"Keep running Scoob!" Shaggy yelled to the Great Dane who was just a short distance across from him.
"Rover rhere!" Scooby responded, gesturing towards the boat they were on earlier that was docked. They ran through the trees as fast as possible, managing to lose most of the zombies on their way. They reached the boat quickly, Shaggy climbing in first and hoisting Scooby over by his two front paws. "Rhat now Raggy?"
"What are you fellas' doing here?" A familiar voice from behind them said. Shaggy and Scooby spun around to find Jacques coming towards them.
"Like we were running from zombies! Real zombies!" Surprisingly to Shaggy and Scooby, Jacques didn't seem shocked by the news, instead he seemed concerned.
"Where are your friends?" he asked, taking off his hat and wiping the sweat from his forehead.
"Re rost them running from rombies." Scooby said, looking to the floor sadly.
"You have to find them right now!"
"You sound like you know something we don't." Shaggy commented, trying to study the expression on Jacques face.
"I'm gonna tell you something I haven't been able to tell anyone who's ever stepped foot on this island…"
Fred, Daphne, Velma and Beau were still walking through the underground tunnel, led by Lena. They had been walking approximately five minutes until they reached an old wooden door which looked out of place in a dusty tunnel. "I'll go first." Beau commented, lightly brushing past Lena so he could nudge the door forward. It opened easily. Everyone walked through the door into what seemed to be a large room in the centre of a cave, the cave walls decorated by candles and fire. There was an eerie presence in the room, and it didn't go unnoticed. Towards the other side of the cave, in the centre of the area was a sundial, mounted on an old-fashioned, stone podium. "What is this place?" Fred asked suspiciously, taking in all of the surroundings.
"Looks to me like a place for voodoo rituals." Velma commented.
"But why don't we just ask Lena?" Daphne said, Velma saying the 'Lena' part in unison as both had caught onto something being amiss.
"Her story about Simone was a lie. I saw the footprints of her heels, she didn't get dragged down here, she walked!" Velma explained, but before anyone could respond, the sounds of chains rattling towards the left of the cage made everyone's head turn.
"Very clever girls. But it's too late!" Simone sniggered, revealing it was her behind the chains. The chains were attached to a machine operating what looked like a skylight above the tunnel into the outside that was covered by thin metal shaped into a criss-cross pattern. Simone walked over to some type of table and picked up two wax figures, slamming them into the cave wall. Daphne and Velma flung over to the opposite cave wall, their backs slamming against it before they slumped to the ground.
"Daphne!" Fred called. Not that he wasn't concerned about Velma, but Daphne's name came out before he managed to stop himself. He was about to rush over to help them, but it was too late. "Now now, lover boy." Lena snickered, holding the wax figure of Fred in her hand and doing the same to his that Simone did to the girls. Fred groaned in pain as he hit the floor hard. "Sorry Freddie, I really did like you." She chuckled; no sincere apology present whatsoever.
"What would you do if you didn't like me?"
"HEY!" Beau yelled, having a rush of adrenaline and running over to Lena. Before he reached her, she took out a wax figure of him and slammed it against the wall.
All four of them now sat against the wall, side by side; Velma, Beau, Daphne then Fred. Simone and Lena tied string around each of the wax figures and when the others tried to move, they found themselves unable to. "Voodoo dolls!" Velma said, after she managed to get over some of the pain that Simone inflicted on her. "I knew these wax figures would come in handy." Simone responded, placing each of them onto a podium in front of her. "So that's where the cleaning cloth for my glasses went. I'm sorry I ever suspected you Beau." Velma said, offering a small smile to Beau beside her.
"Apology… accepted." He responded, grunting in between as he desperately tried to wriggle out of the imaginary rope that was restraining him and the others. At the same time, Fred was offering Daphne his own apology. "I'm sorry Daph. If I wasn't so hung up on trying to prove that the zombies were phonies then maybe we wouldn't be in this mess."
"It's not your fault Freddie. I don't think any of us thought it would get to this point until we were in the tunnel and we saw Simone's footprints. Besides, I shouldn't have been so obsessed with trying to get good footage for the show." They exchanged smiles, and Fred managed to move his hand to rest on hers.
"If your conversation is over… the harvest moon will soon reach the midnight point on this moondial, then the ceremony will begin." Simone smiled before turning back around to see the reactions of the others. "What ceremony?" Fred nervously asked, secretly not wanting to find out the answer.
"You won't get away with this!" Daphne yelled.
"I've been getting away with it for 200 years!" Simone snickered. All of a sudden, her face became distorted, her teeth extending into sharp fangs, eyebrows growing longer, ears becoming pointy. The three members of the gang and Beau watched on in fear, watching Simone and now Lena turn into human sized cats. "At least Shag and Scooby are still free. Maybe just maybe-" Fred began, but was swiftly cut off by Lena snickering.
"I don't think so Fred. Those two morons are scared of their own shadow! We didn't even bother making wax figures of those two. It would've been a waste of magic wax!"
"What are you going to do to us?" Beau asked, swallowing the huge lump in his throat.
"Ah it's simple. Every harvest moon I must drain the lives of victims lured to my island to preserve my immortality." Simone explained, making the other's eyes widen as they realised how serious things had become. "That's why Lena was listening to our conversation and encouraged us to come here for a haunted house." Velma sighed, only wishing she had realised sooner what was really going on.
"That's right. Before every harvest moon I go out there finding anyone who I can manipulate into coming to the island. But I have to say, you were the easiest." Lena joked. Daphne looked to the ground, still feeling responsible for the entire thing as the only reason all this had happened was because they wanted a haunted house.
"And what about Jacques? I suppose he's in on this too?" Fred asked with an angry look on his face, still trying to puzzle everything together.
"That wuss? Of course not. Well he is in on it, just not willingly." Lena began, looking to Simone for her to explain the rest.
"You see we needed a ferry driver to get the victims to the island. Jacques isn't one of us, but he did become useful. The deal has certain… conditions. He agrees to drive the victims to the island that Lena brings and in return, we don't drain his daughter's life force. She lives with him on the other side of the bayou and he knows we wouldn't hesitate."
"You two are monsters!" Daphne yelled, to which Simone and Lena only smirked more.
"We prefer the term, cat creatures."