Halloween #6

"Rooby roo!" brayed the arthritic Great Dane, painfully hobbling into the brightly painted van.

"Good job!" said the bespectacled young woman, her brown page boy hanging in her face as she reached over to give the dog a biscuit. She offered one as well to the unkempt young man sitting beside the dog, but he shook his head and turned away to look out the window.

"We've got a really tricky mystery today, Scoob," said the blond young man, driving the van. "There's been a..." His voice broke. The red-haired young woman in the seat beside him sobbed loudly and blew her nose into a designer handkerchief.

"There's been some really mysterious hauntings at your vet's office!" said the young woman with a forced cheerfulness in her voice.

"Ruh-oh!" said the dog. "Rosts!"

"Yes!" said the young woman. "Ghosts."

The blond young man pulled the van into a parking space at the vet's office, but no one hurried to get out. The unkempt young man beside the dog still did not say anything, his shoulders shaking.

"Ghosts," the young woman said again and sighed, unbuckling her seatbelt and reaching across to the elderly Great Dane, who was staring out the window with a mixture of trepidation and excitement. The red haired girl blew her nose again.