A Game Called Chaos by Franklin W. Dixon

someone,” said Joe. “Maybe you’ve seen her. Her name’s Regina Cross.”
    â€œOh yeah,” the old man said, “I know her—athletic blond, good looking, always wears sunglasses. Didn’t mean what I said about her being crazy. She’s just a bit . . . eccentric. She brings her SUV into town every month or so to pick up gas and supplies. Haven’t seen her for a while, though.”
    The man scratched his head, “Funny thing,” he said. “You’re the second people asking after Regina and Sullivan’s Point in the last couple weeks.”
    â€œWho else was asking?” Joe asked.
    â€œDidn’t catch his name,” the man said. “Drove a big blue car. He was in an awful hurry, pretty rude, too. Seemed to think he owned the world.”
    Frank and Joe looked at each other. “Royal,” they said simultaneously.
    The Hardys piled back into the van and followed the directions the old man had given them. A few miles out of town they passed an abandoned amusement park: “Lincoln Park—Home of the Terrifying Giganto.” The head was broken off the Giganto sign, so the Hardys couldn’t tell what kind of a hairy monster Giganto had been. The skeleton of a roller coaster decorated the far skyline.
    â€œNice place for picking up spare parts,” Frank noted.
    â€œYou mean like the ones the police found in the wreck of Royal’s car,” Joe said. “I bet if we checked, we’d find out Cross Enterprises owns what’s left of that park.”
    Soon after that, the land around them rose and the brothers found themselves driving through thickly wooded hills. The condition of the roaddeteriorated quickly, until the “highway” was little more than a dirt road.
    â€œGuess ghosts don’t pay enough taxes to get good roadwork done,” Joe said.
    In a short time they topped a hill and gazed down into Sullivan’s Point. Anne Sakai’s hometown was a spooky place, full of rapidly decaying century-old buildings. The sun was sinking behind the hills as the Hardys drove into town, and late-afternoon shadows crept through the town’s deserted streets.
    Joe turned from the abandoned church nearby to gaze at a dilapidated mansion on the far side of town. “Nice place for a horror movie,” he said.
    â€œThere’s a light in that mansion,” Frank said. “Top window. Do you see it?”
    Joe nodded. “There’s always a light on over at the Frankenstein place. Think she knows we’re coming?”
    â€œShe might,” Frank said. “We’ll have to watch ourselves.”
    As he said it, the sky above them suddenly grew dark. Hordes of huge black bats began streaming out of the bell tower of the old church. The creatures wheeled and gyrated in the sky, gathering like a huge swarm of hornets.
    A few bats broke off from the group and hurled themselves at the Hardys’ van. Frank cut thewheel just in time to avoid having a bat splatter on the windshield.
    But instead of splattering, the bat exploded in a ball of orange-yellow fire as it hit the ground.
    At the sound of the explosion, the rest of the bats turned toward the Hardys’ van and dove straight toward it.

13 A Town Called Chaos
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    â€œExploding bats!” Joe cried.
    â€œI see them, I see them,” Frank said as he twisted the steering wheel to avoid the first wave of the attacking creatures.
    The bats whirled around the van, chittering and screeching. Most of them flitted away at the last moment, but a few came straight in, like kamikaze bombers.
    Frank tried to avoid the squadron, but the rough condition of the road made it difficult. When he cut the wheel one way, the ruts in the road would take his tires in another direction. Several of the exploding bats hit the sides of the van, but they did no significant damage.
    Frank cut the wheel and a bat caught the edgeof the windshield, skitted down