14. Chapter 13: Splitting Up (1/2)

chapter 13: splitting up

as fred parked the mystery machine behind a group of trees several feet away from the cabin in order to conceal our arrival, i was all too aware of the fact that the thick, melancholy silence that was pressing upon the gang was a result of everything that had occurred within the past few hours. i was unable to forget the way our classmates had looked when the zombies attacked: the image of their wide, horrified eyes were burned into my mind, and my ears were still searing from the sounds of their shrill, petrified screams.

and worse yet, i was still shaken when i recalled the way i was helpless against the zombies as they had attempted to destroy me and velma. i've solved hundreds of mysteries with the gang, and until now, i truly thought i knew fear; i thought i knew what fear tasted like, what fear smelled like, what fear felt like; but now, i knew that i didn't truly realize what fear was until i was forced to stare into the glowing, blue beady eyes of the zombie as he clenched my neck and choked me slowly, to the point where i was close to passing out. now i knew that fear tasted like gritty sandpaper in your throat as you coughed and begged the universe for just one more

eath of fresh air; fear smelled like the metallic scent of fresh and old, crusted blood, blood that was encrusted on zombie limbs and face and clothing; and fear felt like loneliness, an isolation similar to screaming into a black abyss, an abyss that was so isolating and so infinitely endless that you didn't even hear your own voice echoing back at you.

now that i knew how tangible and paralyzing fear could be, and now that i knew how easy it could be to lose any of my friends, for the first time ever, i began to question our chance of succeeding and capturing "the bad guy." and judging from the unsettling silence that had spread throughout the van and descended over us, stifling as a heavy coat on a hot day, i think the gang agreed with me.

as if picking up on this, fred jumped into his role as the leader again and spoke, turning to look at each of us in the eye as he did so. "all right, gang, listen up: i know this mystery hasn't been easy. i know this day has already been incredibly hard and incredibly

utal, but we have to push on; remember, sherry and the rest of coolsville are depending on us to solve this mystery. if we don't figure out who is behind all of this and make them reverse the microchips, then who will? we have to put an end to this asap, before anyone else is converted into a zombie, hurt by a zombie, or before another part of the town is attacked by zombies the way the school was attacked. to be honest, i'm not sure how strong of a lead this cabin is going to be and i'm not sure what we may or may not find, but for now, it's our best hope. let's go inside, and solve a mystery!"

velma and i nodded, already feeling invigorated; however, shaggy and scooby shook their heads, apparently requiring some additional convincing.

"like, nuh-uh, noooo way man!" shaggy shook his head slowly, and scooby mirrored his actions. "there's like, no way you can convince scoob and i to go in there and chance seeing another one of them crazy zombies, not even for a million scooby sna-"

but he was interrupted by velma, who had produced two boxes of scooby snacks and two bags of dorritos from underneath the passenger seat of the mystery machine. scooby and shaggy both stood up and held out their hands eagerly, already drooling and forgetting about their fear of the zombies. typical.

after scooby and shaggy inhaled their snacks in about two minutes flat, we filed out of the van and approached the cabin together. luckily, we saw no sign of any truck or car to indicate that someone was inside, so that took care of our previous concern of being detected while searching for clues, and even luckier yet, as was the case with past mysteries, i was able to use a bobby pin to trick the lock on the front door into opening for us; so far, things seemed to be going smoother than earlier.

the gang and i stumbled into the entry of the cabin, our eyes sweeping over the room before us and taking in everything so we could start considering anything that was out of place or odd. however, just as the cabin looked normal and even peaceful on the outside, so far, the inside revealed much the same. we were standing in what appeared to be a living room, with two

own couches and one old, outdated mint colored couch, complete with floral decorative pillows to match the tacky, dated piece of furniture. aside from the 70's styled couch, everything else in the room gave off a cozy and welcoming vibe. the wall was covered with paintings, all various sizes, some larger and some smaller, but all very vi

ant and colorful and abstract: it was hard not to gaze at one piece for too long without feeling entranced. the floor was covered in a cream colored carpet, and just as the outside of the cabin was clean, the carpet too appeared well-maintained despite its light appearance. the only area of the room that could have possibly yielded any sort of clues were the reading material stacked on the two glass tables bookending the mint colored couch. velma quickly sensed this and walked towards the tables, shuffling through the magazines piled neatly on top of each other, but after a minute she looked at us and shrugged to indicate that she had found nothing that was out of the ordinary.

fred scratched his head. "boy, this sure is disappointing. i don't get it: we followed those guys back to this place, and sherry did say they were heading back to the factory. is it possible that they live here and they were finished with their shift for the day, and we were wrong about this place being suspicious?"

"i mean, that may be possible," i conceded. "but at the very least, why did they

ing their work truck back here? wouldn't they have returned their van to the factory, and then taken their own car home if that were the case?" things were beginning to look more and more mysterious.

velma glanced towards the end other side of the living room, where a wooden staircase was located. "well gang, don't feel despair quite yet. it appears as though there are two floors in this cabin, so the potential for clues or something out of the ordinary still exists. plus, i see from here there is a kitchen and possibly one other room still to search through on the ground floor. i propose that we split-up and see what we can find, especially since we want to save time before anyone can return and find us."

"good idea, velma!" fred nodded. "i think we should have shag and scoob search upstairs, and you, daphne, and i can continue to look around down here."

"actually, freddy, i think i will go with shaggy and scooby," velma replied. "i really would like to search upstairs with them; and besides, who knows if those two could lose their confidence at any minute and require additional snacks!"