Chapter Text
One of my favorite Scooby Doo movies growing up was Scooby Doo Meets The Boo Brothers, which I would watch until my brother couldn’t stand watching it with me anymore.
What you’re about to read is a journalistic based story with author related character development and adventure mixed in which is told by Shaggy himself and possibly one or two more characters set in what their real world would be like if the animated film portrayed them as animated characters and they themselves were real people with real jobs and a real life Mystery Inc.
And by the way, my dear reader, who is about to read this through my own eyes, characters belong to Hanna Barbara and Warner Bros, which means I can take their characters and use them how I wish, but all the trademarks belong to these companies and their creators.
So, sit back, grab a Scooby Snack, and enjoy the following adventure!
More to come very soon!
SWSP
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The Chronicles of Shaggy Rogers
Dear Reader,
You probably are not going to believe the story I’m about to tell you.
Nobody believed me when I told it to them and quite frankly, I had a hard time believing it myself until it actually happened to me and my two dogs who happen to be able to talk like humans, walk like humans and understand humans.
You see, they made an animated movie about our experience I’m sure you’ve heard of.
You know, the one with us meeting three goofy ghosts who were using the ghost hunting gimmick to try to con us into letting them stay in the mansion I inherited from my Uncle, Colonel Beauregard Rogers, by haunting it once they “got rid” of the ghost problem we were having the moment we got there.
While animators try their best, they always seem to mock what really happened to us. It wasn’t as comedic as you might think, nor were the three ghosts I had just mentioned above.
So let me give you a background to why I’m writing you this series of journal entries along with the story you are about to hear:
Let me first introduce myself,
My name is Norville “Shaggy” Rogers and I live in Southern California with both of my dogs, Scooby “Scoobert” Doo and Scrappy “Dappy” Doo. We and the rest of the gang who you will meet very soon in this entry live very comfortably off the royalties I get from the animated film starring me and my two dogs that I had loosely mentioned before.
The film our animated selves starred in called Scooby Doo Meets the Boo Brothers didn’t even come close to the hellish experience me and my two dogs had after I got the call that my Uncle had passed away from a stroke related to dementia.
Anyway, this is what really happened the first time we went to my Uncle’s Plantation in Louisiana:
I had just come home from my job as a head chef at one of LA’s major hotels I contracted out with where my job was making sure all their catering food was prepared for their banquets and various other major events they hosted throughout the week, weekends and most major holidays.
I know what you are thinking, Norville Shaggy Rogers working as a head chef at a major hotel, what a big surprise!
So sue me, I like to eat, I’m a foodie at heart, always have been, always will be until the day I die from getting consumed by a huge hero sandwich I try to consume in one setting.
Anyway, my work I do as a head chef always keeps me out till very late, so I usually do not get back to my home in the suburbs until the wee hours of the morning and this night was no different.
The party I had helped cater that night was longer then I had anticipated it would be and it dragged on until I was practically trying to keep my eyes open with tooth picks by the time it was done.
The drive home felt like forever and when I finally pulled into the driveway of my house, I took all my clothes off down to my boxers and didn’t even bother getting a snack for bed as I trudged up the stairs.
I opened the door into my bedroom to see Scrappy fast asleep in one of my top drawers I keep my sox and underwear in across from my bed. I decided to get him a pillow and a cover which I quietly put under his head by raising it and covered his body up with the blanket.
The only muscle he moved was to grab the cover I had just placed over him and start to snore lightly making me smile as I looked down to the carpet at the foot of my bed to see Scooby wagging his tail staring at me in a welcoming happiness which always erases the stresses of my job everytime I see it.
I kneeled down to give his belly a rub and pet his head for a few minutes before I got up to go into my bathroom to brush my teeth before I went to bed.
Now you’re probably thinking at this point about what does this have to do with a Plantation in Louisiana and three goofy ghosts? Well, I’m getting to that, so hold your jets and keep with me since you’ve come this far:
Once I was done brushing my teeth, I crawled into bed and was out like a light soon as my head hit the pillow. Just as I was about to really get into a good deep sleep, the telephone blared in my ear and startled me awake. I didn’t even have time to get my sense of my surroundings when another tooth jarring ring made me look over at the offender behind it with a scowl on my tired face and the wishing I had a hammer to smash it to the hell it belonged in.
I picked up the receiver and said a very groggy annoyed sounding hello as I looked at the clock and realized it was three in the morning.
So for this person’s sake, it had better be important or I was going to tear them a new asshole the likes of which would match if you poked a badger out of a deep sleep.
Now before I tell you what transpired next, I need to clarify my work as a head chef for catering at major LA hotels.
I can get a call anytime of day or night from them wanting me to cook for their catering events and sometimes if all of them are busy, the hours can be very brutal and I have had to on many occasions remind them that I need to sleep every once in awhile or I’ll lose my sanity and since they know I’m one of the best chefs in the Inland Empire, they respect my wishes.
Anyway, the caller had a deep Southern accent of some kind and he represented my Uncle’s Beauregard Plantation in Southern Louisiana and told me that my Uncle, Colonel Beauregard Rogers had just passed away from a stroke related to his dementia and that he had stated in his will I was to inherit his plantation and all of his assets including a fortune estimated to be in the several millions of dollars.
My eyes flipped open at this revelation and I couldn’t believe what I was hearing and I had him repeat it again:
“Yes Mr. Rogers, you heard right, you are sole owner of your Uncle, Colonel Beauregard Rogers Plantation estate and fortune” he told me again and I about flipped out of my night hat with incredible joy at the news.
I went through the thousands of things I was going to do with all this money I had just inherited and my head spun at the opportunities this injection of wealth would bring me and the rest of the gang.
Just thinking about all of it was overwhelming and I wish I had brought a snack up with me to munch on to calm my excited nerves.
The next part of this story is where things took an unexpected turn out of right field for me and my dogs and if you’ve hung on this long, good for you, because I know you are hooked:
As I sat there in my bed shaking with intense glee at my new prospects, the estate lawyer told me something I would later on regret that I had stupidly answered his call instead of putting my pillow over my ears to let it ring:
“I’m glad you are excited about this great bit of news, however, until the estate comes over into your name and the fortune is located in order to be safely transferred over to the trust fund in your Uncle’s name” He paused before he continued on:
“I’m going to advise you that you must come down here to Louisiana immediately to spend time at the plantation so that I can come out and finalize everything once we find your Uncle’s fortune he hid on the grounds somewhere” He finished waiting for my response.
I felt my heart sink into my chest when I heard the mention of me staying at my Uncle’s plantation for any length of time.
I knew he lived out in the middle of nowhere and was a recluse who never let any strangers on the plantation property and often would scare them off when he put on his Civil War era Colonel’s outfit and waved his sword around chasing them off saying “LEAVE THIS PLACE” like he was still fighting off the Yankees invading his Confederate Army he had helmed to victory at the Battle of Fort Polk in his younger years.
He never left the place and had his butler go to get food and other supplies for him when needed because he was such a danger to the general public that the Sheriff of the town his plantation was near pretty much barred anyone from going near it until he passed away and it was safe everyone to do what needed to be done.
I felt my stomach knotting up the more I thought about it and at the prospect of having to stay at the plantation knowing somewhere in the back of my mind from my years of mystery solving with Mystery Inc that because there was a huge fortune hidden somewhere on my Uncle’s estate, there would most likely be trouble associated with it in the form of people wanting to take it for themselves and most likely trying to get rid of me in the process of trying to get their hands on it.
In hindsight, what I should have done was slam the phone down on the receiver and let them figure it out for themselves. I would have gone back to sleep and that would have been that.
Instead, I let my fatigue get the better of my common sense and was soon nodding my head and saying I would be there in a couple of days after I got some sleep.
The estate lawyer had other ideas and demanded I get there as soon as I could or I would forfeit the fortune and the estate over to the State and let them do with it what they pleased after he signed it all over to them.
At that point I should have said, fuck you, thank you, bye and had them sort it out with my own lawyers, but I was a stupid gullible young kid who thought my world of expectations was going to come to an end if I lost this fortune which would mean I couldn’t quit my thankless job, open my own catering business, and be able to spend the time I wanted with the dogs and the gang.
So with nothing more than ridiculous unneeded fear as my guide, I reluctantly nodded my head and told them I would be there as soon as possible as I took the covers off my legs and tiredly slung them onto the floor as I hung up the phone and went in the bathroom for a shower.
After I got packed, I took my suitcases out to the light green orange wheeled Kia jeep I drove that was parked in my garage and threw them in the back of the trunk before I went to put the dog’s things in with them and slam it shut.
I went back into the house to wake up Scooby while I collected a still fast asleep Scrappy with pillow behind his head and cover still covering his body and walked out to the garage and gently set him down in the back seat of my Kia Jeep while Scooby climbed into the passenger seat.
With that done, I grabbed a big thermos out of the cupboard and filled it to the rim with coffee mixed with some Jolt because we weren’t about to leave the house and me start driving without some kind of caffeine because I had gotten so little sleep and was worried that I might fall asleep from pure fatigue and cause 1 million Los Angelinos to be pissed off at my fatal accident which would cause them hours of sitting in a traffic jam while they hauled me and my dog’s bodies off to the morgue.
The last thing I grabbed before I closed the side door and got into my jeep was some Scooby Snacks for Scrappy and Scooby and a couple of power bars to tide me over until we got far enough away from LA where I could stop and get a legit breakfast for myself and them.
I started the engine and it came to life shaking the jeep and waking up Scrappy who looked around for a moment with blurred eyes before he said:
“Hey Shaggy, where we going?”
“Louisiana” I said quietly to him as he blinked his eyes at me when I turned my head around to look at him.
“Go back to sleep Scrap, I’ll wake you up when we stop for breakfast” I said calmly to him as his head sunk back down onto the pillow the back of it rested on.
“Okay Shag, can’t….wait” Scrappy said with a deep yawn before he quickly feel back asleep lightly snoring the way he was when I saw him in my top drawer.
I have to give the little guy credit, even when he is half asleep, his enthusiasm is intoxicating to me as I turned my head and put the shifter of my jeep into back as we backed out of the garage and were driving away from my house onto the main road which would lead us to the freeway.
..
After we got far enough away from LA crazy civilization, I woke up Scrappy when we stopped for breakfast at a Karl’s Jr. just outside Coachella.
It was a hearty meal that would last us until at least lunch time, so with my stomach and the dog’s stomachs full, we got on the freeway and were soon off for Louisiana.
The trip over to Louisiana was pretty uneventful other then getting stuck in major traffic jams in Houston, AFTER I HAD GIVEN SCOOBY THE MAP, WHICH HE GOT US LOST WITH ON THE 610 LOOP I ENDED UP HAVING TO BACKTRACK ON TO GET BACK TO 10 EAST!
Sorry, sometimes I have to yell at myself for letting my Great Dane try to direct me on how to get around a big city.
I love Scooby to death, in fact, I love him like my son, but in hindsight, I was too tired and too stressed out from the hours of driving I did and the hours I still had in front of me to rip the map from his paws.
Once we got into Louisiana, we pulled over to a gas station with a pay phone just outside of Sulfur so I could call the Estate lawyer for directions to my Uncle’s plantation.
A couple hours and one major Southern Louisiana city later, we were just about to enter the Atchafalaya Swamp Freeway just before Baton Rouge, when the directions the estate lawyer had given us told us to take the Belle Fouche exit at the Belle Fouche river and go north from there on this windy backroad which paralleled the river for a few miles.
The only problem was that road led us to a boat ramp with a bunch of fisherman looking at us weird because we were the only vehicle there without a motorized fishing boat and we looked like we were out of State which they didn’t look too kindly on knowing the reputation we brought with us from California so we booked it back to 10 and once we got into Baton Rouge and another pay phone, I called the estate lawyer who told us we had to go some other route that I’m not going to bore you with.
Another hour and we were on the right road headed north into a more wooded area of South Central Louisiana. Even though it was humid which was typical for the south, the sun was out and it was nice to see the various farmsteads dotting the landscape as we drove and Scooby HAD THE MAP IN HIS PAWS AGAIN showing his nephew the various routes we still had to take in front of us.
By this time I was totally fed up with Scooby trying to be my backseat driver, so I told him in a more harsh tone then I wanted to:
“Either learn how to use that map right or I’m going to pull this jeep over and staple it on your forehead!”
Scooby and Scrappy both looked at me in stunned silence as I came to a stop at an intersection and gave them both what can only be described as my version of what happens when twenty plus hours of non stop driving without so much as a pee break and gas break does to my patience when the person sitting by me has gotten on my last nerve and I’m doing everything in my power to let them know if they break it, the solution will not be pretty for either of them if I have to put the seatbelts around both of their mouths to give me some peace and quiet!
When we got rolling again after the light turned green and I turned my focus back to the road ahead of me, I could have sworn I saw both of my dog’s mouths close and Scooby immediately getting instructions from Scrappy on how to use a map properly.
In a few miles after he had finally gotten to where he could look at the map correctly, I demanded him to tell me where to turn by pointing to the road we need to be on.
After what felt like an eternity, Scooby stuck his left paw out the open passenger side window as we came up on an old county road that would lead us into a more forested area with what looked like heavy storm clouds collecting on the horizon.
I turned onto the old county road once he pointed to go right on it and we were soon riding down it with the sun setting at our backs and the storm clouds in the distance getting closer to us making me have to stop on the side of the road to put the hard top back on my jeep’s roof when I saw jagged strikes of lightning shooting out of them every few seconds making me worry we were going to get dumped on at any minute.
The further along the road we went, the closer the angry looking clouds got to us and the louder the distant thunder became when the lightning was literally striking right by my jeep in sharp bright flicks making me fear the farther we got from civilization, the worse off we’d be if we got stuck in a flash flood.
Mother Nature must have been monitoring my thoughts because as soon as I was about to tell Scooby I thought we were lost, the heavens really opened up making it nearly impossible for me to see the road in front of me save for the bright white flashes of lightning and huge booms of thunder which were my only source of light.
Scooby had reassured me that we weren’t lost, but I wasn’t buying it so I, like an idiot, looked down at the map in his lap and didn’t see the milepost sign we hit until my head was wedged under the steering wheel and I had slammed on the brakes coming to a complete stop.
I tried to look for Scooby, but I couldn’t find him so I had Scrappy call his name too and he popped up out of the engine when the hood popped open with my Jeep’s filter wedged between his ears.
I didn’t know how the hell he ended up in there so I asked him and he couldn’t even tell me so I put my hand on my temple trying to massage it while I asked him for the map and much to my annoyance, it disintegrated in his paw making me think things couldn’t get any worse.
Well, they did, because before we knew it, a big bolt of lightning flashed over Scooby’s head followed by a colossal crack of thunder sending Scooby into my lap shaking like a leaf as a second intense round of heavy rain started to pour in buckets all over my jeep while I tried to calm him down.
Now it should be noted at this point, if I had any sort of common sense back then, I would have promptly turned our Jeep back around and gone back to regular civilization for the night so the storm could pass and I could have gotten the sleep I so desperately needed even if it was in some rundown old small town motel on the side of the road.
But I didn’t know where we were and we didn’t have a map anymore so we had no choice but to continue down this dark unlit road in the middle of a toad choker deluge after I had gotten Scooby out of my lap and into the passenger seat.
I’m not going to bore you anymore with what you already have figured out by now because you probably are thinking this is the movie reincarnated.
I’m sure you are expecting me to tell you how the big blue gorilla terrifies us when it comes swooping down from the trees and we get pulled over by an impersonator cop whose real name is TJ Busby, who is imitating his twin brother, Ruthless Busby, right?
Well this is where the movie gets thrown out and real life comes in:
I ended up suing the circus for the countless damages their loose gorilla caused me, the plantation, and not to mention the time it took to corral the beast on the mechanical horse old TJ had used to scare us when we drove into the graveyard with his headless pumpkin head horseman riding it alongside my jeep giving all of us the scare of our lives.
In the end, it was sad to hear at his trial of him admitting to everyone there, including me, that the only thing he wanted to be was an actor.
It was sad to hear about TJ’s father shunning his acting career in favor of him forced into being a police officer to please both his father, who was the Chief of Police for The City of Hammond, and his twin brother, who was Sheriff in the small town both of them had been born and raised in.
And so all that anger, jealousy, and rejection by his family had led him into being forced to turn to a life of impersonating his brother and all of the ghosts to get revenge on them by taking the Beauregard fortune to prove a point to them.
I had no empathy for his crocodile tear story after he had tried to kill me and my dogs with a steamroller, my own jeep, and a gun when he was trying to get his hands on a fortune which wasn’t his to begin with.
And let’s not forget the countless scary props, booby traps, rigged weapons and other paraphernalia he used to terrorize us leaving longing scars in our minds and on our bodies that have never fully healed.
I was glad to see the bastard get what he deserved when he threatened me as they were taking him out of the courtroom after his sentencing hearing in shackles by saying this wasn’t going to be the last time I saw him and he promised me looking me straight in the eyes, which really has unnerved me to this day, that when he broke out of jail, I would be his first person he’d get rid of.
I had no clue those threats he made to me would become a motivation as to why I am going to once and for all get rid of this albatross hellhole of a plantation and make sure if he has backed up those threats that this time he’ll go away for a very long time in a maximum security place as far away from me and my dogs as possible.
You have to understand, if what I’m hearing is true, then I, by all means, am not going back to this hellhole without numbers because what’s this bastard going to do to me when he has to deal with three of my closest friends I’ve known since childhood and them, along with me and my two dogs, have put away some of the most ruthless criminals imitating ghosts?
Huh? What’s he going to do? Anyway, let’s continue with my story, shall we:
Then there was Billy Bob Scroggins, you know, the guy with the gun who kept using us for target practice because he had had some feud with my Uncle that I had nothing to do with.
When I first met the guy, all I remember was seeing the barrel of his shotgun pointed at my nose after I had run into his sister, Sadie May Scroggins, who was oversexed and wanted nothing more then to have sex with me in the hayloft and show me how strong she was against her brother.
Well, the truth behind this fifty year feud was that my Uncle had taken the land the Scroggins family was using for hog farming and had built his massive plantation on it by kicking them off it by going down to the courthouse in town and getting an injunction to keep the land for himself and force them to pay a hefty sum to him if they wanted to put their hogs on it.
Naturally, this pissed off the Scroggins family, and so, they tried to go about getting their land my Uncle had stolen back the legal way.
When that didn’t work after the State of Louisiana said no, they put their hogs on the land in defiance of the State’s ruling and my Uncle found out about it and had all of them sent to slaughter.
He was so infuriated by what they had done, he actually went so far as to cook up one of their hogs and leave the messy carcass at their doorstep forever cementing their hatred for him and thus starting this fifty year feud which I unfortunately was put in the middle of.
Then there was Farquart, my Uncle’s beady eyed hunchbacked butler who was one quart full of mentally insane and who blamed me for inheriting my Uncle’s fortune instead of him getting it after sixty years of his devoted service to my Uncle.
I often wonder who drove who more insane out of those two and my mind shutters to think about seeing a demented Farquart trying to care for my equally demented Uncle especially after he tried to steal a jewel necklace away from Scrappy who chased him up onto the baby grand piano in the foyer.
Like I said, I loved that pup’s spunk and I would have let him beat the crap out of Farquart if I hadn’t of been so caught up in trying to find my Uncle’s fortune while trying to prevent all of us from being killed by TJ’s countless ghost gimmicks and booby traps.
As I have said, these were the type of characters I had to deal with in the mortal world who were constantly popping up all over the plantation grounds everytime I turned my head or we found an important clue to my Uncle’s fortune whereabouts.
You’d think these human nutcases in of themselves would be enough for a scary feature like the animated film we all were portrayed in.
Unfortunately, dear reader, I’m about to introduce you to the real ghosts themselves who were the ultimate reason I never wanted to see this hellhole of a plantation again in the first place and who I know at least one of is still haunting his plantation to this day:
The ghost of my Uncle was nothing like they portrayed in the movie, in fact, he was much more hideous because as dementia overtook him as he got older, he forgot to take care of himself and his Civil War Colonel’s outfit became tattered with many holes in it.
His teeth, which were already in bad shape from lack of dental hygiene, had almost completed rotted off his mouth by the time he died and his skin had become pasty grey as his body had slowly eaten itself up from lack of nutrition.
I’ll never forget when I saw his ghost for the first time in the middle of the road in the cemetery on the edge of the plantation grounds:
We were trying to ditch the dummy headless horseman when we turned off onto this side road which led us past several headstones and into this area near where they buried my Uncle in the cemetery which I found out later on was where he had buried all of his regiment so they could have a place to rest in peace.
He had exhumed all their bodies from the battlefield in Fort Polk and placed them one by one in each of the graves with his own personal grave in the middle of the cemetery as a tribute to them knowing he was going to be buried with the men who served under him who did not get the proper burial they deserved.
I wish I had had more sympathy for what my Uncle did for his men who had died in battle while they served under him, and I would have, had I not been so petrified with fear from trying to get away from a dummy riding a mechanical horse.
I really wish I had been able to appreciate my Uncle’s service to this country and his various metals of honor he kept in his drawing room and the various pieces of Civil War memorabilia he collected and had stored in secret Underground Railroad tunnels beneath the cemetery he had come upon when he was building the plantation.
I really wish things hadn’t gone the way they did with my Uncle or the encounter I was about to experience with his ghost, but in the world of Norville Shaggy Rogers, reality can be really unbending as it is cruel to my phobia I have with ghosts.
I nearly had a heart attack as I thought I saw someone standing in the road in front of us and was worried I was going to hit them.
I slammed on my brakes hearing them lock up and squeal as my jeep came to an abrupt stop and we collectively gasped at what we saw in the headlights in front of us:
We saw what looked to our frozen in time staring as a grey tattered Civil War hat and tattered Civil War Colonel’s uniform and old rusted out sword sticking up in the air with a glove which should have belonged on a zombie holding it up in the air with its fingery grip holding the scabbard handled end of it between them.
Then our eyes rested on the face which had glossed over eyes and rotted off teeth which were black little nubs where there should have been real ones.
His bearded mustache looked like it had been through hell and back because it was practically sheered off his face along with his eyebrows which sagged low and menacing as he yelled:
“GO.. GO BACK… LEAVE THIS PLACE!” with both his gloved hands in the air.
I don’t know if it was sheer fright, cowardness, or just plain ass common sense, but the next thing I knew, my hand which was wrapped tightly around the steering wheel was knifing it as hard as it could go in a three sixty as the Jeep lurched around and my foot buried itself into the accelerator as we darted as fast as we could possibly go out of there.
At that point, I had lost all contact with reality and was reacting on pure chicken shit cowardice. I wanted to get as far away from what I just saw as possible and I didn’t care if I had to break through a few fences or run through ghosts to do it.
Then Scrappy, like the cool under immense pressure pup he was, points out the plantation house sitting there like a living embodiment of what mess I had gotten myself into and I just flat out said with total commitment:
“I don’t care, I don’t want it!” I screamed as I knifed the wheel as hard as I could hoping my Jeep would carry me the fuck out of this hellhole I had dumbly agreed to put myself in the middle of.
The Jeep lurched around like it did before, but this time there was a problem.
I saw massive plumes of white smoke belching out its tailpipe and I could smell what smelled like an overheated engine about to explode my radiator and sure enough, it abruptly brought my Kia Jeep to a screeching halt.
I tried to restart the engine, but it wouldn’t turn over and it was at that point when I realized just how fucked I really was.
There I was, sitting in my jeep with my two dogs staring in utter disbelief at the hellhole which would be our dungeon for the next few days and I couldn’t do a damn thing about getting away from it because my jeep was dead in the water and I would have to, at the very least, wait until the morning to summon a tow truck out to take my battered vehicle into the nearest garage to get very costly repairs which would only add to my misery of getting myself mixed up into what was becoming a very costly mistake on my part.
All I could do was put my cowardice into overdrive as me and the dogs were out of the Jeep with a headless horseman dummy on a mechanical horse and a rabid wolfhound, which represented the pickle I had gotten myself into, running straight at us forcing us to have to run to the door we were going to have to break down to escape the rabid wolfhound closing in on us faster then we could set our shoulders at the closed door.
Suddenly, as we were revving our legs up to break it down, it magically opened in front of us sending all of our combined weight forward by putting us on our bellies which slid us across the wooden floor into the fireplace getting soot caked all over us and us coughing out the rest of it out of our lungs while we felt a breeze blow what we couldn’t get off of us back into the fireplace.
I rubbed what little soot I had left out of my eyes and when I opened them, there was Farquart standing there laughing at my stupidity of not knocking on the door and I jumped back sending Scooby into the fireplace back first before he proceeded to jump on top of my shoulders shaking like a leaf and coating my red shirt and blue pants in another caking of soot.
If I could have, I would have throttled his ass and not thought one instant about having any remorse for doing it after my Jeep had flooded its engine and he was standing there laughing at us while he put his hands together in a conniving little ball rubbing them together plotting our demise.
You know what happens after this and I was too fucking tired to do anything but go to bed with my dogs and figure out what to do with my disabled vehicle in the morning.
Farquart led us upstairs and we followed him into the bedroom he had selected for us which happened to be the room with the bed my Uncle had died in.. Wonderful.
He explains to us that we can summon a tow truck in the morning and wishes us a good night in that conniving cryptic crypt keeper laugh of his which sent shivers up my spine which weren’t even registering with my brain as the door finally closed and we were left to our own devices.
So, there I am, trying to unwind with Scrappy and Scooby both laying on the bed with Scooby near the head of the bed, and Scrappy stretched out in the middle of it with his back resting against the head of it, and me sitting on the end of it trying my best to not lose my mind on whether or not we were even going to survive this night of mindfuckery ahead of us.
Just as I was about to lay down by Scooby and close my eyes in what seemed like days, I saw what can only be described as the ghost of my Uncle, Colonel Beauregard, riding a two wheel unicycle chanting “LEAVE THIS PLACE, LEAVE THIS PLACE” as he appeared out of nowhere on the left side of the room and rode across to the other side of it disappearing through a wall with a glittering sparkle.
At that point, the only thing I wanted to do was cry because why me? I was hysterical with total fright, I hadn’t slept in three solid days, and the only thing keeping me going was my intense cowardice reaction to what I just saw pass by me across from the foot of the bed MY UNCLE’S MORTAL SELF had died in that I WAS NOW TRYING TO GO TO SLEEP IN! ARRGH!
And Scooby? He was feeling all of my raw nerves with nerves of his own as he laid flat on the floor with his paws covering his eyes and teeth chattering like ice cubes falling from an ice maker in a refrigerator.
Between the both of us, we were shot of our nerves, our courage, and didn’t stand a Goddamn chance in hell of getting anymore sleep unless we came up with a solution to this ghost problem.
Scrappy, who had been dozing off in bed, opened his eyes when he heard both me and Scooby hit the floor after my Uncle’s ghost had scared us for the second time that night.
He looked at us like we were annoying his bedtime and he said to us in a bit of an annoyed tone:
“What’s up guys?”
If you could have seen the look in my face when Scrappy gave me that smart aleck look and if I hadn’t of been so scared shitless, I might of said to him:
“What does it look like…Asshole?”
Instead, I held my tongue, one because him being a smartass was the least of my worries and two being we had a real problem on our hands and I couldn’t call the gang up to come help us out so I just blurted out:
“But all these spirits, what are we going to do?”
Scrappy looked at me for a minute and raised his eyebrow before he reached into the drawer on the bedside chest and pulled out a phone book and began leafing through it.
I had seen this look on the little bastard’s face before, and when he said “I got an idea” I immediately felt my antenna go up because inside I knew this could mean only one thing:
“Let’s see, ant exterminators, bug exterminators.. Ahh here we go.. ghost exterminators” Scrappy said leafing his way through the phone book landing on an ad for ghost exterminators.
Now it should be said that I do not often freak out when Scrappy looks through a phone book because usually he loses interest or finds something I can go along with.
This time however, I just felt my head spinning upside down like I wanted to beat it over the floor at the insanity this place was causing me and now Scooby’s nephew is about to get me into something I’m going to either hate him for the rest of my life or I’m going to praise him for being a little genius.
If I had known better, like I do now, I would have yanked that fucking phone book out of Scrappy’s paws and chunked it out the window with him still attached to it because what he was about to get me into really defined why, all these years later, I’m regretting I have to come back to this hellhole once again to try to sell it:
Scrappy read off the ad which had a picture of three ghosts on it:
The first one, who I would know to be called Freako, was a stocky built looking ghost with fat lips and a scowl.
He wore some kind of yellow tiny sombrero and had reddish curly type hair and was obviously the leader of this undead trio.
The second ghost on the left was a fat headed dopey looking ghost who had a fat rounded, like a circle, nose and wore a pink baseball hat backwards and had this weird sort of cross eyed set of big eyes, I would know him to be called Meeko, the idiot of the trio.
The last ghost on the right was a long skinny looking ghost who had a long nose, skinny face, and wore a green pilot’s type helmet on top of his head.
I would know this clown of a ghost to be Shrieko and let me tell you, the name fit him to a tee because he was known as the jokester or more vividly as the prankster who played some of the most vicious pranks that I had ever seen.
At first, I was freaking out, but the more I looked at this motley trio, the more I thought it was just a bunch of kids looking to start up some kind of legitimate ghost hunting business like we did at Mystery Inc.
And that’s where my better judgment decided to make way for my empathy for the trio and the fact we were in a dire situation which needed to be addressed so all of us could sleep.
So I went ahead and gave Scrappy the green light by saying:
“Ah come one, it’s gotta be a put on”
From the moment I said those words till what I’m writing you at this very moment, dear reader, I wanted to, if I could have done it, taken myself back then and shown myself now with all the scars and painful realities I have to live with as a result of this trio of crooked two timing rotten ghosts.
But I digress, you don’t know until you learn the hard way, which I was about to:
“What do we have to lose, let’s call them” Scrappy said enthusiastically.
Before we gave the trio that will go down in my infamy of things I regret making calls to, I threw my red shirt, blue pants, and black shoes on and made my way out of the closet over to the black telephone sitting by the bed on the chest and placed the receiver up to my ear.
I’ll never forget this moment in my lifetime, my next lifetime, and my next next lifetime after that lifetime when I dialed the number listed and said infamously:
“Hello, is this the Boo Brothers as they were known on the ad in the phonebook, I got a job for you, can ya come right over?”
The next thing I know, I see what looks like a tiny yellow sombrero physically coming THROUGH the phone with a fat head attached to it popping out of the receiver saying:
“Why certainly pal” as I back up as fast as my feet will let me.
Pretty soon, Freako was out of the phone, followed by Sheriko, and Meeko who they had to spit out of the phone with a hammer.
At that point, if I was in my own real world of reality, I probably would have shit my pants, taken my face, and plastered it on my ass cheeks because the only thing keeping me from passing out was my complete utter disbelief at what I saw floating, not standing, FLOATING in front of me.
And Scooby was no better then I was, and if he could have, he would have gone screaming out the door and hid in another room with his tail chattering in the air after looking at the undead trio he saw floating before him.
Scrappy was looking at them with an amused look on his face that was either he was impressed by what he saw, or, he thought this was some kind of sad joke the spirit world was playing on these three poor ghosts who floated in front of all three of us.
So by this point, you’re probably guessing, okay, if I remember the movie right, Freako, Shrieko, and Meeko all introduce themselves and go about their shtick about catching ghosts and they show me their gimmick ghost and scare me and Scooby shitless, right?
Well, truth be told, these three were trouble from the minute they came through the phone.
Freako was more interested in planning parties for his ghostly friends then he was about trying to get rid of our ghost problem.
Shrieko nearly killed me at least twice that I know of if he wasn’t scaring the piss out of all three of us with his cruel pranks and even crueler jokes.
One of which left a long scar on my hip and a rash on Scooby’s nose which took months to heal and even longer to break him and me of the trauma we endured night after night having nightmares about him making his hideous faces at us in dark tunnels we got trapped in with him.
Or they were about him prank shooting himself out of my Uncle’s antique Civil War cannon TJ had lit intentionally by intending for him to smash into us and hurt us, which in these nightmares, he really did and didn’t care one iota about what he did to us.
And that maniacal shrieking laugh of his which still rings in my ears to this day made me want to check into a mental asylum for chickens who went fruity because of maniac ghosts like him. Bah!
Meeko was just a fucking idiot who took his pals abuse, most notably Freako, who would torture the poor guy until you’d think he would go totally insane, but somehow, he just kept keeping on with them which made me understand why he was called Meeko.
The end should have happened when I caught them partying and totally lost my cool.
I should have called real ghost exterminators in and gotten rid of the whole lot of them myself including my Uncle’s ghost even though he was really not my biggest problem unlike this trio and TJ, who was impersonating him.
I was burnt out and wanted everything to end right then, right now. I had been scared shitless the entire night by TJ’s many costume ghosts including that of my Uncle which really rubbed me the wrong way.
In short, if I could have burned the place down with a gas can and a lighter, I would have and not have cared one iota if all the ghosts were evaporated while I sat down eating a hero sandwich watching the entire place collapse to nothing but kindling for a camp fire.
But, I was naïve and gullible enough to believe their manipulation when they played with my emotions and soon were back on the job of terrifying me and my two dogs up until the morning after Ruthless had taken his brother TJ to jail and I was holding my suitcases while I stormed out the plantation front door with my dogs following me after the tow truck we had summoned that morning had hooked up to my jeep to take us to the garage we were going to get it fixed at for whatever the cost was and get back to California as quick as we could.
I didn’t even bother to stay around long enough for the estate lawyer to show up to help me transfer my Uncle’s fortune and his assets over to my name once my jeep got fixed that afternoon and I was able to get some much needed sleep at a local motel far enough away from that hellhole to where I felt safe enough for what turned out to be one of the most peaceful sleeps of my life that lasted until early the next morning when I got up, took a shower, ate breakfast with the dogs at Burger King and was on the road headed back to California as fast as I could travel at the posted speed limit.
When I got back home a couple days later, I called that asshole up and gave him a piece of my mind because I knew in my heart what his game really was and I later found out the asshole had hired TJ to cause all this mayhem in my life and take part of my Uncle’s treasure with him while he gave the rest to that crooked asshole of an estate lawyer who was rightfully arrested and put in jail with TJ.
The estate lawyer got a worse jail sentence then TJ did because he worked for the State and had violated their estate policies which earned him half a century in the State Pen with no hope of parole until he finished a quarter which was half of the fifty years meaning he wouldn’t be conning anyone else for a long time.
What I didn’t know at the time was this wasn’t going to be my last time dealing with this hellhole of a plantation.
As I told you at the beginning of this journal entry, this was a synopsis of what happened to me, Scrappy, and Scooby the first time we visited my Uncle’s plantation.
Now a few years later, I have to go back to this little place of horrors to try to get rid of it and rid myself of this albatross once and for all.
Let’s just hope for my sake and yours, dear reader, that you’ve buckled yourself in for the adventure ahead.
Baton Rouge, Louisiana Present day:
So here I sit, in my same light green orange wheeled newer Kia Jeep driver’s seat with Scooby and Scrappy in the backseat and a trailer full of me and the gang’s personal things as we’re getting ready to head back to my Uncle’s plantation in the middle of nowhere hell so I can sell it and be rid of this nuisance once and for all.
First, an update on how Scooby and Scrappy are:
Scooby has long forgotten what happened to us all those years ago, but he still regrets he has to come with me once again to embark on another visit to the hell that is my Uncle’s plantation.
Scrappy has grown out and actually is much bigger and stockier then his Uncle who he sits by in the backseat of my Jeep.
His ears have gone more floppy then straight because he didn’t want to dock them so he looks more like a giant bulldog with his well built muscles that he has spent months in the gym building so that he can really kick asses of people who harm me, the gang, and his Uncle.
He’s wearing a set of earphones jamming to his favorite hard rock band, Slayer, who he listens to quite a bit and has really grown an affinity to hard rock in general.
He decided to get his own place more close to where he grew up in Brooklyn where he works as a bouncer at some of the music clubs when he isn’t solving mysteries with us on his time off or in this case, until we sell my Uncle’s plantation.
The rest of the gang decided to come over to Louisiana in the Mystery Machine which isn’t the original VW bus which would have never made this trip without some kind of radiator water trouble.
This one is a custom 1998 Dodge Van decked out in the classic Mystery Machine colors of the late sixties with custom fit cloth bench seats and a spacious area of storage where we store all of Fred’s homemade traps and the tools needed to build them along with a killer sound system Fred personally installed in it before we left California.
Anyway, I see all of them walking out of the gas station convenience grocery store we have stopped at for gas and snacks.
So, let me introduce each of them to you in case you do not know who they are:
The guy in the white sweater with an orange ascot tied around his neck with blue pants and brown loafer shoes is Fred Jones, son of Fred Jones Sr. who is the mayor of Newport Beach where Mystery Inc was born.
He works at a machine shop in Downtown Newport Beach as a Master Machine Maker and I hear he’s going to be promoted to Head Master Machine Maker as soon as we get back because his boss is ready to retire and give the whole place over to him which will mean even better upgraded homemade ghost traps for Mystery Inc.
The young woman with the long reddish colored hair held back in the middle by a greenish hair holder thingy and dressed in a purple dress with matching blouse and red colored shoes who is walking with her hand embraced tightly in Fred’s right hand is Daphne Blake, daughter of the Blakes, who are two of the most wealthy people in Newport Beach thanks to their massive international clothing empire which bears their last name.
She works as a Fashion Design Specialist for her parents clothing store and show room in Newport Beach.
As you might have guessed, she and Fred or Freddy as she and we like to call him, live together, and are going to get married after I’m done with selling my Uncle’s plantation.
I can’t wait for their wedding because I’ve been named their best man groom who is going to escort Daphne up to the alter where her father and Fred’s father are going to hand them both of their rings after I hand her off to him.
I think I have more nerves for Daphne and Fred then I do for the unfortunate hellhole I’m bringing them to which has delayed all of this wonderful wedding planning.
They’ve been so gracious to me that I just want things at this little slice of hell to be done with as soon as possible so I can really live up to my cooking reputation and make their reception one for the books, food wise.
I know, I’m getting off topic because this is the only thing which has kept me glued together even though deep inside my mind, I really want to strangle the son of a bitch who thought it was a great idea to call me to come back to the hell my friends are going to have to bear witness to as I try to not go as insane as my Uncle did before he died.
The thought is just tearing me up inside and out so let’s finish this up before the gang suspects anything that’s mentally wrong with me:
The short girl walking beside Fred on his left side has short brown hair down to almost her shoulders.
She wears red glasses. an orange turtleneck sweater with red short skirt, white socks, and flat top ladies shoes.
Her name is Velma Dinkley and I doubt you don’t know what her role is in Mystery Inc.
If you don’t know, I’ll tell you:
You see, she is the brains of our outfit.
She always has been because her parents are both scientists who work extensively at major universities, most notably UCLA, inventing all kinds of robotics and other advanced technological achievements.
It’s no surprise their daughter works in a robotics lab as a lead inventor of all of the robots you might see working in space or running on the moon for NASA.
She is brilliant and can pretty much solve anything you put in front of her.
I’ve always admired Velma’s intelligence and her willingness to invent new things.
One of these days I’ll have to get her to invent a rolling food tray robot for me to use at my catering business I’m proud owner of.
And we finally come to me, Norville Shaggy Rogers:
Since I have inherited my Uncle’s fortune, I have opened my own catering business which bears my first name and is an LLC so none of these greedy gold diggers can try to wipe me out of home and business.
I live in the same house I always have in the suburbs of LA, and since the building I bought, which houses my catering business, is right down the street in Downtown Rancho Cucamonga, I don’t have to go very far to get to it.
If I really wanted to, I could bike over to it, but I prefer to drive the less then ten minutes it takes me to get there so I can get it open and going before the thirty or so short order cooks who work under me come to prepare the various food we serve to the major LA hotels who contract us out.
The big difference here is that the cooks, who work under me, get to do all the grunt work I used to have to do and the brutal hours which go with it.
I pay them very well because I understand the brutality of the catering business with major hotels and the toll it can claim on one’s sanity and sleeping hours.
These days, I do local weddings and various parties in and around Rancho Cucamonga and I only do the LA hotels who have agreed to contract me out on a weekday or holiday basis when they need me to cater their business related events during the day and every so often on evenings when the holiday schedule is booked and they need me in short order to fill in for that shift until one of my own employees can take it over the next day.
The hours aren’t as brutal for me, since I do all the food preparing in house at my catering business and bring whatever I don’t use home so that Scooby and me always have a hearty meal available to us if he doesn’t want his dog food.
The thing I really enjoy the most about owning my own catering business is that I get to spend the time I want with Scooby and the gang solving our various mysteries we help the local police solve and the businesses, who need our help nationally and internationally.
I haven’t really changed much physically, which for me, is pretty astounding given how much food me and Scoob can pack away in our stomachs in one setting.
I’ve grown my brown hair longer to where I have a ponytail as well as my signature goatee which people say makes me look like a brown haired version of Penn Teller which I get a good laugh out of especially when Fred thinks I can magically pull a hero sandwich out of nowhere when me and Scoob are luring fake ghosts into his homemade traps if they happen to be set near a kitchen in a haunted house or business we’ve been called to.
My attire is back to my classic light green t-shirt, maroon cargo pants, and black long toed shoes and a pair of aviator shades I use when I drive so I’m not blinded by the sun and a chain necklace I wear under my shirt, which has a tiny locket I’ve put a picture of Scrappy and Scooby on both sides of..
Anyway, Fred is about to walk up to my driver’s side window, so I had better let you go for now, dear reader.
I hope the story I have told you up to this point lets you know the seriousness of what we’re going to be facing in the coming days.
It’s not going to be just me this time; it’s going to be me and the gang together as a group going against whatever my Uncle’s plantation throws at us.
I just pray for all of us that the hell I’m about to face again doesn’t send me over the deep end and make me have to check myself into the loony bin.
You and I will have to find out together, won’t we?
Until next time Dear Reader,
Yours,
Shaggy
Chapter 2: Gas Station Drama
Notes:
What should be a simple stop for gas and snacks turns into.. Well, you'll see!
Chapter Text
Gas Station Drama
Fred, Daphne, and Velma walked around the store aisles taking various snacks off the hooked shelves and drinks out of the refrigerated racks at the back of it before they went to the front, and the clerk working behind the register rung them up, and wished them a good day after they plastic bagged all of their purchases.
Fred carried a plastic bag full of the snacks Shaggy had asked him to go get for him, Scooby, and Scrappy while Velma and Daphne both carried plastic bags full of their snacks and drinks out of the store.
Daphne openly held hands with Fred as they walked out into the parking area outside of it with Daphne releasing her grip on Fred’s left hand so he could go give the plastic bag full of snacks he carried in his right hand to Shaggy, who sat in the driver’s seat of his Kia Jeep, which was parked under the station canopy by the pump closest to the front of the convenience store.
He closed his journal spiral he’d been writing his thoughts in for the last few minutes and stored it in the passenger side glove box making sure it was closed tight so the spiral wouldn’t accidently fall out if his jeep hit an unexpected bump or rough stretch of road while he drove.
He raised his head up, just in time, to see Fred almost at his jeep bumper so he made the decision to go take the full bag of snacks from him and put them in the backseat of the Jeep himself.
When Fred was eye to eye with Shaggy after he had got out of his jeep to take the plastic bag full of snacks from him, he couldn’t help but notice how ragged his childhood friend looked:
The dark circles under his eyes made him look much older then he actually was and Fred could see involuntary twitches his head was making and the way his hands almost shook when he reached to grab the full plastic bag from his grip as he handed it over to him.
Fred could also see that his friend appeared to be on the brink of a nervous breakdown because the rest of his body was making involuntary fidgeting movements as it swayed from side to side, seemingly out of his control as he scratched his arm compulsively with his left fingers.
Ever since they had left California, Shaggy’s demeanor had changed from the happy go lucky food addicted entrepreneur to someone who resembled a drug addicted mentally disturbed person about to go over the edge of sanity into a valley of insanity.
They didn’t take much notice of it at first because they had known this was a big deal for Shaggy, who had expressed to them how important it was for all them to come along with him to, in his words, keep him company while he tried to sell his Uncle’s plantation before the State Of Louisiana auctioned it off and bulldozed all the land for mixed use industrial buildings after the town it was near had applied for federal grants to legally build on it if a buyer could not be found by the end of the month.
The amount of pressure his friend was under was enormous and everyone was shocked when instead of going out to eat with them, like he always loved to do, Shaggy instead, retired to his room and skipped the entire evening which even surprised Scooby, who instead of abandoning his master, had decided to stay with him while his nephew and the gang went out for the evening.
Not to mention the fact he even turned down the food the gang had brought him which in of itself was totally out of character for Shaggy who stood mere inches away from Fred, who was trying to gage how his friend was feeling because his behavior over the last two days showed everyone around him that this was doing more then just cutting into his appetite.
Fred needed an answer from his friend because Shaggy was not one to ever keep anything that was bothering him away from his childhood friends who he had grown up with since grade school and his overall demeanor demanded Fred at least ask him how he was doing out of sheer concern for his friend’s overall mental health:
“Shaggy, are you okay?” Fred asked before he continued:
“You look like hell and the way you’ve been acting over the last couple of days really worries me and the rest of the gang” Fred paused taking a minute to carefully select his next words:
“Is there something you’re not telling us? You don’t have to keep anything from us, we’ve all been through hell and back together and I’m just worried that this whole thing with your Uncle’s Plantation is taking more then just your passion of food from you” Fred said looking at Shaggy up and down trying to get to the bottom of his recent behavior.
“Freddy, I’m fine, I’m just really tired, that’s all” Shaggy said hoping his lie would satisfy Fred.
“Look Shaggy, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out there’s something going on with you we can see with our own eyes that you’re not telling us mentally that we all can see physically” Fred said as he watched Shaggy open the door of his Kia Jeep with a shaky hand and put the plastic bag full of snacks in the backseat.
“If something about your Uncle’s plantation is bothering you, let us know so we can help you get through it” Fred said in a fatherly tone as he put his hand on Shaggy’s shoulder.
Shaggy reared up as Fred quickly took his hand off his shoulder when he slammed the passenger side door of his Jeep loud enough that it made the blond jump as his friend glared at him before he spoke:
“I told you Freddy, I’m fine, can’t you see that!?!” Shaggy snapped as he briskly walked around to the driver’s side of his Kia Jeep and slammed the door equally as loud starling everyone within ear shot who wasn’t paying attention before it happened.
Daphne and Velma had been watching the whole exchange between Fred and Shaggy from where they stood by the Mystery Machine which was parked by the pump behind his Jeep.
They saw Fred putting his arms up in a defensive posture as he walked back to the Mystery Machine completely bewildered by Shaggy’s outburst as he walked over to Velma and asked her to ride with him to see if she could get to the bottom of his bizarre behavior:
“I don’t know what’s gotten into Shaggy and I don’t trust him driving alone even with Scrappy and Scooby with him” Freddy said in a concerned tone before he continued:
Velma, I want you to ride with him to see if you can get to the bottom of what is bothering him before he totally flips out and puts both the dogs in danger” Fred said in a serious tone as he made his way around to the driver’s side of the Mystery Machine getting into it and starting the engine which hummed to life.
Daphne looked over at Velma who had a look of total apprehension plastered across her face as she spoke to her:
“Please be careful how you speak to him, Velma, because he looks like a ticking powder keg and I worry for you and the dogs if he goes off the deep end and decides to use his Jeep to hurt all of you and himself” Daphne warned as she looked at Velma who was swallowing hard trying to find courage to face an unpredictable situation with Shaggy as she adjusted her glasses before she spoke with confidence:
“Don’t worry Daphne, out of everyone here, Shaggy is the most comfortable with me and I think I can get to the bottom of what is bothering him” Velma said as Daphne got into the passenger side of the Mystery Machine and put her hand on Fred’s shoulder after she closed the door and spoke her concern at his decision to put her in a dangerous situation with their unstable friend at the wheel of his own vehicle:
“I hope you know what you are doing, Freddy, because I’m worried Velma and the dogs are in grave danger if Shaggy goes haywire while he’s behind the wheel.
“You don’t think I’m worried about that, Daphne?” Fred said looking over at his soon to be wife before he continued:
“I’ve never seen Shaggy act like this before and the thing I worry about is will I be able to save all their lives on a busy freeway if something goes wrong with him and he decides to take three hostages with him and I have no choice but to let the State Patrol handle it” Fred said with a look of fear in his brown eyes which unnerved Daphne who quickly tried to change the subject as she lightly squeezed his shoulder:
Look Freddy, I trust that Shaggy won’t do anything so brash especially with Velma in there with him” Daphne reasoned trying to reassure Fred who took a deep breath as they both took a minute to compose themselves for the drive still ahead of all of them.
Shaggy sat in the driver’s seat of his jeep grumbling to himself as he started the engine while Scooby and Scrappy sat in the backseat of it in stunned silence at what they had just witnessed.
They had never seen Shaggy this out of control to lash out at Fred like he just did. It was like the thought of being forced to go back into the hellhole which was his Uncle’s plantation was unleashing a monster deep within him which threatened to send him over the edge and there wasn’t anything either of them could do but sit there in total shock at what he had become by letting it consume him like it had.
Scooby looked like he was on the verge of crying as his big soulful dark eyes tried to look for answers through his nephew as he spoke in a shaky voice:
“RI’M rorried arout Raggy, Rappy” Scooby said looking over at his nephew who had dropped his ear phones on his lap while he looked out the left backseat passenger window before he turned his head and spoke to his Uncle:
“I had no idea things were this bad, Uncle Scooby” Scrappy admitted to the older dog sitting by him.
“I had no idea it was going to affect him this badly and how’s he going to react when he sees that plantation house once we get there?” Scrappy said in a worried tone to his Uncle who could hear his master’s grumbles of annoyance.
“Roor, Raggy” Scooby whimpered as a tear went down his eye and Scrappy quietly hugged his Uncle trying to console him even when Shaggy turned around and glared at the hugging two dogs in his backseat before he went off on them:
“The last thing I need is you two whining, so either get it in check or take a walk” Shaggy snapped as Scooby continued to cry into Scrappy’s chest making his nephew give him a piece of his mind while he stared him down with fire in his dark brownish eyes:
“Why don’t you get a fucking grip with yourself, Shaggy?” Scrappy snapped back while he angrily pointed his clawed finger at him before he continued:
“Neither of us wanted to go through this hell with you again because we knew what this plantation did to you and how you’ve ignorantly let your fucking ghost anxiety...” Scrappy barked before Shaggy angrily cut him off:
“What the fuck do you know about it, Scrappy?” Shaggy snapped as he continued to yell at the younger Great Dane:
“My ghost anxiety is none of your fucking business, okay?” Shaggy yelled sharply pointing at his chest.
“If you can’t keep it to yourself, get out of my fucking Jeep and go the fuck back to California and take that whining chicken shit of an Uncle with you!” Shaggy shouted as Scrappy ripped open the back door and let his rage get the better of him:
“I’m not keeping shit to myself and how dare you talk to my Uncle like that, you asshole!”
“The worst enemy is you, and I regret that the entire gang is going to have to live with your hell you created for yourself because you’re a weak coward who thinks with your ego instead of understanding that the people who fucking love you are trying to help you!” Scrappy shouted as he took his Uncle in his arms and got out of the jeep forcefully slamming the door so hard that it nearly cracked the windshield off after the vehicle rocked side to side.
Velma. who had overheard the entire argument, as had everyone else within earshot, stood there with a look of fear in her eyes at what she was about to get herself into as she saw Scrappy rip himself out of the backseat of the Jeep and storm up to her with his Uncle Scooby bawling in his chest like a scared child being pulled from an abductor:
“Velma, if you want to ride with that asshole, go right ahead, but I warn you, he has a real hot head and if I was you, I would just leave him alone and let him deal with his ghost anxiety by himself!” Scrappy spat as she watched he and his Uncle Scooby get into the back of the Mystery Machine and slam its backdoors shut.
Velma stood where she was in utter silence as she looked over into the Mystery Machine at Fred and Daphne who both looked like they wanted to be somewhere else other then where they were at this moment.
For the first time in her life, she felt doubt seeping its way into her own mind. Did she even want to go through with this and take Scrappy’s heated word for it? Or, did she trust enough in Shaggy, who she liked more then just a longtime friend, to simmer down enough so she could get to the bottom of the ghost anxiety which was the driving force behind his madness?
She closed her eyes for a minute to focus at her options as she logically went through them in her head:
1. She could drop the entire thing and ride with Fred and Daphne, who were going to find out about what his Uncle’s plantation had done to him and how it had caused his ghost anxiety to get out of control from Scrappy and Scooby’s perspective.
2. Or, she could hear it from Shaggy himself and most likely be able to calm him down enough to get the truth out of him.
She went with option two because she believed in herself and knew in her heart if anyone could bring out the best in Shaggy, even in a time like this, it was her and she gave the thumbs up to Fred and Daphne reassuring them she was going to go through with riding with Shaggy.
Fred and Daphne sat there like deer in the headlights as Scrappy angrily cussed to himself while hugging his weeping Uncle Scooby in his arms in the backseat.
This was supposed to be just a stop to get gas, snacks, and check in on how Shaggy was doing.
Instead, it had turned into a spectacle of shocking events, torn hearts, and angry angst filled drama all of them were fortunate not to have Baton Rouge’s finest sorting it out and taking Shaggy and Scrappy to jail for disturbing the public.
They would have been happy if Velma had just gotten into the front bench seat with them and left Shaggy to his own devices to calm things down.
But when they saw her raise her thumb up to signal them she was still riding with Shaggy, a collective groan came out of Fred and Daphne’s mouths.
They could only hope Velma knew what she was doing because anything they had thought about Shaggy being stable enough to handle her riding with him had been thrown out the window thanks to his vile hair trigger unpredictable outbursts.
Fred reluctantly gave a thumbs up back to Velma as she turned and made her way up to the passenger side window of Shaggy’s jeep.
Shaggy cussed to himself at the audacity of Scrappy to even force him to admit a truth, which was now making itself ever apparent to everyone around him.
He had half a mind to just drop the whole damn thing and take everyone back to California where none of them would have to witness his plantation ghost anxiety destroying his overall well being, bit by bit.
It tortured his mind to think he’d have to deal with everything he had done so well at getting out of his life for almost two decades and that his friends were seeing the damage it was doing to him and they hadn’t even gotten to the damn hellhole he was about to lead them into.
He could only sit there in the driver’s seat grumbling to himself as he started the Jeep’s engine bringing it to life with a shake.
He was about to put it into drive when a knock at his passenger side window made him grate his teeth so hard that the pain from it shot to his brain almost blinding him temporarily as he angrily stabbed his finger into the window control.
“What the fuck do you want now Scooby?” Shaggy shouted out the window expecting to see Scooby standing there begging him to forgive him and let him continue to ride the rest of the way to the plantation with him.
Instead, he saw a pair of red colored glasses and a pair of brown eyes behind them staring at him with a look of genuine worry which made him quickly change his tune when he realized Velma was standing outside his passenger side window staring at him.
“What do you want, Velma?” Shaggy said in a harsh tone he wasn’t intending to be as harsh sounding as it was.
“Is it okay if I ride with you, Shaggy?” Velma asked as calmly as she could after being surprised by the harshness of his voice.
Shaggy took a minute to compose himself before he answered her in a more questioning sounding voice:
“What? Is this about what I said to the dogs?” Shaggy said in a demanding tone which made Velma carefully choose her next words:
“I thought maybe you might need someone other then Scrappy and Scooby to keep you company” Velma said gently smiling at Shaggy when she saw his scowl lift from his face.
He opened the passenger side door from the inside and motioned her inside with his left hand, which Velma considered as a breakthrough with him as she got into the passenger seat after she shut the door and used the button on top of the door to lock it before she put her seatbelt on.
Fred and Daphne both took a deep sigh of relief at seeing Velma being accepted into Shaggy’s passenger seat as they watched her close the door and his back lights turn off as his Jeep left the pump area with them closely following behind it in the Mystery Machine out onto the feeder road and disappearing into freeway traffic.
Chapter 3: More Than Just Ghost Anxiety
Notes:
This chapter will surprise you with the different emotions at play here. Hope you enjoy it!
Chapter Text
After about thirty minutes of letting the sound of the road, and the hum of the Mystery Machine’s engine act as a calming mechanism, did Daphne decide to look over her right shoulder to check on how Scooby was doing as his chin rested in the lap of his brooding nephew who was staring forward deep in his own thoughts with a shell shocked expression on his face:
“How’s Scooby doing, Scrappy?” Daphne asked momentarily breaking Scrappy out of his dazed look.
“He’s sleeping, but otherwise, if I hadn’t been there to get him away from Shaggy, I don’t think I could say he is doing better” Scrappy said in a somber tone as he looked down at his Uncle’s tear stained face resting on his thighs as Daphne turned her body completely around and frowned at the sad sight of the once happy Great Dane reduced to a small emotionally wrecked puppy resting his chin on his surrogate acting nephew’s lap whose warmth combined with his own produced light snores from his Uncle’s sleeping form.
Daphne felt a sore lump form in her throat the more she stared at the frustration in Scrappy’s face and looked down at the tear stained broken hearted betrayal Scooby was showing under his closed eyes.
She wanted so badly to hug both of the dogs to break them of the misery each of them was showing her. She felt their pain as much as they were showing it and knew she couldn’t hug them like she desperately wanted to, so she decided to let her words try to help them:
“What can I do to help both of you?” Daphne asked in a sincere tone as Scrappy looked at her solemn expression in his face before he spoke:
“Honestly Daphne, there’s really nothing you can do because Shaggy’s outburst was a longtime coming” Scrappy admitted sighing as he did so.
“What do you mean by a long time coming?” Daphne asked in a confused tone as Scrappy gently took his Uncle’s head off his lap and softly set it down on the seat by his right hip as he leaned forward to speak to her and Freddy:
“You both have to understand, ever since Shaggy got the call to go back to his Uncle’s plantation, he’s been nothing short of unpleasant to be around and as you saw, quick to snap at anyone who even brings up his ghost anxiety.
“Look Scrappy, we both know Shaggy is terrified of ghosts” Fred spoke up as he briefly looked over at Daphne who nodded her head before he continued:
“What I want to know is why in the hell has my childhood friend all of a sudden turned into this unpredictable nutcase who even I am nervous to be around?” Fred asked with a hint of frustration in his voice.
Scrappy took a minute to let his thoughts come into his vision before he continued on with telling Fred and Daphne about why Shaggy’s ghost anxiety had changed him so drastically:
“Listen you two, I don’t know if you even understand how bad Shaggy’s ghost anxiety has gotten thanks to his Uncle’s plantation” Scrappy said trying to fend off a sick pit in his stomach as he brought up the courage to continue with his story:
“When we first went to Shaggy’s Uncle’s plantation, it was because he thought he would lose all of his Uncle’s fortune, so instead of consult with anyone who could have saved him from the trouble he was getting into, we left for the plantation without realizing what we were getting ourselves into” Scrappy explained as Fred and Daphne listened intently:
“I’m sure he told you about what happened once we got there and how we ended up solving the mystery of who was trying to steal away the fortune” Scrappy said waiting for Fred and Daphne to respond:
“You mean TJ, that crazy ghost impersonator, right?” Fred said as Scrappy nodded and Daphne asked a very crucial question which would shed more light into Shaggy’s strange behavior:
“What happened after Shaggy left the plantation?” Daphne asked in a clear tone to Scrappy, who replied:
“Once we got back from the plantation, Shaggy had a nervous breakdown because of what happened to him at the hands of the three ghosts we could not get rid of when we found out they were nothing more then con artists looking for a place to haunt so they could torture us for our foolishness into letting them help us try to rid ourselves of the ghost problem we ended up solving on the human end” Scrappy said taking a moment to catch his breath as Freddy cut in:
“You mean, Freako, Meeko, and Shreiko, right? Fred asked inquisitively as Scrappy nodded before he resumed speaking:
“To make a long story short, those three ghosts in of themselves would have been a pain in the ass for us on their own, but add in the real ghost of Shaggy’s Uncle and the various other characters who kept torturing us non stop, and you can see why Shaggy had the nervous breakdown” Scrappy said as Scooby roused awake at the mention of his beloved master:
“Poor Raggy” Scooby chimed in startling all of them as Daphne looked at his puffy tear shot eyes focusing on his nephew raising her suspicion as she looked at Freddy who was giving her a look of questioning suspicion himself upon hearing Scooby’s tired reaction and Scrappy’s unexpected sympathetic response:
“It’s okay, Uncle Scooby, they have to hear this” Scrappy said softly as he gently stroked the top of his Uncle’s head as his chin stooped back down onto the softness of the cloth seat it rested atop.
Upon observing both Scrappy and Scooby’s unusual behavior and unusual sympathetic responses amongst each other, Fred and Daphne both suspected there was more to this nervous breakdown story which needed to be investigated with answers from Scrappy.
So Fred decided to let his inner detective take over as he tested Scrappy as a character witness by pressing him for more information:
“It seems to me there is more to Shaggy’s nervous breakdown then you are telling us, Scrappy” Freddy said in a suspicious tone as Daphne noted Scrappy’s facial and body reaction as he sat back in the seat putting his paw over his face triggering her to continue the press for more answers from him as she studied his next reaction to her questioning his involvement in knowing about Shaggy’s nervous breakdown:
“By the way you two have been acting over the last hour, it would seem to both Freddy and I that you, Scrappy, are not telling us the whole truth about Shaggy’s nervous breakdown” Daphne added making Scrappy put his paw on his temple to massage the tension bubbling from within it as Fred continued to push for answers as Daphne watched Scrappy start to cave in from Fred’s relentless pressure:
“Look, I’ve known Scooby since he was a mere pup and he has never left the side of Shaggy under any circumstance, including what happened at the gas station, which leads me to believe, without a shadow of a doubt. that there is some kind of event that happened to Shaggy that you are not willing to let us know about” Fred said in a questioning tone as Daphne added after hearing a growl of frustration come from deep within Scrappy who was on the verge of the breaking point as he bared his clenched teeth:
“If something happened to him and Shaggy, we want to know because..” Daphne pushed as Scrappy finally caved to the barrage of intense questioning by punching the back of Daphne’s seat so hard that she almost snapped her seatbelt as it startled her and Freddy both into silence as Scrappy came forth with startling information which brought forth a shocking event which put Shaggy’s erratic behavior into a very disturbing light which shocked the two sleuths into listening to his every word as he unloaded it into their laps:
“Look you two; my Uncle had to give up seven months of his life to be a comfort dog to Shaggy after he committed himself to a State run mental asylum after he had such a severe mental breakdown from what happened to him at the plantation!” Scrappy snapped as Fred and Daphne both listened in silent disbelief:
“That hellhole drugged him up so bad that he was having hallucinations and nightmares about those three ghosts torturing him to a point where Uncle Scooby was so scared for his mental well being that he called me on Skype and I immediately got out to California as quick as I could to get him out of the State Run mental asylum into a community run center so he could detox himself from those horrible drugs and get back to a normal life!” Scrappy cried as he wiped tears away with his arms as Daphne answered him in the only way she knew how to by asking him gently:
“Why didn’t you tell us about this sooner?” Daphne said in a shaky voice as she felt Fred’s hand grip her right hand firmly as Scrappy said in a crackly voice between sniffles:
“I knew my Uncle needed my help and I had no choice but to act swiftly in order to save him and Shaggy both from the clutches of The State Of California who had no fucking clue about how to help him properly” Scrappy said taking a moment to compose himself before he continued:
“If it wasn’t for my intervention and my Uncle’s unwillingness to leave Shaggy’s side, he might not have been able to walk out of the State run mental asylum and have been able to detox himself of those horrible drugs” Scrappy said in an emotional tone as grief took over his being as he put his paws up to his face and let his sobs subside into them as Fred calmly offered his words of support:
“Look Scrappy, we’re not blaming you for any of this, we know you tried your best to step in at a very dark time in Shaggy’s life” Freddy said in a fatherly tone as Daphne reached over and gripped one of Scrappy’s paws to comfort him:
“I wish we could have known about this sooner so we could have done something to prevent it from getting as severe as it did” Fred said in a tone which caused Scrappy to tear his paw away from Daphne’s comforting grasp:
“Yeah, and what could YOU have done about it? The answer is you couldn’t have done shit about it because it happened so fast that it was a blur and me and my Uncle Scooby are the reason Shaggy is not a drugged out hallucinating druggie walking the dangerous streets of LA!” Scrappy snapped as Fred loudly cut in:
“Yeah and as soon as YOU were sure Shaggy was okay, you skipped town and never told us about this until we’re all sitting in this van trying to comprehend what YOU have been hiding from us” Fred snapped as Scrappy harshly cut in:
“I didn’t hide shit from you because YOU NEVER ASKED!!!” Scrappy shouted in an infuriated tone as Fred balled one of his hands into a fist as Daphne quickly diffused the tense situation with her gentle reasoning tone of voice:
“Listen Freddy, I’m not about to take sides on who was right or who was wrong” Daphne reasoned as Fred unballed his fist making her sigh in relief at his moment of clarity as her reasoning continued to divert the tense feeling in the air:
“Give Scrappy credit for having the courage to come clean about what really happened to Shaggy after he got back from his Uncle’s plantation” Daphne said in a reasoning tone as Freddy grumbled to himself before he spoke:
“Look Daphne, I’m more upset at myself for assuming everything was okay with Shaggy after he got back from his Uncle’s plantation” Fred said in a frustrated tone before he was interrupted by an irritating blanket statement from Scrappy:
“Shaggy is not one of those people who is going to tell YOU how bad things with him really are” Scrappy said sarcastically as Fred rudely cut in with sarcasm of his own which infuriated the Great Dane:
“Gee Scrappy, we didn’t know your sophisticated puppy powerisms were so omnipatently magical” Fred said sarcastically as he rolled his eyes making Scrappy growl at him:
“Look, I’m not about to sit here and tell a blond headed pincushion collecting snob like you something YOU don’t already know” Scrappy snapped making Fred almost pull the van over until Daphne stopped him:
“Look Freddy, now is not the time to be mister smart aleck” Daphne said giving her soon to be husband a look which quickly made him think twice about pulling over to go fist to fist with Scrappy.
“Listen Scrappy, can you tell us anything else that might help us better be able to plan how we are going to approach Shaggy’s plantation ordeal?”
Scrappy regained his composure by taking a few deep breaths and closing his eyes to refocus his thoughts before he continued with another important piece of information which made everything they had learned about Shaggy’s erratic behavior even more critical to them helping their close childhood friend:
“I don’t think either of you or even Velma can break Shaggy of this severe ghost anxiety especially when he found out just before we left that TJ had broken out of federal prison in Upstate New York and was spotted near the Northwestern Louisiana border hopping a freight train out of Shreveport headed in the general direction near where the plantation is” Scrappy said as both Fred and Daphne gasped in shock at this sudden turn of events.
“No wonder Shaggy is so uptight” Daphne said in shock as Fred tried to come up with their next plan of action:
“So what do we do now?” Fred asked, clearly dumbfounded about what to do next as Scrappy instructed them on a plan of action which opened their eyes on how much danger Velma was in:
“Listen to me, Velma does not know about any of this and I would advise one or both of you to let her know as soon as you can because I’m worried about what Shaggy will do if he sees TJ trying to ambush both of them” Scrappy suggested as Daphne looked out the window at the taillights of the light green KIA jeep in front of them with a very worried expression on her face.
..
Velma sat in the passenger seat every once in awhile eyeing over at Shaggy trying to gage his demeanor as he focused intensely on guiding his KIA jeep out of the congested city limits into the more sparsely populated countryside that whizzed by as fast as the many various cars and semi trucks it was passing on the busy freeway.
She was trying to formulate a plan within her mind of how she was going to approach talking to Shaggy without sending him into another fit of enraged anger which could endanger her life if she were to push him too far.
In all the years she had known him since they were young children, she never had felt as nervous as she did at the very moment she got into his Kia Jeep and closed the passenger side door thereby locking herself inside a vehicle driven by a ticking time bomb individual who was capable at any second of going off into an intense rage of anger directed at any wrong word or action she might present toward him.
She was smart enough to know what his boundaries were as he had presented them to her so vividly at the gas station forcing her to delve into the inner workings of her brilliant savantic mind to come up with the best equation she could in order to not stormy his chopping waters into an uncontrollable tempest she would regret getting herself mixed up in should she end up in the middle of it.
So she decided out of the millions of equations she had set forth in her mind to go forward with simplest unobtrusive one she could think of which would guarantee her the safest results she sought after:
“Talk to me, Shaggy” Velma said in a careful tone as Shaggy glared over at her before he spoke:
“About what?” Shaggy asked in a curt tone as Velma quickly resorted to the most adolescent equation her mind could possibly think of:
“Talk to me about anything you want to talk about” Velma dumbly said as if she were talking to someone much younger then herself which Shaggy saw right through and was able to pierce in half with his abrupt bluntness:
“Look Velma, if this is about the ghost anxiety, no, I’m fine, I just am tired of Fred bringing it up everytime we stop” Shaggy said in a harsh voice as he continued:
“This is something I’ve had to get help for, okay?” Shaggy snapped harshly at Velma who quickly formulated another equation which got her results and quickly calmed Shaggy’s stormy demeanor as his facial features changed from angry to that of calmer logical solace:
“What can I do to help you, Shaggy? I’m very concerned about you, I want you to know that you are not in this alone” Velma said softly making sure to smile warmly at Shaggy as she felt the tense atmosphere inside the cab of the KIA Jeep dissolve the more she bared her heart to him:
“You’re not in this alone, I love you and I only want to help you if you allow me to” Velma cooed softly as she reached out and put her hand on Shaggy’s left arm gently gripping it with the warmth of her heart radiating through her hand which was gently encased around it.
Shaggy could feel the warmth of Velma’s grasp gently eating its way into the cold angered core of his heart and for that brief moment, he felt all his turmoiled demons withering away as he looked over to her smiling gaze as he accepted the warmth of her heart to gently touch the core of his to bring out the feelings he had bottled up deep within him in the form of emotions only she could bring out of him with the softness of her love and the safeness he felt around her:
“I’m scared Velma” Shaggy said softly making Velma remember she was breathing as her soft touch had successfully broken through Shaggy’s wall he had put up since they had left the gas station.
“What are you scared of, Shaggy?” Velma questioned in a soft tone careful not to push things any further then they needed to go.
“What scares me is I don’t think you guys even know what I’m leading you into and the pressure that’s on my shoulders worrying about bringing you into a real dark spot I’ve tried my hardest to fight through and be courageous for the sake of all of you” Shaggy said as he felt tears collecting in his eyes forcing him to quickly wipe them away with his arm so he would not lose focus of being in charge of his motor vehicle as traffic in front and across from them lightened up enough so he could safely get into the slow lane to compose himself before they had to pass more slow traffic which quickly made him get back into the hammer lane of the freeway.
“You don’t have to be courageous for us, Shaggy” Velma cooed softly as she stroked Shaggy’s arm lightly as she continued with her comforting words of encouragement:
“We didn’t come along with you because we thought you were being courageous, we came along with you because we are your family who loves you and who is not going to let you face this ghost anxiety alone” Velma said truthfully to Shaggy who sniffled as he sighed deeply before admitting:
“I don’t know how much courage I’m going to have once we get to this place because it has taken a real toll on me to where I had to check into a mental facility to try to regain the sanity I lost because of it tormenting me like it has” Shaggy admitted as a tear went down his cheek.
Velma wanted to cry her eyes out upon hearing of her close friend’s long battle with ghost anxiety getting so out of hand that he was forced to seek help other then hers to save himself from going over the edge of insanity.
It didn’t matter how smart Velma was because there was no equation which existed, which could help her cope with each painful feeling she felt for Shaggy’s heroism to open himself up to her about a very dark point in his life she had no control over and it tore at the core of her heart as she tried her hardest to understand within herself by being the strong supportive rock he could lean against in this moment they were both encapsulated in.
“Why didn’t you tell any of us sooner, we could have prevented you having to resort to such a drastic measure” Velma said in a crackling voice as she tried her hardest to hold back tears of grief only to have more then two escape by trickling down her face forcing her to take off her glasses to wipe them away.
Shaggy looked over at Velma and felt a gasp followed by a sniffle from more tears dripping off his cheeks as he looked at her soft blue eyes trying to understand his actions which only made his resolve harden as he said truthfully:
“What could the gang have done? The only person who got me through the mental asylum was Scooby who refused to leave my side and sacrificed seven months of his life to be my unconditional comfort dog while I tried to sort out my problems” Shaggy said in a somber tone as he kicked himself internally for being so harsh with his beloved best friend.
Velma could feel the coldness inside Shaggy’s arm enveloping the warmth she had worked so hard to get from him as it was replaced by a pulse racing anger directed not at her, but at himself to at which point she decided to quickly release her grip from his arm and softly reason with him:
“Shaggy, I don’t want to make you upset again because I know in my heart you did what you thought was right” Velma reasoned in a careful tone as she saw Shaggy exhibit a frown as she continued:
I only wish we could have stepped in before Scooby had to resort to being a comfort dog for you ” Velma said in a truthful tone before she was quickly cut off by an agitated response from Shaggy:
“Yeah, and what the fuck do you know about it? I’m lucky to even be able to walk around without being some medded up freak who would be easy pickings for a druggy or someone like TJ who broke out of prison and is gunning for me” Shaggy snapped as Velma put her hand over her mouth in stunned silence at this sudden turn of events:
Once she regained her composure and put her glasses back on, she immediately reacted verbally to the unexpected revelation set forth in her lap:
“Jinkies! I had no idea that bastard broke out of prison” Velma said in a shocked tone as she gasped once more when Shaggy told her about TJ’s whereabouts:
“Before we left for Louisiana, I found out from the police up in Shreveport that they had seen someone fitting TJ’s description hopping on a freight train headed southeast toward the general area where the plantation is” Shaggy said in a stern tone as Velma picked her jaw back up and set it back in her mouth before she spoke:
“Did they stop the train and arrest him?” Velma said hoping for some good news, which wasn’t coming from Shaggy as he said in a frustrated tone:
“No, by the time they figured out who it was after they had checked the wanted fugitive list, the train was long gone and they didn’t issue a BOL warrant because the train was nonstop to New Orleans and they stupidly figured TJ would end up there and so when the NOPD went to check the train, they couldn’t find any trace of him and figured he had given them the slip somewhere between there and Alexandria” Shaggy said in a frustrated tone as Velma stated in an angry tone:
“No matter what, we’re not going to leave your side until this bastard is caught and put behind bars!” Velma said passionately as Shaggy quickly reminded her:
“Yeah, and this bastard could easily ambush us once we get off the main highway” Shaggy interjected making Velma frown as he continued:
“Which is why I’m taking us down a more heavily travelled route that will buy us visibility from the police so that it will make TJ think twice about trying to ambush us until we get to the county road leading to the plantation” Shaggy said bluntly as Velma took out her cell phone and started to text Daphne as Shaggy instructed her on what to do next:
“I’m sure big mouth Scrappy has told Fred and Daphne everything he knows, so don’t bother even texting them about it, but do tell them we are taking a more heavily traveled route once we get off the interstate until we get to the road leading to the plantation where we’ll have to be on our guard once we start down it” Shaggy instructed Velma who was texting their plan of action to Daphne.
“I texted the plan to Daphne so she can let everyone in the Mystery Machine know about what the plan is until we get to the county road leading to plantation” Velma confirmed with Shaggy who nodded his head as she continued telling him about the rest of her text:
“I told them to keep their eyes peeled for any suspicious looking vehicles or places which look like an ideal ambush spot for TJ to try anything without the police detecting him” Velma said as Shaggy guided his jeep onto the exit ramp leading onto a busy farm road as the Mystery Machine followed closely behind them.
Daphne took her cell phone out of her pocket when she felt it buzz of the messenger vibrate on her thigh. She read the text Velma had sent her and quickly let everyone in the Mystery Machine know about the plan:
“Okay gang, listen up, Velma just texted me she knows what’s going on with Shaggy” Daphne announced as Scrappy woke his sleeping Uncle Scooby as he lazily opened his eyes in time to hear the rest of the plan while he yawned and sat up in the back seat by his nephew:
“We need to be on our guard by checking for any suspicious looking vehicles and ideal ambush places that TJ might use to take Shaggy and Velma hostage” Daphne instructed as Scrappy abruptly interrupted her:
“Oh yeah, and how are we going to be able to watch out for this TJ clown from back here? Scrappy said pointing at the windowless sides and backdoors of the Mystery Machine.
“I think it is time for all of you to see this little modification I put in the middle of the Mystery Machine’s roof” Fred said as he pushed a button and a medium sized door opened on the ceiling above Scrappy and Scooby’s heads revealing a glass covered turret big enough to fit two people’s heads inside.
“Before we left for Louisiana, I decided to upgrade the Mystery Machine with this roof turret in case we ever got into a situation where we were trying to track down a criminal or protect someone in front of us from any danger coming at us from all directions” Fred said smiling to himself as he continued:
“And look in the seat covers in front of you, there should be a set of binoculars with day and night vision resting in there so that you can use them for better sight because the turret also opens up on top in case you can’t see through the glass” Fred said as Scrappy stood up and flipped open the top of the turret as the door landed with a light thump on the Mystery Machine’s roof.
“Wicked cool, Fred!” Scrappy commended as he closed the lid and sat back down on the backseat.
“I thought you’d like it, Scrappy” Fred said in a boastful tone.
“Yeah, you really are a useful penny collecting snob after all” Scrappy joked earning a laugh from everyone except Fred, who took the wisecrack in good humor this time:
“Very funny, Scrappy” Fred scoffed before he continued:
“We’ll be one step ahead of TJ and criminals like him with this turret” Fred said in a confident tone until Scrappy interrupted him again:
“Well, until it rains, snows, or ices” Scrappy pointed out as Fred quickly revealed another feature of the turret:
“The turret has weather proof glass with rain and ice resistant sealant I polished on before we left. It’s guaranteed to last at least a couple of months before I have to wash it off and put more polish on it” Fred said in his best promotion voice.
“Okay you two, enough already!” Daphne interjected before Scrappy decided to say what she was thinking:
“I bet me and Uncle Scooby’s job is going to be turret duty, right?” Scrappy said enthusiastically as Daphne nodded and Scooby suddenly said:
“Reah rand rhat’s a rurret?” Scooby said in a half asleep tone as his nephew smacked his forehead and Freddy laughed at his reaction.
“I’ll explain it to him once he wakes up a little more” Scrappy said in amused yet slightly irritated tone as Fred cut in with instructions:
“In the meantime, you keep watch for anything suspicious once we get on the farm road here” Fred instructed Scrappy as he stood up and started to learn how to operate the turret as the Mystery Machine followed Shaggy’s Kia Jeep off the exit as they both merged onto the farm road and were soon up to speed with the traffic.
Chapter 4: The Beauregard Road Omen
Notes:
Been awhile, hasn't it? Here's your alarm clock!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Chapter 4
The Beauregard Road Omen
The rest of the drive to the Beauregard Road turn off was thankfully uneventful for everyone involved in the mystery machine who were following the light green Kia sport utility truck driven by Shaggy who was still in a state of angst even though to the naked eye, it looked like he was perfectly fine as he had put a cd in of his favorite rock band
Lynyrd Skynyrd to put his mind back on the task at hand.
Velma on the other hand had been silently studying him making notes to herself as she quietly wrote down her thoughts in an orange covered journal book she kept in her bag right beside her passenger seat on the back floor area of Shaggy’s Kia:
………………………………………………………………………………..
From Velma Dinkley’s Journal dated June 5 2020:
Dear Dinkley Journal,
I’m very worried for Shaggy after everything he has told me about his ghost phobia he’s suffered with. I had no inkling or suspicion it was this severe and I fear he may not survive the upcoming task he’s been burdened with at his Uncle’s plantation. I pray myself will be strong enough to get him through this ordeal since he doesn’t suspect the secret love I have for him or the amount of patient sacrifice I am willing to endure so he knows I will never leave his side again and be a stronger team player then I ever have been.
With Love and Respect,
Velma
……………………………………………………………………………
Velma closed her journal putting it back in her bag she zipped up before she gave one last glance at Shaggy who appeared to be too engaged in listening to Lynyrd Skynyrd doing one of their long rock ensembles which blared out of the radio speakers to notice he was being watched by her as she settled back in her seat letting the rhythm of the rock tones and the road drift her off for a quick nap.
Scrappy had taken his seat in the back of the mystery machine by his Uncle Scooby after he had determined they were in no immediate danger once he noticed how well traveled the road they were on was as he popped his ear phones on and was jamming to the Grateful Dead while his uncle was fast asleep getting a much needed rest after the ordeal both of them had been through with Shaggy at the gas station.
Fred looked at them through the middle driver’s mirror smiling that peace had finally overtaken the entire van so he could focus on driving though he worried about his longtime friend in the Kia he was following at a car’s length.
He turned to Daphne who felt his gaze on her as she dropped the Vogue magazine she had been reading on her lap to hold his hand knowing how worried he was for their longtime childhood friend.
“I wish I had known about Shaggy’s ghost phobia sooner” Freddy said in a concerned tone as he felt his longtime childhood girlfriend gently squeeze his hand in reassurance.
“How could you have known, it’s not like we didn’t suspect Shaggy was always very sensitive around ghosts” Daphne reasoned getting a scowl from the blond haired man who turned his focus back on the road ahead of them.
“It’s what he went through at his Uncle’s plantation which worries me the most” Freddy said glancing back at Daphne.
“I will agree with you we have no idea what we’re walking into once we get there” Daphne said softly nodding her head as she felt the warm gentle squeeze of her childhood boyfriend’s hand wrap around hers.
“For all we know Daphne, the people who want Shaggy to be present at the plantation are leading him into another trap I’m worried he won’t survive this time” Freddy said sighing after he released his grip from her to put both his hands back to their natural ten to two position on the steering wheel.
“He’s going to survive this because we’re a team who is never going to leave his side again” Daphne said in a confident tone which reassured Freddy even though deep down he was more worried for Scooby as he watched his sleeping form through the middle driving window.
“It’s Scooby who I’m most worried about, Daphne” Freddy said in a concerned tone feeling a hand lightly grip his shoulder.
“We all are” Daphne said plainly as she massaged his shoulder lightly.
Velma woke up from her brief nap to see Shaggy was gripping the wheel much harder then he should have been signaling to her they must have been getting close to Beauregard Road if he recognized the area they were in as she pulled her cell phone out of her bag texting Daphne.
Daphne heard her cell phone vibrate as she pulled it out of her purse reading Velma’s text:
“I think we must be getting close to Beauregard Rd because Shaggy’s hands are tensing up around his steering wheel”
Daphne’s heart started to beat fast knowing how Shaggy drove when he was tense as she quickly texted Velma back:
“Put your seatbelt on tight Velma and try to keep Shaggy as calm as he’ll allow you since we don’t need to attract the attention of State Patrol because of his reckless fast driving”
Velma looked at Daphne’s text and quickly texted Daphne an animated nodding emoji followed by a “Will do” reply back as she put her cell phone back in her bag.
Food was the only thing she knew would distract Shaggy and calm his anxious tense nerves, so she pulled out a couple of honey oat Nature’s Own granola bars from her front bag pocket and offered one of them to him.
“I got two granola bars for you and me when we stopped at the gas station in Baton Rouge and was wondering if you’d want yours now” Velma said offering her childhood friend the torn open exposed granola bar.
Velma watched Shaggy’s expression change to a smile and his tension melt at the mere mention of him getting some food which made her loosen her seatbelt when she saw him pull the two bars out of the wrapping they used to be incased in.
“Like thanks Vel!” Shaggy said enthusiastically making her heart flutter with her cheeks blushing wishing she could reach over and kiss him on his own cheek for saying such a sweet gesture to her hospitality.
Fred tapped the brakes when he saw Shaggy’s Kia’s taillights lighting up signaling to him Velma must have offered him food to calm his tensions as he threw his fist up in triumphant happiness.
“That a girl Vel!” Freddy said with enthusiasm looking over at Daphne who was smiling back at him.
“I told Velma to keep Shaggy as calm as he would allow her and she knew exactly where to go to accomplish that” Daphne said as Fred laughed knowing the weakest part of his friend was always going to be his stomach and his endless craving for food.
“I don’t know who is worse for food cravings out of Shaggy and Scooby” Fred laughed as Scooby’s front half was in between them on the shotgun glove box within seconds at the mention of food as he gave them a soulful look before Scrappy pulled him back to the sitting upright position in the backseat.
“You just ate a whole box of Scooby Snacks, Uncle Scoob” Scrappy scolded the older dog who looked at him accusingly before sitting down with his paws crossed in the pouting position causing everyone except him to laugh in unison at his expense.
Everything changed when Shaggy’s right blinker came on and he merged onto an exit lane for Beauregard Road as the speed suddenly increased at a rapid rate causing great concern to cross the face of everyone in the mystery machine as Fred tried his best to follow at the safest speed he could while keeping his friend’s back taillights in view from fifty yards behind.
Shaggy’s heart was pounding in his ears as he felt his anxiety go through the roof at knowing they had all just entered his living hell he had thought he had escaped from for good to now be hitting him like a full on brick wall as he didn’t realize his foot was down on the accelerator pedal all the way.
Velma tightened her seatbelt as she watched his speed increase to sixty miles an hour as the countryside went by faster and faster the more she watched his anxiety attack get the better of his common sense as she tried to get him back to the reality he needed to be in if she was going to live to see the next few minutes of her life.
“PLEASE SLOWDOWN SHAGGY!!” Velma shouted as loud as she could with little effect as she looked over at the glossed over trance like look in his face.
“Call Shaggy now, Daphne” Freddy instructed as Daphne quickly got out her cell phone speed dialing his cell phone number hoping to a higher power he had his phone on vibrate as Fred desperately tried to keep up with the fading away light green Kia gaining more distance from them.
Shaggy was deep in the haze of his own anxiety attack as all the memories of being on this road to his living hell he tried to escape flooded his mind with no intentions of letting up anytime soon especially since Velma’s yell for him to slowdown was almost like a muffled sound in another dimension as his speed increased to seventy.
Scooby and Scrappy both watched in horror knowing from years of riding with him that this was not a normal Shaggy spaz out as Daphne frantically kept speed dialing his phone hoping he would eventually answer as she put the speaker phone on ready for all of them to yell SLOWDOWN into it in unison the second they heard his voice come on the line.
Velma shut her eyes and prayed to a higher power above for Daphne to be able to get through to Shaggy who had a gone spaced out look on his face of being in the clutches of more than just an anxiety attack as she looked over in terror at his fingers gripping the steering wheel in a death grip as even them becoming painfully red did not register with him.
All Shaggy saw in his vision ahead of him was hell and firing brimstone and the horrifying image of his deceased Uncle Colonel Beauregard Rogers laughing manically in his face with his three conniving unruly Boo Brother brethren giving him the most terrifying reality check of his life as he saw the image of a cliff he could dive off of to end this relentless Chinese water torture these four specters of hell were putting him through.
Fred gasped in horror when he realized Shaggy was on a violent collision course with a giant magnolia tree which was rapidly coming into view as his KIA starting veering to the left side of the road where oncoming traffic going the other direction would be.
Scooby and Scrappy both had stopped whining and howling when they both realized what was about to happen in front of them as they felt whatever power they had leave their bodies when a giant magnolia tree on the left side of the road appeared over the horizon as they watched the Kia veer towards what was going to be a very violent meeting with it as they held on to each other trembling with tears cascading down the side of their face.
Velma gripped her hands on the dashboard as she saw her life and all of her history with her friends at Mystery Inc flash before her when she felt the Kia veer over to the left side of the road looking up to see what was the grim reaper himself in the form of a large magnolia tree over the horizon which was closing in on them faster then she could put her head down to wait for the whites of heaven to welcome her.
The cliff which would end all this torture from Shaggy’s deceased Uncle and the three unruly Boo Brothers was within sight as Shriek-os relentless cackling was pounding itself into his head like an out of control jackhammer that was soon going to come to a merciful end if he believed in his mind and heart it would as he broke out in a smile of peace knowing just a few more seconds and it would all be over and he would be free.
No matter what Daphne tried to rouse Shaggy on the other end of her cell phone voice box was not working making her break out into a full fledged panic when she realized she was virtual seconds away from losing two of her closest longtime friends she was powerless to save as her tear stained eye shadow cascaded down her cheeks.
She looked over a Fred who had a dead stare ahead expression on his face as if he wasn’t existing in the dimensional plain he was currently in as tears involuntarily dropped out of his lost looking eyes knowing in his heart he was about to lose the two people he felt were his brother and sister he was powerless to stop.
Scooby and Scrappy were lost in a pain filled embrace quietly sobbing letting the warmth of each other’s comfort ready them for the inevitable reality they’d have to somehow face the world without the master who had raised them both since they were puppies and had shown them some of the greatest places on the face of the earth with his travels with and away from Mystery Inc.
Now everyone in the Mystery Machine were about to witness an event none of them would ever be the same from again as the van stopped pulling off to the side of the road with them all waiting to hear the loud crash sound of Shaggy’s Kia striking the immovable magnolia tree it was seconds from impacting.
The cliff Shaggy was aiming his KIA for was mere feet away as he smashed the gas pedal as far as it would go down determined to drive off it as his Uncle Beauregard’s southern drawl flooded his physical being.
“That’s right boy, come where y’all deserve to be in tha’ gates of hell with me!” The Colonel hissed through his rotted out toothless mouth laughing maniacally extending his gloved hand out to pick up the remains of what was going to be left of Shaggy’s Kia once it hit at the bottom of the cliff it was inches from being in an airborn nosedive.
The base of the giant magnolia tree was mere feet from its destined violent impact with the front of the Kia as Velma quietly death gripped the dash accepting her fate as she imagined what heaven or the spirit world she had heard so much about would look like as she happily hummed a silent hymn to herself as the front of Shaggy’s Kia smashed into the base of the magnolia tree…
Velma shot awake feeling a cold sweat going down the side of her brow as she looked around noticing shopping centers, gas stations and side of the road vendors passing by her on the four lane state highway they were on as she frantically looked over at Shaggy whose demeanor had not changed since he was given the two granola bars as she silently sighed in relief but was very disturbed by the vision she had witnessed in her dream.
She thought about pulling her journal out again to describe what she had seen to get some kind of semblance composure back to herself but thought better of it when she felt her heart go up into her throat when she saw they were a mere two miles away from the Beauregard Road exit.
She reluctantly looked over at Shaggy almost having a stroke when she saw his hands tensed up on the wheel like she had seen in her nightmare as she decided to not tempt déjà vu and spoke up immediately.
“Listen to me Shaggy, if you decide to go any faster then the posted speed because you are scared of ghosts, you can pull this vehicle to the side of the road and let me out of it” Velma said sternly using her index finger for clear reference which stunned him out of his trance.
“Okay okay Velma, like next time remind me to give you a chemistry novel to keep you awake” Shaggy chirped as Velma watched his fingers loosen up and the speed of the Kia go back down to the posted sixty five miles an hour.
Velma sat back in her seat letting the cool AC vent on her quietly thanking herself for telling déjà vu to take a hike as Shaggy flashed his right taillight and merged onto Beauregard Road feeling his heart start to pound in his chest from being scared of what the nerdy brainiac sitting in the passenger seat next to him would do to him the next time he got into one of his post ghost anxiety trances.
Notes:
What does this terrifying vision mean? Is it a sign of things to come? Find out next time!
Chapter Text
Chapter Five
Enter Ruthless Busby
Parish Sheriff Ruthless T. Busby sat in his police SUV cruiser under the shade of an oak tree watching the graying skies off to the south of where he was stationed promising a healthy soaking later on in the afternoon to cool the otherwise oppressive humidity signaling a long summer ahead.
He pulled down the mirror visor above his driver’s seat staring at his aging face and slightly graying black colored handlebar mustache and bald head as he adjusted his glasses to better fit the bridge of his nose.
Since becoming Parish Sheriff of Tangipahoa Parish, he not only represented it, but he also represented the State of Louisiana as all the elected Parish Sheriffs did and he felt it was an honor for his people of his Parish to put him in such a high place of position to represent them.
He wasn’t thinking about his prestigious position especially since word of his brother escaping maximum security prison in the northern part of the state put him in a state of monumental pressure after the parish judge made it absolutely clear to him TJ needed to be brought in sooner rather than later so the state could do some damage control to quell the pubic dissatisfaction in its allowing of a convicted criminal to escape a maximum state run prison without a trace so easily.
Two sets of headlights belonging to what looked like a light green colored KIA SUV being followed by a multi colored Dodge Rambler van made him sit up in his seat after sighting them off in the distance coming down from the top of the small hill a half mile down the road.
Vandalism had become a chronic problem since the plantation and the road leading to it had fallen into disrepair attracting droves of vandals who did just about everything in their power to turn it into a vandalized urban dump like they did with the countless other abandoned and semi abandoned places in his county.
It was his job to get the word out to their criminal community that his county was not putting up with it especially since he was appointed to escort a direct descendent of Colonel Beauregard Rogers to the plantation to give them the bad news about the state of his fortune once they were sat down inside the plantation.
The last thing he needed with that type of pressure on his shoulders were more vandals making the general public of his county upset at him not doing everything in his power to crack down on it as he put his light tan colored state issued cowboy hat on and was standing in front of the driver side of his Chevy SUV police cruiser holding his hand up in a STOP gesture.
..
Velma continued to keep an eagle eye on Shaggy watching how he behaved the further they went down Beauregard Road noting how clammy his hands looked signaling to her he was trying to do his best to be as well behaved for her as he could be given the circumstances he was bringing them into.
“How’s Shaggy doing, Vel?” Daphne’s text read after the vibration of her cell phone had broken her out of her trance watch of him.
“He looks worried, Daphne” Velma admitted over the text.
“Could you blame him?” Daphne texted bluntly which made her think about the horrid nightmare she had sending a chill down her spine as she texted her back:
“I don’t know what to think at this point until we know what we’re going to be up against” Velma texted. sighing to herself at the reality behind those words.
“I see some flashing police emergency lights in the distance” Daphne texted causing Velma to look up at the rapidly approaching red and blue light of what looked like a Hammond Police Department Chevy SUV Cruiser parked in the middle of the road with a rotund looking older police officer in a light tan colored cowboy hat standing in front of the driver door side of it putting his hand up in a stopping gesture.
If she could see Shaggy’s heart jump from his chest to his throat, she could have sworn it was the shape of his Adam’s apple as he gripped the steering wheel with his foot buried into the brake pedal.
Fred had only mere seconds to avoid ramming into the back of Shaggy’s Kia as the white smoke from him slamming on the brakes set off a chain reaction with Scrappy and Scooby being catapulted into the back of his and Daphne’s driver and passenger seat causing him to be knocked out when his chest hit his steering wheel followed by Daphne blacking out from being jerked forward into her locking seatbelt.
Ruthless had been standing in the middle of the road with the driver side of his SUV police cruiser behind him to get these would be vandals attention to him meaning business of they were not allowed by his laws to go beyond this point.
What he wasn’t expecting was the loud sound of eight sets of screeching tires creating a cloud of white smoke in front of him as he ran over from where he stood to check on all the vehicle’s occupants to see if they needed medical aid.
He ran up to the window of the light green colored Kia sport utility jeep and knocked on the window to check to see if the driver who was a young man with a goatee with shaggy looking brown hair dressed in a red shirt and blue colored pants with brown colored shoes was okay along with his orange sweater and red skirt with glasses female passenger.
“Hey son, roll down yer window!” Ruthless shouted loud enough so Shaggy could hear him.
Shaggy was in a daze after his abrupt stop caused him to go chest first into his steering wheel as he tried to regain his bearings while he looked over in dazed confusion at Velma who was not as dazed as he was since her seatbelt had done its job of holding her back from taking a direct hit on the dashboard.
Shaggy looked over in the direction of the driver side window when he heard tapping on it and nearly had a heart attack when he was face to face with an aging rotund looking man with a faded black handlebar mustache mouthing words he couldn’t understand through the window.
“Open yer window..NOW!” Ruthless shouted after he saw the driver staring lazily at him.
Shaggy felt his blood run ice cold once he gained more of his surroundings as he looked at who he thought to be TJ staring right at him through the window thinking his life and that of Velma’s life were in grave danger as he revved the engine realizing he wasn’t going anywhere with his foot planted on the brake.
Ruthless knew what was about to happen as he instantly drew his state issued taser glock from its holster while he gave the driver one last warning.
“This is Sherriff Ruthless T Busby of the Hammond Police Department and I am ordering you to turn off the vehicle or you will get tased!” Ruthless ordered with his billy club in his left hand ready to break out the driver side window to fire the shot to subdue the uncooperative driver.
“SHAGGY, IT ISN”T TJ, DO AS THE OFFICER SAYS” Velma shouted after hearing the Sherriff outside Shaggy’s driver side window clearly identify himself.
Shaggy immediately put his Kia in park and rolled down the window sticking his hands out the window showing Ruthless he was unarmed as he felt a hand grab him and yank him out of the driver seat through the open driver side window onto the hot black asphalt before a cold set of cuffs was put around his wrists.
Fred and Daphne were both in a daze as they looked around trying to regain their surroundings through the soreness of their chests which reminded them they had come to an abrupt stop as Fred put the Mystery Machine into park mode out of instinct.
He looked over at Daphne who was trying to shake the cobwebs loose from her spinning head after she had been yanked forward by her seatbelt as he grabbed her clammy feeling hand squeezing it to make sure she was still alive which she acknowledged with a squeeze back assuring him she was alright though her head was hurting.
Scrappy and Scooby both had bloody noses from the impact they suffered when they hit the back of the driver and passenger seats as they sat back down in the backseat looking for a first aide kit for their bloody noses and for Fred and Daphne if they needed it.
They located one in a compartment in the middle of the backseat as Scrappy set it out on the shotgun storage arm as Daphne took a couple of Tylenol and handed it to Fred who followed suit.
Fred didn’t know if it was the throbbing of his head or just his imagination of hearing an intense commotion coming from outside the front window of the Mystery Machine.
He heard revving of Shaggy’s Kia followed by commands to shut off his vehicle with the emphasis on him getting tased if he did not comply with the speaker’s commands.
It was then he realized what was going on as he saw a rotund looking older police Sheriff with a faded black handlebar mustache and glasses with his taser and billy club drawn at the ready as he watched his childhood friend get yanked out of the driver’s side window onto the hot asphalt with his hands behind his back being clasped with handcuffs after the Sheriff had holstered his taser and billy club.
Soon another police SUV rolled by them and the officer jumping out of it to run over and cuff Velma soon followed by her being sat on the shaded part of the asphalt for a few seconds after Shaggy was put in the back of the SUV cruiser driven by Ruthless followed by her as they did a sweep of his KIA to make sure no other suspects were unaccounted for.
“Like I apologize officer, I didn’t realize you were trying to check on me when I stopped abruptly” Shaggy said in a pleading tone as Ruthless finally recognized who it was.
“Are you Norville Shaggy Rogers?” Ruthless asked in his brash tone demanding he properly identify himself.
“Yes, I’m Shaggy Rogers and that is my childhood friend Velma Dinkley” Shaggy affirmed changing the tone of the older man in front of him.
“Let me run your name and hers with the licenses I found in your wallet and her bag” Ruthless said making sure to play everything by the book as the law wanted him to.
“Could you have at least let me know you were going to slam on the brakes?” Velma chided clearly upset at the predicament his dumb driving had gotten them into.
“Please Velma not right..” Shaggy pleaded before he was abruptly cut off.
“Please nothing, you nearly kill all of us and we’ll be lucky if Fred and Daphne don’t have to bail us out of jail!” Velma snapped boring a hole of anger into her childhood friend’s soul as he sat back with no further rebuttal knowing she was right.
Fred and Daphne couldn’t believe what they were seeing unfold in front of them as they watched both of their childhood friends get thrown into the back of a police SUV cruiser as Ruthless walked up to his driver side window he rolled down.
“I just wanted to check on y’all to make sure everything was okay and if you needed medical attention” Ruthless said in as gentle a tone as he could as Fred and Daphne handed him their driver licenses.
“The people you just put in the backseat of your cruiser are me and Daphne’s childhood friends Shaggy Rogers and Velma Dinkley” Fred said in as calm a tone as he could.
“I know Mr. Jones, I just ran your friend’s names and I’m going to be releasing both of them as soon as possible as I assume y’all must be with them” Ruthless said giving Fred and Daphne’s licenses back to them.
“Yes, we are accompanying Shaggy to his Uncle Beauregard’s plantation” Fred said in as formal a tone as he could.
“Let me get things cleared up and we should be out of here within a few minutes” Ruthless confirmed as he walked back to his SUV cruiser.
Shaggy sat in the back of the SUV cruiser wondering how much more wrong this already trip in the middle of hell was going to get after he had just been yanked out of his Kia onto hot asphalt and then put in handcuffs to end up like this with Velma wanting to probably disown him for the rest of his life for putting her through this humiliation of being treated like a criminal.
Velma was pissed off at him, he could see it her flushed red face as she sat there with her head turned away from him in a cold shoulder like display of absolute disgust he deserved for letting his dumb driving get all of them into a mess he hoped would not mean having to come back to this place in hell to pay a jail fine.
He felt the humidity of the outside slap him in the face as Ruthless was soon facing him ready to dish out what he was expecting to be charges of attempted vehicular homicide of an officer.
“I’ve confirmed all of your identities and just want to impress in the future of following my commands so we don’t have to go through all of this again Mr. Rogers” Ruthless said in a stern tone as he motioned for Shaggy to step out of the back of the police SUV cruiser.
Soon the cuffs were taken off Shaggy wrists as Ruthless informed him of what was going to happen next:
“From this point forward, I have to escort you and your friend’s to the plantation and anytime you should have to leave it for any reason” Ruthless said to Shaggy who raised an eyebrow.
“Like why do you have to escort us in and out of the plantation?” Shaggy asked in a questioning tone.
“The dirt road in and out of there is in terrible shape as is the bridge across the bayou along with the constant vandalism and as you probably know by now my brother TJ being on the loose” Ruthless said as he saw Shaggy shudder at the thought of having to think about TJ on top of having to deal with the plantation.
“I was like afraid you were going to mention TJ” Shaggy said in a scared tone as Ruthless gave a knowing nod.
“We’re going to try to have one of my officers posted outside the plantation at all times as well as at the entrance here” Ruthless said putting his hand on Shaggy’s shoulder to try to reassure him.
“That doesn’t guarantee me or my friends anymore comfort especially if the bridge you described gets disabled for any reason” Shaggy said looking up at the darkening skies beyond them.
“Shaggy, I can’t guarantee anything other than we’ll do the best we can given the circumstances and I have to speak with you about something involving your Uncle’s fortune when we get to the plantation” Ruthless said as he put his cuffs back in their holster.
“Why don’t you tell me here right now?” Shaggy asked in a concerned tone.
“It’s too long and complicated to do right here since it involves certain things I don’t want to reveal until we’re sitting inside in the privacy of the plantation” Ruthless said as Shaggy looked at him objectively before he decided to keep what he thought to himself.
Shaggy followed Ruthless and broke off from him when he went to bring Velma out of the back of his police SUV cruiser where he unclasped her from the handcuffs as she stormed past him and got all of her things out of his KIA slamming the door shut walking with purpose back to the Mystery Machine parked on the small shoulder.
Fred and Daphne watched Velma briskly making her way towards the Mystery Machine as she pulled open the sliding doors motioning for Scrappy and Scooby to get out:
“You two are riding with Shaggy and I don’t want to hear any complaints or I’ll physically throw both of you out by your collars” Velma snapped as Scrappy and Scooby quickly got out of the back of the Mystery Machine and made their way to the back of Shaggy’s Kia wondering what they did to deserve a day like this.
“I’m sorry Velma, I didn’t mean for..” Shaggy pleaded through Fred’s rolled down window.
“Drop it Shaggy and be damn lucky I’m willing to make this compromise instead of beheading you where you stand” Velma snapped in anger signaling to him it was probably time to give her some space.
“We’re going to be following Ruthless the rest of the way to the plantation” Shaggy informed Fred who nodded.
“We need to talk once we get settled at the plantation” Daphne said to Shaggy who looked at her with concern in his face.
“Don’t worry Shag, it’s nothing bad.. I hope” Fred said with doubt in his voice given what he had just seen go down with him and Velma.
Shaggy walked away without saying another word as he got into his Kia looking back at Scrappy and Scooby who were both entranced in a sort of shock he didn’t want to even think about or ask about since he figured they got Velma’s wrath worse then he did.
Ruthless got into his police SUV cruiser turning on his red and blue lights just in case they ran across anyone who wasn’t supposed to be on the dirt road to the plantation or the plantation itself as the small convoy was soon headed down for the final destination being the plantation.
Notes:
Well that escalated..quickly, didn't it?
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