A/N: Hello everyone, and welcome to a spooky Invader Zim tale for this holiday season. Credit for the idea for this story goes to Zeroth17, who provided me with the prompt for it; initially, I didn't think that I'd be able to do it this year because of my busy writing schedule, but my friend nightmaster000 (with whom I've co-written several M-rated stories on AO3) offered to co-write it in order to help carry the load. As such, we managed to crank this bad boy out. So, if you see anything in here that doesn't seem to match up with my usual style, that's part of the bits that Night wrote.
This is only the first chapter, but hopefully we'll be able to get the whole thing done in time for Halloween. But regardless, I hope this scary story is to your liking. So please, read on!
TW: Character death, violence, swearing.
Disclaimer: Neither nightmaster000 or I own Invader Zim, it is the property of Jhonen Vasquez.
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Killer Ghost Goth Chick of Doom
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It's said that there are few things in the world that can unite people better than a shared hatred of a common enemy. And if that's not an actual saying, it should be, because it's true. People who otherwise wouldn't have anything to do with each other would often be eager to work together to get payback on someone that none of them could stand.
And that is where this morbid tale begins, as a group of students gathers to discuss how take revenge on a certain goth gamer who had tormented them for far too long...
"Urrg... can't believe... that... psycho," muttered the form of a young boy wearing a cast which bore the writing, Get well soon Dirge, signed Letter M.
"Say what you want about Dib, but at least he doesn't go out of his way to attack people," The boy said with a scowl, while slamming his locker closed.
"Tell me about it," Torque said as he walked past, wearing a neck brace, "I mean, literally all I did was cough too loud near her. Said I was ruining her focus on her dumb game."
"And all I did was lightly bump against her when we were passing each other on the stairs," Zita commented from her own locker, a patch over one eye and voice slightly nasally from her broken nose, "She has serious freaking anger issues!"
"Urg, you can say that again," Brian muttered with a dark scowl, leaning against a medical crutch with a leg cast, "She's out of control. I mean, did you see what she did to Zim?!"
He exclaimed with a haunted look.
"No, I thought he was... absent," Zita answered, rubbing her patch-covered eye before freezing along with her other classmates as a figure turned down the hall... a figure that was completely covered head to toe in a full body cast and riding a mechanized wheel chair of sorts while being pushed by a humming green dog.
"Master got turned into a mummy!" GIR chirped happily. None of the students reacted to the talking dog (not that they would have noticed it normally anyway), being too focused on the state that Zim was in, his eyes being the only parts visible of him in his plaster covering.
The students watched him as he passed them through the hall, until he finally disappeared down the other end. Only then was the stunned silence broken as Torque spoke up.
"Damn, what'd he do to piss her off that much?" the jock asked in disbelief.
"Who the hell knows? I think it's pretty clear that crazy bitch will attack anyone for any reason!" Brian snapped.
"He's not wrong. I think she actually makes Dib look sane," Dirge grumbled, "Why is she not locked up in the Crazy House?"
"Why do you think?" The scornful voice of their classmate Jessica asked, her face covered in bruises and her arm in a sling, "Because she's Membrane's daughter!" She spat out bitterly with a scowl.
"Urg... yeah... and we all know... how... Urg... what were we talking about again?" Spoke the form of Chunk, holding an icepack to his head before looking confused in a daze, but he along with his potential concussion was ignored as his classmates continue to stew in their growing resentment.
"That shouldn't matter! She's clearly a lunatic that's a danger to society!" Zita exclaimed while giving a concerned glance toward the direction Zim had disappeared to.
"Zita's right! How long before she ends up killing someone?" Brian exclaimed, "We need to do something about her!"
"Like what?" Jessica demanded, "She can obviously beat the crap out of any of us, and it's obvious that no one in any position of authority is going to do anything even if we tried to file complaints."
"There's got to be a way to deal with her..." Dirge said, scowling.
"Maybe we could boom boom her..." Chunk said with a slight dazed laugh, before collapsing on the ground, twitching.
"I like it!" Jessica said with a wide grin.
"You do?" Brian asked, blinking in confusion, "But you literally just said that she could beat us up if we tried fighting her."
"So, we don't fight, we just set up a little surprise for her," the blonde replied, looking to the others with a smirk, "Who's up for pulling a prank on little miss goth bitch and making it so that she doesn't want to show her face around here for a good long time?"
"Ohhh, I'm so in! That psycho had this coming for years!" Zita chimed in eagerly, with Torque giving an agreeing nod, while Brain and Dirge traded unsure looks before firming their expressions.
"As long as this doesn't backfire on us," Dirge said warily.
"Trust me, by the time we're done, that psycho won't bother us again~" Jessica assured them with a dark smile.
"Okay. So, what's the plan?" Brian asked.
"Right, everyone listen up..." Jessica said, as the group gathered close together, and their plot began to be hatched...
(Next day)
Halloween was fast approaching, and the city of Doomsville was quickly getting into the festive spirit. Decorations were going up, costumes were being sold, candy was being stockpiled, and an overall creepy atmosphere was settling over the city. Especially in places that were already quite creepy on their own normally.
One such place was an old mansion on the edge of town. It had been abandoned for years, leaving its large yard overgrown and all its windows coated with dust, cobwebs partially spread over the open doorway exposed by its door having long since fallen off of its hinges. It was a very off-putting and creepy place that would probably scare off most people.
Gaz Membrane wasn't most people, however. And her only feeling about this place was annoyance at the fact that someone had sent her an anonymous email threatening to publish supposedly embarrassing pictures of her if she didn't show up here today.
She was sure that the threat was hollow, but she couldn't let that kind of disrespect go. So, she was going to find whoever lured her out here, and then beat the crap out of them.
"Probably Iggins again," she muttered with a scowl as she looked up at the mansion, "Honestly, how many times do you have to beat the crap out of someone before they learn their lesson?"
Grumbling to herself, she started to stomp into the mansion, not noticing as the group of vengeful students observed from one of the upstairs windows.
"Wow, I can't believe she went for the bait," Torque commented.
"Of course she did, she wasn't going to let anyone get away with threatening her," Jessica sneered, "Now, everyone remember to keep your phones recording the entire time. We're going to scare the hell out of that bitch and get it all on camera; we'll see how scary she is after the whole student body sees past her tough girl act."
"You really think this Scooby-Doo stuff will work on her?" Dirge asked, thinking of everything that the group had assembled for this prank.
"They should, they're very state of the art," Zita chimed in with a shrug.
"Actually, that reminds me, where did you get those creepy animatronics anyway?" Brian asked with a frown, looking over at her.
"Yeah, those things nearly gave me a heart attack when I saw them!" Jessica added with a shiver but the widest grin, looking forward to seeing those things terrify that psycho brat Gaz.
"Oh, I got them from Zim after going to check up on him and asking if he wanted in on the plan," Zita explained nonchalantly, looking outside the window and not noticing her classmates all pause before giving her surprised confused look.
"What?" Zita asked, after noticing the pause and looks she was getting.
"You actually talked to Zim? Voluntarily?" Chunk asked in disbelief.
"Sure, why not? After what she did to him, I figured he'd want to help. Plus, I don't know where he gets it, but he tends to have a lot of high-tech stuff on hand that I figured we could use," Zita replied with a shrug.
"Point, but still, it's Zim!" Chunk repeated in disbelief.
"Hey, he's not that bad," Zita said back, slightly defensively with a frown toward Chunk, "He's just a little..."
Zita hesitated for a moment as if trying to find the right words.
"Egomaniacal?" "Weird?" "Creepy?" Guessed Brain, Chunk, and Dirge, while Jessica arched a brow toward Zita, who suddenly scowled at the boys.
"High strung," she said a slight edge in her tone, before huffing out, "And with Dib constantly harassing him, can you blame him?"
"That's true, I guess," Torque said, before frowning in confusion, "Wait, is he helping because he wants payback on her, or is this just some weird way of getting one over on Dib for him?"
"Eh, a little of both, I guess," Zita said, "He did sound like he wanted payback, but then he started going on about other times she's got on his bad side, which turned into a rant about Dib after he mentioned how she's helped him a few times, and at that point I just took the animatronics he was offering and left."
Leaving out she might have... kissed his cheek before leaving... she thought with a flush, wondering why she did that.
"And that's all that happened?" Jessica arched, arching her brow toward Zita, "And greenie didn't ask for anything in return?"
"I mean, I think it was kinda implied that I'd owe him a favor now, but other than that, no," Zita replied, again choosing to leave out the cheek kiss, or how Zim had blushed and sputtered in response, in a way that she found oddly cute.
Jessica stared at her suspiciously for a moment, before shrugging it off.
"Whatever, as long as this stuff works," she said, "Now, everyone get in position!"
"Yeah, I wanna see if we can scare her so badly she wets herself!" Chunk chuckled.
"Dude, don't be gross, I'd just settle for her being scared at all," Dirge commented as the group left the room.
Meanwhile, downstairs, Gaz stood in the mansion's foyer, examining what she could see of the first floor. A grand staircase led upstairs, a chandelier hung from a chain in the middle of the room, and large arching doorways led off to other rooms on this floor. All of which would be pretty impressive, if it wasn't so dark and literally everything wasn't covered in dust.
"What a dump," she spat in distaste.
"Honestly, they should tear this place down and put in something actually useful or good in its place," She muttered with a scowl as she looked around, "Like an arcade... or a pizza parlor..." she added, rubbing her chin before shaking her head to focus. She had a beating to give, after all~
"Alright! Whoever the suicidal idiot is that sent that so-called threat better come out now!" Gaz shouted out her order with a dark growl, "Or else..." she added with a dark hiss.
There was no response, the only sounds that came in response to her shout being the wind and the house creaking as it settled.
"Okay, so we do this the hard way," she growled, picking the doorway to the left at random and stomping into it. This revealed a long hallway that stretched out as far as she could see further into the building, several more doors lining it on both sides. Grumbling at this lack of immediate result, Gaz walked to the nearest door and yanked it open, revealing a small parlor of some kind. Seeing no sign of anyone inside, she grumbled again and slammed the door shut, moving onto the next one.
A few minutes later, Gaz had checked several more doors, each one leading to another empty room. And she was just getting angrier, figuring that she had been sent on a wild goose chase.
"Gaz..."
She froze mid-step. Had she just heard that?
"Gaz..."
Okay, yeah, that was definitely someone calling out her name in a creepy whisper. However, rather than show any fear, she just gave an unimpressed huff.
"Oooh nooo, a spooky voice!" She exclaimed with a heavy sarcastic tone and gesture, "I guess I should start screaming in fear and running like a scared little girl."
She continued on with heavy sarcasm, while looking around the room with an irritated expression, "Honestly, is this just some idiots trying to scare me?" she asked, before smirking as she gave a snort, "Good luck, the only thing I'm scared of is video games no longer existing~"
The voice didn't call out again, and Gaz could swear that the resulting silence was almost embarrassed by her lack of reaction. Snorting derisively at this, she walked back into the hallway and towards the next nearest door.
"Whoever you are, you should start running now before I find you," she called out as she reached the door and started to open it, "Cause when I do, you're going to find out why trying to mess with me is a horrible-"
"Oooooohhhhhh!" called out a clearly animatronic ghost hanging from the ceiling on an obvious wire as it popped out of the newly-opened door to howl spookily in her face. Unimpressed, Gaz stared flatly at it, then punched it hard enough to send it flying back into the room and crash against the far wall, before she shut the door on it.
"That's going to be you when I get my hands on you!" She called out as she walked deeper into the hallway, while the skoolchildren watching her began to feel irritated at how "well" this was going.
"Why isn't any of this working?" Jessica demanded, as the group sat around a laptop hooked up to the cameras they'd hidden around the house to monitor Gaz's progress, "If it were me this was happening to, I'd be freaking out!"
"Guess she's actually as tough as she acts," Torque commented, "Either that or Zim's stuff isn't as good as he says that it is."
"Hey, it's barely been used yet!" Zita said, feeling oddly defensive on Zim's behalf.
"What's wrong, Z, don't like us badmouthing your green boyfriend?" Brian asked with a snicker.
"He's not my boyfriend!" Zita protested with a blush.
"Who cares?" Jessica snapped, "Zita, is there a way to crank up those dumb animatronics?"
"Um, I think so," Zita replied, looking at the remote control in her hands, specifically at the dial in the center, which was currently at its halfway point and the furthest edge surrounded by a red warning mark, "But I don't think we're supposed to take it up that high."
"Eh, what's the worst that can happen, a short circuit?" Chunk said with a shrug while reaching out for the dial, "If we're going to scare her, we need to give it our all," He added, looking to the others.
"He's right," Dirge said, giving an agreeing nod, "We're not getting anywhere with this kids stuff," He looked over to his classmates.
"And if we don't scare her tonight, she'll tear us to pieces if she finds out what we did!" Brain added in with his own worried look.
"Okay, I guess you're right," Zita said, hesitating for a moment before handing the remote to Chunk, who eagerly cranked the dial up as far as it could go.
Unseen by the skoolchildren, throughout the house, the eyes of the various remaining animatronics turned bright red as they were switched from "Scare" mode to "Seek and Destroy" mode.
(With Gaz)
After several more minutes of exploring the house, Gaz hadn't found anyone else, or encountered any other animatronics. Which frankly was more annoying for her, since at least then she'd have someone to vent her mounting frustration on.
"You're only making this harder on yourselves!" she called out as she entered a large kitchen area. With still no response coming, she sneered and walked towards the other door on the far end of the room to see what was there... and then just as she reached it, it was kicked open from the other side.
"Here's Johnny!" declared a vaguely human-looking animatronic wielding an axe.
"What the fuck?!" Gaz exclaimed, not necessarily scared but taken by surprise. And then she was forced to jump back as the robot swung the axe at her, barely missing and burying the weapon in a metal countertop.
"Okay... upping your game a bit here," Gaz said, trying to hide how nervous she was at that close call before glaring at the animatronic, "But I'm not scared!" She yelled defiantly as it let out a laugh.
"Going to chop you up!" It yelled as it pulled at its buried axe, with Gaz simply letting out a scowl before lunging forward to attack it while it was slammed against its torso, grunting at the hard impact but managing to knock the animatronic over and send it tumbling to the floor, leaving its axe behind in the process.
As it flailed about, computerized brain trying to process what had just happened, Gaz scrambled to stand back up, then made a point of jumping up and bringing both her feet down onto the animatronic's head. The metal and plastic of its face caved in slightly underneath her, causing electricity to surge through its body and its flailing to increase. Seeing this, Gaz scowled, then walked over to grab the axe, pulling it free with a grunt, before walking over and bringing it down to decapitate the animatronic.
"Not bad... but you're going to have to do better than that!" she shouted as she kicked the animatronic's severed head away.
Meanwhile with the skoolchildren, they were staring at the screen in shock.
"What the hell?! Did it seriously just try to kill her?!" Zita yelled.
"I think turning up the dial might not have been our best idea," Torque admitted with a wince.
"Oh, do you?!" Jessica exclaimed, gesturing to the screen before growling, "Urg, should have known using anything of Zim's would have been a bad idea!" she added, facepalming.
"Hey!" With Zita snapping at her with a glare, "They were working just fine until you guys decided to turn things up," she said defensively with a scowl as Jessica glared at her.
"Girls, focus!" Brian snapped, giving a worried look, "We want to scare Gaz... NOT KILL HER!"
"I mean... would that be the worst thing?" Chunk asked hesitantly. When that received shocked looks from the others, he held up his hands defensively, "Hey, don't act like you weren't all thinking it too! Don't you think the world would be better off without that psycho in it?"
"Dude, do you know how messed up that is?" Dirge asked with a glare, "Not to mention, you really think we'd get away with that? Are you forgetting who her dad is? Someone as important as Membrane would never let someone get away with killing his daughter, and he'd be able to hunt us down easily!"
"He's right, we need to stop this!" Zita said, snatching up the remote and trying to turn the dial back, only to curse as it refused to budge, "Dammit, it's stuck!"
"Don't worry, I got it!" Torque said, snatching the remote out of her hand.
"Careful," Zita said worriedly.
"Relax, I got... it," He began to reply as he attempted to turn the dial... only to accidentally tear it off in the process.
"Ah... whoops," he said with a sheepish expression as he held the dial piece up to the others, who stared at it with shocked wide eyes.
"Uhhh... maybe this isn't as bad as it seems," Jessica said hesitantly.
"R-right. They're probably just programmed to be VERY scary. Zim wouldn't actually design them to kill someone, right?" Brian asked nervously.
There was a moment of silence as everyone considered that, and then they crammed around the laptop to see what was happening. On the screen, they saw Gaz creeping down a hallway, the axe in hand as she looked around cautiously.
For her part, Gaz was feeling slightly nervous, but she refused to admit that she was scared. She just needed to think of this like a horror survival game, she told herself, like Six Evenings at Bloaty's. She'd beaten that game, and all its sequels and expansions, with ease. She could handle this just fine, she insisted in her head.
A part of her suggested that she just find the front door and leave, but she refused to admit defeat to whoever was responsible for this. She was going to find them, and make them pay for messing with her!
Though unseen to her, as she thought this a large form crawled on the wall behind her. A large eight-legged six-eyed form with venom dripping from its fangs...
"SKREEEEE!" the animatronic spider shrieked as it leapt down at Gaz, who barely had time to turn around and face it before it managed to pounce on her, knocking her to the floor.
"Ugh!" Gaz grunted as she hit the hard wood. Looking up at the sight of the spider's head as it loomed over her, maw wide, she felt rare panic surge through her at realizing that she was pinned down. However, she refused to let that overwhelm her, and as the spider tried to rear down to bite her, she brought the axe up in just the right position that the spider's mandibles locked around the weapon's shaft instead of her head.
"Get off of me!" she screamed, tugging on the axe hard enough to flip the spider over and knock it off of her. With it rolling on the floor for a moment before landing on its legs and letting out an angry hiss.
"Oh, you want some of this?" Gaz asked with a dangerous look in her eyes while raising the axe, "Well, bring it!"
She shouted as she let out a roar before charging forward, as the spider let out a hiss, dodging her swing but shooting out some venom from its fangs. Venom that Gaz managed to dodge, but once it hit the wall... it started to melt, causing Gaz's eyes to widen.
"Acid... of course, why not?" She muttered with a dark scowl, her expression absolutely murderous. Oh yeah, someone was going to die and die painfully for all this.
Meanwhile, back with the skoolchildren, the classmates were watching all this in shock... or in the case of Chunk who managed to get some popcorn, entertainment.
"Munch... munch... I'll give your boyfriend this, Zita... he knows how to make some cool stuff."
"Like I said, not my boyfriend, and what is wrong with you?!" Zita demanded, glaring at him incredulously, "You do realize she could actually end up dying because of us, right?"
"Like I said before, it wouldn't be the worst thing," he scoffed, "And seriously, other than her dad or Dib, you really think anyone's going to care when she's gone? Everyone else will probably throw us a parade for getting rid of her!"
"Hmm, the man makes a point," Jessica chimed in with a thoughtful tone while looking toward the others, "I mean, would it really be the worst thing if she kicked the bucket?" she added, looking back to the laptop screen.
Zita stared at the blonde in shock, which only grew as she looked around and saw that the others, while seeming to be somewhat conflicted, weren't in any hurry to protest.
"You guys can't be serious... this is messed up!" she shouted, before getting up and heading towards the door of the room they were in.
"Where are you going?" Jessica demanded.
"To try and help Gaz! I don't care if she's a bitch, she doesn't deserve this!" Zita spat back at them.
"Do that, and she'll not only kill you but your little boyfriend for being a part of this!" Jessica snapped, glaring at Zita, "And is that really what you want?" she asked, before adding with a mocking grin, "Or do you really think Gaz of all people will be all forgive and forget~"
Zita paused at the door as she heard that, her mind flashing with horror to all the things Gaz might do to her (and Zim, for some odd reason despite the fact that she did NOT care about him at all, no way) if she found out that she had been part of this. Despite herself, Zita shuddered, and found herself slowly stepping back from the door.
"That's what I thought. So why don't you just sit back down and enjoy the show?" Jessica said smugly, grabbing some of Chunk's popcorn and turning back to the screen just in time to see Gaz bury her axe in the middle of the spider's face in a spray of electrical sparks and oil. Unfortunately for the goth, the axe had been hit with acid at some point, and started dissolving in her hands right after this.
"Dammit," she growled at the loss of her weapon, by now very sick and tired of this place. Breaking off one of the spider's metal legs to use as a makeshift club, she continued down the hallway, only to turn a corner and find herself facing a manic-looking robotic clown with knives for fingers.
"Time to play~" the clown said in a high-pitched voice.
"...Sure, why not?" Gaz sighed, before lunging at the new foe.
"Hahahahahahaha~" Which gave out a creepy bone-chilling laugh as it swiped at Gaz with its finger knives, with her avoiding the slashes the best she could while looking for an opening.
SLASH
"GAAH!" Only for the clown to manage to graze her right arm, causing her to jump back, her hand immediately going to it with her pulling it away a moment later, and when she saw the blood...
"Hehahaha~ Ah, what's the matter, little girl?" The clown said in a menacing high-pitched tone as it raised its hand up, clicking together its knives, "Let's put a smile on your face~"
She was... pissed.
"Let's..." Gaz hissed, her eyes filled with more rage than even that moron Zim and her annoying brother had ever caused... time to stop playing nice! She let out a roar, lunging forward with the clown stabbing straight at her, but Gaz lashing out and managing to grab its wrist as she tackled it to the ground and started to use the clown's own hand to stab into its face over... and over... and over again!
STAB
"DIE!
STAB
"DIE!"
STAB
"DIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEE!"
By the time Gaz was done, the clown's head was a splattered mess of wires and metal, leaving her there panting for breath, face twisted in rage.
Watching this from their hiding place, the other skoolchildren traded nervous looks.
"Hehe, see? She's going to be fine," Brian said nervously, "And now that she's hurt, she's probably going to leave to get help, so she won't be sticking around anymore, and we can stop. Right?"
"Doesn't look like it," Torque said with a gulp, watching as Gaz tore off a strip of her shirt to tie around her injured arm in a makeshift bandage, and then broke off several of the clown's knives to start carrying as weapons.
"Dammit, can't this bitch take a hint?" Jessica grumbled, smacking a fist into a nearby pile of stacked boxes in frustration... and in the process, knocked them over. On the screen, Gaz's head snapped up to look at the ceiling as she heard the resulting thud.
"Gotcha," she said with a psychotic smirk, turning and running towards the staircase in the foyer.
"Shit! She knows we're up here!" Dirge yelled, "What do we do?!"
"I don't know man, oh man, game over, game over!" Brian exclaimed, before being hit in the face by Jessica.
"Pull yourself together, we aren't dead yet!" The girl snarled with a wild look in her eyes, before taking several deep breaths as she glared at the screen, "This place has to have a way we can escape through without that bitch seeing us."
She said, while picking up the laptop, "In the meantime, thanks to Zita's boyfriend, we've got plenty more toys to send Gaz way," she said with a dark vicious smirk, "Worst case scenario, they keep her busy long enough for us to leave, best case they tear the bitch into pieces!"
Zita looked very conflicted at that. She didn't want to face Gaz's wrath, but she also still didn't want her death on her conscience.
However, before she could say anything, she found herself being dragged out of the room by the others as they made a break for it. As such, she decided that she could do nothing but go with the flow.
"I'M COMING FOR YOU! AND WHEN I FIND YOU, YOU"LL BE BEGGING FOR DEATH!" Something made a LOT easier when she heard Gaz's enraged shout echoing through the halls...
"She sounds pissed!" Torque hissed as they ran through the hall.
"Oh, you think?!" Zita snapped with a glare,"Maybe it has something to do with the fact that we lured her into a death trap!"
"Don't act like you're innocent! You were onboard from the start, and you're the one who got those death machines from your boyfriend!" Jessica snapped.
"He's not my boyfriend!" Zita retorted, her face glowing, "And right now, it's his death machines that are the only thing between us and that lunatic!"
And to emphasize her words-
CRASH
BANG
"AS SOON AS I"M DONE WITH YOUR TOYS, YOU'RE NEXT!" Gaz's voice echoed, filling them with fear.
"Point! And if we make it out of here alive, I'll never make fun of Zim again as long as we live!" Brian exclaimed in terror as they turned a corner down the hall.
"There's got to be a way out of here, man!" Dirge added, his eyes looking all over the place.
"This way!" Chunk said, leading the group down a random direction. The group followed him, and they soon emerged onto the balcony overlooking the foyer.
"Look, there's the exit!" Jessica exclaimed, pointing to the door, "Let's get out of here before she finds us!"
Though before anybody could sigh or shout in relief, they all froze as a low, pissed off voice hissed behind them, "Before who finds you?"
And as one, they all whirled around and saw Gaz, clothes torn and ruffled, not to mention bleeding in a few spots. But the two things most noticeable about her was her holding the head of an animatronic wolf, and the absolute look of murderous fury on her face.
"Uhhh, Gaz... what a surprise!" Jessica squealed nervously as the skoolchildren all took several frightened steps back, "Are you here for the haunted house too?" She asked with a strained smile while latching onto the first excuse she could think of... though one look at Gaz's face made it clear she wasn't buying it.
"You know, I wondered who was stupid enough to pull this kinda stunt on me," she muttered, looking at the torn wolf head in her hands, "When I saw the tech, I thought that moron Zim had done something dumber than usual," she admitted, before shooting them all a dark look, "But instead, it looks like it's a bunch of cowardly rats."
Gaz added with a dark hiss as the stepped forward, while the skoolchildren stepped back and shivered in fear.
"Uhhh, actually, it was..." Chunk started to say, raising his finger with a nervous grin before, "Urg!" shouting out in pain when Zita stomped on his foot.
"Shut up!" The girl hissed between gritted teeth.
"You know what? Doesn't matter how you did this, you're all going to die anyway," Gaz said, tossing the wolf head aside and beginning to stomp towards them.
"Wait, wait, wait! Can't we talk about this?!" Brian begged as the group backed away in panic.
"Sure. Hope you don't mind if I talk with my fists!" Gaz snarled, before charging at them. They screamed and scattered, which had a rather unexpected side effect - it turned out that they were standing right in front of the railing of the balcony, and Gaz ended up slamming right into it.
SNAP
And the rotted old wood broke under the impact. Eyes widening in panic, Gaz was unable to stop herself from continuing forward, flying out into open air and falling with a scream, which soon ended with a sickeningCRACK.
There was a moment of stunned silence, and then the skoolchildren inched over to look over the edge of the balcony. Looking down, they were greeted by the sight of Gaz laying sprawled on the floor of the foyer, neck at a very unnatural angle and eyes staring lifelessly up at the ceiling.
And as they looked down, wide-eyed, thunder suddenly boomed and lightning flashed as a downpour of rain came down on the old house outside.
BOOM
FLASH
And a little bit later, they were gathered around Gaz's prone form.
"Is she...?" Brian asked warily, while holding up a stick he found and poking her still form.
"She's dead..." Zita breathed out in a tone of shock, along with a pale face.
"Good riddance," Jessica snorted.
"Here, here," Chunk agreed, kicking Gaz's prone body.
"Ohhh man, this isn't good!" Dirge said, his hands going to his head.
"I know I'm tough, but not prison tough!" Torque agreed, also looking panicked.
"Calm down, no one's going to jail!" Jessica snapped.
"Are you kidding? We killed her!" Zita yelled, "When people find out what we did-!"
"No one's going to know!" Jessica interrupted firmly, "Look, I doubt she told anyone where she was going, so no one's going to know to look here. We just toss her body and the animatronics into the basement, then we leave and swear to never speak of this again. As far as everyone will know, the bitch just disappeared."
At that, silence stood for several moments before it was broken by Chunk giving a shrug.
"Sounds like a plan to me," he said, with the other guys echoing their agreement.
"If it keeps me out of prison, I'm in."
"Gaz? Sorry, I don't know no Gaz..."
"Yeah, yeah, this could work... we were never here... and we never did anything."
Torque, Brain, and Dirge all stated one after the other.
"Are you kidding me!?" Zita exclaimed in a hiss, giving them a look of absolute disbelief, "We can't just dump Gaz's body in with the animatronics and hope for the best!"
She yelled out, pulling at her hair.
"Hmm, Zita's got a point..." Dirge acknowledged with a thoughtful look, rubbing his chin.
"Thank you!" Zita exclaimed.
"If anybody ever checks this place out, they'd find Gaz in the basement," He added, looking over the others, "We need to make sure she's NEVER found," He added with a dark frown.
"What?! That's not what I meant!" Zita protested, but was ignored by the others as they debated options.
"So, should we bury her somewhere then?" Torque asked.
"I saw a pretty big furnace in the basement. As long as we were going to take her down there, we can just burn her," Chunk suggested.
"We can't just get rid of a human being's body like a piece of garbage!" Zita yelled, feeling like everyone had gone insane.
"Hmm, yeah, maybe we should, you know, chop her up a bit as an extra measure," Chunk agreed, nodding his head.
"That's disgusting!" Zita yelled, her eye twitching.
"Yeah, it's bad enough we'll have to touch her corpse, we don't need her blood and organs all over our clothes!" Jessica said with an open look of disgust,"We can just do what Chunk said and toss her in the furnace, hopefully that'll burn up enough of her that it won't leave anything identifiable."
"Am I seriously the only one who has a problem with not just killing someone but desecrating the corpse?!" Zita exclaimed, looking around in desperation.
"I mean, I don't like it either, but do we really have a choice?" Dirge asked, "If we don't get rid of her, people will find out what we did, and then we'll all go to jail!"
"And by all of us, that'll include your freak boyfriend too," Chunk pointed out with a sneer, "Because when you think about it, none of this would have happened if he hadn't given us those animatronics, so it's mostly his fault!"
"Hey! You're the ones that wanted to turn up those things' threat level, so don't blame Zim for them going out of control!" Zita snapped back defensively.
"Doesn't matter. I've seen enough cop shows to know that that still makes him an accessory," Jessica sneered, "So unless you want to see how long a freak like that lasts in prison, you're going to keep your mouth shut and help us get rid of this bitch's body!"
Zita clenched her fists and glared at the blonde while the boys all watched them both nervously, but after a few minutes she forced out a deep breath.
"Fine. Let's just get her down to the furnace and get this over with," she muttered. Like it or not, they had already crossed the line, and there was no going back. If they were found out, they were looking at some serious prison time, and she had no desire to experience that, or strangely enough let Zim experience it.
"Good..." Jessica said with a satisfied grin, internally happy that Zita was compliant and that they wouldn't have to make this night worse withtwomurders.
"Torque, Chunk, you carry the bitch's body to the basement," She ordered, turning her head to them.
"Why us?!" Chunk asked with an annoyed look, having no desire to touch a corpse, while Torque just gave the body a freaked out look.
"Because you two are the strongest ones here, duh." Jessica said with an eye roll, "And the sooner we burn and dump this trash, the sooner we can pretend this night never happened."
She explained, getting reluctant understanding nods from the boys, "Which reminds me..." she shot a look to Zita, "You need to make sure that boyfriend of yours doesn't squeal," She ordered with a dark look, "He's the only person not here who knew about our plan for Gaz, and even a moron like Zim will put two and two together when it becomes clear she's missing.
Zita grimaced at that, but reluctantly nodded.
"Fine, I'll talk to him. I don't know how, but I'll convince him to stay quiet," she said.
"Make sure you do, or I'll make sure he does," Jessica threatened. The two girls glared at each other for a few moments, before the blonde broke it to follow after the boys as they headed towards the basement stairs with Gaz's corpse.
"And a one, and a two, and a three!" Torque exclaimed as they tossed Gaz's body into the furnace.
"Now let's light this baby up and get the hell out of here!" Brian called out, while looking around anxiously.
"Don't have to tell me twice, just want to go home and eat some hot pizza," Dirge muttered while give a sigh.
"How can you even think about food after all of this?" Zita groaned, wondering if there was even a shred of decency left in this group.
"Hehe, why not? Considering how much this bitch loved to stuff her face with the stuff, pizza sounds like the best way to celebrate getting rid of her," Chunk said as he fiddled with the furnace's controls until it burst to life.
"That'll do it, now let's gather up all that junk upstairs and get out of here," Dirge said with a slight anxious that, the group quickly left the basement, Zita trailing behind them. She gave the furnace one last guilty look, before quickly following the others.
And with the room now empty, there was no one to witness as the flames of the furnace briefly flared in such a way to almost look like a face snarling in rage.
XxxxxxxxxxxxxxX
A/N: Cue the horror movie title credits.
Yeah, that prank did not go as these kids planned, did it? And as you can probably tell from that last scene, this is just the beginning of the horror that they're going to experience. Night and I have a lot of fun ideas for the otherworldly terror that they're going to suffer going forward, and I can only hope that you're going to enjoy what we have in store.
Until next time, please review!