.

Twelve faces looked back at him, eyes pleading and mouths wide open.

He stared at them and then touched each of the faces in wonderment.

He was their Judas. He helped lead them there, directly or indirectly. How, he remembered not. But he remembered that at some point in time he was with some of them. He cared about them, helped protect them, but unbeknownst to them he led them there, one by one. He was their Judas, and soon, they’d all be Judases too.

One face stood out from the others. He recalled bemused a young serious face with wavy brown hair and soft brown eyes. It was the face of the last person he led there. He shrugged. Soon, he would forget that face, like the others before. It would become just another silvery face staring back at him, haunting his dreams.

He was damned, he knew. Somehow he could not dredge up the need to care what that really meant. But he saved all of them. Again, those few words meant nothing to him.

Who could save him now? he wondered without feeling.

A sound behind him alerted him.

He spun around and saw a strange man standing there by the door. The man was holding out something for him. He walked up to him and saw that it was a large red and white lollipop with a word written on it in black scrawling script.

The Thirteen

He took it and followed the strange man out of the door. And at the back of his mind, he heard a haunting tune. The musical words were a joy to his burdened soul:

The Candyman can

‘Cause he mixes it with love

And makes the world feel good

And the world feels good ‘cause

The Candyman says it should…

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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.