Ghostbusters (15 page)

Everyone grouped around her.

“That's where I saw that weird sparking thing,” Patty said, pointing a finger at the spot.

“What was it?” Holtzmann asked.

“Darlin', if I knew, I wouldn't have said ‘that weird sparking thing,'” Patty told her.

There were fragments of metal and plastic scattered in an arc over the floor of the tunnel. As Abby began collecting them, Erin picked up and examined a piece that lay by her foot.

“That looks like fission scorch,” she said.

When she held it out, Abby leaned over and sniffed it. “Huh. Smells of both electrical discharge and isotopic decay,” she declared. “Holtz, smell this. You agree?” Holtzmann gave the piece a good sniff as well, and then she stuck out her tongue and licked it. “Definite neuron burn,” she concurred, smacking her lips.

They all leaned in and smelled the piece again. The sprockets in Erin's mind turned as she tried to reverse-engineer what the components of the device might have been and what it had been constructed to do. It certainly hadn't been a bomb; the explosion was secondary to function. Overall it seemed familiar—power source, materials, construction—yet she couldn't quite put a finger on it.

“All right, if you're all done making out with that piece of dirty garbage, we only have a few minutes,” Patty warned them. “For real, I gave us no cushion room.”

As soon as she finished the last sentence, the tunnel lights flickered for a third time and went out.

“Huh, boy,” Erin moaned. She hoped their high-tech equipment hadn't caused the blackout. No, wait. Maybe she did hope that, because if they weren't to blame, there could be another weird sparking thing hidden somewhere in the tunnel with them. Not knowing what was coming next or from what direction made her knees start to quake. At that moment, she wished she were back at headquarters, prying ancient pot stickers from the linoleum with a butter knife.

“Did you see that? The
eyes
?” Holtzmann said.

Always the joker,
Erin thought, bristling. “Holtzmann, please don't mess …
oh.
” Suddenly she saw what Holtzmann was talking about—farther down the dark tunnel, it looked like a pair of glowing yellow eyes hanging disembodied in space. Or maybe it was just two lightbulbs that hadn't blown out. But they were spaced about as far apart as human eyes would be.

“That is … unsettling,” she managed to mutter. An understatement for sure, but it was the only adjective she could summon from the turmoil in her brain.

“Holtzmann, illuminate the subject,” Abby said.

“Yeah, get some light on that,” Patty said.

Holtzmann aimed the beam of her flashlight down the tunnel. Erin let out a soft little whimper. The yellow eyes belonged to a tall, spindly ghost with a thin, skull-like face. He was wearing a hundred-year-old prisoner's uniform and a sparking electrocution cap, and he was floating in the middle of the tunnel staring at them.

Immediately the antenna on the PKE meter in Abby's hand started spinning wildly. “That is somehow more unsettling,” Erin said.

“And fantastic!” Abby cried. “That's another Class Four, but way more ionized than the Aldridge ghost. Look at the meter. I've gotta get this on film.”

Erin tried, but couldn't take her eyes off the ghost as it rose into the air and glared down at them. Her mind was replaying the very first time she had laid eyes on the vengeful phantom of Mrs. Barnard, recalling that strange cognitive dissonance that assured her what she was seeing wasn't there, even though she knew it was. She knew …

Oops. Erin realized she had missed part of the conversation around her, because Patty was in the middle of a sentence. “You say somebody's trying to bring ghosts back?” she exclaimed. “Why the hell would a person do that?”

“No idea,” Abby said. “Let's bring this bad boy back to the lab. Holtz, power up.”

Take it back to the lab? A ghost?
Erin opened her mouth to suggest a more prudent course of action, such as run and hide, but Holtzmann and Abby were already swinging into action. Holtzmann hit a switch on the proton box and frantically typed into the keyboard on top as Abby pulled out her camera and began to record.

“This is early stages,” Holtzmann told Erin and Patty, “so it's a little rough. I'm going to adjust the levels. Erin, hold this.”

Holtzmann handed her a large, cumbersome proton wand that looked like the business end of a vacuum cleaner. It was attached to a flexible tube that was in turn attached to the proton box. And even for its size, the wand was surprisingly heavy. It took two hands to lift it.

“This will shoot a proton stream, so just aim it at the ghost when I say. Oh god, I almost forgot—”

Aim it at the ghost?
Erin thought incredulously as Holtzmann clapped what looked like a metal neck brace around her neck. A look of horror crossed her face as she realized it was attached with a thick wire to the machine.

“Just a little bit of grounding,” Holtzmann explained. “Okay, don't move too much. Or talk. And definitely don't sweat.”

Oh god, oh my god.
Erin stood stock-still while Holtzmann fiddled with some switches on the box. Holtzmann's flashlight, held tucked under her arm while she tweaked the settings, was pointed down. When she pointed it back up, Erin's jaws clenched and every muscle in her body contracted.

The ghost had cut the distance between them in half! When? How? They hadn't heard a thing. The PKE and EKE meter antennas were whirling in a blur like the rotors of miniature helicopters.

“Hey, look,” Holtzmann announced with glee. “He's getting closer.”

Without moving her lips, Erin said, “
Holtzmann.
”

“Aim the wand at it,” Abby told her.

Erin succeeded in unfreezing her muscles just enough to comply. A weak little beam skittered out of the massive tip—a mere fizzle of faint, watery light.
Proton stream, my ass.
Squeezing the wand seemed like her only option, but that had no discernable effect on output. Erin felt the panic rising in the back of her throat.

“Well, that's underwhelming,” Abby grunted. “Use more power.”

“Trying.” Holtzmann played the dials like a deejay. “Okay, Erin, do it again.” As Holtzmann straightened up, her flashlight beam once again illuminated the tunnel.

Erin choked back a squeal. The ghost was even
closer.
She could read his prisoner identification number on the strip of scorched fabric sewn to his chest. Abby kept filming. Holtzmann kept dialing. And in desperation, Erin aimed the wand at it again. The beam that exited the nozzle was definitely more intense, more like a set of beams that vacillated from particle to wave and back again, and the wand vibrated against her hands like a runaway chainsaw. The oscillation was accompanied by a sizzling noise, and this time the undulating beam extended just far enough to touch the ghost. He stopped moving, but she couldn't tell if it was from the beam or if he'd just decided to play it coy. The wand was definitely getting heavier, which was impossible, unless the constant force of gravity had changed. No, that was crazy talk. A more likely scenario was that the violent shimmying and the effort to keep it on target were draining the strength from her arms.

I'm dripping sweat,
she thought.
She told me not to sweat and I'm pouring sweat. I'm drowning in sweat. I'm going to get electrocuted, too.
The unpleasant irony of that made her squirm.

“Can this thing get stronger, please?” she begged.

Holtzmann shot her a wistful look. “Not at the moment. Live and learn, I guess. I wish I had time to run back to the lab. You couldn't hold that for a while, could you?”

The crackling beam was striking the ghost's chest and holding it in place no more than a yard away from her. Its yellow eyes bored into hers. Its smile revealed hideous, jagged teeth. It reached out for her, arms waving, stretching. “
No!
” she said emphatically, her whole body shaking from the strain.

When the ghost suddenly pushed forward, the proton beam acted like a solid object between them; like a battering ram, it knocked Erin off balance and onto her tush on the dirty gravel. Somehow she kept the beam focused on the ghost and held him at bay. The ghost no doubt thought he was holding her pinned to the ground. He looked like he wanted to tear her limb from limb. She knew if something untoward happened to the beam she would die in the subway tunnel covered in ghost slime and sweat with an enormous dog collar around her neck. She imagined the headline on her tabloid, front-page obituary: “Defrocked Scientist Commits Suicide in Bizarre Autoerotic Ritual.” Talk about laughingstock.

Keep him centered in the beam and you'll be okay.

Suddenly there were more lights, much brighter, focusing in on her
,
blinding her
. What the—

“That's the train. We gotta move!” Patty cried.

Even if Erin could have moved under the pressure the ghost was putting on her, she was so sopping wet she didn't think she could summon the traction to push herself back up. She wanted to let the others know, but because she was expending every ounce of strength she couldn't utter a peep.

Abby pulled out a small metal box that she had called a “ghost trap” when they were loading up the duffel bag. “We are not losing this thing. Erin, drag the ghost back to the platform.”

The ghost leered at Erin, flailing his arms, fighting to close the distance between them and only succeeding in pushing her harder down onto the gravel. He paused to laugh as Erin stammered, “W-w-what?”

“There's no time!” Patty shouted. “Grab her sides!”

Patty grabbed the back of her metal collar and jerked her toward the platform. The jerk didn't break her neck, but felt like it might have; that's how strong Patty was. Like a mama lion carrying a cub, she hoisted Erin to her feet as Holtzmann and Abby grabbed hold of her arms. For all that, even as she was dragged bodily away, Erin continued to keep the beam on her target and hold the ghost off them. As she was hauled down the tracks, so was the ghost. Until that instant, he hadn't realized that he was being more than just repelled—he was caught in the beam like a bug on a pin. It was something he did not enjoy, and he demonstrated his displeasure by swinging his arms and kicking, and trying to take a bite out of them with his snaggly spectral teeth. Connected to the wand in her hands, the proton box banged along behind them as the subway train bore down.

Clackaclackaclacka.

The ground underfoot began to shake.

“That's express!” Patty yelled. “It's not stopping.”

We are all gonna die,
Erin thought as she looked into the blazing headlights. She couldn't drop the wand without releasing the specter. And if she didn't drop the wand, the box was an anchor tied around their ankles. There was nothing she could do, nothing to save herself or the others. The ghost seemed to recognize the oncoming danger, too. His face grew monstrous. Then a hard wind slammed into them. The pressure wave pushed ahead of the train in the tight space sandblasted Erin with grit and stink. She sensed the end of the tunnel behind her, but it was too late …

Her stomach lurched as she went airborne in reverse. Heaving in unison, Patty, Holtzmann, and Abby yanked her up onto the platform beside them. But the proton box was still on the tracks just inside the tunnel, she was still connected to the box by a stout cable to the collar around her neck, and the train was almost upon them.

She felt Holtzmann's fingers frantically fumbling at the back of her neck.

Train, box, train, box, trainboxtrainbox—

Eyes darting back and forth, Erin could see what was going to happen: train hits box at fifty miles an hour, drags box down track, cable jerks taut, and she is either beheaded or pulled under the screeching wheels.

At the last possible instant, Holtzmann freed her and threw the collar and cable down onto the tracks.

As the train sped into the station it smashed the proton box against the third rail. The incredible surge of electricity shot through the wand Erin still clutched and the resulting beam hit the ghost, dead center. A massive proton discharge enveloped the specter, and for a split second immobilized him. A split second was all it took. When the express train plowed into him, globs of slime exploded in all directions—ectoplasm rained down on the platform, covering Erin from quivering head to curling toes.

The train's impact splattered the ghost against the back wall of the subway—smashed, leaking goo, but being already dead, apparently unharmed. Metal cap still sparking, the bewildered spirit sped back to the safety of the tunnel.

“Guess he's going to Queens,” Patty deadpanned.

I want to throw up,
Erin thought as the coating of slime oozed under her clothing and into alarming new territory.

“Did you see that? That surge of power really got ahold of it,” Abby said. “What a field test! Data-tastic.”

The trickle of ectoplasm slowly creeping down Erin's bare back reached the base of her spine and there was nothing she could do to stop it from sliding down further. Not without taking off all her clothes. The very act of breathing sped up what seemed inevitable.
If I wasn't afraid of getting some of this yuck in my mouth
,
I would so throw up right now
.

“Yep,” said an equally jubilant Holtzmann. “We're going to need a lot more juice. We need to be more mobile, too. I know what to do.”

Throw up?
Erin filled in, squeezing her eyes shut and clenching her fists as the slime that had gotten under the back of her collar oozed down the inside of her legs. In a faint, flat voice, she said, “We almost got killed.”

“Yeah, I know,” Holtzmann said. “So awesome. No one looked into that flash, right?”