Part III loved the bit where Phoebe and Callie are arguing while trying to catch the ghost—real family drama mixed with ghostbusting action. The mix of humor and high stakes keeps things lively, especially with Gary's mishaps and Trevor's efforts to help out. Plus, the new research center and the mystery surrounding the missing blade of Majus-Ka add intriguing layers to the story. Great job capturing the chaotic energy and the family dynamics!
Cleanin' Up The Town
Gary rolled the Ecto-1 to a smooth stop at the entrance to the industrial park. Small groups of fishmongers and buyers lined the sides of the road while a larger mass of bodies crowded in the road at the front gates, yelling various unpleasantries at the police officers preventing them from returning to their stalls inside the building.
“Ain’t no ghost eatin’ my profits,” one particularly burly man bellowed.
Another man wearing an apron smeared in calamari guts chimed in. “Ghost, nothing. Ain't no such thing. S’probably another bomb scare from those Greenpeace assholes.”
“Phebes, cover your ears, okay?” Gary shot over his shoulder to the kids in the backseat.
Phoebe looked at Trevor incredulously. “Has he met our mother?”
“It only counts when it’s someone else saying it,” Her brother replied mockingly.
“I wish these assholes would move out of our way,” Callie huffed, oblivious of the volume of her voice.
A police officer squeezed out from the crowd of increasingly aggressive fishermen and came jogging up to the Ectomobile’s driver’s side window.
“You the Ghostbusters?”
All four stared back at him blankly.
“Well, you’d better come inside. We already got a powder keg of a situation out here with these guys, but I sure as hell ain’t dealing with no ghost.”
Phoebe turned her face the other way as the officer squinted quizzically through the open window at her. College students lookin’ younger every day, he thought to himself.
“What are we dealing with here, exactly?” Callie asked, leaning over from the passenger seat.
“Beats me,” said the officer, turning his attention back to the adults. He lifted his police cap to scratch his temple, “A bunch’a these fishmongers started causing a panic earlier after they saw something inside.”
“No-one went inside to check?” Gary asked. The officer broke eye contact.
“We, ah, haven’t had the resources to send anyone in yet. You understand,” he said sheepishly.
Callie gave Gary a sarcastically raised eyebrow.
The officer turned back towards the throng of people blocking the path and shouted over the noise.
“Hey, make some room! Professionals are here!”
The crowd parted to let the hearse through; some people by choice, others steered firmly by the overwhelmed-looking officers. Gary repeatedly mouthed the words ‘thank you’ with a nervous smile and wave as he rolled the Ecto-1 slowly through the odd mix of cheers and boos. An officer on each side of the gates swung them shut again once the car was through and onto the stretch of dockyard leading to the wide, grey fish market warehouse.
Phoebe stared out the rear window, watching the crowd pile up against the gates again as Gary drove on.
“Those people were booing us. They don’t want us to catch the ghost for them?” She asked. Callie and Gary exchanged awkward glances.
Trevor answered on their behalf. “Some people still don’t believe. Their loss.”
His sister’s thoughts turned to their grandfather. Phoebe couldn’t understand why people didn’t share her absolute fascination with the mysteries of life after death, especially when it meant there was the possibility of communicating with long lost loved ones. The ghostbusters weren’t just on a quest to rid the world of spooks, they existed to study the supernatural, to bridge the gap between the living and the dead.
Trevor knew better. He had heard the stories of the antics caused by the original ghostbusters years ago; By the time they went out of business, they had managed to rack up millions of dollars worth of property damage and dozens of lawsuits, with the bill all going straight to the unwillingly generous people of New York. They were lucky the townsfolk didn’t raid the firehouse with pitchforks and torches.
*****
Gary heaved the last proton pack off of the hearse’s rear gurney as Callie slipped a set of chunky ecto-goggles onto her head. He looked her up and down in the unflattering coveralls and cumbersome nuclear accelerator.
“I am so freaking hot for you right now,” he said matter-of-factly.
She stuck her hip out and winked at him seductively.
“Gross…” Trevor uttered as he turned away. Phoebe scrunched her face up.
“What? Mom's hot,” Callie informed them. “Sorry, but she is.”
“She's right - It's true; Smokin’ hot.” Gary nodded.
Phoebe shook her head, trying to banish the quickly-forming image in her head. She grabbed the neutrona wand from over her shoulder and flipped her proton pack on, the cyclotron spinning into life with the familiar high pitched whine.
“Let’s go bust a ghost.”
*****
Trevor wrinkled his nose at the overbearing stench of the fish market.
“Ugh. Smells like the inside of a gym sock.”
The building was a vast stretch of warehouse walls in either direction with tables, crates and pallets lining the sides of the center walkway. Trays of ice covered almost every surface piled high with all sorts of sea creatures.
“A gym sock dipped in old… Feet.” Gary said. It was clear the smell had overpowered his creativity. Callie tried breathing exclusively through her mouth.
“I don’t see anything,” she said, unwillingly taking in a mouthful of trout-air. “Aren’t ghosts usually a bit more… in your face?”
Gary dipped low to check under a nearby row of tables.
“Maybe it’s just an eel that was still alive. Or a big, angry squid.”
Phoebe slipped her grandfather’s PKE meter from her belt and flipped it on. Immediately the little arms raised and the readout flashed an increasing series of positive readings.
“Definitely not a squid. Not a living one, anyway.”
The four spread out slowly, cautiously, and gripped their particle throwers a little firmer. Phoebe waved the PKE over a tray of large lobsters while Trevor tip-toed over to a section of wall that gave way to a loading entrance packed with crates.
Nothing, he thought to himself when something caught his eye across the market. A large, pale blue mass of something was moving amongst a stockpile of tuna.
“Uh, guys…? I think I found it…” He called out over his shoulder.
A large, grotesque fish – or more accurately, the half-rotted corpse of one – was meandering between the crates in a leisurely fashion. It zig-zagged with no discernible purpose or intent, leaving a trail of bubbles and ghostly seafoam in the air behind its twitching, decomposed tailfin.
Its big, blank bulbous eyes seemed to not even register the four ghostbusters approaching slowly.
Gary moved in, motioned for Trevor to step back, and lifted his neutrona wand. He slowly pressed his thumb down on the trigger button.
The shot instantly went wide, and the proton stream snaked up the wall and collided with one of the ceiling light fixtures in a burst of sparks and falling glass as the fish-thing shot off at incredible speed.
“My bad. That one’s on me,” Gary said sheepishly as the remains of the heavy strip lights swung back and forth before the whole fixture came crashing to the ground.
Phoebe was already on the trail of the phantom fish, following the floating foamy bubbles and ducking under several of the taller tables. She shoved the PKE back into its holster and swung her thrower up, firing a blast of protons towards the blue fish. The beam arced up over the fish’s head and blasted a whole tray of carp into the air. The fish reared back around towards the group and let out a hideous, guttural screech.
It zig-zagged back towards them, nearly knocking Trevor into a stack of clam buckets as it swooped past. Callie and Gary both fired, their proton streams nearly colliding with each other as they twisted and warped around in mid-air.
“Bad, bad, bad!” Gary shouted, quickly shutting off his thrower. Trevor had already clambered up onto a stack of pallets but they shifted before he could even get a decent footing. He soon found himself face first down in a trough of slimy trout.
“NIce landing, Trevor,” He berated himself quietly.
Phoebe, meanwhile, had repositioned herself and was already setting up another shot. She breathed deep, shifted her weight onto her back foot, and let rip a proton stream that shot out and finally snagged the fish before it could even react.
The blue spook let out a wet, gargled screech as it thrashed against the confines of the beam.
“Trap, please,” she said calmly.
Gary stared at her in awe. She handled the thrower like a pro already, although he did suppose she had a head start back in Summerville.
“Trap,” he repeated to himself, snapping back to reality. He knelt down, fumbling to release the bulky bit of gear from his belt. With a bit of force it finally came loose, dropping to the floor with a heavy clunk. He snatched it up and, with a massive goofy grin on his face, slid it forward into position almost directly under the spasming ghoulie.
“Phebes - Hold it steady!” Callie shouted as she jogged to a position on the opposite side of the fish. She swung her thrower toward the target and fired, the force of the wild proton stream nearly knocking her off-balance. The others could only watch helplessly as the beam ripped itself out of her control and off-target, cutting a burning swath across the concrete floor… And directly over the cable connecting the trap with its control pedal.
“Shit!” She yelled, furious with herself for not having a tighter hold on the wand. Gary stared open-mouthed at the destroyed cable. He was really, really starting to wish they’d brought more than one trap right now.
Phoebe struggled to hold the large fish as it continued fighting her tether.
“There’s no time to get another!” She yelled over the dual noises of the thrower and the screaming fish. “We have to trap it manually!”
Trevor was watching the whole thing in a panic.
“Manually… On it!” He sprinted as fast as the hefty proton pack would let him, narrowly ducking under the fish as it lashed out with its fins in all directions. He pounced on the trap spread-eagled and flipped himself over to aim it at the fish above. He clutched it as tightly as he could, turning his face away as he felt around for the manual activation knob.
The fish was still clawing at the proton stream, the bony remains of its left fin hooking under it and stretching the tether open, all while swimming higher and higher upwards, away from the peril below.
Phoebe was gritting her teeth against the strain, the thrower nearly being yanked from her grip.
“Now, Trevor!”
His hand finally found the knob and a cone of blinding white light was launched upwards, engulfing the panicked fish just a split second after it had managed to break free of the proton stream.
The force of the ghost hitting the base of the trap almost winded Trevor when the doors snapped shut. The four remained silent for a moment, trying to actually believe what they’d just accomplished.
“Did we… Did we just bust a ghost?” Gary finally asked.
*****
The next couple of weeks were the most fun Gary had had in years. He had been a fully-fledged
ghostbuster for less than a month and had already been out on a dozen calls, got to drive the Ecto-1,
appeared on the front page of the New York Post, and been gooped, gunged, and slimed by a whole
host of different ghostly entities. Not that the last parts had been a particularly pleasant experience
of course, but it was all part of the package of finally getting to live out his childhood dream.
He couldn’t help grinning to himself every time he flipped the siren switch on the way to the next
emergency call.
“Do you have to do this every time? There’s barely even any traffic on the road,” Trevor said,
gripping the dashboard.
“We’re scientists, kid,” Gary replied, whipping the Ectomobile around a slow-moving laundry truck.
“And science waits for no man.”
But the best part of all of this – his most favourite part – was that he got to do it with the people he
loved. He stole a glance at Callie in the rear-view mirror, giving her a quick wink.
She smirked back. “Eyes on the road, hon.”
He dropped his gaze back to the lane ahead just in time to yank the wheel hard enough to avoid a furious DoorDash cyclist. The Ecto-1 screeched past with barely an inch to spare. Phoebe could hear the biker yelling a few new expletives to add to her vocabulary.
“Whoops, sorry - That was - Sorry…” Was all Gary could offer in a way of apology.
Trevor gripped the dashboard a little tighter.
The calls were coming in thick and fast, and Ghostbusters Inc. was once again thriving. Winston had his work cut out for himself dividing his time between the Spenglers, his finance corporation, his family, his various charity foundations, and now his new pet project. He walked the halls of the former aquarium with a buzzing excitement, his hands impatiently playing with the new keycard in his pocket.
He tapped the card on an access terminal at a set of inconspicuous steel doors and they swung open to reveal the new paranormal research center behind them. Dozens of cables ran in all directions between various bits of kit and equipment, some stacked high on tabletops, some scattered around the floor. A lone engineer had positioned himself at a bench in the center of it all.
“Lars. How we doing?” Winston asked, stepping over some thick hoses.
The wiry young man looked up from his workbench, nudging a pair of thick glasses back up his nose.
“Good,” the parabiologist said, sounding quite surprised. “Very good, in fact. Most of the equipment’s been delivered and hooked up now, and the recruitment department’s screening interviewees for the last few vacancies.”
“Glad to hear it,” Winston said, smiling. Lars returned a blank look. The former ghostbuster was used to dealing with the stoic faces of scientific prodigies by now.
“It’ll be a while before we can test the enclosures,” Lars added, “I’m still having trouble narrowing the confinement frequencies on the proton fields.”
“Keep at it,” Winston replied encouragingly, heading for the long stretch of empty fish tanks that would soon house their ghostly test subjects. “You’ll find a way.” He didn’t know Lars yet quite like he knew Egon, but he could still recognise that same spark of genius within the young man. He was confident Lars and his team would have this place up, running, and studying spooks in no time.
“There’s one thing I wanted to mention,” Lars said. “Our estimates may have been slightly low on how much power the new containment grid will need.” He pointed towards a wall of half-constructed containment units, similar to the one in the firehouse basement. Exposed cables and pipework ran all along the ceiling above and into the wall from all angles.
Winston regarded him with a raised eyebrow.
“How much more power?”
“Well,” The young scientist mused, crossing his arms, “Somewhere in the region of… three to four megawatts more?”
Winston didn’t know much about engineering, but he knew that sounded expensive. He let out a rather large sigh.
“I’ll add it to the list,” he said, rubbing his forehead. This was becoming less fun on each and every visit.
*****
Gary slammed himself shoulder-first through the stiff delivery doors of the old factory.
“Ow! Sonuva…” He cradled his arm gently. “They never mention this part in the movies.”
“Chin up, Rambo; We’re on the clock here.” Callie moved up beside him, neutrona wand at the ready.
The old steelworks factory was vast, multiple storeys high, with numerous gantries criss-crossing overhead at various levels that cast strange shadows down across the shopfloor. Gary looked up in despair at the size of the place.
“Aw, we’ll never catch up to him now. How come these guys never decide to haunt, y’know… An ice cream parlor? Karaoke bar?”
“Well, your singing sure doesn’t draw in any living listeners…” Callie said with a little too much conviction. Gary tried to laugh it off, with little success.
“Phebes, you getting anything?”
Phoebe entered from the same set of doors, waving the PKE meter in all directions. They had been at this for almost an hour now, having covered most of this industrial park close behind their target, of which they’d had only several fleeting glimpses.
She could feel the gaze of the ghost upon them, watching them from close by. She put the PKE away and unhooked her wand from her belt. She ventured further into the large room, squinting deep into a shadowy corner of the building.
“There,” She said, raising her particle thrower and blasting away a section of pipework next to the ghost.
It turned toward her, roaring, and rearing up on its floating haunches. It was sickly yellow in color, with a small, baby-like body and a huge head, with great ghostly jaws of sharp teeth and multiple thrashing tongues. It did not look happy to be shot at.
“Phoebe!” Gary shouted as the specter charged the young teenager. Phoebe, unfazed, slowly lined up another shot while the beast barrelled down on her.
She was about to fire when Callie tackled her to the floor, the slobbering jaws snapping mere inches from them both as the ghost continued forward, passing right through the wall behind them in a splash of yellow ectoplasm. Gary let out a short sigh of relief.
“I had it!” Phoebe yelled, wriggling out from under her mother’s body, “Now we’ll lose it again!”
“We almost lost you!” Callie shouted furiously, in utter disbelief at how seemingly little her daughter regarded her own life. “You could have been killed. Or do you want to end up in one of these traps too?”
Phoebe was livid.
“People pay us to catch ghosts.”
“They don’t pay you,” Callie fired back. Phoebe rolled her eyes.
”Don’t roll those eyes at me, young lady. I’m serious - You’ve been playing too fast and loose on these last few calls.”
“I know what I’m doing. I’m not a kid anymore - ”
“Oh, you’re not? Then why am I still doing your laundry? When was the last time you filled up the Ecto’s gas tank?”
Gary approached slowly. Experience told him this could get very ugly very quickly.
“I’m the best ghostbuster in this family!” Phoebe shouted, “You need to let me do my job.”
“Hey, we all trap our fair share of spooks. We’re a team, not your backup singers.” Said Callie.
“Then why do you act like this is such a chore and not our family business?”
“Guys!” Trevor shouted from a walkway high above, oblivious to the tension, “I saw it go this way; Up another level.” He disappeared out of sight.
Callie and Phoebe locked stares again. Gary looked between them both, eventually letting out a soft sigh.
“I’ll go. You guys stay here and… Hash this thing out.”
“We’re coming with you.” Phoebe said to him.
“No.” Callie instructed firmly. “Gary, go.”
He nodded and started to slip away. He knew better than to get too involved in the shouting matches between these two, no matter how much he wanted to. Besides, he never felt he knew the right thing to say in those moments anyway. He jogged off into the shadows to find a staircase.
Mother and daughter continued to stare at each other in silence.
*****
“Wartzki?” Ray called out as he ducked under the low entryway from the steps into the Museum of Occult Antiquities. “Got something you might find interesting. A new donation to the esoteric collection… From mine to yours.”
Wartzki looked up at him from behind the front desk with a sullen expression. His eyes followed the item in Ray’s hands as he placed it gently down onto the desk. It was a strange shape wrapped in several layers of tissue paper.
“Is it a full bottle of schnapps?” He asked flatly.
“Better,” Ray said excitedly, “Ever seen a chupacabra skull?”
Wartzki smiled weakly up at his friend. Ray’s expression dropped.
“Something wrong?”
“I appreciate the donation, but it’s not going to fill the latest gap in my collection.” He huffed, hopping off the tall stool. Ray looked at him quizzically as the smaller doctor led him towards the back room. Then he noticed the damage to the door handle.
The inside of the room looked as it had done on Ray’s previous visits. It was cluttered, sure, but he couldn’t see anything amiss until Wartzki stopped at the far end, next to an empty frame on the wall.
“The blade of Majus?”
“The weeping blade of Majus-Ka.” Wartzki corrected him. He almost couldn’t bear to look at the vacant exhibit. “Came into the museum after work yesterday afternoon and found that door busted open and the blade gone.” He let out a heavy sigh.
“Damn,” Was all Ray could say. He knew everything in here held value to Wartzki. And very few others. “Someone wanted this thing pretty bad. Do you know who might’ve done something like this?”
“Of course I do. Not many people come by looking for an artifact like that one.” He sighed again, “But, as is the luck of yours truly, the CCTV crapped out during the guy’s little reconnoiter.”
“How’s your portrait skills?”
“Lousy. I already had a police artist come by after I made the report and leave a copy of this.” He said, unfolding a piece of paper from his pocket. He handed it to Ray who fished his glasses out from his coat pocket.
The face was not one Ray would be pleased to meet. The thin, gaunt look of the strange man was almost malnourished, his sunken eyes sat over sharp cheekbones and a long chin.
“Handsome fella,” Ray lied. “Any leads?”
“Nada. The guy doesn’t exist in any occult communities I’m part of… And I’m part of a lot of those. No-one knows him. One thing’s for sure though; He knew more about the lore of that blade than anyone else in the world.”
Those last words stuck with Ray. He kept them at the forefront of his mind while he looked the odd face up and down again.
***** To Be Continued *****
Statistics: Posted by gentrificationzolaz — August 19th, 2024, 8:05 am