The Halloween piece I promised. There is some mystery infused to the plot, but it's mostly horror and suspense. It'll be about three to four parts long.
I do not own the Hardy Boys.
Enjoy!
The moment wasn't like the other ones. Then again, there was a possibility. It wasn't like those guilty, or were close to the guilty, didn't think that cursing at the two brothers was a bad thing.
But this time, the curse was something completely different.
"Why?" the teenage girl muttered, watching as the woman was taken away by the police.
"I don't know what to say," Frank, the older brother, admitted. He hated the outcome of this case. Hated the fact that the murderer turned out to be a psychic, who happened to be the girl's mother.
"Why couldn't you just lie? Say that it was that man? No one likes him-"
"That's because your mom started a rumor. He's actually a pretty decent guy," Joe, the younger Hardy, said. The blonde didn't regret the outcome as much as the brunette. The woman had murders people who were looking for a little bit of hope in their lives, seeing that light in her. And now they were all dead.
Chet, Phil, Tony, Biff, Callie, and Iola all watched as the girl's face began to twist with fury.
"You could have done something! She didn't mean to! All she was doing-"
"She was killing people, and then robbing their corpses. She knew what she was doing." Joe couldn't hide the bluntness in his voice. It came out almost naturally, as if waiting to be challenged.
The girl turned, point an accusing finger at the blonde. "I hope that you suffer, and bring the rest of your stupid Bayport goes down with it!"
"Amethyst…" The name sounded odd on Frank's tongue. It was still hard to believe that the murderer had named her daughter after a gemstone, even if it did supposedly saved her from becoming drunk, which saved her life.
"And you!" She turned her glare at the brunette. "I hope you die an early death! No, I call upon the Spirits of the Realm! Curse these two brothers and give them their fates!"
Their friends didn't know it, but the two teenagers in question felt some kind of sickness quickly passing through them. They couldn't see the small, black gem set in the girl's silver bracelet glow, either. All that they could remember of what happened afterwards was Tony asking, "What was that all about?"
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The weekend had passed, the story of the murdering psychic slowing down and loosing interest. Chet in particular was trying to forget the image of Madame Diamond holding a knife with a… well, for a lack of better words, insane look on her face.
There's not many ways to describe that murderer, he thought to himself, trying to make sure that his homework didn't have pizza stains on them. And why did she name her kid "Amethyst Diamond"?
Grumbling, he followed Iola out the door to school, but not before he grabbed a box of crackers to add to his already big lunch.
"Chet, why did you get the crackers? We're going to use them for s'mores on Saturday, remember?" Iola said, sounding very annoyed.
"We have the whole week to get more." He got behind the wheel of his faithful car, as his sister got into the passenger seat.
"That's not the point. Besides, you're the one who's gonna buy another box if you're gonna eat them."
"Fine…" He tossed the box into the backseat, hearing the cardboard hit the chair, and the rustling of plastic bags within the container.
The trip to school was uneventful, but the second the two had walk through the doorways, they could feel that something was not quite right.
Frank, who was leaning against the wall, waved, then motioned for Chet to join him near the window.
"The 'curse' didn't work, did it?" Chet said with a laugh. "At least, not this weekend. But with Halloween this Saturday…"
Frank smiled, and it only took his friend a second to feel something wrong in the air. It wasn't a smile that Frank Hardy would give when joking about something. The only other smile that could have been expected was one scoffing the idea of curses actually existing. But the smile that graced his features at the moment was one that held some kind of secret, and it didn't seem to be one of the ones that Chet was used to.
"Can't you feel it?" Frank said softly. "It's gonna change. It's all gonna change. There's something in the air…"
"Frank, what are you-" The bell signaling the beginning of first period interrupted Chet, words lost to the sounds from the hallway.
"Morton, get to class!"
Chet focused on the gym teacher, who was walking at a rather fast pace towards the doors leading to the parking lot. "Yessir!"
The action took three seconds, maybe less. But by the time that Chet had turned around, the taller brunette boy was nowhere to be seen.
"Probably ran off to class. I'll see him second period anyways."
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"What are you talking about?" Joe said, his eyes not leaving the book. "Frank's sick."
"But… but I just saw him this morning-"
"You couldn't have, unless you went over to our house."
"But… ohhhhh…" It felt as if a lightbulb had lighted itself in his head. Chet nodded, as if agreeing with the thought. "He's skipping, isn't he?"
"Chet, this is Frank we're talking about. The guy who wouldn't skip school last year to help out with the junior prank." Joe seemed bored by the conversation, maybe even looking for an escape through the text on the pages.
"He's a senior now."
"Does that really make much of a difference?"
Chet thought it over. It didn't make any sense. Frank was the brother who would stress on the importance of education. The only time he would miss school was for mysteries, and he always came back with an adequate excuse. But then why…?
"Are you sure he's sick?"
"Chet, I'm his brother. It's hard not to notice when the guy sleeping the room next door to mine is sneezing and coughing his lungs out."
Biff, who had just finished putting back his textbook, jumped in. "Wow, that sounds bad. What'd he get, anyways?"
The blonde shrugged. "Something really bad. He's going to the doctor's today. Probably gonna be out the whole week."
"That must be really bad if he's staying out the whole week."
"You should have seen him when he was younger. He got on and off sick a whole year. If he wasn't so freakin' smart and all back then, they probably would have held him back." There was something in Joe's voice that almost didn't make sense, something like sadness over the past. But why…?
"What'cha reading, anyways?" Biff asked.
"About an awesome game I found out about over the weekend. You guys should come over and play it."
Joe's blue eyes seemed to glisten a different color, as if red lights had shone directly into the pupils. But it was gone with a second, making Chet wondered if he imagined it.
Yeah, like I imagined Frank?
He thought of the curse for a moment, then quickly sent the idea out of his head. There were no such things as curses. Even if there were, the two brothers were not the type to easily lose to such forces. He was being silly, and that just made him feel stupid.
Still, he could not silence the voice in his head, asking, Are you sure?
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There were three bodies altogether, scattered across Bayport. Each of them were, for a lack of better words from Chet, a mess. The three young men had suffered cuts and slashes everywhere. There were three notable features that tied the murders together. For one, each had the largest slash going across their stomach. The weapon was unique, close to unidentifiable.
The lack of blood that each men had almost seemed like another issue altogether.
"Someone probably took their blood to sell on the black market or something," Tony said the next day, rummaging his locker before class started.
"Don't you find it weird? I mean, why so many cuts if you want the blood? Wouldn't it be better just to make one?" Iola asked, clutching her books. She had been frightened by the murders, especially since one of them was near the dance studio that she was supposed to go to the night before, if an appointment hadn't come up.
"Maybe it's a vampire," Biff joked.
"Vampire?" Joe asked, coming up from another hallway.
"Yeah, you know, the murders that happened last night," Callie said. "What do you think about them?"
"Dunno. Can't work on the case-"
"What?!" There was a collective shout from the group of friends, all of the eyes trained on the blonde junior.
"Just can't." Joe offered no further explanation, leaving them to guess what had happened. Chet's mind instantly jumped to Fenton Hardy. Maybe the man thought that it was too dangerous this time, since three men were killed in a single night.
"Still reading that book?" Phil inquired, pointing to the same book that Joe had been reading the day before. Now that Chet looked at it, the book did seem off. The covers were made of what appeared to be old leather, and the pages were starting to yellow with age.
"Yeah. The game they talk about is pretty cool. I got Frank to play it with me over the weekend, and he thought it was interesting. I won, of course."
There's that glint again. I can't be imagining it. But his eyes aren't bloodshot…
"Dude, you got bags under your eyes," Chet said.
"Yeah. Not enough sleep, I guess." Joe laughed. "Well, see you next class."
As the blonde walked away, Phil frowned. "Why didn't he put up more of a fight about staying on the case?"
"Huh?" Iola asked.
"He acts like he was kicked off, but he doesn't give a damn."
"Frank's sick," Callie pointed out. "Real sick, too. I can't go see him, since the doctor is worried that it'll spread."
"But Joe's been talking to Frank," Tony said.
"Must be a sibling thing…"
"There's something weird about this 'game,'" Phil continued, the frown almost attached to his lips. "He read that book all day yesterday, and he barely talked about anything else."
"Maybe it's an awesome game," Biff said. "You're probably just lonely, since you best friend isn't here cuz he caught something really bad. Like TB."
"Tuberculosis takes a while to develop. And besides, the school would have contacted our parents by now, and get us all screened. Health measures." The senior shook his head. "There's something wrong with Joe. I just know it."
"Yeah, maybe it's the cuuuurrrrssseee," Tony tease. "Ooooohhhh, I'mmmm a ghooooosssstttt."
"Not funny." Phil turned away, and began to walk towards his class. "But I'm telling you, something's wrong. And I'm gonna find out what."
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They never did find out about what Phil discovered. The rest of the day had classes and social activities had kept the friends separated. By the next day, Phil's corpse was lying in a ditch next to the highway on the outskirts of town.
He was the fifth body discovered that morning, as the death toll for the serial killer rose to twelve.
