The Mystery of the Masked Marauder (Nate and Basset, PI: Pet Investigators Book 1)

by Peter Cox

  Basset and I rushed over next to them. We had dispatched three of our attackers. We were now surrounded by about 30 more.

  The circle was slowly closing. They were nervous. They didn’t want to be the next to get smacked by my stick or bitten by Basset, but they’d get us eventually.

  “I’m sorry it has to end like this, boy,” I said to Basset.

  My dog looked up into my eyes with that goofy smile. “What do you mean? I’m at your side. Where would I rather it end?”

  I almost laughed and cried at the same time.

  I was trying to stay brave, but it was a losing battle. I kept imagining how those fangs would feel as they sank into my skin, how it would burn, how long I’d stay conscious before passing out from the pain.

  An active imagination can be a curse.

  If you’ve ever been attacked by a dog or faced down a bully, you know how terrifying it can be in the moment, a haze of fear closing in on your vision. But instead of one attacker, I was faced with dozens. And instead of a dog or a bully, it was giant spiders.

  We were going to die.

  And it was going to be painful.

  Chapter 39

  DIRE TROUBLE

  At that moment I heard a loud tearing noise like a ripping sweater. I turned to face the sound, and saw the web wall separating like it was being cut by a pair of scissors.

  I was confused.

  The spiders retreated a bit, waiting to see what had torn through their defenses.

  Through the rip in the wall a huge shape started barreling towards us like a massive rolling boulder. The spiders all hissed again and backed up further. Whatever it was, it was enormous. And round.

  Finally it stopped, just short of a shaft of light.

  “Good to see you Bassy,” a soft voice purred. “I heard you and your humans got into a spot of trouble, so I did what I do best: I spread the news.”

  Genevieve stepped into the light, smiling wide at us.

  “You didn’t think the neighborhood would let you die all alone, did you Bassy?”

  The spiders were watching us warily, but I could see in the larger ones’ eyes that the sight of a fat cat was quite appetizing. They wouldn’t wait long.

  “Why would you come from your comfy rock into the woods to help me?” Basset asked. He sounded downright flabbergasted. “You hate the woods.”

  “Yes, but I hate seeing my friends hurt even more than I hate this filthy place,” she looked, for the first time ever, kind of shy. “Besides . . . you’ve always been nice to me Basset. Never making fun of my . . . shape. Most animals just want me for my news, but you . . . you’re different.”

  I smiled.

  “And I didn’t come alone.”

  Bounding through the rip came an extremely fast, extremely pudgy shadow.

  That wazzled.

  “Hey guys I heard there was a fight and I could help and I love helping don’t I guys I’m good at helping aren’t I?” Franklin wagged his tail and rushed up to Sam, licking her hand like it was a popsicle.

  A cat the size of a boulder and a puggle are good company, but I wasn’t sure how useful they’d be in a fight. The spiders started inching towards us again.

  “Oy! Ugly! I’ve fought spiders as big as a bus and didn’t get a scratch. Who do you think you are, picking on me mates?” I almost laughed. Basset really did have some friends.

  A pack of 10 weasels – led by good old “Everglade Amsterdam Eustace Chiselbottom Cherith Wonderstone Hummingbird Saltalamacchia” or whatever his name was – scurried into the light.

  “Think some spider webs can hold off these teeth?” Everglade said, baring his fangs at the spiders. “Don’t think so. These babies can cut through anything, and that ain’t even a lie,” he winked at me as he pulled up beside me.

  “Good to see ya, Basset,” he said. “Again, not even a lie. Sometimes honesty’s useful. Ain’t that what yer always sayin’?”

  Basset was practically beaming. Even if we died today, we’d die with friends.

  “But we don’t have any weapons,” Sam said.

  “You have our teeth,” the weasel said.

  “And my claws,” Genevieve added.

  “And my tongue,” Gerald croaked.

  “And Franklin’s boundless energy,” I laughed.

  “We can do this, buddy,” Basset said, looking straight at me. “Together.”

  “Now this is more like it lads! A fair fight, that’s what we needed,” Gerald said. He climbed aboard Basset’s back. “Now…CHARGE!”

  Basset ran headlong into the crowd of spiders, followed closely by the weasels.

  The spiders charged back.

  The weasels all piled onto different spiders ten times their size, their teeth sinking deep. I was right to not want to mess with a weasel.

  Just as Basset leapt for a spider, Gerald used his tongue to grab a tree branch, swing himself off Basset’s back, up into the air, and land right on the spider’s eyes.

  “The beast is blinded! Strike, Basset, strike!” He shouted. Basset struck, biting the spider’s legs and dragging it to the side.

  A movie about a talking rhinoceros who does karate to fight some evil penguins might not be very realistic, but I’ve seen a bullfrog do acrobatic kung fu.

  Sam and I rushed into the fray, both carrying heavy sticks.

  The next few minutes were a blur. Huge, hairy bodies pushed against me and threw me around, but I always regained my feet. I clubbed and batted at spindly legs and bulbous bodies. I dodged fangs that missed me by inches and did my best to keep the spiders away from Genevieve, who, let’s face it, was more useful gathering soldiers than being one.

  Gerald kept swinging around by his tongue, leaping from spider to spider and creating quite a bit of disorder. And I don’t think Franklin bit a single enemy, but he sure knocked a few off their legs when he bowled them over. He was just running all over the place with his tongue flapping in the breeze and having a good old time.

  I couldn’t really tell how we were doing over all. Every second I was either striking or defending, but it didn’t seem like we were getting anywhere, and I was becoming exhausted. Based on the cheering from up above, it didn’t sound like things were going well for us.

  I glanced over and saw Basset pinned under the biggest spider I’d seen yet. Sam was stuck fending off three of her own, and the weasels were standing in a tight group with their backs against a boulder, surrounded by a dozen massive tarantulas.

  I rushed over to Basset and whacked the spider off him with my stick, which shattered at the impact. I was now weaponless.

  I ran to the side of the weasels with Basset and Franklin following close behind.

  “Sam! Genevieve! Regroup!” I shouted.

  Sam quickly snatched Genevieve up off the ground and raced over to my side.

  We were all battered and bloodied and breathing heavily. Another dozen spiders joined the group surrounding us. The cheering up above grew to a feverish pitch.

  I heard a cold, maniacal laugh from the trees.

  Mr. Baskertonn sat suspended in a seat made of webs, high up in the boughs.

  “The coward didn’t even join the fight,” Basset said.

  “You put up quite an entertaining show,” Baskertonn said, still laughing. “But I’m afraid it has to come to an end. I’ll have to find more entertainment elsewhere, I suppose.”

  Suddenly I felt the ground shudder once. Then again. Then yet again. Like a giant was walking through the woods.

  I wasn’t far off. A spider at least as tall as I was stomped its way into the clearing. It slowly made its way to the circle surrounding us, and all the other spiders backed away in either awe or fear, or maybe both. It looked right at me, and clicked its fangs together twice.

  “Well this is unfortunate,” I said.

  “Quite,” Sam responded.

  Chapter 40

  A SURPRISE APPEARANCE

  “No more tricks up your sleeves, eh?” Mr. Baskertonn called fr
om his seat. “No hedgehogs hiding in the woods, or some other cute critters to join you? No?”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t say we’re quite out,” I heard Genevieve mutter behind me. “We might have one last trick.”

  I didn’t know what she meant, but I didn’t have time to think about it.

  The giant spider crouched down like a cat about to spring, and then it leapt through the air.

  Sometimes – like when you’re falling from high up in a tree or a bully is about to punch you – time seems to go in slow motion. This was one of those times. I could see every hair on that spider’s body quiver as it soared through the air. I could see its black eyes lock onto mine. And I could see its fangs, the length of my pointer finger, coming straight for my face.

  Just as it was about to strike, something came whistling through the air and whacked it right on the head.

  The spider went sailing back and landed in the leaves with a thud.

  It quickly scrambled to its feet and came charging again.

  Another projectile hit it.

  Suddenly a rain of stones or something similar started whizzing out of the trees, plunking down on the heads of the spiders.

  Our enemies hissed angrily, but were too slow to avoid getting hit again and again.

  I looked up in the trees, confused.

  “You bugs are lugs,” a high pitched voice shouted from above.

  “Hairy isn’t so scary.”

  “Quite the contrary.”

  I looked more closely. The missiles were all acorns.

  A squirrel stepped out onto a branch confidently, looking straight down at us.

  “Did Basset get himself stuck in another tight spot?”

  “Wha- how- but why?” Basset stammered out.

  “Well said,” came a mocking voice from deeper in the woods.

  “Now, now Basset,” the squirrel right above us said. “If you were eaten by spiders, who would we have left in the neighborhood to make fun of?”

  Basset looked annoyed, but the squirrel winked at me.

  “C’mon Basset, don’t you know it’s all a game?” the squirrel continued. “There’s not an animal in the village that doesn’t respect you. Now quit sulking and help us get these nasty things out of our forest!”

  The hail of nuts and acorns continued to pelt the spiders as the rest of us rushed at them. We pushed them back further and further, until they finally turned and ran.

  Up above I heard the sound of thousands of tiny feet scurrying away.

  “You haven’t seen the last of me!” Mr. Baskertonn shouted from up above.

  The web he was sitting on tightened suddenly, wrapping him up completely as he was dragged away. I could hear his muffled cries from inside, but couldn’t tell what he was saying.

  To this day I’m not sure if he was continuing to taunt us, or if he was calling for help because the spiders had betrayed him.

  Either way, it was over.

  Chapter 41

  PUTTING EVERYTHING BACK TOGETHER

  Cleaning up after this mess was relatively easy. We disposed of the dead spiders in the lake, and cleaned up the clearing as best we could.

  We decided we didn’t want to have to explain where a bunch of mutant spiders had come from.

  We cut my parents down, and found them still unconscious.

  By that point William’s tribe had rejoined us.

  “They’ll be fine,” he said after looking my parents over. “The venom just put them to sleep. They won’t remember a thing. They’ll be a bit nauseous when they first wake up. Just tell them they had the flu and you took care of them.”

  The rest of the animals returned home, and Basset, Sam and I soon followed.

  “You think this is the last we’ve seen of those guys?” Sam asked.

  “I think so,” I said.

  “I sure hope so,” Basset added.

  I sighed. “But I get the feeling this isn’t the last weird thing that’s going to happen. Did you look at those Native American artifacts?”

  Sam sighed too. “Yeah, I did.”

  “They weren’t anything interesting, right? No magic incantations or anything?”

  “No. Mr. Baskertonn was just a loon. There was nothing special about those things.”

  “So the spiders started learning how to talk on their own. And they grew huge on their own. Something bigger is going on here. The world is changing.”

  We got home around sunset and tucked my parents into bed.

  Basset and I soon retired to my room as well, with Sam heading home.

  As we settled into bed, I turned to Basset.

  “Looks like things can get back to normal now,” I said. “Well, as normal as life can be for a boy who can hear animals,” I laughed. “Like nothing happened.”

  “But nothing didn’t happen,” Basset responded. “We’ve been through something pretty serious here buddy. We’d be stupid not to learn from it. Go to sleep, but I think you’ll find that you’ve grown from all this. We all have.”

  Basset always gave good advice.

  Even before he could talk to me.

  He was right. Guster still waited for me when school got back in, but I was hoping I’d learned a thing or two about sticking up for myself. You don’t accomplish anything by ignoring problems or running away from them. You enlist the help of friends and figure out a solution.

  I’d have to wait and see if I could apply those lessons. It’s a lot easier to be brave when you don’t have a Brussels-sprout-breathed bully glowering down at you.

  But even if my bully problems weren’t completely solved, I thought I’d still be alright. I had my parents. I had Basset and Sam and my books. Not everything can go your way in life, after all. You have to put up with the bad by focusing on the good. Change what you can, live with the rest.

  I would focus on the squirrels on the ground, and remember Franklin’s boundless optimism.

  That was my plan, at least.

  That was my plan.

  THE END

  To contact the author and to stay informed about upcoming books, please go to:

  Facebook.com/NateAndBasset

  PeterSCox.com

  PeterSCox.blogspot.com

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1 My strange new life

  Chapter 2 Deciding What To Do

  Chapter 3 The Masked Phantom

  Chapter 4 Meeting the animals

  Chapter 5 Gossip

  Chapter 6 The disappearance

  Chapter 7 The eyes in the forest

  Chapter 8 The fort

  Chapter 9 The investigation begins

  Chapter 10 Genevieve

  Chapter 11 The weasel’s game

  Chapter 12 The “crashed spaceship”

  Chapter 13 The first clue

  Chapter 14 The last dinner

  Chapter 15 The phantom returns

  Chapter 16 The riddle

  Chapter 17 The library

  Chapter 18 Deciphering the riddle

  Chapter 19 Meeting the squirrels

  Chapter 20 Walking into the unknown

  Chapter 21 Baskertonn Manor

  Chapter 22 Hidden passages

  Chapter 23 The screaming face

  Chapter 24 Ghostly Whispers

  Chapter 25 Kidnapped

  Chapter 26 Making a plan

  Chapter 27 The upside down sun

  Chapter 28 Inside the crawlspace

  Chapter 29 Those who awakened

  Chapter 30 Searching for an ogre

  Chapter 31 Meeting after midnight

  Chapter 32 Getting help

  Chapter 33 Sneaking in

  Chapter 34 The final clues

  Chapter 35 Nightmare Lake

  Chapter 36 Trapped

  Chapter 37 Face to face with the enemy

  Chapter 38 The fight begins

  Chapter 39 Dire trouble

  Chapter 40 A surprise appearance

  Chapter 41 Putting everything back together

 
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