SCOOBY DOO AND THE HAUNTED MANSION
Chapter Two
"Zoinks! Here we go again!"
Shaggy had been right about the weather. By the time they reached the Mystery Machine, they were nearly soaked. As they headed down the road that led to Shaggy's house, the storm grew worse.
"Like, let me off at my pad!" Shaggy said, trying to open the door and jump out.
Velma grabbed him by the back of his shirt. "What, do you want to be a ghost, ninny?!?"
"Scooby, help me out here!" Shaggy said.
"Wi'm wared woo, Waggy!" Scooby said, cowering in the back of the van. "Wut Wi'm Wot Wrazy!"
"Et tu, Scooby?" Shaggy demanded. "Now I know that I'm alone here!"
Realizing he wasn't going anywhere until they got to the old mansion, Shaggy slumped back in his seat. For at least the thousandth time, he found himself wondering how it was that Scooby Doo could talk. Sure, he had a speech impediment, but the very fact that a dog could talk at all was amazing. He remembered when he'd first found the stray, scared and hungry in an alley. Scooby had never been able to tell him how he had ended up there.
"What else does the book say, Velma?" Fred asked, trying to see the road.
"Just that the woman always disappears when the red-headed giant appears," Velma said. "I guess he scares Prudence away."
Daphne was fiddling with the radio. "…an inch and a half of rain is predicted today…and for all you Libras, tomorrow is your lucky…won't run, when they hear…Armstrong said the moon was like…in love with an ostrich…I am not a crook!"
"Daphne!" Velma cried. "Will you stick to one station! Jinkies, you're starting to drive me right up the wall!"
Daphne muttered something. Velma wasn't sure, but it sounded like "fatty four-eyes." She decided to pretend she didn't hear that. Besides, they were there.
"Wow!" Fred said. "Now that looks haunted!"
"Zoinks!" Shaggy yelled, pulling the blanket in the back over his head and shaking. "I'd like to go home now, please!"
"We woo, wease!" Scooby cried, fighting Shaggy over the blanket.
"Oh, hush!" Velma said. "We can hardly leave now that we've gotten here."
"I am not going out in that downpour!" Daphne insisted. "I just got a new hairdo!"
"Oh come on," Velma said, "your hair looks the same it always has!"
"What would you know about fashion?" Daphne demanded.
"What would you know about anything else?" Velma demanded.
"Now, now, girls," Fred said.
"Mind your own business!" they both told him.
"I said it first!" Daphne said.
Shaggy had been using this diversion to sneak out of the mystery machine. Unfortunately, as he stepped down onto the sidewalk, he slipped on the wet ground. He started sliding. "Whoa! Hey! Wha? Help!" Crash! He landed in a bush.
"Hee hee hee hee hee!" Scooby laughed. "Wou wook wunny!"
"Man's best friend!" Shaggy said. "I should've gotten a French poodle!"
"Wow," Fred said, opening the driver's door, "who would have thought that Shaggy would be in such a hurry to get in there?"
"He was probably trying to run away," Velma said, holding a newspaper over her head as she got out. "Come on, princess!" She opened Daphne's door and yanked her out.
"Ahh! My hair! My hair!" Daphne wailed. She grabbed the newspaper from Velma and ran up to the old house. She slipped on the second step, and fell backwards, landing on Shaggy.
"Like, ouch!" Shaggy cried. "Get off! You weigh a ton!"
"Did you just call me fat?!?" Daphne cried. "Fred! Shaggy says I'm fat!"
"Cool!" Fred said, examining the old house, oblivious to Daphne's whining. "Look, Velma! Gable windows! And the latticework on the door! Is that lapis lazuli?"
"Like, who'da thunk Fred was such a nerd?" Shaggy said.
"Weah!" Scooby said. "We would wear wasses!"
"Yeah," Shaggy agreed, "he should wear glasses! Let's see how he'd look!" He took Velma's glasses.
"Hey!" Velma cried. "Give them back, Shaggy! You know I'm blind as a bat without those!"
"Like just a sec, Velma!" Shaggy said. He put the glasses on Fred. "Hey! You look like the science teacher in school! You know, the one that threw me out of class!"
"Your experiment turned the entire lab and everything in it bright purple!" Velma pointed out, staggering around, still trying to find her glasses. "It took four days for it to wear off! Oof!" She'd just walked into the wall.
"Wow!" Fred said. "I can't see a thing! Your eyes must be really lousy, Velma!"
"Oh sure, poke fun at the poor blind fat girl!" Velma said. "Now give me back my glasses!"
"Here," Fred said, chuckling. "But you know, you look pretty good without them."
Whap! Daphne had just hit Fred with the soggy newspaper. "Don't flirt with other girls in front of me!"
"Okay," Shaggy said, "like, we've seen the old spook house. Time to go! I'll bet we can't get in, anyway!" He leaned against the door. It swung open. "Whoooaaa-oof!"
"Good work, Shaggy!" Velma said, stepping over him. "We can always count on you!"
"Yeah, that's me all right," Shaggy said. "Anything for a laugh!"
"Hee hee hee hee hee!" Scooby chuckled.
"One more 'hee hee hee hee hee' out of you today, and I'm trading you in for a cat!" Shaggy said.
"Wat?" Scooby said, looking around. "Where? Where?" He stepped on Shaggy.
"Argh! Get off, you hippopotomus!"
"Wat's wust wude!" Scooby said.
"That's just rude?" Shaggy said. "Hey, I call 'em like I see 'em, chum!"
"Will you two stop clowning around?" Velma demanded. She and Fred had switched on powerful flashlights. The furniture was horribly discolored. The couch and easy chair were torn, exposing stuffing and, in the case of the couch, two springs. The carpet was covered in a thin layer of dust.
"No one's been here in years," Fred said. His light fell on a portrait of a woman with curly blonde hair, holding a parasol. "You think that's Prudence?" he asked. "She was beautiful!"
"I said stop flirting with other girls in front of me!" Daphne said.
"Don't worry, Daffy," Velma said, examining the picture. "Prudence is long dead. It's not like she's going to show up and steal Fred from you."
"Uh, actually, I once saw this movie where a ghost did try to steal somebody's girlfriend," Shaggy said. He had a much smaller flashlight he'd found under the blanket in the Mystery Machine.
"Maybe you wouldn't be so scared of ghosts if you didn't watch scary movies," Velma pointed out.
"Hey," Shaggy said, noticing another painting. His light wasn't strong enough to show what it was clearly, so he started towards it. "I don't mind seein' ghosts in my own living room, as long as they stay in the tv set!"
"Maybe someday somebody'll make a movie about ghosts coming out of a television set," Velma said. "What's that you've found there, Shag?"
"Zoinks!" Shaggy cried. He'd finally gotten close enough to get a good look at the painting. It was a nightmarish scene of a cemetery at night. Crouching ghouls fed on...humans. He turned the light off. "Nothing!" he cried. "I see nothing, Colonel Hogan! Nothing!" He knew if Fred and Velma saw it, they'd be convinced there was a mystery there someplace, and he was right.
"Normal people don't have scenes of horror like this on their walls," Velma said, looking over the painting. She squinted to read the signature. "Richard Upton Pickman. I've heard about him. He was a real eccentric. Very popular painter once, but he became more and more obsessed with horror. Eventually, even his biggest fan dropped him, and he disappeared right about then. This must be his last major work, "Ghoul Feeding!"
"Is it valuable?" Fred asked.
"If it's authentic, it is," Velma said. "But only if you can find a wealthy collector who's into horror and fantasy art. Most people don't have a strong enough stomach for Pickman's works."
"Like, I sure don't!" Shaggy said. "Can we go now?"
"Come on, Shaggy, where's your sense of advenutre?" Velma demanded. "Whoever owned this house last must have been a connoiseur of horror and fantasy."
"You mean he, like, cooked eyes of newts and wings of bats?" Shaggy asked. "What a freaky menu!"
"Weah!" Scooby agreed. "Yuck!"
"It figures the only connoiseurs you've ever heard about were cooks!" Velma said. "Let's see if whoever lived here last collected any rare old books."
The next room proved to be a dilapidated old study. One of the legs on the old desk inside had collapsed, causing it to sag far to one side. The bookcase looked like it was about to collapse too. Velma ran her light over the dusty old books inside. "Just collections of ghost stories," she said. "Weird, but nothing out of the ordinary. Edgar Allen Poe. Howard Phillips Lovecraft. Robert Bloch. Hello. What's this? 'An account of Witchcraft in Our Fair Village." That looks promising. As she took the book out of the bookcase, her hand brushed against something. "Bingo!" she cried. "A hidden switch." She flipped the switch. The bookcase swung open slowly, protesting loudly after many years of disuse.
Crrreeeeaaaakkkkkk!!!
"Voila!" Velma said. "Ye olde secret passageway!"
"Great!" Fred said. "This case keeps getting better and better!"
"I'm not going in there!" Daphne cried. "It's probably filled with spiders and cobwebs!"
"Like, count me and Scooby out too!" Shaggy said.
"Weah! Wount wim and we wout woo!" Scooby agreed.
"Okay," Fred told them. "Come on, Velma! Too bad we'll be leaving you three here in the dark, with just Shaggy's little flashlight!"
"Yeah, it's a shame, really," Velma agreed, starting into the dark passageway. "But if you see a ghost, remember, it's quicker to jump out the window than it is to run for the door!"
Fred and Velma moved deeper into the secret passageway. As the light from their flashlights grew dimmer, Shaggy, Scooby, and Daphne looked at each other.
"Like, wait for us, you guys!" Shaggy cried, making a dash for the passageway.
"Weah, wait wor wus!" Scooby agreed, following Shaggy.
"I can always wash my hair in the rain later!" Daphne said, racing after them.
The three crashed into Fred and Velma, knocking them over. The two large flashlights hit the floor and went out, plunging the five into total darkness.
To be continued
