Chapter 8
.
A few hours later, the police found out what happened, drove to the site, and rented construction equipment.
They pulled it from the ground, set up a crime scene unit, and took Walter Bass's body to the coroner.
Finally, SpongeBob and Mr. Krabs went to tell Sandy the unfortunate news.
"Oh my Neptune." Sandy cried, as she tried to fight back tears. "I... I can't believe it."
SpongeBob tried to comfort her, reminding himself of his own loss.
"I lost a best friend of mine, too. Is there anything we can do?"
"Yes.", Sandy sobbed. "Leave me alone so I can collect myself."
The two left her alone and went back to the Krusty Krab.
They had to tell themselves to not focus so much on the case while they were working.
It was a busy day like every other day.
Customers put on their virus masks, hiding themselves from the fumes, which they were told were circling around in their food.
They were in a constant state of hysteria, even bringing with them their pills from the Barg'n' Mart pharmacy.
Squidward was in a constant state of denial.
He didn't feel the least bit sick, and for that matter, neither did everyone else.
Krabs figured it was because every one of them took their pills, and very quickly, he began to form a plan to infringe on the product's ingredients and make more money.
But then again, he figured he could go to prison for it, so he just decided to cash in on the panic by creating new patties shaped like pills.
SpongeBob was busy working the grill when Squidward called from behind the counter.
"I need four pill patties, please."
The sponge made a special patty, which in reality was one of his old Krusty Dogs.
The customers gobbled them up in a frenzy, thinking they were pills.
Krabs even charged 150 dollars for each "pill patty", but the customers didn't care.
The feeding frenzy went on non-stop, hour after hour, on the hour, the price going up and up.
Before they knew it, the clock rang 8:00.
All the customers left, taking their pills and 100 leftover pill patties to-go.
Krabs wasn't even paranoid about to-go orders anymore, he was so thrilled with his new scheme.
.
.
Back at his office, the crab rounded up all the money on his calculator.
"Okay, let's see now. 150 x 20 = 3,000 dollars. Repeats per customer: 1 for 175 = 175 x 20 = 3,500. New customers for price of 200: 20 + 25 = 45. 45 x 200 = 90,000. Price raised to 250 for 40 repeat customers = 10,000."
"Now let's add up all that moolah. 3,000 + 3,500 = 6,500 + 90,000 = 96,500 + 10,000 = 106,500. And that's just for the first hour!"
After adding his money all the way up, Krabs made a total of at least 5 million dollars.
The crustacean held onto his chest, as he was having severe pains.
SpongeBob heard the commotion from his post, concerned about the strange noises.
He burst into his boss's office and asked, "Is everything all right? Are you coming down?"
"No, boy!", the money-grubber happily exclaimed. "This is the happiest I've ever been! Arrrrrr ar ar ar ar ar ar ar ar ar ar!", he guffawed.
"Thanks to this new epidemic, the customers are so delusional that me patties are curing their disease, that they'll keep coming back every day. In a few weeks, I can retire."
SpongeBob strangely congratulated him. "Well glad to know you're not sick."
He suddenly stopped, frozen in his tracks.
"Now what's wrong with you, boy? You're the one getting it?"
The sponge told his boss to quiet down.
"Listen."
"What?", Krabs replied. "I don't hear anything."
"Exactly", said the sponge.
"No one's making a sound."
Krabs told the sponge to use common sense.
"Well that's because we're the only ones here."
"I mean, when we were serving our patties to the customers, I didn't get infected, even by the fish who didn't have masks."
Again, the crab's logic came forth.
"You see, they're not coughing or hacking up body parts because they believe they're sick, boy. It's all just a ruse. They think these patties will save their lives, so they'll keep coming back for more."
SpongeBob began to form a new theory about the epidemic, this one however was the real deal.
The two called Sandy Cheeks, who had just returned home from Walter's funeral.
"Hello."
"Ms. Cheeks", replied Krabs, "We finally know the reason behind this new virus."
Sandy tried to make sense of this. Just two days before, they had been wrong.
"No, Sandy, you have to believe us. Meet us at the Barg'n' Mart Sunday morning 10:00!"
(hang up)
.
.
SpongeBob, Mr. Krabs, and Sandy met at the Barg'n' Mart to look for clues to the virus cash-in.
"There's only one place where somebody would make money from a new illness and pretend to have a cure. Follow me!"
The trio stopped at the local pharmacy where a shipment of various bottles were lining up the counters.
They ordered each brand of every medication, and went back to Sandy's tree-dome.
At the treehouse laboratory, they carefully searched through each brand, trying to find a gimmick.
Finally, Sandy was on to something.
"Check the copyright dates."
SpongeBob and Mr. Krabs did as they were told.
By sheer coincidence, each of the stationery dates were labeled "Copyright 2020, Bikini Bottom Pharmacy."
They also searched every ingredient list and found out they all contained a large dose of hidden glutamine and other excitatory chemicals, also the exact same numbers on the nutrition facts too.
"The same person's been marketing these under different names and selling them, taking advantage of the hysteria, that they caused as well. It was timed perfectly.", Sandy realized.
Our friends headed back to the Barg'n' Mart to ask the pharmacy employees who exactly delivered the phony medication.
"I don't really know.", said Lou the cashier. "When we went to pick it up, there was no one there. We would've reported it, but we just had to cash in on this. Oh, one employee told me this funny story", he went off-topic. "He accidentally dropped some groceries while helping a customer. He went to pick it all up, but he kept dropping the bags because he kept covering his ears. Apparently a herd of scallops were migrating for the winter. Strange, though. They were far away, but they made this loud noise like they were right next to him."
SpongeBob picked up Gary's autopsy paper that he kept as a memento.
"Stop joking. This virus is serious. It killed my pet snail."
The cashier looked at the picture of the snail's system.
"Where's the rest of it?"
"The rest of what?", SpongeBob asked.
"The autopsy photos. Usually they show the OUTSIDE too, like the body for any signs of trauma."
Only one photo.
SpongeBob realized he hadn't been given the full autopsy report.
Also, the invisible scallops.
Whoever planted the scallop camera in there, the true Player, was also responsible for stealing the evidence as to how it got there.
He and Sandy also realized that even though a scallop tank was confiscated during the raid of the fake laboratory, there was no holding place for any type of animal in the real one.
Prescription medicine, a stolen autopsy paper, and nurturing of animals.
It could only be one place.
Then it came back to him, SpongeBob remembered the call he got when he first discovered Gary's condition.
Dr. Gilliam responded, "Hello, Bikini Bottom Pet Hospital."
Why would he phrase it like that instead of saying "Hospital"?
The only explanation to this is that he knew that a pet was sick, and whose house had a pet.
Armed with the truth, the investigators drove to the hospital to confront the corrupt physician.