Hardy Boys: The Mystery of the Cursed Mansion (Patreon)

 For story with images, see PDF below!

Frank and Joe Hardy heard the crunching and popping long before they saw the mountain bike come barreling over a hill and racing right toward them. “Get out of the way!” The rider screamed, which was the moment they realized the bike was being ridden by a girl. They each dove to opposite sides of the wooded trail, and the bike whizzed past, only to be followed by a loud crash.

Looking, the boys saw the biker had wiped out, crashing her bike into a large bush. She was now sprawled out on the dirt path, while her bike was upside down, the front wheel spinning, the reflector catching the sunlight as it spun, flashing red like a warning light.

“Hey!” Joe called. “You okay?”

The Hardy boys did not wait for an answer, but sprang into action, racing down the trail to where the girl lay. Once they got close, they noticed she had a very pretty face and looked about their same age. “I don’t think she’s breathing,” Frank said.

“Good thing we both know CPR.”  In fact, the boys had trained in all manner of first aid skills, so they would always be ready to help anyone in need. “Positions,” Joe said.

Frank leaned down and covered the girl’s mouth with his own, while Joe put his hands on her chest and got ready to start resuscitating. Neither could see the girl’s eyes flutter open and then grow wide with shock. She turned her head and screamed, “get off me!”  She pushed Joe’s hand off her chest. “Pervert!”

“We were saving your life,” Joe said. “Rude.”

The girl sat up and skittered away, pushing herself back away from the boys. She wiped her mouth with the back of her arm. “Just when I don’t think my life can get any worse.” For a moment, it looked like she might cry, but she seemed to focus, willing the tears away.

“Whoa,” Frank said. “I think someone needs a hug.” He opened up his arms. The girl screamed and kicked him in the chest, sending him tumbling backwards.

“Hey, we don’t mean any harm. You’re obviously a damsel in distress, and we just want to help.” The girl’s shirt had come open during the crash and her bra was showing. Despite his best intentions, his eyes dropped to the girl’s chest. He knew it was rude, but ever since puberty he’d struggled to control himself.

The girl saw where his eyes lingered. “Jerk,” she said, pulling her shirt closed. She got up and picked up her bike.

“I was just looking for, er, any injuries,” Joe lied, annoyed at her reaction. “I would never stare at a girl’s bongos.”

“Bongos? Are you serious?” The girl said with a sneer as she checked her bike tires, the chain, making sure her bike was rode worthy.

“You may have a concussion,” Frank said. “You probably shouldn’t ride your bike right now. Also, your tires look a little underinflated…”

“Stop mansplaining me!” The girl shouted. She climbed onto her bike.

“Hey, by the way, before you go, could you tell us the way to Maison Enchantee?” Joe pulled the foldable map from his back pocket. “It’s a mansion that dates back to pre-Colonial times and–”

“I know what it is,” the girl said, a stormy glower on her face. She crossed her arms, at first over her breasts, but then after a grimace she folded them under her breasts. She got a wicked little smile on her face. “You should go there. It’s up the hill down this path.”

“We’re looking for the lost treasure of Captain Sweet, the notorious pirate who once--”

“I know about Captain Sweet. Everyone around here knows. Just because I’m a girl that doesn’t mean I’m stupid.”

“It’s not that girls are stupid,” Joe said. “It’s that you’re hormonal.”

“Goodbye,” the girl said, climbing on her bike, but after a couple of peddles she slammed on the brakes, sending a rooster tail of dirt in the air. “You know, I probably shouldn’t say anything because you’re both idiots, but do not go anywhere near the Maison Enchantee. It’s haunted.”

Joe and Frank, however, had already turned their attention to their map and were only pretending to listen. “That’s nice,” Joe said. “You’re cute,” Frank added, “but you should grow your hair out.”

“DO NOT GO THERE, YOU IDIOTS!” The girl screamed, then started peddling once more, vanishing into the murky woods. “STAY AWAY FROM THE CURSED MANSION!!!!!” She called out from the shadows, her voice receding into the distance.

Once more the forested hills grew silent save for the rat tat tatting of a woodpecker somewhere off in the distance.

“She was nice,” Joe said as they returned to their hiking, “but nuts. Can you believe she got all enraged because I looked at her bra? I mean, I’m a guy, right? I can’t help myself.”

“It’s the hormones,” Frank said. “They’re all nuts.”

The Hardy boys continued climbing the hill until they came to the top, pausing to catch their breaths while also confronting a fork in the path. Joe pulled out his map once more, and as he did so a piece of paper fell from his pocket. As Joe examined his map, Frank picked up the crumpled piece of paper and unfolded it. On the paper was the face of a boy and the words MISSING. Sam Jankis. Last seen in the vicinity of the Cursed Mansion.

“Hey,” Frank said. “Remember this poster we found at the diner in town?”

“Yeah,” Joe said, glancing at it. “So?”

“The girl just called the Maison the Cursed Mansion. I’m think they are one and the same, so maybe we can find this kid at the same time we look for the treasure. You know, he looks kinda familiar.”

Joe looked at the picture again. “He looks a lot like that crazy girl we just met. She’s probably his sister, up here looking for him…

“... which is why she warned us to stay away from the mansion.”  Frank finished.

They each pointed to their temples. “That’s why we’re detectives.” Joe then pointed left. “This is the way to the mansion.”

“And so, bro, once more you snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. It’s this way.” He pointed to the right.

“You’re wrong.”

“I’m always right.”

“I’m older.”

“I’m taller.”

“I’m smarter.”

“You’re book smart. I have street smarts.”

“Rock, Paper, Scissors.” Joe said. Frank nodded, then chuckled as he put paper to Joe’s stone. “Follow me, junior,” Frank said as he began to march along the right-hand trail. “We’ll have the treasure by sunset.”

The two boys hiked down the other side of the steep hill, and soon found themselves walking beneath the boughs of a dark, ancient wood. The canopy was so thick, it looked more like twilight daytime, with only the occasional ray of sunlight piercing the gloom, touching down on the mossy floor, a pillar of light. They were now in the late afternoon, and the forest remained eerily quiet but for the continued tapping of the woodpecker which, somehow, always seemed to be somewhere ahead of them and never seemed to get closer. The air smelled of leafy decay, and all along the path the trunks of long dead trees, dappled in mushrooms, lay here and there like pick up sticks.

Suddenly total silence. The woodpecker had stopped pecking. The boys, having grown so used to the constant pecking of the pecker, froze, listening, peering into the murky forest, wondering if something was coming, if they faced some danger, some threat, the dire warning issued by the girl coming back to them. As they waited, an owl began to hoot, but the hoot sounded like a sibilant, human voice, and what it said was, “Nooo… nooooo… nooooo…”

Then a frog croaked, but it sounded like the frog said, “Go…”

Then, they heard what sounded like a goat bleat, “baaaaccckkkk.”

Joe looked at Frank, who looked back at Joe. In truth, the strange sound of animals seeming to talk, to warn them to turn back, had unnerved them, scared them even, but one thing these boys would never admit to was being scared. In fact, Joe was so scared, he felt the need to deny that he was scared. “I’m not scared,” he said. “You’re scared.”

“Hardly,” Frank said.  “You’re trembling like a little girl.”

“You’re the girl.”

“That’s your comeback? Seriously? Come on.” Frank marched forward, shoulders back, head high, determined to show just how not scared he was.

Joe, determined to show he was even more not scared than his brother, rushed to get ahead of Frank on the trail, his shoulders likewise back. Frank pushed his way ahead. Joe then shoved his way past to once again take the lead. So busy were they fighting that neither one saw the fat, black, hairy spider until they had almost walked right into the web it had spun across the path.

Joe screamed. Frank screamed. The spider’s eight eyes gleamed in the light of an errant sunray, but it did not move. It only stared. Joe and Frank quickly regained their composure, each deciding it was best not to ever mention the high-pitched screams that had escaped from their mouths but to simply walk around the web, which is what they proceeded to do. Frank froze as he noticed something strange. “Holy Charlotte’s Web,” he said, pointing. Joe looked, and they each now saw words that had been spelled out within the silvery silk: “Sev Yer Slf”

“Another warning,” Joe said.

“Scared?”

“No,” and then, to change the subject, he snickered and said, “what a stupid spider. It can’t even spell any words.”

At that insult, the spider hissed then skittered across its web, racing toward Joe on all its eight long legs, it’s fangs spreading, dripping some sort of green venom as it leapt in the air. “Book it!” Joe yelled, and Frank did not argue. The two boys tore out of there, racing down the path until they got very far from that spider, indeed.

The sun had begun to set when the Hardy boys finally came to a small creek which functioned as the border to a clearing within which rose the gothic walls of what could only be the Cursed Mansion. To the amazement of the boys, lights flickered behind the mansion windows. To one side of the mansion stood a graveyard with crooked tombstones and mausoleums covered in thick, leafy vines.

“Does someone live here?” Frank asked. “It’s supposed to be abandoned.”

“It does look like someone’s here, though. Maybe a family of cannibals.”

“Or some sort of cult that’s into human sacrifice.”

They smirked, each one amused by the other’s scare tactics. Then, Joe said, “let’s go.”  He took a leap across the little creek. Frank followed. The boys shivered. The air felt colder on this side of the creek, and it grew steadily colder the closer they got to the mansion. Once they reached the mansion, they climbed the stairs to the front porch. “I guess we better knock since it looks like someone…” before Joe could finish, the door swung open with a rusty creak.

The boys looked inside the door, seeing a moldering stair, a parlor with peeling wallpaper on the walls, warped wooden floorboards with just the merest traces of varnish, all lit by the flickering golden light of lamps and candles. “Hello?” Joe called.

“Anyone home?” Frank added, then they both yelped as a little girl in an old-fashioned dress, with curly hair escaping from her bonnet, leapt from the side of the door frame, pointed her index fingers at them and screamed, “Tag. You’re girls!” Then she turned and ran away, vanishing into the mansion in a cloud of giggles.

“That was odd…” Joe said as he felt his chest begin to tingle. He put a hand to his chest. It was the same hard, bony chest as always, but his skin felt so sensitive.

“What did she mean?” Frank said. His hips and pelvis had started to tingle.

Frank stepped into the house. “You sure we should just walk in?” Joe said.

“Scaredy cat. I think she meant to say that you are a girl,” Frank answered. “Here. You take the flashlight and the compass.” Trained by the Youth Scouts, the boys always used a compass when exploring a new place to keep from getting lost.

“Okay. Whatever…” As he followed his brother, Joe blinked in surprise. It almost looked like Frank’s hips grew wider and took on a rounded shape, just like a girl’s. “I must be imagining things,” he decided. His chest, meanwhile, had begun to ache and he might have touched it to check, but his hands were full with the flashlight and compass. Whatever, he decided. It’s nothing. “What’s the plan?” He asked as they made their way into the house, the floor creaking with each and every step.

“Find that kid’s parents,” Frank said “Maybe they’ll know something about the treasure.”

“And Sam, the missing boy.”

They made their way deeper into the mansion, and Joe blinked, rubbed his eyes. It really looked like his brother’s waist was getting more slender, his hips wider, and his butt was swelling, while his shoulders seemed to be getting more narrow. To Joe, it really looked to Joe like he was walking behind not his brother, but a college girl. Even Frank’s walk seemed to have changed, his round hips swaying side to side. A trick of the light, Joe decided, because what he thought he saw was impossible.  Meanwhile, he was vaguely aware of a wrongness about his own body. It felt like his chest was jiggling with each step he took, bouncing even, but that was impossible. He might have touched his chest to see what was going on, but he was holding the flashlight and the compass, and he didn’t think to look down because he was laser focused on looking around for clues. The Hardy Boys knew very well the secret to solving mysteries was finding clues.

They came to a dusty little furnished room, the corners smothered in cobwebs, and each froze as they saw two figures across from them, but then they realized it was a mirror. “Just a mirror,” Frank said, putting a hand to his throat. His voice sounded high-pitched, buzzy.

“You sound like a girl,” Joe said, laughing, and as he laughed his chest bounced.

“Shut up,” Frank said, sounding for the world like a petulant teen-age girl, but then he glanced at Joe and his mouth fell open. “Boobs,” he said, pointing. You have boobies.” Now, he laughed, forgetting about his embarrassing voice, so amused was he by the sight of his brother. His laughter sounded like a drunk pixie.

“I don’t,” Joe said, but then he looked down and saw the swelling of his newly blossomed chest. “What the hell?” He dropped the flashlight and the compass.

“Hahaha,” Frank giggled. “Nancy Drew!”

“At least I don’t have a butt like a stripper.”

“What?” Frank looked down, confused to see the dramatic flare of his hips. “What the heck?”

The boys rushed to the mirror and stared, Joe turning to the side, shocked and confused to see his now full, round breasts straining against his polo shirt. Frank stared in horror as his figure. He didn’t have boobs, but his had what looked much more like a girl’s shape and besides that, as he reached back to feel his plump rear, he began to suspect why he sounded like a girl now as he realized something was missing.

“More girls!” They heard as the little girl jumped out from where she’d been hiding. Then, she turned and ran away.

“Get her!” Frank shouted. The boys ran after her. This was the first they’d run anywhere with their changed bodies, and they each felt awkward and ill at ease, Joe’s chest bouncing up and down, Frank’s hips swiveling. Meanwhile, they each felt their scalps tingling, and as they ran into the kitchen, bangs tumbled across their eyes as hair flowed down over their shoulders. “In the name of Farah, this can’t be happening!” Frank shouted, brushing the bangs away.

“Aggghh,” Joe gagged as strands of his hair got into his mouth and he, too, had to struggle to get the hair out of his face.

Their now long hair bouncing and flowing around their faces as they ran, each boy felt his clothes begin to change. Frank felt his once loose-fitting Dockers pants shrinking around his hips, a soft, stretchy material now hugging his soft hips and bouncing booty, the crotch rising and seeming to cup an unwelcome empty space between his legs, while the bottom of the pants legs flared out.

Joe’s Polo shirt, meanwhile, grew tighter, the sleeves growing smaller as it morphed into a scoop necked t-shirt with the word LOVE spelled out in block letters. It was also of a softer, stretchier material than he was used to, and he felt some small sense of relief as his breasts were quite sensitive now and, though he didn’t realize it, with the shirt having been designed for a woman’s body, it actually offered at least a little support to his now dynamic and ever swaying, jiggling, bouncing chest.

Following the giggles and clicking shoes of the evil little girl, the boys came to the kitchen, which, inexplicably, had one wall that was covered with a mirror, like you might find at a gym.  They each froze as they saw their reflections in the polished silver, long hair framing their faces, bangs sweeping across their foreheads. The hair was not only long but in a style popular among the girls they went to college with. It softened and feminized their features, making them look more like girls than boys, though their faces had not changed at all. Joe, in addition, had to deal with the fact he was now blonde.

They each felt a new dread, something terrifying they’d never even considered. They were being stripped of manhood and exiled to the world of them—girls, women, chicks, babes. They couldn’t have put it into words as such, but they felt it more deeply and truly than they’d ever felt anything.

Frank snapped to first, and he knew just what they needed to do. “Listen,” he said in his soft little voice. “We need to get out of here before…” Just then he felt a hard slap against his rear, his booty cheeks jiggling as he screeched in his high-pitched voice. “Owwww!” Turning, he saw the same little girl from earlier, a huge smile spread on her face.

“More girl!” She shouted. Frank tried to grab her, but she darted out of his reach, throwing some glitter in Joe’s face as she ran away, once more amidst a cloud of giggles. Joe started to follow, but Frank grabbed his arm. “No. We have to run before she changes us completely.”

Joe nodded, brushing his bangs back. “You’re right. Let’s go.” Meanwhile, each boy felt a different part of his body begin to tingle.  What next? Joe wondered. What next?