Ghostbusters (6 page)

Night after night, seven days a week, they stayed up late on the phone giggling and laughing and evaluating their progress.

Erin's parents thought they were talking about boys.

*   *   *

As the memory burned a hole in her stomach lining, Erin scowled through the window of her taxi. Apparently that wasn't the only time Abby let people think she was doing one thing when she was actually doing another. No one was supposed to know about the book.

And now everyone did.

 

5

Erin got out of the cab. She was in the Bronx, standing before the Kenneth T. Higgins Institute of Science, an academy of higher learning that she had never heard of before. It was housed in a large, run-down building fronted by three arches; pennants above them read Imagine. Invent. Inspire. As she walked past the threadbare patch of front lawn, a lively student discussion deteriorated into a multicombatant brawl.

Indignation over Abbey's treachery was the fuel that propelled her into the dismal structure, down a narrow flight of stairs, and along a dim, dank basement hallway until she reached the door she sought: number 25. There she halted, suddenly out of steam.

The door was marked
PARANORMAL STUDIES LABORATORY—DR. ABIGAIL L. YATES AND DR. JILLIAN HOLTZMANN.
A piece of paper was taped to the door. On it, in thick capital letters, were the words
DO NOT WRITE STUPID THINGS ON THIS DOOR
. The word “stupid” had been added in red marker.

I have to do this,
Erin thought. But she didn't want to. She really, really didn't want to. Taking a deep, dread-filled breath, she knocked.

“Enter!” a voice called. It shocked her that she knew that voice almost as well as her own. Actually, better, since sound was a wave and the vibrations of one's own voice were created inside the cranium in the ear canal, then sent to the auditory nerve for interpretation by the brain.

Don't stall.

She went inside. Blinked. If this was a lab, then the lunatics really had taken over the asylum. She was staring at a huge junkyard for geeks piled with all manner of machines, motors, monitors, ducts and duct tape, speakers, copper wire and steel housings, wires of every color and thickness, rivets, tablets, tools, blue component shelves, yellow component shelves, and scratched-up tables loaded with computers, computer chips and potato chips and chocolate chips, and was that a jet pack?

And there was the damned book itself, proudly on display for all to see. She gulped down a bitter pill of guilt and shame.

“I've been waiting a long time,” the voice she remembered said sternly.

“Oh, Abby,” she said. “That's exactly what I was afraid of—”

“I hope I got more than one wonton out of you.”

She tried to parse that. “Excuse me?”

A deliveryman had come into the room behind her. He was carrying a plastic bag and inside, a soup container. She got it: wontons.

“Oh,” she said.

Then Abby walked into the room from between yellow plastic curtains. She was still the same old Abby: green eyes, little turned-up nose, and a complicated, antenna-like helmet on her head that resembled an old-fashioned hair dryer belonging to a fifties housewife from the planet Xenon. It was covered with toroid magnets, circuits, bristling filaments, coils of wire, and possibly a Ginzu knife or two. Those days, those old days of scientific questing—

Abby spotted Erin and instantly slowed, a fire smoldering in her eyes. Erin had had dreams and nightmares both about this moment of confrontation and retribution. She held her breath.

“Well. My old friend, Erin Gilbert.”

Erin couldn't look Abby in the eyes. She lowered her gaze to the floor—was that a fishing rod? Why would they have a fishing rod?—and soaked in the tension.

“What's on your head?” the deliveryman asked her.

“An advancement in science,” Abby replied. She handed him some bills and took his delivery order. “That'll be all. And please show
her
the exit. I'm sure she was already looking for it.”

Abby turned away as the confused man took Erin by the elbow and began to lean her to the door. “It's the same door we came in,” he explained. “It's very simple, really.” Erin brushed him off and walked after Abby's back.

“Abby,” she began, “we need to have a conversation.”

Abby pointed to the thing on her head. “Well, I'm trying to have a conversation with the constant frequency signal I'm relaying through spectral foam. If you can be more interesting than that, be my guest.”

Erin's attention was diverted. According to their hypothesis, localized ether excitation, known as “spectral foam,” could result in regions of seemingly unphysical occurrences and the appearance of “specters.” Ghosts. Abby had access to spectral foam? How in the world had she managed
that
?

Erin, refocus,
she ordered herself.

“You put the book online without my permission.” There. Plainspoken and to the point.

Abby raised a brow. “I wasn't aware I needed your permission.”

She was going to make this difficult. Erin was going to have to play through. Just like in miniature golf.

“Yes, you do, Abby. I really need you to take it down.”

Abby defiantly pulled herself to her full height, which wasn't much. The fire in her eyes reignited. “Absolutely not. It's a great book. Or have you forgotten?”

Abby sat down and pulled her Chinese food out of the delivery sack. She wasn't going to make this easy.

“Look, I'm up for tenure right now,” Erin said. “This is the first thing that comes up if you Google my name.” She showed her the book. “If my colleagues see this, I will be the laughingstock of Columbia University.”

Abby was about to pry the lid off her Chinese food. She shrugged. “So?”

“
So,
” Erin pressed, “there is no experimental backing for anything in that book. No one has ever been able to prove the existence of the paranormal! That book just makes us look crazy.”

Abby lifted her chin. “Guess what? If all theories had experimental backing, we wouldn't be anywhere! You tell Columbia University that! You give them that from me!”

She looked down at her soup. A scowl shadowed her face. “There is only
one
wonton! Unbelievable!”

Erin remembered the many all-nighters they had pulled, subsisting on wonton soup and meat-lovers' pizza. And the time they had gone shopping for the black turtleneck sweaters they were wearing in their author photo …

She sat and sighed. That embarrassing photo. She was standing behind Abby with her elbow on her shoulder.
Behold. We are brainy.
They looked like teenage-girl versions of one of their heroes, the late, great astronomer Carl Sagan, who had sent a golden record on one of the
Voyager
spacecraft for the aliens to listen to. They also looked like beat poets. And Simon and Garfunkel.

They did not look like serious scientific investigators.

“You carry a lot of tension in your shoulders,” a woman's voice said, startling her. Erin turned.

The speaker was sitting at a worktable with her boots up. She was blond, her curly hair billowing upward, and she was wearing glasses that looked like an oversized pair of safety goggles. She was playing with a small blowtorch. Over a stretchy olive crop top she wore a pair of gray overalls splattered with paint; over that, an army jacket. She had on a pendant that was a big screw angled through the letter U. Screw you. Har-har. The woman was surrounded by piles of miscellaneous metal parts, what appeared to be scavenged electronics components, and conglomerations of the two that looked like weapons. Behind her, a pegboard was overloaded with more junk on hooks.

Already on the defensive, Erin felt her dander rise. She said, “Okay who are you?”

Abby acknowledged the woman, saying, “Holtzmann works with me in the lab. She's a brilliant engineer. And
loyal
.” She emphasized the last word. “Would never abandon you. Unlike some people I know—”

“Yes, I
get
it,” Erin snapped. Even a guilty party could only take so much, well, guilt.

“She specializes in experimental particle physics. She almost got into CERN.”

That was the European Organization for Nuclear Research, and infinitely harder to become a part of than Columbia University. Erin said, “Almost?”

Holtzmann was still playing with the blowtorch.
Pffft, pffft,
on and off. “There was a lab incident.” She grimaced slightly, but her eyes twinkled. She seemed a bit like one of those feral children you saw in documentaries from France.

Abby glanced over at her. “He'll wake up.”

“They said he moved a finger yesterday,” Holtzmann said, brightening a bit.

“Oh, good.”

Erin couldn't figure them out—if they were toying with her or all this was true. Abby seemed genuinely pleased at the news. She returned her attention to Erin. “She and I are bringing the ideas in our book to life. We're close on a hollow laser for the reverse tractor beam.”

Oh my god, she's serious. That's what's on the table. And the walls. And the floor. I'm surrounded by bits and pieces of our shared delusions.

“Terrific,” she bit off.

“It is terrific,” Abby said coldly.

Holtzmann cocked her head. “Abby, why don't you just let her listen to the EVP?”

Abby shook her head. “Absolutely not.”

EVP stood for electronic voice phenomenon. As in recordings of ghostly voices. Despite herself, Erin said, “What EVP?”

Holtzmann flashed a cajoling smile at her colleague. “Let her listen. It's the only way she'll know.”

Know? Know what? That they're both insane?

“Fine,” Abby said. “But she doesn't deserve it.”

Holtzmann and Abby walked over to a tape recorder on one of their crowded worktables. Holtzmann gestured to it. “A few months ago, we spent eight days at the Chelsea Hotel.”

A registered national historic landmark, Erin filled in. Home to musicians and avant-garde celebrities for decades. Of course, such a place was said to have its share of ghosts. Sid Vicious's girlfriend, Nancy, had been stabbed to death there.

Holtzmann continued. “We didn't get anything—”

Of course not,
Erin thought, but she was beginning to get uncomfortable.

“—or so we thought,” Abby cut in. “We found this later, going through the tapes.” She was looking at the device.

Without thinking, Erin said, “Did you use only one recording device? If you had multiple ones you could've located the source—”

Abby snorted. “Did we only use
one
recording device? I'm not a moron, Erin.”

“I should warn you…” Holtzmann leaned forward and hit play. “This … it's upsetting. What you're about to hear … it's just not from this world.”

Erin leaned in. White noise, static, jittered from the speaker. Holtzmann turned up the volume. The static grew louder, but it seemed to be more organized, containing a rhythm, perhaps even a pattern. The skin on Erin's face prickled. Her chest tightened as she caught her breath, alert, listening as hard as she could. Had Abby really done it? Finally made contact?

And then … the unmistakable
blat
of a fart punctuated the ambient vibrations. Holtzmann and Abby cracked up, and Erin's cheeks flared with heat.

“Wow,” she said, not wanting for anything in this world for Abby to know how disappointed she was. Because she
was
disappointed. “Really? That's disgusting.”

Holtzmann's eyes glittered with mischievous humor. “Is it more or less disgusting if I tell you it came from the front?”

“Cool joke,” she snapped back. “You guys are just killing it in here.”

“Oh, we have fun,” Holtzmann said.

“I'm so glad we could have an adult conversation about this,” Erin said irritably. She was outfunned and outgunned.

Abby regarded her, hostility resurfacing in those familiar eyes. “If you really don't believe in this stuff anymore, why were you looking for the book? Huh?”

“I wasn't,” Erin said. “Some man came to see me because he thinks his building is haunted.”

Abby and Holtzmann traded looks.

“What building?” Abby asked.

“Aldridge Mansion,” Erin replied.

Abby and Holtzmann burst into action, zooming over to a computer and beginning to type. Batman and Robin. Frankenstein and Igor.

“See, that's the problem, Abby,” Erin said. “This book … this science … it encourages troubled people to indulge their delusions. People who need real help, not stupid theories … Okay, you're not listening.”

Abby wasn't listening. Neither was Holtzmann. They were quietly murmuring to each other as they hovered over the computer. Finally, Abby stood and said, “Let's go see some ghosts.”

As if they had completely forgotten that she was there, they started packing a plethora of strange-looking equipment into a large duffel bag. Erin fought to remain a detached observer, but she couldn't help checking out everything, trying to remember the various diagrams and sketches they had put in their book. Crazy ghost-hunting equipment. Useless and preposterous. But was that an enhanced MEL meter? And what about—

Abby zipped the bag shut. Thusly prepared, she and Holtzmann made a beeline for the door. Then Abby looked over her shoulder at Erin.

“All right, let's move.”

Erin gave her head a shake. “I'm not going on your mission.” Although for a second there, she had really wanted to …

Abby looked at her sourly. “Well, thank you for sending your regrets, but I didn't invite you. I just can't lock this door until you're out of the room. Move it. Or you can just lock it and shut it on your way out.”