by Ed Naha
Spengler caught Stantz's eye. "And the slime," he intoned, "is all flowing right to this spot."
"What are we going to do?" Winston asked.
"We have to get Venkman involved," Stantz stated. "And now!"
They began to trot at a hectic pace through Central Park and toward the Upper West Side.
Twenty minutes later, at Armand's Restaurant, the maitre d' felt his heart skip a beat. He was too young for a heart attack, he assured himself.
Three sweating men in long johns skidded to a halt before him. He tried to act suave. "May I help you?"
Stantz glanced into the dining room and spotted Venkman. "No," he told the maitre d'. "It's all right. I see him."
The three Ghostbusters, ignoring their attire, jogged past the startled maitre d' and into the restaurant.
Venkman was in the midst of pouring another toast of champagne for the now decidedly tipsy Dana when he noticed Ray, Egon, and Winston jogging forward. He shook his head from side to side. He never realized that champagne could pack that powerful a wallop.
"You should have been there, Venkman," Stantz shouted, reaching the table. "Absolutely incredible!"
Venkman snapped to. "Yeah, sorry I missed it."
He gazed at his friends in their skivvies. "I guess you guys don't know about the dress code here. It's really kind of a coat-and-tie place."
Stantz didn't hear him. "It's all over the city, Pete ... well, actually, it'a all under the city."
Dana stared at the trio, her jaw agape.
"There's rivers of the stuff down there!" Winston yelled.
"And it's all flowing toward the museum," Spengler noted.
Spengler made a sudden move, pointing in the direction of the museum. A big glob of slime, still affixed
to his hand, flew across the restaurant It smacked a well-dressed diner directly on the schnozz.
"Sorry!" Spengler called out.
Dana came to. "Maybe we should discuss this some where else?"
Venkman noted the look of embarrassment on Da na's face and got up from the table. He pulled his colleagues to the side of the restaurant and whispered, "Boys, listen. You're scaring the straight crowd here. Let's save this until tomorrow, okay?"
Spengler furrowed his bushy eyebrows. "This won't wait until tomorrow, Venkman. It's hot and it's ready to pop."
Venkman glanced over Spengler's shoulder. The maitre d' was leading two New York cops toward the Ghostbusters. Venkman rolled his eyes. One hell of a date.
"Arrest these men!" the maitre d' commanded.
One of the cops recognized Spengler, Stantz, Win ston, and Venkman. "Hey! It's the Ghostbusters/"
He gazed at the three men in their underwear. "Umm, but you're out of uniform, gentlemen."
Stantz, for the first time, gazed down at what he was wearing. What a disgrace! "Uh, well, we had a little accident and we ... but forget that! We have to see the mayor as quickly as possible!"
The first cop withered under Stantz's determined stare. "Oh, gee, Doc. They got a big official dinner going on up there at Gracie Mansion. Maybe you should go home, get a good night's sleep, and then give the mayor a call in the morning. Whaddaya say?"
Spengler glared at the two policemen, using his "more concerned" look. "Look, we're not drunk and we're not crazy. We were almost killed tonight. This is a matter of vital importance!"
The two cops exchanged puzzled glances. Venkman heaved a colossal sigh. So much for romantic evenings. He marched toward the law officers, the very portrait of perfect authority. "Maybe I can straighten this out, Officers."
The two cops sighed. "Peter Venkman!" the second cop cried. "World of the Psychic) That's one of my two favorite shows!"
Venkman nodded. "Please! Don't tell me the other one. Just do me a favor? Get on the phone, call the mayor. Tell him the city's in danger and that if he won't see us right now, we're going to The New York Times."
The first cop gasped. "What's up?"
Venkman leaned forward and collared the cop. Glancing to his left and to his right, he whispered confidentially into the policeman's ear. "Bad caviar. Tons of it. Iranian terrorists. One in every five eggs is poi soned, and we know which ones. We've got to get there before they serve the canapes."
The policeman shot Venkman a skeptical look.
Venkman didn't back down.
"Just call the mayor!"
"There is no great genius
without a mixture of
madness."
— ARISTOTLE
"My mind is a total void "
— WINSTON ZEDDEMORE
23
Carl Schurz Park, on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, glistened under a sparkling winter sky. The twinkling of the stars was rivaled by the flashing, blinking lights of a police cruiser as it made its way through the park on the East River at Eighty-eighth Street, the EctolA in close pursuit.
The two vehicles screamed into an underground parking garage leading to the mayor of New York's residence, Gracie Mansion.
The two cars sputtered to a stop in the parking area. Peter Venkman, still feeling like Douglas Fairbanks, emerged, well dressed if overly cologned, from the vehicle. His three long-johnned companions, now wear ing police raincoats, were ushered into the house by a startled butler.
They were led up several flights of twisting stairs and down a hallway to a massive set of double oak doors. The butler knocked lightly and then opened the door.
Inside the antique-littered den, in front of a roaring fireplace, sat the mayor of New York. Well coiffed, well dressed, Jack Hardemeyer stood at his side, a Doberman in GQ mode. Both men were wearing tuxedos, although Hardemeyer's was clearly more expensive than the mayor's.
The Ghostbusters strode into the room.
The mayor was clearly fighting back an outburst of sudden, albeit sincere, anger. He wasn't happy about being dragged out of a formal reception. He was even less happy about seeing the smirking face of Peter Venkman again.
His doctor had warned him about his blood pres sure.
Right now he felt about as stable as a Pop-Tart in a microwave.
"All right," the mayor hissed. "Ghosssstbusters. I'll tell you right now... I've got two hundred of the heaviest campaign contributors in the city out there eating bad roast chicken just waiting for me to give the speech of my life. You've got two minutes. You'd better make it good "
Stantz clumped forward. "Mr. Mayor, there is a psychomagnetheric slime flow of immense proportions building up under this city!"
The mayor gaped at Stantz. "Psycho what?"
Spengler waddled toward the mayor. "We believe that negative human emotions are materializing in the form of a viscous, semiliquid living psycho-reactive plasm with explosive supranormal potential."
The mayor heaved a heavy sigh. "Doesn't anyone speak English anymore?"
Winston braced himself and walked up to the mayor. "Yeah, man. What we're trying to tell you is that all the bad feelings, all the hate and anger and violence of this city, are turning into this strange sludge. I didn't
believe it at first, either, but we just took a bath in it and we ended up almost killing each other."
Hardemeyer clenched his carefully shaved jaw and leapt forward. "This is insane," he intoned in a voice used only by Ivy League grads.
He turned to the mayor. "Do we really have to listen to this?"
Venkman marched into the fray. "Hey, hairball, butt out!" he said.
He stood before the mayor. "Look, Lenny, you have to admit there's no shortage of bad vibes in this town. There must be at least a couple of million miserable assholes in the tristate area."
He pointed to Hardemeyer. "And here's a good example."
Stantz joined in. "You get enough negative energy flowing in a dense environment like Manhattan and it starts to build up. If we don't do something fast, this whole place will blow up like a frog on a hot plate!"
Winston nodded. "Tell him about the toaster."
Venkman s
hrugged. "I don't think Lenny is ready for the toaster."
The mayor shook his head from side to side. "Being miserable and treating other people like dirt is every New Yorker's God-given right. I'm sorry, none of this makes any sense to me. If anything does happen, we've got plenty of paid professionals to deal with it. Your two minutes are up. Good night, gentlemen."
The mayor leapt out of his chair and rushed out of his den. The Ghostbusters stared at Hardemeyer. Hardemeyer ran a comb through his neatly groomed hair, offering the quartet a well-rehearsed smirk. "That's quite a story."
Venkman retorted, "Yeah, I think The New York Times would be interested, don't you? I know, sure as
heck, that the New York Post would have a lot of fun with it."
Hardemeyer's eyes flipped to their "cold and cal culating" stare. "Before you go running to the newspa pers with your story, would you consider telling this slime epic to some people doumtown?"
Venkman smiled. "Now you're talking."
Hardemeyer allowed the Ghostbusters to leave Gracie Mansion. He picked up the phone, grinning.
"I hope you geeks like straitjackets," he said with a sneer.
God, politics was a great life.
24
Parkview Hospital was a great place if you happened to be one card short of a full deck. Most patients either talked to themselves, took orders from extraterrestrial beings, or were sure that they were the second coming of the deity of their choice.
Since Venkman, Stantz, Spengler, and Winston didn't claim any of those things, they weren't too ex cited about being locked up in a padded cell. The four stood handcuffed in the rubber room, their cuffs firmly attached to the thick leather belts strapped tightly around their waists.
The psychiatrist in the room, a squinty-eyed man who looked like he ate flies for a living, tried to pry the truth out of Stantz, Spengler, and Winston. Venkman, having posed as a shrink once or twice in the past, knew what they were up against. He passed his time by slamming his forehead into one of the padded walls.
Stantz tried to be truthful with the psychiatrist. "We think the spirit of Vigo the Carpathian is alive in a painting at the Manhattan Museum of Art."
"I see." The psychiatrist nodded. "And are there any other paintings in the museum with bad spirits in them?"
Spengler was losing his patience with the squinty- eyed mole man. "You're wasting valuable time!" he declared. "We have reason to believe that Vigo is drawing strength from a psychomagnetheric slime flow that's been collecting under the city!"
The shrink smiled. "Yes, tell me about the slime."
"It's potent stuff," Winston said. "We made a toaster dance with it, then a bathtub tried to eat Peter's friend's baby!"
Winston pointed at Venkman. The shrink glanced in Venkman's direction. Peter stopped pounding his head for a moment. "Don't look at me. I think they're nuts."
The psychiatrist got up and left the cell in silence.
The four Ghostbusters stood forlornly in their cell. They had blown it and blown it in a big way. There was nothing, no one, who could save them, now.
As dawn approached, Dana Barrett tossed in her sleep at Venkman's place. Louis and Janine had remained at the apartment, not wanting to leave Dana alone and unguarded. She had spent half the night worrying about Venkman and the boys. Within the last five hours it seemed as if they had disappeared off the face of the earth.
It would be morning soon. It wasn't like Venkman not to call, especially when the stakes were so high.
Huddled in front of the TV, Louis and Janine watched a rerun of Family Feud.
Dana's work area in the museum stood deserted. Across the restoration studio, an impatient Janosz Poha stood before the mighty painting of Vigo. Vigo's eyes shimmered, and the portrait gradually came to life.
As usual, the first thing the thundering voice of Vigo did was to recite the litany of his power. Janosz sighed. He'd heard this all before, many times. Frankly it was beginning to appeal to him as much as a broken record.
"I, Vigo, the scourge of Carpathia, the sorrow of Moldavia, command you. ..."
Janosz nodded. Yeah, yeah, yeah. "Command me, Lord."
"On a mountain of skulls in a castle of pain, I sat upon a throne of blood ..."
Janosz rolled his eyes. "The skulls again." "Twenty thousand corpses swung from my walls and parapets, and the rivers ran with tears."
The wiry artist nodded. "... the parapets. Yes, I know."
"By the power of the Book of Gombots, what was will be, what is will be no more. Then, now and always, the kingdom of the damned."
Janosz checked his wristwatch. "I await the word of Vigo," he muttered.
Vigo's glowing mouth began to twitch. "I have watched the centuries wither before me and waited for the time when the tide of men's sins would swell to bring me forth again. Now is that time and here the place. Beneath this realm there flows a foaming, unholy pile born from the evil in men."
Janosz's attention perked up. This was new. "Upon this unholy matter," Vigo continued, "will I float the vessel of my freedom. The season of evil begins with the birth of the New Year. Bring me the child that I might live again."
Janosz found himself transfixed with awe. "Lord Vigo, this woman, Dana, is fine and strong. I was won dering—well, would it be possible?—could I have her?"
Vigo emitted a thunderous laugh. "So be it!" the spirit vowed. "On this day of darkness she will be ours! Wife to you. Mother to me!"
Vigo's laughter echoed through the restoration stu dio. It grew stronger and stronger, more and more Olympian.
So strong, in fact, that it reached forward into the heavens and split the sky.
Janosz looked up through the room's skylight as a strange and terrifying sight unfolded over New York.
Darkness caressed the city as the sun above it was sent, magically, into an eclipse.
At the Parkview psychiatric ward dayroom, Peter Venkman sat among a small gaggle of patients who had trouble breathing and blinking at the same time. He carefully worked at his occupational therapy, weaving on a hand loom.
Suddenly the room was plunged into darkness. Venkman wasn't pleased. "Hit the light there, Winston. I'm trying to finish my pot holder before lunch."
Winston didn't respond. He, Spengler, and Stantz stood in the center of the room, gazing through the mesh-covered windows into the newly darkened sky.
Stantz's mouth dropped open. "Total, spontaneous solar eclipse!" He gasped.
He faced his two companions. "This is it, boys. It's starting. Shit storm two thousand."
The three men faced each other, not knowing whether to feel relieved or terrified. On the down side, it was the end of the world as they knew it.
On the plus side, they'd be a lot safer in Parkview right now than anyplace on the streets of Manhattan.
25
W mile meteorologists, astronomers, and city officials tried to explain to a startled public exactly why New York had been embraced by the shadows caused by a total eclipse, the effect of Vigo's power began to make itself felt.
At a Hudson River pier, a leaky drainpipe suddenly began dripping shimmering, pulsating slime into the river near the Cunard Line docks.
Shortly thereafter, at the refurbished Central Park Zoo, the polar bears, lounging in their outdoor cage, lazily allowed a zookeeper to hose down their moun tainous terrain. The zookeeper put down the hose and started to sweep around the top of their cage. Unbeknownst to him, the water the hose was gushing grew thicker and stranger, sparkling and undulating. Slime. Lots of it.
By the time the zookeeper finished sweeping the upper reaches of the outside enclosure, he was vaguely aware that something was wrong. He turned to pick up his hose. There was no water running out of it.
It was bone-dry.
He heard a screech coming from nearby.
He spun around and jumped back in surprise.
A full-sized pterodactyl screamed at him and then launched itself up into the dark, cloud-la
den sky.
The zookeeper made a beeline for the exit door.
The polar bears exchanged startled glances. New York sure wasn't like the Arctic!
At Fifty-ninth and Fifth, the massive fountain lo cated across from the swank Plaza Hotel suddenly began to change color. Instead of water zooming up out of its spout, torrents of psycho-reactive slime emerged, splashing, cascading, and oozing all over the surround ing sidewalk.
At the Plaza Hotel, a well-heeled man and woman emerged from a limousine. As they walked up the front steps leading to the hotel, a wad of slime landed on the woman's luxurious full-length mink coat.
As the doorman eased the front door open with a bow, the woman yelped in pain.
"Something bit me!" she said, glaring at the startled doorman.
The doorman looked curiously at her. He yelled in terror and leapt backward as the woman's slimed coat quivered to life. Small, ferocious mink heads popped out of the thick fur, snarling, barking, and yapping. Their sharp little teeth nipped at the air.
Reacting quickly, the doorman yanked the coat off the woman's back and threw it onto the sidewalk. He tried to stomp the coat to death, but the beady-eyed varmints in the coat were too quick for him.
As the doorman, the woman, and her husband looked on, flummoxed, the mink coat, its hydra-head of critters snapping and snarling, skittered off, trotting down Fifth Avenue with a vengeance.
The woman glared at her husband. "I told you we should have stayed in Palm Beach," she said, her face ashen.
At the Midtown North Police Precinct, a squad room filled with busy detectives noticed a change in the flood of calls they were receiving.
Initially they were trying to explain just what a total eclipse was and wasn't.
For the past hour, however, the calls had gotten a tad more, er, squirrelly.
"Look, lady," said one cop into the phone. "Of course there are dead people there. It's a cemetery.....hat?.. They were asking you for directions?"
"Was this a big dinosaur or a little dinosaur?" an other cop asked. "Oh, just a skeleton, huh? Heading toward Central Park?"