Chapter 1
He sat trembling against the wall. Rifle in hand, blood leaking down his face, he saw nothing beyond his terror.
Velma crouched across the aisle from him, hidden behind a wall of car fragrances.
A yellow-eyed creature slithered down the front of the hardware store just a few aisles down. Its massive size rivaled that of a limousine with scales glossy and serpentine.
Sweat beaded down her face with only one bullet left in her pistol. Bruises emerged beneath her ripped tights after being thrown across the store. But her adrenaline ran too high to register the pain.
Scooby Doo huddled beside Shaggy frightened but not as shell-shocked. He licked Shaggy's hand for some kind of response
"Raggy?" he whispered.
Immediately, Velma shot a finger against her lips.
Scooby's ears drooped guiltily.
Suddenly, the giant snake stopped moving. It flicked its head back.
As it knocked things to the ground, they heard it slither toward them.
She held her breath, the sweat gone cold on her skin. Her heart flogged her ribcage.
Scooby ducked behind Shaggy's legs, shivering.
Its shadow fell on the floor between them.
Shaggy's wide eyes found the image and followed its shape, too afraid now to react anymore. She worried he might be slightly concussed.
Where are the others? She thought fiercely.
Then its slotted nose crept into view at her knee.
Scooby pulled at Shaggy's flannel to spring him into action. Clumsily, Shaggy tried to get his fingering right on his rifle.
He was good as dead, Velma figured. Scooby knew it too.
Lifting her measly pistol, she knew she only had one chance.
One shot.
If it didn't kill the creature, its fury would be unstoppable, and they would be eaten for sure.
Even then, one loud blast and the hundreds of beasties surrounding the store would flood through.
Releasing a long, slow breath, Velma took one look at the fumbling Shaggy, the petrified Scooby and then the yellow-scaled creature sliding into view.
Hand shaking, she lifted the gun.
Then, after a drooling maw half her size slid past, a huge, yellow eye sighted her. Its pupil dilated. Its muscles flexed.
"Goodnight," she whispered and shot it in the eye.
Greenish blood splashed over them, hot and putrid. She jerked back shielding her face with her arm, the creature hissed and screeched.
She battled her cramped muscles to stand. Still shaking, she climbed over the bleeding creature to Shaggy and Scooby.
"Let's go!" she said knowing time was against them.
Then the giant snake stirred.
She and Scooby glanced back.
"Shaggy," she grabbed his shoulders. "Let's move!"
As if woken, he staggered to his feet.
The half blind and dying creature lodged its massive head after them, but slammed into the wall instead. Its movements were jerky and spastic. It had lost control. But it wasn't any less of a threat.
"RUN!"
Even with green puss and blood oozing from its eye, it pursued them, bits of brain matter spilling with it. It hissed from one side of its face, the other slumped.
They rushed forward, out of the aisles and toward the exit.
But just as soon as they arrived, countless skeletal zombie-like vermin charged through the doorway. They broke through the glass windows and spilled onto the floor.
Velma crashed into Shaggy in her haste to switch direction.
The three of them fled only to meet the back of the store. There was one door: the supply closet. With nowhere else to turn, the three of them scrambled inside and held it shut behind them. Shaggy and Velma leaned against it with all their weight. Scooby barked at the commotion like it would somehow ward the monsters off.
Looking into the darkness of the closet, she figured there had to be a way out.
"Scooby! Find the light!"
He bumbled about and then a few seconds later flicked the switch.
It was a small closet with a mop bucket, a ladder and a dead end.
"Dammit," she growled.
The beasties clobbered against the door, threatening to break it open. Their ravenous voices seeped through the cracks and scraped the air.
Heart pounding louder than ever, she looked up at Shaggy who'd flattened himself to the door, sweat and blood still dripping down his face.
"Any ideas?" she said.
He looked at her like she'd just asked him to solve the problem of world hunger.
"Right," she muttered. Idiot.
Still leaning on the shaking door, she checked her pack for the walkie-talkie. Digging it out with trembling hands she hit the "talk" button.
"Come in! Come in! Are you there?" she shouted into it.
Unintelligible static was all that talked back.
Then looking at his rifle hanging uselessly from his shoulder she asked, "How many rounds do you have left?"
He shook his head unknowing.
Her eyes narrowed. "You haven't shot once, have you?"
Shaggy gulped. "Would it have helped?"
Suddenly a claw broke a hole through the door. The wood cracked.
"Zoinks!" Shaggy swatted it.
The creature snarled.
"Oh, forget that!" She grabbed his rifle, stuck its nose through the opening and fired. She couldn't see a thing out the door, but she didn't stop for anything. Hisses and splattered flesh sounded from the outside. Hopefully, this would deter their advancements at the very least.
Though they knew that wasn't likely.
"Here, take this! And don't stop firing!" she said, shoving the gun back into his hands.
"But!"
"DO IT!"
As he fired, she snatched up the walkie-talkie again. "Where are you?"
Suddenly the other end replied in something that almost sounded like words. But it was too fuzzy to make out.
"What was that?"
The gun blasted. Monsters screamed. Scooby swayed frantically.
It was Fred on the line, but that was all she could gather.
"We're trapped! We're trapped! Where are you?" she shouted.
Suddenly, Scooby's hairs bristled as he started growling.
Fred said something she couldn't understand.
Then Shaggy cursed.
A giant, yellow head slammed into the doorway, splitting the wood into halves. It threw them off their feet. They collapsed on top of its slimy, scaly body.
The other monsters only stared for a moment before rushing toward the closet.
Realizing the danger, she battled to regain her footing.
"We have to run!" Velma said.
Shaggy gulped, and then steeled himself. He darted out first, gun blazing. He shot a hole through maybe two or three creatures before they overtook him. There were hundreds of them, skeletal and hideous. Their claws snatched up his gun first before they piled onto him.
"SHAGGY!" Velma shouted. She swung her backpack at one of them, winding it. Then another grabbed her. It yanked her away from Shaggy, its famished, red eyes blaring into her while its mouth opened wide to chomp.
Scooby pounced on it, biting into its neck. He brought it down, but there were still countless more to come.
And then they were defenseless against the horde of storming zombies.
Suddenly, a bright light tore through the building. The glass walls shattered and something more monstrous than anything rammed screeching into the horde.
Velma and Scooby tried to shield themselves. Now waiting to die, they instead heard gunshots.
The screech of a car horn.
She and Scooby looked up to see a smoking armored vehicle decked in orange spray paint.
The driver's window rolled down.
"Get in, losers!" Daphne shouted from the Mystery Machine.
Fred busted out, blasting lethal shots into the crowd.
She looked and saw Shaggy dragging himself out from under the zombie-pile. The creatures were too busy fighting each other for his flesh to actually eat him.
Rushing to his side, she caught his hands and helped him up.
"Come on! Come on!" Fred shouted, waving them over while he held back the monsters.
Velma, Shaggy and Scooby didn't waste any time. They piled inside. Fred jumped in behind them and slammed the door shut.
"Next stop, freedom!" Daphne said. She slammed on the gas and they shot right out of there.
Collapsed on the floor, Velma, Shaggy and Scooby just panted.
"What the hell took you so long?" Velma asked.
"You think we didn't run into any problems of our own?" Daphne asked. She might've sounded more bitter if she wasn't so high on adrenaline. She was practically soaring at this point.
"We had to race some beasts to the van," said Fred. "It wasn't pretty."
Thinking of pretty, she thought of the monster snake she blasted. Its innards had stained her from orange blouse to brown boots. The stuff reeked.
"Well like, thanks," said Shaggy, "Whatever the case." He sat up against the wall and let his head fall back. The blood smeared down his neck and his shirt had darkened with sweat. Scooby plopped over his lap.
Velma looked at them and the walls of the heavily fortified vehicle.
We survived, she thought incredulously. At least for another day.
The Mystery Machine was quiet now. Parked in an abandoned field the following night, the only sound came from crickets spread thin in the vast expanse of rotting corn stocks. Velma sat outside on a tree stump hoping the greenish monster guts from their latest supply raid would wash out of her skirt. With a gun by her side, she guarded the van of sleeping survivors.
Eight weeks and three days had passed since the dawning of what she and the gang morbidly titled the "apocalypse."
Coincidentally locked in an underground "safe zone" at the time it hit, she and four others were spared being mutated by airborne Nanites… as well as being eaten.
Together they escaped Velma's laboratory complex and the desert city entirely filled with monsters – monsters that were once their co-workers, their friends – and drove out into the middle of the country looking for answers.
Of those, there were few.
For weeks fighting to survive in a monster infested new world, they tossed around theories about how millions of people transformed into savage beasts in a matter of seconds.
The gang settled on Velma's theory that talked of a project called Elysium. In her research lab somewhere in underground Nevada, she worked under four reclusive scientists working with Nanites for this project. The tiny mechanisms were structured to permeate the globe to eliminate the base, violent instincts of humankind.
Somehow the heavily safeguarded Nanites were activated with slightly altered results. Only Velma and the other scientists had access to the activation code with multiple security measures to prevent accidental triggering. So Velma said she believed these scientists called the Four altered the Nanite behavior behind her back in order to turn an entire world into controllable slaves. And then activated them. Though, she still wondered when the "controllable slaves" were confused with raving comic-book-like monsters.
Some members of the gang, however, specifically a red-haired investigative journalist, found her story a little unbelievable. Daphne, the journalist, was convinced there was more to it than Dr. Dinkley was saying. But after all these weeks, nothing more had surfaced. So they stuck to her story.
Sorely, Velma wished it were the whole story.
Then, something shifted in the distance.
She shot up.
Monsters beware, she thought as her "survival mode" kicked in. She eyed the perimeter ready to kill.
She aimed her gun. One shot would wake the gang. Another would send hordes of monsters racing in their direction.
But when she noticed the motion again, she realized it was just a jackrabbit.
A stream of curses rolled out as she dropped back onto the stump.
"Damn, I'm a mess." Running a strained hand through her hair, she gulped hard wondering how she ended up as the crazy scientist that accidentally destroyed the world. As her head fell back in her self-loathing, the van door suddenly whined open.
She shot a glance so fast she made Shaggy flinch.
"Whoa, it's just me, man!" he said, throwing up his hands. The door of the Mystery Machine clicked shut behind him. His name was actually Norville Rogers. He'd worked at the same lab as her except he only trained "Smart Dogs," canines specially trained and enabled by technology to speak and fight for the military. From casual observations she learned he was skilled with animals, but his intellect only went so far.
He was too tall and lanky, sporting tattoos, an ironic mustache and beard. His sandy brown hair constantly fell into his face and all he talked about was food. But he was harmless as far as she could tell.
"What are you doing out here?" she asked.
He shrugged and checked his watch; "It's like a quarter after midnight. My shift's about to start."
"Not for another twenty-five minutes."
He scratched the back of his neck. "Yeah but I can't sleep." Without much ado, he plopped down on the stump beside her and stuck his rifle in the dirt. She took a quick glance at the bandage taped to the side of his head. Then inched away.
She didn't appreciate the close proximity, even if there was room enough for another body between them.
"Well I'm not cutting my watch short so you might as well wait inside," she said.
"It's cooler out here. Plus, like, Daphne snores. Twice I woke up thinking we were under attack. She's worse than my grandma."
"Your grandma snores?"
"No, I thought she was going to attack me! Her lazy eye followed me around whenever I didn't eat her spinach and bean puffs." He shuddered. "It staid open when she slept."
Velma grimaced. "Fascinating."
"But like, all that's in the past now."
"When did she pass?"
"She's not dead! Not that we know for sure. She just got an eye patch and discovered the wonderful gift that is pizza." He grinned.
She looked him over critically. "Don't you think about anything other than food?"
"If I did, do you think I'd be this calm?" he asked with a twitch in his eye.
"Says the guy who thinks Daphne the snore-monster is out to get him."
He slouched and folded his hands between his knees. "It doesn't fix everything."
She caught sight of his sunken profile and felt the disturbance of guilt settle in. He was perhaps the least capable of survival between the five of them: too soft spirited, too easily frightened and dangerously trusting. Also, his coping mechanism by obsessing over food was a weak one, since food was scarce. The morbid thought crept in that it would've been better if he hadn't been spared by the Nanites at all.
And yet, here he was, vulnerable from every angle and completely unaffected by the Nanites. At least he was a fast runner.
The guilt wasn't going away, so she tried to distract herself by calculating the approximate time it would take for a horde of creatures to reach them before falling in range…
"Man, this cornfield's creepy," said Shaggy.
Her mathematical efforts shattered. "Must you talk?"
"What else is there to do?"
"Keep watch."
"Even cops on a stakeout bring like doughnuts and talk about ball games," he said. Then with a sigh of longing he uttered, "Doughnuts."
"We're not cops, Shaggy. We're stranded survivors, completely alone and unprotected. If some vampire comes snooping around because he heard your incessant lip smacking, I will see to it that you are his first victim."
"Yikes, a little fired up, are we?"
She dropped her face in her hands, a rush of resentment punching her in the jaw. "Just stop talking."
This is going to be a very long apocalypse, she thought.
The next day began with gray skies and unease. Rain threatened to fall for hours, but the clouds just remained lumpy and dark. Also, they hadn't come across any ruins this far out in the Midwest. There was barely anything but the occasional phone tower and endless stretches of flat earth. No ruins meant no people, and no people meant no monsters.
"Could we be so foolish as to assume we might actually be safe out here?" Daphne asked.
"Safe from everything but starvation," Velma said, pragmatic as ever.
"Oh man," Shaggy groaned and Scooby whimpered next to him. "I knew it would end this way."
"C'mon, Shag," said Fred. "We're not gonna die out here."
"No, but maybe something will catch us a little later on and eat us all for dinner!"
"Or runch," said Scooby.
"Right, or lunch."
"Or reakfrast."
Shaggy scratched his bearded chin, "Yeah or breakfast too. I guess it depends on which time of the day we're caught and killed."
Velma felt her eyes roll and noticed Daphne looked just as annoyed.
"According to this map," Velma said, "we should be at the next town by nightfall. Hopefully we can stock up there."
"Hopefully. Hear that, Scoob? She said 'hopefully'."
"Rounds more rike never."
"Yeah like hopefully we'll find food."
"Ropefully we'll rind rafety!"
"Hopefully we won't get ripped to shreds by the next mutated scary-faced monster with horns and…!"
"All right!" Fred snapped. "We get it. It looks bad."
"Bad?"
"Terrible. Hopeless. Infuriating." Fred corrected. "But we're gonna keep trying anyway. You know why? Because we might be all that remains of the human race. And so long as we're alive, it's up to us to solve this mystery and save these people from living out the rest of their lives as flesh-eating mutants! And we'll keep searching for clues even if it kills us."
The van went quiet with a sense of awe for a complete second.
"If it rills us, Reddy?" Scooby asked, narrowing his brown eyes.
Daphne groaned.
"Yes. Now just keep driving, Shag. We'll get through this or my name isn't Fred Jones! And it is."
Shaggy looked at Scooby then glanced over his shoulder at the gang. "All right, Fred. If you say so."
After all these weeks, Velma was still adjusting to this "gang" she now travelled with across the country.
Some of them met in her underground laboratory that was actually part of an enormous testing facility. Velma, a high-ranking scientist, had called in a favor from a washed-up news reporter to expose a devious scheme she believed her superiors were secretly developing. Before any such story could be covered, the "apocalypse" hit and she and the other people coincidentally locked with her in the "safe zone" were spared the mutation.
Daphne was a young, gorgeous rich girl that abandoned the usual Blake Family tradition of inheriting billions and living in luxury to instead become an investigative journalist. She started her own show trying to bust abusive business owners taking advantage of their employees and customers. It flopped.
Fred Jones was her ever-devoted camera guy, a guy from a suburban town in New England. He'd studied mechanical engineering in college but never took a job in his field. Instead, he followed Daphne to the ends of the world without question.
He even followed her to the deepest lairs of Velma's laboratory after she'd called in Daphne to uncover the seedy plotting of the Four. A plot that went horribly wrong.
Scooby was a failed Smart Dog on the upper levels of the facility, and the first experiment in a military program to raise intelligent canines. He wore headgear that helped him to talk, though he had a speech impediment. And as far as following orders, he wasn't much of a fighter. He just wanted to love everyone and eat pizza with his best pal, which needless to say was not the intention of a military-funded project.
He was almost euthanized by the project managers, but Shaggy, a new Smart Dog Trainer at the time, wouldn't have it. So he looked after the dog himself to be sure Scooby could prove his worth to the more elite experiments. Ever since, the two had been inseparable.
Even now, eight weeks into the apocalypse.
It was Scooby that followed Velma underground after she'd called on Daphne and Fred. He'd received an alert from his headgear that she was in danger when Fred accidentally hit her with his camera. And Shaggy inevitably chased after him.
And so here they were. Which would be fine and all, if Daphne didn't suspect Velma as one of the scientists responsible for the activation of the Nanites… and if Velma actually was as innocent as she led them to believe.
But that was just one of the ruts in their budding friendship.
The tiny town of Dangsville finally rolled into view just as the clouds began to open up. A light sprinkle scattered across the windshield and glossed over the roads with a gray sheen. Shaggy parked in the abandoned gas station where a light still flickered overhead.
With their guns and flashlights ready, they each stepped out of the vehicle.
Waiting in the silence, Velma doubted a graveyard could be any quieter. With the weak pitter-patter of rain droplets, the world was void of sound, and therefore life.
"All right, gang. Let's split up," Fred decided. "Shaggy, Velma and Scooby, you check across the street and see if there's anything salvageable at the food mart. Daphne and I will see what kind of goods we can find for the Mystery Machine here since the last trip didn't go as planned."
"That's an understatement." Shaggy muttered.
Fred ignored him. "Got it?"
"Are you sure I wouldn't be better off helping you take care of this machine?" Velma asked. "I know a thing or two about… mechanics." She pushed up her glasses.
Daphne haughtily placed her hands on her hips, her green bandana revealing nothing but her narrowed eyes. "I've worked on plenty of my daddy's vehicles, including his tanks. I just need Freddy to lift the heavy stuff. We're fine."
A heated silence fell between them.
"Um, like great," Shaggy broke in. "Well, we better go see what grub we can find."
"Roh boy!" Scooby said, wagging his tail. He bounded after Shaggy with his tongue flapping over his lips.
Stuffing her annoyance deep down inside her, Velma shoved her hands in her pockets and trudged after Shaggy and Scooby.
The food mart was a mess. Shelves toppled over each other and completely smothered most of the aisles. The air stunk of rotten food. Velma tied her neck scarf around her face to keep from getting sick.
Scooby and Shaggy sniffed the place without any problems. Apparently the suffocating stink didn't seem to bother them. She was more disturbed than impressed.
"Sense anything, Scoob?"
Scooby sniffed a little longer. "Reah!" With an excited jolt, he chased after the scent of choice.
"I'm right behind ya, buddy!" Shaggy called, shining his flashlight ahead of them.
"Guys!" Velma called. "There could be monsters in earshot! Keep it down!" But it was hopeless. By the time she caught up to them, after nearly twisting her ankles on so many broken cans of pea soup and stepping over the nauseating pounds of rotten meat, she found the joyful pair breaking into a box of Twinkies.
"Like," Shaggy said with a stuffed mouth. "It doesn't get any better than this!" Then he laughed while he tossed Scooby another Tasty Cake.
"That's depressing," Velma said thinking how their lives paled in comparison to chewing on a Twinkie.
Then something flew at her. When she picked it up, she noticed a tightly sealed honey cake and grimaced.
"Really?"
Shaggy got up from the ground and stepped over to her. He was still licking the sticky treat off his fingers. "Like, there's plenty more."
"I think we're going to require something more substantial than Hostess."
"Rike ramburgers!" said Scooby, still chomping on something chocolaty.
"And frozen pizza!"
She tossed the honey cake behind her. "Granola bars. Canned vegetables. Nuts. We need nutritional food that lasts. Who knows when we'll be able to stock up again?"
Shaggy shrugged, "Guess you're right. Scooby, why don't you grab a cart?"
"OK, Raggy!" he said and was off.
As soon as Scooby disappeared, she felt Shaggy's eyes on her. He was rarely so direct.
"What?" she asked.
"Like, is there something bitin' at you, Velmster?"
"Excuse me?"
"You seem… short. And I'm not talkin' about your midget status."
"Oh, it's nothing," she said. "Just the fact that our lives are constantly in danger and all you two seem to do is fool around. This is serious. We don't have time for sweet cakes and marshmallows."
His eyes widened, "I totally forgot about marshmallows."
She groaned. "That is what I'm talking about!"
"Relax, Velmster…"
"Stop calling me that!"
"Sorry," he said. When she seemed less likely to strike him, he went on. "Look. I'm scared too, man. I mean, in all a matter of ten seconds, the five of us were thrown into a war zone full of monsters. And I'm the kinda guy that can barely pick up a virtual gun, forget a real one. I'd rather just whack things or whatever," he said, holding up his rifle. "But if I focus on my fear all the time, well… I'll kinda just fall apart."
It wasn't just fear, her angry thoughts rang. But she had to swallow these feelings. She had to… "It's different for you!" she blurted. The pain burst out. Suddenly, the unfamiliar moisture in her eyes clouded her sight. Her entire face felt hot. "I'm probably responsible for these mutations! I mean…" she stopped herself, realizing what she was about to reveal. He couldn't know the truth. No one could. She had to think quickly. "I should have figured out what the Four were up to and stopped them sooner! Now the world is all but destroyed and it's," she sniffled, "It's my fault." Her tears felt like a lie. The same turmoil continued to swirl around in agonizing circles leaving her breathless and empty.
The next thing she noticed was Shaggy trying to blot out her tears with his sleeves. He was doing an awkward job of it, swiping at her face and bumping her glasses.
"Like, even if this is somehow your fault even a little bit," he said, "You're still trying to fix it. And that's a pretty brave thing to do."
She pushed his hands away to readjust her glasses. "You think so?"
Shaggy pushed back his hair, "Yeah, man. You're doin' OK."
CRASH!
Something huge dropped from the ceiling.
Shaggy and Velma whipped around to find a hunch-backed, drooling werewolf with claws the size of her head. It crouched on the top of the shelves with hunger bleeding from its eyes.
Velma held her breath.
Then Shaggy grabbed her hand. "Like, run!"
They took off like a pair of bullets, she the slower one tripping over broken bottles of cooking oil.
"SCOOBY DOO!" Shaggy shouted as they ran. "WHERE ARE YOU?"
They heard a bark from across the store. Just as they started in that direction, a mighty claw ripped off the shelves by their heads. The nails tore through the cheap metalwork like it was nothing.
"Zoinks!"
They rushed off in the opposite direction.
After seconds of thoughtless panic, Velma began formulating words. "Shaggy! There's only one! We can shoot it!"
"Like no time, man!" Shaggy said, still pulling her along.
Its pursuing claws slashed inches from her legs. Its breath poured hot air over their backsides.
Determined to fight back, Velma searched herself for her pistol with her free hand. But with running so hard she could hardly find it. It took flailing down another whole aisle before she felt its handle. It jostled around as Shaggy yanked her around the corner into the next one.
"Slow down!"
"Like, not a chance!"
Desperate, she finally caught the gun and wrenched it free.
But then, the werewolf clawed her ankle. A sharp sting shot a charge of pain up her leg as she crashed to the ground. Her hand ripped out of Shaggy's.
"Jinkies!" she yelped, as it weighed down on her legs. She stared up at the hideous mouth opening above her. Saliva poured over her like rain while yellowed teeth gleamed with pride. Her gun had flung out of reach. Its mouth rushed down. She held her breath.