Prologue:
Today was a day exactly like every other day in years for the tall, scrawny inmate of the mental hospital. He'd spent a total of about an hour sitting in the cafeteria and staring at the dull, gray tiles of the ceiling. It seemed to him that he used to remember loving to eat more than almost anything else but it was without enthusiasm that he ate the bland, flavorless food that the institution provided. The tall man spent several more hours making his way through the baffling network of seemingly identical drab hallways that made up the labyrinthine interior of the mental hospital on his way to or from one of the endless therapy appointments that the hospital which appeared to have long since ceased to serve any discernible purpose.
However, the bulk of his day was spent either lost in a dreamless sleep inside his tiny room in the section of the institution that served as the male living quarters or seated alone in one of the uncomfortable easy chairs that were scattered throughout the common area. Although none of them were terribly interesting by even the most generous standards, there were various items that had been left in the common area by the hospital staff to help kill time. The tall man didn't have the slightest interest in any of these.
The tall man felt as though he wandered through his life with a mind that was stuffed with cotton. It seemed as though the entire planet was underwater and continuously going through the process of drowning. Undoubtedly, the large amounts of pills which had been prescribed for him had something to do with that. For what felt like an eternity, the hospital had been providing him with large dosages of a large variety of drugs. These weren't the kind of drugs that the tall man had occasionally enjoyed before he came to this institution that made the world feel like a mellower place, either. These drugs made it seem like the world was dead and he was about to disappear.
He felt certain that the world was indifferent to him and he knew that he felt indifferent to the world. As far as he was concerned, everything simply was the way it was and he wasn't going to bother having opinions about anything one way or the other.
Today was now almost over and the tall, scrawny man was walking down the narrow hallway to the tiny room where he slept each night. He absentmindedly scratched the scar on his clean-shaven head which was left over from an incident several years earlier when he had questioned some aspect of hospital policy. The tall man stepped inside his room and closed the door quietly behind him so as to avoid disturbing anyone. He stretched out on the thin, uncomfortable mattress that was on top of his bed and pulled his blanket over as much of his frame as it would cover.
Aside from the bed, the only other furniture was a white plastic dresser that was filled with other hospital uniforms and a gray plastic table with a light brown chair that was painted to look as though it was made of some kind of wood. Everything that the patient currently owned was currently on the small, flimsy table. Amongst these items were a copy of 'On the road' by Jack Kerouac and a small volume of inspirational sayings. Both of these books once meant a great deal to the tall patient but it has been a long time since he found himself able to focus well enough to get anything out of them. Back when he was still able to feel things, the thin inmate found it difficult to look at them. It was as though they were a symbol of something he had lost. The tall man had experienced similar feelings when he looked at the other item on his table. In addition to the books on the table, there was a photograph of four smiling people and a big brown dog standing next to a brightly colored van. Amongst the people in the photograph was a younger version of the tall man that still had long hair and wore an old green t-shirt and brown corduroy pants instead of the uniform of a mental hospital inmate.
Thirty Years Earlier:
"Like, this is insane," Shaggy said anxiously to Velma as they stood outside the gates of the mental asylum,"I'm not crazy." Shaggy hung his head in despair and Velma put her hand on his shoulder.
"Shaggy," Velma said sadly,"no one is saying you're crazy. Fred might have a point, though. Even if he is a bit of a neanderthal, he still might have a point. I know that the two of you have had your differences but I'm sure that deep down he really cares about you and he seems to be really very worried. This is very intense, stressful work we do and it can easily get to anyone after awhile. If you're even half as troubled as Fred seems to think you are, it wouldn't hurt to get yourself checked out. We don't want anything happening to you, big guy." Velma patted his back playfully as she said this in a vain attempt to cheer him up.
"Remember," Velma continued,"it is nothing to be ashamed of. Something like this, though, could really be really serious and should probably be addressed. But hey, though, don't worry. Really. Just think of it as a vacation or something. You'll just hang out here for a bit, relax, maybe make a few new friends, and we'll be coming back to pick you up before you know it. Oh, and don't worry about Scooby, either. I'll take really good care of him." She motioned to where Shaggy's dog was sitting in the van surveying the whole scene with his big sad eyes as she said this.
"Well," Shaggy said uncertainly,"If you say so." Velma leaned forward and kissed Shaggy on the cheek.
"Sure," Velma said warmly,"I say so." She then turned away started walking slowly back to the van with her head turned down towards the ground.
"Hey," Fred cheerfully said to Daphne who was standing next to him back near the van,"I think that I'll go and have a word with the Ol' Shagmeister before we take off. I'll try and see if I can manage to cheer up the poor guy."
"Oh," Daphne exclaimed in awe with a vapid expression on her face,"gee, that'd be great of you. You seem to ALWAYS know JUST the right thing to say! I'm sure you'll make him feel ALL better."
As he saw Fred approaching him, Shaggy felt a lump develop in his throat. He was certain that he did NOT want to hear whatever it was that Fred had to say. It was largely Fred's fault that he currently found himself in this situation. For quite some time now, Fred had been working hard to convince everyone in the considerable web of mutual acquaintances which Fred and Shaggy shared that Shaggy's behavior was growing increasingly erratic and that Shaggy was exhibiting numerous signs which showed that he was currently dealing with a great deal of strain upon his psyche. Fred managed to almost always put the idea that Shaggy required hospitalization into the head of the person he was trying to convince while still making them think that it was their own idea. Velma Dinkley was unquestionably the brains of the group but Fred Jones was easily the most devious and the best at manipulating people. It gradually started to seem as though it was easier to just agree to go to check into the hospital instead of continuing to argue about it. Similarly, Shaggy was about to put up with Fred Jones there didn't seem to a 'nice' way to avoid listening to whatever he was about to say.
"Shag," Fred said when he neared the gate and was sufficiently far away from the van,"remember that we're a team, buddy. Try and think of the rest of us for a change, ok? Will ya? Huh? How 'bout it, buddy? I mean, ok, it's cool that you got your own little style and everything. Sure, I can 'dig' that you want to do things your own way and all that. C'mon, though!! Try and consider what it looks like when some poor unfortunate person goes looking for a detective agency to hire and they see that one of them has some wild hippie guy working for them??? I mean, don't get me wrong now. You're my pal and everything. But, well, there comes a time when we all have to grow up. You know what I mean?"
"Umm," Shaggy said uncomfortably,"sure thing, buddy."
"Splendid," Fred said as he flashed his biggest game-show-host-style smile and patted Shaggy on the shoulder,"alright, gentlemen, he's all yours." Fred nodded to the guards as he said this and walked back towards the van. Once he had gotten back inside, Velma and Daphne turned and sadly waved goodbye to Shaggy as the van drove off. One of the two stone-faced guards in the light blue uniforms who were posted at the gate remained at his post and the other one of the guards silently gestured with his hand to motion Shaggy forward through the large iron gates and onto the grounds of the Coolsville mental hospital.
Present Day:
Norville "Shaggy" Rogers was seated in the common area of the Coolsville Mental Hospital in the very same chair where he could be found the majority of the time for the past thirty years or so. It wouldn't be entirely accurate to say that he was staring into space because that would imply that he was doing SOMETHING. Although staring into space clearly isn't much of an activity, it still qualifies as an activity and it seemed as though it had been an eternity since Norville had done anything that he wasn't directed to do by a member of the Coolsville Mental Hospital staff.
Norville would fall into the age bracket that most people consider 'middle age' but almost anyone would have thought him to be an old man upon first meeting. In his youth, Norville had been almost the polar opposite of the man he was now. He had been gregarious, fun-loving, and active.
The doctor originally assigned to Norville's case put together a diagnosis of the man known as "Shaggy" extremely quickly partially because the doctors on staff had such large caseloads that keeping up with all the work they were assigned was extremely difficult and partially because that particular doctor happened to have lost his passion for his work a long time ago. The doctor diagnosed that Shaggy was suffering from acute paranoia because he seemed to be constantly under the impression that he was about to be attacked, from antisocial tendencies because he tended to often fail to conform to the commonly accepted social and cultural mores of the society which he was a member of, and from possible delusions since he seemed to truly believe that a dog of his was a sentient being that frequently engaged in conversations with him.
An controversial new experimental procedure involving primarily electro-shock therapy was prescribed and administered. Instead of having any sort of beneficial effects, the procedure left him a shell of the man he once was. Afterwards, Shaggy felt as though every last vestige of feeling and emotion had been blasted out of him. All his friends and acquaintances were unnerved by the change in him and abruptly stopped visiting. Norville no longer had any form of contact with the outside world. Each time he tried, though, he found it extremely hard to think about that. Thinking about anything even remotely complex was now a painful challenge that he couldn't succeed at. He soon found that he didn't want to. It was so much easier to just do nothing and let the time pass.
The hospital staff worked out a medication cocktail that enabled Norville to follow an extremely simple daily routine with numerous prompts from staff without engaging in any erratic behavior. It might have possible to have turned Norville into a reasonably productive member of society but the hospital didn't have the funds or staffing necessary to really work on curing him so Norville 'Shaggy' Roberts was lost in a sort of bureaucratic black hole.
A fly made its way from the arm of the chair that Norville was sitting in to Norville's arm but he made no attempt to brush it away. All around him, other hospital inmates played games of checkers without caring in the slightest whether or not they one or doing puzzles without caring what the pieces looked like when they were put together. Norville sat in his chair waiting until a staff member came to tell him that there was something else he needed to do.
Without warning, there was a loud crash and someone dropped down through several of the large Styrofoam panels that comprised the ceiling. It was a large, muscular man in hiking boots, black jeans, a brown button-down shirt, and a rather cheap werewolf mask.
"Howwwwwwwwwwwl," whoever it was beneath the werewolf mask screamed angrily,"Howwwwwwwwwwwl." He then pulled a large knife from his pants pocket and stabbed two massive orderlies who happened to be walking by. Blood from their wounds spread across their clean white uniforms and they both died shortly after they collapsed to the ground. The man in the werewolf mask then laughed maniacally at the stunned crowd and quickly disappear around the corner.
The terrible scene that he had witnessed a moment ago managed to get a few stray synapses in Norville's brain to start firing again. What had just transpired interested Norville as nothing had for years. It seemed extremely familiar to him but he wasn't sure why.
"Yo," said a musclebound youth in his mid-twenties who was playing checkers near Shaggy said,"What the hell was that, man??"
"Well," said the intense young teenage girl he had been playing against,"I heard that he's called the Wolfman of Ward 7. They say he's the ghost of a patient that was killed here and has come back seeking vengeance from beyond the grave." The girl said this last part in an exaggerated 'spooky' tone of voice and giggle. She had long dark hair, thick glasses, and an extensive series of knife marks up and down her wrists.
"That's obviously not true, though," the girl continued in a more somber tone,"I'd bet he's that billionaire guy from tv. You know, the one who lives near here. Mark Storm, I think they said his name was. I heard he wanted this land for an office complex or something from my brother the last time he visited. I bet he's trying to scare people away so he can buy the land and build his stupid complex. Ugh, these fascists think they can do whatever they want just because they have their own corporation. It truly is sickening." An elderly man with a thin white beard who had been sitting nearby and reading began to shake his head in disgust as she said this. He slammed the ten-year-old People magazine with every potentially upsetting article cut out that was part of the hospital's collection of reading material down on the end table in front of him.
"What rubbish," the elderly man snarled,"it is you bleeding heart liberal types that are sickening. Yes, and you are naturally wrong about Storm, too. He's a good man. That Wolfman guy back there's really that no good Dr. Murray who got himself fired last year. Did you forget about him swearing revenge? That guy never was any good."
"You way off, old man," said a thin young man with several teeth missing who had tattoos covering much of his body,"It that Assistant Director Thompkins dude that's in that wolf mask. I'd bet anything that he's the sick fool that just iced those two orderlies. That Thompkins guy wants to be the head director person or whatever they call it so he can run this show himself so bad it ain't funny. He trying to scare his boss into quitting so he can be the main man. That's it, people. End of story." The man with the tattoos and missing teeth lightly punched the wall next to him with his left fist for emphasis when he finished his little speech.
"Yes," Shaggy said with something that came close to resembling excitement as he got up and began to pace around the room,"yes... we've got to figure this out we've got to figure out who the killer is who the man in the silly mask is we've got to figure it out we've got to figure...they'll be glad...They'll be glad and they'll thank us...We'll figure out this thing there will be a simple solution and then they will thank us and everyone will be happy and smile and laugh...Ok, you over there with the tattoos, you and the man with the white beard go and question everyone in the crowd to see if they saw anything suspicious. Fred and Daphne, you two head over to that room by the main office where all the secret records are and see what you can uncover. Scooby and I will wait here in case the monster comes back." Saying this clearly put an incredible strain on what was left of Shaggy's mind but that didn't seem to be upsetting him. All of the other patients, however, appeared to be bothered by Shaggy a great deal. It was as though being put inside a mental hospital and forced to question their own sanity was causing the other patients to be especially troubled by what appeared to be a textbook example of insane behavior. Many of them began to try and subtly move as far away from him as they could.
"Dang," said the man with tattoos and missing teeth as he shook his head,"man, you are one seriously messed-up dude."
"Hey freak," said the muscular youth who was playing checkers with the young girl," who the hell are Fred and Daphne and Scooby." The old man with the white beard simply regarded Shaggy as though he were an insect that he was trying to scrape off his shoe and said nothing.
It was at moment that several security guards came around the corner dragging the man in the wolfman mask whom they had just subdued. A crowd quickly gathered around them and many began to cheer for the security guards.
"Excellent work," one of the doctor's shouted loud enough to be heard over the commotion that was currently developing.
"Hey," a young doctor with a light brown moustache cried out excitedly,"take off his mask so we can all see who this really is." One of the security guards did as the young doctor directed. The pathetic face that was revealed when he did so was completely unfamiliar to everyone in the room.
"Geez," said the doctor with the light brown moustache as bewilderment spread across his face,"who the heck is this guy? How could he have done something like this?"
"Oh," an older doctor said with a sigh,"who knows? He's most likely just some random madman who did this for no reason."
"No reason," Norville Rogers mumbled to himself as he wandered away searching for his usual easy chair and hoping that the fog which felt like it was there before time began would soon come again to completely envelope his mind once more,"No reason. No reason."