Adam opened his eyes in questioning hesitance, everything around him quiet in contrast to the deafening roar ripping the house apart just a moment previously. He found himself standing on the second floor landing of the house, inside the doorway to Lydia's room where he had been in the last instant before the floor had peeled away beneath his feet. He had thought for sure that he would follow the flow of gravity in that instant, but when he had glanced down, he had found that everything below his knees had already disintegrated to rippling nothingness. He had turned to hear the frantic shouts from the Ghostbusters still downstairs with the intention of heading away from Lydia's fading doorway but of course without his legs, Adam found that he couldn't move. The echoing sounds of skittering bugs and splintering wood and even a multitude of unintelligible voices had followed him as he had disappeared, but Adam realized calmly that he was not afraid. Just…defeated.
Now the ghost stood on the landing of the place that he had just witnessed torn to atoms. Afraid to move, Adam merely watched and waited for any strange noise or sight to throw off the unusual normality of the upstairs hallway of the Deetz' home. He lowered his gaze to the wood floor, taking note of the sudden reappearance of his lower half. He shifted on his feet just to prove to himself that he was really looking at his own body, ghost form it may be. Adam frowned as he raised his gaze to the wall in front of him, noticing that the paintings and portraits were once more in their rightful places as if they had never fallen in the supernatural earthquakes.
"Barbara?" Adam called out, finally breaking the thick silence that had fallen over the house. The quiet shifting of the old country home was the only response he received and he turned to look back into Lydia's room, noticing the soft lamplight that was absorbed in the dark purple walls creating a soft atmosphere for the teenaged girl's usual retreat from the rest of the house. He swept his gaze over the interior of the silent room and shifted his feet again in uneasiness as he spoke up once more. "…Lydia?"
When there was still no change in the silence hanging over the room, Adam turned and made his way back out into the upstairs hallway. His footsteps barely made any sound on the creaky wood floors and he was concentrating on trying to keep as quiet as possible so that in the probable chance of Beetlejuice's new trick that he had placed him in, Adam would be at least a little less likely to trigger anything right off the bat. He had stopped in the middle of the hallway outside Lydia's bedroom, debating on whether to head for the first floor to see what had become of the Ghostbusters or for the attic where he had last seen his wife before she had disappeared into the vortex of rubble in the sky. He had just decided on turning to the end of the hallway when he noticed a figure standing patiently in one of the adjoining doorways along the hallway before the attic stairs.
"Adam…" Her quiet voice murmured quietly. The figure stepped out of the dimly lit doorway to reveal her flowered house dress and dark mass of curls. "Adam, it's okay…"
Adam didn't wait for Barbara to finish her reassurances as he rushed across the several feet that separated them and enveloped his wife in a heartfelt embrace. She buried her face in his chest and he heard her inhale shakily, tightening her hold around his torso. They stood in that tender moment for a long time, neither one of them saying anything out loud to the other. Adam hugged Barbara tightly to him, running his hand through her dark curls and down her back repeatedly as if trying to prove to himself that she was really there.
"Barbara…" He whispered lowly, knowing that his voice would crack if he raised it much higher. She clenched her hands into soft fists against his back and then flattened them around his shoulder blades as she tilted her face back to look into his eyes, shining thankfully behind his glasses. Adam swallowed and then frowned at her in his confusion, reassured only a little by the patient look she gave him. "…How? I saw the destruction…everything was just melting away in the storm…you…"
"It didn't, though. Not really." Barbara said with a sidelong glance as if there was some huge, complex explanation for the worrisome events that had transpired over the past several hours. Adam pursed his lips as he formed his next question but the sound of the front door creaking open downstairs jarred them both out of their happy reunion.
"…Hello?" A voice said after a moment, the door creaking once more on its hinges as the person presumably opened it wider to allow them entrance to the seemingly intact house. Adam glanced down at Barbara who seemed to share his reluctance at being disturbed in their quiet processing of the supernatural events that had just revolved around them. He gently removed his arms from around her and was slightly uplifted that she chose to keep hold of his hand as he turned to head back through the hallway to see who the speaker was.
The soft lamplight that illuminated the bottom half of the silent house cast long shadows along the wood floors and papered walls and the front door stood open just at the foot of the stairs. Two hesitant figures stood down in the foyer just inside the door and the ghost couple above them recognized with relief that it was Charles and Delia Deetz. Adam was about to call down to them to question if they were alright but before he could, the telephone on the table along the side of the stairs rang shrilly. The Deetz' both seemed to jump in surprise as the comfortable silence of their home was disturbed and Charles was the first to move away from his wife and further into the foyer to answer it on the fourth ring.
"Deetz, here." He said after clearing his throat heartily. Delia's heels clicked loudly on the wood floor as she stepped off the small rug by the door to follow after her husband, a slight limp causing her steps to sound forced. Adam noticed the complete absence of fear or worry in both of the Deetz' expressions and he looked questioningly at Barbara. She held his gaze for a moment and then shook her head, pressing a finger to her lips.
"Charles, who is it?" Delia asked when he didn't say anything in response to the caller on the other end of the line for a moment. He lifted a finger to shush her as he apparently listened to the speaker. After another few seconds, Charles' jaw tightened and his gaze grew irritated.
"Oh," He said sharply, clenching the phone in his hand so tightly that his knuckles turned white. "Yes…everything here seems to be okay now. I believe they're just now leaving."
Adam frowned down at the living couple in the foyer below them, just barely able to see where they both stood from their vantage point on the second floor landing. Barbara shifted her grip on his hand to his wrist, squeezing it to warn him into remaining quiet for the time being. Adam flashed his wife an uncertain look before once more switching his gaze down to the first floor where he could see that Delia stood impatiently with her arms crossed over her stylish red blouse. She watched her husband in annoyed silence as he continued with his phone conversation.
"Well no, I must admit they didn't seem to be as efficient as they claimed to be…No, we didn't call, an old acquaintance of ours did. But clearly he thought they would be able to handle this…I understand you're not liable for damages…you graciously explained that to me the first time we talked…" Charles rolled his eyes and shifted his feet huffily to glare at his wife. Delia returned the look with an equally irritated scoff.
"Why are they acting like this?" Adam asked under his breath, shifting nervously at the out of character personalities of Charles and Delia Deetz. Barbara shushed him quietly and Adam hastily shook her grip off of his arm as he whirled on her. "What are they talking about?"
"Yes ma'am. We just saw them to their car. Ready to get out of the sticks and back into the city again." Charles gave the caller one of his forced chuckles and Adam gestured over the railing as Barbara strained to hear the rest of the phone conversation.
"Did they leave? Barbara, what is going on here?!" Adam demanded. Barbara set her jaw and after giving one last glance at the Deetz' down by the phone table, she grabbed her husband's arm and pulled him back down the hallway and into the nearest room, happening to be Lydia's. When they were safely out of earshot, she pulled the door closed halfway and turned to him edgily.
"They were the ones who called him here." Barbara said, her voice only a fraction louder than the whispered tone she had used out in the hallway. Adam was staring at the cracked open bedroom door and as soon as Barbara finished her brief explanation, he focused on her anxious face. His questioning frown prodded her to continue and after a moment, she shifted on her feet and resumed. "Adam…we thought it was an accident that Delia called his name those three times. We thought maybe Beetlejuice had possessed her for that just because he was so eager to find out what had brought the Ghostbusters here. We shouldn't have let that knowledge slip when we were hiding in the waiting room…"
Barbara's slow and jumbled words ran together in Adam's mind, and for a long time he was unable to process the reality of what she was telling him. The distant voices coming from the Deetz' downstairs carried an almost cold feeling with them as Adam tried to imagine the truth in Barbara's statement. Thinking his silence meant that he was trying to find fault in her explanation, she shook her head hastily and placed her hands in his to ground him back to her.
"When the house was being pulled to pieces by that freak storm outside…I thought it was really happening too. There's no telling what kind of mess Beetlejuice can call up at any time, you know…but…when I thought I was going to disappear like everything else in the attic, I heard Lydia's voice."
"Lydia?" Adam repeated cautiously, remembering the heart-breaking scene he had witnessed on the attic stairs what felt like less than ten minutes ago. He lifted his skeptical gaze to his wife and she nodded, twining her fingers through his in her insistence that he listen to her. "What was she saying? Where is she now?"
"She was arguing with someone…" Barbara started softly. "She was angry…and when the room around me disappeared and I couldn't see you anymore, I realized that I was in Juno's office."
"And Lydia…?" Adam pressed her gently, wanting to know more. Barbara's face was contorted with her thoughtful frown and she blinked, raising her eyes to him once again, shaking her head.
"I think she's done something…"
Adam grew very still as a dreaded thought emerged through his numerous other worried questions littering his mind. He swept his gaze around the teenaged girl's silent bedroom, a sunken feeling falling over him. When his gaze landed back on Barbara, he slowly opened his mouth and if he had been in need of breath, his would have caught painfully in his throat.
"…What do you mean? You think she's responsible for…"
"She made everything alright again…" Barbara's faltering gaze fell away from his face and she glanced around at the girl's empty but normal-looking room. When she finally looked back at her husband, she offered him a hesitant smile. "She sounded like she was okay…she sounded like herself, Adam. From what I could hear, she was arguing with Juno. And you and I both know how hard to deal with that woman is. But look around you…I don't think all of this would still be here if Lydia hadn't been able to make her point."
Adam seemed hesitant to believe her calming tone at first. He grasped at the hand she had raised to his cheek and held it there for a moment before smiling with slight amusement as he pictured the persistent teenaged girl arguing with the equally moody ghost case worker. Barbara nodded with a soft smile on her face as well.
"What exactly was Lydia's point?" Adam pulled her hand away from his face gently and glanced over her shoulder at the door where the Deetz' voices still drifted through from downstairs. Barbara looked distantly thoughtful as she tried to think on what she had heard after the destruction of the house. Both of the ghosts were startled as Delia's sharp tone echoed up to them with the woman's desperate wail of aggravation. Charles apparently had hung up the phone in favor of ordering his wife to lock the door.
"…They're coming back, Charles! What do we say?!" She whined loudly, her heels clicking on the wood floor as she kept going back and forth from her husband's side to the front door to peer out the window next to it.
"…The deal was that their equipment, their car, everything would be fixed. They wouldn't even need to come back…." Charles was retorting sharply. Adam and Barbara could hear the annoyance and desperation in the homeowner's voice.
"Deal? What deal?" Adam asked, his face hardened once more in questioning and Barbara shook her head with exasperation.
"I don't know!" Barbara said defensively, chewing on one of her fingernails nervously.
Adam stared at his wife shrewdly for a long moment. He finally shook his head again, blinking furiously as something still didn't register to him correctly. Barbara's shoulders fell as she awaited his next question.
"You said you heard her arguing with Juno…what deal could she have made with her?!" He pressed her pleadingly. Barbara gestured around at the interior of the quiet room they stood in and then nodded in indication to him.
"I mean…she obviously would have wanted for her family and home to be safe. But…Adam…what would she have given to them in return?"
Adam felt an icy chill run through him that had nothing to do with the fact that he was dead. When he caught Barbara's dreaded stare he shook his head and fixed her with a processing look.
"Barbara…what happened to her? When did you last see her?"
"I watched her climb out the attic window right into the middle of the storm. She was going after her parents. She was…she was gone…one second she was there and the next…" Barbara paused and held her eyes closed for a minute as the picture burned clearly in her memory. Adam fell silent and he broke away from Barbara when she didn't add anything else to her recounting.
"Don't let them back in here! We want nothing else to do with the Ghostbusters!" Charles yelled from the first floor of the house. Adam and Barbara could hear furious knocks pounding on the front door and sounds like Delia's heels as she paced the floor just in front of it, making sure that the locks held. Adam stepped towards Lydia's cracked bedroom door and slowly pulled it open a bit more to see out into the hallway.
"Why is that, I wonder?" Adam asked aloud, more to himself than as another question directed at Barbara. His wife answered him anyway.
"Maybe we'd better go back into hiding again…at least for a little while." Barbara said, once more turning to move closer to Adam, looping her arm through his as if seeking comfort at the same moment she attempted to give it. Adam turned back to give her a pleading glance, still not fully understanding what had transpired. Barbara let her hand fall from Adam's once more and she stepped past him and into the quiet hallway outside Lydia's room. She glanced furtively toward the staircase where Delia and Charles' arguing voices still argued but she instead turned to lead the way toward the attic.
"Barbara…" Adam murmured as he trailed cautiously after her, leaving the Deetz' frantic and angered voices behind. As the ghost man turned back to start climbing up to the attic door, he phrased another final question. "Where is Lydia?"
The Ghostbusters were finished. As soon as they'd exited the Deetz' country home, they had headed for the Ecto-1 where it waited patiently where they had parked it the night before in the driveway. Ray had slid into the driver's seat after removing the cracked Ecto Goggles from his forehead while Egon and Winston focused on putting the proton packs in their slots on the roll-out in the back of the vehicle. Ray turned the key and the Ecto-1 roared to life easily, as if the car too, were relieved to finally be headed back to its home in the city.
"Think Janine will be happy to see us?" Winston asked cheerfully as he climbed into the passenger seat, leaving Egon to close up the hatch after making doubly sure the packs were secure in their holding.
"I'm sure she'll be relieved…probably not so much happy…we have left her with quite a bit of paperwork and I'm sure having to reorganize our scheduled calls has been an absolute joy for her in our absence." Ray chuckled ironically. Winston shook his head and pulled on his seatbelt while Egon shut the back of the vehicle and headed for his seat in the back.
"We'll be lucky if any of us even gets our vacations for the rest of the year." The man said, pushing his glasses up further on the bridge of his nose with an amused smirk. Winston threw his elbow over the headrest of his seat to give his colleague a disbelieving glance while Ray put the car in reverse to turn around in the Deetz' driveway.
"You're one to talk about vacations, Egon. Have you ever actually taken one before in your lifetime?" Winston accused him lightly. Egon's slight smirk faltered as his brows fell in thoughtfulness. Winston rolled his eyes and faced back to the front with a comically exaggerated sigh. "There's my answer, I guess."
"I don't know Winston, I think he did take a few days off from class back in high school…" Ray said, throwing a teasing glance at his colleague in the rearview mirror. Egon's thoughtful frown eased away and he was instantly set into defensive mode.
"You and I both know that I had fallen ill that weekend. My parents did make sure to get all of my schoolwork from all nine of my classes though, along with the extra credit assignments. That was part of the aid in my recovery." Egon said, straightening himself indignantly in his seat. Winston gave Ray another shocked look of disbelief and the driver nodded with an amused shrug as he turned the Ecto-1 back down the Deetz' driveway and toward the road.
"That was Peter's reaction too," Ray said lightly, braking at the mailbox before resuming the way to the road and the bridge that waited around the corner. He flashed a knowing look at Egon, who had resumed his thoughtful expression. "Pete never gave Egon a break about…"
Ray stomped on the brake just before the covered bridge, throwing both of his fellow Ghostbusters forward with the forceful stop. There was a beat of silence as each man reoriented their thoughts and Egon was the first to speak their realization aloud.
"Venkman…we left him."
"But why?!" Winston asked sharply, turning to stare over his colleague's head and up the hill where the Deetz' house sat quietly, illuminated by the fluorescent lights within its many windows. Ray threw the Ecto-1 into reverse once again, throwing gravel every which way as the tires spun to back the car away from the bridge. Winston had one hand pressed against the dashboard in front of him and the other gripping the edge of his seat, trying to survive his colleague's reckless driving.
"It's him…Beetlejuice. He's been meddling with our brains and even our bodies for so long…it doesn't surprise me that he tried to make us forget our own teammate!" Egon said quickly, bringing out his PKE Meter which he switched on hurriedly. With the Ecto-1's nose pointing once more back up the Deetz' driveway, Ray floored it and transported the trio of Ghostbusters right up to the large, quiet country home looming on the hill.
"I don't understand…the house was destroying itself…" Ray commented gruffly as he shoved himself out of the car, not even bothering to shut the driver's side door behind him as he rushed for the casually illuminated porch steps. Egon followed directly behind him, still staring intently at the silent meter in his hand.
"Maybe he created a parallel dimension and trapped us in it for even more kicks." Winston suggested sourly, being the only one to stop by the back hatch of the Ecto-1 to retrieve his proton pack. Ray's boots thundered on the front porch steps as he climbed to the door and he immediately knocked loudly on the solid wood, ignoring the doorbell just to the side of it.
"Hey, you creep! We know you're in there…you've got exactly five seconds to open this door up or we're gonna bust it down!" Ray threatened, his usual friendly tone nonexistent out of his anger and fear for his friend's safety. Winston finally joined his colleagues with his humming proton pack, ready to use it to break down the Deetz' door if the need arose. Egon stepped to the left of the door, running the PKE Meter wonderingly along the outside of the window and Winston climbed up the porch steps to stand just over Ray's shoulder with his thrower drawn and ready. After a moment of silence on the other side of the door, Ray chanced a hesitant glance back at his armed friend.
"I'd say time's up, Ray." Winston said loudly enough for whoever was on the other side of the door to hear. Ray turned back to the door and stared at it waitingly, and then noticed Egon standing by the window where the curtain had moved as if someone had been peeking out. The taller Ghostbuster paused in his scanning and he leaned back with a surprised look on his face before he moved back to join his colleagues in front of the front door.
"Alright Beetlejuice…you want another fight? We'll give you one." Ray shouted, his voice echoing nicely around the outside of the house where even the nighttime sounds of crickets and settling birds were silent. Ray stepped to the side to allow Winston a clear shot at the door but before Winston could even make a move of switching his proton thrower into action, Egon leapt in front of him.
"Wait – this is odd…" Egon said quickly as he held the meter up directly in front of the Deetz' front door. The other two Ghostbusters stared after him skeptically, each glancing around nervously at the shadowy corners of the wrap-around porch and the driveway behind them where the Ecto-1's headlights shone brightly on the house's outside wall. Egon swept his meter all around the door and its edges, even going so far as to crouch to the wood floor of the porch for a lower reading by the crack between the door and ground. When Egon stood back up without another comment, Ray and Winston exchanged worried glances.
"Spengler, what've you got?" Ray asked when he turned back to his expectantly waiting colleagues. Egon glanced over his silent PKE Meter and shook his head, a mystified look on his usually expressionless face.
"That's just it, Ray…I'm getting nothing. No readings, no signs of psychokinetic energy at all. It's like there was never even any distant traces of activity here…" Egon said slowly, trailing off at the hushed sounds of voices coming from the other side of the Deetz' front door. Ray looked quizzically up at the indication of people inside the house and he stepped up beside Egon to knock again.
"Hello?!" He called as he repeatedly banged on the door's surface at least another half a dozen times. The voices quieted again and Ray resisted the urge to grab the doorknob and jerk it in its socket. "We can hear you, come on! We don't wanna wreck any more property but you've got something of ours and we want it back!"
"Peter's a something now?" Winston muttered with ironic amusement. He raised an eyebrow as Ray continued to hammer at the door with a growing desperate intensity.
"We're not opening the door, we don't want you here!" Charles Deetz' voice finally erupted from the interior of the house. Ray eased back from his persistent knocking and glanced back at his fellow Ghostbusters with confused wonder. "Just…just go back to the city and leave us alone!"
"You've done enough!" Delia's voice joined her husband's with an equal amount of bitterness mixed with what sounded like an emotional sob. "You not only tried to destroy our house, you killed our daughter!"
Ray took yet another step back, his confusion intensifying. Winston moved closer to the door, standing alongside Egon and Ray, all three men wearing identical looks of befuddlement at the Deetz' accusations. For a long moment, the only sound that broke the uncomfortable silence between both parties on either side of the door was that of Delia Deetz' choked and angry sobs.
"Lydia's…" Ray began to phrase a hesitant question on the girl's whereabouts but fell silent as Egon once more switched on his PKE Meter in search of some possible indication at what was going on. Ray turned away from the blank screen that was illuminated in front of his colleague. He rested his gloved hand against the doorframe and frowned at the ground at his boots. "I don't know what happened for sure over in the last several minutes…but you have to trust us…"
"Why should we trust you?" Charles demanded hatefully, cutting the Ghostbuster off in his plea. "You've done nothing but feed us speculations and theories for the past twenty-four hours and what's come out of it? We were against you coming out here in the first place, but from your apparent popularity and ability to do your job we thought you'd be able to handle this."
"We were wrong." Delia added sourly. The sound of her heels clicking signaled that she had been ushered away from the door and possibly to a nearby chair where she resumed her quiet cries over the stressful afternoon and evening.
"You're not wrong," Winston spoke up in quiet defense. Ray and Egon glanced at their colleague dejectedly as he moved closer to the door as if speaking to Charles face to face. "We really did come here to help you. Our job is never easy…but it hasn't regularly been this complicated either. We almost left just now because this ghost messed with our heads again to force us away. But we're missing one of our family too. This is as much our problem as it is yours, now."
There was a long pause of thoughtful quietness that was only broken when the front door clicked loudly with the deadbolt unlocking. Winston straightened himself hopefully while Egon and Ray both fixed their gazes on the door as it slowly squeaked open on its old hinges. Charles Deetz was staring defeatedly at his hand where it rested on the doorknob and it was another long moment before he finally lifted his tear-stained face to regard the Ghostbusters with a guarded stare.
"What do we have to do?" He prompted as he admitted the Ghostbusters into his home once again.