Beware the Pirate Ghost (3 page)

As they neared the bottom of the trail, Sean asked, “What if we don’t find any bike tire tracks or footprints?”

Sam jumped from a low boulder to the sand and pointed toward the shack. “There are plenty of footprints,” he said. “Look.”

“Those are too big to be Lester’s,” Brian pointed out.

They all gave a start as a voice suddenly boomed, “Go away! You kids don’t belong here!”

An elderly man wearing stained khaki trousers and a tattered sweatshirt stood in the doorway of the shack. Ragged wisps of white hair poked out from under his faded baseball cap.

“We’re looking for someone,” Brian called to the man. He glanced past the shack to the rocks, where the hammering of ocean waves, over countless years, had worn deep caves into the rock cliff. The water level was lower now, and the cliffs were dry. Through the still-clinging morning mists, Brian could barely make out a narrow, dark entrance to the caves.

“Whoever you’re lookin’ for, he ain’t here!” the man shouted. “No one comes around these parts. The caves are haunted. You know that, don’t you?”

Brian trudged through the soft sand toward the man. As Sean and Sam followed, the man edged back into his doorway.

“I told you to go away,” he said. “If you’re lookin’ for pirate treasure, you’re in the wrong place. There’s no treasure buried here. Plenty of hunters came searchin’ in years gone by, but none of ’em found so much as a penny. There’s nothin’ good in Hernando Cove but the fishin’, and I don’t welcome your company.”

“We don’t want treasure, and we’re not interested in fishing,” Brian told him. “We’re looking for a missing seven-year-old boy.”

“No boys around here, either.” The fisherman grinned, exposing yellowed teeth, some of them missing. “If any boys had enough nerve to come near the caves, the pirate ghost would get ’em, and they’d never be seen again.”

His grin grew wider. “The pirate ghost carries a sword. A
bloody
sword, if you get what I mean.”

Sean, his heart thumping, took a couple of steps back. “Okay. We’re going,” he said.

The fisherman left his shack. With his mouth still twisted in an awful, smiling grimace, he strode toward Sean and Brian.

“That goes for
all
of us,” Sam said. “We’re out of here!”

Sean turned and broke into a run, struggling through the soft sand until he reached the path through the boulders. As fast as he could, he scrambled upward.

Finally, he paused and dropped to a flat place in the trail. He breathed hard, trying to catch his breath.

Sam tripped and fell next to Sean. Sean was surprised to see that Sam looked frightened. “That guy is weird,” Sam said. “While he was yelling at us, all I could think about was poor old Jack the Sailor.”

“Poor old Jack the Sailor has got to be somebody you made up,” Brian said. He climbed up beside Sean and sat down.

“Maybe. Maybe not,” Sam said. “The story seemed very real when we were down there.”

Sean had to laugh. “That’s funny! You scared yourself!”

“Running away was a good move, Sean,” Brian whispered.

“It wasn’t a move. It was for real,” Sean said.

“Whatever. The fisherman will think we’ve given up.”

“We have, haven’t we?” Sean asked.

“No, we haven’t,” Brian said. “We haven’t checked out the caves yet.”

“But that guy said—”

“He said there weren’t any boys around. That means he didn’t see any. But if Lester came here, it was in the middle of the night and the fisherman was probably asleep.”

Sean gulped. “Then the pirate ghost got him—”

“No, he didn’t.”

“—with his bloody sword.”

“Come off it, Sean,” Brian said. “Don’t pay any attention to the stories Sam tells you. He just likes to scare you.”

“Sam’s scared, too,” Sean answered.

Sam looked embarrassed. “I
was
scared for maybe a minute or two, but don’t tell my little brother,” he said. He looked at Sean. “The Jack-the-Sailor story wasn’t exactly true, but the pirate ghost sure is.”

Brian raised up, peering over the rocks, then sat down and whispered to Sean, “The fisherman’s still out there. You and Sam hide in the rocks. I’m going to ride around to the road that enters the cove and see if I can find Lester’s bike, or any sign he might be here. If I do … Well, we’ll climb down again, sneak around the shack, and enter the cave.”

“With the ghost?” Sean asked.

Brian looked at his watch. “Forget the ghost. It’s after ten o’clock.”

Bent over, so the fisherman wouldn’t see him, Brian started up the trail. Sam scrambled up next.

Sean made his own way upward, leaving the trail. But as he climbed around one of the boulders he stepped on a soft lump that suddenly moved out from under his foot. A low growl sounded in his ears, and something clamped tightly around his ankle.

“W
ATCH IT,” DEBBIE JEAN GRUMBLED
. “You stepped on my foot.”

Sean dropped down beside her. “What are you doing here?” he demanded.

“I’m following you,” she said. “I’m the one who told you about the missing bike and the way Lester acted about his medicine. If Lester’s here, then I’m going to get credit for finding him, too.”

Sam slid down beside them. “Keep the noise down,” he said. “We don’t want the guy who lives in the shack to know we’re still here.”

“Why?” Debbie Jean asked.

“Because we’re going to try to get into the caves and look for Lester,” Sam answered. “We think that’s where he’s gone.”

“Lester has a lot of posters and books about caves in his room,” Sean added. “We’re hoping they’re a clue.”

Debbie Jean nodded in agreement. “Lester talks about caves all the time,” she told them. “I’ve heard him say a lot of times that someday he was going to explore the pirate caves and find the treasure.”

“You didn’t tell us that,” Sean complained.

“You didn’t ask me,” Debbie Jean said.

“Did Lester know about the pirate ghost?” Sean asked.

“Sure,” Debbie Jean said. “But Lester wasn’t worried about ghosts.” She looked at Sean. “I guess the ghost doesn’t bother you, either. Huh?”

Sean pictured a pirate waving a bloody sword at him. He shrugged and said, “Not much.”

Brian slid down into the hollow next to Sean. He didn’t seem surprised to see Debbie Jean. “I saw your bike by the road to the cove,” he said. “And I saw a green mountain bike hidden nearby it.”

“Green? That’s Lester’s bike,” Debbie Jean said.

“You were right, Bri. Lester came to the caves byway of the road.” Sean frowned as he thought. “But if he’s in the caves, wouldn’t he have heard the fisherman talking with us? Why didn’t he come out?”

“He wouldn’t come out if he’s hiding,” Debbie Jean said.

“Or …” Brian stopped. “Never mind,” he said. “We’ll have to go in the caves and find him.”

“How are we going to do that, with the fisherman there to stop us?” Sam asked.

“We’ll just have to wait until he’s sure we’ve left.” Twice Brian rose to look over the rocks, but both times the fisherman was still in sight.

“He’s mending a large net,” Brian said. He looked at his watch again. “That could take forever.”

“Maybe one of us could talk to him, and the others could sneak into the cave,” Debbie Jean suggested.

“It wouldn’t work,” Brian said. “He’d figure out what we were up to.”

For a few minutes they sat so quietly they could hear the steady splat and fizzle of small waves hitting the shore before being sucked back into the sea. Finally, Brian looked at his watch and sighed. “It’s nearly noon. Time’s going by awfully fast.”

“See if the fisherman’s still there,” Sam whispered. “Maybe he’ll go inside his shack and eat lunch.”

Brian rose slowly, bracing himself against a large boulder. This time he motioned to the others. “He’s nowhere in sight,” he said. “Come on. And be quiet! We’ll head for the entrance to the caves.”

They climbed down the trail and walked silently through the sand, staying close to the bottom of the cliff. As they passed the shack, they bent low, hoping that the fisherman wouldn’t look out his window and see them.

Slowly, step-by-step, they approached the entrance to the caves. The gash in the dark, volcanic rock seemed much larger than it had at a distance. It looked like a giant fish’s open mouth, ready to swallow whoever came near.

Mists swirled around the opening, and Sean wished the mists could turn into fog, hiding them from view. What if the fisherman saw them? What if he chased them? Sean glanced over his shoulder, toward the shack they had passed, but there was no sign of the fisherman.

Brian held up his hand for the others to stop. “It’s just a couple of feet up to the entrance,” he whispered. “We can get into the caves without any problems. Just be careful where you step. Caves are full of holes … and sometimes rats. Shine your flashlight wherever you step. Debbie Jean, since you don’t have a flashlight, stick close to Sean.”

“Yuck,” Sean mumbled.

Debbie Jean shivered. “There are rats in the caves?” she asked. “You didn’t say anything about rats.”

Brian ignored her question. “If you’re ready,” he said, “let’s go.”

Before they could move, a deep, horrible yell shattered the air.

Brian, Sean, Sam, and Debbie Jean froze. They stared in horror at the entrance to the caves. Through the mists stepped a pirate, dressed like a shabby Captain Hook. A dirty bandanna was wrapped around his head, and an eye patch covered one eye.

The pirate yelled again and waved his sword, which dripped with bright red blood. He jumped from the caves’ entrance to the sand and faced them.

“You’re my prisoners!” he cackled. “You’ll never get out of here alive!”

D
EBBIE JEAN SCREAMED AND
broke into a run, heading for the road that led down to the cove. Sean ran, too, but in the opposite direction, heading for the path up the cliff. All he wanted was his bike—the fastest way to get home!

It wasn’t until Sean had reached his bike that Brian and Sam were able to catch up with him.

“Sean, stop! Where are you going?” Brian asked.

“Home!” Sean said.

Brian grabbed Sean’s shoulders. “Leave the bike there.”

“And let the ghost get us?”

“The ghost isn’t going to get us … or anybody else.”

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep.” Sam’s voice shook.

Above them they heard the swish of bike tires and saw Debbie Jean speeding past.

Sean made another try at pulling out of Brian’s grip. “Let me go!” he said. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

“No. We’re going back,” Brian said.

“We can’t. You saw the ghost!”

“I think I like Sean’s idea best,” Sam said.

Brian shook his head. “I
did
take a good look at the ghost. That’s why we’re going back.”

Sean stopped tugging and turned to look at Brian. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means that a private investigator has to pay attention to details. Didn’t you notice anything unusual about the pirate?”

Sean shivered as he remembered the pirate. “The dirty clothes he was wearing? The blood dripping from his sword?”

“His
teeth
,” Brian said. “Some of them were missing … just like the fisherman’s teeth. In fact, the very same teeth.”

“Wait a minute,” Sean said. “Are you telling us that the fisherman dressed up like a pirate?”

“Yes.”

“Why would he want to scare people and make them run away?”

“I don’t know,” Brian answered. “Maybe he’s still searching for pirate treasure he wants to keep for himself.”

Sam interrupted. “He told us there wasn’t any treasure. He said people had looked for years and hadn’t found any.”

Brian shrugged. “Maybe he wasn’t telling the truth. Or maybe he just wants to live alone in peace and quiet without a lot of people around. Whatever his reason, I’m sure of one thing: The pirate we saw is not a ghost.”

Sean thought a moment. “He was pretty scary. He would have scared Lester away, too.”

“Not if the fisherman had been asleep. Remember what I told you. If Lester came here to the caves, it was during the night.”

Sean shuddered. “That wasn’t Lester’s blood on the sword, was it?”