In a flash, the shadow sunk back into the bushes. None of the gang needed to communicate with each other to know what their next move was. They all began sprinting back inside at lightning speed, trying to get away from the terrifying shadow at all costs. They didn't stop running until Daphne had scanned her student ID at the front door so they could escape back into the safety of the locked school.
"Like, zoinks!" Shaggy yelped. "What was that th-th-thing?"
"I don't know, but I'm not sure I want to find out." Daphne replied, her voice quivering a bit.
"If I didn't know better, I would say it almost didn't sound human." Fred admitted. The voice was quite terrifying to him - it sounded so dried out and desecaded that he feared the thought of seeing the body it belonged to.
"You heard that the other night?" Shaggy gulped.
"Well, we didn't exactly hear it." Dusk replied. "We just saw the shadow, but it didn't speak then."
"Do you think that was the …" Luna paused for a moment before speaking again. Her breaths were deep and labored as she tried to work up the bravery to say "...murderer?"
Nobody responded for a minute. Fred didn't really want to admit to himself that it could be, even though there was definitely a possibility that whatever that awful thing they just saw was indeed the murderer.
"I think it might have been." Daphne said quietly, almost as if she was afraid to hear herself say it.
"I hate to say it, but I think Velma might have been right about investigating." Dusk brought up. "If Headmistress Quinlan isn't going to take initiative, we need to figure out who this nutcase is before he starts targeting us."
"What makes you think he's going to target us next?" Fred inquired.
"Well, the shadow directly said 'stop your meddling,' so clearly it knows we've been investigating the killings." Daphne deduced.
"Like, I really wish you hadn't said that." Shaggy's face sunk into a nervous stupor. Fred wasn't going to verbalize it like Shaggy did, but he was thinking the same thing. He hadn't thought of it before, but it was pretty terrifying that the shadow knew who they were. If the shadow was the murderer, it would mean that they were very likely the next victims.
"I think we should tell Velma and Thorn about this." Daphne suggested.
"That's a smart idea." Luna replied. "The more people that know about this, the more comforted I'm going to feel. We shouldn't have to bear the burden of knowing such a terrifying secret alone."
"How about we tell them tomorrow at breakfast?" Fred suggested. "It's late, so they might be asleep and there's no use getting them worried tonight."
"I think that's a good plan." Daphne agreed. "Let's just all get a good night of sleep and try to forget about what happened…if we can. We'll find Thorn and Velma in the morning and fill them in.
"Like, that sounds good…just as long as that shadow doesn't find us first." Shaggy gulped.
Velma arose in the morning, feeling more rested than any other night she'd stayed at the school. She put on an orange t-shirt as well as a pair of black sweatpants with three small white stripes running along the side of each leg. Her stomach let out a bit of a rumble as she put on her clothes for the day. Velma remembered feeling uncomfortable the past three days and didn't really want to eat breakfast as a result. That was pretty common - when she was uncomfortable, her appetite mostly went away and eating food felt like a chore. The fact that she was actually hungry and craving a nice breakfast at the dining hall told her that maybe she was finally getting comfortable with this school.
With a yawn and a stretch, Velma grabbed her backpack. She hadn't seen Thorn yet this morning, but instead of going to breakfast alone, she wanted to wait for her roommate. Thankfully, it seemed she would not have to wait very long, as the shower turned off almost right away.
While she was waiting for her roommate to get ready in the bathroom and get dressed, Velma pulled out the syllabi from each of her classes, which were each in their own folder for the respective class, and glanced ahead at what she would be doing in each of her classes that day. She realized this was an incredibly nerdy, uncool thing to do, but she didn't care. She liked planning ahead and knowing what she was going to learn. It looked like they were going to learn about ratios in math class, the American Revolution in history, plant science in Biology…
Velma was interrupted by Thorn as she got out of the shower.
"Oh, hey, good morning." Thorn greeted. Velma was in awe of how much their relationship had changed within the past few days. Just a day ago, Thorn never said anything to her, so she was really glad they were not only talking now, but seemed friendly with one another. "Are you ready to go down to breakfast?"
"Yep. Ready whenever you are." Velma said. She thought for a moment about where she might sit. She'd purposely chosen not to sit next to Shaggy and Fred yesterday, which she felt bad about. It wasn't an intent to be mean or avoid them; it was her putting up walls due to her anxiety. She didn't want to be vulnerable and sit by them only to have them reject her. She wanted them to elect to sit by her to confirm that they were still friends, because surely they had a better grip on how to be friends with somebody than she did. Maybe it was sad and stupid, but for once in her life, she just wanted some friends that cared about her. Things seemed pretty solid with Thorn, but she wasn't really sure where she stood with Shaggy and Fred now that the mystery was over.
She'd enjoyed the quiet night with Thorn last night - they had just sat down and watched an old movie. The Bride of Frankenstein was on TV, and Thorn had said it was one of her favorite movies to watch. Velma found it quite enjoyable.
"Maybe we ought to sit with Fred and Shaggy again." Thorn commented. "I'm glad we're getting to know each other better, but it seemed like you were developing a friendship with them too, so I don't want you to ignore that just because we're starting to get to know each other."
"Yeah…I guess that might be a good idea." Velma said cautiously. She didn't want to commit to anything yet because she hadn't fully decided herself whether her anxiety was going to allow her to be vulnerable, but she would at least consider it.
Once they arrived at the dining hall and stepped in line, it seemed Velma was going to arrive at her decision quicker than she thought.
"Velma!" Fred exclaimed, as he rushed over and got behind her in line. "Can we talk to you for a minute?"
Velma spun around when she heard the familiar voice. She felt a bit of glee inside when she heard Fred acknowledge her. Maybe that meant their friendship wasn't as dead as she thought it was. "Sure…is anything wrong?"
She expected the answer to be no, which made it even more surprising when Norville said "Like, plenty!"
"What happened?" Thorn gasped when she saw the frightened look on Norville's face.
Velma saw that Daphne, Dusk and Luna had also joined Fred and Shaggy behind them in line.
"Last night, the five of us went on a walk together." Velma's heart sank a little with jealousy as Daphne began speaking. All of them had still hung out together last night, and it seemed they excluded her and Thorn. "When we made it to the garden area, we saw a shadow watching us in the bushes."
"Oh?" Velma wore a curious expression on her face. "Well, that could have been anything. Maybe it was some sort of animal or something, nervous that you were walking past its habitat."
"No, it was human. The shadow talked to us." Dusk added.
"Well, did it say anything interesting?" Thorn teased.
"It, like, warned us to stop our meddling, and that it was taking a third victim soon!" Shaggy nervously revealed.
That got Velma's attention. Clearly, the murderer was onto them and knew that they were snooping around, which was extremely frightening. She felt the curiosity boil up inside of her again. Clearly, somebody had overheard their conversation with Headmistress Quinlan, or word had spread somehow that they were looking into the case.
"Well, that shadow doesn't scare me." Velma bravely replied, even though she was actually a little nervous. "You know what this means, right?"
"Like, we talk to Headmistress Quinlan and tell our parents to unenroll us from this deathtrap of a school?" Shaggy asked with a hopeful look in his eyes.
Velma flashed him a playful expression that she was not amused. "No. It means we have a reason to investigate again."
"I don't think I follow you." Fred looked confused.
"The fact that somebody directly confronted you means we have an alibi for looking around. If she asks, we could tell Headmistress Quinlan that we're looking for information about somebody who threatened us. We wouldn't have to divulge to her that we know it's connected to the other mystery. In other words, we play dumb and act like we're defending ourselves against a bully." Velma suggested.
"Hmm…that's an interesting angle to look at it from." Luna replied with intrigue.
"I think it's a good idea." Dusk gave her input. "Nobody can threaten us like that and get away with it!"
"Like, if they're a murderer they can!" Shaggy gulped.
"I agree with Dusk. Headmistress Quinlan's baffled about the murders, and somebody's got to get to the bottom of this before more people get hurt." Fred replied. "I say we need to investigate more."
Velma felt selfish for feeling this way, but she was very glad all of them were regaining their interest in solving this mystery. It would mean that they would have an excuse to hang out together for a while.
"I agree too." Daphne chimed in. "Velma made a great point that we've got a personal stake in the situation now, which gives us a legitimate reason to get involved."
"I'm still not so sure we should sneak around behind Quinlan's back…" Thorn replied, pausing mid-sentence. "...but I guess it couldn't hurt. We've got a right to defend ourselves, after all."
"Like, it could hurt if we get murdered!" Shaggy panicked.
"That's exactly why we're investigating this, though." Dusk pointed out defensively. "So we don't get murdered. We have better odds of getting out of this situation if we take action rather than sitting around waiting for something to happen to us."
"Like, I guess you're right." Shaggy sighed. Shaggy seemed like such an anxious person that he'd never wholeheartedly agree to solve a mystery like this, so Velma figured this was the best she was going to get.
"So it's settled then." Fred replied. "How do we want to start investigating?"
"There's an extracurricular exploration fair this afternoon that I want to go to, so maybe we can look around a bit after dinner." Daphne suggested.
"Oh right. I wanted to go to that too!" Thorn replied. "Do you guys all want to go together?"
"I've got my first football practice this afternoon, so I won't see you guys until dinner." Fred informed. "Sorry. I would have liked to come if I could have!"
"Sure, like, maybe distracting myself with the thought of balancing schoolwork with an extracurricular will, like, psych me up to investigate tonight." Shaggy laughed nervously.
"I'll come." Dusk replied. "I want to check out what options they'd have here for somebody who likes music."
"I'll come too." Luna chimed in.
"Did you want to investigate again with us too, Luna?" Velma asked, realizing Luna was the only one who hadn't said anything on the previous subject.
"Umm…" Luna looked quite cautious. "I guess I can start investigating, and we'll see how comfortable I am with it as we go."
"It's settled then." Velma responded. "We'll all meet at the extracurricular fair, and then explore after dinner."
It had been a long day of classes for Fred. The strange thing about it was that nothing about the day was any more emotionally taxing than any previous day. After a bit of thought, he figured he was likely getting a bit tired from the first week and in need of a break from classes.
Fred walked out of the back doors to the school, and began trekking towards the football field. He wondered how this team would be; he found many of the folks on the team at his previous school to be cocky at times, which he did not care for.
As he approached the football field, he admired how much nicer it was than his previous school's field. His former school just had a large all-purpose track that was used as a makeshift football field, which was not the easiest to play on. This, however, looked really nice. There was even a large set of bleachers that appeared like it could hold at least 1,000 people.
"You must be Jones?" a person standing on the field asked. The man was wearing a sweatshirt with "Crystal Cove" branded on the breast pocket and looked to be the team coach.
"Yep, that's me. Fred Jones." Fred introduced himself.
"Good, good. So we're all here then." the coach answered. Fred felt a little embarrassed because that meant he was the last one here, but the coach didn't seem upset about it. A quick look around showed that there were about 20 other boys on the football team. Fred recognized a few of them from his classes, but he didn't know most of them. He presumed a lot of them must be upperclassmen that he didn't have courses with. Unfortunately for him, he recognized one more kid on the team: Red Herring. This was the boy who had bullied Shaggy on the first day, and Shaggy had confided in Fred that he actually suspected Red of being involved with the murders.
"My name is Coach Hayes and I've been coach of the football team here at this school for 10 years. I want to start you boys out by having you do warm-ups. I'd like you to run to the end of the field and back three times."
Fred wasn't prepared to get started this quickly, but he tried to psych himself up to start sprinting.
"On your marks, get set, go!" the coach shouted.
Fred ran as fast he could past each of the yard lines, but noticed he was a bit behind a few other boys who were moving at lightning speed. He tried not to let that phase him too much, although the feeling of self-comparison began sneaking in. He attempted to pick up the pace a bit, but it still was not quite enough to catch up to the other boys before they approached the finish. Fred felt a sense of horror wash over him when he realized he was dead last.
"Good job, everyone." the coach suggested, before turning over to look specifically at Fred. "Fred, maybe do some practice on your own tonight so you can pick up the pace a bit tomorrow."
"Got it. Will do, coach." Fred promised. He felt a bit embarrassed about his subpar performance, but he would never outwardly admit that to anybody.
"Yeah, you better practice more so you can be at least 10% as good as us, ya weenie!" Red sneered.
"He's right, Jones. If your warm-ups are that lame, I can't even imagine how much you suck on the field!" another boy with blond hair chuckled. A few other boys began snickering alongside him.
"Hey, hey, there'll be no need for that. There will be plenty of time to get out your aggression on the field!" the coach responded.
Fred felt dejected after this public humiliation. Clearly, he wasn't cut out for the field, and the fact he happened to be off his game when meeting these guys for the first time seemed like it was going to permanently brand him a loser.
Daphne was excited for this extracurricular fair. So much of her time here thus far had been spent getting to know her roommates or investigating the murders that she didn't feel like she'd had the proper time to get to know this school.
She was involved in the Student Council for a year in elementary school, but beyond that, she had not really taken any opportunities to get involved. She considered it as an important thing to do, though. She wanted to get to know more people at this school, and she had heard that being involved in extracurriculars looked good on a college application.
The gym was bustling with students; it seemed like at least half the school had shown up to the fair to explore their extracurricular options.
"Do you guys have any tables you want to check out?" Daphne inquired.
"Like, not really." Shaggy admitted.
"I guess anything science-related. Science is my favorite subject." Velma informed.
"I saw a Chemistry Club booth over there." Luna pointed over to the north end of the gym, where sure enough, there was a booth marked "Chemistry Club."
"Thanks! I'll go check that out." Velma informed, as she walked away towards the booth.
"There's a Glee Club booth over there, Dusk." Luna informed the blonde.
"Ugh, hell no." Dusk sneered. "I don't want to sit around singing church songs after school like a dork! I want to talk to people who love music as much as I do."
"That club might be more fitting for you, then." Thorn pointed to a booth with a banner reading "Band" draped over the top of it.
"Nice! That definitely looks way cooler." Dusk replied, as she broke off from the group and headed towards the booth.
"Honestly, I'd like to check it out too. Looks pretty wicked." Thorn added, as she walked over with Dusk.
That just left Shaggy, Daphne and Luna.
"Well, Shaggy said he didn't want to visit any booth in particular, but did you have one you wanted to go see, Luna?" Daphne inquired.
"Hmm…the Poetry Club might be interesting." Luna glanced over a couple of booths to their left. "What about you?"
"I was thinking of maybe checking out the Yearbook booth first. You'd be welcome to join!" Daphne invited.
"Hey!" a blonde girl wearing a pink dress exclaimed. "Are you thinking about joining Yearbook?"
"Yeah, I was considering it!" Daphne replied.
"Well, great!" a brunette girl wearing a purple top who was beside the blonde replied. "Here at Yearbook, we've got the 411 about everything that's happening here in the school at all times. Who's currently in the cool crowd and who isn't, the hottest couple, and even who's got the cutest smile. Our business is literally making sure all the biggest memories of our time here at school don't get forgotten. I mean, I don't even know why you wouldn't want to join!"
"Yeah…I have no idea." Daphne laughed awkwardly, flashing them a smile as to be friendly. She personally thought their bragging was a bit over-the-top. She also felt the two girls exuded an energy of exclusion and elitism, which made her feel gross.
"So, can we put all of your names down as joining Yearbook?" the blonde asked.
"Put us down as a maybe." Daphne replied. "We still have some other booths we want to look at, and we don't want to overcommit."
"Okay, will do! What's your names?" the brunette inquired.
"Daphne." the redhead informed.
"Luna." the blonde introvert shared.
"Shaggy." the lanky teen replied.
"Shaggy?" the brunette laughed out loud. "What kind of name is that?"
"It's a name that's not going to be on your list, and you can remove ours as well. Come on, guys." Daphne said with a scoff. What was previously uncertainty and discomfort had now turned to frustration. They had no right to treat Shaggy like that.
Once they were closer to the Poetry Club booth, Shaggy was the first to speak. "Like, I thought you wanted to join Yearbook?"
"I did, but not with those snooty girls in charge." Daphne said. "I said maybe to be nice, but it quickly became clear to me that the one thing those girls didn't know with their infinite wisdom about the school was how to create an inclusive environment."
"Like, thank you." Shaggy said in a heartfelt tone. "Nobody at my old school ever stood up for me like that before."
"Of course." Daphne responded. She was a bit surprised nobody had ever defended Shaggy before; he seemed like quite a nice guy. "You really mean that?"
"I can be, like, pretty awkward, so I'm not exactly easy to defend." Shaggy said with a light chuckle.
"Awkward or not, nobody deserves to be treated like those girls were treating you." Daphne sympathized.
"Well, like, thanks. I'm sorry I ruined your chances of getting into Yearbook." Shaggy apologized.
"You don't need to apologize!" Luna assured. "I wouldn't have wanted to be in a club where they treat people like that anyways. As far as I'm concerned, we dodged a bullet there."
Daphne quickly shifted her attention away from the snooty Yearbook girls as she turned to face the person running the Poetry Club booth.
"Hi there! We're interested in joining Poetry Club!" Daphne introduced herself to a brunette girl with shoulder-length hair. She donned a sea foam green sweater and black sweatpants.
"Hey! Nice to meet you. I'm Avalon. Basically, how this club works is that we each write a poem every week, and use our club meeting time as a writing workshop. If you don't have time to write a poem that week, that's totally fine, you can just help by workshopping somebody else's poem. We're a very laid-back club that just wants to have fun."
"That sounds pretty nice! I'm down to join. What about you guys?" Luna inquired.
"Yeah! Sign me up." Daphne replied.
"Like, I don't think this is quite my thing. I've never been the best at writing." Shaggy admitted.
"You can always just try it out. There's no commitment if you don't like it." Avalon assured.
"Like, maybe I will join then." Shaggy had a spark of hope in his eyes.
"Great! I've got you down!" Avalon replied as she chicken scratched their names on a sign-up sheet in front of her. "Our first meeting is on Tuesday afternoon at 3:30."
"We'll be there!" Daphne replied. "Thanks, Avalon! It was nice to meet you!"
"Nice to meet you too!" Avalon responded.
"This will actually be my first time ever joining a club. I've never been a part of one before." Luna said to Daphne and Shaggy.
"Me either." Velma replied, as she came over from the Chemistry Club Booth. "I don't think any of these clubs are for me. I'm already having a bit of a hard time adjusting to this new school, especially with the murders and all. I think I might just stick with school for now."
"That totally makes sense." Daphne agreed. Daphne felt a bit bad for Velma, as he seemed like she was having quite a rough transition to the new school. From what the redhead could gather, Velma had never really had a lot of social support before, so she could only hope that finally having a group of people to hang out with would make the transition go a little smoother for her.
Shaggy had inhaled the rest of his dinner faster than the rest of his friends. He was happy all of them were sitting together again…all of them except Fred, that is, as he had never returned from football practice. Shaggy had no idea how long football practice was, but he hoped Fred was okay and hadn't run into that creepy shadow again.
"That Band booth was pretty good! Seems like it will be a cool after-school activity." Thorn said.
"Eh, I'm still not completely sold on it." Dusk responded. "It might be neat to see what being in a band would be like. I've thought about it before, so it'd be neat to try it out."
"Yeah, making music with others is a good skill. I write songs a lot on my own, so it will be interesting to see what it's like having to adjust to others' instrumental style." Thorn said. "Besides, I played the piano a bit in middle school, so I guess it'll make sure I don't get too rusty."
"I still have no idea what instrument I'd pick. Maybe the drums?" Dusk said. "I don't know, I don't really have any experience."
"With all these after school activities, I guess you probably won't have too much time anymore to hang out after school." Velma remarked. If Shaggy didn't know better, he would have thought Velma was a bit jealous. He didn't know why she would be though, as she was easily the smartest of any of them. She wouldn't even need any after school clubs on her college application to be accepted; they'd probably admit her based on her grades alone.
"We'll have time." Daphne shrugged. "Poetry Club only meets once a week for an hour and a half on Tuesdays."
"Same with us, mostly. Band is every Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday from 3:30-5, but we'll still have dinner and can hang out afterwards." Thorn replied.
"That's good." Velma smiled.
A quick glance over everybody's plate showed that only Daphne had a few bites left. They'd had chicken alfredo tonight, which was delectable. Shaggy would consider it almost as good as his mom's home cooking.
"Hey, speaking of that, does anybody know what happened to Fred?" Luna asked.
"Do we know when practice is over?" Thorn inquired.
"Fred said he'd be back for dinner, and it's already 6:30." Velma remarked. "They're about to close the dining hall."
"Maybe he didn't know how long practice would go?" Daphne asked.
"Well, it's almost dark now. There's no way they'd still be practicing out in the dark." Dusk deduced.
Shaggy felt a bit of a chill run down his spine. She was absolutely right. He didn't know hardly anything about football, but he was pretty sure they would never force a high school student to practice out in the dark. Something was definitely wrong.
"Hey, that guy is on the team. He's wearing his jersey." Daphne pointed to a kid with blond hair sitting a few tables away. "I'll go up and ask him."
Shaggy admired Daphne's bravery to go up to a random person. Shaggy had so many anxiety and self-esteem issues that he could never envision himself being able to go up to some person he didn't know and ask them a question.
"Um, hi. Sorry to bother you, but do you know when football practice ended today? We're looking for our friend." Daphne asked the guy.
"Oh yeah, it ended about an hour ago. Who's your friend? I can tell you if I saw him." the blond guy offered.
"Fred Jones." Daphne informed.
"Yep, he was there. Not sure why he didn't come back. Maybe he went back up to his room. He seemed kinda tired." the guy shrugged.
"Alright, thank you." Daphne smiled, and walked back over towards the table with her friends. "Did you guys hear that?"
"Like, yeah, but I wish I hadn't." Shaggy gulped. The energy in the room definitely had changed. There was almost an eerie, spooked feeling among the group. Clearly something was wrong, because Fred should have been back a long time ago.
Velma was the first to take initiative. "We need to go look for him and make sure he's okay."
"Agreed." Daphne said abruptly as she stood up and grabbed her tray. "Everybody done here?"
The group all nodded their heads in affirmation, and proceeded to get up to return their trays. Shaggy felt a bit rushed and on edge as he waited for the huge line to dissipate so he was able to return his tray to the dishwashing room. Slowly but steadily, the line kept moving, and the six of them were able to get rid of their trays.
"What do you think might have happened to Fred?" Daphne inquired.
"I have no idea, but I think the first place we need to check is the football field." Velma suggested.
Fred felt incredibly silly sitting in an empty locker room crying. Society had taught him that real men don't cry, so his tears felt almost shameful and clownish. He felt like an idiot. Due to his tiredness, he'd embarrassed himself in front of the whole team. He had no idea how such an innocent circumstance had turned into becoming the laughing stock of the team.
Fred wanted to get all his tears out before he went back to face his friends, but he suddenly realized that his absence was probably worrying them. He hadn't meant to do that, but he didn't want them to see him in this humiliating state. He'd already made a clown of himself in front of his new football team, so he didn't want to lose his new friends too.
The blond felt a jolt of fear when he heard footsteps coming into the locker room. He quickly spun around, afraid of what whoever it was would say when they saw his tear-stained eyes. He was surprised to see that it was the person he would have least expected to see in there: Shaggy.
"Like, Fred?" Shaggy's surprised facial expression matched his confused tone.
"Oh, hey. I wasn't crying, I…uh…sat on a cactus!" Fred frantically scrambled to think of an excuse for his wet pupils, but he quickly realized it was a stupid one.
"Like, wow, that coach must be really tough!" Shaggy chuckled in response. The whimsy of Shaggy's comment helped Fred feel a bit more like he could be open. He knew the guys on his team would have likely made fun of him, but the fact that Shaggy hadn't done that made him feel like he could confide in his new roommate.
"No, I'm sorry." Fred apologized. "Practice was really tough. I made a fool of myself in front of the whole team."
"Oh…I'm, like, sorry to hear about that. Like, what exactly happened?" Shaggy replied in kind of a stilted tone.
It seemed Shaggy's lack of previous friendships had made him a bit socially awkward, but Fred really appreciated the thought. He had rarely had male friendships where he was allowed to be open about what he was feeling without facing potential ridicule, so it meant a lot to him that Shaggy was being kind about it, even if he wasn't the most articulate.
"Thanks, it's okay." Fred replied somberly. "I was feeling tired today, so I was dead last in our warm-up run."
"Like, that's all?" Shaggy answered. At first, Fred felt a little hurt and like Shaggy wasn't taking his feelings seriously, until the shaggy-haired boy continued speaking. "That doesn't seem so bad. Like, I would be terrible at playing football."
Fred thought about it for a moment, and he was right. It wasn't like he had finished the run embarrassingly late; in fact, he was only a couple seconds behind his peers. There was nothing embarrassing about it at all. Those guys were just bullies.
"You know, actually, you're right." Fred replied.
"Like, your feelings are valid and you don't have to agree with me. I can, like, tell this made you feel pretty bad." Shaggy answered.
"No, you're actually right, Shaggy. I don't know why I was feeling bad about this. I wasn't even that far behind those guys, so I don't know why they were hazing me like that." Fred said.
"Like, it seems pretty common at this school." Shaggy remarked.
"What do you mean by that?" Fred asked.
"Daphne, Luna and I had an experience like that at the Yearbook Booth during the fair earlier today. Two girls asked for my name to write down on their sign-up sheet, and when I said Shaggy, they laughed at me." Shaggy hung his head a bit.
"That's just immature." Fred scoffed. "Making fun of somebody's name is something that a kindergartener would do. It's already mean at that age, so elementary school level insults like that have no place in a high school. I'm sorry those girls did that, Shaggy."
"Like, thank you, but don't worry about me. Daphne and Luna said to take their names off the list after they overheard those girls teasing me, so I won't have to worry about them again." Shaggy replied.
"That's good. You don't need that kind of negativity in your life." Fred answered, before he remembered that he still had no explanation for why Shaggy was in the locker room. "What are you doing out here, by the way?"
"Like, looking for you, what else?" Shaggy chuckled. "All of us were worried about you when you missed dinner, so we wanted to make sure you were okay."
Shaggy's words made Fred's heart feel warm. His previous friendships had mainly been posturing and teasing, but if there's anything he'd learned from practice today, it was that even jokingly teasing somebody could hurt. He was happy to finally have real friends that he could connect with on a meaningful level.
"Wow, I didn't realize I had missed dinner. How late is it?" Fred inquired.
"Like, it's after dark. We should really get back inside before that creepy shadow comes back." Shaggy urged.
"Good idea." Fred replied, as he collected himself and stood up. His tears were beginning to dry after the realization he'd come to, but it was still noticeable that he had just been crying.
"Fred, are you okay?" was the first thing he heard when he stepped out of the locker room. The voice came from Velma.
"Yeah, I'm fine." Fred pondered for a moment if he wanted to open up to another person. However, upon further thought, treating it as if it were a normal thing that he wasn't ashamed of would be better than dancing around the subject or being awkward about it. "I had a rough afternoon with the guys on the team. They humiliated me the whole time just because I came in last in our warm-up."
"Oh gosh, I'm so sorry to hear that." Daphne apologized.
"People can be such assholes." Dusk sneered.
"Like, it's good that we're giving Fred moral support, but don't you all think we should get inside?" Shaggy gulped.
"That's a good idea, Shaggy." Luna responded, noticeably a bit nervous in her speech and demeanor.
The group began walking back towards the school at a quick pace, as many of them shared Luna's nervousness to be out this late at night. Fred hadn't realized how spooky the football field was at night. It was pitch black at this point, with only the moon to illuminate their path back to the school. The trees swayed back and forth, and each branch looked like a giant creepy arm that was about to grab them. There was a large row of gnarly oak trees all along the path back to the school. The sound of bullfrogs and bugs chirping in the night didn't exactly help the spook factor.
"The wind sure doesn't want to give us a break. I feel like it's been windy every night we've been here." Thorn remarked.
"That wind sure makes those trees look spooky." Shaggy gulped.
"There are so many of them too." Daphne replied.
"That's weird. That one little tree is right on top of the two big ones." Dusk observed as she walked past.
Fred looked over in the direction to see a snarly topped little tree, with two branches pointing either direction. Each branch had five smaller twigs attached to them, and almost looked like claws. He squinted to get a little bit of a closer look at them, because the branches looked so anthropomorphic. As he did so, his heart jumped a bit when one of the branches moved. What horrified him the most was that it didn't look like the normal type of movement the wind would cause a tree to make. It looked almost lifelike.
"Guys, did you see that little tree move?" Fred asked anxiously. He wasn't one to typically be scared by the night, but all this murder stuff was beginning to get him nervous.
"Of course it's moving. The wind is swaying all the trees." Dusk commented.
"Not this one, though." Thorn replied. "I saw it too. If I didn't know better, the tree is about the size of a person."
Slowly, the branches continued moving, but the horrifying thing is that the branches weren't just swaying. They had actually moved so that they were directly horizontal with the trunk. That was when Fred realized they weren't branches. That was a person, and their hands were moving. While he couldn't make out what the person looked like in the dark, it appeared they had long, sharp fingernails, and if Fred didn't know better, he would have thought the person had horns. He hoped it was just the figure's messy hair, but the way in which it was positioned made it look like devilish horns affixed to the person's head.
That was when the group heard the same raspy, creepy voice they'd heard from the shadow last night. "There is much fear as the time draws near. As the count goes up one, another student's luck is done!"
Luna let out a terrified shriek, quickly followed by Daphne, Shaggy and Thorn screaming. All of them began running back in the school, absolutely terrified at what they had just seen. Fred quickly pulled out his student ID and scanned it in front of the door to get inside, and didn't look back to see if the shadow was following them. The seven friends didn't stop sprinting until they had gotten in the building and arrived at the elevator.
"Could anybody make out who that creep was?" Thorn exclaimed in a panicked frenzy.
"I couldn't see most of them, but the little bits that the moon illuminated looked like their hands were ghostly white." Daphne stated.
"It looked like it had horns, too!" Fred added, just as the elevator opened up and everybody raced in.
"I think it's safe to say now that the shadow isn't some prankster screwing with us. It's clearly the murderer, and it's clear they mean business." Dusk grimly said.
Author's note:
Hope you're enjoying the story so far! Just thought I'd pop in quickly to explain a reference. Coach Hayes is actually not an original character; he appears in Scooby-Doo! First Frights. Other than Tim Conway, I believe he's the only coach that has a major role in Scooby-Doo, so I thought it made sense to use him rather than creating a new character.
