Velma had never quite gotten used to the weather on the East Coast. She hated how the winter chill seeped inside her home, and lingered in her fingers and toes no matter how long she spent warming them by the radiator. She'd never quite gotten used to the city she'd moved to either. There was a distinct lack of criminals dressed as horrible monsters. In other words, a distinct lack of mysteries in need of solving.

There was also the issue of being surrounded by towering steel walls on all sides, that was also odd.

Velma slid her glasses up her nose and stared out the window, watching as snow finer than powder gently floated down to earth. In three years, zombie hoards had taken over the world. Industry and government collapsed, and took humanity with it. Except for about 50,000 people across the world. Taking refuge in small towns, encampments, and one or two larger cities, all that had been surrounded by steel and locked down.

They were called Sanctuaries. And there were only about twenty around the world. Just five in North America. Humanity existed only in small pockets on what had become an alien planet. In three years the world had fallen apart.

But when something falls apart, scattered pieces still remain. Velma was still in touch with Daphne and Fred. They lived together now, in a quaint house on the Great Lakes. Sanctuary 3 if she remembered correctly. Velma still spoke with them once and a while. But the rest of her old life was still in the west. Once or twice, she had half contemplated scaling the wall and running back home. It wouldn't be an issue, If you wanted to leave a sanctuary you were welcome to. But myriads of guards, armed at the teeth, made it impossible to get back in.

Not that it mattered anyways. Her past was just that... the past. And that's where it should remain. But when it came to her future, there was much left to be desired.

Velma had tried her hardest to make something new for herself. She had cycled through a few boyfriends and a girlfriend or two, in her senior year, and gotten some busywork job at a nearby medical facility inside her sanctuary. But no matter what she did, something nagged at her.

Shaggy.

She did her best to shoo his memory away into the shadows of her consciousness. But in spite of her best efforts she thought about him every day.

Velma stood up from the only window in her apartment and towards the corner of the space she'd designated as a tiny kitchen. In reality, it was a mini-fridge, a single heating plate, and a large plastic bin to hold her mismatched flatware and cooking utensils. But still it was hers. Hoping some tea would ward off the-ever present chill, Velma dug a small pot out of the plastic bin and the last teabag in the box. She flicked on the heating plate and left it to warm as she took the pot to the bathroom to fill it.

As she did, she couldn't help but wonder what had happened to Shaggy and Scooby. As hard as she tried to stop fixating on her past, she often couldn't help herself. By all accounts, there were sightings of survivors outside the sanctuaries; it stirred great political tension over whether or not they were to be welcomed into their fledgling society. So it wasn't impossible that Shaggy was still alive. But as the years wore on, survivor sightings became few and far between. Velma wanted to hope that Shaggy had somehow survived all that time and was on his way to a sanctuary that very moment.

But realistically, she knew he was probably still in Crystal Cove, his unusually large appetite focused on human flesh.

Velma gnawed at her lip, her stomach doing backflips at the thought of Shaggy back in Crystal Cove. As her water began to simmer, Velma hastily cooked up some lie to find comfort in. Shaggy was in a sanctuary somewhere, she placated, He had probably just forgotten her email address, and phone number, and the new home address she'd written down for him. She'd track him down eventually.

Velma might've been a good liar, but not good enough to fool herself.

She held her fresh mug of tea up her her face, letting the steam fog up her glasses as she felt the warmth on her skin. She took a sip, flinching a little as the scalding drink flowed down her throat. She turned to check the clock. In was almost midnight. With a sigh it occurred to Velma that the mug of tea she had just made herself was laden with caffeine.

She paused for a moment then shrugged it off. She wasn't about to let her last teabag go to waste. Besides it didn't really matter. She didn't have anything to do tomorrow. So with another swig of her tea, Velma sauntered over to her TV. It was an old boxy thing, with antennas poking out of the top of it. It was perched on an overturned milk crate in a different corner of her cramped apartment. Flopping down onto her worn Lazy Boy, which also served as her bed, Velma flicked through channels. Nobody was writing anything new for TV. The resources were too scarce for that. So she had the choice between re-runs or the one news source that broadcast far enough to reach Sanctuary 18: STVN.

RomCom? Boring, Talk Show, bleh. News? Not worth her—

Something caught Velma's eye. She flipped back to the news channel. The headline read: Exclusive Look Inside Ground 0 of the Zombie Outbreak. Velma held her breath. Crystal Cove was ground zero! She cranked up the volume and listened intently as the field reporter in a clunky hazmat suit walked up what looked to Velma like Main Street, or at least what's left of it.

Velma sucked in a breath. The place looked more decrepit than ancient ruins. The spire of City Hall looked warped and sad in the background of the broadcast. And then as the reporter stepped closer, something familiar came into view: The Mystery Machine!

Velma stared wistfully as that old teal van. It's paint was peeling and it's tires we flat as pancakes. Poor thing looked almost pitiable. Velma's fingers tap tap tap taped on the arm of her chair as she began to pay attention to what the reporter on screen was saying.

...Even before the zombie outbreak, Crystal Cove had a strange history with the paranormal, He narrated in a perfect non-regional accent, A significant part of the towns economy was tourism, biased around these urban legends. Tonight we are going to visit what remains of one of these such tourist attractions in hopes of getting a better understanding of Crystal Cove's haunted past. But before that we have a quick commercial break, don't go anywhere!

As the triumphant theme song of the STVN broadcast blared, Velma wend to grab her laptop, then flopped back down on the Lazy Boy. She opened her email and clicked the "compose new" button.

Biting at a bit of peeling skin on her lip, Velma began to type.

Dear Daphne,

I hope you and Freddie are having a great winter. I know you always loved the snow so I hope one of us is enjoying this blizzard—

But that was as far as Velma got before the ad break came to an end and the theme of the news blared once again.

And welcome back! The hazmat reporter chimed, to our exclusive coverage of Crystal Cove. Tonight we are standing in front of the Broken Spine, one of the most important tourist destinations for the economy of Crystal Cove.

Velma scoffed, her family wished they'd been even close to being a big part of the economy. But she couldn't complain. As the news anchor swung the door to the Broken Spine, Velma perked up, curious to see how her family's old shop had been doing. Much to Velma's shock, the place looked almost perfect. Almost except for—

"What happened to the zombie section?" Velma wondered aloud as she adjusted her glasses. She pressed pause and practically smooshed her face up against the TV screen. Scrutinizing the pixelated image that made up a bookcase in the background. There were three books missing: An Anthology of European Literature on Zombies, Zombies as seen by Theoretical Science, and, Surviving Zombies for Dummies.

Velma paused for a second. It was odd for three books to have been missing when the rest of the shop was in such good condition. Somebody must have taken them. Then she unpaused the feed. There was an odd flutter of hope in Velma's chest. It was premature at best but there all the same. So as Velmas eyes landed on the spot where a glass jar of biscotti had once (but now no longer) stood, one stupid thought pierced her mind.

Could Shaggy have been alive?

Who else would think to go to the Broken Spine to learn about zombies? Who else would have any reason to keep the place in such pristine condition? And who else would take a jar of biscotti that by that point must have been as hard as a rock?

Velma swallowed the dry lump in her throat and fervently tamped down the hopeful feeling rising in her chest. If Shaggy was still in Crystal Cove, he was dead. Velma knew that. She knew that. She took her glasses off and put them carelessly on the recliner armrest. She rubbed her temples trying to ward off the sharp ache raising in her head.

"This is stupid, Velma," she chided herself aloud, "just think rationally."

Rationality had abandoned her. In her emotional haze she grabbed her laptop. She hurriedly finished typing her email to Daphne, and then made her way to a travel website.

Ten minutes later, Velma was in her kitchen, her fists bunching her sweater. Was she really going to do this? Her laptop rang out, Daphne had responded.

Hey Velma! Daphne wrote, Freddie and I would love to have you over this weekend! I talked to a friend of mine who works for the ISTC, (Inter-sanctuary travel commission) and they managed to get you a travel permit same-day! Let us know if you need a pickup from the Helipad!

Love from Sanctuary 3,

Daphne

Velma let go of her sweater nodding to herself. She took a few unsteady breaths. Yeah. She was doing this.

Velma was going back to Crystal Cove. But first, she needed her friends.

—

Author's Note: Surprise! I'm a little bit nervous about how y'all will like this, but hopefully you're as excited to read it as I am to publish it. We finally have the plot moving along now at any rate. Please let me know what you think with a review, or you cou follow/favorite the story, that's always really nice to see. Thanks for reading!