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switchedandbewitched · 15 days

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Switched and Bewitched

Chapter 1: Scoob, like, I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore

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“Uh, like, fuck.”

“Well put, Shaggy, thank you,” Velma said. She rubbed the back of her neck and adjusted her dirt-smattered glasses. She was missing her right sock and shoe.

Somewhere off to the side they both heard Fred groan. “Have either of you seen Daphne?”

“I’m up here, Freddie.”

The gang looked up to see Daphne haphazardly dangling from over them from a tree limb. A cut on her cheek dripped blood onto Shaggy’s green tee.

“Like, how you doin’ up there, Daph?” Shaggy asked.

Daphne rolled her eyes. “Can you just help get me down?”

As Fred and Velma helped Daphne down from the tree Shaggy began to call out Scooby’s name. “Scooby-Doo, where are you?”

“Ri’m rover here.” Scooby was several yards away in a bush but thankfully uninjured. The Gang reconvened under the tree and looked around. “Ruys, rhere rare re?”

There was an initial pause until finally Fred said, “I... I’m not sure.”

“We need to figure out what is going on. Immediately,” Velma said. She smoothed her skirt, took a deep breath, and looked up, her mouth set in a hard line. “This is completely abnormal. We have never experienced anything like this before while solving a mystery. That witch must have drugged us and staged this to scare us off.”

“Velma, that doesn’t feel right. I don’t feel like I’ve been drugged. Remember that one time I was roofied at Red Herring’s party?”

“You mean that one time Red Herring roofied you,” Fred stated.

“I’ve told you before and I’ll tell you again, Fred, Red Herring did not --”

“Well, what would you propose as an explanation, Daphne?” Velma asked.

“Arguing isn’t going to help anything. If the witch did move us, we need to figure out where we are so we can go home,” Fred said. “We seem to be in some kind of park so there has to be a road nearby.”

“Like, Scoob and I are starving. It feels like we haven’t eaten in decades.”

It was near evening already and it took The Gang another two hours to hike through the park, eventually locating an access road that led them to a paved street. When they reached the street, there were few clues as to where they were. Thick trees blocked out any light there might have been from a town and the street lights flickered on and off at random.

“Now what?” Daphne asked.

“I guess we just wait until someone drives by,” Fred responded.

“Someone who is willing to pick up all four of us in this state and a 70 pound dog? Doubtful. We should pick a direction and walk until we get our bearings. We can’t possibly be that far away from home. The North Star is there.” Velma pointed. “The swamp we were in was to the east of Coolsville so we should travel west to get home but that would take hours.”

“Right,” Scooby said.

The Gang started off, silently. It was clear none of them were in as good of shape as they thought. Once their adrenaline wore off, they noticed hidden sore spots and bloody patches. Daphne’s face clearly needed stitches, much to her chagrin, and she could feel her stomach bruising from where she landed on the tree branch. Velma decided she must be missing a sock and shoe because they were ripped off when she twisted her ankle somehow. Shaggy was under the impression he and Scooby were fine until he reached down to pet his faithful companion and not only realized his arm was nearly immobile but Scooby’s ear was ripped and his face full of thorns. Fred kept it to himself so as not to worry the rest of the group but the longer they walked, the more painful breathing became.

After about forty-five minutes of walking along the road, they saw headlights behind them. The Gang waved their arms in the air and shouted for the car to stop. The car slowed to a stop and The Gang squinted into the bright lights. The large pick-up rolled down its window to reveal an older woman with a kind face.

“What are you kids doing all the way out here so late at night?”

The four hesitated before Daphne said, “Thank you for stopping, ma’am. We got lost during a hike and seem to have injured ourselves.”

“You couldn’t use a cellphone to call someone?” She asked. The Gang looked at one another, confused. “I s’pose service is spotty around here. Why don’t ya get in?” Shaggy, Velma, and Daphne got into the back seat and hauled Scooby over their laps. Fred slammed the back door and got in the passenger’s seat. “So, where can I take you guys? I’m driving through the center of town on my way home.”

“Uh, like, I think the hospital might be best, ma’am,” Shaggy said in a sheepish tone.

“Coolsville Memorial is about fifteen minutes from here. I don’t mind dropping you kids off there. You can call your families, right?”

“Uh, yes, ma’am,” Fred said. “Thank you so much.”

The woman reached forward and turned the volume up on the radio. Country music started playing. The Gang fell silent and laser focused on the radio. It was not the country music that caught their attention, but instead the way the radio lit up, the number of buttons, and that the dashboard had little diagrams of people and high-low settings. They each stiffened up and looked at once another, but did not say anything in front of the kind woman who had picked them up.

“So, my name’s Greta. What are all y’all’s names?”

“I’m - I’m Fred.”

“My name is Velma.”

“Like, my name’s Shaggy and this is Scooby-Doo.”

“And I’m Daphne.”

“Well, I am pleased to meet’cha.”

The rest of the ride went quietly, just country music, Greta’s humming, and a growing tension among The Gang.

Shaggy, in true Shaggy fashion, was already convinced something spooky was going on here. Many may confuse his over-indulgence in a certain herb and severe panic disorder with stupidity, but Norville Rogers was no idiot. He considered that monsters had been real in prior instances and saw no reason why the case they were working on couldn’t have led to an honest-to-god witch who could cast real magic. Whether the rest of The Gang could be convinced remained undecided.

Velma, on the other hand, was entirely against a supernatural explanation. The Gang had not been in Coolsville at the time they located the so-called “witch”, but about two hours away in a neighboring town. If the masked individual drugged the entire Gang, loaded them into a vehicle, and transported them back to Coolsville with paid actors like this Greta woman it would have taken several hours. According to the clock on the truck’s lighted dashboard it was 8:27pm, approximately three and a half hours from when they arrived at the witch’s cabin. Velma ruminated on the situation for a few moments more.

Jinkies, she thought to herself. We’re on a movie set! That explains everything!

Fred was nearly unable to think through the unbearable pain in his chest. He believed The Gang to have been kidnapped somehow and transported back to their hometown. On the other hand, it did not make sense for the witch to have known where they lived. Despite his effort, the Scooby-Doo Detective Agency had not yet become a household name.

Daphne felt incredibly off-put by the entire situation, not just due to the pain or strange circumstances. Every now and again a memory that didn’t truly belong to her appeared in her mind’s eye. She tried to shake the feeling that the witch had done something sinister to her but fragments of people, places, and cases she previously had no knowledge of bobbed to the surface. Daphne had already determined she was not drugged, regardless of what Velma had to say. The more she considered their predicament the more she thought about being hypnotized by the Ghost Clown.

“Here we are,” Greta said, spooking the whole Gang. “Y'all get home safe now, ya hear? Toodaloo!”

The Gang unloaded themselves from Greta’s strange truck with much groaning and grunting. Fred stumbled and dropped to his knees.

“Freddie!” Daphne cried. “Are you alright?”

Fred stood, shaking and out of breath, and waved Daphne off. “Fine. I’m just a bit light headed. Who knows when we ate last.”

The Gang stopped and stared up at the glowing Coolsville Memorial Hospital sign. Shaggy’s mouth hung open in disbelief. “Um, like, guys this doesn’t look like the same hospital where they took my appendix out.”

“I have come up with a theory,” Velma declared. “The witch was clearly using advanced special effects, like the kind you would see in a movie, and makeup to stage her cabin in the swamp. I hypothesize that she did not transport us back to Coolsville but rather dropped us on to some kind of movie set, albeit a very large movie set. The doctors and nurses there are probably paid actors. We aren’t going to get any medical attention.”

“Velma, that is absurd,” Daphne responded. “We drove 15 minutes in that woman’s truck, down a mountain, and into town. There is no movie set in the world that big. You must have hit your head.”

Velma glared at Daphne, and her rationality. She was right, of course, but so far that was the only non-supernatural possibility that fit the equation.

A hospital staff had seen The Gang standing in front of the ER entrance, clearly injured, and came outside. “Are you kids looking for the emergency room?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Fred huffed.

“Okay, you should come on in, but the dog has to remain outside,” The nurse said.

“Rog? Rhere?” Scooby whispered.

“Understood, thank you. Scooby, you’ll have to wait outside.” Velma pointed to some thick flower bushes and hedges and whispered to Scooby. “Hide over there, we don’t know what is going on.”

The Gang followed the woman to the hospital desk and checked each of them in. Flatscreen TVs played the 9 o’clock news and only increased the Gang’s confusion. The weather reports listed today’s date as August 21st, 2022 even though it was December 6th, 1969 when they woke up this morning.

Daphne and Shaggy felt panic set in. Fifty-two years? This didn’t make any sense. Velma felt an increasing anxiety as she continued to lack a rational explanation for this. Fred could no longer process anything beyond the pain he was in and collapsed to the floor.

“Triage, STAT,” played over the loudspeaker. “Triage, STAT.”

Suddenly there were nurses swarming over Fred and they whisked him away on a stretcher.

“Where are you taking him?!” Daphne cried.

“Ma’am we need you to stand back, a doctor will update you shortly.”

Defeated, The Gang slumped into waiting room chairs. Each one was taken back one by one, in order of severity of injury. Shaggy was taken back next and found to have a dislocated shoulder and some cuts and scrapes. Daphne was taken for x-rays and an ultrasound to check for internal bleeding, which were clear. Eventually a plastic surgeon came and stitched up her face. Velma, in the best shape out of everyone, was taken for x-rays of her ankle and found to have a severe sprain but no fractures.

A doctor came out to the freshly patched-up Gang and informed them Fred would be taken into surgery as he had two broken ribs, one of which had lacerated his liver.

“When can we take him home?” Daphne asked.

“He needs to stay in the hospital for a few days but you can take him then. He will need serious rest. He must have fallen very hard from a great height to get the breaks he did.” The doctor’s tone told them he didn’t believe the injuries were caused by a fall while hiking but The Gang kept their mouths shut.

The Gang shuffled outside and found Scooby still hidden in the bushes. Shaggy pulled out some tweezers and gauze he stole from the hospital and began pulling thorns out of Scooby’s face.”

“Rouch, Raggy.”

“Like, sorry, ol’ buddy.”

“August 21st, 2022,” Velma said. “This is quite the elaborate plot.”

“Velma, I think this is August 21st, 2022. Look around. This isn’t fake,” Daphne insisted.

“Then offer me a rational explanation for how this happened,” Velma countered.

Daphne kicked a rock down the sidewalk in frustration. “There isn’t one.”

“Like, let’s start walking home. I’m sure everything will be fine once we see our parents and eat a triple decker salami, peanut butter, and anchovy sandwich. I’ve been meaning to visit my parents for, like, two months,” Shaggy said. Shaggy had spent the last several months partying his way through his freshman semester at Wetherby University before eventually dropping out. He’d been too embarrassed to visit his parents since.

With no better option, The Gang limped off towards home. New buildings they had never seen lined roads they had never been on. People wandered in and out of restaurants and bars in strange clothing with their noses practically glued to lighted screens. The Gang got lost more than once when they turned down a new side street. There was far more trash in the streets and graffiti than they remembered. But then again, by all accounts this version of Coolsville was a true city.

After at least an hour and a half of missteps and wrong turns, they reached the Rogers’ residence. The house was the same except it had been painted and a new fence was erected. Scooby’s doghouse no longer sat in the yard.

“Like, here goes nothing,” Shaggy said and, with more confidence than he had had all night, he marched up the stone walkway and knocked on the door.

A light flicked on inside and a disgruntled man in his PJs opened the door. “Can I help you? Do you know what time it is?”

“Um... like, I’m looking for my parents, Colton and Paula Rogers.”

“You’re joking.”

“Like, no, sir, I’m not joking. They live here.”

“I’m sorry, but we bought the house from Colton ah... well, I’d say going on 25 years now,” The man responded and pushed his glasses on his face. “You do look awfully familiar though.”

“I’m their oldest kid. Norville, Norville Rogers. Did they leave a forwarding address?” A lump was growing in Shaggy’s throat, getting heavier by the second.

“Well, I have to say again: you’re joking. And I don’t have any patience for pranks at this time of night.”

“Like, wait, I’m not joking!”

“Son, Norville Rogers, his friends, and his dog went missing on December 6th, 1969. It was one of the biggest missing person’s cases in the history of California. Norville Rogers would be nearly 70 years old by now and you look barely 20. Have a good night.” The door slammed in his face.

Shaggy’s face blanched and he turned around to face The Gang. “Like, I’m with you, Daph. We’re actually in 2022.”

“There has to be another explanation. Let’s try Blake Manor.”

Seeking out Daphne’s parents was an even worse result. Where the beautiful mansion Daphne grew up in once stood was an expansive parking lot and massive shopping center.

Velma gritted her teeth, “Fine. My house, then.”

They trekked all the way to the Dinkley residence where new people were living with their kids, based on the look of the front yard. They didn’t even bother knocking. It was clear from the exterior of the home that the Dinkley’s were no longer at the residence. The tree where The Gang’s treehouse was had been cut down and in its place was a large, flat stump.

“Wait a minute,” Velma muttered. She stood up and hobbled in her aircast over to some shrubs lining the home and disappeared behind them.

“Velma! You’re trespassing!” Daphne hissed. “Come back -” CLANG!

“Let’s go,” Velma said and disappeared into the earth.

Shaggy, Daphne, and Scooby followed Velma down a short ladder into a hole in the ground. The hole opened up into a small room, no more than 6x6x4 feet and supported by an impeccably designed wooden framework. There were dusty trinkets on shelves mounted to the walls, molded books on the ground, and some miscellaneous documents on the floor.

“Like, what is this place? It looks like no one’s been down here in 100 years.”

“Fifty-five years to be precise. The last time I was down here was three years before we visited the witch’s swamp. No one knew about this but me.” Velma picked up a dusty beaker and then set it back down immediately. “Fine. You’re right. We actually experienced time travel somehow. Now we need to figure out how to get back.”

“I think we have more basic concerns than that, Velma. Food, water, clothes, somewhere to sleep. Clearly none of our family is still here. We could try the Jones’,” Daphne said with a gentleness in her voice that hadn’t previously been there. She must have realized Velma was an inch from a breakdown.

“Tomorrow,” Velma responded. She laid her sweater on the cool earth, laid down, and curled into a ball. “It’s after midnight. We need to sleep.”

“Rown here?” Scooby protested.

“Like, sorry, Scoob. It’s all we got.”

In the morning, the reality of their situation set in a little bit more. The light of day made the differences all the more noticeable. Coolsville might as well have been a completely new city The Gang had never lived in.

“Okay, we need a plan,” Velma stated flatly after they crawled out of their hole. “Money, a place to stay, IDs, food --”

“Like, yeah, food,” Shaggy sighed wistfully.

“Any ideas?” Velma finished.

“I could try my bank account, though it’s probably closed by now,” Daphne offered.

“We should all try our bank accounts,” Velma agreed. “And anyone who might be alive still.”

“Red Herring?”

“Red Herring.”

The first order of business, money, required The Gang to travel to the Coolsville Savings Bank on the east side of town. They walked through business with strange names, selling products they’d never heard of before.

“What is ‘bubble tea’ and why is it $8?” Daphne asked.

“Like, man, some of the food in this era seems fantastic,” Shaggy said.

“I have no intention of getting used to this whatsoever,” Velma said. “We are getting home one way or another.”

Just as Daphne had thought, her bank account was long since closed. The bank teller informed her the Blakes had made a sudden move to the Cayman Islands some decades ago and hadn’t been seen or heard from since.

Shaggy, knowing he had about $5 in his bank account at the time of their disappearance, was not feeling particularly hopeful.

“Like, hello, ma’am, I’d like to make a withdrawal.”

“Do you have the account number,” the teller responded.

“No, but it would be under Norville Rogers.”

The teller coughed and straightened up. “Excuse me, could you repeat that, please.”

“Norville Rogers, please.”

“Do you have an ID, sir?”

Shaggy pulled out his wallet and presented the teller with a 1967 California state driver’s license and smiled sheepishly. “I know this may not make a lot of sense, but --”

“Wait right there,” the teller said briskly.

Shaggy widened his eyes at Daphne and Velma and tried to telepathically communicate something along the lines of Oh, shit, man! They’re gonna get the cops! Let’s make a run for it! But neither Daphne nor Velma moved an inch.

Maybe 20 minutes later the teller returned with every higher-up in the bank on her tail, no police in sight. Several men in suits passed Shaggy’s ID around and glanced back and forth from the scrawny teenager and the card.

The man in the fanciest suit handed the license back to Shaggy. “Can you please confirm the names of your parents.”

“Um, like, Paula and Colton Norville.”

“Can you please confirm the name of your dog?”

“Scoo...Scooby-Doo?”

“Prior to residing in Coolsville, California, where did you reside?”

“Plymouth, Massachusetts... Like, man, if my account is closed, just tell me and we’ll be on our way.”

“Can you please...” the man looked at a paper in his hand and cleared his throat. “Confirm the name of your coolest and most handsome uncle?”

“Uh, well, that’s a tough one... I have a lot of uncles... I guess I would have to say my uncle Albert. Shaggleford. Albert Shaggleford.”

“That is correct,'' the man responded. “You do not have an open bank account here at the moment but we are fully prepared to assist you with all your financial needs after you review this letter, Mr. Rogers.” The man in a suit handed Shaggy a trifold letter, sealed with a red wax stamp marked with a filigree ‘S’. The group of men collectively nodded and dispersed back into the bank.

“I thought that old man was crazy,” remarked one man, just loud enough for Shaggy to overhear.

Shaggy turned the letter over but there was no marking on it other than the wax seal. He handed the letter to Daphne and she immediately handed it back. “A creepy letter waiting for you fifty-two years after we went missing? Uh-uh. You open it.”

The four walked outside and held their breath as Shaggy popped open the letter to reveal distinctive handwriting.

May 19th, 1996

Shaggy, my boy!

If you’re reading this then I suppose you’ve found yourself in a bit of a predicament. When they told me you and Scooby and your friends went missing, I couldn’t believe it. Savvy, crime-solving sleuths such as yourselves, missing or kidnapped? Hogwash. I suspected something a tad more complex happened. More, shall we say, scientific? Supernatural? Same thing.

Regardless, I do not believe we will be seeing one another again. I write this on my deathbed. Giant lobster man mortally wounded me, I'm afraid.

I have made arrangements for you should you return after my demise. Please find your way to the address listed below. All arrangements have been made, including access to the Shaggleford trust. I do wish I could answer more of your questions but like you, I truly do not know what happened on December 6th, 1969.

I wish you luck navigating a new decade (possibly a new millennia!).

With love,

Dr. Albert Shaggleford

2010 Crystal Cove Ln

Coolsville, CA 95401

Gate passcode: 12061969

Ring (555) 427-1932

Shaggy handed the letter to Daphne wordlessly and she read it to herself, her eyes widening at the particularly strange parts.

Velma handed the letter back to Shaggy. "I don't know where that address is but we need to check on Fred and speak to Red Herring before we do anything else. This is becoming stranger by the minute."