Hi everyone! Thank you thank you so much for reading and reviewing! Just popping in to say we've reached 30 chapters and 100k words :0 Hope you're enjoying the story so far. Oh, and Merry Christmas!
CHAPTER 30
The next morning began with a full-blown argument. Scooby was doing his sentry duty when a furious Velma burst through the door. Shaggy had come back up to B14, and he, Fred and Daphne were sleeping at the back of the classroom. As soon as Velma entered the room, she knew something was up. Velma was far from stupid. It hadn't taken her long at all to find out what had happened the night before. Knowing what was to come, Scooby crept under the tables and zigzagged around the chair legs before exiting the room. He had no reason to be there and hear them yell at each other. There weren't many things Scooby Doo hated, but his friends fighting was one of them; it was top of the list.
As he left, he caught snatches of their argument –
'…irresponsible,' – Velma,
'I wasn't drunk!' – Daphne,
'Sorry…' – Fred…
Scooby knew exactly how this argument would go down. He saw Velma's point; in fact, he was quite disappointed in Fred and Shaggy. As much as he didn't want a full confrontation, he was pleased to see Velma actually interacting with the others again.
He couldn't believe confrontation and arguments had become the group's new norm. Scooby could count the number of arguments they had before the war on one paw. Now, he needed a new paw everyday to keep track of their fights.
He walked up and down the top floor corridor, not daring to stray any further from the others. He basked in the sunlight that crept through the few blinds that were still open. From down the corridor, he could still make out words and phrases of their argument, which sounded like it was still in full bloom, but after about ten minutes, their voices stopped abruptly.
Then Shaggy whispered loudly, 'Where's Scooby?'
Scooby scuttled back down to B14. 'Ri'm here.' He took one look at their ashen faces. 'Rhat's wrong?'
'I think I just saw someone enter the outside gates,' Fred whispered.
'Are you absolutely sure?' Velma asked.
'I'm not completely sure, but I think.'
'Like, we need to hide, man!' Shaggy said.
Daphne's time with Fred the night before had given her an idea. 'I've got just the place.'
They followed her down to the ground floor corridor and to the door that led to the art rooms. Luckily from that first night, they hadn't shut that old door properly, so it slid open without a sound. The blinds were drawn, but enough daylight flooded in to see where they were going. Most frighteningly of all, they heard voices outside.
'Zoinks!'
'Daphne, are you thinking of going to the cave?' Velma whispered.
'Yes.'
As quietly as possible, they ran through room A4 until they reached the door of A3. Fred edged open the sliding door. Instead of entering the room, they turned up a narrow passageway to the right. It was clustered with musty bookcases and old artworks, and there was a kiln right at the end. One by one, they slipped to the side of the kiln. Beyond that lay a bizarre meandering storage room: the cave.
There was this very odd art teacher at the school. Mrs Drual was nice, but she was just plain crazy. She had been at the school for years, and this storage room was practically dedicated to her. The builders had tried to tidy it up years ago, but she had protested so much that they left it alone. Shaggy had been in there a couple of times before, but he didn't go often because it seriously creeped him out.
The part just at the back of the kiln was normal – more paintings and sculptures, but as soon as you ran into the cord light that dangled down, it looked like the basement of a serial killer. For starters, there were dozens of dolls and parts of dolls. There was even a full skeleton, which Mrs Drual insisted was fake and that she had "borrowed" it from the science rooms, but everyone had their doubts about that. There were old newspapers and so many random objects that probably had wild stories attached to them… and ancient tribal spears?
They knew what lay in there, but they didn't bother to turn the light on. Fred and Daphne ducked under a splintery wooden table. Velma stood behind the kiln, and Shaggy and Scooby took refuge under a grimy, clay-stained blanket.
There was something undeniably exciting about hiding from these people, Daphne thought. She knew they wouldn't be found – they were in the basement of the school, up a secret passageway, behind a kiln and well hidden in a dark, unsuspecting room. Amongst all the debris and skeleton parts, it was probably the safest she had felt since the war started. Especially when she was tangled up with Fred. She leant up to kiss him.
'Daph, not now!' he whispered.
Daphne sighed. It was going to be a long wait. The school was massive. Who knew how long the soldiers would stay? Had something given them away, or were the soldiers just checking things out for the sake of it?
An hour passed, then two, then three. They hadn't heard anything at all. Finally, Velma inched out and sat in front of Fred and Daphne's hiding spot and concealed herself behind an old desk. She motioned for Shaggy and Scooby to join them. A patchwork sheet shuffled over and plonked itself in front of the desk.
'We need to discuss our next move,' Velma said quietly.
'Is it, like, safe to open our packs and get the snacks out?' Shaggy suggested.
Shaggy could feel her glare through the darkness.
'That's not the next move I was talking about,' Velma muttered under her breath.
'If I don't eat, the growl of my stomach will give me away,' he complained.
'Reah, re too.'
'Fine.'
'Velma, we need to lie low here for probably another week,' Fred said.
'Until they give up searching the bush and return to town? No Fred, we have to do it now!' Velma urged.
'What do the rest of you think?' Fred asked.
'I don't know. Both of your ideas make sense,' Daphne said. 'I'd be inclined to stay here. We are safe here.'
'But the longer we stay, the more patrols will return, and the harder it will be to leave!' Velma argued.
'But, like if we leave now, where would we go?' Shaggy said. 'If they're in the outskirts of the bush like we think they are, we can't just go through there to get back to Headquarters.'
'No, we can't go to the bush,' Velma said thoughtfully. 'But we can go somewhere close to the bush. That will make our get away easier.'
'So maybe we leave here now, while there aren't many soldiers around, go to a building that borders on the bush, then when the soldiers return to the town, we go bush,' Fred said.
'Perfect,' Daphne smiled. 'It's a compromise.'
'Ron the ray out, we have to remember to ret the reat ries and rausage rolls from the ranteen!' Scooby said.
'We will. That's our only food,' Velma said.
'Rhere will we go?'
'Like, a house?' Shaggy suggested.
'Hmm. The school was good. It has many floors and places to hide. It would be good to find somewhere like that, especially so soon after the explosion,' Velma said.
'Well, then what about Bunnings?' Fred said. 'You know, the one right near the river? In Terrajanna? It's on the edge of the bush, it's essentially a massive warehouse and plus, I'd like to pick up some supplies to improve Headquarters.'
'Bunnings,' Daphne laughed. 'Oh Freddie, of course you would suggest Bunnings.'
'What can I say? It's the best place for trapping supplies, and pretty much everything else!' Fred said.
'Rit's even got a cafe. Which means rood!' Scooby said happily.
Even Velma smiled at that.
Scooby was delighted to see everyone getting along again. It did seem a bit forced, but at least they were getting somewhere. The alcohol conversation seemed to have been swept under the rug for the time being.
'Like, Velm, what other food have you got in your pack?' Shaggy asked, finishing off the last of his monster noodles.
'Dunno. You can check,' she said, tossing the bag at him.
'Like, ouch,' Shaggy said. The bag was way heavier than he thought. 'What is in here…'
Shaggy took out the gun and the radio.
'Zoinks! I forgot we still had these!'
'What, me too!' Daphne gasped.
'If we're caught with this, we're dead,' Fred said. 'It'll look like active resistance.'
'We won't get caught,' Velma replied firmly. 'But I remember the motivation behind this. Gun for self defence. Radio,' she smiled knowingly. 'Intelligence. That will give us something to do while we wait it out.'
Velma fiddled around with the radio. She could hear people talking, but not in English. In a sense, it was useless. Fred had a go after her. He tried to change the frequency, but it was only a short-range radio. They could hear commands, but couldn't understand them. Velma chucked it back down into the depths of her pack with the gun.
'What if it like, goes off?' Shaggy fretted.
'The safety catch is on, Shaggy,' Fred reassured him. 'It won't go off.'
'Before we leave the school, I want to grab some supplies from the chem lab,' Velma said.
'Like, to make explosives?'
'Perhaps. And acids and matches and tools. Who knows what we might need?'
'Like, just make sure you don't put that stuff in the same bag as the gun,' Shaggy said.
'I'm not that stupid, Shaggy,' Velma replied. 'Daphne, can you come with me? I'll need you to pick the lock.'
'Okay. Daph and I will come with you to the science block and keep watch while you get what you need,' Fred said. 'Shaggy and Scooby, you guys go to the canteen and get all the food out of there. And don't eat anything!'
'Good plan,' Daphne said.
'Let's start moving. It's already dark outside. Now everyone be super careful! We don't know if anyone's still here. We'll meet at the window we came in through in half an hour.'
Much to Shaggy's delight, they left the creepy art room and exited out the same door Fred and Daphne had gone out of a couple of nights ago. Fred and Daphne pretended to act surprised when they "discovered" the door wasn't locked. They split up, and Fred and Daphne followed Velma to the science block. When they arrived, Daphne crouched down and felt about the lock with her bobby pin.
'Do you need some light?' Fred whispered.
'Umm…'
'It would be good if you could do it without light,' Velma grumbled.
'Just a bit would be good, Freddie.'
Fred turned on his torch and covered it with his hand. He directed a small beam of light on to the lock. Velma turned around and kept watch. It opened.
Since the block was locked from the outside, none of the classrooms inside were locked. They went upstairs first. Velma prowled around the top floor classrooms with Daphne in tow carrying a torch. Fred kept watch. Velma got a good haul from the supply cupboard, but she really wanted to find some matches before they left. They went back down to raid the downstairs classrooms. The lower supply cupboard was tiny, barely enough room for one person, so Daphne kept watch outside with Fred.
Daphne wanted to talk to Fred, but she didn't dare speak while Velma was in earshot. But after a while, Velma had moved on and they could hear her rustling around in her old biology classroom. She'd been in there for a while.
Daphne took the chance and whispered to Fred, 'I'm scared.'
'Me too.'
Fred put his arm around her waist, and Daphne put hers around his shoulders.
'Looking forward to go to Bunnings?' Daphne joked, trying to relieve some of the tension she felt.
'I always am. Invasion or no invasion, Bunnings is always an exciting place to be.'
She giggled. 'So what are you thinking of picking up in Bunnings?'
'I want to get some more ropes and a pulley system to make a safer descent over the cliff. We could also use some chicken wire, fencing…'
'I'm excited to go to Bunnings too. I'm looking forward to you getting the stuff together,' Daphne said.
'I love you.'
It was so out of place; it had just spontaneously popped out. Daphne had said it to him once before, in the shop opposite City Hall, but his exhausted mind hadn't fully comprehended it back then.
Now he had said it, but she didn't say anything. The breath left his body. He had messed it up. Fred fumbled around for an apology.
'I'm sorry, I don't know where that came from…'
'Shut up.'
Fred looked around quickly. Soldiers? He scanned for movement… somehow Daphne had manoeuvred herself in his arms. She held his head in her hands and pressed her nose and forehead against his.
'Don't ever say that again.'
'I know, I shouldn't have said it…'
'No! Freddie, don't ever say sorry about saying that again. I love you too.'
'Oh!' Relief flooded through his stiff body. 'Daph…'
'Mm?'
'I'm glad.'
She planted kisses from his forehead down to his chin.
'The grog's still strong on you. Are you hungover?' she asked.
'A little, but trying not to let it show,' Fred admitted. 'I don't know what got into me last night.'
'Fred, it's obvious. War is bloody stressful. It's okay, yeah? Don't worry about it.' She gave him another kiss on the nose.
Fred sighed. She didn't understand. He decided to tell her something that was bothering him. 'You're going to think I'm such a coward for this. Back at the depot, I, well, I was wishing nothing would come along. Because if a truck didn't come we wouldn't have had to do it. I know I worked out all the fine details, and I enjoyed doing that because it's similar to working out a trap. But I didn't really want to do it.'
He paused, trying to gauge her reaction. She was nodding and drinking in every word he said.
'I was hoping there would be nothing, too. But that doesn't make you a coward. It makes you a good person. I think you're brave for admitting it.'
'Thank you.'
'Is that why you were uptight last night?'
'Partly.'
'Partly?'
'Well, there's everything else too.'
'Ha. Yeah. Not to mention the killings and everything.'
'That's the main thing,' Fred admitted.
'Yeah. I know.'
'Great sentry you two are,' Velma stood in the doorway, hands on her hips.
She looked disapprovingly at Daphne wrapped up in Fred's arms.
'You do realise we're in a…'
'In a war, yes thank you, Velma, we're very well aware of that, now shut up,' Daphne said nonchalantly.
'Just remember it! Fred, can I use your pack? I want to take this bag of ammonium nitrate. It's a little less than a kilo. Can you carry that?'
'Um, okay sure. Why does our school have so much ammonium nitrate?' Fred wondered.
'I don't even know what you're talking about,' Daphne said.
'Basically, it's an explosive,' Velma said curtly. 'Now come on, let's get back to the window. It's almost been half an hour.'
Shaggy and Scooby were already there moaning, 'It's in our packs! It smells so good! It's just teasing us.'
'Don't eat the pies, guys,' Daphne warned.
'Rie ruy, rie ruy,' Scooby crowed in an irritating voice.
'No,' she replied monotonously.
'Rie ruy.'
'No.'
'Rie?'
'No.'
'Ro?'
'No.'
Shaggy stifled a laugh; Daphne was so done with his and Scooby's antics.
'But re didn't eat rhem.'
'Oh my god can we just get out of here?' Daphne pleaded.
Fred was shooting daggers at Shaggy and Scooby. 'Yes. We're leaving right now. Come on, Daph.'
Velma glanced up at their exit. 'There's no way we're all going to get up to that window,' she said. She remembered the feeling of free falling on the drop on the way in.
'There's a way,' Fred replied, eager for the challenge.
'Okay sure, but there's an easier way. Especially if we want to make it to Bunnings by daybreak.'
Fred's trap-maker's brain was ticking over at full speed. 'What do you suggest? Smashing in another door? Getting Daphne to pick the locks on the main gates? Hmm no, that's too risky.'
'I suggest getting the stepladder from the cleaner's cupboard,' she replied blandly.
Fred went a little pink. 'Right. Good idea.'
In record time, all five of them were out of the building and standing in the exact same spot they had been in when those jeeps had roared by the school a few days earlier. Back then there had been blaring sirens and searchlights held by helicopters, but now there was nothing.
Yet they were so close to the scene of the crime.
For Fred, it was too quiet, but the others didn't see anything wrong with it. Now Fred was glad of a reason to get out of the school. He wished they could go straight to the bush, but he knew that wasn't safe, especially considering how quiet it was in town.
'Let's partner-leapfrog it until we reach the beginning of the industrial area,' Fred suggested.
He and Velma crossed over to the other side of the road. He started walking in line with Daphne, watching her every movement closely out of the corner of his eye.
Privately, Fred had no idea what they were going to do once they reached the "industrial" area that housed Bunnings Warehouse. It wasn't technically part of Crystal Cove – it was closer to the inland town of Terrajanna, but hardly anyone actually lived there. Most of the people who worked in outer Terrajanna or "Crystal Cove's industrial area" were from Crystal Cove, anyway. The town's only visitors were Crystal Covers who wanted to enjoy the Janna River or some crisp mountain air.
Aside from the supplies, one of Fred's main motivations behind the Bunnings trip had been Terrajanna's "mountains". They were nothing spectacular but they did provide a convenient leeway back into the bush. Plus, it would be safer to enter the bush from Terrajanna rather than heavily guarded Crystal Cove.
Fred remembered that first day when they went into the bush and they stood at the lookout. He had seen the harbour, the beach, the town and the mountains. All were connected by the bush.
But once they left Bunnings and entered the bush, how would they find their way back to Headquarters? The bush was a massive place. It would be near impossible, but it was their best shot at survival. Even Velma wasn't too confident, but she had picked up some maps from the geography department at school, and she still had her compass. She said she would be able to figure out the general direction. Fred just hoped they wouldn't get too lost.
And if all that stress wasn't enough, Fred was still unnerved by the quietness of everything.
Three hours later, the infrastructure finally started getting sparse. They assembled outside an abandoned biscuit factory.
'There's Bunnings,' Fred said.
To his relief, he noticed the bush came up right around the back of Bunnings and stretched far into the distance. That meant total cover from aerial attacks. It was almost too easy.
Fred turned to Velma. 'There's nothing around. No patrols or anything.'
'They're all looking for us in the bush,' Velma said. 'We've outsmarted them.'
Fred remembered how it was her idea to leave school early. He understood her smugness; her idea appeared to be working really well.
Although the sight of their destination had made it seem like they were almost there, they had all clearly forgotten the shear size of Bunnings Warehouse. For Velma, the last leg of the journey was a tough slog through the bush. She'd been around here once before on one of her mother's forced "bonding with nature" family trips to "cleanse the soul". She didn't think much of the bush back then. All she saw was a polluted river and a waste of space. But now, aware of her newfound appreciation for the bush, Velma was aware that this bush was different to the bush around the lookout and Headquarters. It was deeper in colour, wetter and lusher – a clear reflection of its higher altitude and rainfall.
She could hear the Janna River too. It began from the top of the mountains that loomed above the industrial area, and snaked around the factories and warehouses before delving down deeper in the bush. From memory, she knew the river looped around the side of Bunnings, so all they had to do was follow it and they'd be at the warehouse. For once, everything about this journey was going so well. At least Fred will appreciate her ideas more in the future, she thought haughtily.
Velma led the rest of them around a bend in the river, stepped out of the trees, and there stood Bunnings Warehouse. They glanced around before Velma signalled for them to dash over to the loading dock. By some uncanny stroke of luck, the backdrop was open. Velma supposed the invasion had occurred right when the night shelf fillers were busy stocking up. By the abandoned look of the entire area, no one, not even the soldiers, had come out here looting yet. It was the perfect hiding spot.
They slipped in underneath the huge roller door. It was strange how you got a feeling about the shape of a room without actually seeing anything, Velma thought. From the moment of stepping in the room, she was instantly aware that they were standing in a vast garage with a very high ceiling.
She stood still for a moment, letting her eyes adjust to the darkness. Having been outside in the darkness for hours before, it didn't take very long. She led the others along the natural path of the garage, occasionally feeling her way through the maze of boxes, trucks and crates. Her target was the doors at the back of the garage, which she assumed led to the actual store. One shove against the door confirmed that they too were unlocked.
The pungent smell of potting mix and manure confirmed they had reached the gardening section. The roof was glass, so there was plenty of light to see by. She walked along a row of ferns and thousands of pots of flowers and herbs. If Velma looked closely, she would've noticed that they were all dead.
But she didn't have time for sightseeing. The truth was, Fred's words had unnerved her. It was odd there were no patrols around. For Velma, the sooner they got out of here, the better. She wanted nothing more than to leave the uncertainty of the town and buildings and head back to the bush.
As soon as they reached the indoor section of the store, Fred stepped in front of her, his eyes harbouring the look of a kid in a candy store. He inhaled the blissful scent of paint, wood, hardware and soil – all the staples of Bunnings Warehouse. All that was missing was the Sunday sausage sizzle.
Then he ran towards Daphne, lifted her up and spun her around in sheer delight. Even though she'd been miserable throughout the whole journey, she laughed along with him, her bad mood quickly evaporating at the sight of his joy.
The uneasiness he had felt earlier in the night left him. For the first time since they left the bush, he felt truly relaxed. He had felt like death could be waiting around every corner. But now…
There was a screech of metal. Silence. Then –
'Come out or we'll come in,' a stony voice proclaimed.
