Daphne was the pretty girl. She was the one all the boys secretly fawned over. The one everyone was afraid to ask to Prom. All except Fred. After the night in the woods, the two were inseparable, spending hours each night on the phone, seeing each other between classes, and after graduating, they went to Western Massachusetts colleges
to be close to one another. It was true that she and Velma became friends and she came to love Shaggy and his big slobbery dog Scooby-Doo but it was Fred, and his actions that long-ago night in the woods, that kept her glued to the Mystery Inc Gang.
Fred was behind the wheel as usual. In the passenger seat, Daphne sat quietly watching how the filtered moonlight lit his strong jaw. She noticed how his hair still retained the golden glint that made his cornflower blue eyes and bright white smile that much more alluring. He was dreamy. The sudden jar from the impact shook her from her fantasy. Her seatbelt locked in place keeping her from smashing her face on the vinyl dash. Everything that happened afterward was a blur.
Flashlight beams.
Pools of dark liquid.
A gurgling moan.
The crunch of steel on bone.
She doesn't remember screaming. Or running back to the van. All she knows is he was there for her as always. They had talked about marriage once. They were both all for it. She was just waiting for him to ask. She knew when he did it would be perfect. That was then.
Now...
The dead were walking. They spent every second of every day on edge, just trying to survive. Her once bouncy personality the one that made all the girls giggle and all the boys blush was now somewhere deep inside her. Locked up behind high, strong, thick walls. Waiting for the day when things would go back to "normal." Then, she knew Fred would propose. She would say, "Yes!" and they would start their family. But that day was far away.
"Get down!" The reaching ghoul fell to the ground a neat hole in its forehead. "Hurry it up in there." She screamed over her shoulder as Shaggy looked at the corpse that had almost ended his time on the planet. She was on guard with Shaggy while Fred, Velma, and Scooby-Doo searched inside the shattered remains of a convenience store. She had never shot a gun before this all happened. It took her a long time to get it right. For too long her shots went wild. She just couldn't understand how she was supposed to hit a target the size of a watermelon that shambled about. She knew she had to learn, she was a risk to the gang until she did. With the patience of saints, during a period when time was a valuable commodity, Fred and Shaggy took turns teaching her how to handle the small pistol they had found for her. They learned quickly that she was of absolutely no use with a rifle. In time she like the rest of them became deadly accurate.
This was a different world.
