Dead Screams
part six"I can't believe he came." Jax said, sitting down beside Dib at the kitchen counter turned bar.
Dib poured himself a glass from an unfamiliar liquor bottle, "I'm not." He took a gulp of the bitter liquid, "He's impossible. I think he's just doing this to annoy me."
Jax pulled a beer out of a cooler, snapping the top with his teeth. It was an interesting trick he'd learned and was sure attracted many women. Dib had yet to hear of a girl who swooned over a man's ability to open a beer. "You both did an awful lot of not talking on the way here. Did the unhappy couple get into a fight?"
Dib's golden eyes glared at him over the top of his red plastic cup, "Couple, no. Fight, yes."
Jax swiveled on the bar stool, looking out at the perspective women dancing in the living room. "It's really a shame." His eyes fell on a particular brunette in daisy dukes. "Why not join a frat? If the Skool won't let you change rooms, just move out. Just look at the perks. Parties, babes, booze, and all the ass you can grab."
Dib snorted, twisting around with a playful grin, "All the ass you can grab?"
"Try it!"
"No thanks, Ass Man. I'll leave the booty business to you."
Jax rolled his eyes, "With an attitude like that you'll never join Pi Alpha Phi."
"Like they'd take me." Dib looked at the lifted eyebrows on Jax's face. "What are you hiding?"
"Nothing. It's just that Nye belongs to Pi Alpha Phi and as his friends…."
Dib looked around him, eyeing the spacious surroundings. "I seriously doubt that's all it takes."
Jax nodded, gulping down his beer. "Well, there's always the pledging, Nye can't get us out of that. But, well… I've already been accepted for next term when they loose the seniors."
Dib's eye bulged, glad he's already swallowed his latest mouthful. "You're in?"
"Well, I still have to finish the pledge trial but for the most part, yeah!"
"That's so cool!" Dib gave Jax a high five, looking at his friend in a whole new light, "Jax Mayfield, Pi Alpha Phi, Ass Man extraordinaire. What are they asking you to do for the pledge trial?"
Jax drank the last of his beer and squished it flat, grabbing for another one, "Nothing big. It's kind of a secret though."
Dib nodded, "Sure. But hey, are the rumors true? I mean, I hear they're usually really dangerous."
"Sometimes."
"What about the story about that guy who they found hung from the flagpole?"
Jax shrugged, "I don't think that was a trial. My guess is he didn't get accepted and did it to himself to get back at Pi Alpha Phi."
"Suicide?"
"It's a crazy world, Dib." Jax's eyes wandered over Dib's shoulder, "Speaking of crazy, what's going on out there?"
Dib turned around, watching a crowd building up in the back yard. Some people were screaming. "A fight maybe?"
Jax stood, pulling Dib up with him, "I don't think so. Come on, let's go check it out."
Dib followed quickly, pushing people away as discreetly as possible to satisfy his curiosity.
"Oh my god! What's happening to him! I think he's drowning!" a woman's voice shouted.
Dib tried to look over shoulders but it seemed all the tall people had decided to stand in his way.
Suddenly Jax's was pulling him forward, making a lot of people angry as he shoved them to the front.
"Geeze, Jax, what's your problem! You're gonna get us kicked out!"
"It's Zim!"
Dib took a moment to register then broke away from Jax, going into a full run and bursting out the other side, nearly diving into the pool as he skidded to a stop. The green body thrashed as bubbles and smoke lifted off the water.
"Don't move!" Nye shouted, pulling Dib away from the water, "Something's wrong with the water. I think it's acid."
"Nothing's wrong with the water!" Dib smacked his hand away, stepping quickly to the edge of the pool and diving in as people screamed and grabbed for him.
The water was cold. Dib opened his eyes, the sting of too much chlorine attacking them. The thrashing green body was easy to spot. His heart raced, as his feet kicked, never fast enough as his clothing weighed him down. His arms quickly enclosed around the red-hot form, pulling it to him as he kicked his way to the surface. Hundreds of arms were waiting, wriggling in the reflection of the water above them. Dib broke the surface, gasping for air, reaching out for a helping hand to pull him to the poolside. First one hand, then another, then the combined heave as he was dragged over and out of the cold water, the alien in his grasp.
They took Zim from him and laid him on his back as a towel was placed over Dib's shoulders. The crowed was scared silent.
"What the fuck was that?!" Nye shouted, looking from the pool to Zim and back.
Dib shuddered, crawling to Zim's side as Jax checked him for a pulse. Dib wondered where one would find an alien pulse to begin with.
"He's not breathing," Jax announced, looking at Dib with fretful blue eyes.
Something in Dib was suddenly being strangled, trying to claw free from an invisible culprit. Dib groaned, his eyes watering as he kneeled beside Zim, the once smooth green flesh completely boiled and burned. "Zim? Oh god…" he grabbed at the cloth of his shirt, pulling frantically as tears began to fall, "Fuck! Get these off him! Get these off him!"
The dancers and ravers stood still, watching as if at a theater, viewing the final act.
"Fuck! Help me! Get these off him!"
Jax took a knife from his pocket and cut the wet shirt from neckline to hem as Dib ripped the parts away and began with the pants.
"What's wrong with him, Dib?" Jax asked, watching Dib cover the prone figure in a towel.
"Skin condition," Dib muttered through tears, "Allergic to water."
Jax felt his breath hitch in his chest. He turned his head to the crowd, glaring at the stupid onlookers. "Don't just stand there! Call an ambulance!"
"No!"
Jax looked back at Dib, the frantic speaker. His bottom lip was quivering though he was trying to smile, "He'll be okay. We just need to get him to the dorm."
"Dib he's not breathing!"
"HE'LL BE OKAY!" Dib's eyes pleaded with him as his voice became a whisper, "Please, Jax.. they'll kill him. Just help me get him home. Please. Please, for me."
Jax bit his lip but quickly complied, wrapping his arms around Zim and lifting him off the concrete poolside patio. The crowed parted like the Red Sea for the two as they moved past. The tension didn't break till the front door slammed shut.
"FUCK!"
Dib punched the wall, his eyes red and face irritated from the tears that continually flowed.
Jax left Zim's side, the bed squeaking as his weight departed from it. His arms wrapped around his screaming friend from the back, spooning against him as Dib continued to punch the wall. The wall was splattered in blood.
"Stop it, Dib. Stop it!"
Dib screeched in inhuman words, pounding and tearing at innocent wall. "I can't stop it! I can't do anything! I can't do anything to help him!"
Jax held him tighter, feeling the vibrations of every impact with the wall and wincing, "Dib, please. It's not the walls fault. Stop hitting it."
"It's my fault!" Dib punched it again, cracking through to the drywall with a snap, "I'm the reason he came to that stupid party in the first place! None of this would have happened if I had just stayed home!"
"Dib, stop it!"
"He's gonna die!" Dib's fists fell to his sides, his legs slowly giving out. Jax lowered them both the ground, kneeling on the hard wood and pulling Dib to him, feeling the shuddering sobs that trembled through his small body. "He's gonna die, Jax. He's gonna die! FUCK!"
"He's not going to die!" Jax nestled his head against Dib's, feeling his heartbeat under his hands. "No one's going to die. Everything's going to be okay. He's breathing again, isn't he?"
"He's not screaming, Jax. He stopped screaming. That means he's going to die!"
"What do you mean, Dib?"
Dib let his head fall to his chest, hiccups and the strange yet familiar internal strangling feeling overpowering him. "They all screamed, Jax. My sister and my mother. My mother died in a car wreck. I was in the car too." He took a gasping breath, shaking his head to rid his eyes of the remembered visions, "When the other car came she screamed, screamed so loud I didn't even hear the car get hit. We rolled and rolled till she was hanging above me. I looked up when I realized she wasn't screaming anymore. She was dead, starring at me, her blood dripping on me."
"Oh my god, Dib…"
"When I saw Gaz in the hospital she was screaming. I only saw her as they pushed her past on the stretcher. She looked at me.. she had moms eyes…and it was like she didn't even know who I was anymore. She was screaming about the spiders, that they were eating her legs. They were trying to make her stop, they told her to stop yelling, that there weren't any spiders. They forgot what happens when you don't scream. DEAD PEOPLE DON'T SCREAM!"
Jax hid his head in Dib's shoulders, burring his eyes, washing the already wet shirt in tears. /Oh god, Dib.. please stop.. please don't say anything anymore. Just go to sleep./
Dib pushed away from Jax with enough strength to land him flat on his back, walking over to his roommate's bed like the shadow of Death. "I won't let you die, Zim. If you die there won't be anyone left! I won't let you die!" he raised his fist and pummeled it into the boiled flesh. "Wake up, Zim! Say something! Yell at me! Tell me how stupid and blind I am! Tell me how much you hate me! Insult me! Hit me! ZIM! FUCK YOU, ZIM! SAY SOMETHING! ZIM!"
"DIB, STOP IT!" Jax's arms quickly wrapped around the frantic body again, holding for dear life as Dib struggled and fought against the restraint.
"ZIM! Who's gonna put me back together when I do something stupid now!? You can't die, Zim! Who's gonna put me back together?! ZIM!"
Jax whispered soft pleading words, begging his friend to stop as he wrestled him away from the bed and to the other side of the room where his own bed lied.
"I need you, Zim! Don't leave me! I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm sorry!"
Ten doors down the hall slept Jon Larkson, completely unaware of the chaos.