Fiction:"Zombie Apocolypse" by AmandaKnox

The Ecto 1 screeches to a stop outside of an apartment building and the Ghostbusters run in to the front doors.

From the building there are loud crashing noises and demonic laughter.
They arm themselves and enter the building.

Kylie: "We have a class 4 standard entity with destructive tenancies!"

Garrett rushes for the elevator as the other 3 team mates begin to run up the stairs.

Roland: "Garrett, the apartment is on the 5th floor!"

Garrett: "Got it! I'll see you up there!"

Roland, Eduardo and Kylie leave the stairwell on the 5 floor and begin running along the hallway.

Roland kicks the door and it swings open, hard, hitting the wall behind.
Objects are being thrown from around the corner as they hear slurping and laughing. They power up their proton packs and begin inching forward slowly.

Garrett hurries through the apartment door.

Garrett: "How we gonna get round there without being hit?"

Eduardo: "Wait for it to run out of stuff to throw?"

A dark, hooded figure suddenly appears in front of them, Eduardo screams and blasts.
The rest of the team blast too and they hold it in the stream, pulling it in with a struggle.
Kylie throws the trap and the figure is drawn in slowly, it's bony fingers grasping and clawing at the floor around the trap.

Kylie: "This one's putting up a fight!"

They move closer with the streams, holding the ghosts in the trap until it finally closes.

Eduardo walk towards the trap and bends down quickly to pick it up.
A ghost flies at him from around the corner, knocking him clean off his feet and through the glass window.
The glass shatters and Eduardo falls.

Kylie: "EDUARDO!"

.-.

Garrett: "I thought there was only one ghost!"

Kylie runs out the door.

Garrett: "Rolster! You go with Kylie, I'll take care of this! And bring me another trap!"

Roland hurries down the stairs, following Kylie

Kylie runs straight to Eduardo who is lying still on the sidewalk.
She kneels down and pulls out her walkie talkie.

Kylie: "Egon! Call 911, Eduardo has suffered a 5 story drop and is unresponsive"

Roland grabs another ghost trap and stops as he's about to run back into the building.

Roland: "You going to be ok?"

Kylie: "I'll stay with him, you go help Garrett!"

Garrett has the ghost in his stream as Roland runs into the apartment, he throws the trap, unloads his proton gun and unleashes his proton stream.
They both hold the entity in the streams as it thrashes around, Roland holding the ghost trap trigger at the ready.

Roland: "Ready?"

Garrett: "Ready!"

Roland pushes the button, opening the trap, the ghost gets sucked in and the trap closes with a hiss.
Garrett hurries round the corner then comes back.

Garrett: "All clear!"

.-.

Outside, Kylie has her hands on Eduardo's shoulder, pushing him in a nudging motion.

Kylie: "Eduardo?"

Eduardo opens his eyes

Eduardo: "Whe... where am I?"

Kylie sighs with relief.

Roland and Garrett exit the building.

Kylie: "He's ok"

Eduardo: "Do.. don't put my sandwich in the bucket"

Kylie: "Erm... well, sort of...?"

Roland: "Sounds like he has concussion"

Garrett: "That's one way of putting crazy"

.-.

In the local hospital, Kylie, Roland and Garrett are sitting in the waiting room, looking sleepy.

Garrett: "Nearly five hours. Shouldn't we get back to the firehouse and wait for them there?"

Kylie: "He's got to be out soon, we may as well wait"

Eduardo enters the waiting room, looking exhausted.

Eduardo: "Finally I'm free to go"

Roland: "So, what did the doctor say?"

Eduardo: "I fell five stories onto my head, he doesn't know how I'm still alive"

Kylie: "Your head ok?"

Eduardo: "Very sore"

Roland: "Well, we're heading back to the firehouse, you can sit out the next call"

Eduardo: "Good plan"

They begin making their way to the exit.

Garrett: "Not to fret, Eddie. Not like you use your head much anyway"

Eduardo: "Shut up"

Garrett: "You got your sanity back?"

Eduardo: "It was concussion and yes my brain is working fine"

Doctor: "Mr Rivera, please take this flyer, it contains very important information on what you can and can't do for the next 24 hours. Your skull has taken some serious trauma and it's a miracle you survived, so take it easy. You must book an appointment with your doctor within the week"

Eduardo grabs the flyer while turning his back and continues to the door.

Eduardo: "Yeah, thanks"

.-.

The Ghostbusters are in the firehouse lounge, Eduardo is falling asleep on the couch as Kylie walks past.

Kylie: "You really shouldn't sleep this soon after a concussion"

Eduardo: "Mmmm"

Garrett sneaks over and leans over Eduardo's ear.

Garrett: "LOOK OUT!"

Eduardo sits up, screaming.

Eduardo: "Idiota! Estas loco?!"

Garrett chuckles

Eduardo: "I mean... what you doing?!"

Garrett: "Possibly saving your life"

Eduardo: "You're not funny"

.-.

In the basement, Roland and Egon are emptying the traps into the containment unit.
Roland flushes the first trap into the system, hands the empty trap to Egon, then clips the second trap into the containment unit.
As he flushes it in, the lights flicker as they hear a ghostly growl.

Roland: "Has that ever happened before?"

Egon: "Not that I recall"

Roland: "There was only one ghost reported on this call, I still don't know where the second one came from"

Egon: "That happens on calls, perhaps they fled at the sight of the first ghost they saw"

Roland: "Yeah, maybe"

.-.

Night falls in New York, the sky is cloudy and splashes of rain throw over a city cemetery, thunder and lightning begin to crash all around.
A thick blanket of fog covers the graves, moaning sounds emerge.

.-.

The phone rings on the ground floor and Janine picks up.

Janine: "Ghostbusters... uh huh... you're kidding... ok, ok"

As soon as she puts the phone down and it immediately rings again.

Janine: "Ghostbusters... yeah... ok, your location? Got it"

Janine puts the phone down and it rings again.

Janine growls as she answers again.

Janine: "YES, Ghostbusters..."

.-.

In the lounge, Kylie is looking out of the window.

Kylie: "Looks like a bad storm, I don't think we're going to get home tonight"

Garrett: "Oh great, we're crashing here then"

Kylie: "It looks that way, the lightning is very frequent"

Janine runs into the room, panting.

Janine: "Guys, we've just had 73 calls!"

Egon: "What?"

Janine: "Zombies! New York is crawling with zombies"

They all gasp and look at each other.
Kylie turns around, quickly looking back out of the window.
There are zombies stumbling out of the side streets, most of them are skeletons with rags and hair hanging from them.

Kylie: "Oh no"

Garrett: "What? What is it?"

Kylie: "I don't think we're going to be able to fix this one, the city is infested!"

They all look out of the window and gasp as they watch the dead stumbling and dragging across the roads.

Garrett: "Time to devise a little experiment, step aside!"

Garrett puts on his proton pack and opens the window. He takes aim at one of the zombies.

Garrett: "Let's see how you like the taste of proton"

He blasts at the zombie and it slowly begins to come apart, the bones fall to the ground, but continue dragging themselves individually.

Eduardo: "Can't you blast something without saying a corny line like you're from a bad movie?"

Garrett: "Hey, it's part of what makes this job fun for me"

Roland: "Well it may be our last job, this looks pretty hopeless"

Egon: "The zombie apocalypse"

Kylie: "You mean... the end of the world?"

Egon: "That's what I'm afraid of"

They all glance out of the window again with looks of fear over their faces.

Roland runs over to the coffee table, picks up the remote and switches the TV on.
He flicks between channels, they all have the same breaking news on every side.

They all begin to crowd round the couch, watching the news.

News reporter: "The zombies are everywhere! They've taken over the city, we're taking cover, but here we can clearly see many of the dead walking the streets"

Eduardo: "She's hiding outside for a story, some reporters are loco!"

Everybody shushes Eduardo.
He folds his arms, pouts and sits back.

News reporter: "Could this be the zombie apocalypse? The end of man kind? ..."

The reporter puts her finger to her ear piece and a look of horror clouds over her face.

News reporter: "This just in... The dead haven't just taken over New York! They have risen from their graves, reported from everywhere in the world!"

A zombie sneaks up on the reporter, grabbing her arm and knocking the camera over.
The camera is on the ground, on it's side, picking up close-up footage of the zombie kneeling down over the reporter. She screams intensely and the camera cuts to white noise.

The Ghostbusters all stare at the TV screen, all their mouths wide open, staying perfectly still in horror.
They just stare at the screen as Eduardo slumps to the floor.

.-.

Eduardo awakens to Garrett looking down over him.

Garrett: "Hey, Edwina, you feeling alright?"

The team are gearing up as they hear banging on the front door of the firehouse.

Garrett: "Oh crud"

Eduardo: "We're gonna die!"

Garrett slaps Eduardo round the face

Garrett: "Pull yourself together, lady!"

Eduardo glares at Garrett.

Eduardo: "Ok, so we're in a zombie apocalypse, the dead are trying to break down our door and the blasters don't seem to kill them, any bright ideas?!"

Roland: "We can barricade the doors and get ourself sheltered. The proton guns won't destroy them, but they'll slow them down and keep them at bay if it comes to that"

Eduardo: "Ok, fine! You crazy enough to go down there?"

Garrett hurries for the elevator and Roland runs down the stairs.
They both hurry into the utility room and grab as much wood as they can carry, they hurry for the front door.

Kylie runs to the main doors after them with a hammer and a box of nails.
Roland and Garrett position planks of wood over the doors as Kylie hammers nails into them.

The banging on the other side of the doors begins to move the door hinges and form cracks.
A zombie hand breaks through the door, just missing Kylie's face as she screams and moves out of the way.
Garrett takes aim and blasts the arm, holding the stream on it for several seconds as it weakens. It falls off to the floor and tries to pull itself towards him.

Garrett: "GUYS!"

Egon hurries over and places a reinforced glass case over the arm and slides a lid underneath.

Egon: "I'll take this up to the lab for testing, if there's a way to end this, we'll find out how"

Roland slams a thick plank of wood over the hole and Kylie begins hammering nails into it.

.-.

Eduardo glances at the TV screen, which is still showing white noise.
He picks up the remote and changes the channel.

News reporter: "We've had word from the American Science Association, all tests and theories are inconclusive. The hypothesis arose that these zombies were the result of a virus, but it was debunked soon after due to the instant worldwide spread of this case. This does indeed look like a zombie apocalypse and no advancements on information have been found"

Eduardo switches the channel again.

News reporter: "No further information has been found, the dead still walk the..."

The news reporter is suddenly distracted as a man running from the zombies is hit by car which is speeding along the road.

Eduardo: "HUH?!"

The man gets up and continues to run.

News reporter: "Incredible, the car was driving at roughly 80kph and he just got up and ran away! How does anyone survive that?"

Egon: "Fascinating"

Eduardo: "Woah! Where'd you sneak up from?!"

Egon: "Never mind that, you say that you landed on your head from a five story drop?"

Eduardo: "Uh huh"

Egon: "Something is going on here, we may have a correlation of causality"

Eduardo: "What are you saying?"

Egon: "I don't know yet, but people are surviving accidents they should have been killed in and the dead are walking, I may be onto something"

Egon hurries back upstairs to his lab.

Eduardo: "Umm, O...K"

.-.

Kylie, Roland and Garrett are nailing boards across the windows.
Kylie wipes her forehead with her arm, panting.

Kylie: "You think that's enough?"

Roland: "I guess so, we need to find a place to hide, this may not hold for long. I just hope Egon is getting somewhere with figuring out how to stop this"

Kylie and Roland run up the stairs and Garrett hurries to the elevator.
They all enter the lounge where Eduardo is slouched on the couch.

Garrett: "What you been doing while we've been working our butts off boarding up windows?"

Roland: "He had a nasty fall, Garrett, we should lay off him"

Eduardo: "For your information, I found some valuable information for Egon"

Kylie: "No, really, what you been doing?"

Eduardo just glances at Kylie.

Janine enters the room.

Janine: "Egon needs you guys upstairs"

.-.

They enter Egon's lab, looking shocked as they see the glass container on Egon's table with a rotting zombie arm in it, moving around and hooked up with wires.

Roland: "It's like Frankenstein's basement in here"

Egon: "I've taken a sample to study. There's no living cells on the specimen, nor are there any ectoplasmic readings"

Garrett: "Not ecto, this is just great"

Egon: "I'm afraid not, which means that given enough time we would have to approach this from a whole new angle"

Kylie: "Could there be some kind of remote source controlling the bodies of the dead?"

Egon: "Not likely, if that was the case, we would have at least low readings from the zombies, but there's no readings coming from this sample at all"

Roland: "So, we still know nothing at all?"

Egon: "Not entirely, I'm pretty certain that there's a connection between the zombies and the reason that Eduardo and another man survived an otherwise fatal accident"

Kylie: "Like the physics of natural death has been changed"

Egon: "Exactly"

Roland: "But if we don't know exactly what has changed, then I don't know what we can do"

Egon: "Eduardo, I need to run some tests on you"

Eduardo: "Tests... great"

Kylie: "Quit whining, Eduardo"

Eduardo: "What kind of tests?"

Egon: "Saliva and hair samples, cat scan, PKE readings, the usual"

The rest of the team head down to the lounge where they hear that the banging at the door is getting louder.

Roland: "This is bad"

Kylie: "We're running out of time!"

Garrett: "We need to guard the door until Egon can get us some answers!"

.-.

Eduardo is lying flat on a table as Egon hovers a big machine over Eduardo's head.

Eduardo: "Erm, that thing is secure, right?"

Egon: "Shush, I need you to remain very still and very quiet"

Egon prints out some papers and sets them down next to his microscope before sitting down and examining samples.

.-.

Garrett opens the door of the Ecto 1 and uses it as a shield as he takes aim at the main doors.
The hard force against the door is beginning to form cracks in the planks.

Kylie and Roland hear the smashing sound on the door, they gasp.

Roland: "I'll back up Garrett, you go see how Egon's research is coming along!"

Roland slides down the pole and Kylie runs up the stairs to join Egon, Janine and Eduardo.

Kylie: "Any further forward? Because the zombies are almost in!"

Egon: "Yes, I have confirmed what I thought, after a cat scan I have determined that the fall would have killed Eduardo, but for some unknown reason, he survived"

Eduardo: "How does that help?"

Egon: "Tell me what happened when you fell"

Eduardo: "It's a little fuzzy, I think I lost a few braincells when I hit the ground"

Kylie: "We got into the apartment and there was this dark, thin ghost, we trapped it, Eduardo was thrown out of the window by the second ghost..."

Janine: "Second ghost? They were sure there was only one when they called"

Egon: "I need data on on both of those ghosts"

He hurries out of the room, Kylie, Eduardo and Janine follow him down towards the basement.

As they run through the ground floor, Kylie approaches Garrett and Roland.

Kylie: "We're running an analysis on the two ghosts we trapped, Egon may be close to the answer"

Roland: "These doors aren't going to hold!"

Kylie: "Come on! We need to barricade ourselves in the basement while we get to the bottom of this"

They all rush into the basement.

Kylie: "Roland, you think there's a way you can barricade the stairway?

Egon: "Stand back!"

Egon hits an emergency switch which activates a metal, electronically controlled plate which covers the basement entrance.

Kylie: "Everybody here?"

Eduardo: "Check"

Roland: "I count 6 of us, that's everyone"

Garrett: "So what the heck is going on here?"

Egon: "I'm going to analyse the data on these ghosts you caught, I'm hoping there is a connection that I can put my finger on"

Egon and Roland approach the containment unit.

Egon: "I'll print the data graph and check them against the PKE readings"

The graph prints off to reveal the shape of a skull, they all peer over it with confusion.

Egon: "Oh my..."

Garrett: "What?"

Egon: "This is very unusual"

Egon sets the printed graph and PKE metre down on a desk and switches on the desk lamp.

Egon: "The first entity you caught..."

Egon begins typing into a computer, searching quickly.

Roland: "What is it?"

Egon: "It's... the Grim Reaper"

Everyone: "Huh?"

Egon: "You, you trapped death"

They hear the doors smashing and they all gasp. They hear the sounds of moaning and dragging across the floor above them.

Eduardo: "Oh man"

Kylie: "Could that be responsible for the zombies?"

Egon: "Of course! Death was there for Eduardo as he foresaw the accident, but you trapped it before Eduardo fell"

Eduardo gasps as Egon looks at him over his shoulder

Egon: "...which is why you're still alive"

Garrett: "And the zombies?!"

Egon: "The laws of death no longer apply, which is why the dead have left their graves and are walking the Earth"

Roland: "So, we have to release him to stop this!"

They all crowd around the containment unit.

Egon presses the button on the monitor until the Grim Reaper's unmistakable wave patterns appear on screen.

Egon: "Stand back!"

Egon pulls down the lever, releasing a black cloud of smoke into the basement. The smoke growls and begins to concentrate in the middle of the room, creating a more solid figure.

Kylie: "Wow, the Grim Reaper"

Death wisps away through the wall, leaving a skull shaped puff of white smoke behind.

Garrett: "Do you think it worked?"

Suddenly they hear loud clattering and thumping on the floor above their heads.

Eduardo: "I think we can take that as a yes"

Roland uses the mechanism to open the hatch.

Janine: "You better be right about this"

Eduardo and Roland get to the top of the stairs and look towards the main doors.

Roland: "Urgh!"

Eduardo: "Eeewww!"

Kylie: "So, it worked?"

Roland: "Yeah, it worked"

.-.

The next day in the firehouse lounge, Egon and Janine are watching the news with the team.

Garrett: "After all this time, we finally got recognised on the news! Yes, we got publicity!"

Eduardo cranks up the volume.

News reader: "The zombie crisis is over, the dead dropped all at the same time late last night. Science has been unable to explain this apparition, but the Ghostbusters had their own battle with the zombies and claim that they solved what seemed to be the dawning apocalypse. So, how did you stop the zombie apocalypse?"

The screen pans over to the Ghostbusters, Garrett confidently pulls the microphone towards his mouth.

Garrett: "I'm so glad you asked, gorgeous. We have our own ways of doing research and we have kicked everything we've been put up against"

Eduardo: "We're scientists"

Kylie: "What they're trying to say is; we have our own laboratory, we specialise in paranormal phenomenon and take care to detail in every case"

News reporter: "What caused the dead to rise in the first place and could it happen again?"

They all shuffle around uncomfortably

Garrett: "Ermm... it was to do with changes in the laws of death..."

Roland: "Which has been rectified, we won't see this happen again"

News reporter: "And there you have it, do you think that the Ghostbusters helped in ending the crisis? Or perhaps there may be a bigger explanation as to what had happened. Next we'll be speaking with the American science Association with their views on this case"

Garrett picks up the remote and mutes the TV.

Egon: "Well done, Ghostbusters"

Eduardo: "This is a job we won't be forgetting in a hurry"

Roland hands Eduardo a hammer.

Roland: "No, we've got a lot of repairs to take care of downstairs"

The Ghostbusters exit the lounge.

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