Work Text:
The February wind cuts through Winterhaven like a blade, whipping snow against Voltner’s boarded-up chalet. Shaggy shivers, his frayed bell-bottoms soaked to the knee.
"Like, Freddy? Maybe we could grab a chili dog before investigating haunted blueprints?" He stamps his worn sneakers, breath puffing white in the frigid air.
Fred, already examining the warped doorframe with intense focus, flashes a distracted grin. "Almost done, Shag! Look—these hinges were forced outward. Someone busted in."
Inside, dust blankets everything thick as snowfall. Cobwebs drape the moth-eaten velvet sofa. Fred immediately zeroes in on a heavy oak desk, its drawers yanked open violently.
"Shag—check this!" He plucks a crumpled scrap from beneath a dented brass lamp. The paper reads in smudged pencil: *whereas running southwesterly 27 28 43 44 45*.
Shaggy squints. "Whoa. Is it, like, ski trail numbers? Or maybe… secret treasure coordinates?"
Fred beams, tucking the paper into his orange ascot. "Could be a property boundary! Or—"
A deafening CRACK splits the conversation. The air prickles, thick with static. Behind them, the 10,000 Volt Ghost materializes—a pulsing, pear-shaped mass of electric orange. Yellow sparks spit from its stick-lash eyes and ragged, vertical mouth. It emits a guttural GRRRRNNZZZTTT as it lunges, bulbous arms outstretched. The metal filing cabinet beside them slams shut with a BANG, untouched by the ghost’s crackling aura.
"ZOINKS!" Shaggy yelps, tripping backward over a rotting bearskin rug.
Fred grabs his arm, hauling him up. "Run, Shag!"
The ghost’s growl vibrates in their bones as molten drops sizzle from a brass doorknob it brushes past. They bolt for the shattered back window, snow swirling into the gloom behind them.