For the ghostbusters, Friday nights meant team-bonding, and team-bonding meant laughter, and adventure, and discovery - and, occasionally, brushes with imminent death.
It had started as a simple movie night, a chance to unwind and collapse in front of a movie or three at the end of a long week. Not that their weeks ever really ended - the afterlife apparently left hauntings with no sense of timing, and they were as likely to get called in for a job on the weekend as they were on a Tuesday morning.
But Friday nights they had claimed as their window to be officially off-duty, settling into a routine of Chinese takeout and slightly burnt (Holtzmann's contribution) popcorn and taking turns choosing movies, with explicit instructions to Kevin not to interrupt them unless ghost activity reached threatening apocalypse-nigh levels again.
(Sometimes, Kevin joined them, and his presence was always made remarkable by the way Erin's gaze slipped sideways to watch him instead of the screen. "Erin, I know he's pretty," Holtz always said, "but there will be a test on this later, and I'm going to need you to pass it so that we can still be friends."
"I thought y'all made the girlfriend thing official?" Patty asked.
"And, yes, there is that," Holtz confirmed as she pulled Erin, who came willingly, apologetically, into her. "You're going to give me a complex, and we all know I don't need another one."
"I know, I know, I'm sorry. I'm like a bird - I find shiny objects distracting."
"Well, I guess I'll just have to-" Holtzmann whispered something into Erin's ear that, even inaudible, sounded dirty, and Erin's resulting blush was palpable in the dark.
"Guys, come on, there are other people in the room!" Abby shushed them. "God, I was gonna say 'children' but even I can't stretch definition far enough for Kevin."
Kevin, of course, remained oblivious.)
The movie selections ranged from suitably weird to suitably romantic to suitably informative depending on whose week it was, though Abby always struggled with her own choices, never quite remembering the names of the movies she had in mind and thus turning the night into a game of charades or Taboo more than anything.
"What if I don't want to watch a movie?" she asked, finally exasperated with the whole tradition. "What if I want us to go out and, I don't know, do something on our night off?"
"You know," Holtz said, with a dangerous edge to the grin overtaking her face, "you may just have something there."
And with that, movie night took an abrupt left turn into choose-your-own-adventure night, where anything - in the name of team-bonding - was fair game.
...
That first Friday, Abby took them to Oscillate Wildly, the monthly dance party for hardcore fans of the Smiths and Morrissey, bundles of gladoili and Smiths t-shirts in hand for free entry.
Abby and Holtz immediately got their 80s dancehall fantasy on, Erin dancing more tentatively between them before loosening up under the effects of their unbridled enthusiasm.
It was fun, this little revival of impeccably-jangly teen angst in the backroom of a dive bar on the Lower East Side, the four of them feeding off each other's rhythms, everything light and lowkey until Holtz started getting a little too enthusiastic with their collective gladioli.
"I'm digging the music and all, but you people are weird," Patty muttered as she stepped further away from Holtz's intense reenactment of Morrissey's signature gladioli-swinging. Nearly half the floor had cleared to give her space, the other dancers looking on with a combination of appreciation and concern.
"You gotta embrace the gladiolus, Patty," Holtz shouted back over the bassline of 'This Charming Man,' though it seemed she might be embracing her fistful of gladioli too hard, given that all of the blossoms save one had flown off in the velocity of her spinning.
The next day, Erin had to help Holtz slip her proton pack on over her all-but-useless right shoulder, both of them grunting with the effort.
"Worth it," Holtz said with a satisfied smile as Patty looked on, shaking her head.
"Yeah, say that when we're all up in some ghost's ecto-whatever 'cause you can't lift your arm high enough to aim your gun!"
...
On her Friday, Erin took them to the extended hours of the Met - "It's like being there after-hours, it's so cool!" - her excitement dampened somewhat when she remembered her Columbia I.D. card had expired and would no longer get her in for free.
Holtzmann plucked the card from Erin's hand, snickering down at the picture and the tiny bowtie it so proudly displayed. "Could easily make you a new one of these, Dr. Gilbert. Just say the word."
"Holtz, no, that isn't…" Erin hastily snatched it back, fingers smoothing the surface as she put it back in her wallet, as if she were a thinking. In a much quieter voice, she asked, "...How easy, exactly?" while scanning the room in a way that was anything but surreptitious.
They wandered around the slightly darkened halls, listening to Patty's history of the building and its most famous artwork and trying to find the best doppelgangers of themselves in paintings and sculptures.
"I never knew you were that ripped, Erin," Holtz cracked, indicating a dramatic portrait of Joan of Arc that did look distinctly like Erin.
"I never knew you were a seventeenth century duke," Erin cracked back, and Holtz beamed wickedly, miming a moustache with one finger above her lips.
"Best kept secrets, and all."
...
When Patty's Friday came, she was ecstatic to be finally, finally, getting her quiet night-in of book club talk and Stevie Nicks records.
"I got Bella Donna, Trouble in Shangri-La - you know, the iconic ones - I brought wine, we can all talk about what we've been reading lately. And no, Erin, your physics textbooks don't count, this is not a remedial lesson for the non-scientist in the room."
"Patty, Patty, dear Patty, Halloween is in two days," Holtz protested, her face anguished. "You wouldn't make us stay in two days before Halloween, not when our womanly mystical powers are at their peak?"
Patty narrowed her eyes at that. "One, that is creepy as all hell. Two - baby, do you know who Stevie Nicks is? Woman is a witch if I've ever seen one, and what's more Halloween than that?"
Holtz opened her mouth, emitting a strangled sound as though she couldn't recite all the things that were more Halloween than that quickly enough. Patty silenced her with a hand.
"No. This is my Friday. I want some Stevie Nicks, and I want some wine, put my feet up, maybe a nice documentary about kids playing chess in Brooklyn or something. End of."
Holtzmann stared straight ahead, unblinking and silent and as motionless as any of them had ever seen her. Erin waved a hand in front of her eyes, then, after getting no response, started poking Holtz's arm with a gentle fist.
Still nothing.
"I think you may have broken her."
Patty sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose as if she were fending off a monstrously-escalating headache.
"We capture ghosts for a living, we get the bejesus scared out of us on a weekly basis - our whole job is one long Halloween season! Why would I want to go out looking for other spooky shit on our night off?"
"Patty's right, Holtz," Abby said. "Besides, it's her night to choose what we do, and we should respect that."
"Thank you. See now, that's being reasonable."
Holtzmann still hadn't moved, or blinked, an inch, and the oddness of seeing her without her usual blur of motion was beginning to make them all uneasy.
Patty sighed, again, this one deep and stretching and, ultimately, defeated. "Holtzy, if I trade Fridays with you, will you stop your weird sulky thing?"
Holtzmann's head immediately jerked up an inch, her eyes still freakishly wide, but at least now they read excitement instead of dead despair.
"Oh, Patty, maybe we should -"
Patty shook her head, resolved. "Nah, let her get her Halloween freak on tonight, and I'll take over her next two Fridays. I'm sensing a whole lotta Stevie in all y'all's future. We're gonna have time for her whole discography, maybe even hit some Fleetwood Mac highlights like -"
Abby tried to caution her again. "I'm just saying Holtzmann tends to go a little crazy when you give her this kind of -"
Holtzmann suddenly erupted into a low, electrifying bellow of victory, arms slowing raising over her head. "I HAVE THE POWER!" she boomed, striking her best He-Man pose on the downswing.
"Oh, well, there she goes," Abby muttered through a facepalm.
"Okay," Patty said to no one in particular. "This was a mistake, I see that now."
Holtzmann proceeded to run over to her filing drawer, where papers (she had explained once to Erin) were not so much filed as thrown in and possibly remembered three months later. After much digging and rustling of papers, she sprinted back with a flyer held high above her head and slapped it down in the middle of the table.
She pulled her glasses down from their perch in her crow's-nest of hair, setting them on her nose with the gravity of a general about to lay out elaborate battle plans.
"Right. It's Friday, it's mere hours - twenty nine and three quarters, to be precise - from Halloween. I'm thinking Brooklyn basement, I'm thinking haunted house, I'm thinking costumes and a feast of chocolatey goodness to buck ourselves up after we face whatever demons and dementors are lurking tonight. Yes? Yes."
"Um, Holtz? None of us have costumes," Erin pointed out, gesturing around to their various states of casual dress.
"Oh, ye of little faith," Holtzmann chided her fondly. "Where do we stand but at the epicenter of our combined creative forces? This is a lab. If we can create dark energy containment units out of little more than tinfoil and dreams, we can create some killer Halloween costumes in," she glanced down at her non-existent watch, "say, twenty minutes?"
There was a collective shrug.
"Now that's the kind of enthusiasm I like to see! Annnnnnnd, break!"
Holtz, unsurprisingly, moved at three or four times the speed of the others, a literal whirlwind of activity and mild cursing as she threw open drawers and boxes in search of something she could use to make a perfectly Holtzmanned costume.
When they reconvened twenty minutes later, she was bouncing on the balls of her feet while everyone else slumped around the table. "Okay, show Holtzy the money! I expect great things."
Erin hesitantly raised a hand, holding out what looked like a miniature picket sign made out of cardboard. "It says Down with quarks! because I'm, um, antimatter. Get it? Like 'Boo, matter sucks! Send those positrons back where they came from!'"
She trailed off uncertainly as Holtzmann slowly began to clap, building to a thunderous applause of one. "Perfection. Genius. You've outdone yourself. Now, who's next? Abby?"
Abby turned away from them, shrugging a white sheet over her head and shoulders until it hung to the floor. She spun back towards them, revealing hands outstretched like claws, holes for her eyes, a jagged slash of a mouth drawn on in sharpie, and the words Your Past scrawled across her chest with the same marker.
"Boo! I'm a literal - or figurative? Which one does this qualify as? - anyway, I'm a ghost from your past, literally and/or figuratively."
Holtzmann cocked her head to the side. "Huh. I thought you'd choose something more soup-based. Wonton-based? Am I alone in this?"
Patty and Erin shook their heads.
"Yeah, well, if you know how to turn me into a dumpling in twenty minutes or less, have at it."
"No, no, there's a poetry to this - simple yet effective, and a good marketing strategy to boot."
"I thought it appropriate."
"Patty, give it to me. Show me what we're working with."
Patty held up her jumpsuit, pleased with her own resourcefulness. "I'm a ghostbuster."
"Patty. That is not a costume." Holtzmann enunciated the word carefully, drawing out the final vowel. "Did you not understand the assignment, or…?"
Patty gestured to Abby forcefully. "Hey now, ghost needs a ghostbuster, and Patty got it covered."
"Okay, okay, I see it. Originality's a zero, but execution gets a solid ten."
"That's what I'm talking about, baby."
"What about you, Holtz?" Erin asked, looking around. "Where's your costume?"
"Glad you asked, antimatter, glad you asked."
Holtzmann struck another pose before slapping a Hello, my name is sticker onto her chest.
"Boson. Higgs boson," she said in her best Bond drawl as she reached into her pocket and retrieved a handful of candy corn, offering it to each of them in turn. "I am known as the giver of mass, and so I give unto you, my fellow particles, these colorful niblets as a symbolic gesture."
"That's… that's real special, Holtzy," Patty said with a valiant attempt to match Holtzmann's sense of ceremony.
"Who just crushed the Halloween costume game, then?" Holtz asked through a mouthful of candy, the only one brave enough to accept her gift of 'mass.' "WE DID!"
...
There was a definitively autumnal chill in the air when they reemerged from the subway in Brooklyn, walking the few blocks to the underground haunted house in closely-knit pairs, girding against the wind.
They were far from the only people on the streets in costume, a fact Holtzmann gleefully pointed out at least five times. She occasionally skipped up to strangers, pausing before them for a moment as she produced little handfuls of candy corn from this pocket or that and offered it up. So far, no one had actually accepted any from her, though that did nothing to dampen her spirit.
She skipped back to Erin's side, holding the rejected candy out to her instead.
"Holtz, no - do I even want to know where that's been?"
"Knowing you, possibly not."
The entrance to the haunted house was a nondescript cellar grate monitored by a bored-looking hipster zombie who collected ten dollars from each of them.
"From beneath you, it devours," he said in a monotone, waving them down the steps.
"Yeah, man, I've watched Buffy too," Patty said, rolling her eyes. "I'll tell you what's scary. We just paid forty dollars to go into someone's basement and walk into cobwebs."
Eerie music drifted in and out, undercut by a sudden bloodcurdling scream and a slam to black, all lights extinguished, as the cellar door crashed shut behind them.
"Oh, come on, how are we supposed to get anywhere now? Can't see a damn thing."
"Who's touching me? Holtzmann, I swear -"
"I think I see something? Is anyone else getting this greenish light from over there? Not that you can see me pointing..."
"Yeah, I see it. Let's get this over with."
Their eyes began to settle, adjusting to the darkness with the help of a soft green light indicating which direction they should walk in. Erin seemed to be leading the way, a narrow shape stepping lightly through the dark, with Holtzmann and Abby flanking her and Patty behind, but the progress was slow, slower, and suddenly it stilled to a complete halt before they had even reached the first turn in the path.
"Why you walking so slow?" Patty called.
"It's just… you're the tallest and I - we - can hide really nicely behind you if -"
"Oh, no, I don't believe this."
"You hide behind me all the time!" Erin argued, shifting backwards even further. "I'm like your personal slime shield, which is not as fun as it sounds, I might add."
Abby turned to Patty, the dim lighting managing to catch a reflection off her glasses. "She does have a point there."
"I mean, you're not wrong about the slime shield thing - shit's nasty - but the answer's still no. Patty knows what she's about, and she ain't about to go first down a dark hallway. I've seen the movies. I know what happens to a sister."
"I volunteer as tribute," Holtzmann announced dramatically, stepping in front of Erin. "This was my idea, I'll go first."
"There you go. So long as someone goes first so we can get the hell out of here sometime tonight."
Holtzmann led them on, following the trail of music and lights that became stronger once they had turned the corner.
"You know, for a haunted house, this isn't very haunted?" Erin remarked, and the others hummed in agreement. "No ghosts, no fake blood, no jumpscares. This feels weird."
As if on cue, the music shrilled and a glow-in-the-dark skeleton dropped from the ceiling, swinging heavily over their heads and emitting some kind of crazed laughter.
"Mother of -"
It was the suddenness and loudness more than anything that startled the team into taking a step back, Erin latching onto Holtz in surprise with a little squeak.
"Yes, what kind of sick bastard puts a skeleton in a haunted house? I ask you," Holtzmann deadpanned as she gently extracted herself from Erin's death grip, softening the action by keeping hold of Erin's hand in her own.
"You jumped too," Erin grumbled, determined not to be labeled the scaredy-cat of the group.
"I did - it was awesome. Let's go get the bejesus scared out of us."
To its credit, the rest of the haunted house did scare the bejesus out of them, eliciting its share of screams from them all as well as a steady stream of perturbed commentary from Patty, wondering why she always let herself be led into this rooms full of nightmares nonsense.
"Nothing says team-bonding like cowering in each other's arms, eh?" Holtzmann panted as they paused before entering what had to be the final gauntlet of the house - it felt like they had been inside for ages.
"Is my hair turning grey? I feel like my hair's turning grey," Erin muttered beside her, squinting at the strand of hair between her finger and thumb.
"Guys, look, there's a door. Let's just go for it, it has to be the way out."
Green light was spilling thickly from the crack under the door, the music deafening in its nearness, the heavy bass quickening their heartbeats to a level that was almost painful in its physicality.
"Here goes," Holtzmann mouthed through the noise, grabbing the doorknob with one hand and opening, pulling, with a quick flick of her wrist.
Dead in front of them, filling the entire doorway and radiating green light like some kind of otherworldly sun, was a woman in full black dress, complete with a broom in one hand and a pointed hat canted jauntily on her head. A black cat twined slowly around her ankles (which hovered a good foot above the ground) and growled in the back of its throat, tail lashing in warning.
"Damn, that's realistic," Patty breathed into the sudden silence.
"Um, guys?" Erin was pressed against the wall as though, if she tried hard enough, she could simply pass through it. "I think that's a class IV semi-anchored apparition. Like, a real class IV apparition. And she looks aggressive."
"I think you're right."
"She does look pissed."
"Anyone have a proton gun hanging out in their pocket? Patty?"
"Yeah, no, I wanted to look like a ghostbuster tonight, I didn't think I'd have to be one!"
"What's plan B, Holtz?" Erin asked, growing increasingly desperate as the cat and woman figures advanced on them, inch by terrifying inch.
"Run for your life?"
"Guys, we've got to have something between the four of us." Abby insisted. "If not an actual weapon or containment unit, something we can use as one."
"Maybe Holtzy can offer her some candy corn, provide a little distraction."
Holtzmann started digging into her pocket again, either missing Patty's sarcasm or deciding to ignore it, when she abruptly stopped, hand still buried in denim. "Wait - Patty, are you wearing one of the new suits? The ones that were hanging over the changing room doors?"
"Yeah, I grabbed one of those. Why?"
"There might be something in one of your pockets."
"Oh, lord, if it's more candy corn I say we just let the ghost have you."
Holtz wasn't listening, instead running her hands down Patty's leg. She felt around the cargo pockets that had been added halfway down the pant legs, a slow grin spreading across her face as she found what she had been looking for.
An ugly piece of metal, the size of a fist, with frayed wires still poking out on one side lay in the palm of her hand.
"Localized proton bomb. If I hit her right on, Sabrina and her little friend will go poof -"
"Really? We can get out of this?" Erin broke in excitedly, almost clapping her hands in relief.
"- and the building will collapse magnificently on our heads. I was still trying to work out that wrinkle in the bomb's construction. Did I forget to mention that part?"
"Are you telling me you made a bomb without a timer, Holtz? No options for delayed detonation? And you kept it in Patty's pants?" Abby asked, her voice rising with every question.
"It was a work in progress!"
"We can figure this out," Erin said determinedly, nudging them all in for an awkward group huddle. "Let's think: how can we get the ghost and get to keep our heads?"
"Abby's right, if there was a timer we could give ourselves enough time to get out…" Holtz drifted into silence, forehead creased in thought. Erin reached out to squeeze her arm, jumping a little when Holtzmann seized at it, pushing Erin's sleeve up violently.
"Holtz, what-?"
"Your watch, I need your watch, why didn't you tell me you were wearing a WATCH?" Holtzmann chanted frantically as she ripped the band off Erin's arm and wrapped it around the proton bomb, twisting and biting at the wires.
"Oh, jesus, she's gone full-on MacGyver. I can't watch," Patty moaned, turning away.
"All done, Patty," Holtz called to her. "'Twas but the work of a moment, and now you see before you the new and improved proton bomb - with this fetching delayed detonation timer."
"All right, all right, less boasting, more ghost killing," Abby said as they were forced to retreat another foot from the press of the ghost.
"This will give us a good thirty seconds' head start, maybe forty if we push it, which should be just enough time for us to get clear of the bomb's blast radius. Wait for my count, then -"
"Run like hell?" Erin suggested.
"That's where I was going with that, yeah."
"Holtzy, the witch ain't just gonna stay there while we're trying to blow her up!" Patty yelled, jerking Holtzmann out of reach just as the apparition lurched in with a hooked finger.
"Oh, I intend to leave her with a parting gift," Holtz smirked, scattering a handful of candy corn across the cellar floor. As one, witch and cat turned towards the source of the sound, peering close at the colored pieces below them. A paw reached out, tentative, to bat at the new toy, and the distraction was complete.
"On three!"
…
As it turned out, the bomb wasn't strong enough to bring the building down - it didn't even shake loose a dusting of plaster - but it was as effective against ghosts as their usual arsenal.
They had emerged, out-of-breath and raving, from the cellar much to the hipster zombie's bemusement. "Never seen anyone not finish the whole house," he muttered with an air of wounded superiority.
"Oh, yeah, 'cause harboring a class IV hellbeast and using it as the gotcha! in your little playhouse is a nice trick," Patty shouted back at him as the others herded her down the street. "Real nice! You should be paying us!"
"Patty, I think we're gonna need some of that wine when we get back," Erin said weakly as they trudged back to the subway station.
"All the wine," Abby echoed. "All the wine, and maybe some soup."
Holtzmann was as elastic, bubbling with energy as ever, her step light and undaunted by what they had just seen. She threw an arm around Erin's shoulders, half on her toes to level their heights and steal a post-battle kiss.
"That was some mad magic with those circuits back there," Patty said fondly, punching Holtzmann's other arm. "I don't know how you do it, Holtzy - always coming through for us in a pinch."
"Well, you know how the saying goes," Holtz said, amusement ringing clear in her voice, in the slight strut she had taken on as they walked. "A magician never reveals her secrets."