The Haunted Haunt Chapter Two
The next morning Gir bounded into the living room with the same cheerful carefree abandon he always showed. "Piggy! Where's Piggy!" he called in a singsong voice. Then he spied Zim still on the couch, a test pattern showing on the tv screen. "Oh g'morning, master!"
Zim didn't answer at first, his eyes were wide and frozen in place, his hands clutched the pillow held in front of him. Every now and then he gave a slight shiver.
Gir changed his expression to one of concern. "Master? Master ok?" He reached out to gently tap Zim's arm.
The reaction was explosive. "YEEEOOWW!" Zim shrieked as he stood up on the couch wielding the pillow as if it was a weapon. "Oh. Oh, it's you, Gir. Whew." He breathed a sigh of relief as he relaxed. "Ah…I th-thought it might be a..a ghost…or something…"
"Told ya ghosties scaries!" Gir said sadly. "Master have nightmares now."
"Don't be ridiculous. I am an INVADER! And Invaders don't have nightmares! We GIVE them!...I think," he added softly as an afterthought. In a forced air of nonchalance he picked up the remote and clicked the set off.
"Aww,but that was my favorite show!" Gir pouted.
"Never mind. I now see what ghosts are and where they are to be found." Here Zim paused and rubbed his chin. "They seem to be the astral form of human consciousness, given off when a human dies and harbor ill will towards teenagers when disturbed. They then wreck such vengeance on them it is almost….distasteful." Zim gave a slight shudder as he recollected one particularly gruesome scene. "A bit bloody and wasteful. A human cannot be a very good slave when it is dead or missing some limbs!"
He began to pace the room. "What I need to do now is find some way to communicate with these haunts, turn them into allies. Yesssss. Gir!"
"Hm?" Gir looked up from where he was trying to balance a bowl of cereal on a stack of teacups and a roll of paper towels.
"When I am at skool, I want you to look up the local haunted houses in this area. And have a list of them ready for me to check tonight. Got it?"
Gir's blue eyes went so wide they almost filled his entire head. "Gh..ghosties? Master wants me to look up GHOSTIES?" The cereal tower toppled.
"Just where I can find some, Gir. " Zim sighed. "You don't have to come with me."
"But Master cannot go alooonneee!" Gir moaned. "Ghosties nasties! Ghosties push people down stairs! Scare people! Throw sharp things and laundry baskets of squeaky dog toys! Then they laugh and knock on walls!" The robot shook his head. "They are not nice!"
"If they think they can frighten me, the Mighty Zim! they are mistaken." The Irken sniffed. "By this afternoon, Gir. Remember!"
As he went out Gir picked up the roll of paper towels and miserably hugged it to himself.
All that day in the classroom Zim pondered on exactly how to get ghosts to agree to aid him in Earth conquest. Since they were already dead simple joys wouldn't be important to them. A slight disadvantage but then he wouldn't have to worry about them demanding their share of this planet to rule. Perhaps if he offered them a large number of teenagers to torment? Or guarantee their haunts would never be disturbed again? He tapped his pencil on his desk, deep in thought.
"Is there something else that's more important than today's lesson on modern traffic disasters, Zim?" came the dry raspy disagreeable voice of Ms. Bitters right besides him.
Zim gave a violent start, one that caused all his papers and book to slip off his desk. "Ah! Ah yes! I mean No! I mean…ah….sorry." Flustered, he bent to retrieve the fallen items only to drop his pencil. He grabbed that only to lose his grasp on his papers. As they fell once more to the floor the rest of the classroom gave suppressed giggles.
Ms. Bitters, as usual, did not change expression. "So…you WERE paying attention?" From her voice it was clear she wasn't going to believe whatever Zim said.
Zim swallowed. Here was one of those situations where he knew he wasn't going to be able to win no matter which option he chose. "I…I –was! My mind just…wandered for a moment. Just a moment. There. But it's…back again!"
"So if I were to ask you what was the cause of the Great Garbage Truck Backup you would be able to tell me?"
"It was a….it was…..a…..puppy?" Zim said weakly.
Ms. Bitters stared at him silently for a few moments, so quietly he was about to think he had actually uttered the correct answer, but then she lifted and slammed down a wooden yardstick down on his desk swiftly with a loud CRACK! Zim snatched his hands away just in time with a small squeak.
"WRONG!" It was amazing how the frail-looking teacher managed to bellow so loudly. "It was a WAD of GUM! Just like what you children seem to be using for brains these days! There is a small difference between gum and a puppy, Zim. See that you learn it!"
"Yes sir." Zim studied his desk, rather surprised not to see a long dent in it.
During the lunch break Zim wandered over to the fence line near the benches, hoping the girls with the book would return and read a bit more of the tale he heard yesterday. Unfortunately the girl named Gail was absent that day and she was the one who owned the book. He leaned against the fence, back in the usual bored frame of mind.
It was Dib who broke the monotony. "Waiting to hear more ghost stories, Zim? " the boy asked mockingly. "I bet there are a lot of things that go bump in the night on your planet!"
"We do have lights, Dib-dirt monkey. There is never any bumping in the night!" Zim retorted crossly.
"No, -we- don't go bump in the night, -things- do!" the boy explained. "Things that you can't see, can't touch, can't explain."
"Like Dib's intelligence?" Zim was rather proud of that comeback. Dib made a face but decided to wave the insult aside and continue on with his lecture. He could see that the alien was interested in spite of himself.
"Anomalies, strange shadows and mists, apparitions, ectoplasms, ghouls, demons, floating orbs, mysterious lights!" Dib was really getting warmed up. It wasn't very often he found any audience who didn't quickly make excuses to walk away from his paranormal interests and he was relishing this, even if it –was- to an enemy! He started to add arm waving and gestures to his recital. "Poltergeists! Portals to other worlds, residual energies, psychokinesis, anomalous phenomena, apparitions, specters and zombies!"
Zim's head was beginning to whirl. There seemed to be just so much more to this haunting thing than he had imagined! It was a whole other dimension! He shook his head to clear it and held up his hands in a stopping motion. "All these things go around bumping in the night?" he asked, rather nervously.
Dib had to hide a chuckle. "Well, some bump, others just like to make things move. Y'know, like a rocking chair suddenly rocking when there's nobody around, lights go on or off, something flies off a shelf, pictures fall off walls. That sort of thing."
"They bump and move things." Zim said carefully.
"And make noises, like 'ooooooooooooooooooo'!" Dib made the moan as low and creepy as he could manage. He was given the satisfaction of seeing Zim's eyes grow just a bit wider. "But in the case of banshees, they SCREAM!"
"Uh…they...scream."
Umm hmm, just when you don't expect them to. You'll be relaxing in your chair, just watching tv, or getting to sleep in your bed and then they come out! You can't see them or touch them but they're there just the same. Then they just let you have it!" Dib was laying it on thick; it was fun to see the Irken get so disquieted. "Oh, and you think your base defenses can detect them? No way! They just glide on through." Here Dib waved a hand across in front of him, imitating the smooth path of an uninterrupted ghostly figure. Zim followed it with wide eyes. "And there's nothing you can do about it. Nothing. At. All."
That snapped Zim out of his deer-in-headlights look, his pride having been pricked. "You forget, Dib-worm-meat-baby, I am ZIM! And Zim will NEVER allow things to just bump around without ZIM'S LEAVE!"
"Uh huh, yeah. Sure." Dib crossed his arms and leaned against the fence. "Like you can stop a ghost. Right."
"Zim is not only going to stop ghosts from infiltrating Zim's home but will turn them against you! You will see! And then you should be AWARE of your LEAPING HEART in your THROAT and CHILLING SPINE! Zim will be VICTORIOUS in his fight against and with GHOSTS!"
The bell then rang, signaling the kids to once more abandon the playground and filter into the dark dreary skool building. Dib couldn't help but notice how Zim was starting to avoid any place that seemed to have more shadows than usual. 'Oh this is great!' he thought to himself. 'There's just GOT to be a way to use this! Mankind will be saved by Dib's 'ghosts'!' He uttered a pleased chuckle to himself, causing a passing girl to whisper to another 'I don't know what's weirder, Zim and his crazy shoutings or Dib with his 'secret' laughter!"
Her companion nodded. "My mom's thinking of a transfer."