Hey all!
Been awhile since I've posted. I've started a series of novels based on the Magic, Mystery and Mayhem Universe. I'm calling this one The Case of the Twisted Sister. It has TG in it...along with a campy feel. I'm hoping to make a series similar to the old Scooby Doo Mysteries...not sure if I'll be successful.

Happy Reading!

Magic, Mystery and Mayhem - Book One. The Case of the Twisted Sister
by Raine Monday

Chapter One

I went to the record store today to see what it looked like.

It wasn’t good.

They’d abandoned the place the day the corporation went belly-up. Never even got the chance to clean it out. The roof leaked, and one corner looked like it had been used as a nesting ground—for rats, raccoons, or some other furry bastard. It smelled like dust, decay, and yesterday’s broken promises.

The foundation looked solid, so I knew the building had good bones. But just about everything else needed a biblical level of cleaning—painting, spackle, drywall. Might be easier to strip it to the studs and pray there wasn’t any black mold festering behind the walls.

I pulled out my phone and started making notes. This was going to be a hell of a job. But there was good vinyl here. The building had stayed relatively cool during the summer and warm enough in the winter thanks to the business next door. The mouldering old albums had survived. Barely.

I already ran an online store—daily auctions, collector trades, you name it—but I needed a storefront. Somewhere to ship from, to sell, to receive, to trade. I wasn’t expecting a lot of foot traffic. This wasn’t a business move. It was nostalgia. And maybe something more.

Welcome to the jungle, I thought, kicking aside an empty spray paint can.

Someone had definitely squatted here. Their “artwork” was all over the walls. Joan Jett had a beard now. The guys from Poison were sporting anatomically exaggerated upgrades. Real classy.

“Funny,” I muttered.

Ozzy, my Doberman, barked once—like he agreed. He snuffled and sneezed as he stuck his nose into every crevice, his little docked tail wagging like a metronome. I’d had Ozzy since the divorce—him and the vinyl. In the end, I got the better deal. Ozzy never cheated on me with my best friend. Never lied about it either.

He gave a low growl at something in the corner.

“Go easy, Oz,” I said. “We don’t need to trigger a ratpocalypse.”

Whatever it was skittered away, chittering as it vanished behind some busted shelving. I added mousetraps to the growing list.

The door creaked open behind me, and I turned just as Dale Franklin stepped inside.

“Whoa.”

I’d hired Dale to help me get the place up and running. We had two weeks to get this dump into something resembling a record store before the town fair.

“I know,” I said. “It looks rough now, but in two weeks…”

“It’s still gonna be rough, bro,” Dale said. He snapped a few pics with his phone, then made a peace sign in front of the defaced Joan Jett poster.

Ozzy trotted over and leaned into him, soaking up some much-needed ear scratches.

“Hey, boy.”

I took a breath and immediately regretted it. If there was mold in here, we were gonna be sick as dogs. No pun intended.

Dale looked around again, frowning. “Hey… you notice something about this town?”

I gave him a look. “Other than it smells like regret and dead rats?”

He snorted. “Nah, I mean, everyone’s old. Like, seriously old. I passed maybe two people under sixty on the way in. Even the high school looks abandoned.”

I shrugged. “Maybe they all fled to the city. TokBak and air conditioning.”

Dale shook his head. “Nah, it’s more than that. It’s like... the whole town’s paused or something. Like nobody’s had a birthday since 1987.”

I opened my mouth to joke, but Ozzy let out a quiet whine, tail stiff. He was staring at the back hallway again.

I squinted toward the dark.

“Creepy, right?” Dale said.

“Yeah,” I muttered. “This place gives me the creeps too.”

“Grab those black trash bags from the truck,” I said. “You know what to do.”

“I take it I’m leaving the albums alone?”

“You take it right,” I said, carefully pulling a few from the shelves. The spines were chewed up, but they still looked decent. A pristine Elvis could fetch something. “We’ll need to move them soon, though. Roof repairs are top priority.”

“And floor tile,” Dale said, rubbing a toe against the grime-caked linoleum. “And I think we’re gonna want to look behind the drywall too.”

“Yeah,” I sighed. “We knew this was gonna be a project.”

“Hah, no kidding. Didn’t expect it to be this bad though. You still set on opening before the fair?”

“Yep,” I said. “Foot traffic will be huge. I already sponsored a booth.”

“High Voltage Records?”

I nodded. “Felt right.”

“This place should be called Dank and Dreary. Is that piss I smell?”

“Probably.”

“Bro, this place gives me the creeps. Where you staying?”

“Travel trailer, parked behind the Scout. I’m always home, man.”

“Hah, true. I’d ask if I could crash, but two grown men in that little trailer? Pass.”

I nodded again.

“I booked an Airbnb for now. Gonna need something more permanent, though.”

“I got you.”

“Cool. I’ll grab the bags. Anything else?”

“Nah, I’m working on the supply list.”

“Sounds good.” Dale turned and left.

Ozzy whined at the door after him. “He’ll be back,” I told him.

Dobermans are smart. He seemed to understand, then went back to sniffing, nose to the floor like a bloodhound.

“Don’t raise your leg on anything,” I warned. “I know what piss smells like.”

He gave me a look. I swear, he rolled his eyes. Then he went back to sniffing.

Something scraped along the inside of the wall—little claws tapping against old wood.

We weren’t alone.

***

Kara Worthington was a cute waitress who worked at the diner. It was creatively called Mel’s Diner, and Mel worked the kitchen with a cigarette stuck in his mouth like it was 1965 and nobody told him smoking was banned indoors. I figured he thought since it was his diner, he could smoke whenever and wherever the hell he wanted.

Dale and I sat in one of the many cracked vinyl booths, exhausted from another long day at High Voltage Records. We’d started a little tradition—burgers at the diner once the sun went down. A celebration of surviving another twelve hours of dust, rot, and broken drywall. And honestly? The burgers were the best I’d ever had.

“Hey boys!” Kara said, sliding over with a smile and handing us a pair of menus. “Do I even bother with these, or do you already know what you want?”

Dale pretended to look it over, like he wasn’t going to order the same thing he always did.

“Burger, bun, lettuce,” I said, making it easy for her to remember.

“No pickle, no onion, no mayo, no ketchup…” She smirked. “No fun!”

Dale sighed, handing back his menu. “Same, but with everything.”

“You guys want a milkshake or something?” Kara asked, jotting down our orders.

“Nah, they give me stomach problems,” I said.

Kara nodded solemnly, writing slowly. “L-A-C-T-O-S-E Intolerant. Check.”

I rolled my eyes, and she winked before walking off to the counter. My face went red like I was sixteen again.

The place was packed with the usual evening crowd. But they all looked older. Everyone in this town looked older. The menu offered things like stroganoff, tuna noodle casserole, and chicken pot pie, but Mel wasn’t fooling anyone. It was all the same gravy—gravy with tuna, gravy with beef, gravy with chicken. And yet… it all tasted amazing.

“Order up!” Mel barked, slamming the bell with the back of his spatula.

“So, think we’ll get the drywall tomorrow?” Dale asked, sipping his water.

“Hope so,” I said, matching him. “You get all that crap out of the attic?”

“Yeah, but I swear I’m never getting the spiderwebs off me. Ugh.” He brushed at his arms, visibly shivering. “Gross.”

“We should be done with cleanup, at least.” I pulled out my phone. “Next up’s the reno. Strip the drywall, check the studs. I’m worried about the wiring though—if we have to rewire, that’s gonna delay us.”

“Better now than when the whole place burns down,” Dale said.

“Yeah, true. But if we hit another snag, we might not make it in time for the fair.”

“Hello!” came a cheerful voice nearby.

An elegant older woman stood beside our booth, beaming. She was easily in her seventies, with carefully applied makeup, sparkling jewelry, and silver hair twisted into a perfect bun. She wore a mink stole like it was still cocktail hour in 1953.

“Hello,” I said.

“Delores Fanucci,” she said, extending a bony hand with long, painted nails.

“Glen Evanston,” I replied, shaking it. “This is Dale Bergstrom.”

She gave Dale a sweet smile. “Delores.”

“Nice to meet you, Mrs. Fanucci.”

“I’ll be right there, Carol,” she said to a woman waving her over from a larger table. “Just order me the tuna.”

Then she turned back to us. “So, what brings you to Ebendale?”

“Here you go, boys!” Kara said, swooping in with our food like an angel of beef and carbs.

“We’re renovating the record store,” I said. “Should be open in about a week.”

“Oh, fantastic!” Delores said. “I loved that store. I was heartbroken when George’s boy closed it down.”

I nodded, eyeing the steam rising off my burger. I was starving—but eating while someone’s talking to you felt rude.

“Well, I won’t keep you from your hamburger.” She smiled and moved along.

“Nice meeting you, Mrs. Fanucci,” I said.

Dale, already chewing, mumbled something. I kicked him under the table.

He swallowed. “Nice meeting you, Mrs. Fanucci.”

“I’ll see you soon, boys.”

She turned, heading toward the big table in the back. As she passed by, I swear—just for a second—her eyes looked black. Not just dark. Black. Like void-of-all-light black. But then they flickered back to a soft, clear green when she glanced over her shoulder and winked.
“Did you see that?” I asked, eyes still on her.

“See what?” Dale said, his mouth full of fries.

“Nothing…” I muttered.

“She’s a witch,” Kara said softly, leaning in with a pitcher of soda.

I raised an eyebrow. “A witch, huh? What’s she gonna do, turn us into lawn gnomes?”

“I’ve heard worse.” She grinned. “Refill?”

“Yes, please.”

She topped us off, smile never fading.

***

The opening went well, both virtual and physical with a bit of crossover. Most of my clientèle was over fifty, which seemed like the bulk of the town, but I didn’t mind, their money was just as green and filled my bank account which was noticeably flat after the renovations.

We’d had a food trailer in the back where Kara and Mel had cooked up a mess of burgers. Mel didn’t mind smoking in a trailer, apparently, but the burgers were good and it drew people in droves.

The rest of the fair was fun, filling the small main street from top to bottom. Apparently the motels (2) were filled, the restaurant was doing more business than it could handle, and High Voltage Records was officially launched.

The store still smelled of wet paint, but fresh tunes blared from the sound system, advertising some old Dixieland vinyl I’d found. Joan Jett had been replaced with an epic poster of Van Halen my dad had sent me, along with album covers and bad covers from nearly every era from Sammy Davis Junior to Drake.

Online, I’d had a few sales that were far more than any foot traffic, and I’d developed a bit of a following.

“PartReaper wants this old Ellington,” Dale said, slipping the album into a shipping box. That’s over five hundred today in the auctions.
“Nice,” I said. “I knew if we combined a store front with the online sales it’d lend us legitimacy.

Kara had come into the store and made her way over to the country section. I didn’t keep that stuff up as much as I’d like, since country could go down in flames and over the edge of the earth, for all I cared. But she seemed to like it.

“Ooh, George Straight!” she said, pulling out an album. “How much?”

“Everything is marked,” I said. “But for you, it’ll cost a date.”

“A date, huh?” she said, narrowing her eyes. “That might be too much.”

She started to put the album back. I rolled my eyes. “How does two bucks sound?”

She smiled. “That, I can take.”

She piled more albums on top of the George Straight.

As I rang her up, she smiled up at me.

“I take it you have a boyfriend?”

She smiled. “Maybe I just don’t want to go out with you.”

“Oh!” I said, putting a hand to my heart. “You wound me, Ma’am.”

She giggled. “No, I’m just careful after the last guy I dated. Men in this century weren’t grounded in rules regarding women. You’ve nearly passed the test though, so daddy would be proud.”

“Nearly?” I said.

She smiled and nodded.

Delores came in at that point, with three other women. They all cackled and talked and perused albums.

“I don’t like her,” Kara said.

“No?” I looked at the woman parsing through the selections. “She seems okay to me.”

She nodded.

Delores had several albums in her arms when she came up to the counter.

“I see you’re off to a roaring start.”

I looked around at the balloons, the banners. “Yes, High Voltage Records is officially Borned.”

She laughed at that. “I’m glad you were able to open. I know the state of things when George’s son left.

I nodded. “Did the old man die of a heart attack?”

She gave me a cryptic smile. “Something like that.”

“His loss, my gain, I suppose. There was a ton of vinyl in here already. We just had to get the place sorted is all.”

She nodded as she set down her selection.

“Ahh, the crooners,” I said. “They don’t make them like this anymore.”

“I love old Blue Eyes,” she said. “Are you able to procure more, Glen?”

I nodded. “I have an online store too. If you’d like I can see if anyone has more to send my way.”

“That would be wonderful!” She took out a little wallet from her purse and handed me a hundred dollar bill.

“Thank you, Ma’am.” I punched in the amount, and was just going to give her change when she brushed a gloved hand in front of me.
She nodded. “Keep the change, dear. I know you could use it.”

“Thank you, again!” I said.

“And yes, if you could find any Bing Crosby, Sammy Davis Junior, or Frank Sinatra, I’ll buy everything you have.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” I said, and put her purchases in a bag.

She went back to the group of women and they put on hats, and left the store.

Kara came back up after they’d left. “Be careful of that one.”

I nodded. “You worry to much.”

“Hey, just because all the people are out to get ya, doesn’t mean you’re paranoid.”

I nodded as Dale came up. “Where you want this stuff, Boss?” He held several backs of frozen hamburger and hot dogs. “They’re closing up, outside.”

I didn’t really have room in my tiny freezer in the trailer, and hadn’t thought to purchase a refrigerator.

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