Chapter 02

Our break from mystery solving thus lasted almost 48 hours. That night, we were out at the beach approaching the park from the side rather than the front. The park was dark and quiet. And, shocker, Shaggy was high.

"Like, don't you wish Funland was open? The root beer floats! The chocolate custard! The rides! Man, that's living!"

Daphne was less impressed. "Yes. But right now, it looks a little spooky… even haunted."

Scooby's ears perked up. "Raunted?"

Once again it fell to me to speak reason. "Don't be silly, Daphne…" I was going to finish with my standard 'there's no such thing as ghosts' when all of the lights in the park came on at once.

Fred was once again the master of the obvious. "Hey! Look at that!"

I'll admit to being a little aghast. "But that's impossible! That place won't be open for weeks! Marcie said they don't even have permanent power. They've been testing the rides individually using a large mobile generator. There's no way everything could turn on at once."

Shaggy pointed. "Look!" Not only were the lights on, but all of the rides were active.

Fred mugged for the camera. "This calls for a little investigation."

We were in Fred's father's sedan and from where we were standing it was one hundred yards to the entrance of the park as the seagull flies but about half a mile by car. With no traffic, it took us about two minutes to be pulling up to the main entrance at the front of an empty parking lot. Marcie and her parents were living in the old caretaker's house, and she had given us a master key that would get us into anything in the park. Her preference was for us to avoid letting her parents know that she had asked for our help until we found something. So, technically, we were breaking and entering again. This was getting to be a habit.

I expected to see Mr. Fleach running around testing things and was rehearsing what we would say if we bumped into him. But, as we walked deeper into the park, we saw no one.

In the center of the park, Fred looked around. "It's hard to believe. Everything's running, but nobody's here."

Shaggy was childlike. "Man, it's a dream come true! Let's check out that lunch counter over there, Scooby."

I watched as they made their way over to what was probably Marcie's hot dog stand. It still needed some paint on the outside but the kitchen appliances looked new.

No one was there and Shaggy started goofing around. "A little service please? For openers, I'd like an old-fashioned malt and a hot dog with all the trimmings."

Scooby joined in. "Ree, too."

I turned to watch Fred and Daphne walking across the midway toward the carnival vendors area. When I looked back, there were two malteds and two hot dogs piled high with mustard, ketchup, relish, onions, chili, and peppers. I was about to ask Shaggy where they came from when I heard him say "Who did that?"

Our first clue.

I trotted over to where Fred and Daphne were standing in front of a baseball carnival game. I got there just as Fred was saying, "Hey! I used to be pretty good at this. Should I give it a whirl?" I don't know what used-to-be meant. He was on the baseball team and they were in their season.

I wanted to see if maybe the same thing would happen here that happened at the hot dog stand. "Go ahead. Who's to know?"

"Okay. Batter up!" Fred was a third basemen rather than a pitcher. I was learning a lot about sports by hanging around with him. I still didn't care. Apparently, a third basemen has a strong arm because Fred's throw hit the heavy lead fake bottles and successfully knocked them all off the stool they were sitting on.

"Good throw, Freddy!" That was the first and last time I ever referred to Fred as 'Freddy'. I got caught up in the moment, I guess.

"Well, I've still got the old touch." Again, what was this 'old' stuff?

Now I began to observe. Fred pointed across the way. "Let's go find Shaggy and Scooby."

I turned toward the way he was pointing as Daphne said, "Gee Freddy. Shouldn't we stack those bottles back up?"

We turned back to the stall and the bottles were back in their original location. I had just turned away for a few seconds. Maybe I was seeing things. "Look! The bottles are all stacked up again!" Neither Fred nor Daphne disagreed with me. They were seeing the same thing. Then something else caught my eye. "What's that on the counter?"

Fred stepped over to it. "It's a prize for knocking down the bottles. And our backs were only turned for a minute!" It was an odd kewpie doll thing.

Daphne backed away from the counter. "Wow Freddy, this is really weird."

Fred stepped forward and picked up the doll. "Well, somehow I got this prize, so the least I can do is pay my dollar." He pulled four quarters from his pocket and laid them on the counter.

He turned away from the counter and showed us the doll.

Daphne took a close look. "It's kind of scary-looking. It gives me the creeps."

Then we heard a cash drawer open on the register. This was getting out of hand. "Oh no!" I looked at the cash register on the counter. "The cash register rang up your dollar."

Fred walked back over to the counter and looked around and behind it. "I'm beginning to wonder if this place is haunted."

Finding Shaggy and Scooby wasn't hard, the snack shops were all in the same area and we headed there. We found the two of them in front of a cotton candy maker which was churning out the insulation-looking spun sugar threads. As we approached, I heard Shaggy say, "I just saw something." Then he paused. Followed by, "There he goes again! Man, he's faster than a speeding bullet."

We caught up with them. "Who's faster than a speeding bullet?" Apparently, they hadn't seen us coming. I would describe Shaggy and Scooby trying to jump into each other's arms when startled, but you've seen it a hundred times.

When they picked themselves up off the ground, Shaggy answered, "There's some robot-looking dude and he's going a mile a minute!"

Fred chimed in. "Did you see which way he went?"

Shaggy pointed. "That way." The entire park was brightly lit except for the direction he was pointing.

Daphne looked at Scooby. "Can you track the robot guy with your nose?"

"Robably."

Scooby took off sniffing at the ground. We followed him for about a hundred yards and we couldn't tell if he was finding anything.

"Come on Scooby, pick up the scent." Shaggy coaxed.

"Roe scent."

Shaggy knelt down on one knee as if being closer to the ground would help somehow. "No scent? He has to have a scent. He'd have to be a ghost not to leave a scent." Shaggy jumped to his feet. "Did I say ghost?"

Suddenly Scooby Doo pointed by assuming the stance of a hunting dog finding the downed bird.

Shaggy looked at him quizzically. "What's the matter with you?"

"Rye'm rointing."

"You're pointing?"

We all followed the direction of Scooby's point and saw a medium-sized man with glowing red eyes and a blue coverall.

Shaggy was handling the human side of the communication. "Oh! I see him. That's no ghost. He looks more like a man from Mars."

Then the robot/alien thingy did us a huge favor in terms of video content—he went into the hall of mirrors. This was not scripted. Its what it actually did. A high Shaggy and a naturally exuberant Great Dane made for some great shots and I just kept filming and kept the camera on them until I was shooting into a mirror and saw the robot/alien behind Shaggy's right shoulder.

We bolted from the Hall of Mirrors and ran across the midway until Scooby and Shaggy dove into some empty garbage cans. I chose to remain outside and untouched by whatever filthy germs lay within those cans. Shaggy's head popped out of his can like Oscar the Grouch and he called out "There he is!"

I turned and saw the robot walking from the Hall of Mirrors but it didn't appear to be trying to follow us. There was an indifference to its pace as it turned a corner and disappeared into the darkness of a service alley.

Shaggy looked over at me. "Let's go find the others."

"I'm rith roo."

Fred and Daphne were under a light at the beginning of the boardwalk and we made it over to them just as Daphne pointed. "There's someone going along behind that fence."

Fred spotted our approach. "It's no one we know but, whoever it is, I'd like to ask them a few questions."

The 'someone' continued to be a video director's dream as he went straight to the ferris wheel and boarded one of the cars. The ferris wheel dutifully cranked up and the car circled skyward until it halted.

Daphne pointed. "It stopped. That man is trapped up on top."

Fred struck one of his bravado poses. "I'll get him down. I want to talk to him."

But then we were stuck with the how of it. None of us were ferris wheel experts. Luckily, Mr. Fleach had obviously been bringing everything up to OSHA compliance and we found a crank marked 'For Emergency Use Only'. We came to a quick consensus that catching the robot was an emergency and Fred started cranking. And he cranked and he cranked and he cranked until finally taking a break and letting Shaggy crank for a while. It took thirty-seven minutes of non-stop cranking to get the car back to the ground.

I had counted the cars, "You've turned it all the way around, but he's gone."

Fred looked up. "He couldn't have climbed down from there without us seeing him."

Suddenly we were in darkness. Daphne's voice came from her silhouette. "The lights are going down all over the park"

We watched for a few seconds as each area of the park went black in turn. When the last lights were out, it became evident that it was a new moon and we could barely see each other.

I heard Daphne's voice again. "This is the first time I ever wanted to leave Funland."

Fred made the call. "Gang, I think we have enough to meet with the Fleaches."