Wow, I literally cannot believe that I already have something like 60 visitors and 2 reviews on this one lame-ass chapter…You all reading this are AMAZING. Zim'sMostLoyalServant had asked for some backstory on Dib's revealing of Zim, which I absolutely promise is going to be touched on at a later point.
Until then, I present you with:
Chapter 2: The Case
There was a serenity Dib felt at his internship. One he couldn't find at home or at Hi Skool, one that eluded him when it was time to sleep. Maybe it was the silence and isolation of his tiny office, tucked at the end of the hallway where he was rarely bothered. Dib had never worked well in the presence of others.
The room was so narrow that he had to turn himself lengthwise, feet against the door, to stretch his legs out. That way the fading light from his porthole-sized window could shine over his shoulder and illuminate the pile of manila folders in his lap.
He rested one elbow on his thigh, chewing absently on the nail of his index finger as he read. Each file held a new case that was coming through the paranormal investigation firm, but they weren't all equally relevant. Dib had figured out rather quickly that a photograph of the supposed "Cheeby Monster" was just a close-up of a drowning caterpillar, so he threw that folder onto his desk.
The one below wasn't much better. Apparently a woman had called in claiming her child was displaying signs of demon possession. Last time Dib checked, a "nose leaking clear, sticky fluid" and a "rasping cough from the bowels of hell itself" were symptoms of a cold. Although he figured that retroviruses and Satan's minions might work together on occasion.
Dib made it all the way to "singing cat with potentially alien origin" before giving up. He took his glasses off in resignation, setting them down on the desk on top of the rejected folders and rubbing at his temple. It was joke cases like these that kept people from taking paranormal investigation seriously. A few lunatics ruining years of diligent work. Making the whole profession look bad.
With a warning click the door to Dib's office came swinging open. He was fast enough to get his boots out of the way but not so fast at recognizing the intruder without his glasses.
"Agent Bill! I haven't quite picked out which case I want to work on yet, but I should have it figured out in -"
"You got it all wrong, kid. I'm Rob from marketing. Sandusky said there was a mop in here."
"Oh." Dib's shoulders fell. "There behind the door. Here's the Lysol." He fumbled around for the bottle beneath his desk and held it out blindly toward the door.
"Thanks, kid. Word to the wise: stay out of the first floor bathroom for a couple days." Rob said sagely.
"Got it."
The door shut again. Dib sighed deeply. He wasn't as prone to delusions of grandeur now as he had been as a kid, but at least with the door shut he could pretend that his internship wasn't taking place in a broom closet above a sketchy Payday Loan company. It could be worse, he figured - at least he wasn't allergic to his job like Brian, who came to school every day covered in hives from having to work with cats and dogs at his veterinary internship. Dib was finally doing work that meant something to him. He finally had a job where paranoia and open-mindedness and curiosity made him invaluable rather than freakish.
Sure, it wasn't perfect. Bill paid him so little that he had to walk to the office instead of drive - the job cost him otherwise. There was always the fact that his father made it clear on no uncertain terms that Dib was bringing shame and embarrassment down on the Membrane family by studying pseudo-science. In a way, though, that embarrassment made it easier. Anymore he felt weirdly satisfied by his father's disapproval. It meant they were different from one another.
Focus, Dib. Pick a case. This is your first solo investigation, so it better be good.
He reached over to his desk, slamming a palm down ineffectually a few times as he tried to find his glasses. Late afternoon light from the window fell helpfully across the scattered folders. There was a flicker in the monotony of color - a darkness fell across his hand. A tapping sounded behind him.
Dib snapped his glasses onto his face and twisted painfully in his chair, staring out the window. For a moment or two he held perfectly still. Eyes wide and searching, ears trying to hear beyond the sound of the heating and his own thumping heart. Patience and alertness were the keys to successful paranormal investigating, he was learning.
Much to his dismay (or relief? he wasn't sure) the tree outside leaned a branch toward the window as the wind outside picked up again. The leaves blocked some light and scraped against the glass, a perfect imitation of the tapping he'd heard. Dib chided himself silently for being so jumpy as he gathered the folders back together and opened one in the middle. What next, was he going to wet himself trying to take pictures of the Cheeby Monster?
Dib never saw the Cheeby Monster, but he did nearly wet himself at the sight of the picture that fell out of a file labeled "the Slenderman. Class: Euclid."
The Polaroid felt slick and heavy in his suddenly sweaty hand. He tried to focus his attention on the center, where a small boy with a Rubik's Cube was grinning into the camera. A shadowy, twisted shape occupied the corner of the photo, where it almost hid behind a tree. Long stalks or limbs or tentacles jutted from a thin body. The head was square and shaded in darkness.
Dib tried and failed several times to set the picture down. His gaze snapped back to the looming figure again and again. The boy in the photo must not have known the horror that lurked behind him - but it crowded every other thought from Dib's mind.
He hadn't thought about the alien for months. Not in any serious capacity, or for more than a millisecond before his brain ushered the incident from his thoughts like an unruly bar patron. He tried not to think about Zim, for the most part. But the resemblance was too close for Dib's pattern-finding mind to ignore. Sure, it didn't look much like Zim when he had been wandering around the skoolyard. But whenever they'd fought, in the alleyways or beneath Zim's base, the spindly legs had erupted from the alien's Pak and he'd become a new and horrifying force to reckon with.
But it couldn't be. There was no way. A hollow choking began somewhere in Dib's chest as fear forced the air from his lungs, and he did his best to stifle it. The picture quivered in his hand.
Zim's gone, you idiot. Calm down. You don't sit around worrying about Jeffery Dahmer, do you?
This was just coincidence. Some kind of paranormal convergent evolution. The Yeti and Bigfoot looked similar, didn't they? It seemed plausible that there could be another monster with such a chilling resemblance to Dib's greatest (neutralized! he reminded himself) adversary.
Dib carefully slid the photograph into the back of the papers in the Slenderman file. He found he had to tuck even the white edges out of sight to keep from staring at it. The case itself was mercifully detailed and distracting.
A woman with the last name of "Finch" reported that her son Joby (Dib raised an eyebrow at the name) had gone missing. Initially she assumed the standard worst-case-scenarios - he'd gotten lost in the woods near their home, or a predator had abducted him, or he'd been sent to Underground Skool. The criminal investigation had asked for a picture of the boy, the most recent one of which was currently paper-clipped to the back of the packet in Dib's hands.
The mother had noticed the strange apparition in the photograph. That was pretty impressive on its own, in Dib's opinion. Most people were perfectly happy to see only what they wanted to see, even where real life-and-death situations were concerned. The report said that Joby had been talking about a strange animal that lived in the woods for the few weeks leading up to his disappearance. A tall creature with long limbs and a strange face. It was only when she realized that the same creature was showing up in photographs that she'd contacted a paranormal investigation firm.
The case sounded risky. Challenging. Finding missing kids was a slim-to-none chance. It could just as easily be a bereaved mother unwilling to accept reality and eager to blame a runaway on the paranormal. But for that picture. Dib pulled it out again, careful not to scrape the glossy coating on the paper clip. He shook off the shuddering chill that rose gooseflesh on his scalp, trying to look for signs of forgery. Polaroids were hard to fake.
No, this was the real deal. The resolution of the horrid figure and the rest of the shot matched too perfectly. The colors were too in sync. And besides, what kind of sick mother would Photoshop a spidery nightmare into a photo of her potentially dead son?
Dib knew he would never sleep again if he didn't look into this case. The idea had been planted. The sense of closure that he'd so carefully sewn into this consciousness had come ripping open like a bad set of stitches, bleeding doubt into his brain. He had to know. He had to be sure that this was something different.
With the slam of a boot heel against the floor, Dib stood up. He tucked the manila folder securely under one arm and had to press his back up against the wall to get the door open wide enough to slip into the hallway, but managed it after a bit of maneuvering. There were advantages to going through puberty with only height and little weight to show for it. Hell, he'd still wear his line-face shirt if it came down lower than his ribcage anymore.
Agent Bill's office was two doors down from his, between a clown-registration service and a guy who arranged organ donations. The door read "Bill Sandusky and Co., Paranormal Investigations" in professional gold print. Dib wondered vaguely if it would say "Sandusky and Membrane" after he graduated.
Dib knocked once on the door, waited thirty seconds, and then opened it.
"Sir, I've picked out my case. I'd like to look into the alie- the Slenderman." He said.
Dib's superior was hunched intently over his desk, papers scattered around him like a chicken's nest, studying a plaster cast of a footprint. He thrashed about wildly at Dib's intrusion. It took a moment or two before the agent had calmed down enough to answer him.
"Whoo. Okay. Caught me a little short there, buddy. You said you wanted the what case now?"
Dib squared his shoulders, bracing his boots resolutely against the floor in an attempt to seem more self-assured. "I want to take the Euclid case. You know, the woman whose son was taken by a skinny forest monster."
"Oh, that case. I think I remember now." Bill held out one hand for the folder. "Huh. I would have thought the alien-cat would have been more your speed. Trying to branch out a little, are we?" he hitched up the corner of his mouth in a knowing grin.
"Yeah, sure. So when can I start?"
"Hold up there, little man." The agent waved the footprint cast sternly at him. "Picking out a solo case is nothing to be taken lightly. Bungling this could put a damper on your whole career, and this one is pretty involved for someone your age. Are you sure you don't want to try something a little more friendly? How about that Cheeby Monster photo? It looked pretty legitimate."
"No. I want this case." Dib said firmly. "I've been investigating the paranormal since I was a little kid; I know that I can handle it. So when can I start?"
"Alright, alright. Calm down. You can start tomorrow if you want, kid. All the information's right here." Flicking the side of the file emphatically, he handed it back to Dib.
Eh, I felt that this chapter was pretty simple and short and exposition-y, even when I was writing it. So if you're getting the same vibe, Chapter 3 is where things start to really pick up and I'm going to try and have it posted before the weekend is out. Otherwise, thanks for lending me your eyes…in a non-serial killer kind of way.