Firstly, I apologize for taking so damn long to update this story. It
seems as though I've just melted into the shadows from which I came. And
though I've been hanging out in those shadows for a while, it's probably
time for me to announce that I'm not dead, to clear up any lingering
suspicions. I'm still here. I shall try to update more frequently.
Once again, I recommend reading "The Mothman Prophecies" by John A. Keel. I've finished reading it and it's really good! So go out and slather your eyes all over the pages of that delightful book now. The paranormal is good for you. Even if you don't believe in such things, it's still fun to read about in the middle of the night.
And finally, thank you, thank you, and thank you to all of the reviewers. I'm a flattered little psychopath. I also hope you are still reading this sad/juicy/ointment-coated/rotund story. If you are still following the plot of this thing.then enjoy. This is the longest chapter by far, so there. I present to you the fifth installment of "Agent Mothman."
DISCLAIMER: I'm not a waffle. I'm not made of cotton, I'm not a demonic frog, and I've never eaten chalk. I also own nothing seen here except the hideous fool that is Sid "Jiggy Cyclops" Jones. There. I've said my piece. Now observe the wonderment that takes place, won't you?
~
"You didn't see it, did you?" - Mary Klein, "The Mothman Prophecies"
~
CHAPTER FIVE: "I Will See You in Time"
For a moment, all Dib could bring himself to do was simply stand there, in shock of this new frightening discovery. It bothered him intensely. Surely this Indrid Cold entity could not be wrong - Dib would die in the explosion. And he now knew, thanks to the vision that befell his brain, where the bursts of white, curling flame were coming from, deep within the skool. It had been the cafeteria where all of those people were screaming and running, flailing about mindlessly. Something would happen there. Yet he still didn't know when.
The smell of the smoke rising from the floor below shook Dib back into his senses. He had to do something about it before the house burned down, as it was threatening to do once again. Thank you, Gaz, for that wonderful act of pyromania.
Dib hurled himself into the kitchen and set about dousing the flames that were curling everywhere. The smoke was almost unbearable, but it wasn't too bad. It was only slightly worse than the previous fire the gothic gamer had set.
Having succeeded in extinguishing the fire, Dib walked tiredly into the living room, where Gaz had resumed drawing. "Why do you always let me put out your fires?" he asked, agitated.
"It's just a house," murmured Gaz darkly. "I'm drawing now. DO YOU MIND? Silence yourself."
Why she had to be so unfailingly dark and cruel, Dib didn't know. She was disturbed nonetheless, and he knew that it was pointless to try to speak to a psycho like a normal human being. So he shrugged off his sister's last remark and pressed on with the difficult conversation. "So, what are we doing for dinner tonight? I'm assuming that Dad's going to be late again."
Gaz glared up at big-headed Dib from her spot on the floor. "If you MUST KNOW, I tried ordering a pizza a while ago. Something was screwed up with the phone line."
"Yes?" said Dib, forgetting the irritated tone to Gaz's voice, now thoroughly interested.
"Yes what?"
"What happened?"
"What happened was just a bunch of beeps, metallic scraping sounds, and hums. You care because why?"
"Thanks, Gaz," muttered Dib, already in the process of bounding back upstairs. He had to let his Swollen Eyeball homies know about this occurrence. Upon reaching his computer, he was entertained by the idea that he was uncontrollably obsessed about the upcoming disaster.
~
The corn cob really hurt. Sid scratched at it, for it was quite itchy as well. He scratched more vigorously, for it seemed that his itchiness wouldn't be easily appeased. This required serious scratching. Sid clawed at his stomach region until there were huge red fingernail marks gracing his midriff. Even still, the uncomfortable sensation persisted. It was unholy.
Sid flung himself onto the floor, exasperated. "DAMN THE CORN!!! DAMN IT!!!" he screamed, with such power in his voice that was not to be expected of an old, shriveled man. He squandered a whole half hour of his life, writhing on the linoleum, jerking at the corn cob in an attempt to remove it. It was lodged there firmly, however. Sid pulled harder. This just allowed for a lot of blood to come spurting forth into the world, coloring his ancient, peeling linoleum with a dazzling shade of liquid red. "HURGLE!!" he screeched wildly.
A few minutes passed, Sid incessantly prodding the corn cob and clawing at his stomach all the time. Finally, he drew himself into the fetal position and just lied there, panting. Why did he have to make that foolish suicide attempt? Now he really wanted to die. Let's see, thought Sid, what can I do to end my miserable time wasted upon this earth?
Upon the counter was a lemon. It was a long shot, but Sid would try. He crawled over to the counter and reached up, seizing the sour citrus fruit and staring at it for a long time. Finally, he realized that it was time for him to depart the physical world. Shakily, Sid rose from the floor. He raised the lemon high over his head, and swung it down into his midriff the same way he'd done with the corn cob.
Now he knew that he was just plain stupid, if he couldn't even learn from that mistake. Gazing down at himself, Sid observed how odd it looked. Here he had a corn cob and a lemon protruding from his gut, with minimal blood leaking from either wound. It hurt and itched like hell, however.
His head spinning with agony, Sid found his way into the bathroom. He studied the contents of his medicine cabinet. The wounds were throbbing with an unholy hurt. Sid sighed and settled for taking some codeine for the pain.
~
Night had settled in upon everything, coating the windows with glorious blackness. Dib was unnerved. Tomorrow was Monday, and that generally implied skool. Not knowing how or when the cafeteria explosion would happen, he was uncertain about going. But he had to. He must do what he could to save the other fourteen victims. Why he always did this sort of thing for humanity, he didn't know. Everyone always mocked him, anyway. Oh well. He'd gain their respect when he "saved the world," so to speak.
After much anxious contemplation, Dib allowed himself to sleep.
~
GIR was still missing from Zim's area of residence, therefore presumably out in the night with Indrid Cold, once again. He was almost forming a bond with this supernatural being, odd as that may seem. Presently, GIR detached himself from Indrid's leg and sat down on the ground, his cyan eyes tearing up and he stared at his newfound idol.
"I'll miss you, Mister Cold," he said sadly. "I don't want you to go!"
Indrid, although freakishly good at telepathic communication, didn't know what to make of GIR's unexplained, hyperactive love for everything. After all, GIR's brain was composed of paper clips and other random garbage. It wasn't an actual brain, therefore Indrid could not read GIR's mind nearly as well as he could those of other people.
"I'll see you in time," said Indrid's electronic voice.
At this, GIR's crying ceased, and he smiled while singing the Doom Song, tapping one leg on the ground rhythmically, one tap for every "doom."
Indrid just seemed to dissolve into the darkness.
~
Monday morning dawned, crisp and eerie. Dib stretched, remembering where he was, and what was about to happen to the skool. He didn't want to continue his day, but forced himself to prepare for skool and head downstairs to breakfast in the blackened kitchen.
Eventually he found himself sitting uneasily in Ms. Bitters's classroom. He noticed the glares and taunting looks Zim kept throwing him from across the room, but amazingly he paid it no mind. His head was heavy with the idea about what could happen during lunch. Dib would warn them. Yes, that's what he'd have to do.
~
"So, as I was saying, class, by the time your filthy grandchildren reach retirement age, our world will be so hideously populated with humans that we'll have a global population density of 1,200 people per square mile. At this rate, in 900 years from now, we'll have a global population density of 3.7 people per square foot! I'm sure you realize that this isn't possible, so naturally, a significant chunk of the present population will have to be wiped out by disease before then," lectured Ms. Bitters. (Author's Note: I received the exact same lecture two weeks ago from my Global Studies teacher. ^_~) "Have a nice day," she added as closure to that particular lesson.
The bell rang, signaling lunch. Dib followed his classmates down the hall to the cafeteria of doom. An oppressive atmosphere just seemed to hover over the place. Something awful was going to happen.
Foolish students filed through the lunch line, collecting their toxic waste that served as sustenance. Within a few moments, Dib arrived to collect his own "food." His head was beginning to pound, possibly as a warning - he had to say something!
"You're all in danger! Something bad is gonna happen, I know it!" he declared to the first lunch lady he encountered.
This lunch lady was an old hag, hard of hearing and quite unscrupulous (she'd made it her routine to put her very own earwax chunks in the mayonnaise when they served corn and mayonnaise). She looked at Dib and grinned slightly. "Your head is large," she announced after several uneasy moments.
Whatever Dib was expecting, it wasn't that, even though he was frequently haunted by this fact. "MY HEAD IS NOT BIG!" he shrieked in rebuttal. Then he tried again - "You have to get everyone out of here! The place is going to blow up!"
The old hag didn't comprehend his cries this time. "We've got nice chicken," she replied, holding up a sickly-looking drumstick that had aged long past its expiration date and had turned an awkward shade of green. "It's smelly."
"That's - that's nice," stammered Dib, looking disgruntled. "There's going to be an explosion --"
"CHICKEN!" interjected the lunch hag.
"Good. About the explo--"
"It will be the best smelly chicken you've ever ingested!" promised the lunch hag, grinning deliriously.
"I acknowledged that," replied Dib, frustrated. "Fifteen people will die -- "
"Such smelly chicken!"
"I KNOW ABOUT THE CHICKEN!!! Fifteen --"
"Let's pray to the chicken god!" suggested the lunch hag, raising her wrinkled arms, looking skyward, and spinning around pointlessly.
"WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU!!???" shouted Dib in extreme exasperation.
From somewhere toward the back of the room, an ugly child lifted his filthy head and stared at Dib, and the rest of the people in the room followed suit. That is to say, all but Gaz, who merely twitched and continued eating after deciding her brother wasn't worth it.
"Dib's crazy!" the ugly child announced.
"Yeah!" agreed Zita. There was pause, and then everyone threw a small portion of his or her lunch at Dib.
Dib, now spattered with various food articles, stood there, looking very disgruntled. He was angry, irritated, and desperate not to look stupid. This was hard to do, because the explosion did not happen that Monday. It was simply slated for a different date. But the trouble was, now that he'd deliriously announced that an explosion would happen and nothing did, no one was likely to believe him.
There was a thick silence that enveloped the cafeteria. It was during this time that Zim leapt onto a table and waved his clenched fists in the air. "I HAVE DESIGNED A MOOSE ARMY TO RULE THE WORLD BY MY SIDE!!!" Then, wordlessly and emotionlessly, Zim resumed his seat and continued prodding the dirty earth edibles on his lunch tray analytically, as though nothing ever happened.
Saddened and dejected, Dib didn't bother to collect his tray and sit down. He merely walked out of the room.
~
Later that evening found the phone ringing in the Membrane household. This was the only phone that remained hooked up, for the other two had been brutally disconnected by Gaz.
Dib answered. "Hello?"
It was Indrid. "Hello, number 15." Dib winced when he heard this. "Yes?"
"My name is Indrid Cold. It will be Tuesday."
"What will be Tuesday.?" asked Dib cautiously.
"Why ask what you already know? I will see you in time."
A strange howling sound shot through the phone line and into Dib's ear, causing him to jolt with fear and hurl the phone across the room in surprise. He shut his eyes, but every time he did, he saw either those two haunting, hypnotizing, red eyes, or the image of a matchstick-headed being in a trench coat. Both images weren't pleasing to think about, so Dib kept his eyes open as much as possible. He did not want to sleep.
He did not want to die.
~
That was truly fun and entertainment for the entire family. Once again, I'm sorry it took so long for me to emerge from the darkness long enough to update this. Thanks for reading it. Look for Chapter Six soon.
I'll see you in time.
Once again, I recommend reading "The Mothman Prophecies" by John A. Keel. I've finished reading it and it's really good! So go out and slather your eyes all over the pages of that delightful book now. The paranormal is good for you. Even if you don't believe in such things, it's still fun to read about in the middle of the night.
And finally, thank you, thank you, and thank you to all of the reviewers. I'm a flattered little psychopath. I also hope you are still reading this sad/juicy/ointment-coated/rotund story. If you are still following the plot of this thing.then enjoy. This is the longest chapter by far, so there. I present to you the fifth installment of "Agent Mothman."
DISCLAIMER: I'm not a waffle. I'm not made of cotton, I'm not a demonic frog, and I've never eaten chalk. I also own nothing seen here except the hideous fool that is Sid "Jiggy Cyclops" Jones. There. I've said my piece. Now observe the wonderment that takes place, won't you?
~
"You didn't see it, did you?" - Mary Klein, "The Mothman Prophecies"
~
CHAPTER FIVE: "I Will See You in Time"
For a moment, all Dib could bring himself to do was simply stand there, in shock of this new frightening discovery. It bothered him intensely. Surely this Indrid Cold entity could not be wrong - Dib would die in the explosion. And he now knew, thanks to the vision that befell his brain, where the bursts of white, curling flame were coming from, deep within the skool. It had been the cafeteria where all of those people were screaming and running, flailing about mindlessly. Something would happen there. Yet he still didn't know when.
The smell of the smoke rising from the floor below shook Dib back into his senses. He had to do something about it before the house burned down, as it was threatening to do once again. Thank you, Gaz, for that wonderful act of pyromania.
Dib hurled himself into the kitchen and set about dousing the flames that were curling everywhere. The smoke was almost unbearable, but it wasn't too bad. It was only slightly worse than the previous fire the gothic gamer had set.
Having succeeded in extinguishing the fire, Dib walked tiredly into the living room, where Gaz had resumed drawing. "Why do you always let me put out your fires?" he asked, agitated.
"It's just a house," murmured Gaz darkly. "I'm drawing now. DO YOU MIND? Silence yourself."
Why she had to be so unfailingly dark and cruel, Dib didn't know. She was disturbed nonetheless, and he knew that it was pointless to try to speak to a psycho like a normal human being. So he shrugged off his sister's last remark and pressed on with the difficult conversation. "So, what are we doing for dinner tonight? I'm assuming that Dad's going to be late again."
Gaz glared up at big-headed Dib from her spot on the floor. "If you MUST KNOW, I tried ordering a pizza a while ago. Something was screwed up with the phone line."
"Yes?" said Dib, forgetting the irritated tone to Gaz's voice, now thoroughly interested.
"Yes what?"
"What happened?"
"What happened was just a bunch of beeps, metallic scraping sounds, and hums. You care because why?"
"Thanks, Gaz," muttered Dib, already in the process of bounding back upstairs. He had to let his Swollen Eyeball homies know about this occurrence. Upon reaching his computer, he was entertained by the idea that he was uncontrollably obsessed about the upcoming disaster.
~
The corn cob really hurt. Sid scratched at it, for it was quite itchy as well. He scratched more vigorously, for it seemed that his itchiness wouldn't be easily appeased. This required serious scratching. Sid clawed at his stomach region until there were huge red fingernail marks gracing his midriff. Even still, the uncomfortable sensation persisted. It was unholy.
Sid flung himself onto the floor, exasperated. "DAMN THE CORN!!! DAMN IT!!!" he screamed, with such power in his voice that was not to be expected of an old, shriveled man. He squandered a whole half hour of his life, writhing on the linoleum, jerking at the corn cob in an attempt to remove it. It was lodged there firmly, however. Sid pulled harder. This just allowed for a lot of blood to come spurting forth into the world, coloring his ancient, peeling linoleum with a dazzling shade of liquid red. "HURGLE!!" he screeched wildly.
A few minutes passed, Sid incessantly prodding the corn cob and clawing at his stomach all the time. Finally, he drew himself into the fetal position and just lied there, panting. Why did he have to make that foolish suicide attempt? Now he really wanted to die. Let's see, thought Sid, what can I do to end my miserable time wasted upon this earth?
Upon the counter was a lemon. It was a long shot, but Sid would try. He crawled over to the counter and reached up, seizing the sour citrus fruit and staring at it for a long time. Finally, he realized that it was time for him to depart the physical world. Shakily, Sid rose from the floor. He raised the lemon high over his head, and swung it down into his midriff the same way he'd done with the corn cob.
Now he knew that he was just plain stupid, if he couldn't even learn from that mistake. Gazing down at himself, Sid observed how odd it looked. Here he had a corn cob and a lemon protruding from his gut, with minimal blood leaking from either wound. It hurt and itched like hell, however.
His head spinning with agony, Sid found his way into the bathroom. He studied the contents of his medicine cabinet. The wounds were throbbing with an unholy hurt. Sid sighed and settled for taking some codeine for the pain.
~
Night had settled in upon everything, coating the windows with glorious blackness. Dib was unnerved. Tomorrow was Monday, and that generally implied skool. Not knowing how or when the cafeteria explosion would happen, he was uncertain about going. But he had to. He must do what he could to save the other fourteen victims. Why he always did this sort of thing for humanity, he didn't know. Everyone always mocked him, anyway. Oh well. He'd gain their respect when he "saved the world," so to speak.
After much anxious contemplation, Dib allowed himself to sleep.
~
GIR was still missing from Zim's area of residence, therefore presumably out in the night with Indrid Cold, once again. He was almost forming a bond with this supernatural being, odd as that may seem. Presently, GIR detached himself from Indrid's leg and sat down on the ground, his cyan eyes tearing up and he stared at his newfound idol.
"I'll miss you, Mister Cold," he said sadly. "I don't want you to go!"
Indrid, although freakishly good at telepathic communication, didn't know what to make of GIR's unexplained, hyperactive love for everything. After all, GIR's brain was composed of paper clips and other random garbage. It wasn't an actual brain, therefore Indrid could not read GIR's mind nearly as well as he could those of other people.
"I'll see you in time," said Indrid's electronic voice.
At this, GIR's crying ceased, and he smiled while singing the Doom Song, tapping one leg on the ground rhythmically, one tap for every "doom."
Indrid just seemed to dissolve into the darkness.
~
Monday morning dawned, crisp and eerie. Dib stretched, remembering where he was, and what was about to happen to the skool. He didn't want to continue his day, but forced himself to prepare for skool and head downstairs to breakfast in the blackened kitchen.
Eventually he found himself sitting uneasily in Ms. Bitters's classroom. He noticed the glares and taunting looks Zim kept throwing him from across the room, but amazingly he paid it no mind. His head was heavy with the idea about what could happen during lunch. Dib would warn them. Yes, that's what he'd have to do.
~
"So, as I was saying, class, by the time your filthy grandchildren reach retirement age, our world will be so hideously populated with humans that we'll have a global population density of 1,200 people per square mile. At this rate, in 900 years from now, we'll have a global population density of 3.7 people per square foot! I'm sure you realize that this isn't possible, so naturally, a significant chunk of the present population will have to be wiped out by disease before then," lectured Ms. Bitters. (Author's Note: I received the exact same lecture two weeks ago from my Global Studies teacher. ^_~) "Have a nice day," she added as closure to that particular lesson.
The bell rang, signaling lunch. Dib followed his classmates down the hall to the cafeteria of doom. An oppressive atmosphere just seemed to hover over the place. Something awful was going to happen.
Foolish students filed through the lunch line, collecting their toxic waste that served as sustenance. Within a few moments, Dib arrived to collect his own "food." His head was beginning to pound, possibly as a warning - he had to say something!
"You're all in danger! Something bad is gonna happen, I know it!" he declared to the first lunch lady he encountered.
This lunch lady was an old hag, hard of hearing and quite unscrupulous (she'd made it her routine to put her very own earwax chunks in the mayonnaise when they served corn and mayonnaise). She looked at Dib and grinned slightly. "Your head is large," she announced after several uneasy moments.
Whatever Dib was expecting, it wasn't that, even though he was frequently haunted by this fact. "MY HEAD IS NOT BIG!" he shrieked in rebuttal. Then he tried again - "You have to get everyone out of here! The place is going to blow up!"
The old hag didn't comprehend his cries this time. "We've got nice chicken," she replied, holding up a sickly-looking drumstick that had aged long past its expiration date and had turned an awkward shade of green. "It's smelly."
"That's - that's nice," stammered Dib, looking disgruntled. "There's going to be an explosion --"
"CHICKEN!" interjected the lunch hag.
"Good. About the explo--"
"It will be the best smelly chicken you've ever ingested!" promised the lunch hag, grinning deliriously.
"I acknowledged that," replied Dib, frustrated. "Fifteen people will die -- "
"Such smelly chicken!"
"I KNOW ABOUT THE CHICKEN!!! Fifteen --"
"Let's pray to the chicken god!" suggested the lunch hag, raising her wrinkled arms, looking skyward, and spinning around pointlessly.
"WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU!!???" shouted Dib in extreme exasperation.
From somewhere toward the back of the room, an ugly child lifted his filthy head and stared at Dib, and the rest of the people in the room followed suit. That is to say, all but Gaz, who merely twitched and continued eating after deciding her brother wasn't worth it.
"Dib's crazy!" the ugly child announced.
"Yeah!" agreed Zita. There was pause, and then everyone threw a small portion of his or her lunch at Dib.
Dib, now spattered with various food articles, stood there, looking very disgruntled. He was angry, irritated, and desperate not to look stupid. This was hard to do, because the explosion did not happen that Monday. It was simply slated for a different date. But the trouble was, now that he'd deliriously announced that an explosion would happen and nothing did, no one was likely to believe him.
There was a thick silence that enveloped the cafeteria. It was during this time that Zim leapt onto a table and waved his clenched fists in the air. "I HAVE DESIGNED A MOOSE ARMY TO RULE THE WORLD BY MY SIDE!!!" Then, wordlessly and emotionlessly, Zim resumed his seat and continued prodding the dirty earth edibles on his lunch tray analytically, as though nothing ever happened.
Saddened and dejected, Dib didn't bother to collect his tray and sit down. He merely walked out of the room.
~
Later that evening found the phone ringing in the Membrane household. This was the only phone that remained hooked up, for the other two had been brutally disconnected by Gaz.
Dib answered. "Hello?"
It was Indrid. "Hello, number 15." Dib winced when he heard this. "Yes?"
"My name is Indrid Cold. It will be Tuesday."
"What will be Tuesday.?" asked Dib cautiously.
"Why ask what you already know? I will see you in time."
A strange howling sound shot through the phone line and into Dib's ear, causing him to jolt with fear and hurl the phone across the room in surprise. He shut his eyes, but every time he did, he saw either those two haunting, hypnotizing, red eyes, or the image of a matchstick-headed being in a trench coat. Both images weren't pleasing to think about, so Dib kept his eyes open as much as possible. He did not want to sleep.
He did not want to die.
~
That was truly fun and entertainment for the entire family. Once again, I'm sorry it took so long for me to emerge from the darkness long enough to update this. Thanks for reading it. Look for Chapter Six soon.
I'll see you in time.