I have much more written down, just not enough for another chapter just yet.   Forgive me, I shall write more!!  … in the meantime, I demand you review.   Prettiest of pleases?...

Disclaimer:  Would I be writing fanfic about it if I owned it?  … yeah, probably, but NO! I don't own it. 

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Zim was in the lead as they walked through the halls of the mansion, this
time. Lydia was terrified, recoiling from the walls of the hall, the
shadows, anything she could recoil from, really, and Dib seemed to be the
only person who could calm her down enough to get her to follow. The
flashlight gripped tightly in his gloved hand, Zim frowned lightly as he was
left to his own judgmental thoughts.


Dib, in the background, was annoyed. Lydia was scared, which was creepy
enough, but now she was cutting off the circulation in his arm, which made
it all the worse. Lydia had latched onto his arm and wouldn't let go as soon
as they entered the hallway she had ran in from. Whatever scared her scared
her bad.


And Lydia was just plain scared out of her mind, shaking and shivering,
jumping at any movement she saw out of the corner of her eyes, which was a
lot since the only light came from a flashlight. She was so close to letting
go and just running, running like hell. But then again, there were people
here. People she knew, except for the fact she felt that now, the minute kid
she'd known as Zim was a stranger. But hell, it was better than nothing.

Minutes later, they came to a split in the hall, two other hallways running
out from the left and right halls. Zim stopped to turn around, flashing the
beam of the flashlight into both of the following humans' eyes. "Well?" The
Irken snapped, glaring at Lydia. The goth girl, already vulnerable,
shuddered slightly, then looked out at the other two halls.


"I'm pretty sure I ran from that one." Lydia pointed at the right hall, then
thought a bit, glancing around. "Can you turn the light on that wall?" She
asked timidly, motioning to the opposite wall. Zim rolled his eyes and,
without looking at the opposite wall, redirected the beam at it.


Lydia nodded to herself as the flashlight beam lit up a table, an old
fringed lamp sitting dejectedly on top of the table. "Yeah, I definitely
came out of the right hall, so Syd must have gone down the left."

Dib sighed a bit. "Might as well go after Sydney, then. Let's go."

Zim shrugged and walked on, leading yet again. The small group of three
walked down the left hall, which was surprisingly long. At one point, Zim
had enough and grumbled something about mazelike empty useless stinkbeast
abodes.

Finally the little group got to a door. Old, with paint peeling, the door
looked very fitting in the dark mansion's corridors. Zim was the one who
opened the door, slightly surprised that the door was unlocked. Flinging it
open, the little Irken marched through, then immediately stopped, a
high-pitched squeak escaping him.

Dib raised an eyebrow. "Zim?" he asked, moving into the room and then
stopping behind the little Irken, jaw dropped open. Lydia eeped and
uncharacteristically hid her face, which meant squeezing Dib's arm tighter
and burying her face into Dib's trench coat sleeve.

The flashlight beam was fastened on a foot, clad in Sydney's almost
signature platform sneakers, sticking out past the edge of the room's neat
little bed, sprawled across the floor.

"That's Sydney." Dib gulped before continuing. "You don't think she's-?"

Zim narrowed his eyes. "What else would she be, Dib." At this, Lydia
squeaked, quivering noticeably.

"Well, er, she could have, er, tripped." Dib offered lamely, staring at the
unmoving foot of Sydney, illuminated, just barely, by the reading light
Sydney always carried.

"Check, then." Zim commanded.

Dib, for some reason, rose to the challenge in Zim's voice. "Fine, I will!"
The paranormal investigator said, walking forwards into the room and passing
the bed, nose in the air so that he didn't see. Lydia trailed after Dib,
still attached to him by the arm and still hiding her face.

Zim sighed and followed Dib, stopping short when he got to the nearer corner
of the bed, antennae twitching as if trying to catch a noise on the wind. He
was sure he heard.

Then Dib's voice was heard, a weak, "Dear God." before the scythe-haired
human fell to his knees, and vomiting noises were heard, followed by Lydia's
small shriek.

"What?" Zim asked, antennae falling back into their normal position as he
moved over to look at what Lydia and Dib already saw.

When he did, the Irken paled considerably. If he could, he would have been
sick all over the floor, like Dib.

Sydney's body was left, head tilted to the side and mouth open in a silent
scream, arms crossed at the wrists above her head, resting on her bright red
dyed hair. Zim's gaze traveled down from the corpse's face, and the irken
shuddered lightly, the throat of the corpse was torn out, leaving a bloody
mess to look at, a stringy vein or two still fully intact and traveling up
her neck. Lower still, her chest was normal, but below the ribcage was the
most disgusting part. Looking dissected, a long flap of flesh was torn away
from the ribcage, down past the other organs and laid across the corpse's
legs. Speaking of organs, everything was misplaced in the deep pool of
blood, stomach and intestines, liver and more.

Zim finally shook himself out of whatever shock he had been in, glancing at
the two humans in the room along with him. Dib was still making disgusting
heaving noises, even though Zim was sure the human had already emptied
whatever he hadn't digested onto the floor. Lydia was quivering, eyes wide
and unseeing through a haze of disgust and panic, hands to her mouth and
looking completely traumatized. Zim couldn't blame the female.

Breaking into his thoughts, Zim thought he heard a quiet noise, from behind
him, maybe from that door he didn't bother mentioning to the two others
earlier. His antennae twitched, and the Irken frowned slightly; why would
there be someone in a closet?

The Irken was about to turn when he heard the other door bang open. Lydia,
and even Dib, quelling his sickness for a moment, looked up, and Zim spun
around, flashlight beam bouncing wildly.

Though the beam of light was a bit uncontrollable, Zim could see what had come from the door; some kind of walking human that looked like he should have been dead, eyeball dripping out of its socket. What did the humans call them? Oh yes, Zombies. For some reason, Zim knew he should be panicking, after all, he was closest to the rotting walking corpse, but the Irken didn't really take notice of the Zombie's menacing growl, or Lydia's screaming, or Dib's yell. All he did notice was the fact that the Zombie was too close, and the fact that he had a laser stored in his Pak somewhere.

Almost automatically, Zim reached behind him, touching his pak, which immediately ejected the laser gun into his hand. The Irken straightened his arm in a flash, righting the gun and firing. There was a disgusting little sizzle, and the Zombie was now a standing corpse with a blackened stump where his head should be.

Silence for a moment, everybody stood staring at the standing headless corpse, Zim brandishing flashlight and laser.   Then, the corpse twitched, tilting forwards, then falling backwards across the floor.  Everything seemed to start moving again.  Lydia was shaking, hands over her mouth which was probably open in a silent scream, and Dib stared blankly for a second, before saying the most unexpected thing for that situation.

"Holy Shit! Zim, you had a laser gun?!  You could've killed me!  Why did I trust you in the first place?!  This should have been something I should have expected from an alien scum like you!" Dib yelled, a tremor of fear obvious in his tone. 

Zim raised a would-be eyebrow as he turned calmly back to face Dib and Lydia.  "You should have expected me to save your life?" The Irken asked disbelievingly. 

"Wha—? No! I meant—argh…"

Zim nodded unsympathetically.  The Irken frowned slightly before walking around the zombie corpse, carefully not letting even his boot brush the side of the disgusting rotted thing.  "Come, Human stinkbeasts."  The Irken said as he made his way to the door, leaving Dib and Lydia in the darker side of the room. 

Lydia eeped, and instead of opting to stay with Dib, she quickly followed Zim, skirting the zombie's body fearfully, as if she expected it to wake up and grab her. 

Dib was about to follow, standing up and swaying slightly from being sick before he wiped the back of his trench coat sleeve across his mouth.  He was about to turn and go after Zim and Lydia when he saw something on the ground, next to Sydney's corpse.   Cautiously, Dib leaned down and picked up Sydney's reading light, which was by her foot.  Turning the beam around and trying to avoid, best he could, looking straight at the ripped open corpse, Dib's eyes widened slightly as he saw what was next to the corpse.  It could be of use.  The Paranormal Investigator leaned down swiftly, grabbing the item and then stuffing it in his pocket after checking something.   Then Dib turned, running after Lydia and Zim.  Surprising to Dib was the fact that, right outside the door, Zim and Lydia waited for him. 

After the little group was united, Zim turned to lead the two humans down the dark hall again, unnoticing the few little red splatters on Dib's free hand.   Just as the Irken was about to take his first step down the hall, there was a zapping noise from behind them, and light flickered from the open doorway behind them.  Gulping simultaneously, the small group turned to see what had happened.  The lamp on the desk in the room had flickered on. 

Soon, the flickering light traveled into the hall, where ceiling lights that the group didn't notice before flickered on, then off, then on completely.   This continued down the hall, illuminating the hallway and the room behind them. 

Lydia gulped.  "That isn't normal."  She announced.

Zim looked thoughtful as his antennae twitched a couple times.  He shrugged.  "At least we can see now."  He pointed out.

"Oh yeah, great, we can see now!  Who cares that the lights came on in a spooooky way with no power whatsoever!"  Dib ranted, mostly to himself because Lydia had learned to tune out the rants, and Zim didn't care, he was already walking back down the hall with Lydia following. 

Dib sighed as he noticed this, and jammed his hands into his trench coat pockets, avoiding setting off the thing he had picked up in the room.  The Paranormal Investigator, defeated for the moment, walked after the two ahead of him.  He'd make them listen later.