by Nancy Holder
“Whoever made that device knows their high energy-density physics. That thing is superionized,” Erin said to Abby.
Abby nodded. “And it is not benign.”
“It looks like it’s looking for dinner,” Patty said. She had recovered her wind, but still seemed rattled by the exploding mannequin experience.
The song ended with a raucous crash and wild applause. The lead guitarist strutted up to the front of the stage and pointed at the ghost with his guitar. He seemed completely unafraid of it, which baffled Erin, until she realized that he, like the crowd of metalheads, assumed it was a just an elaborate special effect. She wanted to warn him, but it was already too late for that.
“Behold the power of the undead!” Adam bellowed, his voice raspy hoarse and full of heavy-metal melodrama. “We have summoned Satan himself!”
The ghost turned in midair and looked down at the singer.
The singer threw back his head, puffed out his chest, and spread his arms wide, basking in the glory of the musical history moment. “For we are the kings of darkn—Oh shit!”
Like a glowing green fighter plane, the ghost dive-bombed straight for him. The singer froze, mouth agape, arms still spread, and the ghost crashed into him, hurtling the singer and his flying V guitar backward. He cartwheeled over the drummer and the drummer’s double bass drum kit, and smashed into a double stack of speakers.
The crowd went berserk, clapping and hooting.
“Ow, ow, ow!” Adam screamed, hitting a new personal best high note, clutching at his backside and writhing in pain. “I think I broke my tailbone!”
The audience thought it was all part of the act and cheered the spectacular pratfall. His band mates, not sure what had just happened, not knowing what else to do—and wanting to keep the precious applause coming—kept pounding out a wall of seething noise.
Some of the audience members were filming the hovering ghost with their selfie sticks. The creature then resumed its predatory circling over the crowd. There was no telling what it would do next, or to whom. They had to stop it. Now.
Erin rallied the troops. “Let’s do this. Everybody ready?”
“Hell yeah,” Abby and Holtzmann said together.
“Um…” Patty began.
They all looked at her.
“… sure.”
They ran out on stage in front of the still-rocking band and aimed their proton wands at the airborne ghost. More or less at the same instant they all fired their beams. They lit up the theater, but the ghost dodged the incoming protons. A near miss, and their beams kept on keeping on, slamming into the elaborately sculpted ceiling and its curlicue embellishments. Plaster exploded from the rococo assembled mermaids, cherubs, and stylized ferns. Paint-gilded bits rained down on the audience, who cheered ecstatically.
The ghost did a barrel roll, reversed course, and dived right at the Ghostbusters. Erin didn’t move, Abby and Holtzmann stood their ground; Patty looked really pissed off. They fired again as it flew by, but again it evaded the blasts and their beams hit the side of the theater, taking out a pair of bow-front balconies, blowing out more plasterwork, and drawing black lines of scorch across the walls.
That drove the metal fans even crazier. As they cheered, they pumped their fists in the air and gave the Ghostbusters the sign of the horns salute.
Jonathan appeared from the wings behind Erin. His jaw dropped. He said, “This is Art Deco, people!”
“It’s gonna take a lot of firepower to pull that thing down,” Holtzmann said.
“Circumvallate!” Erin ordered. “We need to surround it!”
“Patty,” Abby said, “let’s each take an aisle. Holtz, set the trap and let’s reel that thing in.”
Erin and Holtzmann got into firing positions next to each other on the front edge of the stage. Abby and Patty ran down the short flights of stairs at opposite corners of the proscenium—but the aisles and the orchestra pit were absolutely packed with pogoing fans celebrating the walkaway winner of the battle of the bands—the Beasts of Mayhem. Try as they might, Patty and Abby couldn’t find a place to wade in.
Waving her proton wand like a nightstick, Patty shouted at the gyrating mass of shoulder-to-shoulder people, “Get out of the way! We need to get down to those aisles!”
Erin looked up at the ghost. Its expression was hardening into what she had come to think of as “Gertie-face.” Hideous fangs, murder in its eyes. As she watched, its body language turned darker and even more menacing, and Erin knew it was getting ready to attack the crowd and do some real damage. Abby must have seen it, too.
“Guess what, people,” she yelled at the grinning metalheads. “You are now part of this operation. Patty, let’s hit it!”
Throwing her arms out in front of her and caution to the wind, Abby dove into the audience. The nearest fans caught her and lifted her up over their heads. Immediately she was bodysurfing her way across the top of them.
“Left!” Abby shouted. “Move me to the left! Now back. Keep going! Excellent!”
Patty watched Abby swim over the crowd and into position. She sucked in a deep breath and seemed to steel herself as she looked at the wall-to-wall fans in front of her.
“All right, you freaks,” she bellowed. “Time to catch a ghost. Let’s do this!”
With that, Patty duplicated Abby’s move, and with arms outstretched, dove into the audience. But instead of catching her, everyone moved out of the way and she hit the floor. Hard.
Erin’s eyes grew huge. There was a very good reason why—
“I don’t know if that was a race thing or a woman thing, but I am pissed,” Patty shouted. But nobody moved; they just stared at her in disbelief and horror.
Patty got up and glared at them.
Erin opened her mouth to explain why everyone was gaping at her. Patty was in the middle of dusting herself off, hand brushing the chest of her uniform, when she froze. Erin immediately knew she had spotted two otherworldly claws resting on her shoulders.
The ghost was crouching on top of Patty.
“Okay, just stay still,” Abby told her.
Erin swallowed. “Patty, I, uh—”
“No need to say anything,” Patty told them.
Erin tried to interject. “You—”
“No, I don’t want to hear what you’re about to say,” she said.
Holtzmann tried next. “But—”
“I’m pretty tired. I’m actually just gonna take off. Go back to work at the MTA—”
Erin shook her head. “I really don’t think that’s a good—”
“Nope. I’m out,” Patty said.
As she turned and started to walk up the aisle, the crowd parted for her and stared. A fan raised her cell phone for a quick selfie with her, the demonic-looking ghost, and its ride. Patty forced a smile for the camera.
“Patty, stay still!” Erin pleaded.
Abby moved into position with her proton wand. “All right, ladies. Let’s light it up. Fire! Just don’t hit Patty.”
“What?” Patty cried.
As they fired, the ghost leapt off Patty’s shoulders and into the air. Patty grabbed her proton wand and joined in. The beams missed the ghost. The specter dodged and wobbled high overhead, but there were four beams coming at it from different angles and it couldn’t escape them all. Erin locked on to it first; that slowed it down enough for Abby and Holtzmann to join in. Then Patty had hold of it, too. The ghost went wild as it struggled to escape, and its strength was incredible.
Erin thanked her lucky stars it hadn’t attacked Patty when it had the chance. They could barely hold on to it. And they had to fight to keep their footing and their leverage; as it thrashed from one side to another, it was almost lifting their heels off the ground. Erin’s ears were still ringing so badly she hadn’t noticed the band had stopped playing. It surprised her to see the bass player and drummer standing right next to her. They looked on in amazement, finally having realized that this wasn’t a put-on. This was real.
As they continued to grapple, beams rippling, bending, Holtzmann said, “Oh, I forgot to mention. Don’t let your beam get entangled with my beam.”
“What? Why?” Erin demanded. Her beam had already grazed Holtzmann’s any number of times.
“It’s too much power,” Holtzmann said. “It would cause a counterreaction. The beam will shoot back into your body and each atom will implode.”
“What? I’m going to kill you, do you know that?” Erin shouted.
But Holtzmann’s attention was diverted elsewhere. She said, “Okay, I’m gonna open the trap on three. Everyone else hold steady!”
Holtzmann reached out her foot and stomped on the trap’s trigger pedal. It popped open into two halves. Then she kicked it toward the edge of the stage. It slid across the floor. As it stopped, the inside of the trap lit up and emitted a tractor beam that resembled the burst of light from the proton wands, only it angled outward at a much wider angle. The ghost was captured, immobilized with an output of maximum effort on all their parts, and Erin had a stomach-churning moment of déjà vu as she relived the relentless fury of both the Aldridge ghost and the electrocution ghost in the subway.
“Okay! Bring it down!” Holtzmann yelled.
Stepping backward, they used their arms and legs to force the ghost to descend toward the stage. It fought harder when it looked down and saw the open trap and the steady tractor beam blasting from it. The four of them could barely hold on to it, and continued to struggle to keep their footing. It was like cattle roping on roller skates. Erin guessed its superionized state was definitely contributing to the battle it put up.
“Turn off your streams as soon as I close the trap,” Holtzmann said. “Ready? Okay. Off!”
Holtzmann stomped on the foot trigger. The ghost was sucked right in and the trap slammed shut. The Ghostbusters turned off their proton packs. Steam rose from the ghost trap. It smelled strongly of ionization. Erin stared at the trap, entirely spent, as Holtzmann darted over, then slowly lifted the smoking box by its cord, almost as if it were a dead animal—a possum or a skunk. Erin and the others waited with bated breath for her to say something. Holtzmann just looked at them.
“Are you waiting for me to say something?” she asked.
“Did we catch a ghost or not?” Erin cried.
Holtzmann grinned at her. “Oh, we caught a ghost.”
“Yes! Oh hell, yes!” Erin whooped.
Abby jumped onstage and joined them. “We did it!”
Erin and Abby threw their arms around each other and hugged as the metalheads went wild and the band started playing again: thrashthrashthrashthrash. Erin and Abby whirled in a crazy-ass victory dance as free and joyous as their science fair neutron dance. Erin was happier than she had ever been in her life. She couldn’t even believe what it felt like. They had captured a real ghost! The haunted had become the haunter.
Take that, Mrs. Barnard!
She danced to the front of the stage and, bobbing her head to the thunderous beat, played her proton wand like an air guitar. Abby joined her and they pretended to rip a double guitar solo.
Protect the barrier! Protect the barrier!
Then Holtzmann ran over and grabbed one of the guitars out of its player’s hands and smashed it like the legendary Pete Townshend, leader of The Who. Wham! Crash! The guitarist stared open-mouthed at her.
Catching her breath, she said, “Sorry, I got caught up in the moment. Can’t buy you another one.”
Feeling the love, Erin stopped wailing on her proton wand, ran over and picked up the steaming ghost trap by its cord, and planted a big wet kiss on its side. When she turned back to Abby, her bestie’s face was suddenly pale.
“Erin, that’s radioactive,” Abby shouted at her.
She carefully set the trap back down, feeling suddenly faint. Oh my god, that was stupid. And it tasted like burned toast.
Holtzmann stepped forward and said, “It’s okay. You’ll just take some potassium iodide for the next ten years. It’s fine.”
* * *
In the wings, Ozzy Osbourne, AKA “the Prince of Darkness,” stood watching the ruckus, waiting to take the stage next. He was freaking out. “Sharon,” he wailed, “I think I’m having a flashback!”
* * *
Like victorious gladiators, the Ghostbusters strode out of the theater, holding the smoking ghost trap aloft by its cord. Their new uniforms were ripped and dirty. A crowd had already gathered on the sidewalk; people were cheering and taking more videos of them. The word had spread during the battle as cell phone footage from inside the hall was uploaded to the Internet. Erin basked in the attention and adoration, waving at the spectators.
A NY-Local 1 News van rolled up and double-parked in front of the theater. A reporter and her videographer bailed out the side doors and started shoving their way through the mob. Erin had no doubt the station would air a retraction of what they’d said about the Ghostbusters. This complete validation might open doors that had been slammed in her face. And she had a fleeting thought that maybe Dean Filmore would regret firing her.
“Hey, Ghostbusters,” the reporters called out to them, her microphone held high overhead, “Look this way!”
“Ghostbusters!” a photographer shouted. “Who are you wearing?”
We caught a ghost, she thought over and over as they posed, mugging, vamping it up, and she beamed a smile as wide as the Brooklyn Bridge.
17
As soon as they returned to Ghostbusters headquarters and unloaded their gear, they set the ghost-filled trap on a lazy Susan they found in a cupboard, gave it a spin, and got the party started. Abby hit the stereo and music blasted through the dining room.
Erin and Patty immediately got their groove on and started dancing.
They’d not only saved the day, they’d made their fortune. Their meal ticket sat smoking between the soy sauce and the chili paste. Being the first to catch a ghost was as Kuhnian paradigm shifting as being the first to meet space aliens. Erin could see the Ghostbusters on every talk show in the world, the front pages of every newspaper, and the cover of Time magazine. Not to mention the supermarket tabloids: “Holtzmann Spends Thirty-Five Mill on Cold Fusion Smart House”; “Abby’s Secret Recipe for Ghost Shrimp”; and “Erin and Brad: Say It Isn’t So.”
Validated and vindicated, Erin dropped into a wide, squatting wushu stance, then she and Patty added a bit of whip to their nae nae.
Erin beckoned their receptionist, who had yet to join in. “C’mon, Kevin!” she cried. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”
He shook his head no. Which surprised her. She couldn’t imagine that he was shy. He was a model and an actor, right? And a semiprofessional hide-and-seek player? He sought the limelight. He loved the limelight. He was all about the limelight.
“Give us something,” Patty insisted.
Kevin stared at them stone-faced, as if he had no intention of doing anything of the sort. Then just as Erin had given up on him, he rose out of his chair and busted a move that was all his own. He was incredible, and Erin and Patty cheered. They all danced over to where Abby and Holtzmann sat at their worktable. They had the device they had found at the theater disassembled in front of them, and they looked intense.
“Guys, cheer up,” Erin encouraged them. “It’s time to celebrate. This is what ‘legit’ feels like.”
Swept up in the joy of the moment, she snatched the trap off the table, puckered up, and gave it another energetic kiss. Kevin stopped busting and peeled off at once.
Abby winced. “Okay, you gotta stop kissing the trap.”
“I know,” Erin said. “But it’s like the more you guys say, ‘Don’t kiss the trap,’ the more I want to kiss the trap. Holtzmann, get in on this!”
Holtzmann held up a wait-a-minute finger as she shifted attention from the heap of parts disassembled from the weird sparking thing on the table, to the different heap of parts on her workbench. “Rain check,” she said. “Excitin
g things happening over here. Newly printed circuit boards, superconducting magnets rebuilt, beam accuracy improved and extended by producing a controlled plasma inside a new RF discharge chamber in the redesigned wand, a cryocooler to reduce helium boil-off. And—wait for it—a mothergrabbin’ Faraday cage to attenuate RF noise and provide physical protection to avoid quenches. Can I get a woot woot?”
“Woot woot!” Abby and Erin cried.
Kevin rejoined them. He looked nonplussed. “Ummmm,” he said, hesitating as if he was trying to remember what he came over to say. Then he blurted out, “There’s a Smartin Christ here to see you.”
After a few days of constant exposure, his malapropisms no longer challenged her. Erin adroitly translated the Kevinese: “Smartin Christ—you mean Martin Heiss? The famed scientist? The paranormal debunker? Here? Inside this building?”
There is nothing to be nervous about. We are for real, Erin reminded herself as she and the other Ghostbusters followed Kevin to the reception area.
A very dapper man in a a three-piece suit with a dramatic hat and holding a walking stick was standing with his back to them, scrutinizing papers on the wall filled with scientific notations and crazy-looking squiggles. It was all highly scientific and completely accurate. Surely he would be able to see that.
But he had already told all NY-Local 1 News’s viewers that they were just frauds. He had a lot invested in making sure the public still saw it that way.
What do we care? We aren’t frauds. And the whole world knows it, Erin assured herself.
“Mr. Heiss. Welcome to our laboratory,” she said more calmly than she felt. Suddenly she didn’t want him looking at their equations.