It Happened on Sunday

Disclaimer: Scooby Doo and all related characters are owned by Hanna-Barbera, Warner Bros.,and Cartoon Network. All other characters, names, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, events, places, and incidents is coincidental.

My thanks to Ally82 for her permission to use her idea.

"Last Man on Earth" 1964, MGM starring Vincent Price.

Chapter One: A Boring Movie

Part One: Saturday night, Coolsville Drive Inn

It wasn't that the movie was boring, on the contrary, "Last Man on Earth" was pretty good. And it had one of Shaggy's favorite horror movie stars, Vincent Price, in the leading role. But when you've solved mysteries since childhood, been chased by real villains, it did seem a bit tame.

Besides, with Velma sitting beside him in the back seat of the van known as the Mystery Machine, it was a bit hard to keep his mind on any movie. As usual, Fred and Daphne had taken the front seat and Fred had found a darkened corner of the drive-inn to park. He wasn't going to complain about having to walk to the concession stand.

Saturday had been another warm but comfortable day in Coolsville, with the gang gathering at Daphne's home for a bar-b-que and swim party with all the trimmings. One of the trimmings had been the three ganging up on Velma to get her into a swimsuit. She had been self-conscious at first but had had fun after she realized her friends weren't going to make fun of her.

After making the trip to the concession stand and a few remarks about the movie every one settled down; Shaggy noticed Velma yawning a lot, and truthfully, felt a little tired himself after eating at the bar-b-que and swimming. Velma fought for a while then succumbed to sleep, resting her head on Shaggy's shoulder. With Fred and Daphne whispering quietly and engrossed in the movie, Shaggy also succumbed to another temptation. Slowly he slipped his arm around Velma's shoulder which also had the effect of bringing her lips dangerously close to his.

The movie ended and everyone agreed they were too tired to sit through the second feature and made their way out of the drive inn to their respective homes. "I'm home!" called Shaggy as he opened the door and let Scooby Doo precede him into the house. There was no answer, silence was the only answer to his call.

"That's right, Scoob, ol' buddy. We've got the house all to ourselves since mom and dad went out of town for the weekend. How about we find something to eat and see what's on the TV?"

"Rright! Racks rand rTV!" Scooby answered, opening the refrigerator. Despite all they had eaten at the bar-b-que, six hotdogs, sodas and miscellaneous snacks at the movie, they did find half a peanut butter pizza and headed down the hall to Shaggy's bedroom.

Shaggy was feeling just how tired he really was and thinking of the kiss he had stolen from the sleeping Velma, fell asleep, laying across the bed. The phone call came several hours later.

---------Xxxxxx

Part Two: The coded message, Early Sunday Morning.

The ringing of the phone pulled Shaggy from a romantic dream. It was difficult to turn over to grab the phone with a one hundred pound Great Dane laying across his body. "Hello," he answered, rubbing the hard kernels of sleep from the corners of his eyes.

"The Balloon is up! Repeat, the balloon is up!" Fear raced through Shaggy's body at the coded message. He recognized the voice immediately, it was a message that he had hoped he would never get.

"The others?" he had snapped wide awake. The message was to go to Fred first with Fred spreading the word.

"I tried, no answers. The balloon went up 3 hours ago. Good luck." The line went dead, replaced by the mechanized voice stating, "If you would like to make a call..."

Shaggy dropped the phone back on its cradle, stunned. The message was from their contact in the Army. The message was to be given only in case of emergency. That hadn't been the reason for Shaggy to stand there, looking at the phone, what really scared him was the statement that there had been no answer at Fred's, Daphne's or Velma's homes. Where were they?

The added coded message had nothing to do with hours. There were three waves of rockets that had slipped past the defenses. The first would hit the Eastern seaboard, namely Washington, DC. The second would be aimed at power and communication sources. Shaggy wasn't sure where the third wave was headed and no time to think, only react. With a silent prayer for the safety of his friends and family, he ran for the family basement. "Come on Scoob. We don't have much time!"
"Rot's roing ron?" Scooby quickly followed Shaggy toward the basement.

The man and his dog had just closed the blast door when the first rocket exploded.

-------Xxxxxx

Part Three: The Journal

The room shook but held. The Rogers basement was no ordinary basement. Four feet below the main house, it was a complete bomb shelter custom designed for the Rogers family. It had been a while since Shaggy had been down here, now he surveyed the room. Eight feet by twenty five feet originally, another two feet had been added to one side to store extra supplies and most important to Shaggy, food for a month.

Ten fold down bunks lined one side of the shelter. He felt like folding one of the beds down, after all he and Scooby were the only ones here, he had his choice. But there were certain tasks to be done first.

The shelter was self contained, no connection to the upper house including electricity so the first thing was to start the generator that would supply power. The chemical and biological filtering system was self contained so nothing to do there. One end of the shelter held the bathroom facilities and a quick check was all that was required. The brown haired hippie teen brought in several gallons of water that had been set aside for the commode left only two more task to be completed.

Shaggy selected a bed and unfolded it from the wall. Scooby jumped onto the bed, looking at his master, "Raggy, rots rappining? Rears Red, Raphne rand Relma? Ri Riss Relma!"

"I know you do Scoob, I miss Velma too and all our friends. What happened? Some idiot pushed the button. The big red button that started WW three." He tried to reassure his canine friend along with himself. He was unsuccessful at both.

The only piece of furniture was a small desk pushed against the wall; he extracted a black journal from the top drawer and selecting a pen, opened the journal to the first page. Nothing like this had happened before, all the pages were crisp, devoid of any marks. He began with the date at the top of the page, "Sunday, March 5, 1964." He stared at the date several moments then continued his first journal entry, "It happened one Sunday. My world exploded. I fear I am the last man left in Coolsville."

He slammed the journal shut. 'This can't be happening!' he thought, curling up on the bed with Scooby. Holding his best friend tightly, he began to cry.

TBC