"Daph... what th..."
Velma stuttered out before Daphne covered her mouth and shushed her.
"Shhhh. Someone knocked on our door. They seemed to have walked away. Should we take a look?"
Velma got on her glasses and gave a silent nod. Pushing Daphne's hand off of her mouth. She picked up a flashlight while Daphne donned on a robe. Getting ready, Daphne peeked open the door while Velma stood ready. But nothing was on the other side of the door. Creaking the door open, they padded out of their door. Pensive and wary, they didn't notice the guys creeping up behind them. Velma jumped as Fred's hands came across, smothering the scream he expected to of Daphne.
"Shhh. It's alright Daph. It's just me, Shaggy and Scooby."
"Fred. You scared me."
"I'm sorry. But you heard that knock right. Let's check it out."
Daphne nodded as Velma squinted into darkness.
"Guys... I think there are some foot prints here."
Velma pulled out her flashlight and covered most of it with her hand. Letting only a bit of light out between her fingers to look at the ground in front of her. Coming from behind her, were tracks of muddy footprints. They seemed to stop at her door. And then continue to the staircase. The whole gang crept behind Velma, who lead the way. Though as they climbed up the stairs, Velma noticed something rather odd about the footprints on the stairs. But she had no time to think about it because her thoughts were broken by the sound of a gunshot. Not thinking of caution, the gang raced up the stairs. Velma pointed the flashlight and she saw that the footprints led to one of the upper rooms. The door was cracked open. Running over to it, they came into the room to notice the Ghost of John Ridmore jump out of the window. Eyes wide, Shaggy impulsively ran to the window. A chill shot right down he as he slowly turned.
"H..h…h…h….he's gone. Like' totally and utterly gone, gone. He flew away!"
Shaggy stuttered. Daphne joined him and looked, sure enough, there was no body at the bottom. But their wondering was cut short at the sound that they had missed when they came in. It sounded like someone struggling. Flashing the light, Velma found that at the end of her light was a tied up Edward senior. Fred rushed to his side as he untied the man and pulled the burlap bag from over his head. He removed the gag as the angry old man spat out a string of curses.
"Where is my son? What was the gunshot? You idiots quit gawking and find my son! I heard in him here."
"AHHHHHHHH!!!"
Came a very unfamiliar scream from the most unlikely source. Velma had screamed. As the flashlight she dropped clattered to the ground, it rolled to spotlight the blank dead face of Edward Junior. Daphne screamed as well and clung to the stock-still form of Shaggy. Scooby passed out at the sight and Fred was speechless, finding it had to breath all of a sudden. This was the first dead body they had ever encountered. Fred was thrown off balance as Edward Senior pushed off of him to tilt his wheel chair over so that he could start crawling over to son. His hand clutched at his heart as he dragged himself into the puddle of blood that surrounded Edward Junior. Dragging himself against the bloodstained wall, he cradled his son's limp head into his lap.
"Oh god oh god oh god oh god…"
Velma said as she slumped down from a standing position to the ground. Fred got enough of his wits about him to try to approach the grief stricken Edward Senior. Edward senior saw him approaching and looked around desperately. Picking up the gun that had done the bloody deed, he whipped it up and flung blood all over the place as he pointed it at Fred.
"I don't know if this had anything in it, but by God if is has and you get any closer I don't have any reservations in shooting you. This is your fault. All of your fault!"
He gestured to them all, sending more blood splattering around the room. Fred backed up and headed slowly to the door.
"It's all your fault! If you hadn't waited and found my son… found my son in the first place. This wouldn't have happened!"
The whole gang was slowly drawing themselves out of the room. Velma and Scooby more of less dragged out, but not able on their own will to comprehend anything. Daphne lifted Velma to her feet and guided her out of the room. They could still hear the now crazy old man shouting at them.
"I'm calling the cops! They will come and kick you all out! My…son… my dear junior…"
His voice broke into sobs as the gang, dazed and unbelieving went down the stairs to their rooms. As they were on their way, Bella and Anne passed by them. They asked the group what happened but none of them were able to find their voices. The whole gang made it as far as in front of their door before Velma broke down. Her legs didn't support her as she went limp in Daphne's arms. She was shaking, like Shaggy and Scooby usually did. This was a major thing happening. Not only was this there first corpse, but Velma, the usual level headed one of them all was loosing it. Daphne and Fred were able to carry her to the bed before Velma latched onto Daphne.
"Don't…. Leave me…"
She said hoarsely. Her throat felt like it was being crushed by a vice. She couldn't stop trembling and seeing his face… The blank face of Edward Junior. It seemed like hours what were only minutes before she was able to breath a bit more clearly. In that time Fred stayed by the bed with Daphne watching over Velma, while Shaggy had placed the fainted Scooby on the bed behind them.
"The… blood… It was all over the walls…"
Velma stuttered out. Daphne looked worried as she darted her vision from Fred to the shivering Velma clung around her waist. Daphne instinctually started petting the younger girls head in an act to try to calm her down. She didn't know what else to do. Fred was trying to put his mind back together, to get himself thinking straight. As soon as his mind was making more sense, and he was able to think on a straight path, he realized that they still had things to figure out. But Velma spoke up again.
"I… I was 100 sure it was Edward Junior… I.. I have hardly ever been wrong…. Why couldn't I have been right… This.. this isn't happening. This can't be real… This can't be real…"
She was rocking back and forth, saying the last few words over and over again. Daphne looked up as she noticed Shaggy standing over them as they were sitting on the bed. He grabbed Velma's hands and pulled her off of Daphne. Turning her around, he forcefully sat her down and made her look into his eyes.
"Like' Velms! Get a grip! I'm the one who's supposed to be scared. This… This isn't like you."
He shook her a bit, making her glasses slide down her nose. She quickly brought up her hands to catch her glasses before they fell. As she kept her hands on her glasses, covering most of her face, she noticed something. The shaking stopped as her mind fell back into place. Taking a deep breath, she brought down her hands away from her glasses. She twitched a second when she saw through her blood stained glasses some blood had also gotten on her hands and a bit was flecked here and there on all of them. The gang watched pensively to see what she was doing. Not sure quite exactly what was going on in her brain. She brought up her hand and stared at the blood smeared on it. Taking her fingers, she rubbed the palm of her hand, as if testing the feel of it. Taking off her glasses as well, she squinted at it.
"Velms? What's going on in that head of yours? Are you back with us?"
Fred weary asked, not sure if she was still losing it or if she was back to normal. Though it was hard to be normal when they had just seen a murder scene. She didn't answer yet; she just rubbed the blood on her hand off a bit on her sweater and found a clean bit of her sweater to clean the blood off of her glasses. Once she had her glasses back on, she looked at each of them, and the look on her face was determined. She looked up and down them for a bit before reaching out and getting a bit glob of blood off of Fred's ascot. She rubbed it between her fingers and her face was getting the look of anger. Which was also something that they didn't see often on the face of their youngest member.
"Velma… What's going on?"
She looked over at them, clearly upset.
"We've been had."