Hardy Boys Fan Fiction at the HDA - Boardwalk Bust

Joe was down – I could sense that much. I was down too, but not out. I struggled to my feet and swung. Within seconds, my right fist plowed into something.

“Oof!” A large shape in front of me doubled over and I kicked hard at it.

But then I was jumped from behind – by not one, but two guys. The second one got his hands around my throat. I jabbed one of them in the stomach with my elbow and tried to wrestle the second guy off of me, but he wouldn’t budge.

Meanwhile the guy I’d managed to sucker punch got to his feet. He returned the favor, punching me in the stomach so hard, I thought I was going to lose my dinner.

I sank to the ground and felt a hard kick in my side. I tried to protect my face and make the rest of me as small a target as possible. I could barely make out their shadows and the vague thought of how they could see crossed my mind.

I curled up, pulling my knees up near my chin and rolled toward the water, hoping they were going by feel as well. But one of the guys yanked me to my feet and rope was wrapped around my hands. The guy was busy tying my hands behind my back when I heard a painful grunt.

“Let go of my brother.”

My hands were now tied too tightly for me to help. The other guys teamed up against Joe and after a short scuffle there was just some heavy breathing and the rasp of rope.

“Should I bash their heads in?” one of our attackers asked.

“Nah,” said one of his companions. “No marks, remember? Now help me drag them over to the pier.”

“Who are you?” I asked. “Why are you doing this?” I wasn’t sure I’d actually get an answer but it was worth a try.

“None of your business,” answered one of the men.

“Who hired you?” snapped Joe. I could tell he was furious.

“What makes you think somebody hired us?” asked another man. His companions laughed. “Maybe we’re just doing this for fun,” he added.

They had us leaning against the pilings that held up the pier. This far out, we were below the high tide level. You could tell by the algae and wet wood of the pilings. One of the men pushed me down to a sitting position and started tying me to the piling. “Hey...”

“You figured it out, huh?” said the first voice. “You know high tide’s due about five-thirty this morning.”

“Hey!” I heard Joe shout a few feet away from me. Too far away to try to rescue each other. These guys had apparently thought of everything. “Let me go.”

I looked in the direction of the man’s voice. “Why?”

“Why? You and your brother like asking questions, don’t you? Don’t know when to stop. You’re trussed up like a Thanksgiving turkey, about to get drowned and you still can’t stop asking questions.”

“So you have something to do with the robberies? You seeded the beach with the jewelry?”

The man whopped me upside the head. “See what I mean? Don’t know when to stop.” His knees popped as he stood up. “Time to go.”

“You can’t just leave us here.”

The man laughed. “Why not? Maybe you’d finally stop with the questions.” Within seconds they were gone.

For a few moments there was dead silence. Then Joe spoke up. “My nose itches.”

“How’s the rest of you?” I asked, knowing my head was throbbing and my side hurt.

“Head hurts. Wonder what they hit us with?”

I started to shrug but I was bound so tightly, I couldn’t. I could hear the water much closer now and I wasn’t sure how we were going to get out of this one. “I don’t know.”

“Frank, what time is it?”

“Can’t exactly see my watch, now can I?”

“Thought you could see by the position of the stars.”

Hmmm, my brother’s not the jock some people think he is. “I could if I could see the stars and remember you were the one stargazing when the boardwalk lights went off.”

Joe grunted. “The only two constellations I’m familiar with are the Big Dipper and Orion and I didn’t see either of them.”

“Orion is a winter constellation and you usually have to be facing south to see it. You were looking up, but we were facing east.”

I heard Joe sigh. “Okay, Mr. Know-it-all, I saw an X and a box.”

I knew he wasn’t being silly but I couldn’t resist. “This is no time to be thinking about video games.”

“I’d give anything to be playing one right now. Even Mario Kart would be preferable to this.”

I tried to shift my body to my left to see if I could see a patch of sky. I could just make out a zigzag of stars which judging from the four bright stars in the zigzag must have been Cassiopeia. Not far from that one was a huge constellation called Pegasus which hardly looks like a horse with wings. It looks like a huge box. Joe’s X was probably Cygnus, also called the Northern Cross. I couldn’t see either of them.

“Well?” came Joe’s voice.

“I don’t see either Cygnus or Pegasus. I see Pisces.”

“Well, that helps,” muttered Joe.

I took a deep breath. “Don’t give up, Joe. We’ll get out of this.” I felt water seep over my shoes and felt my heart sink. I just wasn’t sure how we’d get out of it this time.

We sat there for awhile and I think Joe fell asleep; between the late night and the fight, we were both tired. I managed to watch the constellation Cassiopeia until it inched out of sight. And if I angled my head just right, I could see a lightening at the eastern horizon. Unfortunately, I could feel the water up to my thighs now. And it was cold. My shorts and the hem of my T-shirt were soaked and I was starting to shiver. “Joe!”

“I’m sleeping.”

“Wake up.”

“Why, it’s dark still.”

A second later, I heard him mutter something. “You okay?” I asked.

“I have to go to the bathroom. Don’t you dare laugh.”

“I’m not going to laugh—” The sound of an engine drowned me out and I looked to see a bright light aiming right for us. I watched the light angle toward the boardwalk and the engine sound faded slightly, like the vehicle had turned away.

I started yelling and a second later, so did Joe. I didn’t know who the driver was or what kind of vehicle that was but we definitely needed help. The water had risen higher in the past few minutes.

The engine faded and it hit us that whoever the driver was, hadn’t seen us or heard us yelling. I was sure we were doomed when the light came back. It got brighter as it came closer. It started to turn again, the glare nearly blinding me when the sound of the engine changed and the light stopped moving.

“Whoa!” came a girl’s voice. “What the – what are you two doing under there?”

By this time I was shivering all over. “It’s a long story. Could you please cut us free before high tide?”

In the glare of the light, I saw her pull what looked like a Swiss army knife from the back pocket of her jeans. She snapped open the blade and cut through the ropes keeping me to the piling. She helped me to my feet and I staggered up on the beach. A moment later Joe was beside me and the girl was cutting our hands free.

She was a pretty girl with dark skin, her black hair in long cornrows. She was wearing a faded Princeton University sweatshirt over her jeans. “What happened to you guys? Why were you tied up to the pier?”

I shared a look with Joe but he was too miserable to protest sharing information. The girl introduced herself – Naomi Thompson and we told her everything we knew.

She snapped her knife closed and frowned. “I’m out here every night. Trust me, if someone was seeding this beach I would have seen it. No, usually, it’s just homeless people camping out under the boardwalk.”

The sky was getting a bit lighter and I thought I saw a shadow down at the far end of the boardwalk but I wasn’t sure. “Naomi, were you working the night of the last robbery?”

“Didn’t see anything, if that’s what you want to know.” She gestured to the vehicle she was driving. “I’m usually just doing the sand advertisements.” She winked at me and Joe. “Princess of Darkness, that’s me.”

She climbed aboard her tractor. “You two had better get some dry clothes on before you shiver to pieces. That water’s cold this time of morning.”

“And a bathroom,” Joe muttered, too low for her to hear over the tractor’s engine. He looked over at her. “We owe you lunch.”

She laughed. “I’ll make sure you pay up,” she called as she drove away.

“Let’s get back to the hotel.”

“Yeah.”

We hurried back to the Surfside Inn and practically ran for our room. Joe beat me to the bathroom and a hot shower. Thankfully, he wasn’t long and I got a hot shower as well. We crawled into bed, finally warm and dry.

“Wonder who set those goons on us?” Joe asked sleepily.

“Maybe Mr. Jardine was right. Maybe it’s connected to the Chamber of Commerce members.”

“Y’know, a tourist boom to Ocean Point would probably get Bump reelected in a landslide.” Joe mumbled. A moment later, he was asleep.

I raised myself on one elbow to stare at him. I started to wake him up to make sure I’d heard correctly. Instead, I reached over and turned off the lamp between our beds. I laid back down and stared at the ceiling.

I thought about that shadow I’d seen on the boardwalk. Whoever it had been had cast a fairly big shadow...like Bump Rankowski. Maybe we’d better start with him tomorrow....

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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.