Chapter 7: The Find

Dib had kept his promise and the four were able to rent a motel room at least ten miles away from the house. Zim was curled up in one of the beds, resting peacefully. His arms had finally stopped hurting, and the bite marks were starting to fade away. He moved his arm over, attempting to wrap it around Dib, but was surprised when he realized that Dib was not in bed with him.

He quickly sat up and looked around the room, trying to find his husband.

"Dib?!" He called in a worried tone. "Dib? Where are you?!"

"It's okay Zim, don't get scared. I'm out here." Dib called from the small living room.

Zim exited the tiny bedroom and entered the living room, walking up to his human, who was currently typing on his portable laptop.

"What are you doing out here?" He yawned, rubbing his eye a little bit as he sat down.

"Doing some research on the house and the ghost." Dib answered. "And I think I might've just made a breakthrough."

"Oh yeah? What do you mean?" Zim asked as he looked at the small computer.

"I mean, I think I know who might be haunting us."

"Oh my god, really?" Zim gasped. "Who?"

"Well, are you up for a little history lesson?"

"Anything to know what's going on."

"Well our house was built in 1979, but before that, this house," Dib pulled up a picture of an old looking house that seemed to be all boarded up. "Was on the same property. This house was built in 1870. It was part of the Longacre estate. Now, the Longacres, Henry Longacre, made his money in the steel industry, and he owned all the property around this area, including where our house sits and this house used to sit. He lived in this house with his wife and his daughter, and his daughter's name was Madeline. Now Madeline, from information I found, she had what they classified as fits. Now, I tried to figure out what they meant by that, because when you're dealing with 1870's type of stuff, you really can't find too much. Well, what she probably had was schizophrenia, she saw things that were not there, she would go into convulsions, and she was very sick. Well, what ended up happening was in 1882, she was in the back part of the house, and a fire broke out, and the fire ended up killing her."

"Oh gosh, that's terrible." Zim frowned.

"Yes, it is." Dib nodded. "Her father went into total depression and he did rebuild the house, but they could not stand being in that house. They moved to New York, where they lived, and then the father killed himself, but the mother died painless. Now, you can probably tell from this photo, the house looks kinda boarded up."

"Yeah, no kidding." Zim rolled his eyes.

"Well, this photo is from 1929. There were about four other families that tried to live in this house until it was boarded up and then finally torn down. Every single family that lived in this house only stayed in it for a few years before they left and they ended up selling the house for next to nothing. The last family that stayed in the house was the Fliming family, and they just abandoned the house all together, and that's where this photo came from. No one else tried to live in the house after them, and they ended up tearing it down and then they built the houses that are here now… meaning our house."

"So, you're saying that our house was built on sacred ground, and this Madeline is the one who's haunting us, or more specifically, me?" Zim asked.

"Yes Zim, that's exactly what I'm saying." Dib nodded. "Madeline is described to have been wearing a white dress when she died, and she has long curly black hair. It's the exact description of the our ghost."

"It's also the exact description of the Grudge and the Ring girl." Zim joked.

"Yeah, but you and I both know that there's no such thing."

"So, what do we do now? We know who it is, but why is she haunting me?"

"... I think it's time we found out."