|
|
"That's all you do, Eduardo," Kylie said, still standing next to the couch.
"And look at me. Fit as a fiddle." He smiled that triumphant smile that Kylie found so annoying. She gritted her teeth and stormed out. A feeling of guilt washed over Eduardo as he watched her walk away. He wondered to himself why he always felt bad about doing things like this after the feelings had been hurt. With a frown, he went back to flipping through the TV stations.
Upstairs, Egon absent-mindedly tinkered with the device to bring Slimer back. All he could actually think about was where Garrett may have gone. For what seemed like hours he fretted over anything Garrett may have said or did to give away any sort of clue to his whereabouts. He was concentrating on it so hard that he didn't even notice that his head was slowly inching towards the workbench while simultaneously his eyelids slowly shut, until he was asleep amidst the jumble of electronics strewn about the table.
Janine poked her head around the corner into Egon's workshop. "Egon, I was jus-" She stopped herself seeing Egon sound asleep, biting her bottom lip in hopes she didn't wake him. Satisfied after a few seconds of silence that Dr. Spengler was still out cold, Janine fetched a blanket and tiptoed into the office over to Egon. Slowly she dropped the blanket over him and smiled.
"We've got a call!" Kylie yelled from downstairs. Pushing the alarm bell on Janine's desk, fire alarm bells rang out all over the firehouse. Egon shot up so quickly in alarm, he knocked the chair and himself backward, smacking into Janine's legs. With a shriek, Janine fell forward on top of Egon, landing them in a tangled pile of limbs and blanket. While struggling to free themselves and get back up, Kylie ran in to grab a ghost trap. Seeing Janine and Egon tangled in the blanket on the floor, she stopped dead. Holding back the smile that was dying to burst free, she said, "Oh, sorry. Didn't mean to intrude. I'll leave you two alone." With that, she grabbed the trap and darted out of the workshop.
Janine and Egon stopped struggling from the tangled blanket for a moment as Kylie's implication seeped in. Janine had a wide grin on her face, while Egon's face turned a shade of red yet to be identified by man. He quickly made his way out of the blanket and attempted to regain his composure. Much like Kylie, it took all of Janine's strength to keep from bursting out in laughter.
Tears streamed down Kylie's face from laughing so hard as she walked past Eduardo, strapping her trap onto her back. "What's so funny, chica?" Eduardo asked, getting his proton pack on.
When she could finally breathe again, Kylie said, "I'll tell you in the car. Let's move." With that, the three of them hopped in Ecto-1, Roland at the wheel.
A few minutes later, in Ecto-1, Eduardo, Kylie and Roland were all wiping tears from their eyes over Kylie's story. Roland was desperately trying to keep his concentration on the road. Kylie's laughter stopped as her PKE meter sprung to life with readings.
Quickly, Kylie directed Roland. "Right! Right! Go right!!" Nearly missing the turn, Roland spun the wheel frantically to the right. The Ecto-1 almost overturned as two of the wheels lifted from the ground from the sudden turn.
"Whatever we're after," Kylie said while examining the readings, "it's moving really slow."
The readings led them to a supermarket parking lot. The street lights around the parking lot had just turned on, dimly lighting the nearly deserted lot. Roland parked Ecto and the three of them stepped out. Kylie led the small team of Ghostbusters down to a deserted corner of the lot. She stopped, puzzled. "It should be right in front of us."
"I don't see-", Kylie cut Eduardo off in midsentence as she laid eyes on the ghost, which hadn't seemed to notice them yet. The ghost had a humanoid shape, complete with legs. The ghost was so transparent that they had simply looked through it at first.
While the ghost's back was still turned to them, Roland slowly and quietly unhooked his proton blaster from his back and fired. The particle beam missed the ghost by mere centimeters, just missing its neck. With that the startled ghost turned to face them. It's eyes locked with Eduardo's for a millisecond. Eduardo easily read the vulnerability in those eyes, the look of fear, panic even. A look those eyes didn't often show. Nevertheless, Eduardo knew whose eyes those were. Eduardo looked to his left to see Roland preparing to fire another shot. Before Eduardo could do anything Roland pulled the trigger, hitting Garrett dead center in the chest. Garrett tried to run but the proton beam held him steady. Eduardo ran over to Roland, screaming, "Stop firing! Oye! Stop!"
Kylie, reaching for her trap, yelled back, "What do you mean stop? We've got him!"
"You've got Garrett!"
Then they saw it. It was clearly Garrett they had trapped in the beam. He was struggling with all his might to break free of the beam, especially when he realized they meant to trap him. Just the thought of being sucked into that square foot space made a cold sweat break out all over his body.
Roland turned off his beam, and immediately Garrett took of running. Kylie called behind her as she took out her PKE meter, "C'mon, we can't lose him!" Eduardo and Roland ran after Kylie. Kylie's PKE readings led them down several alleys and streets before leading them into a dead end alley.
"Well, where could he have gone?" Eduardo asked. "It's not like he could just disapear."
Kylie shut off her PKE meter and turned around, annoyed. "Hello! He's a ghost! He can just disapear! Or in this case, walk through walls." They walked back to the main street and Kylie once again swept for valences. Sighing, she said, "Garrett may be a ghost, but not a very powerful one. I've lost him on the meter."
Eduardo turned to them. "Well, so know what do we do?"
"What more can we do?" Roland asked. "We should go back to headquarters. Maybe Egon will have an idea." He looked to Kylie, then to Eduardo, who each shrugged.
Back in the Ecto-1, Kylie sat in the passenger seat and grabbed the two-way radio. "Egon, are you there? We've got news."
"Yes, I'm here. Bad news?"
"Yeah."
"Well, I've got worse. Go ahead."
"That call we got earlier? Turns out the ghost the person saw was Garrett! We nearly trapped him before we realized who it was-"
Eduardo cut in. "We? If I hadn't recognized 'im, we'd probably be unloading him into the containment unit right now!"
Kylie shot Eduardo a nasty look and continued. "Anyway, what was your bad news, Egon?"
"Oh. Well, actually it was the same story. I do, however, have one more bit of information. I was in the basement not too long ago and noticed something disturbing; the containment suit is gone."
"So, that's how this all happened."
Roland took one hand off the wheel and grabbed the radio mike. "But isn't that permanent once the timer runs out?"
"Unfortunately yes. So far I have never discovered a way to reverse the effects once the suit's power is lost. I may require your assistance, Roland, once you get back to the firehouse."
"Sure thing. We'll be there soon." He flicked off the radio and floored it back to headquarters.
* * *
It was pitch black outside now. Garrett just kept running, his feet attempting to match the outrageously fast pace at which his mind was racing. Earlier that day, he had thought of each step he took as the most wondrous thing he had ever encountered. Now each step taken felt like it was pulling him deeper and deeper into this nightmarish curse. He looked around as ha ran, but nothing looked familiar. Not that he was running to anywhere specifically. He was just running to get away. Away from what happened, what he did, and what he'd become. There was not much that scared Garrett in his lifetime, but what was now going on terrified him.
Garrett stopped running and walked over to a small city park. Sitting down under a tree, he realized he had no destination and figured maybe it was about time he thought things through, to get a destination. After calming down, he began to toy with the idea of going back to the firehouse to get help. Well, who else is gonna be able to help me? And it's not like they meant to blast me or anything. They just thought I was a ghost. Garrett wasn't all for returning to the Ghostbusters just yet, but at the same time he wanted to find a way back to his normal self as soon as possible.
With a destination finally in mind, Garrett stood up from his resting place. But before he could take more than one step, he heard something that stopped him dead in his tracks; whispers. Once again, an endless supply of whispers was running through his head. Like before, he couldn't make out any words in the whispering, yet he could somehow still understand the general meaning; it wanted to lead him somewhere. Garrett took one last look in the direction he was going to take, and turned around to follow the whispers. The whispers grabbed his curiosity like nothing he'd ever known, and the idea that he may be lead to the source of the whispering compelled him. He began to pick his pace up to a run, because he had the feeling this would be a long journey.
* * *
Roland, Eduardo and Kylie rejoined Egon and Janine as they pulled into the firehouse. The two groups took turns sharing information of what they had learned of Garrett's transformation.
"Kylie," Egon said, "may I see your PKE meter?" Without hesitation Kylie handed over her PKE meter to Dr. Spengler. "I should be able to use these readings to make a stronger homing device that can lock onto the containment suit." Egon looked at his watch and frowned. "Looks like I'll be burning the midnight oil. Who needs a ride home?" All three kids raised their hands. "Hop in the Ecto-1."
"Well," Janine said to Egon, "if you're going to be up all night, I'll go make you some coffee."
Reaching for the keys to the Ecto-1, Egon almost didn't remember what Janine's last pot of coffee had tasted like. Almost. As soon as the thought occurred to him, he whipped his head around to Janine and said, perhaps a little too loudly, "NO!" Catching himself, he quickly explained, "Uh, no, it's getting late. You should be getting home as well. I'll get myself some coffee when I get back. But thank you for the offer, Janine." He gave her a warm smile, a genuine smile, and hoped she'd accept.
With a sigh, she did. "All right. See you in the morning."
Egon nodded, then turned to the team. "See you all first thing in the morning, too. We'll begin our search for Garrett as early as possible." The three kids nodded and got in the car. As Egon sat behind the wheel, he noticed the three of them staring at him, trying to hold in their smiles. His face turned red with embarrassment as he realized Kylie must have told them of his little stumble into Janine earlier. "Oh, stop it."
That was all they could stand. The car was filled with laughter as it drove off down the streets of New York."
* * *
After hours of running, Garrett felt that his destination was finally getting close. Getting excited, he picked up the pace a little more.
Finally, the whispering led him deep into a dark alleyway. Garrett's elated running slowed to a cautious walk as his claustrophobia suddenly took over. When he was about halfway through the alley, he got the feeling he was being followed. Turning around, he carefully examined all the shadows, but could find nothing. He continued walking in the alley, even slower than be fore. When he once again felt he was being followed, he spun around as fast as he could...
To come face to face with an army of Ecto-Marinzeans, all dripping with slime. He slowly backed up, continuing his way down the alley, when he backed into something. Turning back around to face forward, he came face to face with yet another ghost. A familiar ghost. He knew that ghostly shape, he knew the smile, and he knew those eyes, though they held much more evil in them now than when he had last seen them.
"S-Slimer??!" Garrett nearly screamed. The spud simply smiled and let out a deep, evil laugh.
Then, in a deep bronze voice, Slimer replied, "Welcome to the family Garrett. I've been waiting for you."
