The Haunted Haunt Chapter Five
(By the way, the doll thing was an idea I had for Halloween. Unfortunately we had moved to an area with little to no trick-or-treat traffic so I missed my chance to scare the peewaddlins out of the lil crumbsnatchers. Rats.)
After leaving the doll behind Zim carefully made his way down the hallway. His nervous gait was part tip-toe and part swinging around to make sure nothing was sneaking up behind him, which made the beam from his palm light resemble a search lamp. Who knew which door would suddenly swing open and whatever ghoul inside would snatch him to drag him back in to whatever fate it had in store? For a moment various movie scenes from the ghost marathon he had seen recently played through the Irken's mind and he gulped. He wasn't a human teen but he wasn't sure how picky ghosts were. Could be any living thing would suit their purpose.
Below Dib watched his progress gleefully. 'Getting nervous, aren't you, Zim? Ok, I'll go easy on you for a bit. On second thought; nah!"
As Zim passed one room a slight tapping sounded. He paused, looked at the wall warily, then heard it again. Tap. Tap. Tap.
Could something be trying to communicate? The invader cautiously reached out and tapped on the wall himself. He was immediately answered.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Zim repeated his tapping and again got an answer, this time slightly further up the hallway. He followed, and tapped.
Again he was answered and again further up. He obediently continued walking. Dib snickered. 'That's right, Zim. Follow the bouncing ball!' His fingers were poised over a small switch.
Tap. Tap. Tap. Zim slowly walked along up to the large wooden door. Faint traces of red paint still clung to it with the metal numbers '12' barely hanging on.
Tap. Tap. Then silence. Zim narrowed one of his eyes in puzzlement. Only two taps this time? What did it mea….
FOOMP!
The wooden door suddenly flew open in front of him. Zim reacted quickly by uttering a cry and swinging his blaster up. "GAH!"
He staggered back then looked up at his supposed foe, panting heavily. All he saw was….a door with a large splintered hole in the middle.
He stood there in the middle of the hallway until his breathing returned to normal. "Stu-stupid human gh-ghosts! D'you think…a simple d-door would scare me? Zim? Ha!"
But the 'ha!' retort was rather weak. Perhaps this whole ghost thing was a waste of time? But no. Zim shook his head to get rid of such thoughts. He would see this through! He was, after all, ZIM! He pulled himself up as tall as he could manage, then approached the door to peer inside the room and shine the light about.
It was a very large room, with large windows, two corroded metal lamps hanging from either end that had once held sparkling bits of crystal and the wooden floor still had highly polished spots in places.
"This must be the ball room the Dib-worm was talking about." Zim muttered to himself. "But I see no basketballs, or hoops." (The only 'ballroom' Zim had seen was the gym in skool.)
He edged forward inside, blaster at the ready. "Hello..? Ghosts? Any ghosts in here? I, Zim, would like to talk to you! I have…a…proposition…to offer."
No answer. Dib, shaking with suppressed giggles, simply held his hand above the controls. Timing was everything, he told himself.
Zim was now standing in the middle of the large room. His eyes darted this way and that and he kept turning about, trying to prevent anyone coming up behind him. "Hello? Appear to me! I, Zim, demand you!"
Well, maybe 'demand' was a bit strong. "Um..I mean….I request you appear! I have a business proposition! It could benefit you!"
Dib still held his hand back but only for a moment.
"This could gain you a lot more human captives to..uh…torture! We could both benefit! Let us combine our forces! Join with me and….and…." Zim's voice faded away as he began to hear faint sounds of gunshots. It became louder, with screams added to it. Soon it seemed it had filled the entire room with him in the thick of it! Gunshot blasts, yelling, shouting and the screams! But nothing to be seen!
Zim ducked the supposed gunfight and ran out of the room as fast as he could manage, almost bouncing off the far wall in the hallway. He then flattened himself on the wall besides the ballroom door and stood there panting as he listened to the din die down and finally fade away.
After a moment, when all was still once more, he slowly peered inside.
Nothing. It was the same empty room he had entered before. No, wait, there was something. Large red puddles were beginning to form in several places on the floor, then red liquid started to ooze slowly down the walls.
Even though Zim was an Invader and had done quite a bit of destroying (albeit his own planet) he had never actually –seen- any of his victims close up. He had simply blasted them from the shelter of his weaponry. And in all the reports of other worlds his race had conquered all they showed were burning smashed buildings. This….was different. This was a close-up of what carnage really was. Bloody. Bloody and terrifying.
And he found it a bit sickening. He gagged and had to swallow hard to keep from throwing up, the hallway reeling a bit in his vision.
'Finding it all a bit hard to take, eh Zim? It's just fake blood, after all!' Dib grinned. 'Hmm I wonder if you –could- throw up. I've never seen you actually eat anything. But anyway, as the saying goes you ain't seen or heard nuthin' yet! Gaz, you're up! Center stage!'
Zim had regained some control over himself and was slowly making his way down the hallway when the shriek came. Loud. Loud, long and full of soul-torn anguish such as Zim had never heard before in his entire life, despite all the films of conquered worlds he had seen! He had no heart to leap in his throat but his squeedily spooch was doing its level best to fulfill that role. He again flattened himself against the wall and he panted hard, his eyes zipping from one side to the other in panic. "The banshee!" he whispered to himself. He lifted his blaster but his hand was shaking so much it was doubtful he could hit anything shy of an entire wall.
Dib turned the volume down and sounded the shriek again, making it sound as if the banshee had floated down the hallway and into the lobby. Zim's legs could no longer hold him upright at this point and he slid down the wall to sit collapsed on the floor. He closed his eyes in a mighty attempt to regain control over himself.
"I-I-I am Z-ZIM! I f-fear no gh-ghosts or b-b-banshees! I am an In-in-in-invader! An Invader of the m-m-mighty Irken r-r-race! I am Z-Z-ZIM!" he stuttered.
Dib mocked him in his hidden lair. 'M-m-mighty Irken r-r-race, my fanny! Ha! All right, time for the coup de grace, Zim! Your biggest fear! The Unknown!"
After several deep breaths Zim calmed himself enough to stand up and try to continue on. It seemed apparent that the ghosts weren't going to respond to his offer of an alliance and it would be just a waste of time to stay. But Zim couldn't bring himself to go back down that hallway, past the bloodied room and that doll. There had to be another way down and out of this place.
At the end of the hallway he found himself in another corridor. He looked to the left, and then down the right, wondering which direction would be the quicker way. It was then he noticed the large portrait hanging in front of him when his light ran across it, a painting of a man with a beard, moustache and eyes glowering at something to his right. Zim scowled at it.
"Ugly humans. Why do they insist on making ugly pictures of their ugly selves? Ergh!" He again looked down both ways to decide which way to go and then once more glanced up at the painting. His eyes widened and he uttered a strangled gurgle. Its painted eyes were now glowering straight at him!
"No! No! Go away! LEAVE ME ALONE!" Zim wailed as he fired a shot at it then turned to race down the hallway to the left.
"Hmm, I forgot about that thing," Dib murmured. "Oh well. Nice touch, that, Mr Dib!"
At the end of the corridor Zim had to slide to a complete stop, whirling his arms to keep his balance. He would have fallen down the large hole in the floor, otherwise. He gave a rather gaspy growl at it. "Stupid human building, why didn't they remove this? It's all falling down anyway! This wouldn't happen on Irk. OUR buildings stay up! They don't get holes in them!"
The hole was large and as wide as the hallway. Splintered ends of the support beams, long chewed by termites stuck out jaggedly and even then the pests were continuing their feast on the rotted wood. Zim eyed them with contempt. "Bugs that eat the stuff humans use to build their houses with. Hmph. Humans have even less brains than a stagglewort." He shone his light down to gauge the depth of it and saw it continued down to the basement. Whatever had fallen to cause such a hole must have been rather weighty indeed. He could, of course, use his robot spider legs to climb across but he wasn't sure how stable the other side was. Perhaps the right hallway was the better choice after all.
He had almost reached the intersection with the disturbing painting when he heard something that once again made his squeedily spooch tie itself up in knots. A hollow, regular thumping down the hallway.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
Whatever it was, it was drawing nearer. Zim tried to swallow but by now his throat was too dry. It could only be one thing…the Haunted Suitcase!
Thump.
Thump.
Zim tried to move but for some reason his legs didn't want to obey. He couldn't find the strength to back away but stood frozen to the spot in absolute terror.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
'Come on! Come on! Move!' Zim tried to convince his body to retreat as the dreaded sound drew ever nearer. Any moment now he would see it turn the corner and then leap out at him as Dib had described. Leap out and snap him up to oblivion!
Thump.
Thump.
A slight movement from the floor corner finally broke Zim from his spell. "YAAAHH!" Again he fired wildly then activated his robot legs to carry him back and over the large hole in the left hallway.
If he had turned back he would have seen a large but puzzled rat staring after him.
Din could hardly contain himself and he wrapped his arms around his body to control his mirth. "Oh man if I don't get to laugh out loud soon I'm gonna pee myself!" he smirked.
Zim had succeeded in scrabbling over and past the gaping hole but when he deactivated them and tried to go on with his own two legs the flooring suddenly got weaker. He tried to find firmer footing but suddenly it all gave way and he fell through with a sharp yelp.
Dib also uttered a sharp cry when Zim landed. By chance it happened to be in the same storage room where the boy had set up his operations. For a moment neither of them knew exactly what had happened as they both tried to clear away the debris from the heads and coughing the dust from their lungs.
It was then they both looked up and saw each other. Dib took in the bedraggled form of Zim, dimly lit by the palm light and Zim took in Dib sitting there surrounded by various technical controls.
Dib spoke first. "Uh…oh." And then…
"YOU!" Zim spat, his eyes narrowed and teeth grinding in fury. "YOU CAUSED ALL THIS!"