Author's Note:
Hey gang. I've felt really bad about how long it has been taking me to finish part 4 of Star Trek Voyager: A Fire of Devotion. It is in progress, I swear (roughly 55% done). But just to let you know I'm still alive, and still writing, I figured I'd hammer out a quick fic based on a scene that popped into my head at work one day. Hope it holds you over until I can get "Hotter Than Hell" published. Since it is a quickie, don't expect it to be of the same quality as my usual work, but I think it's still a fun read."I think this is our first job outside of the city," Abby said from behind the wheel of ECTO-1 as they pulled up in front of the house they had been called to. A young couple stood out front, clearly nervous about being too near the old quasi-Victorian style home that looked like it had been built by someone who liked the architecture of the Victorian era, but just wasn't good enough of an architect to copy it accurately.
"That is one butt-ugly house," Patty said quietly.
"Eh," Holtzman said as she opened her door to get out. "I've seen worse."
"Don't remind me," Erin said. "I will never forgive you for getting me hooked on . And I thought TV Tropes was a time sink."
"Consider that payback for sending me that YouTube video about the star-nosed moles," Holtzman said.
"Guys, the clients are heading towards us. Time to be professional," Abby said.
"Boo," Holtzman said.
"Ms. Yates?" one of the two people in front of the house said, extending his hand. "Thanks for coming so quickly. I imagine you must be busy"
"Not as busy as we'd like," Erin said as she pulled her gear out of the back of the car.
They don't need to know that, Abby thought, but kept her smile up as she spoke to the couple. The man, a tall skinny white guy who looked like the poster child for Brooklyn hipsters was clearly the one who had called them judging from his voice. The woman, a Black girl wearing an Iron Maiden t-shirt, stepped up.
"Regardless, thanks for coming," she said. "I'm Marielle, this is my husband Gary. It really is a pleasure to meet you all in person. I actually had a view of a lot of what you guys did last year from my office. That was really amazing how you took down all those ghosts."
Abby smiled as Holtzman gave her a playful slap on the shoulder.
"Thanks," Holtzman said. "It was fun. Much as I love to hear talk about how awesome we are though, I figure we should probably take care of these spooks you say you've got."
"Ah, straight to the point," Marielle said. "I like you."
"Well," Gary said, "you see we bought this house 4 months ago, everything seemed fine. But last month we started hearing noises."
"And seeing things," Marielle added.
"Can you describe them for us?" Erin asked. Gary and Marielle looked at each other, trepidatiously.
"Here's the part where I'm worried you won't believe us," Gary said. "We thought it might just have been vandals at first, people not too happy about having a mixed race couple in the neighborhood. But the thing is, we set a security system first thing after we bought the place, and we have video that shows nobody there."
"And there's no sign of forced entry," Marielle said.
"What did the ghosts do?" Patty said.
"Simply put," Gary said, "we found Anti-Semitic slogans on our walls. In blood. Blood that went away when we turned on the lights. And old Nazi propaganda cartoons started popping up on our computers just out of nowhere."
The Ghostbusters each stopped what were they were doing mid-action.
"Racist ghosts," Patty said, shaking her head. "I knew we'd run into that sooner or later."
Holtzman patted Patty on the shoulder. "That's great though, right? That means we not only get to see if the upgrade I made to our proton packs works, but we get to use them on Nazis. How cool is that?!"
Patty laughed. "Well, duh, white lady," she added with a wink.
She and Holtzman started moving towards the house.
"Whoa, hey, ease up there," Abby said. "Standard procedure guys, remember? Let's make sure there actually are ghosts first? You know, so if we break anything it won't be for nothing?" Abby turned to Gary and Marielle. "It's not that we don't believe you of course, but we've had false alarms before. We're still paying off the damages for the last one, so..."
"Liability issues," Marielle said, nodding. "Yeah, I get that."
"Have the ghosts done anything else to you?" Erin said.
"Honestly?" Marielle said. "No. Like we said before, the blood went away real quick. None of the furniture's been messed with, the windows haven't been broken, and they haven't tried to hurt us physically, at least as far as we can tell."
"Even so," Gary said, "even if they can't actually hurt us, I don't like the idea of Jew-haters being in our house. I mean, I' m not Jewish, ethnic or religious, and neither is Mary, but still, it's the principle of the thing, you know?"
"Nazis suck, we get it," Holtzman said, sounding impatient. "I got the gear, let's go already."
Abby sighed. "If this isn't ghosts I think Jillian's gonna be really disappointed. And I don't want to drive all the way back to the city with a disappointed Jillian is the car."
"I'll go with her," Erin said. "I'll make sure she doesn't get over excited and break anything. Again."
While the other three Ghostbusters went into the house, Abby stayed by Gary and Marielle.
"Okay, just a few more things before I go help my friends in there. We can do the payment stuff after we're done, but for the purposes of our records I need to know more about anything else you saw-" Abby's question was cut off by a loud noise from the house, a deep booming voice yelling out words that Abby had never heard spoken, and had never seen outside of YouTube comments sections. She turned towards the house in time to see all three of her colleagues flying out the front door, one after the other, each landing on each other.
"You just had to push it, didn't you Holtzman?" Patty said as Abby ran over to help them up.
"How many times in my life am I gonna get a legitimate chance to use the phrase 'You look like Voltron if the lions just didn't give a shit?' in my daily existence?" Jillain said, wincing as she rubbed her arm that had connected hard with Erin's proton pack when they landed.
"Jillian, no internet reviewers for you for a month," Erin said. "But I haven't seen Lindsay's Rent video yet," Holtzman said.
"Guys!" Abby said. "Focus. What did you see?"
"A ghost," Patty said. "Well, a bunch of ghosts really, all mashed together. They were all human at one point, mostly white but I saw a few brothers in there, unfortunately."
"Anti-Semitism can strike anyone, anywhere I guess," Marielle said, she and Gary having also run over to help.
"How about," Patty said, powering up her proton pack, "we save the discussion on anti-Semitism in the Black community for later, and go bust us some damn ghosts?"
"Seconded," Erin said. "The only good Nazi is a dead... wait, I think I need to rephrase that in this instance."
Abby, now having her own ghost busting gear ready to go stepped up onto the porch of the house, facing the front door as it wildly flapped open and close, a green glow emanating from inside the house.
"All right team," she said, "let's go in there and remind what we do to Nazis here in America."
"Let them get away with taking over a wildlife refuge in Oregon?" Holtzman said. Everyone, including Gary and Marielle just stared at her. "What, too soon?"
Erin stepped up next to Abby and gave her old childhood a friend a squeeze on the shoulder. "Can the political commentary gang, we've got work to do."
"Oh, she is so cute when she's mad," Holtzman said quietly enough that Erin and Abby didn't hear her.
"Yeah," Patty said. She noticed Holtzman looking at her from the corner of her eye. "What? I'm straight, not dead."
"Let's do this!" Erin yelled, kicking the door in and marching in, Abby right behind her, proton pack up and ready to go. Though it only took seconds for Patty and Holtzman to catch up, when they entered the home, the multi-limbed monstrosity was already struggling against the streams of Erin and Abby's proton packs.
"Sweet Jesus," Gary said, he and Marielle standing a few feet behind Holtzman and Patty. "That's what the thing we've been hearing looks like?"
"Thank goodness we called the Ghostbusters when we did," Marielle said, gripping Gary's arm. "If that thing can toss people around like that, it could've killed us."
"Folks," Holtzman said, as she readied a ghost trap, "you might wanna step back."
Patty, having joined Abby and Erin, quickly got her own stream firing, and within seconds, the ghost was all but immobilized, only it's many, many hands desperately grabbing at objects to throw at the Ghostbusters, its finger passing uselessly through them. "I think it used up all it's juice when it tossed us out of the house!" she shouted over the increasingly loud screaming and ranting of the ghost, each sentence containing phrases that she'd never even heard before but from context assumed they were yet more anti-Jewish slurs and conspiracy theories.
"Jillian!" Abby yelled, "Any time now!"
"Hey, Nazi!" Holtzman yelled, holding up the ghost trap with a menacing grin. "Time to move in to your new digs." She threw the trap on the ground right underneath the ghost. "Cover your eyes!" she yelled back at Gary and Marielle as she stepped on the trap trigger, opening it. The last thing she could hear the ghost scream as it was sucked in, before the proton packs were shut off, was a long drawn out K-word.
"Did he yell 'kite?'" Erin said.
"Why would you think he said kite?" Abby said. Erin opened her mouth to speak, then stopped, and blushed.
"Oh, yeah, right. I don't know what I was thinking."
"Nah, to be fair," Patty said, "it was so loud in here he could've been saying kite. It's just not likely, given everything else that freak was saying, you know?"
"So, should we bother putting this one in the containment unit?" Abby said. "I mean, it's a unique enough apparition to warrant study, but on the other hand... friggin' Nazi."
"Yeah, I saw we just destroy this one," Patty said.
"Which one would cost more?" Gary said. Marielle lightly slapped his forearm.
"Inappropriate," she said.
"Sorry," Gary said.
"Nah, it's okay," Abby said. "Totally a fair question. No, we don't actually charge extra for containment."
"Since it's your property the ghosts were on," Erin said, "it's really your call."
Gary and Marielle looked at each other for all of five seconds, and nodded.
"Waste the bastards," Marielle said.
"Boo-yah!" Holtzman said.
"Can I push the button?" Patty said. "I've actually got an uncle who thinks a lot like this guy. Flat-earther too, if you can believe that."
"Lots of flat-earthers really seem to hate Jews," Erin said. "Never understood why."
"I can't bust his ass, since he's a human being and all, so I wanna pretend this thing is him."
"Fine by me," Abby said. "Zap it, and load up the car. I'll go get the credit card reader for the phone."
"Actually," Gary said, sheepishly, "our new debit card hasn't come yet. Can we write you a check?"