The Marinzean Epic, Part II:
The Price
Chapter Three
Eduardo woke up from his sleep, laying on his bed in his apartment. He
looked oever at his clock. It was ten after two in the morning. He threw
the covers off of himself and stood up to stretch.
On his way over to the fridge to get a glass of orange juice, Eduardo heard
a small sound come from the bedroom, behind him. His first instinct, arming
himself, quickly faded as he realized it was most likely just his girlfriend.
He poured himself a glass of orange juice and headed back toward the bedroom,
stopping in the doorway. He sipped his drink as he slowly took in all the
sights of his small room, bathed in moonlight. Out of the corner of his eye
he caught a glimpse of someone moving. From the bed he heard a voice.
"Mmm, Eduardo?" Kylie called out softly, just waking up.
"Shhh. Go back to sleep. I'll join you in a minute, sweetheart," Eduardo
whispered to her.
Kylie smiled and snuggled back up in Eduardo's warm blankets. "Come back to
bed. I'm getting colder," she said quietly, already drifting back to sleep.
Eduardo smiled a smile of contentment as he walked over and sat on the bed.
Setting down the glass of juice, he closed his eyes and ran his hand through
her beautiful black hair, feeling every single strand play along his
fingertips. Kylie mumbled again, half asleep, "Come back to bed, I'm getting
colder." Eduardo, a little confused, spoke softly to her, "I'm right here,
chica." Kylie's voice now seemed angry as she spoke louder, "Eduardo, come
back to bed, I'm getting colder!
"Eduardo!!
"Eduardo!!!"
Eduardo's eyes shot open as he looked around in confusion. He was in the
Ecto-1, not his apartment. "Did you say something, Kylie?"
"I said get your head off my shoulder!"
"Oh. Right."
Eduardo sat up and stretched as good as he could in the car. Sitting behind
Kylie, he had aparantly fallen asleep and leaned forward into her. He looked
over to his left to see Garrett resting his chin on his hand, staring out the
window. Eduardo concentrated on Garrett's eyes and could tell that whatever
was going on outside the window, Garrett was looking beyond it.
Eduardo nudged Garrett in the side and said, "Hey man, what's on your mind?"
Garrett snapped back to reality. "Hm? Oh, uh, nothing. Just...upset about
my wheelchair. That's all. Well, it wasn't a total lie, Garrett thought.
"No problem. There's another one back at the firehouse, right? You'll be
back on your feet in no time. Or, well, your...chair." Seeing that he
wasn't making himself look any better, Eduardo decided to just silently stare
out the window on his right.
Garrett turned back to the left window and thought about what Eduardo had said.
There IS something to help me get around back at the firehouse, but it's not
another wheelchair. Thoughts began to race through Garrett's mind at
lighting speed; formulations of plans, and the consequences of them. He could
feel the adrenaline surging through his body from his anxiety. It was a
feeling that he normally enjoyed, craved even, but at the moment all it did
was fill him with a sense of dread, that what he was thinking could change
the rest of his life. The only thing he didn't know was, would it change
for the better, or for worse?
When they arrived back at the firehouse, Roland got a new wheelchair for
Garrett out of a nearby closet. Janine walked over from behind her desk and
asked if everyone was alright. "Fine," Garrett said, "with the exception of
my wheelchair. It met up with a large chunk of the street. You know, the
usual. Oh, and thanks for getting me another wheelchair, Roland. Uh, to
return the favor, want me to take the trap down to the containment unit?"
"Oh, that's alright Garrett, I-"
Garrett cut Roland off, "Now that I think of it, I seem to recall a couple
of rocks hitting the Ecto when the ghost blew up the sidewalk..."
Roland's eyes got wide and he let out a small gasp. He looked up at the top
of the car, then back at Garrett. "Uh, would you mind putting this in the
containment unit?" He handed the trap to Garrett, then climbed atop the
Ecto-1 for a closer look. Garrett headed for the basement.
Kylie turned to Janine. "Is Egon in his lab? I thought I should tell him
about the creature, so he could put it in his files."
Janine gave a weak smile. "Is there ever a moment when Egon's not in the
lab?" Kylie smiled back, a look of understanding on her face, and went
upstairs. Eduardo watched her walk away, frowned, and sat down on the couch
to watch TV. Just as he was getting relaxed, he realized the remote was
missing. Aw, man! I can't watch TV without a the remote! He flipped up
the cushions on the couch, then started checking all the shelves.
Down in the basement, Garrett was loading the ghost into the containment
unit. "Get used to your new house, buddy. You're gonna be staying for a
little while." Upon saying this, Garrett recalled how close he'd come to
being a permanent resident in there as well. He shuddered, recalling what
it was like in there.
After putting the trap away, Garrett began letting his eyes wander around
the firehouse basement, wondering, Where does Egon put it? I guess I should
have paid more attention when I came back from the containment unit... He
began to think of how, not too long ago, he had walked without any problem
mere inches from where he and his wheelchair were. What was that?!, Garrett
thought to himself, suddenly alert. He thought he had heard someone
whispering by his ear! He listened carefully. He *did* hear some kind of
whispering. It seemed to be coming from a cabinet in the corner of the
basement. He slowly started rolling his wheelchair towards the cabinet. He
reached out and turned the handle...locked!
Behind him, he heard the sound of a door opening. He quickly spun his
wheelchair around and headed back towards the containment unit.
"Hey, Garrett!" Eduardo called down from the top of the stairs.
Garrett turned to him and acted as if he hadn't heard him before that. "Oh,
hey Eduardo."
"Have you seen the remote control?"
"You had it last time we were watching TV, remember?"
Eduardo made a small dissapointed sound and left the basement. Garrett let
out a large sigh, aparantly from the breath he hadn't realized he was
holding. He took one more suspicious look back at the locked cabinet, then
turned and headed towards the lift.
Upstairs, Eduardo layed down angrily on the couch to stare at a blank TV
screen. He was about to blame the loss of the remote on Slimer, when he
realized that Slimer was gone. His anger began to fade to sorrow as he
remembered all the trouble the little Slimeball had caused. Garrett rolled
over to the couch, saw Eduardo staring at the blank TV, rolled his eyes and
said, "Gee, Ed, would it kill you to actually get up and turn on the TV?!"
"Hey, I'm a scientist, not a barbarien! Besides, it's easy for you to say,
you don't have to get up!"
Garrett sighed and went over to the TV, switched it on, and rolled his way
back to Eduardo. "Got any snacks on ya, Eddie ol' pal?"
Eduardo pulled a Taz Pez dispenser out of his pocket, along with a pack of
cherry Pez and handed them to Garrett. "You can have some if you can load
it in."
"Ha! Simple. Watch a pro!" Garrett whipped out the candies and loaded the
dispenser in two moves. He lifted the head and took out a few, then handed
it back to Eduardo, who did the same.
Later that evening, Kylie came down from Dr. Spenglar's lab carrying her copy
of Spenglar's Spirit Guide. She glanced over at Roland, who had sat down
at Janine's desk to get some homework done, then walked over to Eduardo and
Garrett, who were still watching TV.
"And what are you doing, Mr. Scientist?" she asked.
"Research."
"Research?" she said doubtfully.
"Yeah. I mean, who knows more about ghoulies and vampires and stuff than
Buffy?"
Kylie turned her eyes to the ceiling and sighed.
"Pez?" Eduardo pulled the dispenser's head back. Kylie looked at him, was
about to say something about it being a little childish for him to have a
Pez dispenser, then decided against it and took the little Pez candy out of
the dispenser Eduardo was holding and popped it in her mouth. Eduardo
smiled.
Kylie began to walk toward a chair up against the wall, then stopped halfway.
She looked down at her copy of Spenglar's Spirit Guide, then back at Eduardo,
laying down on the couch. She tossed the book on the chair and walked back
to the guys.
"Uh, Eduardo," Kylie asked, "would you mind sitting up?"
Eduardo looked over, noticing for the first time that she had come back.
Tying to keep the surprise out of his voice, but not doing a very good job,
he stammered, "Oh, yeah, sure," and sat up. Kylie sat at the far end of the
couch, where Eduardo's feet had been.
The three of them sat in silence, watching the TV. In the background, the
phone was ringing. Garrett tried to supress a smile, but couldn't help a
small trace of it seeping out. Wonder if those two will *ever* make a move!
he thought.
Kylie cleared her throat and turned to Eduardo. "So, uh, is Angel still a
bad guy, or-"
"Suit yourselves up, guys," Janine said as she walked down the stairs, Egon
close behind, "you've got a call." Egon handed Roland a slip of paper with
the address on it.
"Oh, why do these people wait this late to be haunted?" Eduardo whined. He
reached for the remote, then sighed and said, "Garrett, you mind turning off
the TV?"
Garrett was about to go into detail about Eduardo's laziness, but Eduardo,
anticipating this, got up and headed for his proton pack. Kylie stood up,
turned off the TV, then, turning to follow Eduardo to the packs, winked at
Garrett. Garrett smiled in return and headed for his pack.
The team piled into the car, with Roland taking the wheel. Eduardo felt
uncomfortable as he sat down, and reached underneath himself to remove
what he thought was a seatbelt. "Yes!" Eduardo shouted aloud. Everyone
turned to face him and saw him holding up the remote for the TV triumphantly.
Everyone faced forward again, unimpressed.
A short time later, Roland pulled the car to the side of the street to park.
Eduardo moved to the center of the car and leaned forward to talk to Kylie.
"So, what were you and Dr. Spenglar talking about all that time up there?"
"Egon's been working on some sort of device to seperate Slimer and the
Marinzean leader. It should be done real shortly. At least I hope, for
Slimer's sake." Kylie noticed that Roland was stopping the car and turned
to him. "This is the place? We can't be more than a mile from the
firehouse."
"Well, this is it," Roland replied with a shrug and got out of the car.
The team walked up to the apartment door and knocked. Roland switched on
his PKE meter. "Hmm...this can't be right."
"What is it?" Kylie asked.
"Well, the readings I'm getting are almost identical to-"
The door opened to reveal a short man with thick glasses. "Thank goodness
you got here," the little man said, panicky, with beads of sweat forming
on his forehead. "I first saw them at about dawn."
"Them?" Garrett spoke up, interested. "'Bout how many are we talkin' here?"
"It's hard to say, being so dark out. Every so often I'd see one go by."
"Can you tell us where they are?" Kylie asked.
"If you look around outside, you should be able to catch a glimpse of two or
three."
"Okay sir. Try to remain calm. We'll take a look around." The man nodded
and Kylie and the rest turned to find the spooks.
Kylie turned to Roland as they all entered a small woods a few yards from the
house. "Roland, what were you saying back there? The readings were
identical to?"
Eduardo whipped out his flashlight and shone it into the woods, shouting,
"Oye! Look!"
Garrett tried to keep his sudden horror hidden, but the rest of the team was
too shocked to notice anyway. Not too far from where they were standing was
a Marinzean! This one, however, was different thatn the ones they had
seen before; its skin, rather than being stretched tight, seemed to be
composed of dripping ectoplasm.
"But how can that be?!" Kylie whispered loudly.
Visions of his terrible nightmare once again began surging through Garrett's
mind; the basketball court pulsing with living green slime, the screams of
the people transforming, the invasion of his body by the slime, and the
creepy cold stares of his teammates as they heartlessly fired upon the
Marinzeans and himself ...
The Marinzean in the woods looked about to run. Garrett, at lightening
quick speed, whipped out his proton blaster and, screaming in an angry
fit of rage, fired on the Marinzean before anyone could stop him. Garrett's
hot blood pounded through his temples, nothing went through his mind but
the thought that the horrible dream was the fault of the Marinzean in front
of him.
The others, in reaction to the frightening display by Garrett, drew their
blasters and began firing on the lone Marinzean. Roland turned to Kylie
and yelled over the blaster fire, "Aren't we endagering the actual person
inside the Marinzean?"
Kylie, needing only one hand to hold her smaller blaster, whipped out her
PKE meter to get a reading. "Keep firing!" Kylie shouted in return.
"We're not endagering anything! I'll explain afterwards!"
Garrett, still in a rage of anger, stopped firing and yanked the ghost trap
off Kylie's back. Kylie took offense at having her ghost trap taken from
her, but decided to wait until after the battle to voice it. Garrett held
out the ghost trap towards the Marinzean with outstretched arms and pressed
the trigger, opening the trap. The strange looking Marinzean gave one last
shriek before getting sucked into the trap. The trap shut, the inertia
causing Garrett's wheelchair to roll backwards into Garrett, knocking over
himself and Roland.
"That's some nice trapping, Garrett!" Eduardo laughed, helping Garrett back
onto his wheelchair. Garrett apologized to Roland and offered him a hand,
which he accepted.
Kylie walked over to Garrett and yanked the ghost trap out of his hands.
"What was that all about?!" Kylie asked angrily.
"Oh, uh, sorry about all that, Kylie, guess I just got carried away in my
thirst for some action."
They all began to walk back to the man's house when Roland stopped them and
called them over. "Look at this," he said, pointing to the ground around
where the Marinzean had been. There were small puddles of light grey-green
slime left from the Marinzean.
"Weird," Eduardo said, "they never used to drip ectoplasm before."
Roland got a sample in a small container he had with him. "Egon will want
to analyse this."
They continued walking back toward the short man's house. He opened the
door when they arrived, as he was watching the entire thing from his living
room window. "Thank you so much!" he exclaimed.
"Just let us know if any more of them show up, okay sir?" Kylie said.
"Yeah," Eduardo spoke under his breath, "but don't mention it to Garrett;
next time he might get caried away and shoot Roland!" Garrett shot Eduardo
a look, but one with a slight smile, to indicate that he could take the joke.
He was hoping, however, to cover up the plathora of feelings he had running
through him.
They got intot he Ecto and headed back to the firehouse. "Okay," Eduardo
asked, "why was it that we could blast that Marinzean and not worry about
hurting the person it used to be?"
"Because," Kylie answered, "that creature never was human. It was basically
the same creature except for one thing, it was composed entirely of ecto,
as if it invaded a ghost's body instead of a person's."
"Hmm..,"Roland thought aloud, "well maybe it's possible that there are more
species of Marinzeans than just the one group we fought. Or it could be that
one of the Marinzneans escaped and developed into another leader to make more
creatures, similar to that of ants."
"Hey," Garrett said, "does it really matter? They're back, and we're gonna
make sure they don't stay, right?"
They all nodded their heads, confident that they could get rid of them once
again. All except for Garrett, who simply sat there, thinking that the
return of the Marinzeans could be a nightmare come true.
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