The peculiar old van rolled tentatively down the muddy road through the pouring rain that stormy October evening. Thunder boomed and a fork of lightning illuminated the sky just long enough to see the would-be bright paint job of the car, and the words "Mystery Machine" painted on its side. 19 year old Fred Jones was driving the van, Velma Dinkley was in the passenger seat and Daphne Blake was crammed between the two, leaning towards Freddie, as he was called. Norville "Shaggy" Rogers was sitting in the back with his dog and best friend; Scooby-Doo, devouring mountains of food - as usual.
The road wound upward following one side of the craggy cliffs, that dropped into the raging waters of the sea, and on the other side were some spooky woods. A lone owl hooted in the distance, startling the duo in the back of the van. "Like what was that?" Shaggy asked, frightened.
"Reah, rut rus rat?" Scooby agreed (meaning to say 'What was that?').
"It was just an owl." Daphne comforted them. Fred was too busy driving and Velma was too busy reading her favorite book on local mythology to notice.
"Look at this!" Velma exclaimed, pointing to a picture in the mythology book.
"What –" Daphne began to ask, when she was interrupted by a sudden stop, as she was almost sent flying into the front window.
"Jinkies!" Velma exclaimed, readjusting her glasses that had only remained on her face by some miracle, "What just happened?"
"I don't know…" Fred replied, "I'm going to go out and check." He got out of the car and found that one of the front tires was flat. Fred walked around to the back to get a spare, when he remembered that they had used it last time they had gotten a flat tire and that they had forgotten to get a new one. They got flat tires a lot, now that he thought about it.
"What was it?" Daphne asked nervously as Fred stood at the car door, getting wetter and colder by the minute.
"A flat tire and the only covered place around here is that old ship." He pointed to an abandoned pirate ship at the end of a lone pier.
"Like no way… we are not going in there. Like, with our luck it'll be haunted by a freaky fish-guy running a smuggling operation!" Shaggy formed an 'X' with his arms and stubbornly sat in place.
"Reah, rike no way are re roing in rere!" Scooby enforced.
"You two could just stay in the van - alone." Fred replied as an owl hooted in the distance.
"Like okay, okay!" They ran shivering all the way down to the pier. "Like, what are you all waiting for?" Shaggy continued.
Fred, Velma, and Daphne walked down to the ship carrying food and all the extra supplies they could find in the car. The ship looked old from a distance, but up close it looked barely sea worthy! The hull was covered in seaweed, the planks looked grey and old and like they would break at any moment. The gang descended stairs in the middle of the ship into a large room with a ghostly light coming from somewhere. A few rotting hammocks, that had probably been for the crew members when the boat had been in use, were hanging from the ceiling.
Everyone had gotten settled in their beds when a screeching sound was heard throughout the ship. The gang all scrambled out of their hammocks.
"Jinkies!" Velma exclaimed.
"What was that?" Daphne asked.
"…Like what just happened?" Shaggy was shivering in Scooby's arms.
"Reah!" exclaimed Scooby also shivering.
"Gang, let's split up and find out!" Fred ordered. "Velma, Daphne, you both go with me to check out this level… Shaggy, Scooby, you two go down to storage."
"Like, no way are we going down there!" Saggy exclaimed, "It's like way scary!"
Scooby agreed.
"Will you do it for a Scooby-Snack?" Velma asked, holding out the box.
"Okay…" Shaggy reluctantly agreed. He and Scooby both downed the dog treats in one gulp.
The two groups then went their separate ways to the sound of rain pounding on deck.
Fred, Daphne and Velma walked off into a narrow hallway off of the main room where they had been sleeping. A peculiar thing happened as they progressed through the hallway; the place looked newer and better cared for as they walked, but no one had been in there for ages. They looked around, Daphne examined the captain's room, Velma looked at the captain's office, and Fred checked out the steering area.
Fred was the first to notice something unusual, simply because it was most obvious. Velma and Daphne quickly came to their own conclusions. They carefully looked at the details in each of the rooms, then met in the middle.
Fred was the first to speak "It's really odd!" he blurted out. "The rest of the ship looks old and ruined, where as the steering seems to be well-used, and it's the latest technology."
"That goes perfectly well with my finds…" Velma pondered.
"…And mine." announced Daphne.
"Well what did you find?" Fred asked both of them.
"I found papers that were sales receipts, but they were oddly worded, as if they were in code, and some regular receipts for boat parts." Velma explained "They all seemed fairly new."
"That's an important lead." Fred announced "Daphne, what did you find?"
"Well, I found that the bed had been slept in recently, since the covers were fairly warm, and I saw some odd clothes, a remote control thing and scuba gear."
"Good job gang, I hope Shaggy and Scooby have found so much!"
Shaggy and Scooby crept down into the hull of the ship, as the steps creaked below them. They descended into a small dark room that the dim light of Shaggy's flashlight revealed to be a fully stocked kitchen. Scooby and Shaggy stood there for a few minutes, their mouths agape at the amazing kitchen in such an old ship, finding it only slightly suspicious. They didn't stand there for long; they soon put aside their surprise and awe, and got to work.
Scooby opened the refrigerator and handed a bag of bread to Shaggy, who proceeded to make a gigantic sandwich with all the ingredients Scooby handed him.
"Like maybe our luck is taking a turn for the better." Shaggy interrupted the list of ingredients he was requesting from Scooby. "It's been like 10 minutes and a monster still hasn't shown up! Pass the lettuce."
A scaly hand gave Shaggy some lettuce "Like, Scooby you haven't been losing fur have you?" asked Shaggy nervously.
"Roh, roh!" Scooby replied.
"I was like worried you'd say that. Like tell me that's not some monster behind me." Shaggy slowly turned around to face a shark-man holding out some lettuce. "Like I think I know who made those noises. We should like run… like now!" Shaggy exclaimed, as he ate the sandwich in one gulp and revved up in a legs spinning frenzy.
He ran out of the room at an inhuman speed with Scooby close behind and the monster following not too far after them. They ran into a small dingy room, with lots of small beds and old medicines. This room seemed nowhere near as clean and well-used as the other. They ran in and blocked the door with beds… and leaned hard against the door.
They couldn't rest for long. Over the shark-man pounding the door, they heard the floor boards creaking. The floor boards split, as some skeletal pirates came flooding out. Scooby and Shaggy bolted out of the room faster than you can say "Scooby snacks". They ran into a huge room filled to the brim with boxes. It was obviously a store room. Shaggy and Scooby hid behind a stack of crates as the skeletal pirates rushed by.
At first the skeletons seemed to have missed Scooby and Shaggy, but they ran back after the duo, after a very short while. Shaggy and Scooby ran back through the creepy infirmary, through the kitchen and up the stairs… bumping into the rest of the gang. Fred, Velma, and Daphne were walking into the room they were all sleeping in, having just finished checking the captain's quarters.
Once they were all together, they sat in a circle on the floor and Daphne began… talking to Scooby and Shaggy. "It seems that you two have found something."
"Like, you could say that!" Shaggy shivered at the memory of the shark-man and the sound he made. "I, like, know what made that noise… and I really would, like rather not know."
"What was it?" Velma asked.
"It was like two things!" Shaggy explained as Scooby pantomimed behind him "It was a like freaky fish guy, and some like scary pirate skeletons that chased after us."
"Reah, reah!" Scooby added.
"Like, what did you find?" Shaggy asked.
"We found some receipts, some of which were in code, scuba gear and a bed that seemed to be slept in." Fred replied.
"We also found some unusual clothes and a remote control that looked like it was for a toy." Daphne reminded him.
"I think I've got this mystery just about solved!" Velma exclaimed.
"You know what that means gang, it's time for a trap." They all huddled around as Fred explained his plan.
"This is insane enough that it might as well work!" Daphne exclaimed to Velma as they got in position. Scooby and Shaggy timidly went back downstairs.
"Like, how did we get ourselves into this?" Shaggy asked Scooby. The two then yelled, "Monster, come and get us - all defenseless over here!"
They hadn't yelled for very long when the monster showed up. He chased them up the stairs to the sound of some happy sounding music. A trip line lay ahead of them, though the girls sprung it too early in haste. Scooby managed to leap over it, but Shaggy wasn't so lucky. He fell flat onto a huge barrel, which rolled him up a ramp and into a spinning contraption that dumped him into one of the beds, which spun around to contain him. The bed hit the monster and the backup net landed on him.
Once Velma had found her glasses that had been knocked off by Shaggy's running into the trip rope and making her fall to the ground, she tore the mask off the shark-man, revealing the face of a middle aged man.
"This is Joe Rivers." Velma explained "He's a smuggler; he sells stolen and illegal goods. He was trying to scare people away from his ship by making it 'haunted'. The county has plans to move this ship to make way for a commercial beach.
"Like what about the skeletons?" Shaggy asked confused.
"Reah, rut arout rem?" added Scooby.
Velma held up the remote control Daphne found in the captain's room. "He used this to control the skeletons; they were robots." She then turned towards Daphne. "Those odd clothes you found must be another costume."
"Yeah, I did think they looked a little fishy…" Daphne added, the whole gang laughed.
They slept in the ship for the rest of the night; Joe Rivers tied up against the support beam. When they woke up in the morning, the sun was shining and the birds were chirping. Fred replaced the tire and they went on their way, taking Mr. Rivers to the police station.
Velma told the police exactly what happened, and just as the Gang was about to leave, there came the usual shout from the criminal… "And I would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for those meddling kids and their stupid mutt!"
"That's us - meddling kids!" Daphne laughed.
"Ron't rorget reir rupid rutt!' Scooby exclaimed as he ran and leaped into the Mystery Machine. They continued home wondering what scary adventure would come their way next, and talking about the one they'd just finished.
[Author's Note: I've referenced Yu-gi-oh abridged somewhere in this story, I'll give you a hint "harpoon". If you got the reference tell me, and you will get some special notoriety in the beginning of the next story.]