Meanwhile, Erin, Abby, and Holtzmann moved into their new headquarters. It was an old dining room on the second floor of a rundown Chinese restaurant. Abby and Holtzmann’s equipment filled every available spot.
Abby stood at the door talking to the deliveryman. “How does it take you an hour to walk up a flight of stairs? I move above you, and you still can’t help me out?” She pulled her soup out of the bag and opened it. “This is just broth and one shrimp. That’s not soup, that’s a pet.”
While Abby argued over her lunch, Erin watched Holtzmann working in the space that she’d claimed as her lab. She was wearing a hazmat suit, testing sensitive equipment while dancing to the music on the radio. When she accidentally lit a paper towel dispenser on fire, Holtzmann danced over to the extinguisher and grooved back to put out the fire with a fancy disco spin.
After things had calmed down, there was a knock at the door.
A man entered. “Excuse me. I’m here about the receptionist job?”
Erin stared at the man. He was incredibly handsome.
When she didn’t speak, he said, “Hello?”
Erin blinked hard and said, “Of course. Let’s go into the conference room.”
“Are you Kevin?” asked Abby. “Fantastic! We spoke on the phone, follow me!”
The elegant and iconic Mercado Hotel was known for many things, mostly its proximity to Times Square. What it was not known for, however, was a small cluttered apartment in the basement maintenance room. That room belonged to a man named Rowan. In the room, a sad cot sat in the corner. Above it, on the walls, were framed physics diplomas from Stanford and MIT.
“You will do a great job today,” Rowan North told himself as he buttoned his uniform for work. “Your potential is matched only by your ambition. Trust in your abilities and the universe shall bend before your will.”
A voice boomed through a speaker on the wall. “Rowan, we’ve got a clogged toilet on 1843. It’s bad. Get on it ASAP.”
“Absolutely. Nothing would make me happier,” Rowan replied. It didn’t matter that he was dripping sarcasm. The voice didn’t care.
Before leaving, Rowan took a quick glance into his mirror and grinned at the dark otherworldly shadows lurking behind the glass.
“And the universe shall bend before your will,” he repeated.
Meanwhile, back at headquarters, the Ghostbusters and Kevin entered the conference room, which was really just a booth at the restaurant.
Abby opened a notebook filled with questions. “First off, congratulations. To walk through this door already tells me that you have a daring and curious mind.”
Kevin tipped his head. “Sure.”
“Everyone here has an unyielding passion to answer the unanswered questions. A life-long dedication.” She glanced at Erin. “Well, most of us. She’s in and out. But for the most part, everyone here is fiercely dedicated—”
Erin cut in. “Okay, he doesn’t need our history.” Abby shrugged. Erin said, “So, you must be curious about what we do.”
“Definitely. Do you work Wednesdays?” Kevin asked.
“Uh, yes. Yes, we work Wednesdays,” Erin said.
“Shoot. That’s tough for me,” Kevin said.
“Well, let’s get to it.” Abby tapped her pencil on the table. “Big question. Do you believe in ghosts?”
“Um. Not really,” Kevin responded.
“Oh? Oh.” Abby looked disappointed, and then flipped through her notebook. “All these follow-up questions were based on a yes.” She slowly closed her notebook.
Kevin reconsidered his answer. “You mean like Casper?”
Abby got excited. “Yes! Like Casper. Okay. He gets it.”
Erin frowned. “Does he, though?”
“Kevin also dabbles in web design, so I asked him to try a couple logos out for us. Show us what you’ve got,” Abby said.
Kevin opened his laptop. The first logo was a drawing of a silly looking cartoon ghost.
Abby tried to make the best of it. “Well, look at all that effort. Sometimes it’s not about the end product but the journey.”
“Kevin, you do see how that makes us look bad, right?” Erin asked him.
Kevin nodded, but Erin thought he might also be clueless.
Kevin pulled out another logo. This one was a hot dog floating over a house.
“Is that supposed to be for us?” Erin asked.
Kevin looked at Abby. “She said on the phone ‘a ghost or miscellaneous.’ ”
“Oh, no, actually I said a ‘ghost, but nothing extraneous.’ ” Abby added, “Okay, so just a misunderstanding.”
Holtzmann was still looking at the hot dog logo. “I still have so many questions about this choice.”
Erin rose from the table. “Um, Kevin, could you excuse us for a moment?”
When Kevin was gone, Erin said, “We can’t do this. We are scientists. We are trying to do something real.”
“He’s the only applicant.” Abby glanced over at Kevin.
“Really?” Erin followed Abby’s gaze. Across the room, Kevin was acting odd.
“Erin, he chose us. That means something. And we of all people should know better than to judge others,” Abby said. “We don’t know what’s in there. I see a natural curiosity in him.”
Erin figured out what Kevin was up to. “He’s trying to get the phone through the glass.”
There was a fish tank left over from the restaurant. Inside was an old broken phone. Kevin was repeatedly bumping his hand against the empty aquarium’s glass trying to get at it.
“How am I supposed to answer the phone in there?” he asked.
Abby ignored him. “Look, Erin. Everyone has something to offer. You walk into this laboratory/Chinese restaurant and you will be welcome. I’m telling you, there’s something in there.”
Kevin found an old gong and hit it.
Abby shouted over to Kevin. “You got the job!”
Erin made a face, but noticed Kevin looking at her. She gave him a thumbs-up and a forced smile. “Welcome aboard!”
“Cool. Can I bring my suitcases up?” Kevin asked.
“Yes, you may,” Abby said.
As Kevin headed out the door, Abby noticed a woman sitting at the top of the stairwell, reading a magazine. “Ma’am, if you’re picking up takeout, wait downstairs,” Abby said.
“Oh. I saw this magazine and thought this was your waiting room,” the woman said. Abby didn’t know it yet, but this was Patty. She put the magazine on the floor and came inside. Patty knew a lot about the history of the building where the Ghostbusters had their headquarters, but that wasn’t why she was there. “I was just chased by a ghost,” she told them.
CHAPTER 6
Patty led Erin, Abby, and Holtzmann into the subway and down the tunnel where she’d seen the ghost. Abby used the PKE meter while Holtzmann pushed a large, clunky proton box on wheels.
“You know, the old York Prison used to be right there above us,” Patty said. “I always knew there was something weird down here.”
Abby checked her meter. “Strong correlation between negative incidents and paranormal presence. It’s very difficult for anything to pass through the barrier back into our world.” Abby twisted a few dials, then went on. “So any spirit determined enough to pull that off, well, that’s likely an angry ghost.”
Patty noticed a graffiti artist ahead. “Hey! What did I say?!”
He pretended to spray his armpits.
“That is not deodorant! Have you again mistaken me for a stupid person?” Patty shook a fist at him.
“Is he down here a lot?” Abby asked.
“This is his art studio,” she said.
Abby called to the artist, “Have you seen a class four semi-anchored entity around here?”
Patty whispered, “You might want to try English.”
Erin asked, “Have you seen a ghost?”
The graffiti artist replied, “Yeah, I’ve seen a ghost.”
“Can you descri
be it?” Erin asked.
The graffiti artist thought about it for a minute, then started to draw an outline of a ghost on the subway wall.
“Don’t you draw a ghost on that wall,” Patty warned.
He stopped. Then he spray-painted a little more.
“I mean it.” Patty said as he put the finishing touches on his art. “I don’t want that ghost up there.”
He drew a circle with a line through it over the ghost.
Patty ran forward and grabbed the spray paint from his hand. The artist ran away, and Patty fumed. Meanwhile Holtzmann peeked back at the graffiti on the wall. What remained was a spray-painted outline of a ghost in a red circle with a line through it.
Holtzmann snapped a shot of the artist’s image with her phone, and then ran to catch the others, who had left to find the ghost farther down.
Abby used her PKE meter and EMF meter.
“We don’t have much time,” Patty told them. “No one touch the third rail.”
A drip of green slime fell from the ceiling onto Erin’s shoulder. “Oh, come on. I just dry-cleaned this,” she said.
“Yeah, I figured you were gonna get your fancy clothes dirty down here. I should have given you some coveralls. My bad,” Patty said.
Abby called them all together. “We got something going on over here. Is that a burn mark?”
“That’s where I saw that weird sparking thing.” Patty pointed at the wall where the strange box had been mounted.
“What was it?” Holtzmann asked.
“Darlin’, if I knew, I wouldn’t have said ‘that weird sparking thing.’ ”
Abby began collecting samples from around the area. She found a large a chunk of debris. “Smells of both electrical discharge and isotopic decay.” She handed it over to Holtzmann. “Holtz, smell this. You agree?”
Holtzmann smelled it, then licked it. “Definite neutron burn.”
Patty was repulsed. “All right, if you’re all done kissing that piece of dirty garbage, we only have a few minutes. For real. I gave us no cushion room.”
Just then, the lights in the tunnel flickered and went out.
Holtzmann pointed down the tunnel. “Do you see that? The eyes.”
Erin sighed. Another prank? “Holtzmann, please don’t mess—oh—” There was something down there in the dark. It looked like a pair of glowing yellow eyes. “That is unsettling.”
“Holtzmann, illuminate the subject,” Abby ordered.
“Yeah, get some light on that,” Patty agreed while getting ready to run.
Holtzmann shone the flashlight down the tunnel, revealing the ghost. He was the tall, thin, pale prisoner-ghost Patty had seen before. His yellow eyes flashed at them.
The PKE meter’s antenna started spinning wildly.
Erin noted the meter. “That is somehow more unsettling.”
“And fantastic! That’s another class four, but way more ionized than the Aldridge ghost. Look at the meter. I’ve gotta get this on film.” Abby grabbed the camera. “Let’s bring this boy to the lab. Holtz, power up.” Abby started filming.
“This is early stages, so it’s a little rough. I’m going to adjust the levels. Erin, hold this.” Holtzmann handed Erin a large, cumbersome wand. It was attached to a tube that attached to a box. “This will shoot a proton stream, so just aim it at the ghost when I say. Oh, I almost forgot.” She put a contraption that looked like a metal neck brace around Erin’s neck and connected it with a wire to the machine. “Just a little bit of grounding.” Holtzmann confirmed that Erin was ready. “Okay, don’t move too much. Or talk. And definitely don’t sweat.”
Erin stood frozen like a robot while Holtzmann fiddled with switches on the proton box.
“Holtzmann,” Erin muttered between closed lips. The ghost was getting closer.
“Aim the wand at it,” Abby told Erin. She did, but only a weak beam shot out. “Well, that’s underwhelming. Use more power.”
Holtzmann adjusted the settings. “Okay, Erin, do it again.”
She aimed the wand again and the beam went a little farther. It touched the ghost, but just barely.
Erin was dripping sweat. “Can this get stronger please?!”
Holtzmann tried a few things. “Not at the moment. Live and learn, I guess. I wish I had time to run back to the lab.” She asked Erin, “You couldn’t hold that for a while, could you?”
“NO!” The beam from Erin’s wand was holding the ghost, who was now only two feet in front of her.
“Think you could just slowly drag it back to the lab like this?” Holtzmann suggested.
“NO!”
The ghost suddenly pushed forward against the beam. Erin fell backward onto the tunnel floor, but managed to hold on.
Lights in the distance made Patty shriek. “That’s the train. We gotta move!”
“We are not losing this thing,” Abby said. “Erin, drag the ghost back to the platform.”
“What?” Erin could barely speak.
“There’s no time! Grab her sides!” Patty took hold of the back of Erin’s collar like a kitten and lifted her as Holtzmann and Abby helped.
The train got closer.
“That’s express! It’s not stopping!” Patty warned.
They pulled Erin up to the platform just in time. But the proton box was still on the track. Holtzmann ripped the attached metal collar off Erin’s neck seconds before the train’s impact slammed the box into the third rail, causing electricity to surge up through the tube. The ghost was captured for a second, until a surge of electricity hit him, sending ectoplasm splattering. Erin was covered.
Abby and Holtzmann glanced up in time to see the ghost in the back of the subway car, looking confused as it sped away.
“Guess he’s going to Queens,” Patty said calmly.
“Did you see that?” Abby nearly screamed. “That surge of power really got a hold of it. What a field test! Data-tastic!”
Holtzmann was taking notes. “Yep. We’re going to need a lot more juice. We need to be more mobile, too. I know what to do.”
“We almost got killed,” Erin choked out. She was covered in ectoplasm.
“Yeah, I know,” Holtzmann was thrilled. “So awesome. No one looked into that flash, right?”
Erin gasped. “I looked directly into it.”
“Oh, that’s fine,” Holtzmann said.
But she made a face at Abby and mouthed, “Yikes.”
CHAPTER 7
Back at headquarters, Erin watched the subway video that Abby had posted. All the comments were pretty much the same. “Fake.” “You people are crazy.”
Erin couldn’t believe it. “What do people want?” She turned to Abby. “We really need to get a ghost back to the lab and document it properly. This stuff’s all real and we can’t prove it to anybody.”
“We will.” Abby was confident. “You just gotta ignore these people.”
Kevin brought Abby a cup of coffee.
“Did you remember the sugar?” she asked.
Kevin wasn’t sure, so he took a long sip, then gave the cup to Abby. “Yeah.” He walked away.
“Well, at least he remembered,” Abby said, setting the cup aside.
“What do you make of the tech from the subway?” Erin asked as they studied the leftover parts from the sparking device on a table.
“I’ve only got bits and pieces here, none of which have any business in a subway tunnel. But look at this—” Abby held up a piece.
“Was that a miniature cyclotron?” Erin asked.
“Yup,” Abby confirmed. “Everything I’m looking at here, they’re all things we’ve associated with attracting ghost particles. I’m wondering if someone built some kind of device to bring in an apparition. Which is very impressive.”
Erin glanced at Patty, who was sitting at a computer in the office, typing madly. “What was that weird thing that guy mentioned?”
“The Fourth Cataclysm,” Patty replied. “Sounded like some spooky ancient stuff. But I can’t
find anything about it online.” She shook her head. “Do I need to worry about first through third cataclysms? Who’s got that kind of time?”
Abby and Erin looked at each other, then back at Patty.
“Ma’am, why are you still here?” Erin asked.
“Oh, I’m joining your club,” Patty said, as if it was totally obvious.
The phone rang. Kevin looked at Erin before answering. “What is this place called again?”
“Conductors of the Metaphysical Examination,” Erin said, proud of the name.
Kevin answered the phone. “Conductors of Meta Something or Other.”
“Hey, Kevin?” Abby interrupted. “I’m going to need you to try a little harder, okay, buddy?”
Kevin put down the receiver. “Okay, if they call back I will.”
Abby smiled. “There you go.”
“I gotta take off, though. I’ve got a hide-and-seek tournament. We’re in the semis.” Kevin started gathering his stuff.
Abby didn’t have to look at Erin to know her face was disapproving.
Erin turned back to Patty. “Patty, this isn’t really a club. We’re a research group. Do you have any lab experience?”
“No. And I kind of feel like I was set up to fail with that question. No, I am not a scientist, I understand that.” Patty went on, “I didn’t go to some fancy school like the rest of you. But I read a lot of nonfiction. You know, you can be smart about science but a straight up dummy about everything else.” She calmed down. “I guess I didn’t need to insult you. I apologize for that.” She took a breath. “Look, I spend most of my time sitting alone in an MTA booth. Thought it would be nice to pick up an activity that involves other people.” She added, “Also I could borrow a car from my uncle so you don’t have to keep lugging all that heavy equipment around.”
That last point they couldn’t refuse.
“Great. Welcome to the team, Patty,” Abby said for them all.
The next morning there was a loud honking on the street in front of the restaurant. Abby, Erin, and Holtzmann came out the front door to find Patty getting out of her uncle’s hearse.
Ghostbusters Movie Novelization Page 3
