Hollow
Chapter 7
a/n: Thanks for being so patient! This chapter took longer than expected…enjoy!
Zim flattened his antennae at the sound of the distant thunder.
He growled out a small curse. He had hoped the approaching storm would have waited until he got home. But their run ins with the meekrob had deterred every hope of beating the storm.
Zim took another glance at the sky, silently cursing it. Had he remembered to apply paste? He couldn't remember the last time he had applied it. It had been a relatively dry season for what the earthings call 'spring'. Ugh...he had some in his Pak before the meekrob had stollen it. Stupid little-
Dib was talking. The alien wasn't listening. He didn't care what the boy had to say. Not that he would ever admit it, but he was getting very hungry and a bit tired. All the rapid healing and spider leg usage had made his Pak energy run low. He could have killed for a nice tender sandwich right now.
Another sound of thunder in the distance made Zim sigh. The sandwich would have to wait.
"-And then the first thing that I do when I get home is eat a whole dang bloaty's pizza. Even though Gaz will hate me and I hate their pizza...but whatever, I'm that hungry you know-" Dib seemed to still think they were actually having a conversation. Bah! He didn't want to look at the hyooman let alone talk to it.
Zim stopped walking. "We are going to find shelter for the night." He reported cutting Dib off of his tangent.
"What?" Dib jerked to a stop. "Why?"
Zim bit his lip. "Eh, because-because..."
Dib folded his arms across his chest. "We're more than halfway home. Unless you can come up with an actual reason to not continue, we are walking."
"-It's going to storm okay." Zim blurted out rather harshly.
Dib frowned and looked up at the sunny sky. "Nice try space boy...what is really going on?"
Zim winced at the sound of the distant thunder ringing in his antennae. "I'm serious Dib-Worm. Can't you hear it?"
"Hear what? Oh God, you better not be possessed by a freaking meekrob."
"What? No! Just listen!" Zim snarled. "We need to find a place where the rain won't get through"
"You're insane."
That does it. "Coming from the boy who was taken to the crazy house for boys for becoming a raving lunatic!" Zim's voice rose dramatically.
Dib's eyes narrowed. "You know as well as I do that I was seeing nightmare visions! I wasn't insane!"
"Oh, I'm sure that's what you told your parental unit as well!" Zim's antennae flattened against his head.
"Well-well!" Dib racked his mind for a comeback. "You're stupid!"
Zim just flicked an antenna, unwilling to give another insult. "Look, the storm is still at least ten minutes away. You apparently have crappy hearing or something if you can't hear the thunder! So Zim would like to find some stupid shelter before Zim burns to a crisp!"
The wind suddenly picked up through the air, blowing the leaves around them. Dib felt cold air on his neck, causing him to shiver. It was as if the air had suddenly shifted.
Dib groaned. "Fine. But we can't go too far from the road. I don't want to get lost."
"Don't tell me what to do." Zim growled, pushing past the young boy into the dense forest. He heard Dib sigh and walk after him. Zim just decided to ignore the human again. He couldn't wait until this whole excursion was over and he could go back to destroying the earth. He didn't need this kind of interruption.
The invader slowed as the forest floor began to slope downwards. That was when he heard it…the fait hiss of water on rocks. Zim had seen a few caves in his life, or at least enough to know that sometimes the rock could be eaten away by water. He had actually done some experimentation after the whole water balloon fight incident. He was going to erode the earth, but he felt like that was going to take too long so the project was forgotten.
Zim raised his antennae to get a better understanding of where the water was coming from, but soon lowered them after getting a huge whiff of the potent sent of dirt and worms. Or was that just Dib?
Whatever it was, it smelled nasty. So Zim flattened his antennae and guessed at which way the water was coming from. All the time, Dib was trying to strike up another conversation and being completely ignored.
Another crash of thunder made Zim pick up the pace. He didn't want to look to desperate, especially in front a human. But, it was going to come to that if he couldn't find the freaking- Oh…
Zim almost tripped as the ground suddenly opened up into a small cliff. At the bottom of the cliff, about 12 feet or so down, was a river.
"Watch your step." The human said smugly.
Zim sent a curse at him in irken and glanced around the stream.
"There." Dib said suddenly, pointing over to the left.
Zim followed Dib's line of sight and saw a decent sized cave near the side of a tiny waterfall.
"That'll work." Zim said. Now how would they get down there?
Zim retracted his spider legs and dug the two non-broken ones into the hard ground. He then swung himself off the cliff, hoping to the control brains that the tips wouldn't break off.
The legs held strong, leaving Zim hanging over the side of the small cliff.
"Wait! What about me?" Dib asked as Zim started to dig his bottom legs into the face of the ledge.
"That's a good question. I don't care!" Zim smiled up at him with his own smug smirk.
Dib pouted and waved him off.
Zim stuck his tongue out in concentration. Once his legs were secured on the bottom, he took the top ones out of the dirt. Then he slowly lowered those legs and dug them into the face of the cliff below his other set. He then repeated this process until he was at the mouth of the cave.
Zim placed his mechanical legs on the floor of the cave, listening to the sound of scrapping metal on rock. The cave was bigger on the inside than it appeared on the outside. It was probably big enough that it could fit the voot cruiser in snugly.
"Hey! Zim! I got an idea of how I can get down there!" Dib said, leaning over the top of the cliff.
"Hmm. How's that?" Zim sheathed his spider legs and peered out of the cave at the young boy.
"CANNON BALL!" Dib screamed, backing back up into the woods.
Zim backed up quickly Ito the cave. "WHAT WHERE! ARE WE UNDER ATTACK!"
Dib ran off the side of the ledge. In mid air, he hugged his legs to his chest. Then he splashed into the river below, sending a splash of water toward's Zim's direction. Zim yelped and jumped backed up to avoid the spray.
Dib's head popped out of the river water, his glasses were lopsided and he had a huge grin on his face. "See. Easy."
Zim flicked a drop of water off of his sleeve. "Stupid Dib-Smell! You could have killed me!"
"Whatever Zim." Dib shifted his position to floating on his back.
Just then, a crash of thunder sounded through the air, causing both of the boys to jump.
Dib scurried out of the water, afraid he might be electrocuted, and sat by Zim in the cave.
"Keep your smelly wet body away from Zim." The invader hissed, moving towards the back of the cave as the water from Dib's clothes threatened to run towards him.
"Whimp." Dib chuckled.
The wind outside started to pick up and a cold breeze blew into the cave. A few minuets later, the clouds were visible and the rain began to fall.
There were a few leaves and twigs that had blown into the cave so Dib decided to attempt making a fire. Now that the temperature had dropped and Dib still had wet clothes on from jumping in water, he was getting rather cold.
Zim watched the human scramble around, looking for sticks in the dark. The clouds had darkened the outside world.
"Bet you're regretting jumping in that acid pit now huh Dib." Zim smirked.
"Shut up Space Boy." Dib said through chattering teeth. He grabbed all the branches and plant vines he could find in the cave and piled it all into the center.
Dib sat back, admiring his work. It was a decent sized fire. And the wood was dry so it would be relatively easy to light.
"Okay, now light it up Zim." Dib looked up at the alien.
Zim was sitting with his pak resting on the wall of the cave. His head was hung and eyes were dully watching the rain outside. "What do I look like, a blow torch?"
"Don't you have some weird alien lighter that you can light this fire with?" Dib asked, sitting back onto his knees.
"I am not-oh what do you call them? A knife from Sweden." Zim stated, crossing his legs.
"Do you mean a Swiss army knife?"
"Yes."
"But those don't even have lighters." Dib laughed.
"Whatever." Zim closed his eyes. "I'm not going to act as your source of fuel so look for something else to warm your big head."
Dib sighed and sat back, giving his little pile of sticks a kick with his foot. "Well that was a complete waste of time."
"Agreed."
"Shut up Zim." Dib said, sitting back against the wall of the cave. His clothes were pretty much dried anyway. Now he was just left cold.
The thunder seemed to grow dimmer now, though the rain continue to fall. It was very soothing and soon Dib found himself struggling to keep his eyes open.
Although it was probably only eight oclock at night the dark clouds made it seem later than it already was. So Dib decided to just give up on his struggle and given into sleep. Zim didn't sleep anyways, so he could keep watch while Dib slept.
When Dib opened his eyes again, the rain had slowed to a slow drizzle.
Dib sat up and stretched, giving a big yawn.
"Dib-Stink!" A voice sounded from the darkness causing the young boy to jump.
"Zim?" Dib stood up.
"Silence human!" The voice came from near the mouth of the cave. "Do you have a death wish or something?"
"Where are you? I can't see?" Dib flailed his hands wildly in the dark air.
"Silence!" Zim's voice came right next to his ear. Dib jumped away from Zim.
"Are you crazy!" Dib almost screamed.
"Silence!" Zim slapped a gloved hand over the boy's mouth which finally made Dib shut up.
Zim took his hand away with a disgusted look, flicking it rapidly. "Ugh, now I have Dib-germs." He groaned.
"So why do I have to be quiet?" Dib whispered, whipping off his mouth with his sleeve.
Zim looked towards the mouth of the cave. "There is something out there."
Dib tried to pear out and get a sense of what Zim was talking about, but it was much to dark to see much of anything. "What do you mean?"
"It's lumbering about out there, making a lot of noise." Zim said, moving towards the exit to the cave, but careful not to step to close in fear if getting burned by the water.
Dib listened closely and believe it or not, he could actually hear something thrashing around out there.
Whatever it was, it was big. It's heavy footsteps dragged along the surface of the stone with an eerie scratching noise. It's breathing was rough and almost grunting. It kinda sounded like a big fat guy with long toenails.
"What do you suppose it is?" Dib asked.
Zim rolled his eyes at the boy. "Which one of us lives on the planet again? Oh, right, that would be you Dib-smell."
"What does that have to prove?" Dib snapped back.
"I have no clue about what resides in your smelly backwater world. You figure out something for once! Irk, sometimes I think there isn't a brain in that giant head...just empty space." Zim sneered.
"My head's not big!" Dib said, doing his best to keep his voice low.
The footsteps seemed to be getting closer now. The sous bounces off the walls of the cave and rang in Dib's ears. Instinctively, Dib took a step back.
"What do we do?" He shot at Zim.
Zim didn't respond.
A great smell washed over the cave from the outside. Dib covered his nose and Zim flattened his antennae, both expressing disgusted faces.
"What in the universe could smell so bad!" Zim growled.
"I know! It smells like rotten fish and wet dog!" Dib moaned, forgetting that they were suppose to be quiet.
The footsteps were growing ever closer. Each foot dragging along with great effort across the stone. There was a splash of water, probably meaning that whoever was out there just stepped into The small creek.
Dib motioned for them to step back into the cave more. Zim didn't seem to like the idea, either it was hurting his pride to follow commands OR he didn't like being cornered in a cave. But he followed suite. It was either back into the cave or go outside in the rain.
The splashing got closer and eventually stopped all together. The footsteps got louder.
Zim slowly retracted his spider legs, careful not to make a sound.
A dark shadow cast itself over the entrance to the cave. Two glowing brown eyes glared down at the boys with interest.
Suddenly a flash of lightning illuminated the area, revealing their house guest.
"Oh my God." Dib breathed.
"What...what is it?" Zim asked quickly, looking ready to spring at any moment.
"It's-a bear." Dib said. "It's a freaking black bear!"
"Are they dangerous?" Zim whispered.
"Not if we be very quiet." Dib lowered his voice to a hushed whisper. "Maybe he'll go away."
Zim nodded bluntly and stiffened up. Dib tried hard to make his heart stop beating so fast.
The black bear had to be young. It was about the size of a deer. It sniffed the air with its long black nose and let out a huff.
The bear started to step into the cave. Its fur was dripping from the rain outside. Zim seemed to notice this and cringed away a bit.
However, the bear caught the slight movement. It's stance changed dramatically; from nonchalant to murderous. It let out a gruff howl and stomped its clawed foot on the stone.
"What do we do now?" Zim turned his head at the young boy.
Dib racked his brain, trying to remember all that seemingly useless information that Mrs. Bitters had taught them about wild animals.
"Oh! I think we're supposed to make a lot of noise!...Which you should be good at." Dib added smugly.
Zim rolled his eyes and rose up on his spider legs higher above the bear. He almost hit his head on the cave ceiling.
"BEAR! LEAVE NOW! YOU KNOW NOT OF WHO YOU DEAL WITH! LEAVE NOW OR FEAL THE MIGHTY WRATH OF ZIM!" The young alien yelled in a high pitched voice at the bear.
The animal looked at Zim nervously and backed up a bit.
"THAT'S RIGHT! GET OUT OF HERE OR I WILL DESTROY YOU!" Zim pointed with a gloved hand. "YOU'RE SMELLY AND UGLY LIKE DIB!"
"Hey!"
"GET OUT OF HERE STINK-BEAST!" Zim yelled and for emphasis, slashed the shoulder of the bear with his spider leg.
The bear growled, but backed away from the two boys. He turned and bounded away into the forest.
Zim cleared his throat and got off his spider legs.
"You dont think that was another meekrob do you?" Dib asked.
Zim rolled his eyes. "No stupid, a meekrob wouldn't back off that easily. The creature was too stupid to be a meekrob."
"Ah."
The boys shared an awkward silence.
"Well." Dib yawned. "I'm going back to sleep. Try not to get into any more danger."
Zim scoffed, sitting down as well. "Zim will try his hardest."