Author's Note: As noted in the previous chapter with the appearance of Miranda in the later sequence, her appearance was inspired by Crystal Rose of Pollux's Season 2 of 13GSD stories. One thing to note is that Miranda is an original character created by Crystal Rose of Pollux with an inspiration from classic horror film stars.
As a matter a fact, Crystal Rose of Pollux has created a band of original characters serving as Vincent Van Ghoul's contemporaries, classmates and instructors, and like Vincent himself, they are all inspired by classic horror film stars. With their fine permission, all these original characters created by Crystal Rose of Pollux will be appearing throughout my Dimension Four stories.
Right off the bat are the four characters, all part of the Athenians of Advanced Class 36 of the Saronic Academy, who had already appeared in the original 13GSD series with their character designs based on the following actors:
Vincent Van Ghoul - Vincent Price
Victor Voudini - Christopher Lee
Byron Befuddle - Peter Cushing
Boris Kreepoff - Boris Karloff
The characters in the lists below are all created by Crystal Rose of Pollux, who has generously granted me permission to utilize them in my Dimension Four stories. The actors and actresses they are inspired from are as follows:
Athenians of Advanced Class 36:
Miranda Muir - Gene Tierney
Alisa Lancaster - Elsa Lanchester
The Corinthians of Advanced Class 36:
Baz Oster - Basil Rathbone
Bela Cronqvist - Bela Lugosi
Gloria Cronqvist - Gloria Holden
Leonidas Romulus II - Lon Chaney Jr
Claude Torrents - Claude Rains
Debora Cosette - Debra Paget
The staff of the Saronic Academy of Magical Arts:
Dean Cesare - Conrad Veidt
Associate Dean Leonidas - Lon Chaney Sr
Associate Dean Reed - John Carradine
Instructor Endora - Agnes Moorehead
Furthermore, Crystal Rose of Pollux has also established a series of events in the life of Vincent Van Ghoul in which I have also received permission to replicate for my series, with the events in question being as follows:
- The mountaintop duel in the year 41 AD, back when Vincent was 25 years old and was engaged to Miranda before calling it off in the fallout from the duel
- Rescuing Daphne's 11th great grandfather from drowning in 1692 while trying to escape from witch hunters, later himself rescued by the boy's mother (and thus Daphne's 12th great grandmother), identified as Isabel as depicted in Crystal Rose of Pollux's story The Ghost Bride of Hagglethorn Hall
Once again, special thanks to Crystal Rose of Pollux for providing me the inspiration and permission.
In addition, several more authors deserve honourary mentions for providing me the inspiration as well.
Ellis97 for inspiring me to utilize the other mystery solvers created by Hanna-Barbera in my stories, namely the Chan Clan, the Speed Bugs, Jabberjaw and the Neptunes, Captain Caveman and the Teen Angels and the Funky Phantom gang.
The Thirteenth Ghost (from the Shaggy/Daphne forums) for inspiring me to create this series in the first place.
And lastly, Seahawksfan1 (formerly Scoobyfan1) for providing me the inspiration of having members of the gang depicted to have magical powers.
October 27, 1863
Location: Île-sur-Bayou Sous-Orléans, Louisiana, Confederate States of America
It was an offer he couldn't refuse.
His life has never been the same since he was medically discharged from the Navy after he was wounded in action while participating in the Siege of Veracruz on board the USS Mississippi during the Mexican-American War almost 15 years ago.
Even before his enlistment in the Navy as a young lad, he was observed to fit in well with the lifestyle of living by the sea and any body of water.
Some will comment he eats, swims, lives and drinks like a fish, and he would often take these comments in stride.
It has always been his dream to go out into the world and explore the seas, although the crippling poverty of his family meant his only chance of being on the water was when he and his brothers accompanied their father out at sea to fish.
Ever since his great-grandfather and family were expelled from their ancestral home in Acadia by the British a century ago, life for his family was never easy as they settled in what was then-French Louisiana.
Things only got harder for his family when his father was the sole survivor of an ill-fated fishing run before a hurricane, and it didn't help matters that his grandfather was the sole breadwinner at the time of the ill-fated fishing run.
The same thing will happen to him decades later, when he and his father and brothers went out to sea and a freak storm that followed left him as the sole survivor.
While he endured in spite of the difficulties, enlisted in the Navy and started his own family, things sure seem to have come undone after he was discharged from the Navy.
Although still physically fit to resume fishing, he wasn't getting any younger, plus the injuries he sustained in the Siege of Veracruz has left him without the physical strength necessary for him to carry out fishing on a day-to-day basis like he used to.
As a result, he decided to turn to captaining various ships, specifically ferrying cargo through the bayou to the Port of New Orleans.
However, all of that came to a screeching halt on January 1861 when the Governor of Louisiana ordered the state's militias to occupy the U.S. arsenal at Baton Rouge and the forts guarding New Orleans, cumulating to the state's secession from the Union in the lead up to the Civil War.
His livelihood suffered greatly as a result of the blockade, made worse by the rebs conscripting his only son Maurice, leaving his wife and daughters to tend to the family home and accommodating the soldiers, and commandeering his ship to patrol the bayou with him as a scout.
And it wasn't long before a series of naval defeats by the Union Navy near the bayou led to rumours spreading that someone in the area was spying for those d*mn Yanks, as those supportive of the Confederacy puts it.
Suspicion quickly narrowed on Maurice, who had deserted and defected to the Union side, and the information he was passing on to the Union contributed to the Union victory in the Battle of Vermillion Bayou that summer.
It was the 8th Louisiana Regiment under the command of Colonel Jackson T. Pettigrew that stormed his house, demanding information on Maurice's whereabouts.
His wife and daughters fiercely denied everything, even though Maurice continued to regularly correspond with him and them, and in the heat of the moment during the ensuring argument, one of the soldiers accidentally knocked down an oil lamp, causing it to catch fire.
The soldiers were quick to withdraw from the house, but not before threatening to shoot them should they try to escape.
With the whole house catching fire, Pettigrew and the regiment only looked on coldly as the occupants burned to death.
He was very devastated by the news of the fire and his wife and daughter's deaths, and the news of Maurice being killed in a later battle only added to his despair.
Though he continued to carry on with his position as a scout for the Confederates in the bayou, he was eager to get out.
His opportunity presented itself when he was ordered to scout Sous-Orléans Bayou for any signs of Yankee troops in the area, which subsequently brought him to the island.
Simone and Lena were receptive of his stories. In particular, Lena reminded him of his daughter, and though Simone concerned about letting an outsider stay on the island, she eventually warmed to him on account of his family's shared history with them.
Under the pretense of discovering a Union base on the island, he led Pettigrew and the 8th Louisiana Regiment onto the island.
After the sun has set, Simone and Lena invited him to their cave under the mansion, where they presented him with an offer.
Join them and become immortal and take the chance to avenge his family's death, in exchange for scouting for prospective tourists to come to the island and help preserve their immortality.
As Simone and Lena have explained, after they had drained the life forces of Morgan Moonscar and his wrenched crew of pirates nearly a century earlier, they discovered that their immortality has came with a cost.
In many ways, immortality can be a double-edged sword.
For one, they will always remain youthful, unburdened by age.
And two, their immortality has rendered them invincible, not to mention energetic and agile, which allows them to get around more easily.
However, the wish for immortality granted to them by le dieu chat as a means for them to avenge their slaughtered family and friends had transformed them.
Neither of them could put the words to describe the perpetual hunger, as if the food they've harvested and prepared was never enough to satisfy it.
And as they soon learned, like all things related to immortality, there was a price that came with it.
Granted, they were not confined to the island and condemned to turning to dust as soon as they step out of the island, nothing like the immortality offered by the Holy Grail from those Arthurian legends he's heard so much about.
But, much to Simone and Lena's horror, if they do not drain the life forces of any other human being within twenty years, not only would they cease to be immortal, their aging would also accelerate rapidly.
And the aging process considers only how many years have went by since they were first cursed with compounded interest in calculating how many years they age as a result, meaning if they were to miss out the first deadline on draining, or harvest as Simone described it, the life forces, they would not just age twenty years.
Instead, if they missed out on draining others' life forces in 1793, Simone and Lena would age 25 years. Furthermore, they will be stuck in a constant state of hunger for another 25 years that can only be satisfied if they drain more life forces than usual on an annual basis.
And to make matters worse, they cannot regain the lost years that aged into them if they miss a deadline.
It was a big price to pay for immortality, having to lure people onto the island for the purposes of draining their life forces.
However, with no family nor home to go back to, coupled with the sense of abandonment from Maurice's handlers in the Union, he really had nothing to lose.
It felt like his body was burning from within as the full moon shined down onto the ritual room. But it was a different burning sensation, one that felt like the flames from within cleansing his body, like a rebirth.
He wasn't sure what he looked like following the transformation, as he had no reflection in the mirror. But judging from the horrified look on Pettigrew's face when he confronted him, it must be nothing anyone has ever seen.
Even Simone and Lena were surprised when they saw him following his transformation. However, they were all the more happy to see him looking like them as they charged at Pettigrew and the 8th Louisiana Regiment.
Pettigrew and several of the soldiers had put up quite the fight, most of whom resorted to using their rifles.
It felt ticklish as the bullets from the rifles hit him, and the sword blades the soldiers used for striking at him felt more like a sheet of paper.
The regiment deployed their cannons to fire at him and the ladies, though none were effective in pushing them back.
Not that the weapons made any difference whatsoever. The agility and strength from their werecat powers has rendered the regiment severely overmatched.
It was satisfying draining Pettigrew's life force, and the flow of energy through his veins made him feel young. Young enough for him to feel energetic to fish again.
Following the harvest, as they returned back to normal, Simone turned towards him.
"Bienvenue dans notre monde, Jacques Callier." (Welcome to our world, Jacques Callier.) Simone smiled.
And for the first time since he received the devastating news about the fire, he has felt that the world was...just.
One Hundred and Ten Years Later
Chapter 3: Arriving at the dock
October 25, 1973
It was a sunny morning as Mystery Inc. and Garfield checked out of the hotel, after a couple days of sightseeing across New Orleans.
Prior to parting ways with Lena and Simone three nights ago, the gang have pre-arranged with them to meet up at the marketplace in the city's Garden District, where the duo usually does their grocery-shopping at.
Sure enough, when the Mystery Machine pulled up (the gang had arranged for it to be shipped to New Orleans via motorail) in the marketplace, Simone and Lena have wrapped up their shopping and have returned to their pickup.
"Well, talk about perfect timing." Garfield remarked as they saw the duo at their pickup.
Upon shifting the van to park, Daphne rolled the window down and honked before leaning out of the open window to wave.
Simone and Lena both saw Daphne waving towards them and waved back, then they both boarded the pickup with Lena behind the wheel.
As Daphne rolled the window back up and shifted the van back to drive, Fred quipped, "And away we go."
Garfield was laying on a hammock in the back, behind the back row of seats occupied by Shaggy and Scooby, and he buckled up as Daphne drove off behind Simone and Lena's pickup.
A short while later, they were driving on a dirt road in rural Louisiana, surrounded by bayous with trees.
Given the state of the roads, the ride was quite bumpy as they drove over several cracks and bumps.
There was one particularly massive bump that caused the gang to jump on their seats briefly, even though Daphne had slowed down.
"Ooph. Jinkies!" Velma exclaimed as she almost hit the ceiling.
"Like, the roads sure are bumpy in this part, isn't it." Shaggy remarked.
"You're telling me." Daphne said as she swerved to avoid another bump.
"How're you hanging in there on the hammock back there, Garfield?" Fred asked as he saw Garfield swinging on the hammock through the rear view mirror.
"I'm well, thanks, Fred." Garfield responded as he flashed a thumbs up from the hammock.
"I'm surprised that you'd opt to lay on the hammock for this drive, Garfield." Velma remarked as she looked towards the back.
"Let's just say there's a reason why I prefer to travel by rail." Garfield shrugged. "At least the space is more spacious."
"True." Velma concurred as Daphne and the boys nodded.
"At least you're finding a way to enjoy the ride on the Mystery Machine, Garfield." Shaggy remarked.
As Shaggy was speaking, the radio began playing an introductory guitar cords accompanied by drum beats, followed by a brief strike in one of the cymbals before the band began to sing.
"When I was a little bitty baby, my mama would rock me in the cradle." The band sang. "In them old...cotton fields back home..."
Garfield, Shaggy and Scooby exchanged glances as the band continued, "It was down in Louisiana, just a mile from Texarkana, in them old...cotton fields back home."
"That's Creedence Clearwater Revival's cover of Cotton Fields as part of their 1969 album Willy and the Poor Boys." Garfield remarked, during which the Mystery Machine hit another bump, prompting him to grab onto the seat belt as the hammock swung violently.
That same bump also caused him to hic, as if he was having the hiccups, as he was speaking, which prompted Shaggy, Scooby, Fred and Velma to turn towards him while Daphne looked at him through the rear view mirror.
"You alright, Garfield?" Velma asked.
"Yes, yes I am." Garfield said as he placed his hand on his chest briefly. "That was quite the bump."
"Sorry about that, Garfield." Daphne shrugged. "If only the roads were in better shape."
"No worries about that, Daphne." Garfield replied.
"Either way, you got the name of the track playing on the radio right, Garfield, along with the band name and album." Shaggy said.
A short while later, the two vehicles have came upon a bridge crossing a bayou, though only a single lane was open due to maintenance work on the closed one.
There was a construction worker with a slow/stop sign in hand with the slow side facing them, and he immediately directed the two vehicles to go first in crossing the bridge.
"Looks like there's quite the queue waiting to cross the bridge in heading the opposite direction." Fred remarked as they saw the queue formed by vehicles travelling at the opposite direction waiting to cross the bridge at the other end, which was manned by another construction worker with the stop side of the stop/slow sign facing the traffic.
And among the vehicles waiting to cross the bridge and head the opposite direction was what appeared to be a beat-down 1950s Reo school bus that has clearly seen better days.
"That school bus is too old to be on the road, don't you think?" Daphne nodded towards the school bus in question as they drove by it after crossing the bridge.
"I'll say." Velma agreed before she leaned closer to read the words on the left side of the bus, which were spray-painted onto the body. "'Miss Grimwood's Finishing School for G...' Hmmm, that's funny, the bus is charred at the back, can't tell what the last word is."
"Like, perhaps it's a finishing school for girls?" Shaggy offered.
"Could be, though why would they continue using an old school bus that's at least twenty years old?" Fred's brows furrowed. "Might be a lack of funds if it's a private school."
"That could be it, Fred." Garfield concurred before he turned towards Velma and added, "So Velma, how much have you gathered about our destination from the libraries around town?"
"Mainly that it has been settled for almost two centuries with a plantation." Velma spoke. "And that it's where the notorious pirate Morgan Moonscar was last seen before all records about his exploits stopped."
"As in he disappeared?" Shaggy asked.
"Not just him." Velma replied. "His crew also disappeared, no more records of them were found at all."
"Sounds like a two hundred-year old mystery." Fred remarked.
"And that's not all." Velma continued. "Before he and his crew disappeared, they had a massive shipment of gold in their possession after one last raid, gold that was never found after his disappearance."
"Has anyone ever attempted to locate Morgan Moonscar's lost treasure?" Garfield asked.
"Quite a few, actually." Velma nodded. "But precise records weren't kept as to what happened when the expeditions were undertaken to locate the missing gold."
"Ri wonder rhy." Scooby remarked.
Shortly afterwards, the two vehicles have pulled up at a ferry stop and drove onto the pier leading to the ferry boat.
The boat's captain was tending to the boat when he saw the two vehicles pull up, and then he chuckled as the familiar-pickup truck pulled up with the Mystery Machine.
"Ah, Mlle Simone, je vois que vous avez amené de la compagnie, eh?" (Ah, Miss Simone, I see you've brought some company, eh?) The captain greeted.
"Oui, Jacques." Simone nodded as she stopped the pickup with her window rolled down. "They've helped stop my ex-supplier's revenge-driven rampage in destroying my restaurant and steal my recipes and we've invited them to the harvest feast in gratitude."
"Magnifique." (Splendid.) Jacques smiled as the Mystery Machine pulled up. "So you are ready for a good old-fashioned Halloween harvest feast and some long history?"
"We are." Daphne smiled. "It is our understanding that the island has a very long history."
"It does." Jacques nodded. "The plantation has been around since before the Civil War, and it is also the resting place for the notorious pirate."
"We read about him." Velma said. "Now isn't that quite the mystery, the disappearance of him and his crew, along with the treasure that was in their possession at the time of their disappearance."
"Seems like mysteries are your type of thing, isn't it?" Jacques asked.
"Yes, the van name kinda gives it away, huh?" Fred said, prompting Jacques to nod.
"Then, you'd be interested to know that the plantation mansion we're heading to for the harvest feast is haunted." Lena spoke.
"Haunted?!" Shaggy and Scooby both exclaimed.
"Oh please, it's just some legends." Simone chuckled. "After all, it is almost two hundred years old, so it is natural that there would be some legends passing on down from the past."
"And besides, what are the chances that someone would use the legend to give themselves a head start in finding the lost treasure?" Fred added.
"Exactly." Lena smiled.
"Mystery or not, it sure sounds like one way for us to cap off our vacation here in Louisiana with the rich history." Velma said.
"Now that's the spirit." Jacques nodded.
Later, the ferry boat horn blared and upon returning to the pier, Jacques gestured towards the boat and said, "Ladies first."
After Simone and Lena drove onto the boat, the Mystery Machine followed suit, then Jacques proceeded to close the gate before returning onto the boat.
The vehicles parked with the occupants disembarked and the ramp lifted, the boat soon departed from the dock.
To all of my readers out there, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!
Please read and review!