***
“I’m gonna draw a piggy today!”
Zim happily handed the ADHD robot to the teacher, who seemed content with keeping up with Gir’s eccentricities, if not encouraging them. Not that it mattered. For eight hours, he was their problem, not his.
The birds were chirping, the sun was out, daffodils sprung up in the grass and babies burped on bus stop benches. What a perfectly wretched Earth day, Zim thought. The planet smelled bad enough already, like it needed the extra stench of nature, which seemed to harbor a liking to overly spiced aromas. Much like most of the girls he sat behind in his classes. How humans were attracted to the musk was beyond his senses.
No sooner had he taken off for skool, then the smell of exhaust attacked him as well. It was that time again. Zim readied himself to leap into the bushes for cover only to see the speed beast slowing down. Hell must have frozen over, or so went the human saying. The saying about the cat came back as well, but his curiosity was worth the tire marks he might have acquired. The dark sled pulled up to the sidewalk beside Zim with the purple-haired goth leaning over the empty passenger seat. She looked no more pissed than normal, her face the expressionless mask it had always been.
“Did you kill Dib?”
The Irkin envied the cat from the saying. He wished his heart had stopped rather than just shattering like a jar of fireflies, letting all the important things fly away. His face drained of color, his arms falling limply to his sides. “What are you talking about, Gaz?” he asked, finding breathing more labored.
“Get in,” she instructed, unlocking the passenger side door and sitting back into her own seat.
Though normally opposed to the idea of riding with the doom driven teenager, Zim complied. No sooner had he put a foot in the door, then the car hen taken off, leaving Zim to pedal till he could pull the rest of himself into the black and purple fuzzy seat cover and closed the door.
“I know all about you,” Gaz started, wrenching the steering wheel right, barely missing the chihuahua that stood in the median. “I know my brother was right about you being an alien and wanting to take over the world. So tell me Zim. Did you kill him?”
Zim held onto the “oh shit” bar over his head, watching the world slide by. “No. I didn’t kill him.” His shoulder smashed into the window as the car careened in another direction. “What happened?”
The skull decorations bounced from the rearview mirror like laughing faces with their skeletal mouths stretched in gruesome grins.
Gaz switched gears, her foot pounding on the clutch and gas alternately. “I don’t know. He hasn’t come home and no one’s seen him in almost two days.”
Zim’s eyes lit up. “So, he’s not dead?”
Gaz shrugged.
“Why’d you scare me like that!?” he shouted, feeling the fireflies float back into the jar. “Stupid meat bag bitch!”
Gaz arched a brow, deciding to let him off with that one. “You worried about him? Thought you hated each other!”
“I do!” Zim spat. “But hating him and wishing he were dead are two different things!”
“Since when?”
Zim growled, looking out the side window. The scenery had changed from what he usually saw on his daily trek to higher learning. In fact, the tall structures of the city seemed to grow nearer. Fear gripped his gut. This wasn’t the way to skool. “Where are you taking me?” he asked, his free hand gripping the soft seat cover fuzz.
“Nowhere in particular. I’ve just got some questions.” She skidded around a corner. “And you’re gonna tell me exactly what I want to know.”
The “or else” part was understood. Zim gulped down the feeling of impending doom. She had him right where she wanted him; with no means of escape. “Do you promise not to drive us into a wall if I say things you don’t like?”
“I promise to consider alternative options.”
It was as good an offer as he expected. “Go ahead then, pitiful demon spawn.”
Beating the shit out of him seemed like a much better plan for the day than interrogation. The sole thought of her brother sleeping on a bench in the park or an alley kept her hands to the wheel and her eyes on the road...mostly. “When’s the last time you saw Dib?” Her voice was stern with the “no bullshit” edge that was her trademark.
“Yesterday.”
A quick right turn and another bang against the window for the prisoner.
“Where?”
“My house.” Zim ducked as they passed through a blockade of wooden police markers, as if it would help the car shield him.
The mirror skulls danced as the wheels skidded.
“What did he say?”
‘Please! Don’t make me go away! Give me a chance, Zim! Please!’
Zim shook his head, having heard the pleas echo in his mind ever since he’d left the troubled teen in his room. “Nothing.”
“Bull shit!”
The car’s lack of shocks catapulted Zim’s head into the ceiling, reminding him of the wonderful seat belt invention and how they only worked if worn, as the car jumped over a small unfinished part of the road and careened to the existing bit twenty feet below.
“You weren’t in skool, either, yesterday. Must have been something, Zim.”
Zim’s short life flashed across his eyes. “Wow, I forgot about that,” he thought, as he pulled the flame printed safety restraint over his chest and secured it with a reassuring click.“What do you want me to tell you? I had better things to do? Like your brother?”
Irk bless the seatbelt. Gaz stepped on the brakes faster that light, herself being less than affected by the sudden halt while Zim flounced forward for an eternity only to be painfully pulled backwards into the seat.
Gaz took her hands off the wheel and turned to stare with open-eyed shock, forgetting the honking horns behind her and the lewd shouts of road rage. “You took the day off to screw my brother?”
“It was his stupid idea!” He rubbed at his chest, feeling for bruises, not recognizing the “I SO didn’t hear that right!” tinge to her voice.
Gaz blinked, fairly surprised, less at the fact that her brother was gay, and more that he’d slept with Zim. “Huh. My brother’s gay.” She shrugged than stepped on the gas again. “So what happened?”
“You want the play by play?”
“Ew, no!” Gaz punched him in the side. “Tell me what he said to you, what you said to him and when he left.”
Zim worried his bottom lip. “He’s been acting weird, ya noticed?”
Gaz shook her head.
“Ever since they found him in the bathroom.” He remembered. “It’s like Torque knocked a few screws loose.”
“Torque’s been bragging about it nonstop. Kept saying he taught the fag to show some respect or something.” She twisted the car around in a sharp U turn. Grandma jumped out of the way, but the boy scout helping her across wasn’t so lucky. Gaz kept on driving. “I never got to see Dib. He never came out of his room. Just had me go get a key from under the mat and slip it under the door. He hasn’t said anything to me since.”
“You wouldn’t want to hear what he had to say anyway. He’s deranged.” Zim got a good hold on the “oh shit” bar in anticipation as the light above switched from green to yellow. “Keeps saying Torque raped him.”
There was a moment of silence--despite the wheels, screaming and chaos ensuing outside as the car slipped through the red light--when Gaz’s features opened up in the purest emotions of grief. She wheeled around in the other direction, doing a U turn in the intersection, heading back towards the skool. “I’ll kill him....”
“I’m telling you, he’s delusional! He also said he wanted to help me destroy all of humanity!”
“Wouldn’t you if someone violated you like that?” Gaz asked through a clenched jaw.
Zim’s response was caught in his throat. Would he?
“You didn’t believe him?” Gaz spat, recognizing the tone of his voice. ”What did you say to him?”
Zim felt the firefly jar inside of him teeter on the edge of the shelf. “I...I told him he was a liar...that he was filthy, that he had to leave or I’d kill him....”
“Damnit, Zim!” Gaz let go of the wheel, grabbing him by the collar instead and pulling him over, nearly into her lap. “He told you something horrible happened and you insulted him?! If he’s dead, you will be too!”
“I thought he was making it up!” he cried in defense, pulling against her rage-improved grip. “We’re enemies! I’m not supposed to trust him!”
His explanation died with the rest of the world as Gaz sneered at him and punched the gas to the floor. “As the only person who treats him like a human being, you should have!”
Zim watched as a cop car appeared from behind them, his lights blinking wildly. It was obvious what he was after. Gaz sped up, if it were possible, turning down a maze of alley ways to elude the police.
“I did treat him like a human being. That was the problem,” Zim muttered to himself, mesmerized by the sounds of sirens. “He’s more than that.”
A sideways glance offered her a view of the crestfallen alien. It was hard to believe he was anything but human as he sulked there, taking on the same pain as any normal earthling, trying to resolve the inside to coexist with the outside. “I still don’t know where he is,” Gaz reminded him. “We can talk about how stupid you are when we find him.”
Zim shook his head. “I don’t know where he could have gone, Gaz. I don’t know of any places he retreats to other than his room.”
“Well, I checked there.”
“Did you check the closet?”
The sirens grew further away as Gaz’s escape route proved fruitful.
“You didn’t, did you?” Zim’s brows rose questionably.
“What would he be doing in his closet?”
Zim rolled his eyes. “Drop me off at your house. I’ll look for him there.”
“I’m going in too,” she shouted.
“No.” Zim glared at her, forgetting the peril that surrounded him. “He came to me for help before and I blew it. I need to make amends.”
“What if he’s not home?”
The vehicle lurched forward. This time Zim was ready, bracing himself and only being wrenched against the restraint for a moment. “It’s not even noon yet. I’ve plenty of time to comb the city for him. You go to skool and leave this to me.”
Gaz nodded, cracking her knuckles. “And I get Torque.”
“Save some for me, promise?” Zim unbuckled his seat belt and stepped out of the car, grateful for solid ground and feeling a little lightheaded. They had stopped just outside the Membrane’s house.
“It depends on what parts of him won’t fit in Tupperware. Wouldn’t want him spoiling before he’s paid for hurting Dib.” She leaned over the passenger seat, commanding Zim’s attention. “There’s always room for you in the specimen jars in the lab, Zim. Don’t think I won’t come for you if anything happens to him.”
Zim nodded in full understanding. “Thanks.”
She took off, flames licking at her tires as fresh marks were burned into the cement. Zim turned around, looking up at the tall arcane house. The arch doorway reminded him of a tombstone.