- July 12th, 2008, 11:59 pm#55743
Hey guys! Hey Fritz! I know some of you have read my story on the Extreme Ghostbusters called "Exodus"...you guys asked for updates...well here ya go as promised...here is a snippet from Extreme Ghostbusters: Exodus: Part 2 that I just completed today. I'm still working on the entire story and so far its at 40 pages! I hope its as good as what you guys say it is and hope it stays that way. What do you think?
PS
Thankfully, its been pointed out to me that whenever I post parts of the story into the forum, it gets unformatted. Don't know how this happens or why, but if you would like a correctly formatted and spaced piece, please PM me your email and Ill be happy to send you one. It opens with Microsoft Word/Wordpad. I did attempt to space it out so that its not so rough.
i did post a bit more under the Extreme Ghostbusters Fan Fiction Section but somehow Part 1 was mistakenly put in the Ghostbusters Fan Fiction Section.
******************************
........He swallowed and coughed, then began to speak, his voice ragged and rough.
"....The...ecto-containment...something...blew it. Janine tried to help me...the safety...override switch...," he was trying to sit up again and Kylie was holding him down, and Roland and Garrett bolted over to his side, all trying to get him to relax, ".....switch was stuck. Call the others....they're loose....eternal night...bad dreams...innocent soul..."
Egon's speech slowly slurred into nothing and he passed back out on the bed and the EMT's finally loaded him on the bed inside the truck. Kylie leaped up in the back of the ambulance with Egon. The EMT was about to protest when the senior tech stopped him.
"Let her. Someones gotta come anyway. Can't hurt."
They moved to close the doors but Kylie jammed her foot in the door frame. Looking out in the rain, she pleaded with the others, but her eyes met Eduardo's.
"Please...get the Ecto-1 out of the hole...grab all the gear you can salvage and meet me at the hospital. Without the ECU we only have 24 hours before these traps loose their charge. We've gotta find a way to rebuild it."
"Where are going?" Eddie asked, his voice suddenly worried, which was uncharacteristic of him.
Kylie looked out at him again, a swelling of love surging through her. She just wanted to hold him.
Her voice cracked. " With Egon...and Janine. Hurry!"
The EMTs closed the doors and within seconds, both ambulances were screaming off towards New York City General Hospital, a fully twenty minutes down the road.
Roland stood there with Garrett and Eduardo, now all three of them completely soaked. The silence stretched out forever.
Then, "How are we going to get the Ecto-1 out of that hole?" Garrett asked, his voice quiet, like a calm before the storm.
" A tow truck I guess...I don't have a phone." Roland replied, his face helpless.
"I have an idea about that, leave it to me." Eduardo said and turned and ran off, crossing the cracked asphalt to the barrier of police cars that was blocking the street. Roland watched him run up to Carlos and for a moment, words were exchanged but he couldn't hear what was said from this far away.
A few moments later, Eduardo came back, a smile on his face.
"Got it covered. Carlos is going to call in a truck and get us some space at the police station downtown in the basement to work out of."
Roland felt like he had been hit in the face. Carlos? Eduardo's brother had never exactly been a fan of the Ghostbusters. "Carlos? He's doing that?"
"He owes me. The trolls, remember?"
"I guess. What did Egon mean by 'call the others?' " Roland said, moving back towards the firehouse. They needed to get busy salvaging what gear they could. They were on a timer and that timer was quickly running out.
"You guys get the equipment." Garrett grumbled and began rolling across the street to a payphone that looked undamaged. Roland scowled at him.
"Why? Where are you going?"
"I need to make some phone calls," Garrett said, digging for his wallet and hoping he had change in his uniform pockets.
"We are totally dead." Eduardo sighed, following Roland back into the rubble strewn firehouse.
"Don't even say that, Eduardo, " was all Roland could bring himself to say.
**********************************
***AUTHOR'S NOTE: THIS PART BELOW WAS SUPPOSED TO BE IN ITALICS...HOWEVER, WHENEVER I TRY TO USE ITALICS HERE, IT REFUSES TO ALLOW IT.*******
"..A supernatural creature, a parasite. It appears to young kids, tries to turn them bad. The more the kid falls under the influence of a Grundel, the more he looks like a Grundel, until ..."
The snarling green face, warped and elongated, like a dogs muzzle flattened and spread into a caricature of a grin, a terrible grin that spoke of untold malice and evil, twisting all that is innocent into the unholy. Its eyes pierced him with their yellow green glow and the sharp intelligence behind them was captivating, and he felt that if you looked into them for too long, you would fall in, drown in their shimmering depths and loose yourself.
Suddenly he felt himself shifting, his body dragging, as if against a powerful river current, and he felt the familiar wieght of the proton pack on his back, and a supernatural gale tugging on his uniform, trying to suck him into the hellish gateway that was laid open before him, its maw filled with fire and light, lightning crackling and snapping like serpents and there, in the very center, was an enormous crackling sphere with ungodly forms swirling in the miasma, screaming, shrieking and laughing like lunatics.
He had his throw in his hands, its familiar metal comforting as was the constant low hum from the proton pack. Looking back at his friends, who were huddled behind him, he heard and felt the words come out of his mouth, but he knew he wasn't saying them...that had been years ago.....
"The flow is reaching critical stage! If we don't do it now, the breach will soon be too powerful for us to close it. It'll be the end of everything!!!!"
Retching forward, he felt himself pulled again violently, to another vision of the past, for it could be nothing else. This time...he remembered...the feeling of terror...hopelessness...of loss...as they all four stood
on top of a New York city high rise office complex, throwers out, lights on the guns flashing warnings and sparks spitting from the emitters.
They were thirty seconds from death...it was the only way to stop Jeremy...he had become to powerful.....Jeremy stood before them, his skin a deathly white and his eyes completely burned out, silvery, like mirrors as he played the song of death and above, Surt looked on in glee as the end of days came to pass.....
Now he felt him self torn yet again, his feet leaving the ground, an outside observer to his own memories, feeling the emotional torment of the moments of the worst trauma in his life, watching as Janine nearly sacrificed her life, diving head first into a major ectoplasmic cross rip to stop a powerful demon genie who had taken over the fire house from an old lamp.....hearing her scream as her body was lifted from the ground and flung inside....feeling his heart go with her as he was helpless to stop it...
...Not this...
He felt his head get yanked up, and he tried to close his eyes, to force them shut, but he felt a force tear them open...to make him see it all over again...
"NO! Leave her alone!"
"Egon?!" Janine turned to him..
The haunting fairy like demoness hovering there, glaring at him, with Janine trapped in its spell, her voice small at first and then she exploded and he felt all the times he had ignored her, all the times he had clammed up around her, all the times he had been insensitive, even cold. He felt self hate rise up in his belly like a cold snake, eating at his heart only to swallow its own tail.
"Get away from it, Janine! Quickly!" he pleaded as the apparition hooked a slender arm around Janine's shoulders, her nightgown billowing in the cold wind as the water lapped below the dock.
"THERE! You see?! He's against you! He wants to stop you from being all you can be! He's your enemy," Egon couldn't move, his feet rooted to the wood, knowing that everything the demon said was a lie, ever word uttered from its silk smooth tongue was a violation of everything he felt but was too afraid to let out.
Taking Janine's head in her hands, the demoness forced Janine to look into her eyes, even as Janine, finally realizing her danger, tried to pull away, fighting the words. " No.." she said, tears falling from her eyes as she tried to look away even harder. The demoness tightened her grip and bellowed, her eyes flaring white, " YES!" and Janine's own eyes shot open, only they now glowed with hellfire of their own.
"Yes.." Janine muttered, unable to fight any more, and the demoness turned Janine on him, and pointed, as if sentencing him. " Now, show him!"
He was beyond pleading now, begging, trying to reach her, and he could feel himself loosing the fight.
"Janine! You've got to listen to me I--"
"NO!" Janine screamed, and she turned on him like a panther, stalking towards him, her fingers curled into claws at her side, her face livid, her eyes burning. "Its all your fault! ALL OF IT!" A fierce wind with an arctic chill blew in, nearly knocking him from his feet, as if Janine's hurt and rage were materializing.
He staggered back under the assault as the demoness looked on, smiling, the expression anything but pleasant, like a lion killing its prey.
"I DID IT FOR YOU! I WANTED TO BE PRETTIER SO YOU'D NOTICE ME!!"
Janine rose into the air, her eyes blazing with hurt and pain and anger...lightning flying from her fingertips as she howled to the skies, her gown flowing like purple wings.
"AND YOU NEVER DID!" her voice broke, and she grabbed her head, as if trying to keep her own self from exploding, her face crumpling in anguish.
"JUST LIKE ALL THE REST! HOW MUCH MORE DO YOU WANT?"
Janine began to shape shift, her body and face remaining the same, but her clothes and dress changing furiously, going through time, the ages, through past lives and incarnations of the same thing..rejection...
"IS THIS GOOD ENOUGH FOR YOU?!"
"JANINE!" he felt himself cry, wanting to reach out to her, knowing she would kill him if he tried. He couldn't shoot her...he couldn't.
In front of him, she changed before his eyes again, this time into a southern belle, " HOW ABOUT NOW?" tears flowed down her cheeks, her voice was ragged. "HOW MUCH MORE DO YOU WANT FROM ME??! YOU'RE ALL ALIKE!"
He moved to grab her, to pull her from the demon's grip and she snapped her head forward, her eyes wide, and twin beams of red energy blasted out, pure psychokinetic force, and slammed him to the earth, throwing him backward and then she moved, and she dove for him---
"JANINE NO!"
**AUTHOR'S NOTE: HERE IS WHERE THE NORMAL PROSE RESUMES FROM THE ITALICS*****
Egon Spengler's eyes shot open and he sat up in bed, eyes wide, hair disheveled, sweat beading across his forehead. His arms flew up to shield himself and suddenly he felt someone pressing him back down, and a terrible pain shooting up through his right side, stabbing into his shoulder, making him see spots.
"Egon, no! You can't get up!"
The voice was familiar but he didn't care. He had to save Janine, he couldn't let that creature take her from him...
Suddenly the force pressing against him shoved him hard, and threw him solidly backward onto the pillow and the bed. "Egon, its me! Kylie!"
The dream ended instantly and Egon felt his consciousness returning. He felt drugged, and his vision was hazy, and slowly, it focused until it was almost clear.
It didn't clear up.
Something was wrong with his eyes...was he blinded? He felt panic build up in his chest. Then he realized what was wrong.
"My glasses....Kylie...where are..?"
Kylie was there at his side, her shoulder pads and gear laid on a chair next to the bed, dressed in a black t-shirt and a pair of jeans, her hair tied back out of her face in a crude pony tail. "Here. I went back to the firehouse and grabbed the spare set..." she chuckled a little. It was sound without mirth or joy. It was the sound of a person on the edge of loosing everything..or a victim. "They were in your desk in your lab upstairs...it survived...barely." She took out a pair of his old glasses, and cleaned them and gently placed them on his face.
His vision cleared instantly.
He felt a dull throbbing in the vicinity of his nose and he knew that it must be broken. He looked around him and saw IVs sticking out of his arms and he felt sensors attached to his sides and chest as lead wires ran out from under his hospital shirt and up to a an EKG monitor.
He tried to move his right arm and found that it felt heavy. He tried harder and that same shooting pain came back, bringing water to his eyes.
He remembered now.
The memories of the last few hours came back..or had it been days? The ECU...
Egon looked over at Kylie. His voice was soft and controlled. "Kylie..what happened? What made it blow?"
Kylie took a seat at his side and pulled her chair closer to the bed. Outside, when the first light of day should have been coming through the nearly closed blinds, only an inky darkness remained, an unnatural night. She tried to ignore it.
"We don't know. I was at home...asleep...and..." her voice trailed off, unable to bear her secret with Egon, which hurt twofold, because she felt as if she was betraying her mentor and at the same time, hurting the team and protecting her pride.
"And what? Tell me.." Egon said, his blue eyes watching her, utterly serious.
"..I had a dream...about my Grammaw Rose..she told me to wake up...and that something was coming...that you needed my help.."
She felt her face burn scarlet and she looked away from Spengler, down to the floor. "Kylie..its ok. I know....what you feel like."
Kylie looked up at her boss and was stunned. Egon? Feel? The man kept his emotions so deep inside a miner couldn't find them.
"I used to have dreams myself..." He said, and she could see something there in his eyes, something old, something painful. "Only they weren't nice ones...Don't be ashamed. It isn't your fault. I'm glad it happened. Without you, I wouldn't be here having this conversation."
She felt the shame melt away. " Egon, the firehouse is a wreck. Its completely destroyed...the upper floors survived somewhat...but...the basement and the garage is pulverized."
"I know...all that can be repaired..." Egon said, drawing himself awkwardly into a sitting position, glaring at the IV's in his arm. He HATED hopsitals.
"We have to get the containment unit up and running again...all those ghosts.."
Then a thought struck him like an icicle to the chest.
Janine.
"Kylie, where's Janine?" his voice betrayed his fear and when Kylie hesitated to answer, he felt his panic growing.
"Egon...I don't know how to tell you this..."
"No..." he felt the words leave his lips before he knew what he was saying. His heart sunk to his gut and he felt sick, all his pain meaningless...she couldn't be gone...."She's not...please tell me..."
Kylie took his hand in hers and squeezed it. " No...she's not. But..she's still unconcious. They have her in intensive care on the floor above us. They moved her and you both from the ER about three hours ago. She's completely unresponsive but her vitals are strong...for the moment."
Egon felt a small surge of relief.
She was alive.
There was hope.
"How long have we been here, Kylie?"
"About five and a half hours." She tensed herself for the truth she knew she had to impart and hated herself for it.
"Egon..they said there could be some brain damage if she wakes up.."
"Nonsense. Janine will be fine." Egon said, his tone cutting off any further conversation about the topic. Kylie watched Egon's face work and for a moment, she saw naked fear, and she didn't like it but didn't press the issue farther. She knew about the history between Egon and Janine...and how he must be hurting.
"Egon...we have ghosts in ghost traps...hundreds of them are loose...we have no where to put them if we trap em....and the trap power cores will only last for twenty four hours. We have a limited number of proton canisters for the packs...and I don't know how much equipment survived the blast...."
Egon shook his head. "There is some equipment..I had a shield bunker built in the firehouse....in the basement...far back wall...in case the grid ever blew again...we never wanted another Gozer incident.." he sighed, his arm hurting and his nose throbbing.
Kylie felt her heart soar. Finally, some good news!
"The unit...if I can get out of here...I know where we can get the parts to fix it...I can rebuild it..."
Kylie frowned at him. " Oh no. Your not going anywhere. Not until the doctors say you can leave."
Egon looked at her. "Don't be ridiculous, I'm perfectly fine." he said and tried to get up before promptly collapsing back in the bed. He growled in frustration and his face finally broke and the real problem came to the surface and for the first time in living memory, Egon Spengler let his emotions come out. Every word seemed to be a struggle.
"Kylie...I'm...I'm scared. Janine...nothing like this has ever happened before. I'm a scientist...a doctor...I'm trained to deal with the objective and the solid...but when it comes to her...I get so confused and tied up...I've let her down. She should never have been down there..." he said, his voice nearly a whisper, his eyes looking down into the white blankets covering him.
Not knowing what else to say, she just squeezed his hand again. " I know. We're all worried right now..."
For a moment, neither Ghostbuster said anything.
"Where's Roland? Garrett?" Egon asked.
"At the firehouse trying to scavenge what they can. I haven't heard from them yet."
And then he asked the question Kylie was hoping he wouldn't. " And Eduardo?"
"With them, I guess. He was when we left...in the ambulance I mean."
Kylie knew that Egon was talking to avoid thinking about Janine. She was trying to avoid the subject herself because she didn't want Egon to worry. After all, she told herself. Janine would pull out of this...She had too.
"Go call them. Tell them the safe vault is in the basement, on the far wall...behind what used to be the storage cabinet and work table....the combination is twenty five, thirty six, eight four...and find Slimer....I didn't see him come out of explosion..."
Kylie felt like she'd been slapped in the gut. Slimer! She'd forgotten about the spud all together...
"I'll be right back, Egon, I promise." she said, and got up, crossing the room and opened the door. Before stepping out into the hall, she looked back. Egon had laid his head down on the pillow, his eyes closed, his breathing deep and rhythmic. As much as she was worried about her mentor, right now she had to get the team up and running...and get the ECU back online...and save the city.
In her mind, she wondered as she walked down the tiled hallways and passed the nurses desk, if they would be up to the challenge.
Then she realized, they had no choice.
Outside, the unnatural darkness swirled and people around her were beginning to take notice. Most of them seemed to think it was an early morning storm that had rolled in from the coast...but she knew different.
This was the beginning of the end.
************************************************
PS
Thankfully, its been pointed out to me that whenever I post parts of the story into the forum, it gets unformatted. Don't know how this happens or why, but if you would like a correctly formatted and spaced piece, please PM me your email and Ill be happy to send you one. It opens with Microsoft Word/Wordpad. I did attempt to space it out so that its not so rough.
i did post a bit more under the Extreme Ghostbusters Fan Fiction Section but somehow Part 1 was mistakenly put in the Ghostbusters Fan Fiction Section.
******************************
........He swallowed and coughed, then began to speak, his voice ragged and rough.
"....The...ecto-containment...something...blew it. Janine tried to help me...the safety...override switch...," he was trying to sit up again and Kylie was holding him down, and Roland and Garrett bolted over to his side, all trying to get him to relax, ".....switch was stuck. Call the others....they're loose....eternal night...bad dreams...innocent soul..."
Egon's speech slowly slurred into nothing and he passed back out on the bed and the EMT's finally loaded him on the bed inside the truck. Kylie leaped up in the back of the ambulance with Egon. The EMT was about to protest when the senior tech stopped him.
"Let her. Someones gotta come anyway. Can't hurt."
They moved to close the doors but Kylie jammed her foot in the door frame. Looking out in the rain, she pleaded with the others, but her eyes met Eduardo's.
"Please...get the Ecto-1 out of the hole...grab all the gear you can salvage and meet me at the hospital. Without the ECU we only have 24 hours before these traps loose their charge. We've gotta find a way to rebuild it."
"Where are going?" Eddie asked, his voice suddenly worried, which was uncharacteristic of him.
Kylie looked out at him again, a swelling of love surging through her. She just wanted to hold him.
Her voice cracked. " With Egon...and Janine. Hurry!"
The EMTs closed the doors and within seconds, both ambulances were screaming off towards New York City General Hospital, a fully twenty minutes down the road.
Roland stood there with Garrett and Eduardo, now all three of them completely soaked. The silence stretched out forever.
Then, "How are we going to get the Ecto-1 out of that hole?" Garrett asked, his voice quiet, like a calm before the storm.
" A tow truck I guess...I don't have a phone." Roland replied, his face helpless.
"I have an idea about that, leave it to me." Eduardo said and turned and ran off, crossing the cracked asphalt to the barrier of police cars that was blocking the street. Roland watched him run up to Carlos and for a moment, words were exchanged but he couldn't hear what was said from this far away.
A few moments later, Eduardo came back, a smile on his face.
"Got it covered. Carlos is going to call in a truck and get us some space at the police station downtown in the basement to work out of."
Roland felt like he had been hit in the face. Carlos? Eduardo's brother had never exactly been a fan of the Ghostbusters. "Carlos? He's doing that?"
"He owes me. The trolls, remember?"
"I guess. What did Egon mean by 'call the others?' " Roland said, moving back towards the firehouse. They needed to get busy salvaging what gear they could. They were on a timer and that timer was quickly running out.
"You guys get the equipment." Garrett grumbled and began rolling across the street to a payphone that looked undamaged. Roland scowled at him.
"Why? Where are you going?"
"I need to make some phone calls," Garrett said, digging for his wallet and hoping he had change in his uniform pockets.
"We are totally dead." Eduardo sighed, following Roland back into the rubble strewn firehouse.
"Don't even say that, Eduardo, " was all Roland could bring himself to say.
**********************************
***AUTHOR'S NOTE: THIS PART BELOW WAS SUPPOSED TO BE IN ITALICS...HOWEVER, WHENEVER I TRY TO USE ITALICS HERE, IT REFUSES TO ALLOW IT.*******
"..A supernatural creature, a parasite. It appears to young kids, tries to turn them bad. The more the kid falls under the influence of a Grundel, the more he looks like a Grundel, until ..."
The snarling green face, warped and elongated, like a dogs muzzle flattened and spread into a caricature of a grin, a terrible grin that spoke of untold malice and evil, twisting all that is innocent into the unholy. Its eyes pierced him with their yellow green glow and the sharp intelligence behind them was captivating, and he felt that if you looked into them for too long, you would fall in, drown in their shimmering depths and loose yourself.
Suddenly he felt himself shifting, his body dragging, as if against a powerful river current, and he felt the familiar wieght of the proton pack on his back, and a supernatural gale tugging on his uniform, trying to suck him into the hellish gateway that was laid open before him, its maw filled with fire and light, lightning crackling and snapping like serpents and there, in the very center, was an enormous crackling sphere with ungodly forms swirling in the miasma, screaming, shrieking and laughing like lunatics.
He had his throw in his hands, its familiar metal comforting as was the constant low hum from the proton pack. Looking back at his friends, who were huddled behind him, he heard and felt the words come out of his mouth, but he knew he wasn't saying them...that had been years ago.....
"The flow is reaching critical stage! If we don't do it now, the breach will soon be too powerful for us to close it. It'll be the end of everything!!!!"
Retching forward, he felt himself pulled again violently, to another vision of the past, for it could be nothing else. This time...he remembered...the feeling of terror...hopelessness...of loss...as they all four stood
on top of a New York city high rise office complex, throwers out, lights on the guns flashing warnings and sparks spitting from the emitters.
They were thirty seconds from death...it was the only way to stop Jeremy...he had become to powerful.....Jeremy stood before them, his skin a deathly white and his eyes completely burned out, silvery, like mirrors as he played the song of death and above, Surt looked on in glee as the end of days came to pass.....
Now he felt him self torn yet again, his feet leaving the ground, an outside observer to his own memories, feeling the emotional torment of the moments of the worst trauma in his life, watching as Janine nearly sacrificed her life, diving head first into a major ectoplasmic cross rip to stop a powerful demon genie who had taken over the fire house from an old lamp.....hearing her scream as her body was lifted from the ground and flung inside....feeling his heart go with her as he was helpless to stop it...
...Not this...
He felt his head get yanked up, and he tried to close his eyes, to force them shut, but he felt a force tear them open...to make him see it all over again...
"NO! Leave her alone!"
"Egon?!" Janine turned to him..
The haunting fairy like demoness hovering there, glaring at him, with Janine trapped in its spell, her voice small at first and then she exploded and he felt all the times he had ignored her, all the times he had clammed up around her, all the times he had been insensitive, even cold. He felt self hate rise up in his belly like a cold snake, eating at his heart only to swallow its own tail.
"Get away from it, Janine! Quickly!" he pleaded as the apparition hooked a slender arm around Janine's shoulders, her nightgown billowing in the cold wind as the water lapped below the dock.
"THERE! You see?! He's against you! He wants to stop you from being all you can be! He's your enemy," Egon couldn't move, his feet rooted to the wood, knowing that everything the demon said was a lie, ever word uttered from its silk smooth tongue was a violation of everything he felt but was too afraid to let out.
Taking Janine's head in her hands, the demoness forced Janine to look into her eyes, even as Janine, finally realizing her danger, tried to pull away, fighting the words. " No.." she said, tears falling from her eyes as she tried to look away even harder. The demoness tightened her grip and bellowed, her eyes flaring white, " YES!" and Janine's own eyes shot open, only they now glowed with hellfire of their own.
"Yes.." Janine muttered, unable to fight any more, and the demoness turned Janine on him, and pointed, as if sentencing him. " Now, show him!"
He was beyond pleading now, begging, trying to reach her, and he could feel himself loosing the fight.
"Janine! You've got to listen to me I--"
"NO!" Janine screamed, and she turned on him like a panther, stalking towards him, her fingers curled into claws at her side, her face livid, her eyes burning. "Its all your fault! ALL OF IT!" A fierce wind with an arctic chill blew in, nearly knocking him from his feet, as if Janine's hurt and rage were materializing.
He staggered back under the assault as the demoness looked on, smiling, the expression anything but pleasant, like a lion killing its prey.
"I DID IT FOR YOU! I WANTED TO BE PRETTIER SO YOU'D NOTICE ME!!"
Janine rose into the air, her eyes blazing with hurt and pain and anger...lightning flying from her fingertips as she howled to the skies, her gown flowing like purple wings.
"AND YOU NEVER DID!" her voice broke, and she grabbed her head, as if trying to keep her own self from exploding, her face crumpling in anguish.
"JUST LIKE ALL THE REST! HOW MUCH MORE DO YOU WANT?"
Janine began to shape shift, her body and face remaining the same, but her clothes and dress changing furiously, going through time, the ages, through past lives and incarnations of the same thing..rejection...
"IS THIS GOOD ENOUGH FOR YOU?!"
"JANINE!" he felt himself cry, wanting to reach out to her, knowing she would kill him if he tried. He couldn't shoot her...he couldn't.
In front of him, she changed before his eyes again, this time into a southern belle, " HOW ABOUT NOW?" tears flowed down her cheeks, her voice was ragged. "HOW MUCH MORE DO YOU WANT FROM ME??! YOU'RE ALL ALIKE!"
He moved to grab her, to pull her from the demon's grip and she snapped her head forward, her eyes wide, and twin beams of red energy blasted out, pure psychokinetic force, and slammed him to the earth, throwing him backward and then she moved, and she dove for him---
"JANINE NO!"
**AUTHOR'S NOTE: HERE IS WHERE THE NORMAL PROSE RESUMES FROM THE ITALICS*****
Egon Spengler's eyes shot open and he sat up in bed, eyes wide, hair disheveled, sweat beading across his forehead. His arms flew up to shield himself and suddenly he felt someone pressing him back down, and a terrible pain shooting up through his right side, stabbing into his shoulder, making him see spots.
"Egon, no! You can't get up!"
The voice was familiar but he didn't care. He had to save Janine, he couldn't let that creature take her from him...
Suddenly the force pressing against him shoved him hard, and threw him solidly backward onto the pillow and the bed. "Egon, its me! Kylie!"
The dream ended instantly and Egon felt his consciousness returning. He felt drugged, and his vision was hazy, and slowly, it focused until it was almost clear.
It didn't clear up.
Something was wrong with his eyes...was he blinded? He felt panic build up in his chest. Then he realized what was wrong.
"My glasses....Kylie...where are..?"
Kylie was there at his side, her shoulder pads and gear laid on a chair next to the bed, dressed in a black t-shirt and a pair of jeans, her hair tied back out of her face in a crude pony tail. "Here. I went back to the firehouse and grabbed the spare set..." she chuckled a little. It was sound without mirth or joy. It was the sound of a person on the edge of loosing everything..or a victim. "They were in your desk in your lab upstairs...it survived...barely." She took out a pair of his old glasses, and cleaned them and gently placed them on his face.
His vision cleared instantly.
He felt a dull throbbing in the vicinity of his nose and he knew that it must be broken. He looked around him and saw IVs sticking out of his arms and he felt sensors attached to his sides and chest as lead wires ran out from under his hospital shirt and up to a an EKG monitor.
He tried to move his right arm and found that it felt heavy. He tried harder and that same shooting pain came back, bringing water to his eyes.
He remembered now.
The memories of the last few hours came back..or had it been days? The ECU...
Egon looked over at Kylie. His voice was soft and controlled. "Kylie..what happened? What made it blow?"
Kylie took a seat at his side and pulled her chair closer to the bed. Outside, when the first light of day should have been coming through the nearly closed blinds, only an inky darkness remained, an unnatural night. She tried to ignore it.
"We don't know. I was at home...asleep...and..." her voice trailed off, unable to bear her secret with Egon, which hurt twofold, because she felt as if she was betraying her mentor and at the same time, hurting the team and protecting her pride.
"And what? Tell me.." Egon said, his blue eyes watching her, utterly serious.
"..I had a dream...about my Grammaw Rose..she told me to wake up...and that something was coming...that you needed my help.."
She felt her face burn scarlet and she looked away from Spengler, down to the floor. "Kylie..its ok. I know....what you feel like."
Kylie looked up at her boss and was stunned. Egon? Feel? The man kept his emotions so deep inside a miner couldn't find them.
"I used to have dreams myself..." He said, and she could see something there in his eyes, something old, something painful. "Only they weren't nice ones...Don't be ashamed. It isn't your fault. I'm glad it happened. Without you, I wouldn't be here having this conversation."
She felt the shame melt away. " Egon, the firehouse is a wreck. Its completely destroyed...the upper floors survived somewhat...but...the basement and the garage is pulverized."
"I know...all that can be repaired..." Egon said, drawing himself awkwardly into a sitting position, glaring at the IV's in his arm. He HATED hopsitals.
"We have to get the containment unit up and running again...all those ghosts.."
Then a thought struck him like an icicle to the chest.
Janine.
"Kylie, where's Janine?" his voice betrayed his fear and when Kylie hesitated to answer, he felt his panic growing.
"Egon...I don't know how to tell you this..."
"No..." he felt the words leave his lips before he knew what he was saying. His heart sunk to his gut and he felt sick, all his pain meaningless...she couldn't be gone...."She's not...please tell me..."
Kylie took his hand in hers and squeezed it. " No...she's not. But..she's still unconcious. They have her in intensive care on the floor above us. They moved her and you both from the ER about three hours ago. She's completely unresponsive but her vitals are strong...for the moment."
Egon felt a small surge of relief.
She was alive.
There was hope.
"How long have we been here, Kylie?"
"About five and a half hours." She tensed herself for the truth she knew she had to impart and hated herself for it.
"Egon..they said there could be some brain damage if she wakes up.."
"Nonsense. Janine will be fine." Egon said, his tone cutting off any further conversation about the topic. Kylie watched Egon's face work and for a moment, she saw naked fear, and she didn't like it but didn't press the issue farther. She knew about the history between Egon and Janine...and how he must be hurting.
"Egon...we have ghosts in ghost traps...hundreds of them are loose...we have no where to put them if we trap em....and the trap power cores will only last for twenty four hours. We have a limited number of proton canisters for the packs...and I don't know how much equipment survived the blast...."
Egon shook his head. "There is some equipment..I had a shield bunker built in the firehouse....in the basement...far back wall...in case the grid ever blew again...we never wanted another Gozer incident.." he sighed, his arm hurting and his nose throbbing.
Kylie felt her heart soar. Finally, some good news!
"The unit...if I can get out of here...I know where we can get the parts to fix it...I can rebuild it..."
Kylie frowned at him. " Oh no. Your not going anywhere. Not until the doctors say you can leave."
Egon looked at her. "Don't be ridiculous, I'm perfectly fine." he said and tried to get up before promptly collapsing back in the bed. He growled in frustration and his face finally broke and the real problem came to the surface and for the first time in living memory, Egon Spengler let his emotions come out. Every word seemed to be a struggle.
"Kylie...I'm...I'm scared. Janine...nothing like this has ever happened before. I'm a scientist...a doctor...I'm trained to deal with the objective and the solid...but when it comes to her...I get so confused and tied up...I've let her down. She should never have been down there..." he said, his voice nearly a whisper, his eyes looking down into the white blankets covering him.
Not knowing what else to say, she just squeezed his hand again. " I know. We're all worried right now..."
For a moment, neither Ghostbuster said anything.
"Where's Roland? Garrett?" Egon asked.
"At the firehouse trying to scavenge what they can. I haven't heard from them yet."
And then he asked the question Kylie was hoping he wouldn't. " And Eduardo?"
"With them, I guess. He was when we left...in the ambulance I mean."
Kylie knew that Egon was talking to avoid thinking about Janine. She was trying to avoid the subject herself because she didn't want Egon to worry. After all, she told herself. Janine would pull out of this...She had too.
"Go call them. Tell them the safe vault is in the basement, on the far wall...behind what used to be the storage cabinet and work table....the combination is twenty five, thirty six, eight four...and find Slimer....I didn't see him come out of explosion..."
Kylie felt like she'd been slapped in the gut. Slimer! She'd forgotten about the spud all together...
"I'll be right back, Egon, I promise." she said, and got up, crossing the room and opened the door. Before stepping out into the hall, she looked back. Egon had laid his head down on the pillow, his eyes closed, his breathing deep and rhythmic. As much as she was worried about her mentor, right now she had to get the team up and running...and get the ECU back online...and save the city.
In her mind, she wondered as she walked down the tiled hallways and passed the nurses desk, if they would be up to the challenge.
Then she realized, they had no choice.
Outside, the unnatural darkness swirled and people around her were beginning to take notice. Most of them seemed to think it was an early morning storm that had rolled in from the coast...but she knew different.
This was the beginning of the end.
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Last edited by TAPS_Family_Anthony on July 13th, 2008, 10:17 am, edited 5 times in total.
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