Ghostbusters II

by Ed Naha

  Venkman fell over onto a sofa. "This pace is too much," he said, moaning. "I'm just going to take a little nap. Wake me on Wednesday."

  "Today's Monday," Winston said with a sigh.

  "I know that," Venkman replied, his eyes fluttering.

  Stantz walked over to the horizontal forms of Win­ ston and Venkman, beaming proudly. "Before you guys pass out, come over here. Spengler and I have something really amazing to show you."

  "It's not that thing you do with your nostrils, is it?" Venkman said.

  Stantz scurried off to the refrigerator. He opened up the freezer and, pushing aside an avalanche of TV dinners and frozen pizza, pulled out a specimen of slime housed in a Tupperware container.

  Stantz trotted over to a barely conscious Venkman. "We've been studying the stuff that we took from the subway tunnel."

  He ran over to the fire station's microwave oven and popped the container inside. He allowed it to thaw for a moment.

  "What are you going to do, eat it?" Venkman groused.

  "No," Stantz said. "I'm just restoring it to its normal state."

  Winston and Venkman slowly sat up in their chairs. Stantz took the specimen out of the microwave and moved over to a table. He carefully poured a few drops of the ooze into a large petri dish.

  Stantz winked at Venkman and Winston. "Now watch this."

  He leaned over the dish of slime and began to shout at it. "You worthless piece of slime!" he bellowed in mock anger.

  Venkman watched in awe as the slime in the dish began to twitch and glow.

  Stantz took another deep breath and screamed, "You ignorant, disgusting blob!"

  The small specimen of ooze began to bubble and swell. Every time Stantz yelled at it, the mess changed its color and slowly began to grow in size.

  "I've seen some real crud in my life," Stantz contin­ ued screaming, "but you're a chemical disgrace!"

  The specimen suddenly doubled its size and started to spill over the rim of the petri dish. Egon Spengler

  smiled thinly in a corner of the room. Stantz turned to him. "Okay, Egon, I think that's enough for the day. Let's calm it down."

  Spengler picked up an acoustic guitar, slung it over his shoulder, and padded softly up to the petri dish. He nodded at Stantz. Stantz nodded in return. Spengler strummed an opening chord, and then the two Ghost-busters began to serenade the slime.

  "Kumbaya, my Lord," they warbled. "Kumbaya."

  Venkman and Winston watched the impromptu hootenanny wide-eyed.

  As Spengler and Stantz continued to play and sing, the slime stopped bubbling. Slowly but noticeably, the ooze began to calm down and actually shrink.

  Stantz and Spengler ended their tune with a flour­ ish. Stantz turned to Venkman. Venkman screwed up his face into the fleshy equivalent of a question mark.

  "This is what you do with your spare time?"

  Stantz excitedly pointed to the ooze. "This is an incredible breakthrough, Venkman. Don't you see? We have here a psycho-reactive substance! Whatever that stuff is, it clearly responds to human emotional states!"

  Spengler nodded. "And we've found it at every event site we've been to lately."

  Venkman leapt to his feet. "Mood slime. Now there is a major Christmas-gift item."

  Stantz motioned for Venkman to be seated. "No way. That would be like giving someone a live hand grenade. This stuff is dangerous. I'm telling you, Pete, based on what we've already seen, we could be facing a major paranormal upheaval."

  Winston stared at the slime. ""You mean, this stuff actually feeds on bad vibes?"

  "Like a goat on garbage," Stantz said.

  "I love it when you talk science terms," Venkman said, sacking out on the couch.

  17

  A baleful moon peeked through the star­ lit skylight above the restoration studio in the near- deserted museum as Dana Barrett cleaned off the last of her brushes and began to put away her supplies. She was bone-tired. It had been a busy day. On the plus side, she had managed to clean a small Renaissance painting. That wasn't bad for a day's work.

  Across the studio, the mighty head of Vigo of Carpathia shimmered to life. His eyes lit up as he watched Dana walk past his oil-colored feet.

  Dana stopped in her tracks. Someone was watching her. She felt it. Yet there was no one else in the studio. She glanced up curiously at the titanic portrait of Vigo. A chill crept through her. She was just being silly, she concluded, and continued to walk toward the exit.

  Vigo's thick neck pulsed to life, allowing his head to follow her toward the door.

  Dana spun around and caught the movement of the one-dimensional piece of art.

  Tensing, she edged back toward the exit door and scrambled through it, slamming it securely behind her.

  She nearly ran out of the museum. It would be good to be home with little Oscar, safe and secure in her apartment.

  Within two hours Dana had chalked up the entire incident to her nerves. She had been on edge since the baby buggy had gotten away from her. Long hours. Seeing Venkman again. The last two weeks had been a whirlpool of conflicting feelings.

  She cradled a cooing Oscar in her arms and carried him into the bathroom. She lowered her child into his bassinet, and wrapping her bathrobe around her night­ gown, she bent over the old claw-foot bathtub and turned on the tap.

  "Bath time," she called over her shoulder to Oscar.

  The water gushed out of the faucet and into the tub. Dana carefully stuck her wrist under the stream of water, checking its temperature. She then turned to Oscar and, bending over the bassinet, began to undress her child.

  "Look at you." She smiled adoringly. "I think we got more food on your shirt than we got in your mouth."

  The baby clapped appreciatively at his mother's wit.

  Behind Dana, the water gushing from the faucet slowly changed into shining, shimmering slime. The slime hit the gathered water in the tub with a resound­ ing plop and settled itself at the very bottom of the tub. Both of the spigots on the tub began to spin wildly as more and more slime burrowed beneath the surface of the water.

  Dana, unaware of the change in the tub's attitude,

  routinely reached over to a shelf and squirted a stream of bubble bath into the water.

  She returned her attention to Oscar. The rim of the tub puckered up like a clamshell and its sides convulsed as the newly animated piece of porcelain sucked up the bubble bath.

  Belch.

  Dana proudly picked up her beautiful baby boy out of his bassinet and held him above the tub.

  "Bathies," she cooed.

  She lowered Oscar toward the waiting tub. Without warning the tub began to shimmy and shake before her, its sides rising up like a gigantic, snapping clamshell, poised to snap up the boy and drag it down to the awaiting layer of glop.

  Dana screamed and raised her baby.

  The bathtub snapped at her.

  Dana clutched Oscar to her chest and slowly backed away from the convulsing tub. Creak. Creak. Creak. The tub's stumpy legs slowly began to creep across the tile floor toward Dana.

  Dana turned and ran out of the bathroom.

  The tub made an attempt to dash after her but , found the doorway too narrow a passageway to clear.

  The tub growled in anger, vomiting up buckets of creeping, crawling slime.

  Dana dashed through her apartment. She grabbed her keys and headed for the front door. She had to find a safe place to hide. A place no spirit would dare invade.

  Peter Venkman lay sprawled upon the floor of his apartment, sound asleep. He was still fully clothed and had not quite made it into his bedroom, nodding out some three feet away from its entranceway.

  Venkman's loft apartment resembled the site of a

  recent spate of tornadoes. Tattered, mismatched pieces of furniture were covered with old magazines, books, newspapers, videotapes, and a few very ripe pieces of half-eaten pizza.

  Venkman's eyes fluttered as his front doorbell chimed.

  He slowly g
ot to his feet, and trying carefully not to step on any debris that would either break under his weight or stick to his shoes, he zigzagged sleepily to the door.

  He eased the door open.

  Outside stood Dana, wearing her short nightgown under an overcoat. Baby Oscar was in her arms, naked but for a baby blanket hastily wrapped around him.

  "I'm s-sorry," Dana stammered. "Were you on your way out?"

  Venkman looked down and saw that he still had on his coat, scarf, and hat. "No. I just got in ... a couple of hours ago. Come on in."

  Dana entered the messy apartment. Venkman gazed at her nightgown. "Are we having a pajama party?"

  "Peter," Dana blurted, "my bathtub tried to eat Oscar!"

  Venkman stared at Dana. So young. So beautiful. Possibly so nuts. He thought a moment. "You know, if anyone else told me that, I'd have serious doubts. But coming from you, I can't honestly say I'm surprised."

  "I must be losing my mind," Dana said, near tears. "At the museum today I could have sworn that terrible painting of Vigo moved and looked right at me!"

  "Who could blame him?" Venkman shrugged. "Were you wearing this nightgown?"

  "I don't know what to do anymore," she said with a moan.

  "I'll get Ray and Egon to check out the bathtub. You better stay here."

  Venkman trotted off to his bedroom. Dana glanced around the loft. She was amazed at the disorder. It looked like Hiroshima after the A-bomb blast. Venkman jogged back into the room, carrying an old football sweatshirt. He gently lifted Oscar from Dana's arms. The baby's blanket fell away.

  "Now this kid has a serious nudity problem," he surmised.

  He spread the sweatshirt out on the sofa, placed Oscar on it, and began tying it around the child like a diaper.

  "This is Joe Namath's old number, you know," he informed the baby. "You could get a lot of chicks with this. Just don't pee in it."

  Dana stood, trembling. "Peter, what about the bath­ tub?"

  "We'll take care of that," he said, reaching for a phone and dialing. "Ray? Pete. Listen. Get over to Dana's right away. Her bathtub pulled a fast one. Tried to eat her kid."

  "It was full of this awful pink ooze," Dana offered.

  Venkman nodded, still cradling the phone. "Sounds like another slime job, Ray. No, they're both all right. They're here now. Right. Let me know."

  Venkman hung up the phone. "They're going over there right now. You might as well make yourself at home. Let me show you around."

  He carefully walked into the kitchen area. "This is the cuisine de maison," he announced.

  The kitchen looked worse than the living room. The sink boasted a mountain range of dirty dishes, and the counters were stacked with all sorts of rotted food and crunched TV-dinner boxes. Venkman smiled suavely

  and pulled a colossal trash bag from a drawer. He tossed it onto the floor and started stiff-arming trash off the counter into it.

  He glanced at the junk-coated dishes in the sink. "Umm. We may have to wash some of these if you get hungry."

  He stumbled toward the refrigerator and eased open the door. A horrible stench emerged. He slammed the door shut. "But... there's no real food, anyway, so forget about it. I have all kinds of carryout menus if you feel like ordering."

  He yanked open a cabinet drawer. Inside were at least a hundred dog-eared menus. There was everything from Chinese and Mexican cuisine to a flyer from Mr. Nut's International House of Peanut Butter and Jelly.

  He strode across the loft to a door. "And the bathroom's right here," he said with a flourish. "Uh, let me just tidy up a few things."

  Dana smiled. "Peter, this is very nice, but you don't have to do any of this, you know."

  Venkman grinned gallantly and, slinging another trash bag over his shoulder, dashed inside. A toilet flushed. The shower ran. The sound of glass, tin, and wood could be heard tumbling into the trash bag.

  Within a minute Venkman emerged, carrying a full trash bag over his shoulder. "The shower works but it's a little tricky," he advised. "Both spigots are marked 'hot.' It takes a little practice, but at least this one won't try to eat you."

  Dana began to ease herself onto Venkman's ratty sofa. Venkman walked by her, the trash slung over his shoulder. "Be careful on that sofa, though. It's a butt biter."

  Dana nearly leapt to her feet.

  "But the bed's good." Venkman smiled. "And I just

  changed the sheets, so if you get tired, feel free. In fact, I think you should definitely plan on spending the night here."

  Dana offered him a crooked grin. "Really? And how would we handle the sleeping arrangements?"

  Venkman dropped the second trash bag in the kitchen and pondered the problem. "Hmm. For me, it's best if I sleep on my side and you spoon up right behind me with your arms around me. If we go the other way, I'm afraid your hair will be getting in my face all night."

  Dana stared at Venkman. "How about you on the sofa and me in bed with the baby?"

  Venkman nodded. "Or we could do that."

  "Thank you," Dana said, picking up Oscar. She cradled the baby in her arms. "Poor baby. I think I should put him down now."

  Venkman walked up to them both. "I'll put him down for you."

  He stared at the child. "You are way too short! And your belly button sticks out! And you're nothing but a burden to your poor mother!"

  He picked up the giggling baby and carried Oscar into the bedroom.

  Dana watched Venkman play daddy, and smiled.

  For the first time in ages she felt relaxed.

  And safe.

  Very, very safe.

  She savored the feeling, sensing that it wouldn't last for very long.

  18

  Peter Venkman paced back and forth in front of the Manhattan Museum of Art, watching the building's first horde of art lovers make their way up the front stairs toward the entrance.

  He checked his watch.

  The EctolA screeched to a halt in front of the curb. Stantz, Spengler, and Winston scrambled out, Winston muttering under his breath about crosstown traffic.

  Venkman, clearly concerned, cornered Stantz. "Did you find anything at Dana's apartment?"

  Stantz shrugged. "Nothing. Just some mood-slime residue in and around the baditub."

  "But we did pay an interesting visit to Ray's book­store this morning," Winston said, grinning.

  Venkman rolled his eyes. There was nothing inter­ esting in Ray's bookstore if you didn't count the cock­ roaches.

  Stantz smiled and whipped a small, dog-eared vol­ ume out of EctolA. "We turned up some intriguing stuff on this Vigo character you mentioned."

  He held up the book. It was nearly falling apart. "I found the name Vigo the Carpathian in Leon Zundin­ger's Magicians, Martyrs, and Madmen. Listen to this! Egon?"

  Spengler held up a photocopy or two taken from the crumbling book. " 'Vigo the Carpathian, born 1505, died 1610—'"

  Venkman blinked. "A hundred and five years old? He really hung on, didn't he?"

  Stantz smiled knowingly. "And he didn't die of old age, either. He was poisoned, stabbed, shot, hung, stretched, disemboweled, and drawn and quartered."

  "I guess he wasn't too popular at the end there," Winston theorized.

  "No," Spengler agreed. "He wasn't exactly a man of the people."

  He began reading again. " Also known as Vigo the Cruel, Vigo the Torturer, Vigo the Despised, and Vigo the Unholy.'"

  "This guy was a bad monkey," Stantz explained. "He dabbled in all the black arts. And listen to this prophecy: Just before his head died, his last words were: 'Death is but a door, time is but a window. I'll be back!'"

  Venkman wasn't impressed. "That's it? That's all he said? 'I'll be back'?"

  Spengler shrugged. "Uh, it's a rough translation from the Moldavian."

  Venkman sighed. "Okay. Let's visit Viggy."

  The Ghostbusters picked up their paranormal mon­ itoring equipment and walked up the front steps toward the museum.

  Dressed in f
ull gear, they marched through the lobby. Rudy, the security guard, stared at them in dis­belief. Venkman was in the lead.

  "Hey, Dr. Venkman," Rudy asked with a smile, "what's going on?"

  "We're just going back to the restoration studio for a minute," Venkman replied.

  Rudy frowned. "Oh, I can't let you do that. Mr. Poha left strict orders. He told me not to let you back there anymore."

  Venkman stiffened. His eyebrows knitted together. He glared at Rudy in ultra mock seriousness. "Okay," he said confidentially. "We were trying to keep this quiet, but I think you can be trusted. Tell him, Ray."

  Stantz walked up to Rudy and in a clipped tone announced, "Mister, you have an ecto-paritic, subfusion­ary flux in this building."

  Rudy was aghast, although he wasn't quite sure why. "We got a flux?"

  Winston strode forward. "Man, you got a flux and a half."

  Rudy looked to Venkman. Venkman glanced at Stantz. Rudy shifted his gaze to Stantz. Stantz nodded grimly, raising his left hand. He began counting fingers. "Now, if you don't want to be the—one two three four—fifth person ever to die in meta-shock from a planar rift, I suggest you get down from behind that desk and don't move until we give you the signal, 'Stabilized—all clear.' "

  Rudy nodded and swallowed hard. He slowly slith­ ered out of his chair and crouched down behind his desk, and the Ghostbusters marched back toward the restoration studio.

  Inside the studio, Janosz was patiently working on the horrible portrait of Vigo the Lowlife when the Ghostbusters barged through the door. Janosz hastily tossed down his paints and brushes and rushed over to the door in an attempt to bar their entry.

  "Dr. Venkman?" he blurted. "Uhh, Dana is not here."

  Venkman flashed him a cool smile. "I know."

  Janosz was sweating now. "Then why have you come?"

  Venkman pushed the agitated artist aside. "We've got a major creep alert, and we're just going down the list. Your name was first."

  Janosz stood, quivering in terror. Stantz turned to Winston and Spengler. "Let's sweep the area, boys."