I want to formally apologize to all of you for the lateness in getting this up.
I violated the two laws of writing – I started working on something else before my first story was finished, and I went on a two-week-long, 1,200-mile trip with my seven-person family. Well, okay, the second one may not be a "law of writing" per se, but it makes it really hard to get anything done. I actually expected to have more internet access and less insanity so that I could do some writing during the trip, but things just didn't work out that way.
So, as an apology/thank you for not abandoning me, I'm going to double-update this bitch and finish it out for you all. How does that sound? At the end of the last chapter is going to be a great big "Bonus Features" author's note, for those of you interested in that sort of thing, so…keep reading after the credits, I guess.
(Unrelated – I also posted a derpy little short story about Skoodge and Tak during the handful of days I had internet during my trip, so if you'd like to check that out it wouldn't hurt my feelings XP)
Chapter 13: The Calm
The fire was gaining. It sparked along the corridor walls, pushing a layer of warping heat in front of it. Particle board and wallpaper curled to ash as the flames spread like sickness behind the three of them. Dib tried once or twice to glance back over his shoulder, but the fire burned with such a bleach-white heat that he couldn't bear to watch it.
Joby's arms dug into Dib's neck as they ran, following close on Gaz's heels and with the inferno following closely on their own. The pain in his arm was starting to spread into his brain and cloud his thinking, so Dib was glad in some tiny way that he could just watch the back of her Chuck Taylors for guidance.
They slogged on, tearing through the corridors for the thousandth and final time. All around them the air was thick with the choke of smoke that itched at Dib's lungs and burned his eyes. The little boy buried his face into Dib's shoulder as they went.
Just watch Gaz's feet. She'll save herself. Maybe you'll manage the same if you follow her lead, yeah?
He followed her dutifully into one of the rooms that she seemed to have chosen at random. For a single insane moment Dib half-expected her to bludgeon both of them to death as she lifted her crowbar in the air, and he held Joby's shaking form closer to him.
Instead she smashed out the cell's lone window, in a moment of such clear-headed brilliance that Dib wondered why their father thought him the heir to the Membrane Empire. The crashing of glass made his whole body shudder, which in turn just made Joby tighten his grip around Dib's neck. At any other instant Dib would have found the close contact to be absolutely suffocating, but in his half-dazed state nothing seemed particularly annoying or soothing. Just there.
Gaz destroyed the last shards of glass from the window, just as the low rumble from some distant explosion deep in the building reached them. The fire must have spread to one of the reactors, or maybe ignited some kind of alien fuel storage. It was a good time to be getting out of the godforsaken asylum.
Slotting the crowbar through her pocket, Gaz levered herself up and out through the window. Her violet hair disappeared from view for an instant, before Dib heard a soft thump as her feet hit the ground outside. He looked down at the blonde-haired boy latched onto him.
"Do you think you can get down alright?" Dib asked, over another thunderous shudder that jarred the building. Joby gaped, wide-eyed, up at him for a few seconds before finally managing a nod.
Without his right hand Dib wasn't terribly helpful at lowering Joby to the ground, but between he and Gaz they got the boy safely outside. It surprised DIb that his sister was still here - that she hadn't bolted into the city the instant she set foot outside the asylum - but there wasn't much of him left that could make sense of Gaz. Even less now.
They waited patiently for Dib as he threw one leg over the window frame, carefully avoiding the remaining glass in the sill, and lowered himself down. He spent a few seconds getting his bearing once his feet were on the dead grass-covered ground, the pain in his arm flaring dizzily. From what he could tell the hacked-off remnant of his wrist wasn't bleeding. The heat from the energy beam must have cauterized it immediately, but the ache deep down in the bone was getting difficult to ignore.
Joby stared shamelessly at Dib's injured arm with some half-horrified look, his mouth open slightly like he was about to be sick. The boy had the knuckles of one hand jammed up into his teeth as if to keep himself from screaming.
Kid ought to be used to gore by now. He's never gonna be a paranormal investigator with a stomach like that.
Dib shook the bitter voice from his thoughts and folded his bad arm beneath his jacket, hiding the angry red stump from view.
"C'mon, the car's parked a few blocks away," he said, jerking his head in the direction of the parking lot.
They started down the sidewalk. Joby walked between he and Gaz, tiny stumbling steps against Dib's deliberate plodding. Dib realized that they'd all had their own horrors today, too similar to separate but too different to unite them, really. It was strange, to feel so isolated from the only other two people who might come close to understanding what the last few days had been like.
"The monster...how do we know he won't come after us?" Joby asked, suddenly terrified, shaking Dib from his brooding.
"He won't. Gaz removed his Pak. They die in ten minutes without," Dib said flatly. Something caught in his burned throat, and he sensed he should say more. Give the kid some kind or reassuring advice that would calm him down.
Instead he tucked his bad arm further under his jacket and reached his left hand down to the little boy. Joby took it wordlessly, his palm slick with sweat.
It had started snowing. Tiny white flakes fluttered to the ground like bits of ash. Dib was sure they must have been cold and sharp, but he felt nothing as they landed on his neck. He didn't feel much of anything in his body beyond the ache in his arm, come to think - it seemed to have all gone to sleep without his notice. There was only some monotonous instinct that insisted on putting one foot in front of the other.
There came another bang as one of the windows of the asylum exploded. Dib glanced over one shoulder and saw that the top right-half of the building was engulfed in flames, licking erratically at the black city sky. Place would be ash by the morning at this rate. A smoldering crater lined with bricks. So be it.
They finally reached the car, dusted with a fine film of snowflakes. Dib walked automatically to the driver's side door, fishing his keys out of his pockets as the kid scooted up close to him.
"Get in the back," he said, clicking the car unlocked with the key-remote. Joby let go of his hand, giving a little nod, and headed for the back seat.
Gaz held out one hand, evidently expecting to be handed the keys. "What makes you think you're driving?"
"You don't have a driver's license."
"You don't have a right hand."
She's got a point.
Dib barely had the strength to stand, let alone argue with her. He tossed the keys across the roof of the car, stomping around and letting himself into the passenger's side. Joby followed suit and climbed into the backseat behind him. The little space-shuttle toy was gripped so tightly in his hand that the kid's knuckles showed white.
It felt strange to sit on this side of the car, without a steering wheel in front of him. Despite Dib's exhaustion the seat didn't feel right at all to him. A similar sort of feeling was starting to spread over his whole brain - a tired, queasy surrealness.
Gaz starting the engine, dragging Dib slowly out of his fugue state. He shook his head, listening to the rumble of the motor and was a little jarred when Joby spoke from behind him.
"Can you please take me home?" The boy's voice was small and shaky. Dib glanced over his shoulder and saw that the kid had wedged himself down into the corner between the seat and the car door, knees to his chest.
"Yeah, sure. Of course."
"I don't know where that kid lives - " Gaz started to complain.
"It's in the GPS," Dib snapped, leaning over to tap the little device on top of the dash awake.
She rolled her eyes, huffed air out of her nose like a dragon, and shifted the car into drive.
They went in silence. Dib thought once or twice about turning the radio on, but it seemed somehow disturbing and irreverent to listen to one of his alt-rock albums after just nearly being stabbed and burned to death by a psychotic alien.
But it's over, right? At least you've got that. At least it's over.
His brain cleaved desperately to this tiny truth. He stared sightlessly out of the car window at the shadows between trees and the creepy light cast by streetlamps and ran the single thought over and over again in his mind until it wore a furrow there.
Eventually Dib heard the crunch of gravel and when he shook his head he saw that they'd arrived at the outdated little house at the edge of town. He'd been here before, a billion years ago, doing interviews. The memory stood out foggily in Dib's mind. Right. Get the kid home. Right. One thing at a time.
Dib climbed out of the car, not bothering to ask Gaz if she was coming, and fetched Joby from the backseat. He was impressed when the kid didn't run immediately for the door - less so when he saw the way Joby stared fixedly at the forest nearby with wide saucer-eyes, and walked so close to him that Dib was half-afraid they'd trip.
"I'll walk with you, alright? I bet your mom'll be glad to see you, huh?" he tried. Joby finally broke his gaze from the woods as they got closer to the half-lit porch, gleaming like a lighthouse amidst the country darkness.
"Yeah. I'll be glad to see her too," Joby said softly. And then: "Hey Dib?"
"Hm?"
"Thanks. For rescuing me." The soft grey eyes shone in the porch light as the boy gave him an anemic smile.
Dib felt a punch of warmth and tightness rise in his stomach. He choked it down, fussing with his glasses as they walked, keeping his hand wrapped tightly around the kid's fingers. No one should be thanking him. He didn't feel like he'd done anything heroic or worthy of praise at all – he'd just survived, and been the least deserving of it.
It was his fault Zim had started abducting kids in the first place. Joby's heartfelt 'thank you' wrung out his innards with guilt.
Dib managed not to say this. Instead he just said: "You're welcome."
They went side-by-side up onto the porch. It didn't occur to Dib until he'd rang the doorbell that it was probably something like three in the morning. There came a panicked rattling from inside the house, and when the door finally opened a few inches it was held shut with a chain.
"What do you want at this hour?" Mrs. Finch's voice sounded harsh and tired. A foot or so below her glare Dib saw that she was holding a baseball bat by the middle.
"I've got your son, Mrs. Finch."
Joby left Dib's side. His mother's gaze snapped down at him, taking in the matted blond hair and grimy face. Her eyes widened, glistened in the neon porch-light glow, and she tore the chain from the door as she rammed it open, casting splinters onto the unpainted porch.
"Joby!" she shrieked, grabbing the little boy as Dib inched out of the way to give them more space. This seemed like some intimate, family moment and he felt awkward being so near to it. He didn't belong here. Out of the corner of his eye Dib caught Mrs. Finch running her hands through her son's hair, pressing a damp cheek against his forehead, counting his fingers.
It was almost like she was making sure that Joby was really there – that he wasn't a mirage or hallucination. For a long time the two of them gasped out incoherent sentences at each other, their words cut in half by panicked relief and exuberance.
"Momma, this monst-"
"I'm just so glad-"
"I was really scared but then-"
"You're never going to-"
Dib stared down at his feet, eyeing the lacing coming undone around his toe and the warped melting of the rubber. He highly doubted there would be any such joyful reunion when he and Gaz returned home. Likely their father had not even realized they were missing. The closest he was going to get was sitting silent, awkward and brooding the seat next to his sister on the way home.
He glanced up across the driveway at the car sitting morosely in a pool of porchlight. Gaz had crossed her arms over the steering wheel and was staring sightlessly at the road beyond. He ought to get back to her.
"I-I think I'm going to take off, Mrs. Finch. I've got some, uh, paperwork to take care of," he said, shakily, not wanting to break up their moment.
She managed to pull her eyes away from Joby, keeping one hand on top of the little boy's head as he nudged up against her thigh. Dib watched as her gaze flitted from his face to his side, eyes widening in shock.
"Oh my god, Dib! Your arm! You have to go to the hospital right now!" she yelped, pointing at the spot where he'd tucked his wrecked limb up under his jacket.
When Dib glanced down he saw that a sticky patch of red had leaked out onto the black fabric. He hitched his arm back into his jacket, hiding the worst of it from view.
"It'll be alright. My dad's a doctor. Really. I-I just really want to go home right now." Dib wasn't sure he could remember a time that truer words had come out of his mouth.
Pursing her lips, Mrs. Finch reached out toward him and stopped herself. Her fingers curled into her palm and she pulled Joby a little closer to her side.
"Thank you so much. I don't know how I'll every repay-" she began, looking up at Dib through tear-damp strands of hair.
He cut her off, feeling awkward and ill at the emotion that wracked her words. "Yeah, yeah. Just part of the job, ma'am. Just-just contact the Paranormal Investigation firm to talk about references and payment, okay?"
"Will you please go to the hospital?" she begged. Dib's insides ached.
"Yeah, yeah. I will. I promise."
Dib turned away from the porch, away from the loving family he would likely never know, and stomped down the few steps to the ground.
In some vague way he did feel happy for them. He'd completed the case - done his job, in every sense - but any sense of victory or satisfaction felt muggy and muted. It had cost so much to get this far. It had cost him an arm and half his sanity. Surely it had cost him his relationship with Gaz – he wasn't quite sure how long it would be before he could look her in the eye again. Maybe never.
The door to the car was locked when he tried to open it. Panic fluttered inside of him as Gaz floundered around to unlock it and Dib felt the darkness of the wooded lot press in on him. He threw himself into the passenger's seat, slamming the door closed behind him.
"I bet that that was a regular Hallmark moment," Gaz said shortly, shifting the car into reverse as she headed for the highway.
Dib slumped himself against the car window, folding his ruined arm against himself, trying to the put the pain that had flared up somewhere else in his mind. He'd look for some painkillers when he got home - it would still be gone after he'd slept a while, right? The idea of dragging himself to the Membrane Labs or hospital - of being poked and prodded and drugged and stiched up - seemed suffocating and horrible.
Gaz brooded in silence beside him, her glare out the window so narrow that he wondered how she could see to drive, especially so late. What on earth was she thinking about? Was she glad that Zim was dead? Or just mulling angrily over Dib's failures that had led to so much carnage?
Some part of Dib felt a little queasy at trying to imagine what his sister's thoughts might look like. It wasn't that he wanted to dehumanize her - it just seemed like nothing good could come from trying to break into her mind.
Still.
"Hey, Gaz?" he asked, weakly, voice shaking in the cramped and carpeted confines of the car.
"What?" She barked back at him, never looking from the road, her arms locked at the elbow as she held the steering wheel with a white-knuckled grip.
"Gaz, aren't we going to talk about- "
"No."
"But-"
"I said no, Dib. We're not. Not now."
"Why not?" He heard the whine in his voice and tried to ignore it. Gaz clicked the car's high-beams on, gaze still locked on the windshield.
"The blood's too wet."