Chapter 10
Egon stood with Ray by his side next to the Charles A. Dana Discovery Center (a visitor center run by the Central Park Conservancy) on the northern shore of Harlem Meer. As he looked out across the water to the west side, police and rescue activity could be seen. Work lights had been set up to illuminate the area. A backhoe lay silent and still next to the bustle of workers scrambling to retrieve items or relay items into the tree line.
Off to Egon's right, in the North Woods, the occasional shout and proton stream could be seen. Roland and Garrett were off trying to catch that last entity. After closing up his store for the night, Ray had stopped by the firehouse. He had gotten there in time for when Kylie had called with an update. Garrett, having changed into a new uniform earlier, suggested that they all go down there to help in anyway they could. Ray agreed with him.
Ray drove Egon's car up 8th Avenue taking it easy as they had no reason to rush. Kylie had said that they had found Eduardo and he was fine. The clock on the dashboard had read 1:45 a.m., when they left, as Ray and Egon talked about old times and Doctor Spengler's performance at NJPAC.
It wasn't until they came closer to Harlem Meer that they knew something was wrong. As Ray parked Egon's car behind Ecto-2 Garrett suited up and taking a radio wheeled off to find Roland, Kylie, and Eduardo. Egon had said to Garrett that he needed to take it easy because of his leg wound, and that Doctor Spengler would not be happy, but away he went anyways.
A 'Do Not Cross' police tape hung from a tree to the edge of the water. When Ray and Egon had tried to follow Garrett under the police tape they were stopped and told to wait by the discovery center. "What was going on?" Egon thought as they had walked over to the center a short distance away where a small crowd had gathered.
"Kylie didn't mention anything about a rescue did she?" Ray asked Egon as they got to the center.
"No."
Egon was pulled out of his thoughts by Ray tapping him on the shoulder and pointing with his cane to the police officer coming their way.
"Egon look."
One of New York's finest was carrying something heavy and awkward. Since there were no lights where the officer was walking Ray and Egon didn't see what he was carrying until the officer was almost upon them. It was a proton pack. Egon's heart sank as he recognized it.
"Evening Doctor Stantz, Professor Spengler." The officer said turning on his flashlight. "I figured you wanted this back."
The officer set the proton pack down on the ground, handed Ray the flashlight, and stepped back while Ray and Egon knelt down in the grass beside it. Egon was in shock. This was his old pack. He was beginning to feel sick to his stomach. Egon saw that the ion arm had been snapped off. The power cell and injectors were badly smashed in. The ribbon cable hung loose, detached from the cyclotron. The lights were also broken on the cyclotron. The N-filter was bent but more importantly the neutrona blaster was missing.
"Spengs look!" Ray said picking up the hose that connected to the blaster. "It's been ripped out. Where's the neutrona blaster?"
"Where are the other parts?" Egon asked the officer, clearly shaken.
"Other parts?" The officer was confused. "This is all they gave me out of the hole."
"Hole?" Egon was starting to worry. Where was his daughter?
"Yea. One of your team members fell down a hole and we were called to come get them out." he said in a matter of fact way. Taking his flashlight back from Ray he turned and walked back the way he had come.
"Which team member took your old pack? Are the new proton packs not working correctly?" Ray questioned Egon.
Egon looked at Ray. Realization dawned on Ray's face when he saw how pale Egon was.
"Was Echo with them?" he reverently whispered.
Egon fell forward onto his hands and crawled away from Ray a few feet to lose the contents of his stomach into the grass.
Ray stood up and walked over to his friend.
"Egon?" he quietly said.
"Yes, Ray." Egon said as he tried to stand back up.
Ray helped him to his feet and handed him a handkerchief from his pocket for Egon to wipe his mouth with.
"The police won't let us go that way." Ray said nodding to the path the police officer had taken. "So let's head around by the Lasker Rink and Pool and come in behind them. I have to know where my niece is."
"As do I."
Egon was clearly upset and walking almost on autopilot. Ray, carrying the broken proton pack, led the way around the water to go see what was happening. As the pair came around by Lasker Rink and Pool Ray heard a bird call. He knew it immediately. Egon was not listening and kept on walking.
"Egon, Stop!" Ray said as he grabbed his friends jacket sleeve. "Listen, it's the guys."
Egon stopped walking and looked around. He didn't see anyone. He only heard Ray whistling a bird call to the North Woods.
Suddenly two figures appeared from the trees and walked towards them. As they approached Egon finally connected the calls and people. He had been so worried about his daughter he had missed the teams call to wait up for them.
Ray had taught Peter, Winston, and him to whistle bird calls to one another when they were in the field if they didn't have or couldn't use their radios. The whistling was usually heard clearer then shouting and the team found it didn't scare the ghosts off either. Ray had even taught it to the new team members.
Now Ray and Egon stood waiting for Garrett and Roland to join them. As Garrett wheeled closer Egon could see that he had not taken it easy. On his lap lay a smoking ghost trap while Roland carried another one beside him. Both young men were covered in ectoplasm but smiling none the less.
"We got em' Professor Spengler." Roland said as he came to a stop in front of them.
"Not too happy about it either." agreed Garrett holding up his ghost trap.
As Garrett lifted his trap off of his legs Egon saw that his pant leg was stained with blood. Boy was Echo going to kill him.
"Garrett you're bleeding!" Ray said coming forward to look at the wound.
"Oh that." Garrett said trying to make it sound like nothing had happened. "I just reopened an old wound. Doctor Spengler is probably going to kill me now, but I had to go help Roland catch that demonic entity that hurt her."
"Hurt her?" Egon said. Now it was his turn to look scared.
"Yes, come on Professor Spengler, Doctor Stantz, I'll explain as we walk." Roland said taking the ghost trap and hanging it on his belt.
Roland then took Egon by the arm and turned him towards the rescue activity. "We need to hurry. I told Sal I wouldn't be gone that long."
"Sal's here?" Ray asked.
"Yes he came when Kylie called the paramedics for Eduardo." Roland said.
As the group hurried towards the west side of Harlem Meer and the tree line, where all the activity was taking place, Roland filled Egon and Ray in on what had happened. Apparently Doctor Spengler had found Eduardo at the bottom of a hole. When Egon asked Roland how she had gotten down the hole to Eduardo he told Egon he didn't know. Echo had called Kylie and him on the radio to let them know that Eduardo was fine. When they had gotten there, Roland had sent Kylie to call the paramedics and the firehouse. When the paramedics arrived Eduardo was pulled to safety. As they were pulling Doctor Spengler to the surface, that's when the demonic entity appeared with a couple of the earlier Class 2's right behind it.
As Roland and Kylie tried to hold off the Class 2's, the demonic entity had gotten hold of the rope that the rescue team was using to haul Doctor Spengler up with and snapped it in two. Roland heard Sal screaming Doctor Spengler's name as she had fallen back down to the ground.
"How far did she fall?" Ray asked Roland.
"Sorry. I don't know. I didn't see. Only Sal saw as I was busy chasing ghosts." Roland replied.
"Where is Eduardo and Kylie?" Ray questioned Roland once more.
"Eduardo was being put into the back of the ambulance when all hell broke loose. Kylie and I had trapped two of the ghouls already and I sent her back to Ecto-2 for more ghost traps. When Kylie returned with another trap she said that the paramedics needed someone to go with Eduardo to the hospital with them. So I told her to go and went after the last two ghosts. That's when Garrett found me and the rest you know."
The men had come around a bend in the path while Roland had been talking and stopped dead in their tracks. Before them was the place where Echo must have found Eduardo.
A search and rescue worker was on his stomach looking down into a hole in the ground a few feet inside the tree line. His left hand was guiding a cable from a pulley overhead, while near him another worker was running the machine to lower the cable. Work lights all around made the place look like it was day time and not night.
"Hold up!" came Sal's voice from below.
"Holding." the worker replied down the hole. "What's wrong?"
"She's seizing!" Sal replied.
Egon was gone before the others even had a chance to turn to look at him. He ran the last few feet and skidded to a stop. Dropping to his stomach Egon army crawled the last few inches to look over the edge of the hole.
"Hey you can't be here!" the rescue worker told Egon getting up to remove the intruder from the scene.
Egon ignored him. "SAL!" he shouted down the hole.
"Professor Spengler! When did you get here?" Sal replied.
Ray and the rest of the team came up and took the worker to the side who had been trying to get Egon up off the ground. Ray explained that the person they were rescuing was one of their team and that Egon was a relative. After promising to keep out of the way, except for Egon, the worker allowed them to stay.
As Egon looked down into the hole he could see that lights had been set up for the workers to see better. Egon could see Sal working over his daughter. Another two EMT's, who Egon didn't know, helped Sal to prevent his daughter from hurting herself as her body shook from the seizure. A third rescue worker was holding an intravenous bag of fluids above his daughter. Sal was administering medicine into a catheter in her left arm. Soon Echo's shaking stopped.
"I didn't need that." Sal said to the EMT's wiping his arm across his brow. "Let's get Doctor Spengler out of here now!"
As Egon watched, the men carefully placed a backboard next to his daughter. Sal then went to Echo's head and studied it as one of his helpers placed a neck brace on her. Then as a team, like they had been taught, the men carefully transferred Echo to the backboard.
"Watch that leg!" Sal said to a rescue worker.
Egon could see that his daughter's right leg had been splinted and dressings were piled on top. Compound fracture of the lower limb he knew. If it was just the splint it would have been a closed fracture, the dressing gave it away. The dressings were probably wrapped around a protruding bone.
After strapping Echo in place on the backboard, Sal and the EMT's then carried her over to a rescue basket that sat on the ground. Echo was placed into the basket. One of the EMT's fastened her into the basket, another was lying a blanket across her, and the third was shutting off the fluids that she had been receiving and placing the bag next to Echo inside the basket.
"Ready to go." Sal called up.
"Ready here." the rescue worker next to Egon called down and turning to his partner nodded. The other worker started up the machine so the cable was now moving upwards with the basket in tow.
"Be up in a minute Professor Spengler. We can ride together to Mount Sinai Hospital." Sal called to him.
"Thanks Sal, I owe you one."
"Another time, Professor."
Egon got up and backed away as more rescue workers came to retrieve the basket. A waiting gurney was nearby. As the rescue workers unsnapped the basket, another rescue worker picked up the intravenous fluids, and turning them back on, held the bag up while they carried the basket over to the ground beside the gurney. As the rescue workers were transferring Echo from the basket to the gurney the cable was sent back down to Sal.
By the time Sal was up on solid ground, his daughter had been transferred to the gurney still attached to the backboard.
"Come on, Professor Spengler." Sal said grabbing Egon's jacket arm and jogging over to the gurney. "Bring Doctor Stantz and your friends too."
Ray didn't have to be told twice. As Egon looked back to say something, Ray was already by his side. The group reached Echo and as Sal shooed the others away, told Ray and Roland to take the back of the gurney. Sal sent Egon to his daughter's right side while he took the left. Sal took Echo's fluids from the worker and placed them onto his shoulder. A common practice when rescue workers were in the field and moving a patient.
When Sal gave the signal they all pulled or pushed the gurney to the waiting ambulance. Garrett followed behind in his wheelchair. Egon could see that Echo had lost her glasses in the fall. The right side of her head was bruised and bloody. "Boy she looks pale." Egon said to himself. "Please don't die sweetheart. I need you."
While they were walking, Sal gave orders to an EMT who nodded to Sal and took off towards the ambulance. The group arrived at the waiting ambulance in no time. Sal handed the fluids off to a paramedic as they took over loading Echo into the back of the ambulance. Sal then turned to the group of men.
"Professor Spengler you can ride with me in the back. Doctor Stantz I'm afraid I don't have room for you or your friends." Sal told them.
"We will meet you there. Are you going to Mount Sinai Hospital?" Ray asked.
"Yes." Sal replied helping Egon into the back of the ambulance.
Ray, Roland, and Garret stood back as the paramedics closed the door on the Spengler's and Sal. As the ambulance rolled away, all Ray could see was Egon's pale worried face in the window.
"Don't loose it just yet my friend." Ray said as he stood watching them drive away.