Dib grabbed his log and made for the door. Perhaps it was time for some fresh air... or, at the very least, the backyard. On the way down, he checked each and every station that he passed to make sure that they were all still running. And sure enough, everything checked out.
Once he located the back door, he found that it was jammed tightly shut. He took a running start and battered the door open with his shoulder, falling headlong into the long grass that was threatening to invade the house. Dib looked up at the man who's feet he'd fallen at. He was tall and clean looking. "Another tenant?" Dib asked bitterly.
The man's composure was gloomy and cold. "Hardly," he sneered back, not offering to help as Dib hauled himself to his feet. "Nothing more than a memory, if you insist on knowing." he said curtly as he saw Dib open his mouth to speak. The man's coal black eyes bore into the boy's. "Care to take a walk? As if that wasn't what you intended to do out here in the first place." The man turned and walked off without Dib, who quickly followed.
"Who are you?" he asked, still wishing to push further into the matter.
The man didn't even bother to turn to look at Dib. "I don't know. Not that I suppose it matters, anymore. And you?" he asked, obviously eager to change the subject.
"Dib Membrane of the Swollen Eyeballs Network, studying paranormal phenomena. In this case, the house." he said, gesturing back to the building. Dib stepped over a large overgrown shrub that had grown out into the walkway. He hopped over it right foot first, his left foot getting snagged on the weed, bringing him to the pavement. He felt a hand grab the back of his coat. The man, being much older than Dib, was easily able to haul him to his feet. Even more so, drag him across the pavement.
"I can't tell you how many people have come to this house to test its legend," The man said, his voice close and frighteningly dark. "Each and every one of them have had the life ripped from their bodies."
He had hardly a second to realize what was happening before the man rammed Dib into the side of a crumbling concrete fountain, the water as polluted as the pond water in the front, the structure even deeper. He sputtered as the wind was knocked out of him, and he felt the man's other hand push down on the back of his head, forcing him forward, headfirst into the water. His eyes flew open as he gasped for breath, sucking in the black ice water. He struggled against the man's grip, pushing against the concrete he was able to get a grasp on, made slippery by the mold and algae that had grown underwater. He kicked out in hopes of forcing a release, but was unable to connect with the man's body. He felt himself slipping deeper and deeper into the fountain, the water clouding his vision.
He wished he'd gone blind. A mass of bubbles erupted into Dib's face as a figure floated up to him. As it neared, he saw three decaying digits, mangled and, at one time, he thought, probably bloody. But it was all too apparent that the blood had drained completely from this figure long ago. Following the fingers was an arm, half a torso, and the gaping, decaying face of the man who held him underwater. Dib tried to scream; all he was able to accomplish was to expel the water from his aching lungs. He tried to push himself back up, to fight back, but his limbs, protesting against the lack of oxygen, went limp and numb. His wild thrashing was nothing more than half-hearted flopping by now, and spots obscured his vision as he slipped out of consciousness, grateful for the fact that he could no longer see the decomposing, waterlogged human body that was threatening to entangle its half-eaten limbs with his own.
With a loud gasp, Dib shot up rather violently, feeling the soft, overgrown grass underneath his fingers. He grasped madly at the ground as he closed his eyes, trying to expel the image he'd been forced to endure. His body shook from shock, as opposed to inevitable hypothermia one would experience after being drenched to the waist, fully clothed, in the dead of night. However, Dib noticed that he was not drenched to the waist. He was, in fact, perfectly dry. Shakily, he stood, taking in his surroundings for the first time upon regaining his senses. He was standing in front of the house, just outside the door he'd broken down. On the other side of the small section of the yard that he stood in, there was a dainty concrete fountain that was almost completely green with algae. Without taking his eyes off of it, he slowly retreated back into the house.
He could go to the fountain, to make sure that what he'd experienced had just been a dream, or a hallucination. It was an option. But Dib backed into the house, not turning his back on the yard until he had turned a corner, leaving the floating mass of rotting flesh staring slack jawed at the pitch black night sky.
Dib found himself running through the house, franticly fighting the voices that were now encroaching on the edges of his thoughts. They simply repeated the same thing over and over. The surreal chanting of "It is far too late" was all he could hear. All of his equipment would be left in the house until tomorrow afternoon, when the agents were able to come back with him and collect it. He wasn't staying another moment in this house. Gate to Hell or not, there was something terrible about it - even the air had a sense of malevolence about it. The voices grew louder with every bounding step he took, the cacophony rising to a fortissimo as he reached the foyer.
In his rush, the boy's ankles locked together, sending him flying towards the front door. He thudded to the old wooden floor, his face merely inches from the painted floorboards. As the dust from the impact cleared, his stomach turned sour. For the first time, he was getting a good look at the message. Veronica's soiled nightgown flashed briefly through his mind as he realized that the chipping and peeling paint on the floor was a sick crimson-brown, like the color of blood left to dry. His heart rate nearly tripled as he scrambled to his feet. The demonic chanting had ceased, replaced by one haunting voice more terrible than the symphony of demon's he'd endured since his departure from the garden. It was crisp and clear in its message.
"You have sealed your fate. Death will not come quickly."
Dib's fingers fumbled at the knob on the front door as he desperately tried to escape the Sixth Gate of Hell. Nothing mattered anymore. Not the Network, not Zim, not his family; all that mattered to the young paranormal investigator was that he get out of the house. The door flew open.
A sudden cold came over his body as he looked out the front door. He swallowed hard and simply stared as the voice cackled with twisted laughter. Staring back at him from the other side of the door was an image of himself but, like everything else about the house, it was sick and twisted. Hallow black eye sockets gaped at him from behind mangled wire frame glasses. His shirt was torn to shreds on his body, exposing more of the green-grey flesh. The reflection lacked hands, and one side of its jaw was completely devoid of flesh.
Dib didn't speak, he didn't move, as the terrible laugh he'd been hearing all night issued from the monster's jaws. He knew, now. He'd been given a chance to run. He'd been scared out of his wits for his own benefit. And he'd blown it. He'd returned to the house. That was the fatal mistake; now, there was no way out. And yet, he felt strangely calm. Somehow, he'd known from the very moment he'd stepped foot in the house, that this was what would happen. He stepped back calmly from the mirror; in return, the monster stepped forward from the mirror, its legs bent back behind it.
The creature's voice was barely masked within his own as it spoke, its words, though horrible in their own way, didn't phase Dib. "They'll have to scrape you off the walls," it hissed. "That is, if they can even find your body." The thing took a few more menacing steps forward. "Welcome to Hell."
Fin.
