Ghostbusters

by Richard Mueller

Have the courage to face a difficulty lest it kick you harder than you bargained for.

  —Stanislaus I of Poland

  Harlan Bojay and Robert Learned Coombs sat atop a stone wall in the park and watched the mayhem swirling about the front of the old apartment building. The NYPD barricades were keeping people out of the street, but they had lined up ten deep behind the sawhorses and, like typical New Yorkers, were beginning to divide up into religious factions, ethnic groups, and political-interest units. A chanting crowd of Hare Krishnas danced by, whirling and banging drums, followed by a contingent of punkers looking for trouble, until a mounted policeman trotted between them. The punks dispersed and melted into the crowd. Satisfied, the policeman galloped off to chase out of the street a covy of priests who were beginning an exorcism.

  “What do you think, lad?”

  Coombs shrugged. “Something to do with all this ghost business, I guess. Ooo-whee, look at that!”

  A ring of lightning bolts enveloped the tower, shaking the old building to the bedrock. Chunks of stone and concrete rained down, bouncing on the pavement and scattering the cops and firemen. One boulder went through the top of the squad car, smashing the light bar on the roof and setting the siren going, which warbled eerily until a trooper darted out to switch it off. The crowd applauded his bravery but showed no further inclination to cross the barricades themselves.

  “Rough night,” Coombs grunted.

  “ ‘Twas such a night as this that Macbeth met three witches on the moors,” Bojay intoned solemnly. Coombs shook his head in admiration.

  “For a guy who was gonna be a jockey, you sure have a lot of culture.”

  “Yes,” Bojay cried, “and let that be a lesson to you!”

  A minyan of Hassidic rabbis went by, bobbing and chanting prayers. “It is a wondrous fact,” Bojay proclaimed, “how a little bit of disaster seems to bring out the godliness in man.”

  “And the ambulances.”

  A hush fell over the crowd as attention shifted to follow this new attraction, a convoy of emergency vehicles, their lights rotating, as they drew slowly up to the building. “It’s the Ghostbusters,” someone cried, and others took up the cheer. It was obvious that the trouble had something to do with the ghosts that were rampaging over the city. The Ghostbusters were here. That was enough for the cheering multitude. The danger forgotten, they poured over the barricades and surrounded the Ectomobile.

  “What do you think of that?” Venkman asked with a grin.

  “I think they think we know what we’re doing.” Stantz said uneasily. “Do we?”

  “Of course we do.”

  Stantz was taken aback by his partner’s sudden confidence. “Really? What do we do then?”

  “We do what we’ve always done,” Venkman replied. “We play it by ear.”

  Oh boy, Stantz thought. Insight. The crowd began to press in closely, tapping on the windows and waving. Janine, who was jammed into the back with Spengler and Zeddemore, started to panic.

  “They’ll turn us over. Do something.”

  “Okay,” Venkman replied, pushing the door open and stepping out. He raised his hands and smiled broadly.

  The multitude stopped, caught its breath, and waited. Venkman felt his smile beginning to slip. I can con a crowd, he realized, but this bunch is almost a mob, and a mob is nothing but trouble.

  Spengler leaned through the window and tugged on his sleeve. “Say something,” he hissed.

  “What?”

  “Anything!”

  Venkman fumbled the PA microphone from its hook and switched on the loudspeaker. “Hello.”

  “HELLO!” the crowd roared.

  “How are you all?” he asked. The reply was unintelligible but friendly.

  “Get them out of here,” Stantz whispered.

  “Hey, we’re the Ghostbusters—” Venkman started, but the mob went wild. The priests began praying, the rabbis started to wail, and a group of breakdancers broke into a pop-and-shuffle routine. From somewhere a gospel choir began to sing. It was like Lindbergh at Orly.

  “This is nuts,” Venkman called to Stantz. “Let’s suit up.” He tried once again.

  “People, the street is dangerous! Please move back.” A priest threw holy water on him and the choir slid into “Sing Low, Sweet Chariot.” The storm continued to rage around the building’s upperworks.

  “We’ll never get rid of these clowns,” Stantz cried, helping Venkman on with his pack. How wrong he was.

  A seismic shock wave tore through the street, tossing several of the dancers on their butts. An earthquake? In New York City? The crowd hesitated, then stampeded for the park as the street began to open up, jets of steam and water breaking through the pavement. More chunks of building roof rained down into the mob.

  “Hey, an earthquake,” Zeddemore cried. “What could happen next?”

  The Ectomobile bounced on its tires, Janine hanging on grimly, then screaming as she saw the pavement gape wide in a huge crevasse. A squad car tilted forward and slid into the pit as the continuing force of the shocks caused the earth to liquify.

  “Ray, I . . .”

  “. . . never been in . . .”

  “. . . earthquake before . . .”

  “Whoa!”

  And they were gone. There was nothing but the tail end of the squad car, pointing skyward like the Titanic’s last moment, and a cloud of settling dust. Janine detached herself from the Ectomobile and tiptoed forward to peer into the opening.

  “Egon? Guys?”

  Hesitantly, a hand groped above the asphalt rim, and, one by one, the four men appeared, dragging themselves up and out of the sinkhole. Venkman looked back at the police car, its rear wheels still turning.

  “I’ve heard of underground parking but that’s ridiculous.”

  “Peter, hurry, before the crowd comes back.”

  Venkman made his way to the back of the old Cadillac, where the team was picking up the rest of their gear. “Everybody okay?”

  They nodded.

  “Are we all together on this?”

  He thrust his hands forward. The others did the same and they locked up like a basketball team. The men looked at one another. It was now or never.

  “Let’s do it!”

  At that very moment, high above them, two other beings were in motion. Vinz Clortho and Zuul—in the bodies of Louis Tully and Dana Barrett—had accomplished the joining. All of the sacred conjunctions had arrived, the energy was focused, the preparations for the Traveler’s return were complete. It only remained for the two guardians to return to their posts and await Gozer’s entrance.

  They walked slowly, formally, through the remains of Dana Barrett’s apartment and into the stairwell leading to the roof, while all about them the lightning writhed, growing in intensity.

  The power to the elevators was out, and by the time they reached Dana’s floor, the four men were gasping and spitting. Venkman leaned against a wall to catch his breath, trying to keep his mind off the series of lurid and grisly possibilities of what they might find when they reached the roof. “I’m glad we took the stairs,” he wheezed. “Good workout . . . makes me feel so much better.”

  “Ahhck,” Egon Spengler replied, trying to get his head between his knees.

  “Just wish I hadn’t gotten Dana involved in this.”

  Stantz shook his head. “You didn’t, remember? She came to us.”

  “Oh, yeah, right.”

  “So where’s she live?” Zeddemore asked.

  “This way. C’mon, Egon. You can throw up later.”

  Venkman stood before the door to Dana’s apartment. It looked okay. What the heck? He rang the bell.

  “Dana?”

  “Maybe we should go downstairs and call first,” Zeddemore suggested.

  “Funny. Go on, Peter. Knock.”

  But when he did, the door came apart under his hand, pieces and fragments showering down at his feet, the wood suddenly old, rotten, and crumbling. “Hmm,” Venkman mutt
ered.

  The apartment looked as if it had been cleaned out with a fragmentation bomb. The walls were gone, providing a spectacular view of Jersey and the Hudson River through the darting lightning, and wind swirled the decayed remains of Dana Barrett’s furnishings about the floor. There was a smell of rot, and the telltale tracks of ectoplasm everywhere. Egon, now recovered, picked up the leg of a chair and twisted it gently. It shattered like badly made papier mâché.

  “Ray. Instantaneous life-force drain. Like in the Potsdam Case of 1912 . . .”

  “Egon,” Venkman said quietly. “Don’t quote me cases. Not now.”

  Zeddemore was looking cautiously about. “Well, she’s not home. Let’s go.”

  “No. The kitchen. It’ll be in there.”

  The others followed Venkman to the doorway, where he stood, gaping. The refrigerator was gone, totally blown away. Probably straight into an alternate universe, Venkman thought, junk food and all. The wall behind it had burned out, to reveal a long-concealed stone stairway, leading up to the roof. A secret stairway. This apartment must have been Shandor’s before he died. Later, when the building was remodeled, they must have walled it over as being either useless or dangerous. But now it stood open, a formidable curving ascent, lit only by the rapid flashes of the lightning outside.

  “That’s it?” Ray Stantz whispered.

  “That’s it.” Venkman slapped his shoulder. “Go!”

  “Me?”

  The others nodded. Stantz shrugged, switched on his accelerator, and charged up the stairs.

  It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the light, but Ray Stantz was amazed at what he saw. I expected something like this from reading the blueprints, he thought, but to think that he actually built it.

  The central feature of the site was a huge stairway of carved stone steps, leading up to the temple on the east. East. Sumeria. And the weight. Those steps must weigh tons, which explained the incredible construction procedures, the reinforced steel beams sunk deep into the bedrock. They had to hold this temple above the skyline, and take up the shock of Gozer’s return. Ivo Shandor was truly a mad genius.

  The immense temple doors, cast in some iridescent metal—probably selenium—were at least twenty feet in height. Gozer must be one big mother, Stantz thought. But the temple itself could hardly be more than a facade. It was almost at the front of the building. Go through those doors and you’d drop right onto Central Park West. Or would you? He peered closely at the lightning playing around the doors, at the strange quality of depth it seemed to lend them, as if it were an optical illusion. As if the doors extended on . . . Of course! They did, into another dimension, another time perhaps. Where did I think Gozer was coming from, Connecticut? Those doors are an interdimensional gate, Stantz realized, and suddenly he was deeply frightened. These accelerators may be tough but they’re not that tough. Are we actually going to go up against a god?

  “Dana!”

  Stantz turned. The others were clustered behind him, holding on to Peter Venkman, who was trying to break free. Dana Barrett and Louis Tully were standing atop twin stone pedestals, their bodies twisting violently in the wind, their arms thrown back.

  “Dana.”

  “No, Peter,” Egon cried. “Don’t do it.”

  He was right. Twin streams of living energy, like the beams of their accelerators but infinitely stronger, leapt out from the temple doors, striking the two tiny figures, enveloping them in a wash of light. For a brief instant Stantz swore that he could see their bones glowing beneath the skin, and then they bent forward, down on all fours, and were transformed into two hideous doglike things. Guardians. Egon was breathing hoarsely. Zeddemore whistled softly under his breath. Stantz and Venkman looked at each other. Venkman shrugged.

  “So, she’s a dog . . .”

  Peter Venkman, either you are the coolest character I’ve ever met, or you are around-the-bend crazy, Stantz thought. He turned back to look at the temple.

  “Guys . . .”

  The doors had begun to swing back, emitting a blinding white light. The two terror-dogs jumped down and scampered up the stairs to new positions flanking the doors. Each raised a paw in salute. This is it, Stantz thought. He could hear Zeddemore mumbling a prayer. Good idea, but the only one I can remember is the one that goes “If I should die before I wake.”

  “Look, the light,” Egon said, shielding his eyes with his hand. Yes. The light was not coming from the temple. It was a being, a single glowing figure like the filament of a bulb, moving slowly down the stairs, the brilliance fading as it distanced itself from the doors. And behind it, Ray Stantz had the satisfaction of seeing, was a strange interior, a geometric cage of glowing lines stretching away into another place entirely. I was right.

  The figure stopped beside one of the hideous guardians and stroked it negligently, as if it were some sort of nightmarish house pet. The dog-thing flapped out a foot-long tongue and panted happily, as the last of the supernatural illumination drained away from its master.

  “It’s a girl!” Zeddemore blurted out.

  “What’s going on, Ray?”

  “No, it’s Gozer,” Spengler said. “He’s playing with us. He can take any form.”

  “Only one way to find out.”

  Stantz took a few steps forward, the induction rifle held loosely across his chest, and planted both feet firmly. Like a Revolutionary War minuteman, Venkman decided.

  The creature turned curiously, regarding Stantz as something it had never seen before, though without any apparent hostility. It had the form of a thin, very strange young girl, apparently swathed in a clinging mist from the ankle to the neck. The hair swept up and back, not precisely cut short, but seeming to disappear, as if it linked the being to its home dimension; and its eyes were of the deepest blood red, and liquid, like two beating hearts swimming in their own juices. Happy Halloween, Venkman thought. Do your stuff, Ray.

  Stantz cleared his throat. “As a duly-constituted representative of the City of New York, and on behalf of the County and State of New York, the United States of America, the planet Earth and all its inhabitants, I hereby order you to cease and desist any and all supernatural activity and return at once to your place of origin or next parallel dimension.”

  “Nice going, Ray,” Venkman called.

  Gozer looked curiously at Stantz.

  “Are you a god?” it asked.

  “Uh . . . no.”

  “Then die!”

  Bolts of energy shot from Gozer’s outstretched arms, catching the men and throwing them backward toward the precipice. Venkman felt himself rolling end over end. I’m falling, he thought. No, he realized as he came to a stop against a stone plinth, his legs hanging free in the air. Somehow these proton packs absorbed the shock, like going over Niagara Falls in a rubber barrel. He shook his head and checked the charge indicators. They were almost on Overload. If the Goze pulls that again, we could get fried by our own equipment. Zeddemore was pulling Stantz to his feet.

  “Ray, if someone asks you if you’re a god, you say yes!”

  Gozer stood quietly on the same spot, watching them, a mocking smile on its lips. Venkman had had the course. His patience was gone. You terrorize my city, ruin my business, turn my girl into a dog, and try to fricassee my buddies. Enough is enough.

  He scrambled to his feet, snapped in the induction rifle, and took aim. “This chick is toast!” he cried, and fired, but when the beam crossed the spot where Gozer had stood, the god was not there.

  “Wow!” Stantz muttered, watching Gozer leap through the air, execute a double flip with a half-twist round-off at the end, and land on both feet behind them on the parapet. It favored them with a mocking laugh.

  “Agile little minx, isn’t she?”

  “Forget trapping,” Stantz cried. “Just blast it.”

  All four of them opened up at once. Gozer seemed to calmly absorb the streams and then, with a brilliant pink flash, disappeared, leaving only a burnt smell in the air. Zed
demore gaped at the spot, looked around suspiciously, then let out his breath.

  “We did it. Thank God!”

  But Spengler was not so sure. It just seemed like it had been too easy. He pulled out his PKE meter and began tracking up and down the stairs, as Stantz bounded jubilantly up to the site and pointed at the smoke still rising from the stone. “We neutronized it. The guy’s a molecular nonentity.”

  Suddenly the lights on Spengler’s detector came on, popped, and the little meter burned itself out. “Not necessarily,” he said dryly.

  All of the violence up until that point had merely been a prelude for the storm that now erupted around them. The skies opened and rained fire, the winds rose, the earth shook, and the Ghostbusters crawled into the smallest nooks and crannies they could find to escape the hail of masonry and debris coming down around them. Sirens seemed to be going off all over town. Venkman wondered how the mayor was taking it. Probably signing our execution orders right now. Or calling in an airstrike on this building.

  “I thought you said we got him, Ray,” he bellowed.

  “So, I was premature.”

  A huge stone gargoyle slammed down alongside Spengler, seemed to glare reproachfully at him, and then teetered over the edge. Egon checked his meters. They were all dead, overloaded. He heard Zeddemore scream.

  “Winston, you okay?”

  “I am not okay. The world is ending and I am not ready to go.”

  “Just hang on.”

  The rumbling lessened, then stopped so suddenly that Venkman was certain that he’d gone deaf. He crawled out of his hole and looked around. The roof was a shambles; only the stairs, the temple, and the terror-dogs seemed to be undamaged. “Hey, everybody okay?”

  There were a few mumbles of assent as they regrouped. “Is it over?” Stantz asked.

  The sky roiled, cracked, and opened up, revealing a brilliant spot of light.

  “I don’t think so,” Venkman muttered.

  “SUBCREATURES! GOZER THE GOZERIAN, GOZER THE DESTRUCTOR, VOLGUUS ZILDROHAR, THE TRAVELER, HAS COME. CHOOSE AND PERISH!”

  “Is he talking to us?”

  “You see anyone else here?” Winston asked “What’s he talking about? Choose what?”