Typhoon Island (8 page)

“With this wind, and the rain coming down, whoever is shooting can’t be very accurate,” Frank said.

“The foliage works to our advantage too,” Joe added. “We should keep moving—not give him any easy targets.” He pushed ahead through the thick green undergrowth.

They kept moving as fast as they could, darting around the brush and fallen trees as the thunder echoed in their ears. Within a few minutes they came to a dense patch of undergrowth and had to slow down a bit and work their way through. Joe took the lead, bulldozing ahead like a first-string running back breaking through the line. Frank and the girls followed close behind.

“How’s your leg?” Frank asked Callie.

“Fine, I think,” she said. “It’s not stinging or anything.”

“That’s a good sign,” Joe called back. “Maybe whoever’s doing this is only trying to scare us.”

“Well, he’s doing a good job,” Iola commented.

“I’ll take a closer look at the dart once we shake this guy,” Frank said. “I’m sure you’ll be okay.”

Callie nodded bravely, but her lower lip trembled.

Something whizzed over their heads as Joe finally got through the tangled undergrowth. Up ahead the jungle thinned out. They all broke into a sprint once again.

“These orange ponchos are making us easy targets,” Iola said, glancing over her shoulder as she ran.

“But we’re hard to hit,” Joe noted. “The sniper can’t pick out our bodies under the billowing plastic.”

A peal of thunder shook the ground. A huge tree split in half and fell toward the teens.

“Look out!” Frank called, pushing Callie out of the way. Joe and Iola dived aside as the tree crashed down next to them. Frank grunted in pain.

“Are you all right?” Callie asked.

“I’m not hurt bad,” the elder Hardy said, “but I’m trapped. I can’t move.”

Joe knelt down and examined his brother. “His feet are pinned under the log,” he said to the girls. “Help me lift it? Frank, when we lift, try to crawl out.”

Frank gritted his teeth and nodded. Joe, Iola, and Callie wrapped their arms around the palm tree’s soggy bark and heaved with all their might. The fallen tree inched up slightly, and Frank crawled out from underneath.

“Can you walk?” Joe asked.

“I think so,” Frank said, gingerly testing his weight on his feet.

Joe looped an arm under his older brother’s armpit; Callie did the same on the other side. “Lean on us for a while,” she said.

Frank nodded and winced slightly.

Iola took the lead, and they forged ahead again.

They moved more slowly as Frank tried to regain his footing. Iola glanced back frequently, checking on her companions and looking for the blowgun sniper.

The storm showed no signs of stopping. The wind continued to howl, and the rain pelted through the dense leaves overhead. Their footing grew progressively less solid as the soil under their feet turned entirely to slippery mud.

A few scared animals crossed their path as the friends trudged onward. A wild boar ran past, heading toward the islands interior. Shortly after that a large, iguana-like lizard fell out of a splintered tree, nearly landing on the girls’ heads. It, too, scrambled off into the brush.

A fallen log in the road soon blocked their progress. Callie and Iola stooped to move it out of their way while Joe supported Frank. As they lifted the log, three giant centipedes scuttled out from beneath. The girls jumped, but the insects seemed more intent on escaping than causing trouble. The
bugs quickly disappeared into the undergrowth, and the girls sighed in relief.

The teens kept moving as quickly as they could. Frank soon shook off the effects of being pinned under the tree. His ankles ached, but he managed to keep up with the rest. Helping Frank walk had tired out Joe and Callie, and now they moved more slowly than any of them would have liked.

Occasionally the leaves around them would ripple with some unseen force—perhaps another blowgun dart zipping past, though it could just as easily have been the driving rain, or debris whipped up by the wind. The harrowing journey began to take its toll on the teens’ nerves as well as their bodies.

“We have to stop soon,” Iola said, gasping.

“Just a little farther,” Joe said.

“How are we going to find our way back to the hotel?” Callie asked.

“We’ll figure that out once we’re sure we’ve lost this sniper,” Frank replied. “Keep moving. I think I see some light up ahead. It may be a clearing.”

“Maybe we can use it to get our bearings,” Joe suggested.

He and the others ran as quickly as they could in the direction Frank indicated. The wind tugged at their ponchos, and the rain stung their exposed skin. Water seeped up their sleeves and down their necks, further soaking their clothing. Their feet felt like blocks of lead.

Spattered with mud and drenched to the bone, the four finally emerged from the jungle. What Frank had seen was not actually a clearing within the forest, but a bare spot on top of a seaside bluff. A hundred feet below on either side stretched the Caribbean, its waters whipped into a white-capped frenzy by the approaching hurricane.

Joe bent over and put his hands on his knees to catch his breath. He scanned the forest behind them. “I think,” he said, panting, “that we may have lost. . . the sniper.”

“I sure . . . hope so,” Iola replied, also gasping for air. “It looks like . . . we’re out of room to run.” She cast a wary eye over the bluff to the raging sea far below.

“Which is the way . . . back to Nuevo Esteban?” Callie asked.

Frank looked north and south along the coast. The land curved away in either direction, and he saw no sign of the city through the storm. “It has to be to the left,” he said.

Joe nodded his agreement. “Let’s rest a minute,” he suggested.

“Just for a minute,” Callie said, shivering. “We need to get out of this storm.”

Exhausted, they all flopped down into the mud on top of the bluff. While Joe and Iola kept a careful watch on the forest, Frank pulled the bark-capped blowgun dart out of his pocket. He held it
up, hoping to catch any last rays of sunlight that managed to leak from beneath the black storm clouds.

“I don’t see any discoloration on the needle,” he said, squinting and examining the dart carefully. He ran his fingers over the slender metal shaft and then held his fingertips to his nose.

Callie looked at him apprehensively. Her pale hand shook as she brushed her drenched blond hair back out of her eyes.

“I don’t smell anything either,” Frank concluded.

“What’s that mean?” Iola asked. Dark circles ringed her gray eyes, and her skin looked as ashen as Callie’s.

“It means the dart’s probably not poisoned,” Joe said.

Callie heaved a deep sigh of relief. “Thank goodness,” she said.

“Nonpoisonous darts can give you a nasty sting,” Frank said, “or even kill if they hit you in the right spot.”

“My brother the optimist,” Joe said.

Frank laughed and gave Callie a quick hug. “You’re not poisoned, but we’re still in a bind here,” he said. He and Joe looked and felt as beat as the girls. They needed a safe place to rest and recover—and they needed to find it soon. Sitting in the wind and rain wasn’t doing them any good.

Out to sea they saw the full fury of the hurricane
building. The waves towered like blue gray mountains, their white peaks whipping into blurs of spray. Thunder crashed, and lightning lit the dark sky. The whole world seemed bathed in eerie green light—the kind of illumination that foretells the coming of a terrible storm.

Joe stood. “We need to get out of here.”

He gave Iola a hand to her feet, and Frank and Callie helped each other up. As they rose a strange, rumbling burble built up around them. Suddenly the top of the bluff gave way—and all four teens plunged down the cliff face toward the raging sea.

The mud slide surged around the teens, causing Iola and Callie to scream.

“Try to grab on to something!” Frank shouted.

“Like what?” Joe called back. “The whole hillside’s given way!”

The Hardys and their girlfriends scrambled through the mud, trying to get a grip on anything that might stop their slide.

“It’s no use!” Iola cried.

Frank shot his arm out and grabbed a bush at the slide’s edge. The branches were thorny and cut the skin on Franks palm, but the plant held. Callie caught hold of his belt and held on tight. “Iola! Joe!” she called.

But they were too far away to grab on. Joe and
his girlfriend tumbled down the muddy slope toward the rock-lined shore. Joe seized Iola in his arms. “Hang tight,” he said. She nodded and wrapped her arms tightly around his waist.

Joe rolled sideways, against the flow of the slide. Rocks and earth battered their bodies. Rain and floodwaters washed over them, threatening to drown them even before the rocks below could shatter their bones.

Suddenly they hit something hard and stopped sliding.

“Joe! Iola! Are you all right?” Frank shouted down from above.

The younger Hardy and his girlfriend wiped the mud off their faces and opened their eyes. They were lying on top of a small, brush-covered ledge near the base of the bluff. The remnants of the mud slide gurgled past them, less than an arm’s length away.

“We are
so
lucky,” Iola said quietly.

“Lucky?” Joe said. “What do you think I was aiming for with all that rolling?” He smiled at her and then called up to Frank and Callie, “We’re okay!”

“I don’t think we can climb back up!” Iola said, shouting to make herself heard above the storm.

“Stay there!” Frank replied. “We’ll make our way down to you.”

He and Callie took a few moments to plot the safest course down the bluff’s face, then carefully made their way down to their friends.

The bushy ledge Joe and Iola had landed on lay less than a dozen yards from the rocky shore. Sea mist, tossed up from the tall waves, filled the air. The shore was even wetter, it seemed, than the jungle had been.

“It’s a miracle that none of us were hurt,” Frank said, looking back the way they’d come.

“One thing’s for sure,” Joe said. “That blowgun sniper will have trouble following us now.”

“If he has any sense,” Iola said, “he’s somewhere safe and dry by now.”

“I wish I could say the same for us,” Callie added. Her brown eyes reflected a flash of lightning.

“We’ll head south along the coast,” Frank said. “We know the town’s in that direction.”

“I’m pretty sure that most of this coastline is made of cliffs,” Iola said.

“Maybe,” Joe said. “But maybe there’ll be a place we can climb up. We better get moving, though. This storm is moving in very fast.”

They fought their way along the coast. The wind attempted to pound them into the cliff face, the rain tried to beat them into the ground, and the rising waves threatened to drag them out to sea. Though the air temperature remained hot, the rain and wind had sucked most of the warmth out of the teenagers’ bodies.

The rocky shore provided no shelter, and the cliff face didn’t allow a climb back up to the jungle. All
four of them felt miserable. There was nothing to do, though, but press on.

The sound of the storm around them was incredible. The wind, rain, and surf built into a cacophony that made their heads throb. With chaos swirling all around, it became increasingly difficult to concentrate.

More than once they almost lost their footing on the rocks. Joe cut his shin on a sharp boulder. They stopped just long enough for him to tear a makeshift bandage from his T-shirt.

“I hope there are no land sharks around to be drawn by the scent of blood,” he joked.

“With the way this storm is coming in,” Frank replied, “I’d be just as worried about
regular
sharks if I were you.”

They all laughed, though their situation wasn’t at all funny. They soon realized that if they didn’t find shelter before the worst of the storm hit, they were goners. As soon as Joe tied off his bandage, they got moving again.

All four of them had studied maps of San Esteban, and they knew they couldn’t be very far up the coast from either their rented cottages—at least what was left of them—or Casa Bonita. Yet as they looked south along the shore they saw no sign of their destination. They all felt disheartened, but no one mentioned it.

Suddenly a rogue wave, taller than a two-story
building, surged out of the sea and crashed into the teens. It smashed them to the ground, and the backwash threatened to pull them into the raging surf. Joe, Iola, and Frank crouched down and grabbed on to nearby boulders, but Callie lost her footing.

“Help!” she cried as she was dragged into the ocean.

Both Frank and Joe tried to grab her. Frank missed, but Joe twined his fingers around Callie’s outstretched hand and hung on tight. Iola anchored her feet under one of the boulders and grabbed on to both Hardys’ belts. Frank grabbed Callie’s other hand.

For an endless moment they hung there, trapped in a deadly tug-of-war with the sea for possession of their friend. Finally the surf subsided, and Callie climbed back over the rocks to her companions.

She was battered, bruised, and even more soaked than before, but otherwise little the worse for her terrifying experience. Frank gave her a hug, and they all continued up the rocky slope, farther away from the perilous waves.

Moving on the higher rocks slowed their journey considerably. Plus what was left of the last dull gray light was rapidly waning, and they still couldn’t make out the lights of Nuevo Esteban or their hotel.

“Maybe the power’s been knocked out,” suggested Joe.

“It wouldn’t surprise me,” Frank replied.

“I’d be surprised if it hadn’t been, with this weather,” Iola added.

They didn’t want to use the flashlight they’d rescued from the Jeep any sooner than necessary, but now it seemed they might need it to avoid a perilous misstep along the rocky shore.

Just then Frank’s sharp eyes spotted a dark blot on the dim gray cliff face. “It might be a cave,” he said. “There are supposed to be caves along this shore.”

“Let’s hope so,” Iola said. “We could use a break from the wind and rain.”