Ghost Stories (2 page)

He stepped forward and called out, “Sir, our car broke down. We need a tow.”

There was no answer. A rising wind ruffled the corn tassels. Frank and Joe waited with pounding hearts and tense nerves.

“We'd better stay where we are,” Frank warned in an undertone. “We don't know who this guy is. Maybe he's off his rocker! If we turn, he might jump us!”

“But where is he?” Joe hissed. “It's so dark, he could be behind us by now!” The boy glanced over his shoulder as he spoke.

Suddenly the cloud drifted past. Moonlight flooded the cornfield again and the sinister figure came into clear view.

Now the Hardys could see that it was attached to a pole thrust into the ground between two corn furrows. Wisps of straw poked out from under the hat. The fingers were made of wire. The face was painted on.

“It's a scarecrow!” Frank exploded. “We've been talking to a scarecrow!”

“It sure looks real,” Joe responded. “I wonder who made it? It gives me the creeps!”

“Me, too, Joe. But there should be a farmhouse around here. Let's try there.”

The boys started walking away when they heard an eerie warning.

“Beware! Leave this place and flee for your lives!”

The Hardys stood rooted to the spot. Frank's hair rose on the back of his neck. Joe felt goose bumps. They stared speechlessly at the scarecrow. It had spoken!

The wind fluttered its clothing, and its upturned toes moved. Its grin seemed to mock the boys in the moonlight, while the talonlike fingers appeared to be reaching for them!

“Joe, did you hear what I heard?” Frank asked hoarsely.

“I sure did,” Joe replied. “But scarecrows don't talk!”

“Let's try again. Maybe we can solve this mystery.”

This time Frank spoke to the scarecrow. “Why do you say we should leave? What kind of danger are we in?”

The scarecrow just glared at them.

Frank asked a few more questions without getting a reply. Nothing broke the silence except the moaning of the wind in the corn.

“That does it!” Frank muttered. “We're wasting our time. Come on, Joe!”

“I'm with you,” Joe confessed with a shudder. “But which way do we go?”

Gazing around the area, Frank spotted a large building looming in the distance on the other side of the cornfield.

“That must be the farmhouse,” he noted. “Let's try there.”

“Sure. Any place is better than here,” Joe agreed.

The Hardys turned away from the scarecrow and
began to walk across the cornfield in the direction of the house. It was slow going because the drifting clouds occasionally darkened the moon. The footing was treacherous. They stumbled over mounds of earth thrown up by the plow and stubbed their toes on fallen cornstalks.

“This is worse than backpacking!” Joe puffed as he jumped from one furrow to another.

“I'd rather climb Bayport Hills,” Frank agreed.

Just then Joe heard a furtive noise. Stealthy footsteps were sneaking after them!

He nudged Frank with his elbow. “We're being followed,” he warned in a low voice.

“I hear it, too,” Frank whispered. “Let's set up an ambush!”

The Hardys walked ten paces forward without turning their heads. They listened to the sneaky footsteps dogging them through the cornfield. On the count of ten, they spun around and went into a defensive karate stance.

They were ready to tackle their pursuer. But they saw nothing in the semidarkness of the clouded moon. The sound of the footsteps had ceased.

Frank grimaced. “We must be getting jumpy, Joe. We're imagining things.”

“Maybe it was just the wind in the corn,” Joe said halfheartedly. “Anyway, who would be out here following us?”

He had barely spoken when a couple of large cornstalks were pushed apart violently. The moon, reappearing from behind a cloud, shone on the ghastly white face of the scarecrow, as the weird
creature grinned mockingly at them in the moonlight!

Frank and Joe were mesmerized by the sight. They stood stock-still and stared at the apparition, which was crouched down in a furrow holding the stalks apart. It kept grinning.

Suddenly it emitted a grisly laugh—a terrifying sound in the stillness of the night. The laughter rose to a high point and broke off.

Then the scarecrow spoke to them for a second time. “Do not go to the house!” it rasped. “Leave here or it will be the worse for you!”

The Hardys stood there, doubting their senses. The scarecrow released the cornstalks and allowed them to snap together. The gruesome face vanished, and the sound of retreating footsteps could be heard.

The young detectives came to with a start. They ran to the spot where the scarecrow had been and peered around. But they saw and heard nothing.

“Let's follow it!” Frank exclaimed.

“Which way?”

“Back to the place where we first saw it!”

The boys retraced their footsteps as rapidly as possible, and soon reached the spot where they had confronted the scarecrow.

The pole was bare and the creature was gone!

Frank and Joe were thunderstruck. They felt their hearts pounding furiously.

“Joe, are we seeing things?” Frank asked in a shaky voice.

“And hearing things?” Joe wondered. He shook his head as if to clear it of cobwebs.

Rousing themselves from their momentary indecision, they scouted around the area. But they found nothing, and decided to continue on to the house for help.

“Maybe the farmer can tell us something about his walking scarecrow.” Joe suggested hopefully.

A long trek brought them to the building, a large, rambling wooden structure towering above a grove of trees. There was no light in any of the windows.

Joe led the way up the steps to the porch. He pressed the doorbell, and they heard a shrill noise inside the house. But nobody answered! Joe rang a few more times. Still there was no response.

“Sounds like no one's home,” Frank said. “But we can't go away without making sure.”

“Somebody could be at the back of the house,” Joe agreed. “Let's find out.”

They descended from the porch to the ground and walked around the building, looking for a sign of light as they went. But there was nothing. Tangled underbrush clutched at their feet. They pushed aside brambles that pricked their hands and swatted at mosquitoes buzzing about their ears.

“This stuff hasn't been mowed since the year one,” Frank complained.

Before Joe could comment, an unearthly screech made them freeze in their tracks.

“What was that?” Joe burst out.

“I hope it wasn't the scarecrow,” Frank muttered.

They heard a fluttering of wings in the nearest tree. An owl flew down and perched on a bush. Its
big round eyes glared at them. Ruffling its leathers, it screeched again.

The Hardys grinned ruefully at each other. Relaxing, they completed their tour around the house, and reached the porch again without noticing any sign of life inside. They shouted loudly and got no reply.

“This is an emergency,” Joe declared. “We've got to use the phone to call a garage. Anyone would say we had a right to go in.”

“Any port in a storm,” Frank agreed. He tried the door and found it bolted. The windows, too, refused to budge when he tried to open them.

“The other windows are too high to get at,” he said in a disappointed tone.

Joe shook his head. “There's one chance, Frank. When that screech owl flew down at us, I noticed that a branch of the tree was close to the attic window. If the window's open, we should be able to get in.”

They went back to the tree. Joe wound his arms around the trunk and shinnied up. Testing the higher branches to be sure they would hold his weight, he climbed until he was on the branch that extended toward the window.

Gingerly inching his way outward, he reached a point where he could press his hand against the glass. The window moved inward under the pressure, as the hinges squeaked spookily.

“We're in luck,” Joe called down. “It's unlocked! Come on up.”

Frank swarmed up the tree and joined Joe on the
branch. Having got the window open all the way, the younger Hardy clambered over the sill into the attic. Frank came right after him. Once inside, they took pencil flashlights from their detective kits.

Shining the beams around, they realized they were in a large, empty room with rafters overhead. Dust lay thick on the floor.

“No footprints,” Frank observed. “Nobody's been up here in a long time.”

Joe flickered his light across the attic. “Well, there's the door, Frank. We sure won't find a phone up here. Let's go downstairs.”

As they moved across the room, a weird chattering broke out over their heads. Black forms swooped down on them from the rafters. Instinctively Frank and Joe hit the floor. The attackers veered away, returned to their perches on the rafters, and resumed their chattering.

“Bats!” Joe exploded. Dozens of 'em. Let's get out of here fast!”

“Stay down and keep moving,” Frank advised.

The Hardys slithered across the attic floor in a panther crawl. Reaching the door, they hastily opened it, crept through, and closed it behind them.

They went down the stairs, found another door, and went through into the hall on the upper floor of the house.

“You know something?” Frank said. “I think this is an abandoned building. There's no carpet on the floor, no furniture in the hall, and no light bulbs anywhere!”

A noise in the room at the head of the hall made him break off. The Hardys flattened themselves against the wall and slipped along to the door, which they found ajar. Frank pushed it open and they played their flashlights inside. The room was empty.

Frank turned his beam downward to the floor. “There's the one who made the noise!” He laughed.

A rat scurried away and escaped into a hole in one of the floorboards.

The Hardys checked the rest of the rooms on the upper floor, each taking one side of the hall.

“I've come up with nothing,” Joe declared when they met and compared notes.

“Neither have I. I wonder what it's like on the ground floor?”

They went down the stairs and turned into the dining room, which was bare and dusty like the rest of the house.

But then they spotted footprints.

“Somebody's been here!” Frank exclaimed in a startled tone.

“And not long ago!” Joe gulped.

They followed the prints with their flashlights. The marks led them into the kitchen and across to the back door, which was locked. A second set of footprints guided them into the middle of the living room.

“Only one person made these tracks,” Joe noted. “He came in through the back door and went out the same way.”

Frank gasped as he flicked his light across the
floor. “Joe, those are bits of straw over there. Either somebody's been pitching hay in this room or the scarecrow has been here!”

Joe shivered. “Suppose it's in the house right now, maybe in the basement! We'd better find out what's going on!”

“That's for sure,” Frank answered grimly.

Returning to the kitchen, they found more footprints leading to the basement door and down a flight of steps. At the bottom of the stairs the Hardys paused and looked around apprehensively. The basement was as bare as the rest of the house. Dust covered the furnace and air conditioner. Spiderwebs crisscrossed the windows. There was no door to the yard.

The footprints continued over to the fuse box. Frank examined it and reported that the electricity was turned off and all the fuses were gone. “The footprints go back to the stairs,” he added.

Making their way upstairs, Frank and Joe held a council of war.

“There's no phone,” Frank noted. “So we can't call for a tow.”

Joe shrugged. “We have two choices. We can go back and wait in the car. Or we can spend the night here. I vote we stay inside. We can sleep on the floor.”

Frank stretched and yawned. “I agree. We might as well make ourselves comfortable. It's not midnight yet and we can catch a few hours of shut-eye.”

He took off his jacket, rolled it up, lay down on
the floor, and placed it under his head for a pillow. Joe did the same. Almost immediately they fell asleep in the darkness and silence of the big house.

The excitement they had experienced since their car had broken down caused them both to have eerie nightmares involving the scarecrow.

Frank dreamed he and Joe were driving in search of a big house. They lost their way, and decided to ask for directions. But all the pedestrians were surly. None would answer their questions.

Suddenly a weird voice behind the Hardys said, “The house is to the right. Make the turn and speed up!”

Glancing over his shoulder, Frank was astounded to see the scarecrow in the back seat!

The apparition grinned at him scornfully. It tipped its stovepipe hat and added, “There is no need to ask anyone else. I will give you directions to the house. Go to the right!”

But Frank knew that to the right was a steep cliff, so he spun the wheel to the left. Yet the car turned right. He stepped on the brake to slow down, but instead the car picked up speed! Terrified, the Hardys continued on a direct course toward the cliff. On and on they went—faster and faster!

The scarecrow in the back seat began to snicker. Just then, the car hurtled over the edge of the cliff. It flew through the air and took a heart-stopping nose dive toward the rocks far below. Down and down it fell! Frank saw the rocks getting bigger and bigger!

The scarecrow gave a demented shriek of triumph.
Frank placed his hands over his ears and waited for the car to crash violently into the rocks.

At that point, he woke up. It took him a moment before he realized where he was.

What a nightmare! he thought. The scarecrow must really be getting to me.

Suddenly a floorboard groaned on the porch, and footsteps approached the front window. Sitting up, Frank saw the scarecrow peering at him! A twisted grin distorted its features.