Ghostbusters (19 page)

“Ninety-six percent mysterious,” Abby shot back.

“And what of the topic of ghosts?” Erin demanded.

Abby whispered loudly, “They're real!”

The music boomed across the dining room. Erin and Abby broke into more dancing, happy exuberant you're-my-bestie dancing, and memories of dancing at the fair washed over her. Abby had been a true friend, defending “Ghost Girl” from her tormentors, telling her over and over, “You are not crazy. I believe you.”

Erin poured her heart into the re-creation of their spur-of-the moment skit. “Then why don't I see ghosts flying everywhere?”

“For the barrier stops them,” Abby declared. “It is the only line of defense in the portal betwixt the worlds of the living and the dead.”

Patty shifted a bit uncomfortably. “What century did they write this?”

Holtzmann nodded, ignoring her question, totally into the performance.

Abby said, “Now let's break it down.”

The music abruptly shifted to a corny old-school hip-hop beat.

“Yo. How many different types of ghosts we got, A?”

Erin picked up the rap beat. “Humanoids, vapors—”

Abby glanced over and saw Patty's grimace. “You know what, let's skip ahead.”

Erin didn't want to admit that she was a little winded. “Yeah, that part is thirty minutes and involves break dancing.”

She popped open the tape player and flipped the tape. The booming sci-fi score returned and they both leapt into a rapid crescendo of ecstatic dance and arm movement. Erin couldn't believe that she remembered every step, but she did. The routine was elaborate, and holy cow, they were pulling it off. It was as if all the years between the science fair and the present moment had themselves become ghosts. She flew and spun, freer than she had felt in forever.

“So protect the barrier! Protect the barrier! Or mankind will end! Word!”

When it was over, Erin and Abby struck rapper poses. They laughed and hugged, and Erin was overjoyed. They had promised to be each other's lifelong friends. Could they still be?

Holtzmann ran up and threw her arms around both of them.

“I am so goddam happy you two are together again. So goddam happy.”

Erin and Abby turned to look at Patty, and her face was radiant. “I was all set to make fun of you. But goddamn, that was actually beautiful.” Then she choked up. “Thank god you had each other.”

“Hey, look,” Holtzmann said, pointing at the muted TV. It was the NY-Local 1 News, and a reporter was onscreen. She hurried over and turned up the volume.

“… a local team of paranormal investigators released a video of a proclaimed ghost—”

The picture shifted from the reporter to a segment from their video, displayed for the whole world to see. Erin was clearly visible on the screen.

“Hey, they're airing the video!” Patty cried. “We're famous!”

“So,” the reported continued, “what do we think of these ‘Ghostbusters'?”

Erin grimaced. “Ghostbusters? Why did she just say ‘Ghostbusters'? They can't just make up a name for us, can they?”

Abby shook her head. “No, she just misspoke.”

But down at the bottom of the screen, crawling text read, “Discussing the Ghostbusters.”

“Oh,” Abby said, startled.

The reporter continued. “I spoke with Martin Heiss earlier of the Council for Logic and Data, and famed debunker of the paranormal.”

“Oh god.” Erin had a bad feeling. She braced herself.

“Tell me. Is this for real?” the reporter asked.

Erin had read about Martin Heiss before, but she had never seen him. He was wearing a large hat, very dashing.

“No,” he answered flatly.

“Thank you,” the reporter said to him, and then turned back to the camera. “Coming up, Mayor Bradley on the rolling blackouts.”

Erin glared at the screen. She took a threatening step toward the TV while the others lost their cool behind her.

“Unbelievable,” Abby huffed. “Do you know that we only know what four percent of the universe is? How quick they are to say no!”

“Oh man,” Patty said, groaning. “Now
we're
the ghost girls. I suddenly feel your pain, Erin.”

“No way. Screw that,” Erin said defiantly. The phone started ringing in the background. “We are scientists and we rely on controlled tests and provable physical results. And so we are going to catch a ghost and bring it back to this lab and,
Kevin, answer the phone
!”

Kevin, who had stopped watching them and returned to studying what appeared to be two photographs, put down the pictures and answered the phone. They all looked on.

“Conductor something. Uh-huh.” He sounded interested in whatever he was hearing. Everyone else leaned in. “Cool,” he said. “Thanks. Bye.”

He hung up. Then he picked up the photographs. They were headshots of him, and he was shirtless in both.

“Hey, which of these makes me look more like a doctor?” he asked. He showed them the one with the stethoscope.

“Whichever one tells us who was on the damn phone!” Erin yelled.

“Someone from the Stonebrook Theatre. I don't know … something's happening there.”

Something?
Erin thought. The only person they'd given the landline number to was their rental agent. It had appeared on Abby's flyers as well. Ergo, unless their rental agent was into acting, this was a call from someone who wanted to talk to the Conductors of the Metaphysical Examination!

“Yes!” Erin shrieked.

“I'll get the car,” Holtzmann announced.

They whipped into action, Abby pausing just long enough to point to a whiteboard next to Kevin's desk.

“All right, when I get back we're gonna start off with parallel universes and entanglement,” she told him.

He blinked. “What?”

“He's curious already!” Abby rejoiced.

Abby, Erin, and Patty dashed outside. Patty was carrying an armload of MTA uniforms along with her proton pack.

“I took these from work and made 'em look all official. Put 'em on if you don't want to get slimed again,” she said.

Erin was grateful for the extra barrier of protection. She said, “We'll put them on in the car.”

And they were off.

 

16

Abby, Erin, and Patty raced outside while Holtz blasted their hearse—now fully loaded with proton canisters and other power boosters, a new license plate that read
ECTO
-
1
, and a cute little ghost hood ornament—down the streets of Manhattan, the siren wailing like a banshee—a tentative Class 4 soprano full screecher—as pedestrians stopped and stared after them. It was like they were shooting out a paralyzing ray on all sides. Weaving in and out of the traffic, the massive vehicle slewed right and left. Holtzmann drove right up on the back bumpers of the cars ahead, flashing high beams until they yielded, swerving out of the way, more often than not with raised fists and middle fingers stuck out driver windows.

Erin would have felt a wee less vulnerable if Holtzmann had deigned to put both hands on the wheel and stifled the running commentary on the scenery blurring past. Patty nodded her head as if she was listening to the monologue with rapt attention, but rode with one hand firmly gripping the door handle, as if poised to make a quick escape should Holtzmann ever slow down. Or maybe her apprehension was such that she just had to hang on to something.

Abby didn't seem to notice Holtz's erratic driving. She was leaning forward in her seat, eyes wide with excitement, confirming the address and pertinent information with Kevin. Abridged version: it sounded like the Stonebrook Theatre was haunted!

Erin figured they might be facing slime, so she passed out the uniforms to Patty and Abby, and with difficulty they pulled them on in the moving vehicle. Holtzmann braked the big wagon to a stop alongside a trash truck and illegally double-parked so she could slip into hers. The refuse workers on the truck got a big kick out of that show, and as the hearse pulled away urged them on with fist pumps and shouts of, “Go get 'em, MTA!”

When they screeched to the curb in front of the theater, a few sleepy-looking thrash band fans were straggling through the doors. Erin could feel the
thud, thuh-thud, thud, thuh-thud
of a death metal bass line through the side of the hearse. It faintly rattled the windows. She and the other Conductors of the Metaphysical Examination piled out of their sick white ride, proton packs strapped on their backs and ready to rumble.

As they stepped out into the street, a couple of dudes in comic book T-shirts walked under the marquee. They stopped and stared at the fearsome foursome.

“Are you guys the Ghostbusters?” one of them asked, cutting his eyes to shoot a smirk at his pal.

Oh, that name. That terrible name,
Erin thought. “We're actually the Conductors of the Meta—”

“Yes, we're the Ghostbusters,” Abby broke in.

Erin winced but let it pass.

The other nerd grinned. Chuckling at his own sparkling wit, he said, “Lame. Girls can't catch ghosts. Go use those vacuums on your back to clean a house.”

His Neanderthal prejudice didn't shock or surprise Erin—that was the reason for STEM. She wondered—just for a second—how the meeting about the glow-in-the-dark eye makeup had gone. If there had been a hostile takeover.

The graphic novel bon vivants sauntered away, nudging each other and cracking up over the stupid comment. Patty looked intently up and down the street, which was momentarily deserted, and then unclipped her proton wand. Before Erin could get a word out, the team's newest member gave her wand a quick tap, firing a short blast of pure energy into the joker's backside. He went down as if mule-kicked and the seat of his pants burst into flames. Yelping, flapping his arms, he scooted down the sidewalk on his butt, trying to put it out. He looked and sounded remarkably like a dog with a bad case of worms. Erin tried hard to be shocked at Patty's show of overwhelming force—but she just couldn't quite manage it. And it was just an itsy-bitsy fire.

“Man down! Man down!” Patty shouted in the direction of the theater entrance.

A group of death metal fans ran out of the lobby and came to the wormy dog's aid, kicking him over onto his stomach and then meticulously stomping out the fire on his butt. Erin and the Ghostbusters strutted past them and entered the theater.

The lobby was packed with T-shirt booths and concession stands, and all varieties and subclasses of metal head milled around on the worn carpet. The music fans stopped milling and looked on in awe as Erin, Abby, Holtzmann, and Patty pushed into their midst. Erin got the distinct impression that their snappy uniforms and unconventional weaponry were a big hit. Through the padded theater doors, the music was blaring at an impressive decibel level—roughly that of a 747 revving for takeoff. Erin could feel the vibration inside her chest. From across the room a nervous-looking guy waved wildly to get their attention, and then rushed through the crowd to greet them.

In the process of introducing himself, Jonathan, the theater manager, violated their personal space big time so he could keep his voice down, which was kind of funny, considering all the racket blasting through the closed doors to the auditorium. “Are you the Ghostbusters?” he asked, desperation in his eyes.

“Yes, we are,” Abby affirmed.

Erin gave a rueful farewell to the personalized Conductors of the Metaphysical Examination business cards, coffee cups, door sign, and promotional pens she had ordered.

Jonathan's forehead wrinkled. He seemed under a great strain. “But I was told a ‘Doctor' Yates was coming.”

Not you, too,
Erin thought, and she was in solidarity with her sisters as they turned on their heels and began to walk away.

Jonathan raced after them, protesting, “Whoa, wait! It's not because you're women. It's because you're dressed like garbage men.”

That would be sanitation engineers,
Erin thought huffily, but the overdue lesson in gender-free language would have to wait. All their attention turned to a pair of paramedics wheeling a man on a gurney through the lobby. Firmly strapped down across the chest and knees, he was mumbling to himself in Spanish, and he had a Puerto Rican accent. Erin was fairly fluent and she translated what he was saying to the others: “‘
I have looked into the eyes of the Devil … I have looked into the eyes of the Devil
…'”

Wow
. She watched him roll past, and then looked over at Jonathan expectantly. The other Ghostbusters were looking at him, too.

“Follow me,” he said. “
Please
.”

He led them through a narrow doorway and down a flight of stairs, which opened onto a maze of dimly lit hallways under the theater. “Fernando was down here when something came out of the wall vent and attacked him. I heard his screams, and when I came to see, some ‘thing' was throwing him all over the place.”

Abby turned to Erin. “A T-5 interaction?”

So very yes.
“Great. This is great,” she concurred.

“Not for Fernando,” Jonathan said grimly. “I thought it was going to kill him. I shrieked when I saw it, and I guess I scared it because it flew off down the hall.” With a smidgen of pride, he added, “I'm told my scream is quite disturbing.”

He stopped as they reached the hall of what looked to be the oldest wing of the theater. He stared down the corridor, suddenly hesitant to proceed, perhaps as he relived his recent experience.

“Whatever is down there, I pray to god I never come across it again. It will haunt me every night when I go to sleep. No one should ever have to encounter that kind of evil.”

Gulp,
Erin thought.

“Anyway,” he said, far more casually, “keep walking that way and you'll find it.”