Chapter 2

"Jeepers, I wonder what's taking them so long," Daphne said as she shut the hood of the Mystery Machine. She wiped her oil-stained hands on an old towel they found in the gas station's garage.

"Maybe they found a good haul," Fred said.

She crossed her arms. "You're such an optimist."

He half grinned, "I try to be."

Daphne caught another glimpse of an old Cobra Mustang with racing stripes. It seemed to have been worked on recently, the roof raised to fit a 20-foot man, giving it a clownish look. She wondered if the station's owner was a racer… and a giant.

Regardless, she flung the towel behind her. "And what was with that speech today? 'We'll get through this or my name isn't Fred Jones,'" she said in her best impersonation of him, which was terrible.

Fred blushed. "I don't know, I just, you know, felt it inside."

"Do you think we're going to get through this?"

"Of course we will! Maybe not all in one piece or without a few good scares. But if we want this badly enough and if we really stick together as a team, I don't think there's anything we can't do."

Daphne pondered him, pressing her lips into a thin line. "You seem so different."

"Different? How?"

"More… what's the word… crazy? Confident? I'm not sure."

"Probably both," he said. "I mean, I get how crazy it must be to have any confidence at a time like this. Perhaps Shaggy was right to laugh about something like hope." His head sunk as he loaded the toolbox into the van.

Daphne caught his arm and waited until he turned his eyes to her. "No. At least someone has to believe in us, even if it's only one person. Even if that one person is you, camera-guy."

Fred's face contorted in confusion. "Why?"

"Because we need it… and we want it… even more than we realize. We need you, Freddy. And not just because you can lift the heavy stuff."

He noticed her hand on his arm and tried for a smile. "Thanks, Daph."

Then screams shot out from the food mart. They whipped their heads back.

"Let's go!" she said. Just as she ran around the truck to grab her gun, something crashed to the ground in the garage. She stopped mid-stride. "Freddy?"

He didn't respond.

Something grabbed her from behind.

"Get down!" Fred urged as he rolled them beneath the truck.

Velma couldn't scream fast enough as the werewolf's enormous mouth charged down on her. She shut her eyes and futilely blocked her face with her hands. Just as its teeth brushed her arms, something knocked it off of her.

Shocked, Velma opened her eyes to find the beast sprawled beside her. Scooby had pounced on its head and now tugged viscously on its ear like a chew toy.

The werewolf growled hideously and swatted at the Great Dane. Scooby ducked its swipe, ripping off a piece of its ear. A ferocious roar filled the mart.

Remembering to run, Velma tried to get to her feet. Even as she slipped over the spilled soups and dressings, the hardest part of getting up was the blazing pain in her right ankle. She sucked in a breath and a very bad word.

"Like, c'mon, Velma!" she heard Shaggy's shaky voice as he tried to pull her up. "That wolf's not wearing out any time soon!"

Once she was on her feet, she toppled back down with a stifled scream. "I can't get up, Shaggy," she said, feeling desperate tears leak out of her eyes. She could see the cold fear in his face.

Scooby was all that stood between them and the furious, starving werewolf. Even with his tail tucked between his legs, Scooby still growled in their defense. But his moment of courage would only last so long. He ducked his head lower and lower as he backed further away.

"We have to kill it," said Velma.

"But, like, that's a person!"

"A person that's going to eat us!"

The creature's eyes glowed a sinister yellow as it prowled toward them. Its massive shoulders rolled over its furry back while he pinned his damaged and good ear against his scalp. His gray lips peeled back to expose horrifying rows of teeth.

"We can lose it!" Shaggy said and scooped Velma into his arms. She withheld a shriek. "Scoob, let's scram!"

They darted up the rest of the aisle, the beast at their heels again.

"Shaggy, you can't outrun it!" Velma shouted, clutching desperately to his shoulders.

He didn't say anything. Scooby sprinted on ahead, slipping and sliding over the slick floors. The monster stormed after them in great bounds, knocking things off the shelves, slamming his claws at them, snagging the air at Shaggy's back.

He ran harder.

Suddenly, Scooby took too sharp of a turn, "Rikes!" he yelped. Then he skidded off balance and slid right into a tower of soup cans. He skittered out of the way just before they could crush him.

Shaggy almost wasn't so lucky.

Just as they toppled down, he slipped. Velma flew out of his arms. And then the great pyramid of Chunky Chicken and Noodle Delight collapsed right behind them.

The werewolf howled as the hundreds of soup cans crashed over him like a metallic title wave.

Scooby, Shaggy and Velma slid to a halt as the beast went under. Slumped over in awe, they hardly dared to breathe until the last can fell.

Even then, they barely moved.

Shaggy gulped.

"Is… is he read?" Scooby dared to ask. He and Shaggy exchanged looks.

Velma tried to investigate, but she couldn't even lift her right leg. Underneath the mess of splattered food and sauces, she recognized blood when she saw it. Too concerned with the beast's survival, she merely pressed a hand to the wound with a sharp wince. "Perhaps we shouldn't wait to find out."

Still watching the cans, Scooby and Shaggy got to their feet.

"Like, maybe you're right," said Shaggy as he went to help her up.

Then the cans stirred.

They froze.

"Raggy?" Scooby whimpered.

They started to back away even if there was nothing but wall behind them.

Velma found herself reaching for her pistol, only to remember she'd lost it. "Jinkies." After pushing up her glasses, she dragged herself backwards.

Suddenly, the werewolf sprung forth with a mighty howl. Its claws splayed out, blood spewing from his nose and mouth. Shaggy fell backward.

And then the monster's head blew off. Blood and teeth splattered everywhere with the mighty blast of a gun.

The gang fell in silence again, crumpled together on the ground. Then, once Shaggy could finally use words, he found his smoking rifle in Velma's hands.

Not even her glasses could shield the look of horror that turned her face ashen.

"Like, what did you do?" he asked, his voice weak.

She dropped the weapon like she wanted nothing to do with it. "I…I…" she stuttered, shaking.

No one moved.

Fred and Daphne waited under the Mystery Machine while a pair of feet limped into view. The ratty shoes of what might have been the mechanic's hobbled about, one foot walking while the other dragged behind. The asphalt tore up the leather. Behind them, a similar set of lethargic feet skidded on.

Daphne's green eyes shot at him. "Are you sure those aren't just people?" she whispered.

He could only shake his head as he trained his stare on the surrounding feet. "Not at all," he finally let out. Not until he noticed Daphne reach for something in her coat did he tear his eyes from these slow walkers. Before she could load it, Fred snatched her gun.

Her eyes slashed him with fury. "What are you doing?"

"Not a sound!" he persisted as he brought his finger to his lips.

She looked between these ratty shoes and Fred incredulously. "You think they'll just leave us alone?"

He shrugged completely bewildered.

"Give it back, Fred," she demanded.

He refused.

"We can't just lie around while Shaggy, Velma and Scooby need our help. We've got to get up and take the fight to them."

He kept shaking his head, desperate for her to keep quiet.

"Fred," she whispered forcibly. Too angry to keep talking, she snatched for the gun. "Give it!"

He pulled away.

"Give it back!"

Suddenly, one of the rotting, bony arms of a walker dropped in front of them. The horror choked down their fight.

Daphne and Fred went still as another bony hand reached down to pick it up. They watched the skin-clad fingertips just braze its lost limb, while flaps of torn skin dripping dried flakes of blood and strands of sinews slid down. As it began to curl its skeletal fingers around its wrist, the mechanic's head broke off and smacked down onto the concrete.

Daphne shrieked.

Bulging, rotting eyes stared at them with half a whiskery face, while the other was completely clean of skin. Its split lips spread into a devious smile. And then it moaned.

The two of them scattered out from underneath screaming.

"GET IN! GET IN!" Daphne urged as she jumped into the driver's seat. She slammed and locked the door beside her.

Fred jumped in completely ashen. As she went to start the ignition, she realized she was missing something. "Fred."

"Yeah."

"Where are the keys?"

He paused. Then he patted down his pockets. "Did I give them to you?"

She shot him an "obviously not," look.

"Oh. Right."

As they both looked up, they noticed the keys sitting atop the hood. And standing beyond that was a handful of gas station zombies. They limped toward the vehicle at an elderly pace. But they were close.

"Fred. Hurry up and grab them."

"Me?"

"Yes, you!"

"B-but…"

"You have the gun. You get the key."

"I – I…" he stammered. Then he clamped his jaw shut. With a sudden burst of nerve, he unlocked his door. He looked at her. "Daph. If I don't make it back I just want to say…"

"Just go!" she nearly kicked him.

He jumped out and shut the door behind him. Gun out, he looked back to see the first zombie still trying to reattach his head. Up ahead, the fresh horde was just a breath away from the front wheels.

You can do this! He told himself.

Watching them, he inched closer to the keys, still gripping Daphne's unloaded gun. His hand shook.

Their dead eyes locked onto him like he was a distant light in a long, dark tunnel. Fingers splayed out they reached for him, moaning. They seemed to be saying something.

Despite their nearly-human attempts at communicating or just trying to growl, Fred inched just in reach of the keys… and then he caught them!

Exuberant, he whipped back around. But the moment he turned his back, they pounced.

A dead weight toppled onto him and he crashed into the concrete. The stinking mouth of a hungry zombie groaned into his ear.
"MINE!" it seemed to say.

"No!" he shouted, more zombies piling on top of them. "Get off!" But they crushed him. He struggled merely to breathe. Still gripping the keys, he knew he had to get them to Daphne if she and the gang were ever going to make it out alive.

They have to make it, he thought. Struggling under their building weight, face smushed into the concrete, he couldn't call out to Daphne to take them and run. He couldn't help her.

More of them crushed him against the ground, groaning, smelling of putrid flesh while they lethargically urged him to die. They slowly squeezed the air out of him…

"FREDDY! FREDDY!" Daphne screamed from inside the vehicle, banging on the doors she was trapped in.

No. He thought fiercely. She has to live. He clenched his hands into fists. Then, in a wild surge of adrenaline, he pushed himself up and threw the zombies off his back. They scattered around his feet, limbs snapping off and raining to the ground.

Then he lunged for the passenger door, jumped inside and stuck the key into the ignition.

"GO!"

She floored it.

The gang collided inside the Mystery Machine, bloody and bruised but alive.

"Like that was the worst grocery shopping experience of my life!" Shaggy said, while Daphne wrapped up Velma's gory ankle.

"Really?" asked Scooby. "Worse ran the rime they ran out of rizza?"

Shaggy considered this. "Ok, maybe this was the second worst grocery shopping experience of my life. But a very close one."

Fred drove wordlessly into the black and blue horizon while Dangsville faded behind them.

"You must be joking," said Velma.

"It was a pretty traumatic moment in my life," said Shaggy.

"Rine roo!"

"Scoob's too!"

"You don't need stitches," Daphne assessed after she tied up the bandage.

"No, but I might need shots. Or an amputation. Who knows what kind of bacteria that werewolf was carrying?" Velma groused.

"Well if it comes to that, we'll take you out of your misery." She said and offered an unfriendly smirk.

"Thanks."

She plopped down on the stiff bed. There were four beds in the vehicle, each arranged bunk-bed style and nailed to the walls. The ceiling was tall enough to stand under, except for Shaggy, and long enough to fit a seating area behind the drivers, beds, and a trunk portion filled with firearms and other devices.

Half of the vehicle was now filled with the spoils of the food mart. There were bags and cans of goodies… as well as several boxes of Twinkies and marshmallows. Scooby and Shaggy were exceedingly proud of themselves. Velma, with the amount of pain she was feeling, didn't have it in her to be angry with them.

On the contrary, lying there on the bed, she pulled out one of the honey cakes from Shaggy and nibbled on it.

I can't believe I'm eating at a time like this, she thought to herself morbidly. With her ankle stinging with possible infection, and another human-mutant dead because of her, she had plenty of things to worry about. But instead, she tried to do things Shaggy's way by simply eating her problems.

"This is disgusting," Velma said after her first bite.

"I know!" said Shaggy, delighted. "Like it's great, isn't it?"

Scooby nodded along licking his chops.

She couldn't take either of them seriously.

Daphne, meanwhile, moved to the front of the van and buckled herself into the passenger's seat. She watched Fred through her peripherals for a short while. He didn't say anything.

"Are you doing OK?" she asked him.

His brow scrunched in, "Yeah, I think."

"Did they hurt you?"

"I'm fit as a fiddle," he said, almost surprised, thought he'd scratched his mouth on the asphalt.

She sat back and let her hair down. The red strands fell around her shoulders faintly stinking of car fumes. "I'm sorry I kinda threw you out there to get the keys."

"I'm not mad at you or anything, Daphne," he said. "I'm just a little shocked."

"Shocked… at me?"

"No actually. At myself!"

"What do you mean?"

"I… I threw about a dozen zombies off my back."

"Uh… more like four…"

"I've never felt so empowered!"

"Adrenaline can do some pretty crazy things to you."

"All I know is that now, more than ever, I believe in us. This gang. If I can throw off half a dozen zombies, I can carry us to a solution."

Her brow furrowed, "Don't get ahead of yourself, Freddy. I mean, what you did was definitely heroic. But you're still just one guy. Saving the world is going to take a bit more than that."

He smiled. "We can do it. You'll see."

Freddy decided to drive through the night, too excited to sleep. Daphne tried to stay up with him, though she kept dozing in the passenger's seat. Shaggy and Scooby passed out on the bottom bunk snoring softly. But Velma lay there on her stiff bed, arms crossed, glaring at the empty bunk above her.

It wasn't the pain that made her glare. It wasn't the itchy pink jumper and shorts she sported to escape soiled clothing. And it wasn't even the werewolf that mutated and died because of her. In fact, she didn't know what it was, only that it bothered her stomach, making it jump and rumble. Which ultimately indicated the causation to be emotional, since nothing she'd eaten had caused any such discomfort, not even the honey cake. And if emotion was involved, she knew there was trouble.

Frustrated, she turned over onto her side only vaguely seeing Scooby and Shaggy's images in her impaired vision. Scooby's paws twitched above him while he dreamed.

"Rake rat!" he grumbled, "And rat!"

Shaggy had his arm around him, emblazoned in a sleeve of colorful tattoos. Even wearing her glasses, she didn't know what half of them were. She wondered if he did.

How did I get stuck with these people? She wondered, with this Hipster-Beatnik and the failed experimental Smart-dog? Not to mention a rich little hunting princess and her blond, supermodel slave. But, she was being harsh again and she knew it. This is why you have no friends. She rolled onto her other side ignoring the pain in her ankle and stared at the wall.

For the first time in weeks she could finally pretend to be alone. This had never been a problem for her at the lab. The other scientists were even less social than her, and anyone else left her to her work.

But these people… they were in her space. She couldn't breathe a shard of oxygen in solitude. Even when they "split up" she was tossed with the beatnik or the red-headed princess. It made emotions hard to control.

The princess reminded her what that thing called anger felt like.

And the beatnik… well…

She clutched her stomach and curled in on herself. She could hear him snoring into Scooby's furry backside, murmuring something about sponges. There were a million questionable things about that guy, beginning with the word "Zoinks." And yet, her stomach continued to flip this way.

"Nausea," she called it. "Deep, disturbing motion sickness."

With that diagnoses, she tried for sleep. But until the unconscious could grab her, she watched again and again as his flannel sleeve tried to wipe her tears and knocked her glasses off instead.

Clawing his way through the rubble, one small Smart Dog cried out in pain.

"Damn scientists," he said, his headgear flickering. "Everyone dead or mutated. All my mates in shreds… everyone except that stupid weakling, Scooby Doo. Where is that pathetic mutt anyway?" He turned to lick fresh cut on his hind leg. It stung as he lapped it up, trying to staunch the bleeding. "Where's real medical attention when you need it?"

Retraining his attention, he rotated his floppy ears for any signs of danger. Most of it he'd abandoned underground where much of the laboratory had collapsed, crushing the other Smart Dogs.

The desert city was all but in pieces. Monsters feasted on what remained of human life, and the rest was in flames.

There was nothing here for him now.

"I didn't ask for this," he said, kicking the dirt. "I didn't ask to be ripped from my mother's side and to have my puppy-hood robbed of me! The ignorance was better. But now I know things as some military experiment. I feel things. And I am pissed.

"If Scooby wasn't such a failure, I wouldn't have been taken from that farm… taken from my brothers. And when I find that miserable mutt, I'll end him. He will know my pain. And as he dies the last thing he will mutter in his stupid head is my name… Scrappy Doo."