Shaggy felt like he was living in a surreal world. Not only was he reeling from being turned into a fuzzy-faced werewolf, he was still feeling in a perpetual state of weirdness from Dracula treating him like a fellow monster earlier that evening. The shaggy-haired man had no idea whether Dracula was using this as another way to torture his mind, or if he was actually thought of as one of Dracula's realm monsters.
He didn't tell Googie, Scrappy or Scooby about the conversation he'd had with Dracula, mainly because he still hadn't fully processed it himself.
"We must be getting close to the castle now." Googie broke the silence. This was not said in the same excited "we're almost there" tone that Googie usually had whenever she went on a long road trip; it was said in a much more subdued tone that almost conveyed a sense of defeat.
"Your little sveetheart is correct, Shah-gee!" Dracula exclaimed, as he poked his head out from the cockpit.
"Look! The cashle!" Crunch blathered as he also peaked his head out of the cockpit of the plane. Shaggy assumed Brunch must have been driving the helicopter, since he was the only one who did not walk into the main area of the helicopter.
Shaggy almost didn't want to look, but his anxious curiosity got the better of him. The castle looked just as he remembered it. The large metal gates with the bat on top, the words "Castle Dracula" affixed on top of those gates; the creepy stone castle that looked centuries old; the scraggly looking trees that surrounded the castle. Everything looked horrifyingly familiar.
He didn't remember the ceiling to a garage-like portion of the castle opening to let Dracula's Bat-Copter in, but he assumed he must have experienced the same thing previously when he was unconscious.
"I hope you're ready to reunite with all your fellow monsters, Shah-gee!" Dracula added.
"Is he being creepy or…chummy?" Googie whispered, quirking an eyebrow at the oddness of the Vampire King's statement.
"Like, I don't know." Shaggy whispered back. He had the urge to divulge how Dracula had previously acted like Shaggy was one of his monsters earlier, but there was no way to do it now without Dracula overhearing. Given this, he vowed to wait until later.
"Be careful to not get the vings caught again, Crunch!" Dracula commanded. Almost within seconds of Dracula's order, a loud crash resounded throughout the plane.
"Showwy." Crunch hung his head in disdain.
Dracula raced to the window to see what Crunch had done this time. Shaggy, Googie, Scrappy and Scooby did the same, as all of them were curious what blunder the Hunch Bunch had gotten them into now.
A quick glance out the window showed a large, snarly tree branch snugly pushed against the plane. A closer look demonstrated that Crunch had somehow gotten the helicopter's bat wings hung up in a large tree near the castle.
"Sorry sire. You see, I took a brief snack break and left Crunch for just a moment…" Brunch began, before he was interrupted.
Dracula let out an "ugh" with prolonged pronunciation near the end to express his extreme frustration at his henchmen's utter bumbling. "Sometimes I don't know vhy I keep you two around!"
"Sometimes?" Scrappy whispered, causing Googie and Scooby to giggle a bit.
It had been an arduous few hours as Dracula attempted to get the Bat-Copter down from its tangled tree trap. Ultimately, what freed the Bat-Copter from its pine tree prison was Dracula demanding that the Hunch Bunch jump out of the plane (at their own peril). After doing that, they were able to fetch an obnoxiously large pole to push the Bat-Copter free from the binding branches. Of course, this led to another dangerous mishap when the Bat-Copter subsequently began free-falling out of the branch. Luckily, the helicopter was far enough off the ground where Dracula was able to correct the Bunch's bumbles by turning the Bat-Copter back on, allowing for a landing that was…well….at least somewhat safe.
"Like, oh boy." Shaggy wiped the sweat off his brow. "I thought we'd never get outta that one!"
"You can say that again." Googie let out an anxious sigh. "Hopefully the next thing Dracula's going to command us to do is sleep."
"Yeah, I'm exhausted!" Scrappy agreed.
"Re too!" Scooby nodded in affirmation.
"Sleep?! But everyone is vaiting to reacquaint themselves vith you!"
Shaggy's gladness to be back on solid ground quickly faded into angst. He shuddered at the thought of having to "reacquaint himself" with all of these awful monsters, who he'd never got along with in the first place. He tried to ease his anxious mind by changing the subject.
"So, like, if I'm gonna be a part of your Monster Realm…what do you all monsters do when you're not racing?" Shaggy inquired, just as the gigantic stone doors of the castle loomed in front of him.
"Let me show you, Shah-gee!" Dracula exclaimed warmly. Shaggy took a look back at Googie, who was scratching her head in confusion. Scooby and Scrappy both wore confused looks on their faces as well, as the frightened foursome walked into Dracula's abode together with the King of Vampires and the Hunch Bunch.
Shaggy didn't have any memory of the main entrance hall. With him and his friends being knocked out last time, he had zero memories of what happened. All that he remembered was waking up surrounded by monsters. The red-shirted fellow wished he could say actually being conscious as he was about to meet the other monsters was more comforting, but it wasn't.
Dracula led him through the drafty entryway, which simply consisted of stone walls with tons of cobwebs. The air felt dry and stagnant, which was causing Shaggy to feel the urge to sneeze.
"Boy, it sure is stuffy in here!" Scrappy complained.
"Right around this corner." Brunch instructed.
Upon turning the corner, Shaggy was shocked at what he saw. He expected to see a gaggle of ghouls, but instead, he saw many of the monsters sitting at desks in individual offices. Frankenstein appeared to be wearing a headset, while the witch sisters intently looked at some sort of paper that was sitting on their desk.
"Like, what's going on?" Shaggy inquired.
"Is this pledge drive day or something?" Scrappy wondered.
"All of my monsters are committed to spreading evil in the vorld all year round! I can't think of anything more evil than advertising!" Dracula revealed.
"My esteemed sir, did you know that instant access to anyone could be yours for the low, low price of $9.95? With Frank's electrifying walkie talkie set, you can talk to anyone!" Frankenstein's monster boasted.
"Hey, wait a minute. Walkie talkies don't have a range of more than a mile." Googie pointed out.
"That's right!" Dracula crossed his fangs. "Isn't it vonderful?"
"More like deceitful." Googie muttered under her breath.
Shaggy's eyes drifted over to the boogeyman, who was two offices down from Frankenstein's Monster. He was also wearing a large headset, which was caked in slime due to it dribbling down his grotesque body.
"Hello, this is John, the manager at your local bank." the boogeyman impersonated. "Unfortunately, our trainee has lost your account number, routing number, pin number, and Social Security Number. Can you tell us all of those again to refresh our memory?"
Shaggy's eyes then drifted over to the witch sisters, who both had their eyes glued to a piece of paper on their desk.
"So, if we encode tons of hidden words and loaded imagery to entice our audience, that'll reel 'em in for sure!" the taller sister said as she began cackling.
"How about this: do you want your hair to look limp, lifeless and like the Frumpsgiving Day Parade? If not, then use the Sorcerer Sisters' Shampoo!" the shorter sister pitched.
"This is all horrible!" Googie gasped.
"Yes, it is, isn't it! Vhy, just this veek, ve've given 50 ideas and $50,000 to special interest groups all around the vorld!" Dracula exclaimed. "This vill be your job, Shah-gee! Soon, you can be spreading evil everyvhere!"
"Like, I don't wanna do that though." Shaggy replied in a cautious voice, feeling defeated.
"Oh, but you must! I command you to!" Dracula forcefully shouted.
"I…" Shaggy wanted to say something to convince him otherwise, until he realized he'd been fooled again. Dracula was only acting chummy and treating him like the semblance of an equal because he wanted to indoctrinate Shaggy into his Monster Realm. It was comforting to think that maybe he would be treated slightly better than that of a prisoner, but Shaggy quickly realized that was simply Dracula's way of fooling him into doing what Dracula wanted. Shaggy felt like a complete idiot for ever even entertaining the thought of comforting himself with the illusion that he would maybe be treated as well as the other monsters here. This situation still felt inescapable to Shaggy, but he vowed to himself that he would get out of it somehow. After all, he had more to think of than just himself. He'd gotten his girlfriend and two best friends into this mess, and he wasn't going to let fear allow him to doom them too.
"You must be tired, Shah-gee." Dracula said. "Feel free to return to the same quarters that you were in last time for the evening."
"Yeah, I think we will. Well, uh -" Shaggy felt even stupider because he was about to say "goodnight," but what the hell was he thinking, saying pleasantries to someone who had just kidnapped him and his friends? Thankfully, Shaggy had the foresight to save his pride and correct himself so that it sounded like he was saying something at least somewhat intelligent. "Let's get to bed, guys."
"Ve'll go over your job description in the morning at breakfast, Shah-gee." Dracula informed.
"Like, oh goodie." Shaggy muttered to himself, as he rolled his eyes. He didn't bother following up with a response that Dracula could actually hear.
Shaggy had reoriented himself to his surroundings once he rounded the corner and saw the same room with the stone tables they'd initially woken up on in their last visit.
"Ri remember the ray!" Scooby replied, as he began sniffing along the concrete floor of the castle.
Scooby's sniffer was confirmed by Shaggy's memory, so he didn't hesitate to follow his canine back to their room. Shaggy waited until they were way out of earshot of Dracula to say anything to his comrades and girlfriend. He knew bats had great hearing, and given Dracula could turn into one, he didn't want to take any unnecessary chances. It wasn't until Googie, Scooby, Scrappy and Shaggy started to hustle up the stairs and reached the second floor that Shaggy felt it was out of Dracula's earshot. He didn't have anything particularly mutinous to say, but given Dracula had taken his whole life away from him, he at least wanted the dignity of keeping his privacy.
"Like, what are we going to do?" Shaggy gulped, putting his hand on his forehead because the anxiety was beginning to give him a headache.
Googie's reply was strict, but in a loving, concerned way. "I think the best thing we can do is just go along with Dracula's plan for you until we find a way out of this spook-joint."
A smile barely crested Shaggy's face. "Spook-joint" was most certainly a word she'd picked up from him.
"How are we going to do that, though?" Scrappy asked. "Dracula'll just find us again!"
It surprised Shaggy to hear Scrappy express a response that wasn't hostile or something to the effect of "lemme at 'em!" He supposed maybe that meant the lingering sense of puppy was beginning to fade, and Scrappy was beginning to calm down as he matured.
"We'll just have to find a way to stop Dracula once and for all." Googie said, which discouraged Shaggy a bit. It was easy to say things like that, but actually figuring out a way to stop the King of Vampires seemed like an impossible task.
Shaggy had no energy to think about how in the hell he was going to do that. He didn't respond to Googie's comment, and instead, immediately flopped down on the left side of the large bed when they reached the bedroom. Given they'd only been gone a few days, it looked exactly the same as it had before. In fact, the bed hadn't even been made yet from the day of the race. Dracula was likely so busy pursuing them that he didn't have time for insignificant things like that. Shaggy quickly rolled over to the right side of the bed, remembering that Googie always said she felt most comfortable sleeping on her left side.
With all the anxiety and panic he was feeling, Shaggy never thought he'd get to sleep. However, the fact that the past few days had probably been the most stressful of his entire life caused him to surprisingly fall asleep the instant his head hit the pillow.
Shaggy dreaded the feeling of waking up. He just wanted to lay in this bed forever so that he didn't have to deal with the frighteningness of what his life had become. Begrudgingly, he opened his eyes and noticed that Googie was sitting up in bed. No sign of Scooby or Scrappy, though. Shaggy took that opportunity to give his girlfriend a passionate kiss on the lips.
"Good morning, sweetie." Googie smiled, as she saw her boyfriend's lips coming towards hers.
"Morning." Shaggy replied. "Like, are Scooby and Scrappy up yet?"
"Not yet." Googie whispered, pointing at the two sleeping dogs lying peacefully on the floor.
"Like, did you have any overnight epiphanies about how to get out of this from sleeping on it?" Shaggy asked hopefully. He was sure that his attempt was for naught, but a little hopeful part inside of him drove him to ask.
"Afraid not." Googie let out a light chuckle.
"Shucks." Shaggy replied, snapping his fingers. He thought he'd done so quietly, but he questioned that when Scooby woke up.
"Morning, Raggy." Scooby said in a friendly fashion.
"Like, good morning, Scoob." Shaggy greeted.
"And good morning from Scrappy-Doo, too!" the pup added.
"Well, should we go down to see what Dracula's got in store for you…and us…today?" Googie inquired.
"Like, I guess now's as good of a time as any." Shaggy sighed, sloppily rolling out of bed and getting to his feet. He honestly dreaded seeing whatever the fanged fiend had in store for him and his friends, but he presumed if they didn't go downstairs soon, Dracula would come looking for him. He was able to find Shaggy cross-country, so Shaggy assumed Dracula would have no problem going up a flight of stairs to search for him and his friends.
Breakfast was Shaggy's favorite meal of the day. The eggs, the pancakes, the biscuits, the cereal, the sausage…all of it made Shaggy's mouth water just thinking about it. However, when the shaggy-haired man saw the spread the King of Vampires had brought out for breakfast, he gagged. It was the same gross monster food that they'd served at the party: cobweb covered bread of some sort, moldy grapefruit, and some sort of slimy looking biscuit. Shaggy felt a bit relieved when he saw what appeared to be strawberry syrup on the table, but his stomach quickly clenched again when he saw it wasn't syrup at all…it was blood!
"Yuck, is that what I think it is?" Googie gasped. Shaggy had no idea what specifically she was looking at, but he was pretty sure it was safe to say that anything here was probably exactly as gross as she presumed it was.
"I think so." Scrappy gulped.
"Ruck!" Scooby gagged.
"Yuck?!" Dracula exclaimed in frustration. "Vhy, I think vonce you stay here for a little vhile, you vill grow to love everything ve serve!"
"Like, somehow I doubt that." Shaggy gulped.
"So Shah-gee, I vanted to talk to you about vhat you vill be doing in my Monster Realm." Dracula began.
"Advertising for you guys?" Shaggy guessed.
"Vell…kind of. Ve allow for a lot of freedom here in the Monster Realm! Each monster is able to advertise for vhatever they are most passionate about." Dracula revealed.
"But, like, I'm not passionate about anything! I don't even want to be here!" Shaggy whimpered.
"Shah-gee, if you just embrace that you are a verevolf, this vill be a lot less difficult for you! Now, vhat product or service do you vant to sell?" Dracula said, in a much more commanding voice than he had used previously.
"Like, I don't know. What do you guys think?" Shaggy looked towards Googie, Scrappy and Scooby for help. Sadly, Scooby and Scrappy just shrugged, and Googie shook her head to denote she did not have any ideas.
"Then I vill pick something for you!" Dracula vowed. "You shall sell cars! You vere a racecar driver in your old life, no?"
"Like, yeah, but I don't know how to advise people on how to buy the right car." Shaggy admitted.
"Perfect! No used car salesman does!" Dracula chuckled. "The point is making money and perpetuating evil misdoings, not being an expert!"
"And what are we supposed to do while he's doing that?" Scrappy asked.
"Oh…you…" it was clear from his response that Dracula had given zero thought to this. He'd likely been so caught up in capturing Shaggy one way or another that he hadn't even stopped to think about how to handle the other three individuals he'd also kidnapped.
"Vhy don't you help Shaggy vith papervork or something?" Dracula finally suggested, before quickly moving on. "Anyvay, Shaggy, you should fill up vith breakfast before starting your busy day!"
"Wait, I'm starting today?" Shaggy blurted out, before instantly realizing the silliness of that question. Why should he expect anything less from a ruthless dictator like Dracula?
"Of course you are, Shah-gee! The vitch sisters vill be training you this morning, and by the afternoon, I'll expect you'll be as knowledgeable as any of the other monsters!" Dracula warmly exclaimed.
Shaggy had heard of unrealistic supervisors, but this was ridiculous. How could Dracula expect him to know as much as the other monsters on his first day?
He supposed Dracula was going to force him to eat the awful-looking breakfast if he didn't touch it, so he decided to at least make the attempt to eat some of it. His brain scanned over the food that was in front of him, and he tried to think about what was just gross-looking and what would actually make him ill. The moldy grapefruit would likely lead to an unwanted trip to the bathroom in an hour or two, as would the slimy blood-slathered biscuit. The cobweb-covered bread was gross, but it likely was the one thing here that wouldn't make him sick to his stomach.
He thought about only grabbing one piece, but he knew his body would need the nourishment, so he decided to grab a few pieces even if it tasted gross. He unwittingly took a bite of one of them, immediately tasting a charred morsel on his taste buds. This caused him to gag a little. Whoever had made this bread had burned it to oblivion.
"So, how is it, Shah-gee?" Dracula asked.
"Like, not so good." Shaggy was brutally honest.
"Ah, too bad." Dracula shrugged. "Take your bread to go, Shah-gee! There is much vork to be done!"
"Rhat about rus?" Scooby wondered.
"Ah, vell, you'll be needing to do a lot of papervork for…" Dracula paused to shudder. "...ugh…legal reasons. You can fill that out vhile Shaggy's training!"
If Shaggy wasn't mistaken, it was almost like Dracula didn't know what to do with his friends. He was so focused on making sure Shaggy did exactly what he wanted that he didn't even seem to really have an idea of how to handle the others. Perhaps this was something they could use to their advantage later if they tried to escape, if it continued to be a pattern. For now though, Shaggy was focused on getting through whatever horror of a training program Dracula was about to put him through.
Shaggy did as he was told and picked up the two and a half pieces of cobweb covered bread he had remaining. He was going to leave them on the table due to how awful they tasted, but a sudden feeling of ravenousness boiled up inside his stomach. This feeling was so overpowering that he gobbled down all of the remaining bread in one bite.
"Wow, Shaggy, you sure must have been hungry to eat that yucky stuff!" Googie exclaimed in shock.
"Like, yeah, I guess I was." Shaggy simply said. A part of him feared that this was the wolf inside coming to the surface. He'd never had any problems before in the race, but he presumed that being turned into a werewolf twice in the span of a week wasn't exactly optimal for one's biology. He slightly comforted himself with the thought that maybe it was just his body going haywire from the changes, rather than gaining newfound carnal urges from being a wolf.
"Right this vay, Shah-gee." Dracula led Shaggy through a corridor, as he waved goodbye to the others.
"See you tonight, Shaggy!" Googie said, as Scrappy and Scooby waved along with her.
"Yeah, have fun at work, Shaggy!" Scrappy remarked, which surprised Shaggy. Scrappy was usually eager and feisty enough to fight against things like this, but his reaction almost seemed like acceptance of their circumstances.
Shaggy said nothing as he walked down the drafty corridor with Dracula. He was too frightened to really utter anything. He'd never really worked in a place for more than a few weeks. He knew getting your first professional job was already a scary enough thing as it is, so the thought that his first professional job was being employed with Dracula was far, far worse.
A cobweb snagged Shaggy's face as he walked past, causing him to sneeze. Unfortunately for him, it wasn't a particularly clean sneeze. It was a snotty, messy sneeze that sprayed everywhere.
Great. His first day at his first professional job, with Dracula no less, and he'd already embarrassed himself. Thankfully for him, Dracula didn't seem to comment on it at all. They quickly approached the witch sisters' office, passing the offices of Frankenstein's Monster and the boogeyman on the way. When they approached the witches' office, both sisters perked their heads up when they saw their boss coming.
"I have our trainee here for you!" Dracula informed the witch sisters.
"Excellent!" the shorter sister said in a shrill voice.
"Let's walk you to your office." the taller sister informed, as she stood up. The other sister was quick to follow, as they led the young werewolf to his new office. As they got back out in the hallway and began walking, they passed the offices of several other monsters: the Dragonfly Monster, Repulsa, the mummy, Bonejangles, and Dr. Jackyll and Mr. Snyde.
"Like, what do all of those guys do?" Shaggy wondered.
"Oh, let's see." the shorter sister began. "Bonejangles cons old people, the Dragonfly Monster does phone scams, the mummy does pyramid schemes, Repulsa sells science equipment, and Dr. Jackyll and Mr. Snyde does work for Big Pharma!"
"Good morning, madam. I am so sorry to tell you this news, but your grandson has been kidnapped by freaky French pirates." Bonejangles broke the fake news.
Shaggy couldn't hear specific words, but he briefly heard a flurry of frightened yelling on the other end.
"Yes, I know you just saw him a few hours ago, but he was just kidnapped minutes ago. As your kidnapping liaison, you'll need to pay me $4,000 to free him." Bonejangles replied.
"Top of the morning to you, sssir." the Dragonfly slurped. "Sssorry to bug you!"
"Side effects to this medication include runny nose, bronchitis, zoological fantasies, heart attack, and death. But, you know, these pills will get rid of stomach aches, so you could also say one of the side effects is feeling awesome!" Dr. Jackyll and Mr. Snyde pitched.
"That's right, all of this money could be yours! All you have to do is get two friends to invest with you on the sturdiest teeter-totter ever, and then also get them to tell two of their friends! See, it's like we're creating a whole new family here!" the mummy explained.
Shaggy didn't say it out loud, but everything about the position he was about to start sounded absolutely terrible and evil. He wanted to scam and trick people about as much as he wanted to be a werewolf, which was not at all.
They had nearly reached the end of the hall before they arrived at Shaggy's office. Shaggy's office was the very last one. The mummy's office was to the right of his, but the other side was bordered by a large gray brick wall.
Upon entering his office, Shaggy did not see much. There was only a phone, a large computer, a pad of paper, and a few pencils.
"Well, here's your headset." the taller witch pointed to the headphones on Shaggy's desk. "Good luck!"
"Wait, you're like, not gonna train me at all?" Shaggy gasped. He knew they were monsters, but given what Dracula said, he expected at least a little bit of training.
"No! What do you think this is, an employment agency?" the tall witch snapped. "By the way, you'll be expected to report on your successes at our weekly staff meeting this afternoon!"
"But, like, it's my first day!" Shaggy reminded, equal parts scared and frustrated. It was beyond unreasonable to expect him to reach great levels of success with just a few hours on the job.
The two witches simply cackled menacingly.
"And, like, I don't even know what car I'm supposed to be selling!" Shaggy added.
"Here!" the smaller witch conjured up an advertisement packet with her wand, which appeared on Shaggy's desk. Both of them began cackling again, before they left his office.
"Man, like, who knew I'd have to deal with the nightmare of meeting Dracula and figuring out how to be an adult on the same day!" Shaggy lamented to himself, sighing. He supposed there was nothing else to do other than look at the packet the witches had conjured for him.
The packet had an old junky looking red car on it, labeled Pontiac LeMans. Nothing about the car looked particularly special, and it was certainly no Mustang or Ferrari. There was a list of a few different features the vehicle had, but many of them were laughable. It was a compact car, had only three doors, and had front-wheel drive. Shaggy supposed the last feature could be useful, but the other two seemed like something you'd want to stay away from at all costs.
Once Shaggy had reviewed each of the features on the vehicle, he now had to figure out who exactly to call. He had no idea if he was supposed to call a specific list of people or just dial random numbers and see if they belonged to anyone. He figured he would have to go ask, so he got out of the uncomfortably hard swivel chair he was sitting on and headed over to the witches' office. Shaggy dreaded asking them for help again, but he didn't really know what choice he would have.
"Hey, um, I just was wondering who I'm supposed to call to advertise this car." Shaggy inquired.
The witch sisters looked up from the paper they were working on briefly, cackled, and then went back to work. Clearly they would be no help. Instead of dignifying whatever the hell kind of response that was, he decided to try to wrap his head around this by asking the mummy.
Shaggy knocked on the mummy's door, and saw he was just wrapping up a call.
"Excellent, now just remember to tell two of your friends, and they'll tell two of their friends, and they'll tell two of their friends, etc. It'll be one big happy family!" the mummy finished his call, before shifting his attention to Shaggy. His tone was curt and annoyed. "What is it?"
"Uh, like, Mr…uh…Mummy, sir." Shaggy babbled. He was shaking harder than a leaf in an autumn breeze.
"Just tell me what you want!" the mummy snapped.
"Who exactly am…uh…I suppose to, like, call?" Shaggy stuttered.
"Just dial random numbers and see who you get! Now leave me to my work!" the mummy growled.
"Okay, uh, like, thanks!" Shaggy stumbled over his words, quickly realizing that he shouldn't have said anything at all for how cruel of a response he got. He scrambled back to his office so that he wouldn't have any more negative run-ins with anybody.
Shaggy already hated making phone calls, so bothering a bunch of strangers to advertise his junk wasn't exactly something he wanted to do. He supposed he really had no choice, though. He dialed the first number he could think of, 123-456-7890, to see who he got.
"Uh…hello there…uh…sir…or ma'am." Shaggy stuttered. He felt like an utter simpleton. "I'm calling today to talk to you about a car."
"Not interested. Bye!" the man snapped, immediately followed by the tone of him hanging up.
Shaggy tried a different number now. Just doing one was absolute agony, so he couldn't imagine calling people all day. This time, he tried 098-765-4321.
"Hi, I'm calling to sell you a car." Shaggy said, immediately regretting that he'd phrased it in that dumb way.
"What? Huh?" the guy on the other end said. "Dude, I don't know what you're talking about, but we're havin' a toga party here! Wanna join?"
"Like, uh, no. I'm calling to -" Shaggy tried to rephrase his clownish initial try. He was quickly drowned out by the guy on the other end.
"Toga! Toga! Toga!" a crowd chanted.
"Hey everyone, sorry, but I need to leave. I'm going to yoga." a girl on the other end could be heard saying.
"Alright everyone, let's go with her!" the initial guy said, before the sound on the other end of the phone erupted into the crowd chanting again. "Yoga! Yoga! Yoga!"
Shaggy simply hung up on the man before any more shenanigans occurred.
"That was the worst pitch I've ever heard!" Frankenstein's Monster taunted.
"Yeah!" the boogeyman laughed. "'I'm calling to sell you a car'? That's pathetic!"
"I…" Shaggy didn't really have an explanation for his poor performance, other than the fact that he was new on the job, which his coworkers didn't seem to care about.
"At least try to trick 'em or something!" Repulsa joined her husband and the boogeyman.
"I…I'm sorry. I'll do better." Shaggy hung his head, feeling depressed and hopeless.
Shaggy had trouble thinking of the perfect pitch for this awful car without lying, but he supposed that to succeed in this job, you needed to exaggerate. He immediately tried calling 111-111-1111 to show the other monsters that he was competent and capable, and someone picked up.
"Hello?" the man's tone sounded irritated.
Shaggy knew that this type of job didn't really allow for passivity or true kindness, so he took a deep breath before responding to the man and tried to exude an aura of confidence.
"Hi, my name is Norville Rogers and, boy, have I got the deal of the century for you!"
"I'm listening." the man sounded impatient.
"Do you like cars?" Shaggy asked.
"Hell yeah! What do you think I am, some kinda minivan-drivin' weenie?" the man laughed. Shaggy already hated his posturing personality.
"Well, I'm selling the one great American car: a Pontiac!" Shaggy exclaimed.
"Pontiac? Ha! Call me back when ya got a Chevy!" the man sneered.
Shaggy supposed the old "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" saying applied here. He knew that to be able to convince this man to buy his shitty product, he'd have to lie through his teeth.
"Well, actually sir, Pontiac recently realized that they suck, so they improved their vehicles! The Pontiac LeMans has got front-wheel drive, you know, for when…" Shaggy struggled to think of a reason why anyone would ever want to use that feature. "For when you're drivin' in the mud and shit!"
"Woah!" the guy exclaimed. Shaggy hated tricking this guy into buying a car that was even shittier than his awful personality, but he knew that he'd piqued this person's interest. It would be easy now to sell the car to this guy. "Sounds pretty boss, man! How much?"
"Only about $10,000." Shaggy then proceeded to do what every used car salesman would do…lie his arse off. "But you seem like a cool guy, so I'll give it to you for a cool $9,500."
"Boy, you've got great taste in people, man." the man exclaimed, without a hint of humor or sarcasm in his voice. "So how do I get this jacked-up son of a bitch?"
Shaggy had been so focused on selling this piece of junk that he hadn't really thought about how he would actually give people the cars. A quick glance at the packet the witches had conjured up for him showed that all he needed to get the guy to do was to mail a form to Pontiac Headquarters, and the car would be shipped to him. Shaggy had no idea how exactly Dracula would get this money, but he presumed these organizations paid Dracula and the Monster Realm somehow.
"Just give me your address and I'll mail a form to you, brother. Then, you send it to Pontiac, and they'll ship it to your house for as cheap as they possibly can!" Shaggy said. He hated putting on this hypermasculine bravado just to fit in with this tough guy, but he knew that's what he needed to do to sell the vehicle.
"Thanks man, I really appreciate it. It's 15 Johnson Lane in Los Angeles, CA. My zip code is 90001." the man gave his address. Shaggy used the pad of paper and a pencil to write it down.
"I'll get it sent there, and pretty soon, you'll be ridin' around with your boys through the biggest mud puddles!" Shaggy promised, feeling gross doing so.
"Hell yeah! How'd you know I like to do that?" the man asked.
"Lucky guess?" Shaggy chuckled.
"Have a good day, my man." the guy said.
Shaggy was going to give a warm salutation back, but he guessed guys like that didn't exchange mutual pleasantries.
"Yup." is all Shaggy said, before hanging up the phone, feeling like an asshole. He hated this job more than hatred itself. People often complained about how their boss was the worst or they hated how thankless their job was, but Shaggy was literally performing a job of pure evil. He wasn't even doing regular advertising where they advertised legitimate products; he was intentionally selling people shoddy merchandise with the intent of tricking them. He didn't know how much longer he could take doing this.
Shaggy proceeded to have a relatively excellent and stomach-churning day, depending on how you looked at it. By morphing to the customer's personality and intentionally trying to deceive them, he had gotten five people to purchase the Pontiac LeMans. He was currently working on a sixth.
"So, you like collecting art, right? Just think of how many pieces of artwork you could haul in the back of your new Pontiac LeMans. Why, I bet you could make your house into a museum with all the artwork you'd be able to haul!" Shaggy pitched. "Heck, you could even argue that this car is art with how unique it is!"
"You know, you're right. My wife's sick of me getting wet paint all over her back seat. I could just wait until the paintings dry to put them in her car, but what the hell, I'll just buy a new car!" the guy replied.
"You know, I was an art major in college. It's crazy, but I'm seeing so much of myself in everything you're saying. It's like you're my brother from a weird alternate reality!" Shaggy lied. "Because of that, I wanna cut you a bargain. I'm supposed to sell this car for $10,000, but I'm gonna give it to you for $9,500. Just don't tell anyone, okay?"
"My lips are sealed!" the customer promised.
"Great!" Shaggy said knowing that what he was doing was actually awful. The car was only worth $8,000 at the most, so he was still ripping them off despite framing it as cutting them a bargain. The more he lied, the more enticing it was to just lie again to get the outcome that he wanted. The worst part about it though is that it wasn't even the outcome he wanted. It was the outcome Dracula wanted. "Just tell me your address and I'll send you a form to fill out, then you just send it back to Pontiac, and they'll ship it to you."
"It's 909 Terrier Avenue in Madison, Wisconsin, 53711." the man shared. "Thanks, man. Have a great day!"
"Yeah, you too!" Shaggy said. Just as he hung up the phone, he noticed Frankenstein's monster and Repulsa at his door.
"Our team meeting is now." Frankenstein's monster said.
"Same place you ate breakfast this morning." Repulsa added. Both of them walked out without saying another word. He expected as much, because they didn't seem like particularly talkative coworkers.
As much as he hated the feeling, Shaggy actually felt somewhat confident about his performance on the job. Unlike his fears this morning, he would have something to report to the other monsters. He still dreaded the meeting, though, because he didn't feel proud of anything he was doing. In fact, he felt terrible about it.
Nonetheless, he slowly sauntered down the cobweb-covered corridor, and continued walking, lost in a haze of his thoughts, until he got over to the table and took a seat.
"Velcome to another meeting, everyone! So, let's go around the table and each share a deliciously evil success from the veek. Shah-gee, would you like to start?" Dracula inquired.
"Like, sure." Shaggy gulped. "On my first day, I sold six clunky Pontiac LeManses to customers for $1,500 over the advertised price."
There was silence at first, which put Shaggy in a bit of a state of dis-ease. What followed, however, was even worse. Every monster sitting at the table began to laugh heartily.
"Six?!" the short witch sister cackled. "Why, just this week, I wrote seven advertisements and swindled 100 people!"
"And I sold 50 people dangerous medications that could possibly kill them!" Dr. Jackyll boasted, before he turned into Mr. Snyde and laughed.
"I stole 30 old people's identities by making them give me their most personal information!" the Boogeyman bragged.
Shaggy slunk down in his seat as he listened to the rest of the monsters' reports of all their evil misdoings. He had already felt horrible tricking six people into buying something they probably didn't even want, so the pressure that he had to do even better at doing bad things felt like a punch to the gut. He knew in his heart he couldn't do this anymore. As he listened to the rest of the monsters, he sat in his seat with a blank expression, as he got lost in his head daydreaming about how in the hell he could possibly get out of here.
Thank goodness all the other monsters decided to take the rest of the day off after the meeting, because Shaggy didn't think he could possibly take any more of this awful job. Immediately following the meeting, he ran upstairs to his bedroom, hoping he could at least have a bit of solitude with his friends.
"Hey, it's Shaggy!" Scrappy exclaimed excitedly. "How was your day?"
"Like, awful." Shaggy gulped, feeling a lump in his throat as he said it. Being chased by monsters and pesky life responsibilities now felt like a different, less intense kind of fear than it had before. Those things scared him, but this was the first time anything had simultaneously frightened him and made him feel like shit. "How about yours?"
"It rot rinda roring." Scooby admitted.
"Oh, it was fine. You'll have to do a couple of these forms, Shaggy. I don't know your tax ID information, so I don't know why Dracula had us do it." Googie said.
"Yeah. These forms didn't take too long, so we just had to read some books Dracula had lying around. He's got some pretty weird books in here!" Scrappy said, handing one that said 101 Surefire Questions to Make Your Romantic Relationships Awkward to Googie.
"This one was the weirdest." Googie said, reading one of the questions from it. "How soon is too soon to share your Social Security Number with your significant other?"
Shaggy wanted to laugh at the weirdness of the book, but he was so depressed he couldn't muster up the energy to do it.
"Wow, Shaggy. I've never seen you like this. You look really depressed. What happened?" Googie asked.
Shaggy let out a sigh. He didn't want to unload like this on his friends, but he supposed he had to so that they knew the decision the nightmarish team meeting had pushed him to.
"Well, like, let's see. I had to sell a car that even the city dump is too good for, I had to swindle six people out of nearly $10,000 each, I had to pretend to be someone I'm not to deceive others into trusting me…" Shaggy took a deep breath. "The worst thing is that I told the other monsters all of that at the team meeting, and they said what I did still wasn't nearly evil enough! I hate my coworkers. I hate this job. And I hate this place so much I can't stand being here any longer!"
"Oh Shaggy, that's horrible!" Googie said, touching her perturbed boyfriend's shoulder to comfort him. "But it's not like there's anything we can do at the moment."
"Oh yes there is!" Shaggy said. He knew what he was about to say was crazy, but he didn't feel like there was any other option. He was quite literally in a nightmarish scenario, and he knew he had to take any chance he possibly had to get out. The words lingered on the tip of his tongue as he made the final decision about whether to say them, but he ultimately decided that this was the best course of action.
"I'm going to challenge Dracula to another Monster Road Rally."
Author's note:
For those readers that are into classic cars, you probably recognized that the Pontiac LeMans is a real car deemed one of the worst cars of the 1980s. The Pontiac LeMans was originally designed in 1961, and was discontinued in 1981 due to the redesign for the next year's model being deemed too expensive to justify the cost. The quality of the models for all of these years was considered decent by the general public. It wasn't until the car was resurrected in 1988 that the vehicle got its "worst car" status, due to the interior quality being quite shoddy and needing constant repairs.