Chapter 2: Just Keep Dancing

After surviving a short jump from a building that was not on fire, running into Nancy who just happened to show up right then because she heard a loud bang that was never fully explained and then proceeding to drag her back to the park she started this story out in, the Hardy boys laid out their evidence on a picnic table…

"Let's see," Joe dug around in his pocket for the clues, "We have a camera full of incriminating photos, four black sharpies, eight pages of blank notebook paper surrounding this dead fish, this paper full of dates highlighted in red sharpie and this access card that we just stole…"

Frank elbowed him, "Borrowed."

"Yes, that's right. Borrowed."

"Is that all?" Nancy inquired, inching away from the dead fish.

"Well, we were going to sneak into this 'abandoned' warehouse whose address was written in invisible ink on the fish, but we needed the access card first."

"Wow. Invisible writing on fish! What will the Russians think of next?"

Joe nodded appreciatively, "They are quite clever those Russians."

A few short minutes later they arrived at a gloomy warehouse situated on the docks. An eerie mist hung over the water and Nancy shivered involuntarily. They then performed several feats of daring acrobatics to climb to the top of the building and cut the lines to the security cameras. Unfortunately the cameras were wireless so they simply spray painted the lenses, which really they could have done from the ground in a couple of seconds. Oh well.

They then approached the entry pad and used their access card that they had rescued from the burning building. The doors slid open. No lights were on in the building and they could only see a few feet in front of themselves.

"Who wants to go in first?" Frank asked tentatively.

"Nose game!" Joe shouted.

Nancy quickly stuck her finger to her nose before Frank had time to put down the spray can and access card.

Frank scowled at Joe, "No fair. The person that calls 'nose game' can never be it."

"That's why I always call it. And besides, you're the one that left our flashlight in the burning building so really you should go first anyways."

"The building wasn't even on fire."

"Just go in!" Joe pushed his brother forward and jumped backward simultaneously.

Frank stumbled and hit his boot on a large crate. Picking up a crowbar that just happened to be laying nearby, he pried open the lid and gasped. The crate was filled with decorated Christmas trees. As his eyes adjusted to the dim light he could see that the warehouse was full of these boxes.

"It seems we have stumbled upon an illegal fir trade!" Frank exclaimed.

"Yes, I suppose they don't have many trees like this in Russia…" Nancy whispered.

Nancy and Joe inched forward and examined the contents of the box. Suddenly they heard a scraping noise followed by a scream come from the other side of the immense room. Sensible people and even most crazy ones would have taken that as their cue to leave. But not our heroes. Their inquisitiveness knew no bounds and they courageously stumbled forward to a sizable gap between the many rows of boxes.

Just then the lights brightened and a huge screen rolled down in front of them. Giant arrows appeared on the floor and an ominous voice with a thick Russian accent boomed from somewhere up in the rafters.

"Welcome to my warehouse of Russian fun. What you see here is a giant version of your 'DDR' set to Russian folk music and a little bit of Tchaikovsky- I do love Tchaikovsky. What a wonderful man. Russian. Anyway, if you don't keep dancing terrible things will happen. Yes, quite terrible. So don't stop."

At the end of this most bizarre announcement, giant arrows lit up on the screen and began moving.

"Oh, no!" Nancy cried, "What shall we do?"

Frank shrugged, "Considering that one: this guy seems crazy, two: these arrows are too far apart for just one of us to step on all of them in time and three: there seems to be dynamite rigged to the ceiling, I suggest we just keep dancing."

Nancy gulped, Joe promptly fainted and Frank sighed as Russian folk music blared down at them.

(Dramatic pause.)

What will happen to our heroes next? Will they die in a fiery explosion or will they manage to outwit those clever Russian DDR makers? Can they save Christmas? Find out next chapter.