I've been getting a lot of really awesome critiques for this story, so I'm trying to take some of your suggestions into account when I go about my revisions. All of your kind reviews and subscriptions have really kicked my perfectionism into high gear, which is great! (Though maybe not obvious, haha). This chapter proved particularly difficult because action and description have never really been my fortes, but I think I've gotten it worked out into something serviceable.
Chapter 3: The Shadow
A couple hours of paperwork later, Bill finally locked up the offices and let Dib go home. They'd stayed later than usual – there were quite a few waivers and organ-donation forms Dib needed to sign before he could pursue a case on his own – and sundown was fast approaching when Dib stepped out of the office park onto the sidewalk to head home.
Walking across the parking lot, steps echoing against the asphalt, Dib rammed his fists into the pockets of his coat. The temperature was on its downward descent for the day, sun hanging heavily near the horizon. Or as much as he could make out through the stick-like winter trees as he trotted down the sidewalk.
It might have been a decent walk home if not for the wind, which fluttered his trench coat and jostled his messenger bag at turns. He kept his shoulders hunched as he went so that his collar offered a bit of protection, but the prickled air still bit at his face.
Of all the objects on his person - the cell phone nestled in his back pocket, the X-ray goggles at the bottom of his satchel, the digital watch that continually caught on things - Dib's thoughts returned over and over to the folder in his shoulder bag. Having it so close to him brought a vague sense of illness roiling to the surface. It was as if one of Zim's antennas was rattling around in his empty pocket.
It's not Zim!
Dib kicked a stone further down the sidewalk emphatically, trying to focus on the clattering rock rather than his own paranoia. He didn't understand why this idea was so hard to talk down. Hell, he didn't understand why he had to talk himself down. This should be the greatest day of his life.
Following a paranormal investigation on his own from start to finish? Being solely responsible for every discovery, every twist, every piece of evidence? And finally having the experience and resources and knowledge to do all of it? Sure, he'd followed cases before as a kid, but never in so official a capacity. Never one handed over to him by a professional investigator. The eleven-year-old inside of him squeaked in excitement. The seventeen-year-old outside of him smiled crookedly into the slicing winter wind.
By this time tomorrow he would have forgotten all about the resemblance between his new case and his old enemy. He'd be knee-deep in leads, ready to close in on some fascinating new child-hunting monster. Maybe they'd name it the Dib-beast or something. The Membrane Monster.
Don't get too keen on that idea. Remember how it went last time?
"Shut up." He spoke out loud this time. On the abandoned, tree-lined road. To himself. The skoolyard cries of "Crazy Dib" had slowed to a stop not a year ago. This was exactly the sort of bullshit that would start it up again.
Dib felt himself go red with embarrassment even though there was no one to watch his outburst. Brushing past the moment, Dib stomped down the street a little ways until he reached an archway on the side of the road. It read "City Park" in great block letters. Dib turned onto the heavily wooded path, feeling a sudden chill as he was shaded from the last remnants of sunlight.
It wasn't much of a shortcut, really. But he figured a change of route would do him some good. Clear his mind out a bit.
The bare branches loomed over him in a spindly half-arch as he followed the trail deeper into the park. Scattered at steady intervals, the lamps by the side of the trail were beginning to click on. Long, slatted shadows fell across Dib while he walked, strobing around him like the bars of a cage.
Dib picked up his pace and half-jogged to the bottom of a little hill, hair-scythe swinging annoyingly in his face with every step. His feet landed so loudly on the pavement that he barely heard the chuckle sounding from the trees.
Just a single laugh, and then gone.
Dib wheeled sharply, his satchel snapping against his thigh. Even as the noise faded into the woods he wondered if he'd really heard it. He prayed and swore and begged for a cat to step daintily from behind a grizzled trunk, but the stand of trees around him was still. Silent except for the hissing wind and the buzz of the newly-lit streetlamps.
He bolted deeper into the park, nearly crashing over a see-saw as he took a shortcut through the playground. There weren't any children out at this hour, of course, but the place still seemed eerily desolate. Passing the swings meant that Dib was almost through the park – only a short dreaded stretch through the trees until he would reach the road on the other side.
He found himself walking at that awkward too-fast speed that ached his ankles, refusing to run because there wasn't any reason to run. Not every half-heard sound was a monster or alien or serial killer hidden in the shadows, he tried to remind himself.
The sun was completely down now. Only a rose-colored blush in the sky indicated that there had ever been a sun at all - the cold and the trees pressing in around him made it seem plenty dark already. The playground disappeared from view behind Dib as he continued on the pathway, his vision blocked by the bared branches. He glanced compulsively over his shoulder, muscles twitching at any movement. Just a dead leaf, a squirrel, the wind moving some paper. Adrenaline roiled and calmed within him over and over as he made his way down the path.
The trees were thinning, the trail getting mercifully wider. Dib could make out a stone wall beyond some of the tree limbs and trunks and knew he was nearly to the edge of the park. Nearly free of the claustrophobic forest. The trees ended at the corner just beyond him, and beyond that was only a block of sidewalk until he reached the furthest edge of his subdivision.
Dib thundered down the last bit of path, clearing the three or so steps down to the sidewalk in a single jump. He turned to glance behind him almost triumphantly, looking back at the forest. Trees enveloped the trail like a tunnel, making Dib feel as if he'd emerged safely form a dungeon. The open air gave him a sudden and strange sense of protection. Geez, how dumb could he have been to think he'd heard a laugh before?
Not very, apparently. A tentacle-like leg clicked onto the path, and then vanished cleanly back into the stand of trees. Dib stared fixedly at the spot where it had appeared, where the long evening shadows had made the limb spidery and threatening. Had it been metal? He wasn't sure.
On his third day as an intern, he and Agent Bill had come face-to-face with an undead demon squid. Long story. As the spectral cephalopod bore down on them, demon-beak snapping horrifically amongst wriggling tentacles, Bill had told him something very important. "You've got a lot of spunk, kid. You're brave as a damn Rottweiler. But sometimes you have to run. The afterlife's got plenty of members, but this world is fast running out of paranormal investigators."
Agent Bill's advice rattled through Dib's head as he turned heel and took off down the street. Every step landed heavily on the pavement and shook thoughts out of his brain until the word "run" was all that remained.
Run, Dib. Run.
Dib sprinted across the concrete, heading down the street toward the cluster of homes at the very edge of his neighborhood. Every step came reliably now. It nearly felt good, to trust his body so completely. Not to slow or falter. Until Dib passed by the Anderson's house and watched his own shadow loping by on the off-white paneling. A spindly shadow followed him, only a few feet behind.
Dib heard footsteps. One to each of his three. Steady and slow against his own manic stomping down the sidewalk. He turned onto the Anderson's yard, feet slick on the frosty grass. Breaking through the neighborhood was a shorter route home than following the road. It was only out of the corner of his eye he saw the tall, thin shape twist mechanically to chase him out of the streetlamp's light.
His heart beat through every inch of him. He felt the blood coursing through his fingertips and pounding in his temples as his long legs gathered speed. His muscles snapped reliably into a contraction and relaxed, over and over, gushing warmth and oxygen into cells that normally went without.
Dodging gopher holes, sucking in great lungfuls of icy air, Dib crossed the lawn within seconds. His heavy boots and tramping steps scuffed the neighbor's landscaping, leaving a trail of torn-up weeds behind him.
With a single great leap he cleared the Anderson's fence, still several lawns away from his house. Dib felt the ground reverberate in his legs and stomach more than his feet as he touched down, and he wasted a precious second re-gaining his bearings. He'd landed in the Binewski's yard – they must not have been home, because every light in the house was off and the whole lawn was bathed in darkness.
Then he heard the thing scrape on the white-pickets behind him. An icy stab of adrenaline lanced through Dib's veins and his boots kicked earth into the air as he ran on.
His messenger bag strap dug emphatically into his throat with the burst of speed. The instant of panicked choking scarcely slowed him down, but it brought his thoughts shuddering into focus. The file. The picture.
You're a paranormal investigator, damn it. Take a picture.
He didn't have his good camera with him. But the cell phone in his butt pocket had four megapixels and that had to be worth something. Dib half-twisted as he ran, just in time to see a grey-shaded sliver vanish behind the Binewski's garden shed. Sweat dripped down his fingers and made his grip slippery and unsure as he tried to fish the phone into his hand without stopping.
It felt hot enough to burn in his white-knuckled fist. He snapped the phone open, screen blurry between his jittering run and sweat-fogged glasses.
Dib stopped, turned, felt the muscles in his legs go wobbly in confusion. The tiny cell-phone screen cast the only light in the darkness, illuminating the weedy grass and neglected car parts that littered the Binewski's backyard. Whipping the phone back and forth, Dib searched desperately for any sign of the tentacled monstrosity. The shadows fell in demented shapes around him and every one became a source of horror as he looked for his pursuer. It had been right here. The few seconds of silence and stillness became Dib's whole life lived over.
From the corner of the house, near the shed, came a stirring. It unfolded itself, appendages growing and multiplying, amplified by the darkness. The thing uncoiled like a nest of vipers. Joints popped into place with all the disturbing elegance of a rearing spider, punctuated with a hissing whisper at every movement. Within a few seconds it towered at the house's awning.
Only some miracle of conditioning reminded Dib to pound the "take" button his phone. A shocking flash of light illuminated the lawn, every shadow eliminated for an instant. Dib didn't see its face - the camera flashed too quickly and scorched his dilated pupils. He only saw the thing heave a great tentacle skyward and bring it crashing down towards him.
You're a pretty stupid Rottweiler.
Ducking beneath the falling limb, Dib's fingers grazed the frozen ground as he pushed off into another sprint. Only one lawn left before his street. And mercifully, too, because Dib wasn't sure how much longer he could maintain this headlong dash. The cold air needled inside his lungs and clashed painfully with the hot ache spreading down his legs.
His muscles snapped easily into place this time, boots landing piston-like on the sidewalk as he broke from the Binewski's yard onto the Nicely's perfectly manicured landscaping. Was the thing still behind him? He wasn't sure. He had the picture, which was what mattered. He just had to get home.
Dead grass crunched beneath his boots as he crossed the Nicely's lot. He listened half-hopeful, half-terrified for the tell-tale skittering behind him. Dib's breath came in ragged gasps now, body demanding oxygen, so loud every noise of the winter night was half-drowned. But not the rhythmic, clicking footsteps that sounded right behind him.
Dib cleared the Nicely's yard without incident, nearly tripping as he stomped from the plush grass onto the road that ran in front of his house. Without hesitation, without any thought to cars or trucks that might flatten him into a Dib-shaped pancake, he bolted across the street toward his front door.
He was so close now. He could see the chip on the first step, make out the flashing light of the T.V. inside the living room. Fifty more feet. Forty.
Every cell screamed. Every synapse launched neurotransmitters like an armada launches ships. He stared with laser-beam focus at his front door, the rest of the neighborhood collapsing to powder around him for all he noticed.
Faster, Dib. You're almost there.
A spiked and knuckled leg appeared suddenly on the ground before him. Even if he'd had a year's early notice Dib couldn't have stopped in time. The toe of his boot caught neatly on tentacle and he fell a thousand miles in the six feet between his brain and the earth, the rocky asphalt rocketing toward him. Dib threw his arms out and caught most of the impact on his hands.
His phone smashed like an egg, brittle plastic shards scattering into his palms as much as the ground. Somewhere, part of Dib's brain lamented the destruction. He thanked every god back to Horus for adrenaline, which masked the agony as the skin of his hands came grinding off onto the pavement. There wasn't any time for pain.
The distant streetlights wavered surreally like UFOs, and Dib wondered vaguely if the fall might have jarred his brain a bit. He imagined lying down in the blood skimmed across the road, burning cheek against the icy ground. Half-fixated on the idea of resting, Dib levered himself up again, the weight of his messenger bag suddenly very real and exhausting. He'd nearly forgotten it was there. Dib stumbled a few more feet toward the house, feeling his legs go weak in complaint at such a teasing stop.
Something grasped his shoulder. Almost gently, something grazed his neck and tugged softly at the strap of his satchel. He was being touched in some light and perverted way, and even the numbing ice water that shrieked through his arteries wouldn't lie about that.
The universe snapped into focus. He saw the curved roof and the flickering windows of the house and the half-open garage with such clarity that the detail ached his eyes. And the moment he moved again, the something clawed angrily at his bag and jacket like it was being denied. A hollow hiss sounded behind him.
But Dib ran. He covered the final twenty yards to his door instantaneously. With a bloodied hand Dib tore the thing nearly off its hinges, hurled himself into the living room, and slammed his body against the door to close it.
Looks like we survived to the end of the chase scene...if you passed out due to boredom or confusion, then that would be an awesome thing to let me know about in a review! Or, you know, any other comments or questions that come to mind. Chapter 4 is going to have some Gaz/Dib interaction, so if that sounds neat, then I'd invite you to stay tuned. Otherwise, thanks for reading! It's you guys out there that keep me posting!