Chapter Fourteen: The Tunnel
(Outside)
Dingodile led his friends back to the well where the wagon had crashed. He had a theory about what was going on, but wasn't sure if the others would believe him or not. Even still, he decided to say what was on his mind.
"All Ah'm sayin' is that the sheriff coulda been dressed up as that headless horse-monkey that chased mah jeep when we first got here." Dingodile pointed out.
"But why would he wanna do that?" Coco countered.
"Ah dunno! Maybe ta do what everyone else is tryin' ta do!" Dingodile said. "Drive us buggy!"
Tiny glanced over to the crashed wagon and his eyes widened in realization. "Buggy…Last clue say something about going buggy…" Tiny mused. "Tiny bet it mean THIS buggy!"
Without giving either of his friends time to reply, Tiny dove headfirst into the hay in the wagon and started searching around for something. He only searched for a matter of seconds before finding something.
"Tiny find another jewel!" Tiny called out from in the wagon. "And next clue must be here somewhere!…Tiny knew it!" Tiny jumped out of the wagon, holding a ruby and letter in his hands. "Here they are!"
"Wow! A ruby!" Coco said in awe.
"And the next clue! Great job, Tiny!" Dingodile said as he took the letter. "How do ya feel when yer not sick?"
Coco laughed. "Are you kidding? That's dead easy! You feel well!" Coco jumped onto the stone ring on the well and pointed down it. "This well!"
"Oy! Ya gotta be right, Coco!" Dingodile realized.
Coco quickly jumped into the bucket hanging above the well. "You guys lower me down." She instructed. "I'll see if I can find something down there."
Dingodile and Tiny grabbed the rope the bucket was tied to and started lowering Coco down. After about thirty seconds, neither of them heard a sound coming from Coco.
"Ya alright down there, Coco?" Dingodile asked.
"Alright?" Coco asked. "It's as dry as a bone down here! I've got nothing to worry about!"
"That good then." Tiny nodded. "Coco no need to worry about drowning."
"Somehow, Ah think this is goin' too smoothly." Dingodile mused as he looked around. "Why do Ah have the feeling that something's gonna happen?"
Suddenly, gunshots started ringing out from somewhere behind the two, one of the shots striking the top of the well. Dingodile looked back and saw Xigbar rushing over.
"Crap! Ah knew Ah shouldn't 'ave said that!" Dingodile said.
The two friends screamed and, without thinking, grabbed the rope over the well and slid down it to join Coco down the well. A loud thud was heard, followed directly by three groans of pain.
Xigbar laughed as he arrived at the well. "I got ya cornered this time, Koopa!" He shouted down the well as he set his gun aside. "You've got nowhere to run this time! And this time, nothing's going to save you! Not even Larxene, that love-struck sister of mine!"
Unknown to Xigbar, Larxene walked up behind him. She smirked mischievously as she grabbed Xigbar's gun and used her strength to bend it in a knot. Her job done, Larxene stepped back as Xigbar grabbed his gun.
Xigbar aimed his gun down into the well, seemingly unaware that the handle was twisted in a knot. Xigbar pulled the trigger of his gun and, as expected, the barrel of his gun exploded in his face. After the smoke cleared, Xigbar staggered off in a daze. Larxene approached the side of the well and looked down.
"Don't worry, Dingodile! I'll save you!" Larxene called down.
On the dry floor of the well, the three friends looked up and saw Larxene looking down.
"Ah, no." Dingodile sighed as he leaned against the side of the well and held his head.
Amazingly, once Dingodile leaned up against the side of the well, a secret door opened up behind him, taking him by surprise. Dingodile fell onto his back, finding himself in a secret room. Coco and Tiny watched in awe.
"Hey! Look at this!" Coco said. "A secret room!"
"That why well dry!" Tiny nodded. "Water would go into secret room if it full!"
"And look! There's a pearl necklace hanging on that nail over there!" Coco pointed out.
Dingodile got up and looked. "Well, at least it's out in the open." He noted as he took the necklace and clue beside it. "Ah think we should find a way outta here before we read this."
"There's another door over there." Coco said. "We can't go up the other way, so we may as well see where that door leads."
Dingodile went over to the door and opened it. He looked out it and saw that the door led down a long, underground tunnel. "Well, let's go see where this tunnel leads." He said.
With that, the three friends started walking down the tunnel. As they walked, Tiny was constantly looking around. He, naturally, was paranoid that something was going to happen.
It took Tiny a while, but he was slightly satisfied that they were alone in the tunnel. With a sigh of relief, Tiny looked back to see how far they had walked. His eyes sprang open when he saw Colonel Bowser's ghost attempting to sneak up from behind. Tiny screamed as he bolted past his two friends.
"Tiny, what's yer problem this time?" Dingodile asked.
"Dingodile's uncle!" Tiny screamed.
Dingodile and Coco looked back and indeed saw the ghost of Bowser behind them. The two screamed and ran off after Tiny.
"Wait fer us, Tiny!" Dingodile shouted.
Bowser growled as he went over to a lever. "I've just about had it! I'm springing the booby trap!" He shouted as he pulled the lever down.
Dingodile, Tiny and Coco continued running as they felt the ground rumbling. Looking up as they ran, the three saw some boulders falling towards them.
"What do we do?" Coco asked.
"Continue on!" Dingodile replied. "If we don't make it past this, we gotta deal with mah uncle's ghost!"
The three friends sped up, managing to beat the rocks. The instant they were in the clear, the massive amount of boulders formed a huge rockslide, blocking the three friends from Bowser's ghost.
"What's wrong with him, Dingodile?" Coco asked. "From what you said about him on the way here, your uncle sounded like a good guy!"
"Yeah! Him do nothing but scare us!" Tiny nodded.
Dingodile sighed. "Ah dunno, but Ah can't help but think that ghost isn't really him." He replied.
"An imposter?" Coco asked.
"Ah'm his nephew!" Dingodile insisted. "He wouldn't just attack me! And he's the one who left the clues fer us in the first place!"
"Dingodile have good point." Tiny pointed out.
"Yeah. Now that you mention it, he WAS the one to plant all of these clues, and the first letter WAS addressed to you." Coco agreed.
"So we'll have ta assume that this is an imposter tryin' ta ruin Uncle Bowser's reputation." Dingodile nodded.
"Well, the tunnel's blocked, so we may as well see where this'll end up." Coco said.
Thankfully, Bowser's ghost wasn't able to get over the rockslide, so the rest of the trip to the other side of the tunnel was peaceful. Eventually, the three ended up at the other side of the long tunnel, where they were quick to spot another door.
"Alright! Another door!" Dingodile said as he grabbed the doorknob. "Ya guys think this'll get us outta here?"
"No doubt whatsoever." Coco nodded. "Let's go."
Dingodile nodded and opened the door, taking the three friends into another room. They were quick to recognize it.
"Hey! We back in basement!" Tiny pointed out.
Dingodile nodded. "Oy! Yeah! Ah bet that this is how the ghosts have been getting' in and out of the house without us noticing!" Clutching the next clue, Dingodile pointed up the stairs. "Come on. Let's go upstairs so we can read this next letter."
The three friends went up the stairs and opened up the door at the top. However, once they did, their eyes widened in shock, as they saw that the entire living room was flooded with ghosts, although none of them looked very menacing. However, they were still ghosts, and that freaked the three out.
"Oh, no!" Dingodile shouted. "Now we got the whole house full of ghosts!"
"Hey, guys!" Biff greeted as he floated over with a bowl of chips. "Great party, eh?"
"Party?" Coco asked.
"Yeah! Things were getting a little dull around here, so we invited the whole family over!" Biff nodded as he pointed around the room as some of the different ghosts hanging around. "That's my cousin Lydia dancing with her husband Neville. There's Shivers' distant cousin Vincent Van Gore, Slim's niece Sue Pea, and that's the family dog, Spooky."
"Who weird ghost over there?" Tiny asked, pointing at a bald ghost in a jacket, doing a strange dance alone.
"Oh, him? That's Uncle Grimmley." Biff scratched his head. He watched as Shivers floated by and stopped him. "Hey, Shivers? Who's Grimmley related to, again?"
Shivers paused in thought. "You know? I'm not really sure…"
"This is just too much!" Dingodile shouted as he stamped over to a record player, which was pumping out music. Slim was floating near it.
"Hey, come on, pal! Get in the spirit!" Slim laughed. "Get it? Ghost! Spirit! Hoo, boy! Am I a riot, or am I a riot?"
Dingodile quickly rippe dthe record from the player and smashed it to the ground. "Well, the riot's over!" He shouted. He then looked around the room. "Everybody, O! U! T!"
This made everyone stop what they were doing. "Huh?" They all asked as one.
"Out! OUT!" Dingodile screamed.
Biff sighed. "Okay, gang. Spoiled-sport here says to beat it, so I guess the party's over." He said.
One by one, everyone vanished from sight, leaving the three friends alone with the Spirit Squad. Dingodile quickly turned to them. "And that goes fer you nerds too! Hit the road!" He said.
"Huh? But we haven't caught your ghosts yet!" Shivers insisted.
"That's just the trouble!" Coco said.
"Yeah! All Spirit Squad do is mess around!" Tiny added.
"So why don't ya just go back to where ya came from?" Dingodile completed.
"But we can't do that…" Biff replied.
"Oh? Why not?" Dingodile asked.
Shivers quickly pulled out a violin and started playing sad music on it.
"Well, it's like this guys…" Slim sighed. "We're homeless ghosts."
"Homeless?" The three friends asked.
"That's right." Biff nodded. "We were all driven away by a maniacal Boo. The whole bunch of us were left without a place to stay."
"That's why we needed the job." Slim sniffed. "So we could get a place for the whole family to stay. You know? Just a nice, haunted house in a spooky neighborhood."
"But if you don't want us…Well, I guess that's it, then." Biff sighed. "Come on, guys. Let's go see if they can squeeze us in at the Spirit Postal Service…"
With that, the three depressed ghosts floated through the wall, leaving the three friends in tears.
"The poor guys…" Coco sniffed.
"Yeah…Ah'm sorry we fired 'em." Dingodile nodded.
"That's okay!" Biff said as the three ghosts appeared again, none of them looking upset.
"We forgive ya." Slim nodded. "Heh heh."
Dingodile paused in thought. "Well, okay. You guys are back on the job!" He nodded.
"But you gotta catch some ghosts." Coco replied.
"Don't worry! We won't let you guys down now that we have a second chance!" Biff nodded. "Come on, guys! Let's go!"
Dingodile shook his head in hopelessness as the three ghosts floated away. "Oy. It takes real talent ta be as dumb as those guys." He noted.
"Never mind about them, Dingodile." Coco said. "What does the clue say?"
"Clue?…Oh, yeah!" Dingodile said as he opened the letter and read it. "The next clue is in Rabbid Cave in plain sight."
"Rabbid Cave?" Coco asked. "Hey! We were there before! This is gonna be easy!" With that, Coco turned and walked off.
"Yeah. REAL easy, providin' that huge, psychotic rabbit isn't around." Dingodile sighed as he followed Coco.
"Psychotic rabbit?" Tiny asked. He gulped as he followed his friends.
To be continued…