Attack of the Bayport Beast Read online

  CONTENTS

  Chapter 1 Step Right Up

  Chapter 2 My Brother, the Skeptic

  Chapter 3 Watcher in the Woods

  Chapter 4 The Expedition

  Chapter 5 The Benefactor

  Chapter 6 Minor Adjustment

  Chapter 7 Signs of Life

  Chapter 8 Sighting

  Chapter 9 No Joke

  Chapter 10 Another Minor Adjustment

  Chapter 11 The Beast Lives

  Chapter 12 Trapped

  Chapter 13 More Signs

  Chapter 14 In Deep

  Chapter 15 Brother Trouble

  Chapter 16 Incoming!

  Chapter 17 Outgoing

  About Franklin W. Dixon

  1

  STEP RIGHT UP

  FRANK

  AS JOE AND I MOVED through the crowd, I spotted Spiderman chatting with Superman. Off to the right, a Jedi Knight ate a hot dog next to Captain America. We stopped short as Darth Vader marched across our path, his long black cape flowing behind him.

  Just then, a beastly arm entered my field of view. Dark hair dangled in clumps from the appendage. Bony fingers stretched wide as they reached for the back of Joe’s neck. Each fingertip ended in a sharp, jagged talon.

  Instinctively, I opened my mouth to warn my brother, but then I caught myself. Hey, it had been his idea to drag me here, so . . .

  The claws clamped onto my brother’s neck. He jumped and spun around, eyes wide.

  “Another victim of the beast!” said Hector Cruz—friend, practical joker, and owner of the beastly arm.

  A grin spread across Joe’s face. “Where’d you get that arm?”

  Hector jutted a hairy thumb over his shoulder. “The lady at that cosplay booth let me borrow it.”

  “Of course there’s a cosplay booth here,” I muttered. Cosplay, or costume play, refers to the practice of people dressing up as their favorite comic book, TV, or movie characters. Not only were cosplay hobbyists everywhere, but all morning I’d taken photos of Joe and Hector standing with Wolverine, Batman, and Robocop, to name a few.

  “Way cool,” Joe said as he doubled back toward the booth filled with fanciful costumes.

  “Maybe they have one of those new Stormtrooper helmets.” Hector nudged me on the shoulder. “That would be sick, huh?” He hurried to catch up to Joe.

  I sighed and trudged after them. “Yeah, real sick.”

  The entire morning had been my brother’s big idea. You can bet I didn’t want spend the first day of summer vacation at a sci-fi and cryptozoology convention. The science fiction part I could get behind. The cryptozoology part . . . not so much.

  Cryptozoology. A made-up word describing the made-up science of studying made-up animals. At least, that’s how I thought of it. But from the number of attendees and vendors at the convention, a lot of people seemed to take it very seriously. Many of the vendors had booths filled with retro action figures and comic books, but there were just as many selling Nessie statuettes. Nessie—better known as the Loch Ness Monster—is the mythical plesiosaur that, according to believers, somehow survived the mass extinction of dinosaurs sixty-five million years ago and is alive and well, swimming in a murky Scottish lake. I even saw a booth offering little chupacabra plush dolls. Why would any kid want to snuggle up to a Puerto Rican monster that’s famous for living off goat blood?

  Most of the crypto-vendors sold merchandise related to the main star of cryptozoology—Bigfoot. Posters, figurines, and dolls of the mythical apelike creature were everywhere. One vendor even had an eight-foot-tall, hairy replica that you could pose for photos with.

  Bigfoot was the reason why this particular convention was held in Bayport at the beginning of every summer. Some people think that Bayport has its own version of the creature roaming the national forest outside of town. These believers even came up with a unique name for it: the Bayport Beast.

  I caught up to Hector and my brother at the cosplay booth. Hector had indeed found one of the new Stormtrooper helmets among the many costumes from various science fiction and fantasy movies. He slipped it over his bushy brown hair. “Aw, yeah,” came his muffled voice from inside the helmet.

  “Here, try this,” said the owner of the booth, a woman decked out in full Klingon regalia. She looked exactly like one of the aliens from Star Trek, from the special-effects makeup and forehead ridges to the wicked dagger hanging from her belt. The woman reached a gloved hand over the counter and flipped a switch on the side of the helmet.

  “What was—” Hector began. His voice crackled through a tiny speaker on the side of the helmet. “Oh. Cool!” He gave a quick glance around. “Lord Vader isn’t here, is he? I’m mostly out of uniform.”

  “I thought we were trying to find Benny,” I said.

  “His booth is around here somewhere.” Joe shrugged. “We’ll get to it.”

  Hector cocked his head at us. “This isn’t the booth we’re looking for,” his electronic voice murmured, impersonating someone under the influence of a Jedi mind trick.

  Joe laughed. I shook my head.

  “Okay, are you shopping or just playing?” the Klingon woman asked, hands on hips.

  Hector removed the helmet. “Just playing,” he admitted as he handed over the sci-fi headgear. “Little too pricey for me. Sorry.”

  I followed Joe and Hector as they made their way down the long aisle of vendors. I felt like I was babysitting two toddlers who were distracted by every toy they came across.

  Joe examined a blue-and-red Transformer action figure from one of the tables and handed it to me. “Didn’t you used to have this one when we were little?”

  I nodded. “Yeah.” I set the toy back on the table. “Optimus Prime . . . and you broke it.”

  Joe’s eyebrows rose. “That’s right.” He reached for his back pocket. “Want me to buy you this one? To replace it?”

  I ignored the question along with my brother’s empty gesture. “I thought you were more interested in the cryptozoology than the sci-fi.”

  Joe moseyed past the line of booths. “Oh, I am. But you have to admit, this is cool stuff, right?”

  “Yeah, the sci-fi stuff is cool. But there’s a reason cryptozoology doesn’t have its own convention. Because it’s all sci-fi, if you ask me.”

  Hector caught up to us. He nodded in my direction. “Is he going off again?”

  Joe rolled his eyes. “You know it.”

  “I thought you two were detectives,” Hector said. “What’s a bigger mystery than Bigfoot?”

  I threw up my hands. “There’s no mystery, because it doesn’t exist.”

  Hector was right about one thing: we were detectives. My brother and I have been solving mysteries since we were kids. And not just kid stuff like finding missing pets; we’ve caught some major crooks in our time.

  Hector squinted at me. “What about all those Bigfoot-hunting reality shows?”

  “Just because it’s called reality doesn’t mean it’s real,” I replied. “And do you know how I know that those particular shows aren’t real? Because none of them provide solid proof that Bigfoot exists. If they did, it would be on every news channel and burning up the Internet before they could even air the episode.”

  Joe threw an arm over my shoulder. “Listen, bro. You know I’m a logical person.” I raised an eyebrow.

  “Mostly logical,” he corrected himself. “And I know there’s a slim chance that these creatures actually exist. But don’t you think the world would be a little more interesting with the possibility that they might exist?”

  “I’m with Joe on this one,” said Hector. “Bigfoot, Nessie, ghosts, aliens . . . it could happen.”

  I raised my hands. “Oh,
I never said aliens didn’t exist.”

  Hector did a double take. “Wait a minute. You don’t believe in Bigfoot, but you think little green men are real?”

  I rolled my eyes. “No, I don’t believe in little green men. But just think about it. . . .”

  “Here we go,” said Joe.

  “Our solar system is one of billons in our entire galaxy,” I explained. “There are more than one hundred billion galaxies in the known universe. Mathematically, it’s nearly impossible that we are the only planet in the universe with life on it.”

  “So, life on other planets?” Hector asked.

  “Statistically? Highly probable,” I replied with confidence.

  “But little green men at Area 51?”

  I shook my head. “Please.”

  We turned down the next aisle and found our friend Benny Williams standing behind a booth for Bayport’s own Triple B Comic Shop.

  “Hey! You guys made it,” Benny said as we approached. He was about a foot shorter than us and almost seemed lost behind the racks of comic books on either side of him.

  Benny was a huge fan of the Bayport Beast. He always had news of the latest sighting or the most recent theory, and he could prattle on forever about the Native American legends describing a giant fur-covered man who roamed the forest. According to local lore, early American colonists spotted the strange creature in the woods, and the town’s founders named the beast.

  As long as we’d known Benny, the beast had been his main hobby, bordering on obsession. So much so that he even had his own nickname.

  “Benny the Beast!” Hector said. “How’s it going?”

  “Great,” Benny replied. He moved down to the far side of the display table. “Check out my new Bayport Beast merch.” He proudly gestured toward a small display of Bayport Beast caps, T-shirts, and sketches. “Everything a fan of the beast could want or need!”

  Joe stuck a cap on his head. “I’m down for one of these.”

  While Benny rattled through his stock, I noticed another attendee taking interest—a tall, thin man in a blue blazer. He had a bandage on his forehead and a crazy spiked hairstyle that looked as if it had taken a half a tube of hair gel to create. I tried to decide if he was dressed as an obscure sci-fi character. One of the old Doctor Who doctors, maybe?

  Hector held up an I Saw the Bayport Beast shirt. “This is cool. But I can’t wear it if I haven’t seen the beast, right?”

  “Well, that might be about to change,” Benny said.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  Benny reached into his pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper. He spread it open, and I realized it was an old trail map for the local national forest. There were several dark Xs drawn on different parts of the trails.

  “I’m thinking about giving tours on all the latest squatch sightings,” Benny explained.

  Benny liked calling the creature a “squatch,” short for Sasquatch, the name Native Americans gave Bigfoot back in the day.

  “I’ve always wondered how you know about all the latest sightings,” Joe said. “Where do you get your intel?”

  Benny grinned. “I have my sources. Anyway, are you guys up for a campout as a test run?” He looked at us expectantly. “Free of charge, of course.”

  “Count me in,” said Hector. He exchanged a fist bump with Benny.

  Joe grinned and looked at me.

  I slowly shook my head. “No, no, and no.”

  2

  MY BROTHER, THE SKEPTIC

  JOE

  A COOL BREEZE WHISTLED THROUGH the trees the next morning as the sun climbed higher in the sky. I followed Benny and Hector as we hiked up a wooded trail. Each of us wore a backpack and used a hiking stick to navigate the steep path. Benny’s huge backpack nearly dwarfed the little guy, but he seemed to be doing fine.

  Most of the surrounding forest didn’t resemble the enchanted woods in the Lord of the Rings movies. Thorny bramble vines and thick bushes covered much of the ground. The leafy canopy above us blocked most of the sun and created deep shadows, with only occasional shafts of light poking through. In places you couldn’t see more than ten feet into the foliage. Even though miles of well-worn hiking trails cut through the dense forest, this was the perfect creepy setting for a beast hunt.

  I glanced over my shoulder to glimpse Frank bringing up the rear. He seemed to be enjoying himself too.

  Did I think I’d be able to convince my brother to join us on a Bigfoot hunt? Of course not. But talking him into camping with friends wasn’t so hard.

  For as long as I can remember, the Hardy brothers have been divided into two camps as far as sports were concerned. I’ve always excelled at team sports like soccer and baseball. Meanwhile, my older brother is better at adventure sports like kayaking and rock climbing. That’s not to say I don’t like camping. We both belong to our school’s Green Environment Conservation Club, after all.

  Either way, knowing how Frank geeks out about nature, I was sure it wouldn’t take much of a nudge to get him to camp. And if some of us happened to be looking for the Bayport Beast along the way, so be it.

  Up ahead, Benny stopped and held up a fist. Hector and I halted and remained still as Benny peered around us into the dense woods. Frank eased up beside me.

  “How many times is he going to do that?” Frank asked.

  “Give him a break,” I whispered. “This is his first Bayport Beast tour, after all.”

  Frank shrugged and reached for one of the water bottles on the side of his pack.

  “Last year, on this very spot, a family of four spotted the beast crossing the trail in front of them.” Benny pointed to the trail ahead. “The creature disappeared over that small rise. It was the last sighting of the summer.”

  Benny hiked up the hill. When we joined him atop the rise, he continued, “Some people say the beast likes to be close to people, almost as if it wants to be part of a pack. Yet still it stays hidden. Always watching.”

  He turned to face each of us, then scanned the thick woods. “In fact, it could be watching us right now.”

  Benny stepped off the hiking trail to our right, ducking under some branches as he maneuvered down a narrow game trail. Game trails were much smaller, sometimes nearly imperceptible paths usually created by wildlife.

  “Uh, if the beast could be so close, shouldn’t we stay on the main trail?” Hector asked. “Besides, we could get lost.”

  “Don’t worry,” I replied as I made my way behind Hector. “I’m sure Frank has a compass.”

  “Of course I brought a compass,” my brother mumbled behind me. “Didn’t everyone?”

  We snaked through the dense woods single file until the game trail led to a small clearing, where we found Benny studying a patch of tall grass.

  “See how the grass is matted down like that?” Benny asked. “Looks like a squatch nest.” He bent down and placed a palm in the center of the circular pattern. “One could’ve spent the night here.”

  “Whoa,” Hector whispered as he knelt beside Benny. “Do you see any tracks?”

  Benny shook his head. “Too much vegetation for its feet to make an impression.”

  “Too bad,” said Frank. “Because then you might see some deer tracks. They bed down in tall grass like this.”

  I glanced around the ring of thick trees. “What else are we looking for?”

  “See if there is fur snagged on any of the branches or bushes nearby,” Benny directed. “And maybe look for some squatch scat.”

  “Some what?” asked Hector.

  “You know, Sasquatch poop,” Benny explained.

  “Really?” Frank raised an eyebrow. “And what exactly does ‘squatch scat’ look like?”

  Benny shrugged. “I don’t know. But a squatch is big so I’m guessing something . . . substantial.”

  “Everything poops, right?” I asked. “Besides, something spent the night here. Maybe there are some clues as to what it was.”

  We searched the small c
learing but came up empty. Then we made our way back through the thick forest and onto the main trail to continue our trek.

  I understood why Frank was being such a pain about the whole Bayport Beast thing. He doesn’t believe in cryptozoology at all. But being a detective, you think he’d be a little curious as to why people all over the world seem to catch glimpses of these creatures.

  We followed Benny to two more locations on his map and even another “squatch nest.” Each time, Frank was quick to point out a logical explanation for what the sighting could’ve been: a glance at a bear through dense underbrush, somebody in a gorilla suit. Frank had an answer for everything.

  We stopped for lunch on top of a hill along a wide bend in the trail.

  Benny took a long pull from his water bottle. “Just think, guys. The beast is out there somewhere.”

  “Benny . . . ,” Frank began.

  “Give the man a break,” I told my brother. “This is why we’re here.”

  Frank pointed at me. “This is why you’re here. I’m just camping with some friends.”

  “That’s okay,” said Benny. “I bet you’ll be a believer before we’re through.”

  Frank threw up his hands. “What about a body?” he asked. “This thing can’t live forever. Just think, if these creatures had been roaming the woods for so long that the original Native Americans had a name for them, then there had to have been several of them. Maybe a whole pack.”

  Benny gave Frank a suspicious look. “Yeah . . .”

  “Then why hasn’t anyone found a dead one?” Frank asked. “Everything dies, right? You’d think someone would’ve stumbled upon a Sasquatch skull at some point.”

  “A satchskull?” I asked.

  Benny ignored my joke. “There aren’t bear skulls lying around either, and we know those exist.”

  I had heard Bigfoot hunters on TV use the same argument. They claim that big animals that die natural deaths quickly decompose or are eaten by scavengers, so it’s rare to find their remains. I didn’t know if it was true, but it sounded plausible.

  “We know bears are real because they are real,” said Frank.

  “Sasquatches could bury their dead,” Hector suggested. “Like people.”