Hi everyone, Happy New Year and welcome to 2021 :) I just have one important thing to say about the last chapter... so I accidentally uploaded the old version... OOPS! But the good thing is that literally only the last few sentences are different, but they DO make quite a big difference to the current direction of the story. So if you're reading this in real time, my apologies, and just reread the last chapter from the "hundreds" part. Anyways, hope that doesn't happen again! Thank you so much for those of you who continue to read and review, including the guests and silent readers.
CHAPTER 32
Fred made a move to get up, but no one else followed. While he had been playing around with this idea since he and Daphne were hiding upstairs, the others had only just heard it. It was quite a daunting prospect, but Fred could think of no other way. He gently put his hand on the small of Daphne's back and coaxed her up. To his surprise, Daphne shot up straight away.
'Come on,' she whispered to the others. 'We just have to do it.'
'FREEZE!'
Fred stood still, but Daphne clutched Fred's arm in terror.
'Do not move!' A soldier screamed. They heard him fumble around until he said with far less menace, 'Ah… Ah, sir? Could we get torch?'
There was a thunder of boots in the other direction while that one soldier edged closer. He was tiptoeing slowly, but the faint thump of his boots hitting the ground was louder with every step. It was like the constant tick-tock of a clock counting down the moments until death. Velma tugged Fred and Daphne down hard.
'He said don't move!' Fred hissed, sweat pouring down his forehead.
'He can't see you!' Velma mouthed. 'Shaggy, Scooby, now.'
Out of his peripheral vision, Fred saw Shaggy and Scooby throw their arms back, then thrust them out in front, before ducking back behind the display. Fred stared at Velma, utterly bewildered. He was just about to ask her what that was about until he heard a thud from the other side of the shed and a scuffle near the door.
The soldier's walking stopped, leaving behind an eerie silence. Then the patter of boots started up again, faster, louder, but further away. A torch panned around the other side of the gardening section.
'They left this room, sir. I heard,' the first soldier said. 'And they drop this. Apple.'
'You sure they were here?' another soldier barked.
'Yes, well, I think so… Actually I not sure it might be rabbit, sir, ah, General Rix sir.'
'Stop wasting time!' The so-called General Rix yelled.
'Ah, yes sir.'
It was only when he spoke again that Fred realised just how young this soldier was. He sounded nervous and shaky. It gave Fred a much needed confidence boost. He hoped that most of them were like that – young and uncertain.
'Hey, Shag, Scoob, what did you throw?' Fred asked, thinking he heard the young soldier wrong.
Shaggy chuckled. 'Like, I don't know. I just grabbed the first thing from my pack. That guy just told me it was an apple.'
'Rine was a rroissant.'
'A croissant?'
'Reah. Still in its rackaging,' Scooby clarified.
'Shaggy…'
'While Scoob and I were hiding in the café, we filled up our packs with food,' Shaggy explained quickly. 'We figured, like, we might be without food for a while.'
Fred nodded. Velma recalled how she saw Shaggy and Scooby carrying heavy swags before. It all made sense but –
'That's going to make it harder to get out without being seen,' she said.
'Like, yeah,' Shaggy sighed.
'Maybe not,' Fred said thoughtfully. 'We do need the food. Shag, I'll take yours. You have enough to worry about with that arm.'
Shaggy gratefully handed his pack over to Fred.
'Gang,' Velma began. 'We've got to do it now. While they're distracted.'
Fred finished putting Shaggy's pack on and took Daphne's hand. 'Let's leave the store.'
It was such a casual thing to say. On the off chance Fred convinced someone to come with him to Bunnings, he'd say depending on how much he bought, 'let's go out the street way' or 'the carpark way' or …
'That's it. I've got it!'
Taking great care and being significantly quieter than the soldiers, he led the rest of them out of the plant section towards the front of the store. They had been inside for so long that his eyes were well adjusted to the darkness. It allowed them to walk with more confidence, while the soldiers were literally still fumbling around in the dark. When they reached the checkouts, they heard voices. Without any prompting, they fell into a line against the wall. Fred was both disturbed and pleased about how good they were getting at this.
'We lost them,' one soldier said in a gruff voice. It was that General Rix from before.
'Again,' another replied.
'We need to finish.'
'Send them all in. All reinforcements in. Give them the order to kill.'
'This has taken far longer than expected,' General Rix boomed. 'A waste of time and resources. We have given them more than enough chances.'
General Rix and the other soldier walked briskly back outside, presumably to give the "reinforcements" the order to kill.
'Gang,' Fred whispered, 'hide in the checkouts until those reinforcements get in here. Then we'll bail out.'
They ran to the checkouts booths: Fred and Daphne in one and Shaggy, Scooby and Velma in the other, who didn't dare hide on her own again.
Daphne stood in front of their chosen booth, her face paling.
'Oh my god. Fred, there's nowhere to go!' she fretted, taking in the mats, till and tiny drawer that lay within the booth.
'Daph! Just go in!' Fred urged.
There was a yell from the front of the store, and the new soldiers burst in.
Fred panicked and knocked into Daphne with so much force that she was knocked clean off her feet. He fell with her, and cupped the back of her head to break her fall.
'I'm sorry. I freaked. Are you okay?'
He was worried about squashing her, but she didn't seem to mind; in fact, she was pushing him closer into her.
'I'm fine. The best thing we can do is to stay low.'
Being on the floor was giving him a new perspective. There was a little bit of room underneath the checkout. Gripping Daphne to him tightly, Fred rolled over so that they were sheltered within the darkness and dustiness of the checkout.
Fred's heart hammered against his chest, and it wasn't just because of the armed soldiers barricading through the store in search of them. It was because Daphne was lying directly on top of him in this cosy space, squashed underneath the checkout. Fred felt a flush rise from his belly up to his cheeks and ears. He remembered how he and Daphne were in this exact same position back at the shop opposite City Hall. He also remembered that comment Velma had made about the condom, and how cool Daphne was about it. He had got so embarrassed by it. Fred had always been annoyed that he got embarrassed by things like that, because he didn't want to be. It had been worse at school. In fact, it was probably why Daphne held off for so long, he thought angrily.
He knew Daphne wanted it. She had never explicitly said it, but she'd definitely hinted at it with her sexual jokes and comments. But Daphne noticed it always made Fred uncomfortable, so she often changed the subject straight after. Nonetheless, she always insisted that she wanted to take the relationship slowly, but Fred suspected that was probably more for him than her.
But now, holding Daphne to him now, there was a part of him that almost wanted to go further. Fred knew by now that it was something to do with the adrenaline rush. He noted how his feelings for her always intensified when they were teetering on the fine line between life and death.
Suddenly, Daphne shrieked against his shirt. 'Freddie! There's a huge cockroach right near your arm. And who knows what else is under here!'
As someone who had played with bugs since he was a kid, Fred had never understood Daphne's fear of insects. That particular fear was almost laughable at a time like this, but Fred would never laugh at her.
Instead he flipped her away from the insects and whispered to her lightly, 'Would you rather cockroaches or soldiers?'
She looked at him seriously. 'Honestly? At this point, soldiers.'
The answer took him by surprise, as did the moment when she laughed against his mouth, before pushing her lips against his. They snogged each other as the new soldiers dashed past the checkouts, haphazardly shining their torches in each of the booths.
'Wow Daph,' Fred said, gasping for breath.
Daphne laughed, but then she had the sudden urge to sneeze from all the dust. She couldn't help but think how ironic it would be if they escaped all of this, but were captured because of a sneeze. She also thought about how furious the others would be if that happened. And they would die hating her, even Fred…
'Don't do a Scooby and sneeze on me, Daphne,' Fred smiled.
Daphne was snapped out of her reverie. 'I wouldn't dream of it,' she replied, pinching her nose.
'I think they're gone,' Fred said. He inched out from underneath the checkout and straightened himself up. 'Let's get out of here.'
They found Shaggy and Velma crouched behind some boxes that had been conveniently left in the checkout, but there was no sign of Scooby.
'Like, don't worry man, he's in the boxes.'
Fred's gaze flew immediately to the pit of empty boxes. Since you were allowed to take as many boxes as you needed from the warehouse, Fred had always found them useful for storing his traps. He couldn't believe he didn't think of it back then; it was the perfect hiding spot.
'Rover rere!' Scooby's head emerged from a sea of cardboard boxes.
But with the amount of noise Scooby made getting out of the pit, Fred was suddenly glad he hadn't thought of it back then.
When he glanced over at the others to see if they were ready to go, a glint of metal in Velma's hand caught his eye. He was about to recoil, but Velma's eyes met his own, bearing a sombre expression. He gave a slow nod of understanding back at her. It was necessary.
As Fred led the others down the two travelators that led to the carpark, it occurred to him that he hadn't actually told them where they were going. But they were all detectives. He was fairly sure they had figured it out by now. Down in the carpark, Fred was completely surprised to see that the garage door was wide open. It was letting in bucket loads of moonlight, and Fred had to admit that it made him feel incredibly exposed. He gestured to the others to get as low as possible to the ground while he figured out how to get out of the carpark. On one side were the tables where they had the snag sizzle on Sundays. And on the other side was the maintenance entrance to the carpark. This tiny door had always been Fred's goal, but the only problem was that it was right beside the massive garage doors.
'One by one, we head straight for the maintenance door. Got it? I'll go first,' Fred said.
He felt Daphne squeeze his hand, instilling in him a kind of strength that he couldn't have obtained any other way.
Sticking close to the shadows that coated the stony walls, Fred scuttled over to the door and crouched down, motioning for the next person to follow. He clutched the handle and found it was unlocked. Then very slowly, he stood up to assess the situation. The small window on the door with rusty metal bars on it gave Fred the impression that he was trapped in jail. In a sense, he was, but he knew freedom lay just beyond this door plus a short hundred metre dash.
Peering through the gaps, Fred's first impression was how different this scene was to when he had looked down from the second floor. Instead of alert sentries creating an impenetrable bubble around the warehouse, the soldiers on guard were sparse and uneven. There was a cluster of four talking on the corner of the store. He had seen trucks before, but now there weren't any in sight. There were still a couple of jeeps scattered around the perimeter, but nowhere near the numbers he had seen earlier. So much had changed in… how long? Fred realised he had no idea how long they had been inside that hellish nightmare. And to think he used to love that store! How he hated it now. He could never look at it the same again. It had forced Velma to take lives for the first time, and had earned Shaggy a shot in the arm. Not to mention the mental trauma that would surely ensue.
'Shag, how's the arm?' Fred asked him now that everyone had reached the maintenance door.
'It's,' Shaggy considered for a moment. 'It's like, actually okay.'
'He's running on adrenaline,' Velma said.
Satisfied, Fred pressed down on the handle and opened the door a little to gauge the response of the sentries. Velma gave him a thumbs up. He pushed the door open just enough to allow them all to squeeze through.
'Fred, you've done so well to get us here. But if you don't mind, I'd like to suggest my own idea for this next part,' Velma said.
Fred nodded. He suspected Velma realised he had no idea what to do next.
He watched Velma poke her head out the door and look left and right. Before he knew it, he was slipping out of the door with the others.
Velma leant in close. 'When I inch forward, we run for the bushes at absolute top speed. We have to do it all together.'
They were in such an exposed position and she had so much more to say, but she didn't want to say it. But everyone, including herself, was getting to the end of their mental strength. It was now or never. She took a deep breath and stepped forward.
Mystery Inc. sprinted to the bush like a mouse escaping the den of a snake. Not even the shouts, bullets and engines stopped them.
~oO*Oo~
Three days passed.
Three days of hiding, running and jumping at every movement. Three hungry days.
Even Shaggy was surprised at how quickly the food was diminishing. He and Scooby had taken everything edible from that café, and already they had churned through half the supplies between the five of them. Velma insisted that they had to slow down the food intake, but speed up their movements.
Today, they found themselves in rocky patch just by the Janna River. Fred and Scooby were on sentry duty, and Daphne was tending to Shaggy's arm, which was healing remarkably well without any proper first aid. Velma was sitting on a rock, head in her hands nursing a pounding headache, but with a plan slowly chipping away in her mind. There were a few things she'd realised since leaving Bunnings.
The patch of bush they were in was completely surrounded by soldiers.
The soldiers knew for sure they were in there.
The soldiers were slowly closing in on them.
Obviously their escape had not gone unseen. But the soldiers had acted quickly and surrounded the bush with much more precision than they had done with the warehouse. It was like being trapped again, and it was even worse because everyone was sure there was no way out. Random patrols came through day and night, but having scoured every edge of their cordoned off section, she knew the patrols did not reduce the soldiers guarding the perimeter.
Velma stood up suddenly, then immediately regretted it when her head throbbed. She had to put her idea into effect tonight. Patrols were getting more frequent and the soldiers were closing in. She walked over to tell Daphne and Shaggy.
'How's the arm?'
'Like, it's fine,' Shaggy replied cheerily.
Velma knew it was far from fine, but Shaggy hardly ever complained about his injuries. She smiled encouragingly at him.
'Did you know there's two spots in this entire patch that aren't guarded?' Velma began.
Daphne and Shaggy sat up straighter.
'Like, come again?'
'Why not?'
'Because they can't. The Janna River that runs parallel to Bunnings goes through here,' she motioned to the river she had just been sitting by. 'That means soldiers can't patrol those two spots where the river runs.'
'Right,' Daphne said, urging her to continue.
'Well, not directly,' Velma added. 'I'm pretty sure they've got men keeping one eye on the water, just in case we come out in a life raft or something. But if we're under the surface of the water as we pass the patrols, they won't see us.'
'We can't! They'll see us straight away,' Daphne said.
'The river's pretty wide actually. I saw it on our way to Bunnings. It's thin here, but on the edge where the soldiers are, it's wider and deeper. Which means we have to do it tonight before they move in closer.'
The realisation dawned on Shaggy. 'So you're saying, if we like, get out of here somehow and into the river, we can use the current to push us past the patrols and oh! Like, that leads us into the bush away from the soldiers!'
'Exactly.'
'Velma, that's bloody genius,' Daphne gasped. 'But what about Shaggy's arm?'
'Unfortunately, Shag's just going to have to grin and bear it. But we'll make it as easy for him as possible.'
'Sure.'
'Right then. I'm going to tell Fred and Scooby now. Would you two mind keeping watch while I tell them?'
Fred was ecstatic about the idea, and Scooby reacted much the same as Shaggy did. Fred agreed it would have to be done tonight.
The fact that it was all worked out was both the best and worst situation. Best because they could escape the nightmarish scene and worst because now they actually had to do it.
