The Hunt for Four Brothers (5 page)

“I want to know what that howl is from,” Frank said, with a quick glance at Joe.

“Joe? Frank? Chet?” Sandy's voice called from far below.

“Frank and I are heading to Timber Gap,” Joe said, deciding for both Frank and himself. “Are you coming, Chet?”

Chet looked downhill, then at his friends. A moment later the three boys were pushing uphill, slipping on wet leaves and pine needles.

“Sandy is going to skin us alive,” Chet said.

“We can tell him we got lost,” Joe told him.

“We probably wouldn't be lying,” Frank said over his shoulder. “None of us has ever hiked this far up Konawa Mountain.”

“Are you sure we should do this in the middle of a storm?” Chet asked.

“We're already wet.” Joe grinned. “What else can happen to us?” Lightning flashed, lighting up the woods. Joe counted silently; when he reached eight, he heard thunder. “Eight miles away; we're okay. Besides, the storm might be moving in the opposite direction.”

The woods thinned, and Frank stepped out into a narrow clearing. Shining his light to each side, he said aloud what he realized: “It's a road.”

“Or what
used to be
a road,” Joe said, pointing out the vines and undergrowth that had nearly reclaimed it. One howl was joined by a second.

“Two wolves,” Chet said, pulling his jacket tight against the cold and wet.

“The noise came from up there,” Frank said, pointing farther up the abandoned road.

The boys used their hands to rip vines out of their path and waded through shoulder-high weeds. The road lit up from another bolt of lightning. Joe barely reached
six
before he heard loud thunder.

“Okay, so the thunderstorm is moving in
our
direction,” Joe admitted as they rounded a bend in the road.

“More bad news,” Frank said, shining his flashlight on a rock slide that blocked their way. “We'd better climb up and over it.”

The boys were near the peak of Konawa Mountain. The pine-covered mountainside gave way to steep walls of granite as they carefully climbed over the wall of mud and debris.

Joe found himself shrouded in a white mist. “Where did this fog come from?” he asked aloud.

“It's not fog, Joe,” Frank said. “We're up in the clouds.”

Chet slipped on some loose rocks. Joe reached back to give him a hand up, just as lightning flashed again.

The lit-up sky revealed black thunder clouds, as massive and threatening as Joe had ever seen. Even more disturbing, the clouds were at eye level. Joe jumped as the thunderclap shook the ground around him.

“That was three seconds,” Chet yelled. “And we're one of the tallest things on this mountain face!”

Frank's eyes scanned walls of granite and spotted an opening, possibly a small cave. “This way!” he shouted. The opening was just large enough to squeeze through. Frank put one foot into the opening. A bolt of lightning illuminated the hole for a split second, and Frank caught a glimpse of half a dozen copperhead vipers curled up in the hole just below his foot.

“No good!” he shouted, retracting his foot and waving Joe and Chet away. Another bolt of lightning struck, followed instantly by a crack of thunder. Frank could smell electricity in the air and motioned the other two to move back down the slope.

Side-pedaling down the slope, Joe hit loose gravel and his foot flew out from under him. He slid thirty feet and came to rest at the base of a tall pine. Joe was blinded by intense light and heat and deafened by a thunderclap that seemed to explode inside his head.

“The tree!” Chet shouted.

The pine tree above Joe was on fire and had splintered nearly in half where a bolt had struck. Frank rushed downhill, dropping onto the seat of his pants and sliding where it was too steep and slippery to stay on his feet.

Joe was stunned, unsure of what had happened. Frank grabbed his brother by the shirt and dragged him to his feet. Looking up, Frank saw half the splintered tree leaning down in their direction. All at once, the trunk cracked in two, sending the tree crashing down on him and Joe.

Frank threw himself and Joe between two boulders just as the massive trunk fell and landed between the two rocks wedging itself tight just inches over the Hardys' heads.

Chet's face appeared over the top of one of the boulders. “Are you guys in one piece?”

Frank crawled out from between the rocks. “We're fine, except for the pine sap,” he said, trying to wipe off the thick, sticky sap that had dripped onto his back. Joe crawled out behind his brother.

“Joe, what happened to your hair?” Chet asked, trying not to laugh. Joe's blond locks were standing on end.

“It's called static electricity, Chet,” Frank replied,
smiling. Another bolt of lightning flashed, followed immediately by another clap of thunder.

“And that's called lethal electricity!” Joe said. “Let's talk about my hair after we find cover.”

The boys hurried around the far side of the rock slide and back onto the overgrown road. Frank flashed his light ahead, and Chet gasped at the sight. “What is that?”

Rising up to the side of the road was a dark, five-story building in the shape of an octagon. Joe wondered how they could have missed it on their way up. Then he decided being in the woods had blocked their view. He shined his beam on a sign hanging on the fence. “Timber Gap Asylum for the Criminally Insane,” he read aloud.

“Look!” Frank shouted. “There's a hole in the fence.”

Frank led the other two to a spot at the base of the fence. “It's been cut recently,” Frank said, shining his light on the rusty barbed wire. The snipped ends were still silver colored. “The tips haven't rusted yet.”

Frank and Joe climbed through. “I'm not going in there,” Chet protested. “My book says the place is haunted by the ghosts of the crazed killers they kept locked up here in the 1930s.”

“You want to wait outside?” Joe asked.

Lightning struck a nearby maple, and Chet leaped a foot into the air. “All right, all right. I'm going in.”

The first entrance they came to was chained and locked shut. “Split up,” Frank instructed. “See if you can find another way in, while I try to pick this lock.”

Chet and Joe took off, circling the octagonal building in opposite directions. Frank wiped the rain from his eyes and set to work. He was skilled at picking locks with a penknife, but this padlock was rusted shut. Another howl rose over the sound of the rain, startling Frank and making him drop his penknife. The howl came from inside the asylum.

“Around here!” Frank heard Joe calling. After picking up his knife, Frank hurried off. He found Joe standing by another entrance. “Someone's pried this door open with a crowbar,” Joe told his older brother. “Where's Chet?”

“I didn't see him,” Frank replied. “He's not with you?”

“Chet!” Joe shouted at the top of his lungs, but there was no answer. “Maybe he got spooked and ran off.”

Frank and Joe exchanged worried looks. “Chet wouldn't do that,” Frank said. “Let's hope he's already inside.”

Slipping through the opened door, the boys stepped into the gutted entrance hall of the asylum. “Whoa. Check it out,” Joe said, shining his flashlight straight up. The room was shaped like a
gigantic cylinder and rose seventy feet to the ceiling. Each of the five floors had a tier of barred cells, ringed by an inner walkway, which was sealed in by a heavy metal fence. A metal staircase led up to the second-floor walkway; additional staircases connected the walkways of each floor, all the way to the top.

“Looks like a maximum-security prison,” Frank remarked.

Joe turned to his left, reacting to a creaking noise from one of the first-tier rooms. Moving quietly to each side of the door, he and Frank peeked in. A metal bunk bed was against one wall, its thin dirty mattresses still in place. Joe figured it must have been sleeping quarters for two guards.

Frank moved into the room and stepped toward the bunk beds. He detected movement on the top bunk, and a split second later, the top mattress crashed through the rusted wire supports and fell onto the bottom bunk, depositing Chet Morton onto the floor.

“Chet?” Frank whispered.

“Frank? Oh, good,” Chet panted in relief.

“Are you okay?” Joe asked, helping his friend off the ground.

“Now that you mention it—no, I'm not,” Chet replied, grabbing his side where he had hit the floor. “I found an open door, then I saw something walking out of the woods toward me, so I darted inside.”

“Did you see who it was?” Joe asked.

“Or
what
it was,” Chet added. “It must have been seven feet tall.”

“Enough with the wolfman stuff,” Joe said, huffing in frustration.

“No, I didn't see his face,” Chet replied. “Right then I heard the howl and ducked in here to hide.”

Frank looked through the broken pane of the barred window. The rain was letting up, and the thunder was growing more distant. “I think the worst of the storm has passed.”

“Great,” Chet said. “Let's blow this Popsicle stand.”

“What about the guy you saw?” Joe reminded Chet.

“I think he came inside, too. But we'll come back tomorrow with Sheriff Lyle in the daylight,” Chet urged.

“It's only one guy against three of us,” Joe said before stepping back out into the entrance hall.

Frank knew they were all cold, wet, and tired. “Chet may be right, Joe . . . Joe?”

Stepping out of the guard quarters, Frank saw Joe at the base of the metal staircase. His flashlight was aimed at the floor, illuminating a wet boot print. Turning to Frank, Joe pointed up the staircase. Frank shrugged, then looked at Chet.

“Boot
prints I'll follow,” Chet whispered. “As long as they don't turn into
paw
prints.”

The three boys proceeded slowly up the staircase to the second tier.

They picked up traces of the wet boot prints on the walkway near the base of the second-tier staircase and continued up. The prints became fainter and fainter as the bottom of the boots dried. Finally on the fifth tier, they lost the last trace of the prints.

“This is the top floor, and we haven't seen anyone,” Chet said.

Between two barred cell doors, Joe noticed a plain wooden door with a gaping hole where a deadbolt lock might have been. Turning the handle, Joe opened the door and discovered an enclosed spiral staircase. “Over here,” he called quietly. “This must have been the emergency exit.”

“Or a staircase that the guards used,” Frank added, pointing toward the opening in the ceiling to which the stairs led. “Looks like these stairs go all the way to the roof.”

Joe led the way up the spiraling metal stairs. He emerged in a roofless guard tower. The rain had subsided and the lightning storm had passed, leaving only the sound of distant rumbles.

“What's up there, Joe?” Frank asked from below.

Joe shined his flashlight around the area and replied, “You'd better come see for yourself.”

Frank and Chet found Joe kneeling by a pair of binoculars and a writing pad and pencil.

Frank picked up the writing pad. A series of dots and dashes were on the first page, and below them, two sentences were written. “ ‘Found third brother in inn. Take second brother to LT tonight,' ” Frank read aloud.

“That could be the thief's notations,” Joe guessed. “But who are the second and third brothers?”

“And who is LT?” Frank added.

“Someone's initials?” Chet guessed.

“Wait!” Joe exclaimed. “Remember yesterday in the lobby, Mr. Craven said Mr. Tringle's first name. It was Larry.”

“Larry Tringle,” Frank said. “L.T.!”

“Look!” Chet exclaimed, pointing down into the valley.

Joe rose to his feet as Frank rushed to the window. Frank spotted what Chet was referring to: a light was flashing from down in the valley. Beyond the light, Frank could see the moon peeking out from the receding cloud cover.

“That's coming from the resort!” Frank said. “On the basis of its location, my guess is it's coming from the guest wing of the inn.”

Frank grabbed the writing pad and wrote down the dot-and-dash sequences being sent by the beacon from Konawa Inn.

“Can you decode it?” Chet asked.

“I'm a little rusty,” Frank replied. “It might take a few minutes.”

“And guess who was supposed to be receiving that signal,” Joe said, picking something up off the floor and showing it to Frank.

“Another cigarette with a gold bear on the filter,” Frank said, looking at Joe's find.

“Whoever it is, he has some nasty habits,” Joe remarked. “Smoking, spying, and stealing.”

Suddenly another howl was heard, followed by a second. “That's coming from below us!” Joe said, leading the rush down the spiral stairs. After reentering the fifth floor, they took the main stairs down to the bottom floor but saw no sign of any animal. They paused, listening.

When one of the creatures howled again, Frank said, “It's coming from under the asylum.”

“We haven't searched the north end of the octagon,” Joe said, leading the others across the entrance hall. Near the chained entrance on the other side, they found stairs leading down to the basement.

At the far end of the basement was a padlocked door. Joe shined his light on the lock while Frank went to work with his penknife.

“Think you can pick that one?” Chet asked.

“It's a small lock, and it looks new,” Frank replied. “I should be able . . . There!”

The small lock opened, and Joe went for the doorknob.

“Joe, wait!” Frank warned, but his brother had already cracked open the door. Just then something leaped through the opening, toppling Joe.