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ninja-knox-ur-sox-off · 2 years

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Scooby-Doo but make it a ghost story.

(Just hear me out, trust me, I swear it’ll make sense-)

3k words

A man shows up with a paper with an empty signature line, asking you to sell whatever you have left and leave the premises.

He’s not the first to try and tell you to get off your own land, and you doubt he will be the last, but you’ve dealt with his kind before--trim, pristine suits and loud voices speaking big words and legal jargon that still makes your head spin even after the piles of research you’ve done to keep this from happening--so despite his confident posture and degrading sneer, you’re not frightened by him.

You turn him away like the others, and he spits and curses and stomps his feet, giving a tantrum worthy of the most red-cheeked toddlers you’ve seen in your store, piling on threats of how you’ll regret it before storming off. While it is always a bit worrying to have these types pay you a visit, you know the land is yours until you can’t sustain it any longer; and although your business is small, it will take a long while before that will happen.

At least until the word haunted starts spreading through the halls.

You first hear it when you’re re-stocking some shelves near the front. The couple is scurrying out in agitated whispers about ghosts and ghouls and generally unpleasant things accompanied by a stream of vulgar language directed at whoever owned this establishment.

It’s odd, but you don’t think much of it outside of a curious glance at the young cashier who started work here a few weeks ago. He does nothing but shrug to express that his confusion aligns with your own, and you both brush it aside without much thought.

Two days later, he hands in his resignation, pale and a little shaky, nearly running out of the shop the moment he gets the chance.

You find out he was on the closing shift last night, and wouldn’t speak to anyone the next morning until he could get out of there. One of the employees says she heard him feverishly mutter something about ghosts.

It’s worrisome but you get back to work as best you can, trying not to let it bother you.

The next employee who leaves is much louder about it.

You hear it again: GHOSTS. HAUNTED.

Cursed.

You take in a shaky breath, then a couple more to collect yourself before turning to reassure your remaining employees. There’s not many of them. Most of them are kids from homes nearby, just working the hours they could to save for college or to move away. Not all of them are frightened, and they brush aside the others, but even so, you close the shop an hour earlier now so that no one has to stay after dark.

As the winter season comes, that becomes earlier and earlier until everyone is out by four o’clock.

Still, it’s no use. Word spreads like wildfire in small towns, gossiping to tourists too. Some ghost hunters drop by to try their luck but they’re always out by morning or gone completely to goodness knows where. You simply hope they left in a panic and not something else.

You try the police and they find nothing. You hire a detective who runs away yelling about how they don’t deal with ghosts, and all that money is down the drain. You watch as the price of your small business drops and drops until you’re eating strictly canned foods, ramen and the cheapest cereal you can find to try and scavenge for any spare penny you can. Your neighbour tells you again and again that it isn’t worth it and you should just sell. Any employees that remained left quickly, off to find a job that could pay them better than you could until it was just you and your baby cousin left at the till. She’s barely old enough to be working, and there are jobs that pay better out there, but she stubbornly keeps restocking the shelves and ringing up the till whenever stragglers or loud curious teens find their way into the shop. She refuses to leave you.

You try to deal with the problem yourself. You really do. After your cousin goes home for the night you stay, hidden behind boxes with an old bat and wait for whatever it was that was harassing your staff, but when you see it you’re paralyzed. It floats past, eerie, silent, a horrible gaping face, unearthly glow about it, and no sound of footsteps or creaking wires to betray it as a fake. You try to tell yourself it must be fake. It must be. You hide clutching the bat like your life depends on it and shaking like a leaf in the freezing autumn wind gusts. The glow from the thing is greenish as it floats past the boxes you’re hidden behind. Your heart pounds in your ears and goosebumps rise on your arms as it pauses over the boxes. You think for a moment this might be where you die and then it’s floating on before vanishing through a wall.

You run from the shop as fast as you can all the way home and lock every door and window. You stay up all night pressed against the wall, halfway under your covers, sitting up, bat still clenched in your hands. You’re only able to get some sleep when the sun rises a bit.

You follow the path that the ghastly thing took during the opening hours of the shop, finding no trace of it ever existing. Your hands still hurt from how tightly you had clenched the bat all night.

It scared you. Enough to close the doors even earlier.

It was near impossible to keep things running when you could only safely keep the shop open barely half the day. You knew the next time a man with a paper came to the door you wouldn’t be in a position to refuse.

It’s around that time you hear about a group that deals exclusively with your type of problem. Ghosts, goblins, ghouls, witches, warlocks, werewolves, demons; helping people who no one else would help.

You’re desperate. So you grab what remains of your savings and get in your rickety car that you’re honestly surprised still works at this point and go to find them.

They’ve set up shop in a small building on the corner of a street in a town you’ve never heard of.

Mystery Inc. is painted across an old van parked out front and the sign on the door. It’s colourful, almost silly. It doesn't fill you with much confidence but you’re desperate, and the bright colours do at least make you smile.

A young man shakes your hand when you enter the door, polite, not commenting on your haggard appearance--nonstop driving and energy drinks for an amount of time you didn’t really want to think about probably did a number on the circles under your eyes. You’re pretty sure your hands were shaking from the caffeine. He warmly welcomes you in and introduces himself as Fred.

A young red-headed girl in heels-- fifteen? Sixteen perhaps?-- takes your hand and helps you sit down in a seat near a desk and before you know it there’s a blanket over your shoulders and a warm cup of some non-caffeinated tea in your hands. At this point it tastes like nothing more than hot water but it does wonders to stop your hands from shaking.

The dog startles you; a massive Great Dane, a little dopey looking with a brightly coloured collar. It's sitting at a table in the corner with a very scrawny looking teen, peach fuzz on his chin and a shirt that must be a few sizes too big judging by the way that it hangs off his wiry frame. There’s a large array of foods on the table in front of them, but they’ve paused their snacking to wave at you. Both the teen and the dog. You wave back and that seems to satisfy them enough for them to tuck back into their meal eating more like what you’ve seen black holes in movies consume things like. It’s 3am. You try not to stare.

The sound of a chair sliding draws your attention and a different freckled young lady sits down in front of you and adjusts the thickest glasses you’ve ever seen.

They’re children, you realize after a moment. Teenagers. Hardly older than your cousin. Their clothing seems a little out of style, but pristine considering they looked like something your grandparents would wear. Clothes were nicer back than anyways, and you have your fair share of hand-me-downs so you don’t comment or think about it much.

They ask you what brought you here and you do your best to share. It feels like mad ramblings but under their watchful eyes and attentive ears you find yourself relaxing at least a bit. It’s a strange situation and you apologize numerous times, how odd it is to be going to children half your age for help, but they do little more than brush the apology aside with a wave of their hands and a reassuring pat to your shoulder.

“Well…” says Fred, stroking his chin thoughtfully, “it’s not much to go off of, but we’ll see what we can do.”

They drive you home and you sleep in the back of the van with the massive dog and the scrawny teen. They wake you up only to ask for directions and you give them as best you can in your sleep deprived state.

Somehow they reach the shop by morning, which feels unreal when it took you three days to get to their office, but you count your blessings rather than question them and invite the group inside, figuring you must have just been more lost than you realized on the way there.

The dog and the scrawny teen (Shaggy, you think they call him, and you’re inclined to agree) are always searching for some kind of food. They raid your shop’s back fridge and you don’t bother to stop them since there’s not much in there anyways, and they seem half-starved despite the large meal you saw them consume back at their headquarters. They find more than you thought you had in there and carry it all out in an impressive stack that they consume in mere seconds. You don’t have much to pay them for the job they’re doing, so you don’t bother stopping them from raiding the snack shelves at the front counter either.

You show Fred and the girls the back room where things happen. You introduce them to your cousin who they politely ask some questions too. It’s clear they’ve done this before. Any inquiries are straight to the point, they share with you what they find. You get the strangest feeling they’ve been doing this for decades with how confidently they walk around a supposedly haunted shop.

Velma, the freckled one with glasses, throws around some large words you don’t understand with some pale green dust on the end of her finger. Their first clue, which Fred seems excited about. He suggests they head back to the van to take a drive around town for further investigation while she runs tests on the substance found in the shop.

Shaggy makes a comment about being hungry and Scooby nods his head. The ground is littered with snack wrappers and you make a note to clean those up.

Daphne, the one who patted your hand and gave you tea looks a little lost, simply floating around after the others and nodding along with the clues they find until Fred mentions heading out, then she quickly takes charge directing them out to the van. They bid you a goodnight, telling you to get some more sleep and they’ll handle the rest.

You worry about them but your cousin agrees and shoos you home.

The next morning comes after a restless sleep and they’re still there. You aren’t sure whether you’re relieved or worried over that fact. They stayed in the shop overnight, they report. Shaggy and Scooby are quaking but the others look unphased.

“Terrifying! Big ugly green face, a g-g-g-GHOST!”

Scooby gives a mournful ruff in agreement in something that sounds almost startlingly close to real words.

Velma sighs. “Shaggy, Scooby, there’s no such thing as ghosts.”

“Oh yeah? How’d you explain tall, floaty and creepy, huh?”

“Wires most likely. Glow in the dark paint. A costume.”

Shaggy and Scooby shake their heads in unison.

You’re just glad they’re alright.

“You don’t have to do this,” you tell them. It breaks your heart but the little old shop isn’t worth the lives of four teenages and their large puppy.

“It’s our job,” Fred tells you with a cool, comforting hand on your shoulder. “Trust us. I have a plan. And, after our investigation around town, I get the feeling we might already know who this ghost of yours is.”

It seems impossible but you and your baby cousin do your best to help them set up a rather elaborate trap. It’s confusing to you, but the others seem fairly confident in Fred’s direction.

They ussher you out for your own safety, ignoring your protests of “what about yours?” and tell you to wait until they call you back.

You do. Nervously pacing your house. Your baby cousin’s asleep at the table. It’s been a long few days so you’re not surprised, even if she made a valiant effort to stay up with you, it was only a matter of time before it caught up to her. You throw a blanket over her but decide against moving her to the bed, she’s a light sleeper and you don’t want to wake her.

You don’t chew your nails often, but they’re bitten down to the skin by the time your phone rings. It makes you jump and you answer it in a mad scramble, nearly dropping your phone in the process.

There’s a lot of white noise and garbled static that makes you wonder if it was a butt dial until you recognize snatches of Fred’s voice speaking out from the mess telling you it was safe to come out now.

You have just enough thought to shake your cousin awake so she isn’t left behind at your place, and the two of you race over to the shop together. Your heart’s pounding and worry runs rampant. It was impossible to tell Fred’s tone over the garbled static, but you pray that nothing went wrong and that they are alright.

You arrive to the ghost that has been terrorizing your shop, tied up on the ground with the four teens and Scooby standing over it. It’s strange to see something that phased through a wall restrained by ropes and you can’t help but keep your distance, still unsettled, even in the daylight. Its wide gaping jaw and empty eyes still looked too-real.

But the group stood by it like it was nothing and the police arrived a few moments later, having been called by the teens shortly after they’d contacted you.

It was a costume. Fake. As they said. The mask was tugged off and you recognized it as your neighbour, the one who had been so insistent you sell.

The group takes turns explaining how they came to the conclusion, what led to the capture, the motivation behind it. It feels practiced and comfortable for them as they spin the story and explanation. You hardly hear a word, just relieved that it was over.

An officer pulls you aside to get your testimony and you want more than anything for them to be gone. They ask you about your involvement, and you inform them of the bare minimum, directing them to the teens, who seem to know much more than you do at this point, but when you go to point them out you find them missing. Van and all. Somehow having already pulled out of the driveway and driven away without anyone noticing.

You give the name Mystery Inc. and show the traps if only to get them out faster and eventually they leave after relentless grilling. You would have preferred to keep them out of this entirely but it was necessary to get rid of your “ghost”. The one that turned you away when you asked for help doesn’t seem at all remorseful and it rubs you the wrong way so you don’t bother to bid any of them goodbye.

You sleep for a few days before you get back in your car and drive to Mystery Inc.’s office. You never did agree on a price but you have an envelope with some cash inside of it and more than anything you want to thank them for what they did for you. Your cousin is in the passenger's seat next to you. It takes another three days to find the office again, but eventually you do.

You don’t recognize it at first; it was impossible too. The colourful sign declaring it the home of Mystery Inc. hung sideways, barely hanging on to the front of the building; the colours washed out and so weathered you couldn’t make out the text on it anymore.

“Are you sure this is the right place?” your cousin asks. She’s clutching the envelope in her hands.

You step out of the car feeling like you’ve pulled up into another world. The windows are smashed, the front steps are falling apart, the building’s even leaning, the door at an odd angle on its hinges; the kind of wear and tear that could only come from years of erosion.

You shoulder your way in through the front door, kicking up dust when you finally get it to move. It swings open violently, screeching on rusted hinges.

The desk is where you remember it, but it’s coated in dust.

It’s completely abandoned.

No one had set foot inside for years by the looks of it. Except…

You feel a chill run down your spine as your eyes fall on a single set of footprints that match your own shoes, tracking back to a chair where an old moth-eaten blanket looked like it hadn’t moved in ages and a cracked cup that still has some liquid in it.

Your cousin calls to you and you glance back at her.

She seems unsettled and you can’t imagine the expression on your own face right now.

Ghosts aren’t real, you remember Velma saying, and the hair on the back of your neck stands up.

You leave the envelope on the desk and drive home in silence. You drop your cousin off at home, bidding her goodnight before heading to your own house.

Neither of you say it.

You dare to look them up and find Mystery Inc. doesn’t exist. At least not anymore.

You don’t sleep much that night, the memory of Fred’s cold reassuring hand on your shoulder replaying over and over in your mind.

Shaggy and Scooby’s candy wrappers are still in the pockets of your jacket, you meant to throw those out. You wonder if they’re still hungry; If they’re ever not hungry.

The shop becomes rather popular after the incident. Prim men and woman at your door with papers aren’t a threat any longer and you turn them away with ease, a flood of customers at your back.

The police don’t contact you about it. How could they? They saw them too. They took testimonies from them themselves. You can imagine what it must have felt like to find the town Coolsville they said they had come from no longer exists and neither do they.

Your cousin moves away to go to college eventually but she still keeps in contact. She says her classmates tell her she has the best ghost stories.

“Ghosts aren’t real,” a friend of yours says.

One of the wrappers is still in your pocket, even years later.

“Sure,” you say. And try not to think about it.

When they need help you give them the name Mystery Inc.

A few days later they’re less keen to tell you ghosts aren’t real.