He slammed the door, and my world was once again only darkness.
12
NOT AFRAID
FRANK
ABOUT A MINUTE AFTER SEEING the threatening note on the typewriter, all the lights in the house went out. It startled me, and I dropped the flashlight. Yikes, this whole thing had me on edge. I picked up the flashlight, but it seemed that the drop put it out of commission. I sighed and pulled the box of matches out of my pocket and lit one. The light it cast was pitiful against the wall of darkness in the house, but it was better than nothing. I groped my way back out of the room and into the hallway, bumping into furniture as I went. Outside, a storm had begun, and occasional lightning strikes illuminated the house with bursts of white light.
Suddenly the silent house was full of strange noises coming from the second floor. A sound like a loud voice trickled down to where I was standing. But it was too muffled to understand what it was saying. Could it be Joe calling down to me? I supposed I had been gone for a while. He might be worried that I’d been devoured by monsters or something. I was approaching the stairs when the voice was replaced by something else—the sound of something large and heavy being dragged across a floor.
Something like a body.
“Joe!” I shouted, my heart starting to race.
I was about to take the stairs two at a time when I heard a door slam. I froze in place, hoping against hope that Joe would appear on the landing, flashlight in hand, to tell me that he had just been dragging an unattractive area rug to another room. Or a sack of hammers. Or a bear.
No luck.
The figure that emerged silently from the hallway was tall and broad, with a black hood hiding his face and an ax hanging by his side. It was the same figure I’d seen, only for a moment, outside the window at the estate sale. But this time, his mere presence wasn’t the strangest thing about him—no, that had to be the fact that he was glowing.
It was the eerie, bluish glow that Adam had described. It emanated from his entire body—even the ax.
There, in that dark and empty house, with forks of lightning framed in the dusty windows, the sight of this apparition was like something out of a movie. My eyes did not want to believe what they were seeing. And yet, there he was. The Gray Hunter.
No.
I closed my eyes, blocking out the world for a moment, and allowed the voice of reason the opportunity to speak.
This is not real. This is what he wants, the voice said. To create an image so terrifying that it shuts out every other thought. To frighten people and drive them away from this place, so that they can go and tell reporters what they saw here. So that Nathan Foxwood’s name will forever be spoken with a whisper of awe and terror. So it will never be forgotten.
And Peter Huang could make a fortune.
I knew I was close to the answer—but somehow, it still didn’t feel right. Didn’t ring true. Again, I was missing something. Something big.
But there was something much more important than that at stake right now.
“If you’ve hurt my brother,” I said, my voice low and dangerous, “then ghost or not, I will come after you and make you pay.”
“Your brother is alive—for now,” the Gray Hunter said, his voice coming not from him, but somehow, from everywhere. It was loud, and I could feel it down to the soles of my shoes. “You and he have trespassed on my land for the last time tonight.”
“I’m not a fool!” I replied. “I don’t believe in ghosts. Whatever you’re trying to accomplish here, you need to stop it right now, before you go too far.”
There was a pause, and the Gray Hunter cocked his head and moved closer to the second-floor railing above me. He lifted the ax and pointed the blade in my direction before speaking again.
“You do not need to believe to die.”
A moment later I heard a very soft whooshing sound above my head, like a cord unraveling. I looked up, where a large crystal chandelier was hanging. A split second later the room was lit up by another bolt of lightning, and it was only by the grace of that moment that I realized that the chandelier was falling.
The next few seconds seemed to move very slowly. With every bit of my strength, I threw my body backward from the spot, hitting the cold tile a few feet back and sliding, just as fifty pounds of metal and glass slammed into the floor where I had been standing. The explosive noise of its impact was immense, and I quickly covered my head with my hands as millions of shards of crystal flew through the air and fell like tinkling rain.
I lay there, still and breathing slowly, until the rain stopped. And when I finally opened my eyes and looked up, the Gray Hunter was standing before me. He reached down with one arm and grabbed me by the collar of my coat, hoisting me to my feet with seemingly little effort. I hung from his grip, my gaze trying unsuccessfully to penetrate the darkness under that hood, to see the face beneath.
“I am giving you and your brother one last chance to leave this place,” he said, the voice all around me. “What do you choose? Escape? Or death?”
This is not real, the voice in my head reminded me.
I took a deep breath.
“I choose neither,” I said. Then I wound up and punched that would-be ghost right in the face.
I guess Mr. Glow Stick wasn’t expecting that, because he stumbled backward with the blow, letting me go in the process. I dropped into a crouch, prepared for him to strike back. But something on my coat caught my eye. It was a smear of blue across the collar, a substance that glowed eerily in the darkness.
And just like that, in a matter of moments, all the many pieces of the puzzle fell into place.
It was the simplest, and yet the most impossible answer. And now I had it.
The Gray Hunter pulled himself up to his full height again and loomed over me, blocking out what little moonlight streamed from the window behind him.
“You have sealed your doom, Frank Hardy,” he said.
“You are a kind of ghost, Gray Hunter,” I replied. “But I’m not afraid of you. It’s your doom that has been sealed. Because I know who you really are.”
13
RED-HANDED
JOE
ON ONE HAND, THE FACT that it was dark was nice, considering the raging headache I had. On the other hand, being locked in a dark room by a potentially homicidal maniac-slash-ghost was less than thrilling. I had to get out of that room. For all I knew, the Human Glow Stick had left me here so he could go find Frank and bonk him on the head too. Or worse.
I lurched to my feet, disoriented both from the darkness and the minor concussion. I groped ahead of me with both hands, taking small, tentative steps. All I needed was to trip over an ottoman and break my neck—not the way I wanted to go. FAMED YOUNG DETECTIVE FELLED BY UPHOLSTERY just didn’t appeal to me as a headline. Eventually I found the wall and crab-walked my way across it until I found the door. Naturally, it was locked, but I gave it a few rattles and kicks anyway. It was an old house, there was a chance that the knob was rickety . . . but no. I was locked in tight. I had to find another way out.
I continued feeling my way across the wall and around a corner, where I felt the leather bindings of books on a shelf and the uneven surfaces of oil paintings, until I reached another corner. What I felt next made my heart leap with hope: thick, velvety fabric. Curtains. And where there were curtains, there must be windows.
I grabbed a fistful of fabric and threw it aside, revealing—thank goodness—a large picture window behind it. The moonlight illuminated the dark room, and I blinked, my eyes adjusting to even that dim light. Within seconds, I had the window unlatched. A blast of wind and rain hit my face as I threw it open, and I stumbled back from the force of it. Shielding my face with my hand, I stuck my head outside to have a look around. First I looked straight down, a drop of at least fifteen feet, and confirmed what I’d already suspected: jumping or climbing down to the ground was out of the question. But this particular window led out onto a very narrow ledge, which stretched back to the
middle of the house, where a stone patio jutted out. If only I could reach that patio, I was certain I could break the window with something and reenter the house from there.
There were advantages and disadvantages to this plan. The disadvantages included the extreme narrowness of the ledge, the slipperiness of said ledge due to the rain, the darkness, the wind, and the clear and present danger of falling fifteen feet onto the concrete below. The advantages were fewer. Well, okay—there was one advantage. There was no other plan. This was the only plan, the only way out, and therefore I was going to have to do it.
I took a deep breath and shrugged. “Well,” I muttered to myself, “here goes nothing.”
I grabbed the window frame and carefully hoisted my body out onto the ledge. In an instant, I was soaked through. I wiped the rain off my face and squinted into the downpour, trying to get my bearings, the clatter of rain pounding on the metal roof filling the world with noise. I started to slide along the ledge, my back pressed up against the house. Pointy bits of brick and stonework poked into me painfully, but I didn’t dare lean forward away from them, for fear of losing my balance and toppling off the edge.
I was halfway there—there were probably only six or seven feet left between me and the stone railing of the patio, but it felt miles away. My nose itched. I had a toe cramp. I was maybe going to sneeze. I commanded my brain to focus, to block out everything except reaching that goal, and kept inching along.
Five feet, four, three . . .
And then the sky went white. A bolt of lightning struck so close to the house that I could feel the hair on my arms rise and sizzle with electricity. I had about one or two seconds to realize what was going to happen next before it did.
BOOM!
The thunderclap was so ferociously loud that it took my breath away. Even though I knew how vital it was for me to stand completely still, to make no sudden movements, I couldn’t help it—I jumped. And when my feet came back down on that rain-soaked ledge, one held firm, and the other did not. I lurched sideways and felt myself start to fall.
My martial arts training—which, FYI, includes a lot of pretty intense hip-swivel action—kicked in, and I whipped my body back up, reaching out for something to hold on to. My fingernails scraped against the brickwork, cutting my fingers to shreds, but I found purchase on a small stone outcropping and held on for dear life. Using the momentum I already had, I swung myself back up onto the ledge and stood there, panting, my heart pounding like a jackhammer.
Compared to the near-death experience I’d just had, shuffling through the last three feet to the patio was a cinch. I collapsed onto the stone floor and finally scratched my nose. Sweet, sweet relief !
But I didn’t have time to celebrate. I had to get to Frank! I ran up to the large picture window and peeked inside. The window looked onto the second-floor landing, where through the open railing, I had a view of the grand entranceway below. There I could see the glowing blue figure of the Gray Hunter pacing the room like a boxer, his fists raised for a fight. In front of him I dimly saw another, smaller figure: Frank. I was flooded with relief to see him alive and well. All around them, the floor glittered as if it were carpeted in diamonds, and nearby I saw the carcass of a chandelier lying broken on the floor.
Man, what had I missed? I was about to try and test the window to see if it was locked when I caught sight of another person, standing just out of the shadows in front of me on the landing. It was too dark for me to make out who it was, but then the sky was once again illuminated by a flash of lightning, and the figure’s identity was revealed.
I almost stumbled back in shock. Could it be? Was it really possible?
Everything suddenly made sense. And for the first time that night, I wasn’t jumpy or anxious—I felt like Joe Hardy again. In other words: awesome.
Finding the window unlocked—lucky me—I slid it open as quietly as I could and slipped inside the house. The woman in the shadows was so focused on what was going on below, she didn’t hear me approach, didn’t even hear the drip-drip of my sodden clothing leaking onto the hardwood floor. So she was very surprised when I walked right up next to her and said:
“Hello, Mrs. Foxwood—fancy meeting you here.”
Heather Foxwood nearly leaped straight out of her skin, but to her credit, she recovered quickly. She brushed a stray lock of wavy brown hair from her face and regarded me with those piercing blue eyes. For a moment, I could see her nostrils flare and her jaw clench as she recognized my face. But the flash of anger was as fleeting as the lightning and was almost instantly replaced with a doe-eyed, grateful look of relief. “Joe Hardy, is that you? My goodness, you gave me a fright. I’m so glad to see you! I’d heard from Adam that you and your brother were planning to stay in the manor overnight, and I came to warn you. But then the Hunter attacked me, and I was so scared—”
I put a hand up and interrupted her. “Let me stop you right there,” I said. “First of all, I have to commend you on a truly remarkable performance. I mean, bravo. I’m sure you’re a great scientist and everything, but really, you should have considered an acting career.”
I could see the panic flooding Mrs. Foxwood’s face, but she heroically tried to keep up the ruse. “I don’t know what you mean, I—”
“Seriously, it was an amazing plan,” I continued. “You sent Frank and me on a pretty brilliant wild-goose chase, and that takes talent. But the lies need to stop.”
Suddenly I heard a shout of pain from below, and I whirled to see Frank on his side on the ground, gripping his shoulder with one hand. The Gray Hunter was advancing on him with his ax, and a moment later his booming voice filled the air.
“Time to die, Frank Hardy.”
I turned back to the woman in front of me and grabbed her by the shoulders. “Call off your dead husband, Mrs. Foxwood. Now.”
Heather Foxwood looked at me, that anger returning to her face. But it quickly deflated, to be replaced with a look of defeat. “Nathan!” she shouted.
The Gray Hunter, who had his ax raised above his head, froze.
“It’s over,” Mrs. Foxwood said. “We’ve got to stop.”
He turned around slowly and gazed up at us, where we stood at the railing. He let the ax drop to the floor and pulled the hood from his face, revealing the man I had always seen staring at me from the back covers of my favorite books. His dark beard was longer and unkempt, his hair wilder, but it was, unmistakably, Nathan Foxwood. A dead man walking.
14
THE GHOSTWRITER
FRANK
NORMALLY I WOULD TAKE EVERY opportunity to make fun of my brother, who at the moment was staring at Nathan Foxwood, his eyes wide and his jaw basically on the floor. He and Heather Foxwood had quickly made their way down the stairs as soon as Mr. Foxwood had dropped the ax and removed his hood. But I couldn’t muster a jab for Joe—frankly, I understood exactly how he felt. Even though I hadn’t been the guy’s number one fan, finding out that a dead guy wasn’t really dead was quite a shock.
“Well, boys,” the deep, booming voice said, echoing around the room. Mr. Foxwood grimaced and reached under his belt, where a small black box was hidden. He pushed a button, and a red light went out. “Well, boys,” he repeated, this time in a normal voice, “your dogged persistence seems to have paid off. You’ve successfully ruined us.”
Heather Foxwood walked to her husband’s side and folded him into an embrace. “We tried, babe,” she told him. “But it was going too far. People were getting hurt.”
Nathan Foxwood hung his head. “Yes, I suppose you’re right.” He looked up again, his green eyes no longer narrowed in anger, but filled with pride. “We never meant for anyone to be injured, merely frightened—you believe me, don’t you?”
Joe nodded almost immediately. I hesitated, but then recognized the genuine remorse on both the Foxwoods’ faces, and nodded too.
“But the plan was so perfect,” Mr. Foxwood went on. “I was dead. How did you know?”
Ah,
my favorite part of a case! I took a deep breath and was about to launch into a detailed explanation of the myriad clues that led me to my conclusion when my brother opened his big mouth and said, “Well, Mr. Foxwood, sir—and let me just say, I’m a big fan—it wasn’t until I saw your lovely wife standing there on the landing just now that it all came together for me.”
I rolled my eyes. Leave it to Joe to steal my thunder!
“Seeing Mrs. Foxwood reminded me of when I’d first met her, during the estate sale when this all started. She’d claimed that the Gray Hunter had attacked her at the exact same time that Frank had seen him downstairs, making it seem like he was in two places at once. Obviously, coming from a respected scientist, that meant a lot. But it never occurred to me until a few minutes ago: What if she was lying?” He turned to Mrs. Foxwood. “It was the simplest explanation, but because I automatically believed you, I never even considered it.”
Heather Foxwood allowed herself a little smile. “Yes, Joe,” she said. “We were counting on that.”
“But once I started thinking about you as being in on this, I wondered why you would do it. What was your motivation? And then I remembered something Peter Huang had said, that Nathan Foxwood ‘is worth more dead than alive.’ He’d been talking about how because Mr. Foxwood was dead and because of all this media hype surrounding the ghost in the manor, his book was going to be a bestseller. And I thought, Boy, that sounds like a pretty good motive to me. When I first heard him say it, I immediately became suspicious of Peter himself. After all, he would make a lot of money from a bestseller too!”
“Exactly,” I chimed in. “I thought the same thing when I found a letter from your editor in the trash can in your study. It went on and on about how important this last book was, and how you wouldn’t get another contract unless The Haunting of Cliffside Manor made it big. That was obviously why someone would go to such lengths to pull these crazy stunts. To get attention! Ever since the first sighting of the ‘Gray Hunter,’ there have been reporters swarming around this place like bees. And why not? It had everything, all the trappings of a great story—the mysterious, sudden death of a writer who just happened to be working on a book about the very haunted house he was living in. Who wouldn’t want to read it? It was a recipe for success. Peter had the motive, and ever since those two Foxwood Fan Club members swore that they weren’t involved in the hauntings, I was sure Peter was involved somehow. It made sense.”
The Gray Hunter's Revenge Page 8