by Lucas Flint
I rarely came here, but I’d heard all sorts of rumors about the Showdown City Graveyard. Supposedly, it was haunted by the ghosts of the Native American tribe that had owned this land before the original colonists drove them off. But only at night. In the day, it was perfectly harmless, yet for some reason, as I looked around at the rows upon rows of headstones, I could not help but feel like we were being watched.
“Is this the place?” said Strike, looking around curiously at our surroundings. “What a beautiful graveyard. Reminds me of the one my grandfather was buried in a while back.”
Strike had a point. Despite the Graveyard’s haunted reputation, it was still considered one of the city’s top attractions and maintained immaculately as a result. All of the grass was a bright green, even in the winter, and kept uniformly short and trim. The cement pathways were wide and clear of debris. The headstones, mausoleums, and graves were all kept clean and in top condition. Even the older gravestones dating back to the early eighteenth century were still very readable and pristine. It was a hint of a city that valued its history, which I thought fit Showdown quite well.
“Yeah, it’s pretty nice,” I said. “Surprised no one’s here, though. There’s usually at least a few people here at any one time.”
“Maybe everyone is inside watching the news reports about the plane I saved,” Strike said thoughtfully. “Uh, I mean we saved.”
I could tell Strike didn’t want to offend me, but I wasn’t that bothered by his slip. It wasn’t like I did all that much to stop or even slow down the plane. Had Strike not stepped in when he did, hundreds of people, including myself, would be dead right now.
“Maybe,” I said. “Anyway, we need to find Phaser’s grave. Where did Brains say it was again?”
Strike pulled out his phone and looked at the text message on it which Brains had sent to us for our reference. “Actually, Phaser doesn’t have a grave. His body was put inside one of the mausoleums.”
“Oh, that’s right,” I said, scratching my chin. “Brains said Phaser came from a rich family, so they had a mausoleum built for him when he died, right?”
“Right,” said Strike as he put his phone back in his pocket. “I suppose even supervillains have loved ones. Kind of weird to think about.”
“Definitely,” I said. “So let’s see if we can find it.”
It didn’t take us very long to find Phaser’s mausoleum. It was the biggest and newest mausoleum, standing in the center of the Graveyard like a castle towering over a small town. It was made entirely of marble and was so clean it was shiny, which seemed out of place in a graveyard. It was shaped kind of like a box, except with an impressive domed roof that reminded me of the Taj Mahal.
Despite its beauty, however, the mausoleum was also covered in graffiti. It looked like whoever maintained this mausoleum had tried to scrub most of it away, but they must have given up at some point because there was some graffiti on it that looked pretty fresh. Most of the graffiti was pretty crude, even cruel, including a few that said ‘HE HAD IT COMING’ and ‘HE DESERVED IT.’
“Whoa,” said Strike, staring at the graffiti-covered mausoleum in surprise. “I guess a lot of people must have hated him, huh?”
“Looks like it,” I said. “And I can understand it. After all, everyone thought he was a superhero, so for him to turn out to be a supervillain must have seemed like a big deal at the time. Especially given how rarely that happens.”
“Yeah, but defacing his mausoleum?” said Strike doubtfully. “I dislike turners as much as anyone, but I would never disrespect the dead.”
“Same here,” I said. “But let’s keep looking around anyway and see what we can find. If we can’t find anything, we’ll just head back to the Braindome and figure out what to do from there.”
The two of us walked up to the front door of the mausoleum. It was a pretty tall door, made out of marble like the rest of the tomb, and like the rest of the tomb, it was covered in crude, ugly graffiti. It also looked thick and heavy. It would probably take like ten strong men to open it, but I could probably open it with one hand if I had to, although even with my super strength it would definitely take some effort on my part. Not that I would ever do so, of course, because like Strike, I didn’t disrespect the dead even if the dead were supervillains who probably deserved it.
“I don’t see anything,” said Strike, putting his hands on his hips. “Except more useless graffiti. I’m starting to think this is all pointless.”
“Well, we haven’t really seen anything yet,” I said. “Let’s split up and walk around the mausoleum. Maybe we’ll find something if we look more closely.”
I went to the right, while Strike went to the left. The mausoleum was huge, but it wouldn’t take either of us much time to walk around it. I took my time, however, carefully observing the side of the mausoleum as I walked beside it. Yet I still didn’t see much of anything except for more and more pointless graffiti. Seriously, it went from being interesting to boring in less time than it takes to cook a hot dog in the microwave.
It wasn’t long before Strike and I met at the back of the mausoleum. Based on Strike’s frustrated face, I could tell he was more convinced than ever that this was a waste of time. I couldn’t blame him, honestly, because so far we hadn’t found anything that could help us find Dizzy.
“Did you find anything?” asked Strike as we stopped in front of each other.
I shook my head. “No. You?”
“Nothing.” Strike sighed. “I knew this would be a waste of time. Let’s go back to the Braindome and regroup.”
I turned to look at the back of the mausoleum and stroked my chin. “Let’s not leave just yet. We haven’t looked at the back of the mausoleum yet.”
Strike sighed even more. “Look all you want. I’m going to get my surfboard and get ready to leave.”
As Strike walked away, I studied the back of the mausoleum closely. Like the rest of the structure, the back was covered in ugly graffiti, though a lot less than the front and sides. Perhaps the graffiti artists didn’t see any reason to bother with the back for some reason or got bored and went to do something else. Regardless, I didn’t see any clues, so I was about to turn and head after Strike when I suddenly noticed something at the base of the wall.
Crouching on my haunches, I looked more closely at the base of the back wall and noticed two dusty footprints. They were faint and nearly invisible in the daylight, but once you saw them, they were impossible to ignore. The footprints went forward a couple of steps before vanishing into the grass around us, which was odd because I didn’t see anywhere the footprints could have come from. It looked like the footprints had come from the mausoleum, which was definitely weird if true.
“Hey, Strike!” I called. “Look at what I found.”
Strike, still looking frustrated and annoyed, nonetheless walked over to me and looked down at the spot I was pointing at. His eyes narrowed and a curious frown crossed his features. “Are those footprints coming from the mausoleum?”
“Sure looks like it,” I said. I pulled out my phone and snapped a few pictures for later reference. “Only problem is I don’t know who the footprints could belong to. They’re pretty big, though.”
Strike walked up to the back of the mausoleum and ran his hands along its smooth marble surface. “Could it be that someone somehow came from inside the mausoleum?”
I looked up at Strike in disbelief as he touched the back wall. “That’s ridiculous. Only Phaser’s body is in there and corpses can’t walk out on their own. Besides, there isn’t a door or anything for a person to walk out from, so—”
I was interrupted by a soft click created when Strike tapped what looked like a loose marble tile on the wall. Suddenly, weird groaning sounds came from the wall and a portion of it slid away like a barn door, allowing us to look, startled, into the interior of the mausoleum.
It was absolutely massive inside, but it was also pitch-black due to the lack of lighting and windows. The on
ly lighting we had was the light pouring in from the sun behind us, which showed us an expensive-looking wooden coffin with handles attached on either side standing on top of a marble stand. But neither Strike nor I dared to enter, because our eyes were drawn to the coffin itself:
The lid was open. And Phaser’s corpse was nowhere to be seen.
CHAPTER SIX
“And when you opened the mausoleum, his body was gone?” said Brains. He rubbed his forehead in exasperation. “Did I get all that right?”
Strike, Brains, Vanish, and I were back in the conference room. Though Brains and Vanish had both been annoyed when we summoned them back here, they immediately started listening when we told them about the disappearance of Phaser’s corpse. I let Strike do all the talking because he was the one who discovered the secret entrance to Phaser’s mausoleum and was more invested in this mystery than I was.
“You got that exactly right,” said Strike, who sat next to me. He held a cup of warm coffee in his hand, courtesy of the coffee machine set up in the corner of the conference room, although he barely even sipped it. “When we opened the back door, we saw his coffin was open and empty. Not a corpse in sight.”
“Yeah,” I chimed in. “You saw the pictures we sent you. Empty as an eagle’s nest.”
Brains continued to rub his forehead, like he was experiencing a bad headache, while Vanish patted him on the back and said to us, “Yes, we saw the pictures. But we still can barely believe it. Did the grave keeper, at least, confirm it?”
I nodded. “Oh, yeah. We called Mr. Flint and asked him to come over and look at it himself. He went into the tomb and confirmed that the body was totally gone. We recommended that he call the police, but I’m not sure the police will be able to solve this mystery.”
“How long has the body been missing?” asked Brains. “Could you tell?”
“No,” said Strike, shaking his head. “Mr. Flint told us that it looked like it had been missing for a while, but he wasn’t sure himself.”
“This doesn’t make any sense,” said Brains. “I was at this funeral. I saw his body in the casket. I saw them put that same casket into the mausoleum and lock it up tight. There’s no way the body could have been stolen at any point during the funeral.”
“What about after the funeral?” said Strike. “Maybe when Phaser’s family built his mausoleum, they added a secret back door to allow themselves to get access to his body without anyone seeing. Probably during the night.”
“But they have the front door already,” Brains pointed out. “Why would they need a back door? I mean, I guess it would make it easier to sneak around, but it seems like an odd thing to add to a mausoleum nonetheless.”
“Hold on, guys,” I said, holding up a hand. “What if we’re looking at this wrong? What if no one stole the body at all?”
“Then how do you explain its disappearance?” asked Vanish, tilting her head to the side. “Someone had to steal it, right?”
“Not necessarily,” I said, shaking my head. “Remember the footprints we found? That looked like they were walking away from the mausoleum, rather than toward it?”
“I remember those,” said Strike. “What of it?”
I took a deep breath. “This is going to sound crazy, but bear with me: What if Phaser’s body wasn’t stolen? What if it just got up and walked away?”
“Like a zombie?” said Strike in a skeptical voice. He rested his chin in his hand. “That’s even more ridiculous than my theory.”
“Well, I mean, it’s possible, isn’t it?” I said. “It would explain the footprints, at least.”
“Dead bodies don’t just get up and walk away on their own, Bolt,” said Brains. “You, of all people, should know this. We don’t even know if those are Phaser’s footprints or not.”
“I know, but is it really that far-fetched?” I argued. “Think of all the weird and crazy things we’ve seen in our lives. We even lived through a dang alien invasion … twice. I’m not going to put a guy coming back to life and sneaking out of his own tomb outside the boundaries of consideration.”
“Phaser didn’t have the ability to come back to life, though,” said Brains, folding his arms in front of his chest. “He could only phase through physical objects. He couldn’t do anything else other than that.”
“Are you sure?” I said. “Maybe Phaser had an ally with that power, who came and brought him back to life after the funeral was over. Well, much sooner than that, of course, because the footprints we found were pretty recent. Still, could there be a supervillain out there with the ability to raise the dead?”
“I suppose it’s possible, but I’ve never heard of any such supervillain before,” said Brains. “Certainly not in Showdown, at any rate. What do you think, dear?”
Vanish tapped her chin in thought. “Frankly, I’m not sure. I don’t want to jump to any conclusions. I think we need to talk to Phaser’s family. Perhaps they will know why the mausoleum has a back door and where Phaser’s body might be.”
“Good idea,” I said. “Where is Phaser’s family?”
“Phaser doesn’t have any surviving family, though,” said Brains, shaking his head. “Aside from his shut-in brother, that is.”
“Phaser has a brother?” I said.
Brains nodded, albeit reluctantly. “He does, yeah. But I wouldn’t talk to him if I were you.”
“Why not?” I said. “If he happens to know what happened to Phaser’s body—”
“He hates supers,” Vanish interrupted. “All supers, heroic or villainous. And he’s been known to bring out his shotgun to deal with any supers who show up on his property.”
“Really?” I said. “Why does he hate supers?”
“Because we killed his brother,” said Brains. “That’s the gist of it. He’ll probably tell you other reasons, but that’s what it boils down to. He especially hates NHA members like us.”
“You sound like you have some personal experience with him,” I observed.
“Honey here was the one who Sam—that’s Phaser’s brother, by the way—got angry at and had a big, public shouting match over his death,” said Vanish, patting her husband’s arm. “He believed that Brains murdered Phaser and that the NHA was covering it up. We tried to correct him, but he wouldn’t listen to reason or evidence.”
“He lives in the Longworth Family Mansion just north of the city,” said Brains, gesturing in a northerly direction. “In fact, his home isn’t very far from the graveyard. But he doesn’t come out or see anybody. He hires people to get his groceries for him and do other chores for him, but otherwise stays in his home all day and never comes out.”
“But how does he afford to live in a mansion if he doesn’t leave the house?” I said, tilting my head to the side. “Seems weird.”
“As I said, the Longworth family is very well off,” said Brains. “Being the lone surviving member of that family, Samuel has full control over the family fortune. He’s unmarried and childless, so the Longworth family line is probably going to end with him. And the fortune, if there’s anything left of it by the time he dies.”
“Well, it looks like we now know where to look,” I said. I looked at Strike. “What do you say? Want to pay Sam a visit?”
“I would not recommend it,” Brains advised. “As I said, Samuel Longworth is infamous for his hatred of supers. If you visit his mansion, well—”
“We can take care of ourselves,” I insisted. “An old lonely shut-in armed with a shotgun sounds like a walk in the park compared to some of the bad guys we’ve faced. Plus, we won’t be long. And if he really doesn’t want to talk to us about this, then we’ll just come back here.”
“I agree with Bolt,” said Strike. “Normally, I probably wouldn’t want anything to do with someone who hates supers, but if this Samuel Longworth guy can help me find Dizzy, then it’s a risk I am willing to take.”
Brains sighed. “All right. You two are adults. You can take care of yourselves. But please be careful, okay? I don
’t want either of you getting into unnecessary trouble.”
“Don’t worry, Brains,” I said. “We’ll be just fine.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
The Longworth Family Mansion wasn’t hard to find. The Mansion was located to the north of Showdown, a few miles north of the Graveyard. It was located on a fairly large plot of about twenty acres, surrounded on all sides by beautiful oak trees that were missing leaves at the moment, probably due to the fact that it was winter. The property was surrounded by a tall fence, which Strike and I easily flew over without any real issue.
The Mansion itself was a beautiful Victorian, about three stories tall. It stood alone on the property, save for a garage built next to it and a small shed off to the side hidden between a couple of trees. The front yard was quite large and looked like at one point that it might have been home to a flowerbed, but right now all of the flower pots were full of dirt and had no plants in them that I could see. In fact, the flower pots looked like they hadn’t been used in years.
As Strike and I lowered onto the front lawn, that was the impression I got from the place: Neglect. Despite the beautiful appearance of the Mansion at first glance, a closer look revealed that the Mansion wasn’t as nearly well kept as it appeared. A few of the windows were cracked, while their shingles hung on their hinges. The exterior siding was faded and broken in a few places, while a stone birdbath lay on its side as if someone had knocked it over at some point and simply hadn’t seen any point in putting it back upright. It was also very quiet. Despite being near a busy highway, I heard nothing except for the muted chirps of a few birds hanging out in nearby trees.
I normally liked flying into places, but only when I flew into beautiful places. For places like the Longworth Family Mansion, I probably should have just teleported in using my Teleportation Buckle. I still had it on me, after all, even though I didn’t use it.
“This place is creepier than the graveyard,” said Strike as he picked up his surfboard and folded it up. “Much creepier.”
