Chapter 6: A Small Town Of Secrets

Dirt caked the walls; a spider crawled across the ceiling. Fred shined his flashlight on the elevator door.

"Which floor did you and Scooby go to?" Fred asked Shaggy.

"The second floor," he answered. Fred pushed the button. Shaggy and Scooby began quivering as the elevator door opened. Everyone stepped inside.

Down on the third floor, Stan and Ford lay in their individual sleeping bags. They sectioned off an area in the far corner where they could sleep.

"So I convinced those kids to let me use their van for an attraction," Stan said.

"Why? It doesn't really fit in," Ford pointed out.

"They call it the Mystery Machine. There has to be a reason they call it that. The one skinny kids said that no matter where they take the van, the gang always finds something scary."

"Listen Stanley, you just need to let Soos be in charge now. You're retired, remember?"

"I don't see a problem with helping him out."

"I guess not, but let him run the show, you know?"

"Why are you so concerned?" Stan asked, raising an eyebrow.

"It's just that—this passed year has been the best ever. I felt like we had that bond we did when we were kids. Strange enough, the hunt for the anomalies led us back here and that concerns me. I need your help. I don't want you getting distracted."

"I won't get distracted," Stan promised. "I'm just worried because the shack isn't getting the same business and I feel I need to help fix that. Soos is new at being a businessman. He needs some guidance."

"Alright, its okay if you help him, but that's it."

Ford rolled over and tried to sleep, but he couldn't. Plus, he swore he heard footsteps from up above. He turned his head to look at Stan who somehow already fell asleep and was snoring away. Ford let out a long sigh and closed his eyes. Then they opened again. He looked across the room at the entrance to the elevator.

The elevator door opened onto the second floor of the basement. The Mystery Inc. gang stepped out into a tiny hallway that led to another door where the gang wandered into the study. Shaggy noticed that changed was the chalkboard was flipped back the other way again.

"T-that c-chalkboard—" Shaggy stuttered as he pointed at it. "L-look at it—it has all these weird pictures—"

Fred turned the chalkboard around to show the other side, which was also blank.

"Well, that was anti-climatic," Velma remarked.

"But—but, there was this picture—and the words—"

"There's nothing there now," Daphne said.

"You don't believe me?" Shaggy asked. He turned to Scooby. "I guess I should have taken the picture." Scooby ran over to the machine he used the previous night.

"Rhat rabout ris?" he asked, holding the helmet connected by a tube to the machine. He put it on his head, but nothing happened.

"What is that thing?" Velma asked.

"Like Scoob, I told you not to mess with that thing," Shaggy warned.

"Rut, rit read my roughts."

"It's not doing anything Scooby, sorry," Fred told him.

"And it won't ever do anything. The monitor is damaged," Velma stated.

"I will say Shaggy, even if nothing strange happens while we're down here. Finding this place is interesting enough," Fred said to him.

"But what does it mean, Fred?" Daphne asked.

"How about looking through some of these notes?" Shaggy suggested as he picked up a notebook.

"What's this?" he wondered.

"Nothing you should be looking at!" A voice yelled from the door. Everyone turned to see Ford standing there with his arms crossed.

"Ruh-oh!" Scooby cried.

"We got caught?" Fred questioned. "We never get caught! Well, there was that one time, but—"

"What the hell are you kids doing down here?" Ford yelled. "How did you even get down here?"

"Well, the first time, I was just getting some snacks out of the vending machine for me and Scooby and like, the whole thing opened up!"

"First, it's Scooby and me, and second, what do you mean the first time?"

"We're sorry sir," Fred began. "We didn't mean to snoop. It's just that the whole town is acting strange. There isn't a place to stay the night and when Soos let us stay here—well—"

"Well, what? You just decided to start poking around where you don't belong?"

"Sorry, mystery solving is our thing. We thought the answers to why this town is acting strange might be down here," Daphne explained.

"Yeah, besides, I didn't want to come down here again. The last time Scoob and me were down here, we heard this whispering," Shaggy explained.

"Whispering?" Ford asked, his eyes surveyed the area. "Could you make out what was being said?" he asked.

"Like, we recorded it," Shaggy said. Taking out the tape recorder, he hit play. Ford listened to the nonsensical chatter.

"I've heard something like this before. I realized that it was being said backwards. Is there any way to slow down the message and play it in reverse?" Shaggy hit the play and rewind button together. Everyone listened. At first, the voice was faint, barely above a whisper, then the voice grew louder and louder.

"A-X-O-L-O-T-L, my time has come to burn. I invoke the ancient powers that I may return." The words repeated themselves over and over again. Ford gritted his teeth as he suddenly recognized the voice. "No, there's no way he could—" Ford trailed off. "You kids need to just—go! Get out of this town!"

"What's going on?" Fred asked.

"I'm sorry, it's just not safe for you here!"

"Like, we're fine with leaving," Shaggy said.

"I guess so," Fred agreed. "For now."

Confused, the gang followed Ford to the elevator, which he set for the first floor. They climbed up the stairs and towards the back of the vending machine where Ford used his remote control to open it. As the gang walked into the shop, Ford looked at them with sincere eyes.

"It's nothing personal. It's just better this way." He left back into the passageway.

Moments later the gang sat in the Mystery Machine.

"So now what's the plan, Fred?" Daphne asked.

"We could drive into the woods, and set up our tent," Velma suggested.

"I think we should just leave town," Shaggy said.

"Reah, reave rown!" Scooby agreed.

"Sorry, not yet," Fred said.

He put the Mystery Machine in gear and drove off.

The van moved on down the road for a few minutes until they saw a cemetery up ahead.

"Hey look, someone is over there," Velma said pointing at the graveyard

"Like, good for them. Must be some people who like spooky stuff," Shaggy said.

As the van approached the graveyard, the gang recognized one of the faces.

"Hey! Isn't that Wendy?" Daphne asked.

"Yeah, I wonder what she and her friends are up to?" Fred said. He stopped the Mystery Machine just in front of the gate. Everyone got out of the van. Fred pulled on the large iron gate. It barely budged an inch. Then, he noticed the huge padlock.

"It's locked? But how did they get inside?" he wondered.

"My guess is that they went up and over," Velma said gesturing at the spiked black fence.

"I can try to pick the lock," Daphne said. She tried to use the hairpin trick again, but she couldn't get the hairpin side to work the lock. "Uh-oh, It's too rusted."

"Then, I guess we're going up and over just like they did," Fred replied.

"Are you kidding?" Daphne asked, aghast. "I'm not jumping a fence in this outfit."

"I guess you girls don't have to, but me, Shaggy and Scooby are going," Fred said.

"Great, like Fred volunteered us again for something we have no interest in doing Scoob," Shaggy whined. Scooby began whimpering.

Fred hoisted Shaggy onto his shoulders. Shaggy easily reached the top of the fence and hopped over.

"Now you, Scoob," Fred said cupping his hands. Scooby climbed up and Fred lifted him up. Once Scooby was over, Fred jumped up to pull himself over.

"Be our lookout, girls," Fred told them.

"I'll text you if we see any trouble," Daphne replied.

The guys made their way over to the other teens. Wendy sat next to Robbie who sported his usual black hoodie with a broken heart on the front. Next to him was his girlfriend, Tambre who had wild pink hair. Then, there were the two skinny, generic looking teens, Nate and Lee sitting further down the hill. All of them watched Thompson, a heavyset kid creep over to an open grave. He stopped for a moment and turned back to his friends.

"Do it! Do it!" they chanted. Thompson turned towards the open grave, took a deep breath and jumped inside. His friend all cheered raising their hands.

"Like, is he crazy?" Shaggy exclaimed.

Suddenly, Thompson screamed. Wendy ran over and looked down at him. He tried to climb out, but he was too deep into the ground and couldn't get out.

"You need some help?" Wendy asked. She reached out her hand and crabbed his chubby hand. Fred rushed over to grab the other one, and they pulled him up. Wendy turned to Fred.

"Hey, you guys like breaking into graveyards too?" she asked.

"Not really," Shaggy laughed nervously.

"We wondered if now would be a good time to talk to you, Wendy?" Fred asked. "You know, since you wouldn't talk to us earlier at the Mystery Shack."

What's this about?" Wendy asked strongly.

Well, let's start with a certain conversation you had with Soos a few months ago." Wendy's eyes opened wide.

"Me and Soos?" she asked. She grew quiet. "I don't remember. I've had lots of conversations with Soos, some at three-o-clock in the morning."
"Like, not even a conversation about an inter-dimensional triangle taking over the town?" Shaggy asked.

"Reah, rat rounded rary," Scooby said.

"What did you say?" Wendy asked.

"Nothing! Dogs can't talk," Robbie said walking over.

"Like, Scooby can talk and he said that the conversation was really scary."

"It sounded like something bad happened last summer, and you guys are trying to hide it," Fred said pointing finger at her.

"Listen! I don't have to tell you anything!" Wendy tossed crudely at him.

Suddenly, Fred's phone vibrated. He looked down at the screen to see Daphne's text.

"Uh-oh! We should get out of here. Our friends just spotted the sheriff," Fred informed everyone.

"Who cares?" Robbie said smugly.

"We probably should leave," Wendy said. Everyone ran to the fence. Most of Wendy's friends were already over the fence. Only Thompson was having problems getting over. Wendy pushed him over the rest of the way, causing him to land hard on his stomach. The hefty kid managed to get to his feet and race off.

Once everyone was over the fence, Wendy and Robbie started to make a break for it before the Sheriff caught them.

"Over here!" Shaggy yelled from the back of the Mystery Machine. Wendy and Robbie ran over and jumped inside. Shaggy shut the doors.

"Wendy, you and your friend need to stay down!" Fred warned. Wendy and Robbie ducked under the back of the front seat. Fred rolled down the window as Sheriff Blubs walked over.

"Good evening, Officer," Fred greeted respectfully.

"What are you kids still doing here?" he asked. "You should be long gone by now."

"We're here, visiting friends. We aren't violating any laws," Velma said.

"How about curfew?" he responded. "All good kids should be home in bed."

"Truthfully sir, I'm eighteen, so that rule doesn't apply to me," Fred told him.

"What about the rest of your friends?"

"We're all eighteen, sir," Daphne said.

"I'm actually nineteen," Shaggy said. "Scooby is seven in dog years, but older than all of us in people years."

"I even have my ID," Fred said showing his license.

"Well all I can do then is strongly caution you kids to stay out of trouble," the Sheriff warned.

"Will do," Fred replied. He started down the road. Wendy and Robbie peeked their head over the front seat.

"Thanks," Wendy said. "That was really cool."

"No problem," Fred replied. "But now you need to do something for us."

Wendy narrowed her eyes on Fred. "You want me to talk about 'the incident' that happened last summer," she said.

"It would help," he admitted.

"Alright. It shouldn't be kept a secret anyway. First tell me what you know,"

"Well, we've all been in the basement of the Mystery Shack," Velma said. "Or at least one of the floors. We saw there are two floors under the shack and we went to the second floor. We still don't know what's down on the third floor."

"Soos didn't tell you about the talk we had?" Wendy asked.

"Nope. We saw the actual tape ourselves," Fred responded. "We'd like to know who this Bill is you mentioned."

Wendy gritted her teeth. "You mean the inter-dimensional demon that came here and turned all my friends and family into stone statues? He's gone now!"

"But, why is everyone so afraid to talk about it?" Daphne asked.

"Because even though a bunch of spooky stuff always happens in this town, people are too scared to admit it," Robbie said hastily.

"Bill changed our world upside down and madness was everywhere," Wendy explained. "He called it Weirdmageddon."

"Like , we saw that word on the chalkboard, Scooby," Shaggy said.

"I'm guessing Ford erased everything that chalkboard," Velma added.

"Oh, Dipper and Mabel's uncle. You've met him?" Wendy asked.

Shaggy laughed nervously. "Yeah, he-uh, isn't too happy with us right now. We got caught snooping."

"Hey, at least he let you live," she said carelessly. "Dipper and Mabel have two really hard core uncles. You really don't want to piss them off."

"Don't worry about that," Fred said crossly. "How did you all survive last summer? How did you stop this Weirdmageddon?"

"Ford knew about this ancient wheel with different symbols on it. It was supposed to defeat Bill and get rid of the weirdness.

"I used my destiny hoodie!" Robbie said proudly.

Wendy rolled her eyes. "Yeah, strange enough, there were ten of us who fit these symbols. Me, Robbie, Soos, Dipper, Mabel, Stan, Ford and that old crazy guy, the snobby girl and—oh yeah, Gideon. You don't need to know much about him. Somehow, each of us represented a picture on this circle graph," Wendy explained.

"So, you used this wheel to stop Bill?" Fred asked.

"Well, no. We would have if Stan and Ford—" Wendy sighed. "Things didn't go as planned."

"How did this Weirdmagedon start?" Velma asked.

"My friends and I were in the graveyard when we were attacked by these eyeball bats. They used beams from their eye to turn our friends into stone."

"I would have gotten away if—" Robbie tried to think of something that would excuse him for being captured. "—If I didn't trip on that stupid tree stump. I punched most of those bats!"

"Robbie, you tried to take a selfie while running away from the bats. I got away though. My dad gave my brothers and me Apocalypse training."

"Didn't know there was training for that," Fred responded.

"But how did this whole thing happen?" Velma asked. "Inter-dimensional beings usually don't exist, let alone take over a town."

"That's where Dipper and Mabel's uncle comes in," Wendy responded. "He made a portal that went into Bill's world. He didn't realize what would happen until it was too late."

"I don't believe one can make a portal between worlds," Velma said.

"After last summer, I believe anything is possible," Wendy said firmly.

"Well, this has been eye opening," Fred stated. "I've been thinking about why the only hotel in this town is unavailable. Obviously it keeps away out of towners. I wonder what else is going on there?"

"If you're thinking what I'm thinking, Fred. We need to go to that Inn," Velma said.

"Like what do you think is going on there?" Shaggy asked.

"Let's go and find out," Fred responded.