Chapter 5: Rumble in the Well

Following the past several days would be a reasonably straightforward task.

On the 24th, the group had gone to enjoy the time with their families and friends during their early Thanksgiving Dinner. A strange part noted by everyone was how much food the individual team members seemed to consume at their respective homes. Derek especially went on to have a third plate of food after everyone in his family barely touched the idea of seconds.

Even his dog that got the occasion scraps or unwanted parts eventually got tired after an hour.

And that was all because Derek still managed to eat part of a pie afterward for dessert (though caught doing so at three in the morning).

The days afterward were regarded as 'recovery days' in letting the food settle and enjoying the time. Then, come the 27th, they had to start packing up and head back to New York.

In light of what had happened just a few weeks ago with Jack's experiment, they were both surprised and thankful that nothing else had blown up when they were away and that their rooms at the Roosevelt seemed to have been reorganized and cleaned up a bit. A welcoming change to things.

Jack himself had done the changes with some 'help' from the cleaning staff to make the place look more professional than Smith's garage. But, even during this, he was able to clock in three more busts onto the list that, while minor, the largest being a Class 4, he could have help from Mike as both a police escort and backup.

Come the day of the parade, and it was a different type of change.

The level of positivity in the city's air was something that only an event like this could generate to where paranormal activity was truly gone from the mind. For three days, the team barely got a single call, and even on patrol, while the pke of the city was slowly climbing again like usual to still below average, they didn't find anything of significance.

While it gave them the needed breathing room to make adjustments and plans and train up Mike and Jack, there was a heavy feeling on several of their minds. Derek felt it, especially in his gut. The same feeling that he had grown to either be ignorant or look too deeply into at times. From what progress had been made, he was starting to fear that they had possibly gone as far as they could in busting everything that they found. Yet it felt like one of those moments from the shows where there was just the one trigger waiting to be pulled, and the whole thing will take off.

It was that feeling that Derek, no matter when or where was left thinking about. It was like a low hum of not knowing what to expect, but best be ready to expect it.

December 14, 2013

The Seabear, for all its intents and purpose, was your more typical style oil rig with a primary orange-colored structure resting on a red and black base that broke down to four stubby legs that disappeared into the ocean. The place itself looked practically brand new, though the reality that after being in operation for not even a full year would do that to a station. Yet, it still looked fresh, even in the dull gray with the snow falling.'

Though on the maintenance boat that was slowly making its way towards the rig; Derek, Leo, and Jack stood near the port side, heavily bundled up in a thicker layer of clothing over their suits, or in Derek's case, wearing a second undershirt and coat under his now puffed up heavy black jacket with a nearly soaked face mask from the ocean spray. I watched as the glow of the lone tower in the middle of nowhere, nearly forty-plus miles away from New York, signaled their destination.

The investigation was simple: meet the crew, set up shop, and start collecting and scanning. But the location and the previous nature of the place made them have to come into carrying light. No proton packs, no slime blower or rifles, at best three sets of pistols with four spare batteries each and traps for each person, a combined case of clothes to last the next two days, an entire load of scanners and testing equipment, and a whole point of a new item that Jack had apparently been working on in his free time (though there hadn't been any explosions when he was said to have been working on them, so it gave the team some optimism.)

"Well... here it is." Derek's muffled voice spoke out as he straightened up.

Jack shivered sharply when he moved, "Can we finally get warm now? I can't feel my knees..." Though in a show of either truth or being overdramatic, he fell to his knees to where his head rested on the lower railing while Derek and Leo glanced at each other.

It was roughly another twenty minutes before the boat was docked up against the platform and started unloading. The trio was sent up first to where they were met with a surprising number of people with their personal belongings packed up and waiting to board the boat with great enthusiasm to get off the rig. As they waited, Derek couldn't help but feel that this was more of a repeat of the refinery.

"You think they're leaving because they've gotten sick of this place or because they've heard of us?"

"Wild guess, both," Leo answered as he brought out his PKE, having to wipe the wet screen clean as he scanned the area around them. "And from these spikes are they have a good reason to."

"Gentlemen!" Another voice spoke out from where the crew was leaving to show a man dressed more like an actual official than a worker as they lacked any real dirt or grim with a red coat covered by a yellow caution vest and hard hat. Coming towards them, he held off a steady smile to them, "You must be," he paused, with his smile dropping somewhat with the thoughts that were going through his head with what he was about to say, "the Ghostbusters."

The trio nodded. Though they could tell, he was just as skeptical as many others, given their appearance of being so young and not matching up to what you would expect to be; their reputation so far had pretty much barred that. "My name is Hank Williams; I'm one of the shift supervisors here to help you throughout the facility."

"Well, at least we won't get lost around here," Derek muttered to Leo, who nodded.

"The others are currently waiting in the command center; come." Without another word, Hank turned around and headed back inside as the team gathered their bags and followed.

Moving up through a small section of the rig towards the command center that sat on one of the back corners of the platform. The top portion looked more like a mission control center for a base or air control at an airport how it had all the roundabout windows and desks with computers lined up, filling the room front to back. The group was led down to the level just below it to the conference room part that was more or less your typical place with a large wood table surrounded by enough chairs to fit 16 people with room in the back for easily another 30 when standing. One side had a swath of control panels; the opposite had a large pin board with the back corner walls being windows to view out to the dock where the ship was and part of the rig.

Sitting at the head of the table and around its right side were three men, all looking roughly in their late 50s to mid-60s, dressed like Hank but lacking any sign of having been outside for a while. Instead, they were all gathered around a pile of papers scattered across their end of the table, pointing and gesturing to something when their focus was shifted towards the door opening and the four walking through. Hank leads them to the opposite side from the two men, where he roughly stands in the corner.

"This is Patrick Johns. He is our head supervisor of operations." The older man stood up from his chair and reached over with his hand. Though Derek would initially do it, Jack was the closest and got the first contact as they all traded their greetings and sat down.

"So, we heard you had a spook problem." The four chuckled somewhat, though the tired look in their eyes told them that the situation wasn't a joking matter.

"I guess you can say that. Though we still have high hopes that it isn't much," Patrick stated calmly, one could pick up some of the ire in it. "As you are most likely away from what corporate has given you, some time ago, we were conducting tests back in 2012 for potential oil and natural gas deposits to be pumped to the shore to the company's Brooklyn facility."

Moving some cluttered away, he pushed over a document file to the trio. Flipping it open, they were met with charts and diagrams showing different results of smaller test samples, ground composite, ocean depth, and much more. Though they looked over it like they were studying it carefully, or Leo was when looking at the samples sheet, their job didn't entitle much in their knowledge of offshore drilling.

"Originally, when we started searching for deposits in mid-2011, data had shown that there were possible pockets roughly 80 miles off the Jersey shore. Small-scale tests showed promising results, and we had chosen to go ahead with a larger production scale to see if it was viable.

"And when did you roughly start drill sample extraction?" Leo asked, looking over a sheet that held more info on a packet containing records of some of the operations done.

"Roughly around April of last year," Patrick answered. Causing both Derek and Leo to tense up and slowly start looking at each other as the pair seemed to trade their thoughts back and forth.

The sudden surge of paranormal activity exists, black slime popping up in places related to this industry, the death and odd behavior of both the creatures they had faced, and what reports of the slime acting like all started painting them a picture that spoke in their language.

Seeing this, Patrick looked between the two, who he saw were in serious thought with a mental conversation. Finally, unsure how to continue, he went with a simpler end, "Given all that's happened, how soon can you boys start?"

In almost perfect unison, they answered, "Immediately."

And it wasn't very long until they started to get down to business.

After setting up in a side room and being given an orange vest and hard hat, the first order of business involved investigating the holding tanks where the worker had been pulled into over a year ago to his death. While being guided through to the station by John, Leo and Jack followed behind Derek as they scanned the place. Jack, for the most part, was seeing things more through the goggles, various hues of pinks and purples lighting up the area from pipes running around the place.

Jack was almost immediately taken back by the sudden read-out his goggles gave him when they came up to the pumping station. "Woah," he said quickly, taking the goggles off and having to bring his hand up to try to rub his eyes clear.

"What's wrong?" Johns asked, seeing the buster disoriented.

"When was the last time this was used and cleaned?"

"After corporate called you in, we were told to halt operations. But, unfortunately, they cut the line some time ago, and we've spent most of the time trying to purge the system."

"That would explain why there's so much residue still here," Leo noted, raising his meter towards another set of pipes that caused the meter to buzz and flash more green. Then, bringing his hand up to a separate unit, he rubbed his finger across the inner line before rubbing them together. Though it looked more like a skinny layer of clear grease to the naked eye, they had seen it enough times to know what it was.

"We really need to look into building a Giga meter. If its functions are true, then it would be better to deal with this slime than just this."

"Don't get ahead of yourself, Leo," Derek said as he swept the area with his goggles. Rotating the knob on the side to keep it to a blank scan (as in not showing the green hud) to avoid the same fate Jack had. Moving into another large room that followed the intake lines from lower in the rig, Derek's meter let out a quick whiz as the readings spiked.

It was an increase, but so far, the results hadn't been all that great.

Sure there was the apparent sign of black slime; the place wasn't nearly as scrubbed down as the refinery and still had large amounts of residue. But from the lack of constant flow, the energy in the area had undoubtedly decayed since they shut down drilling last year.

Had they gotten here a lot sooner than they would, without a doubt, call in for backup.

But after a few more sweeps, frustration was starting to grow among the group. Sure they've had investigations like this, but this, in particular, was so lopsided it wasn't funny to any degree anymore. After a few more sweeps in some rooms that followed the main path from the pumping station to the operations deck for the drill itself.

Climbing up a few flights of stairs and some closed-off areas that were still being cleaned out (and showed another spike increase due to more residue remains), the group eventually came into a larger area than their direct line to the problem was placed. The site itself was arguably one of the few places that haven't been significantly touched, minus clearing any vital equipment that wasn't bolted down. Aside from a few tool lockers, a smaller pumping station possibly meant for fire events, the operator's shed with its lights out, and the drill pipe itself disconnected from the main hatch in the floor.

Once they stepped out past the shed, the meters increased the closer they got to the hatch.

Bending down to kneel, Derek slowly placed the top of the meter onto the hatch, watching as the center 5 bars peaked as he tipped it forward more with the wings now in full spread. "Well... seems like we found the honey pot," he muttered as he rose back up.

Then they heard the sound of a ringer. All eyes focused on Johns as he fished out his phone. "Excuse me for just a moment," Johns said as he headed outside to answer his call.

Waiting until they heard the distant sound of a door closing, Derek spoke up first, "What do you guys think?"

Kneeling, Leo held his meter just some inches away from the hatch. "I'd say this place is so hot I'm surprised it hasn't become a volcano yet." Standing back up, he peeled his goggles off, "Honestly, from here to the pumping station is still so saturated with negative ionization that I'm more shocked that this place hasn't become ground zero for activity. I mean, think about it."

He walked away a little towards the railing, "Minus the facts of the testing for natural gas 40 miles away from New York, okay, that's believable. Even back home and practically everywhere on the east coast is finding it, the chances that this one rig managed to drill into something that shouldn't exist is astronomical to the point I believe more in that there is still life left on Mars. Not adding to the fact that you managing to make a working cyclotron the size of a grapefruit wasn't odd timing, the fact that the moment they started drilling here and the sudden appearance of actual ghosts and black slime sounds too much of a coincidence."

"You're saying that whatever they did here could have triggered it?" Jack asked.

To which Leo nodded, "The timing matches too perfectly. Between them discovering 'strange oil' to the first sign of real paranormal forces, it's undeniable."

"It's just like the mandala from the video game," Derek said out loud like it was a thought. "In the lore, Shandor made the mandala to channel the energy of spirits to specific locations and in each location had large collections of black slime that were mostly dormant until the mandala was activated. Because of so much slime in the area, activity skyrocketed. But given this is over 40 miles away off the coast, there shouldn't be any possibility of activity to reach it."

"Not by itself." Jack piped in, "but they said they have been collecting this stuff for over a year now and being pumping it to New York."

"Thus exposing it and millions of people in the same area. Kinda like a virus spreading from a concealed origin point. And we have to remember this is the Atlantic Ocean. God knows how many people and things have died here that could have built up enough spiritual energy to generate the slime. Though I feel it would be more fitting to collect in the middle of the ocean like the Pacific garbage patch than here."

"And not be something so negatively charged. It's literally the darkest material form of anything spiritual; hell, some of the 'evilest' people in history would avoid it at all costs. Exposing it to a place like New York and it gets carried around is understandable. It would explain why it came in waves when they stopped pumping cause we were busting. New York is still hot because of the refinery."

"But that doesn't explain how so much can be here in our world. Collecting the energy of souls is one thing, but this is something that's more foreign to Earth than asteroids."

The three were left in silence afterward. Trying to think of what was said, it was all connected. Sure, something like Derek's creations was the result of timing; everything else aligned too perfectly. But yet...

"Something is missing..." Leo said lowly, "From everything we've gathered, this is the place where it started. Yet it's literally a dead end that's its biggest events was from a year ago."

He glanced back to Derek, "Any ideas on how that compares to anything?"

Derek slowly started to nod his head like he was getting a thought. But at the last moment shook, "I don't know. Every day this happens, it becomes easier to match it up yet more difficult to compare it to other material."

Leo sighed, feeling the answer only fuel his frustration. Feeling out of ideas for the moment, the three became quiet once again. Either looking around, at the meter, or just biting their lip trying to come up with more ideas for their situation. And it seemed that Leo was the first to do so, as he turned away from the group and headed away.

Confused, Derek piped up, "Where are you going?"

Leo stopped for a moment, "I'm gonna head down to the lower levels to see if I can get closer to the drill itself. I wanna see if I'm able to 'go fishing' with this can get a closer reading." He held up the Pke meter.

"Just try not to lose it. We really can't afford to lose equipment, and trying to build a new ion detector is hard enough." Leo simply nodded before heading out.

"I'll head to the control room and monitor it from there," Jack said as he turned back towards where they had originally come from.

Derek nodded, "Get on the walkie if you see anything out of the ordinary. The first sign we get a contact God forbid what it can do with this much energy to use."

Sometime later, Leo managed to make his way through the maze of the facility to the lower walkways that were as close to the ocean surface as he was going to get without a boat or taking a dive himself.

His boots clanked against the walkway as he came to a stop, roughly the middle that placed him between the two stands and the drill itself. His plan was mostly to get the meter down as close to the seafloor, having commandeered a spool of cable from storage that was often used to keep the rig tower from swaying in the wind. He estimated that given the cable was roughly a half-inch wide and was utterly killing his arm to the point, he let it slide off and dropped it with a very heavy smash that he had 400 feet of line. Give or take how much he used for his knots. And given that the seafloor from this distance out was roughly 700 was all the more reason he was so far down.

Carefully putting the container down, he popped the lid open to make sure that the unit was switched on. Giving it a brief wave in the air to make sure it was reading, he placed it back in tightly, sealing the lid. Grabbing the duct tape, he started with a band around the edge before completely wrapping it around the lid. Once it was practically solid gray, he placed the weights next to it and began wrapping them as tightly as possible. The sheer amount of tape he was putting on wasn't just him being a bit over the top but in the sense that he wanted to make sure that everything stayed together. Once it was done with barely anything left on the roll, he grabbed the end of the cable and tied it around a loop.

Two loops around the top and side, then through the weights between the box to allow it to hang pointed downwards towards the ocean. Given the knots and a few extra loops, Leo grabbed the now hefty box and placed it over the railing. Made sure to have a tight grip on the line as he slowly lowered down.

He paused when the box had reached the ocean surface. The box was splashed by any of the waves tall enough to reach the underside as Leo checked to see how much more cable he had left. Seeing the roll having a decent line left, and the end tied four times on the railing, Leo simply let the line go. The weights did their job in letting it rapidly sink as deep as it could go as the line quickly disappeared over the side of the walkway.

It wasn't even a full minute before the last of the line was gone, and a resounding 'bang' was heard from cable becoming ridged against the railing and the knots suddenly becoming tighter. Doing a quick check, he nodded satisfactorily before heading back to the entrance door.

One would think, 'oh, he would just stand out in the middle of the catwalk and just wait and watch', and they would be correct, as Leo would do. If it wasn't very wet, windy, and winter. He had made a little set up with the equipment just at the bottom of the stairs that had been recording everything since he sealed the meter in the box, a precaution in that if he forgot to turn it on. Mentally preparing himself for a long night, Leo entered and closed the door just enough to where the bulk of the wind was kept out, yet he could still see the tether by leaning forward a bit.

Plopping down on the second step, Leo made a quick adjustment to get comfortable as he brought up the data monitor, really a touchpad the size of an Amazon Kindle, to his lap and almost instantly lost any positive thoughts of this being a smooth night.

A pop-up on the screen simply said that the signal was completely dead.

"What the hell..." he tapped on the screen a few times before giving it a 'hard' tap on the side but got nothing for his efforts. Once he got the popup off, he went in to check why it had just lost connection. The connection settings were unchanged, the tablet had almost a full battery, and yet the data shows that the connection was lost 7 minutes after activation.

Sighing in disappointment, he got up from his seat, ripping the door back open.

Then like a fishing rod that just got a catch, the line suddenly snapped. Rigging the metal like a badly tuned bell when it hit, it had enough to cause Leo to suddenly jump and pause his walk.

Waiting for anything else to happen, he slowly eased himself forward as, despite the waves below and machinery above, he could hear the metal groaning under the cable's strain. Priding himself in knowing how to tie a good knot, Leo reached out to the cable the more he got closer. The line was almost as if it was more like a solid pipe. Very little slack at all for something as long as it was in that it should have been moving along in the water. Yet it was as straight as a needle going down.

And then it was slackened. It was almost as if it had lost any form of weight minus gravity pulling on the cable. Slowly he reached out and grab it, confirming that it felt more like a loose line than something at the end.

Without hesitation, he quickly started grabbing hand fulls and pulled as fast as he could.

Stepping up into the little tech room the team had been given to work from, Derek made his little trek up the small flight of stairs as he unzipped his coat and slowly let it slip off. The room was fairly simple, with an 'office' on one side with a second staircase mirroring the first with lockers, wall-embedded server racks, and some benches where some of the cases were.

Heading to the office side, he uncoupled his belt and, with a bit of both a heavy toss and some care, let it plop and slide across the table to the wall. Swinging a chair around, he was about to place his coat down when he could hear his phone vibrating and quietly blaring its ringtone in a pocket. Moving around a little, he fished the device out, plopping on the chair as he answered, "Hello?"

"Hey," He heard Rachel on the line, "Wanted to see how're things going so far?"

"Could be better, could be worse... Honestly, this place seems more like a safety hazard than a paranormal one."

"So I take it you really haven't found much."

He shook his head, "The whole place is just saturated with pke; worse than anything we've found so far. Collection and sample tanks, pumping stations, drilling stations, even the machine shop, and command have such a high reading its a surprise this place hasn't become one of those creepy horror style sets with weird fleshy stuff and creatures everywhere."

"Be careful what you ask for. At this point, it just might happen."

Pulling the cable up as fast as he could, Leo was beginning to sweat profusely as he put everything into his effort to bring the box back up. Having to try to avoid losing his grip and letting the cable slip and fall all the way back into the abyss at some points, having to loop it a dozen times and knot it on the railing just to keep it tied. He was almost over the railing itself in trying to get as much as he could per pull before he finally noticed the red blinking light slowly getting closer to the surface. With some renewed vigor, he increased his speed. Hauling it out of the ocean and up through the air to his platform.

When it was in the final 10 feet, Leo quickly tied off what he had already pulled up before grabbing as far down as possible and yanking it up. Letting it clatter onto the steel walkway as he ripped untied the cable and subconsciously threw the weights over the side

Pulling away from the tape and lid, he was greeted with a disturbing sight; the Pke meter itself was practically half melted. Still sizzling from the intense heat as any water droplets that came in contact simply puff away as steam. The device honestly looked more like it sat in an oven than in the cold deep water of the ocean.

"What the hell..." he said to himself as he reached down and pulled the meter out. Stopping when the backside hadn't followed with it as the tool split in half. The former having been melted into the container, all that connected the two halves as a few surviving wires and strings of plastic.

Tossing the destroyed device to the side, he dropped his goggles down, aiming into the dark water. While the waves were fairly tame for being this far into the Atlantic, the choppiness and lack of direct light prevented him from getting a clear visual.

And what he saw made his jaw slowly drop in disbelief. Slowly taking the goggles off his eyes and taking a step back, Leo stared wide-eyed at the drill pipe as he heard an unholy groaning noise rolling up the pipe.

Watching as cables and loose items began to rattle and shake, he felt the catwalk vibrating, "Oh, shit..." He stepped back in horror.

Just then, his radio went off. "Leo, Leo, come in. What the hell was that? Pke is skyrocketing all over the place." He heard Jack frantically yelling. Fumbling for his own, Leo called in.

"Something big just came up the drill pipe. Meter detected something big just 300 feet down and literally cooked it."

"Well, whatever it is, it's literally flooding the rig. I'm getting spikes all over the place, the screen is literally like Christmas town on google earth. The guys in here are trying to get the systems stable but- oh shit."

Given the pause wasn't even for three seconds, Leo felt that was three seconds too long, "Oh shit, what?"

"Alarms are going off all over the place! The gent alarms are going off, and we can't connect to the drill floor."

"Can you reach Derek?"

"Trying, but his radio isn't-" there was a sudden pop. Not from the radio, but from the air around Leo, it felt like a bubble had just been popped.

There was a slight rumble. Then a thunder. Then a roar.

The area in front of Leo seemed to explode in a shower of mud and slime. Pipes underneath the floor blew out the panels like the ones lining the walls, and the ceiling erupted with it traveling at him. But on the other side, he could easily see a distinctive glow coming fast.

Without missing a beat, Leo spun around and ran. Boots clattering over grates that only a brief moment later exploded from more erupting pipes. He turned down a corner hard as he could briefly see the column of flames race through the corridor he was just in. Taking a left turn, he went straight for the first door that was open to him; what he could assume was a storage room that didn't have much in terms of actual storage.

Closing the door, he tried to use his body weight to keep it closed but instantly felt the wave rocket past him and send the door flying off its hinges. As he felt a blast of wind and heat knock him off his feet, the sudden kick up in dust came right into his eyes as he tried to get a grip on anything, only to have the wall opposite of him be blown out by debris that sent chunks of material flying everywhere. Leo tried to cover himself, but a follow-up was quick to deny him protection as it sent him flying into the wall. Felt the wind get knocked out of him from the impact, he fell to the ground unmoving.

"How long did you guys say this would last?"

"Three-*yawn* three days. Today was mostly just looking around to set up. Tomorrow we're supposed to start getting dirty. Then we can head back and look over everything we got."

"Sound like fun."

He let out a stiff laugh as he reaches over and grabbed a bottle of water at the end. It had been sitting for a while, given how warm it was despite the place being mostly cold, but no one drank it when they were here early, so why not?

While leaning back to take a couple of gulps, his expression changed from tired to curious when he saw the overhead lights suddenly glow brighter to where it started to hurt his eyes for a bit. Leaning back down, he saw that even the desk lamp with an older light bulb seemed glowing like it was brand new.

Then before he could look over his shoulder, all light in the room vanished, leaving him in the darkness that was only broken from the emergency lights outside and the servers.

Something wasn't right.

"Derek? Derek, something wrong?"

It was then that he felt a rumble. Not like a machine going off or a vehicle rolling past a kind of rumble, but one that was like a rolling wave growing as it got closer. He felt the floor beneath his boots vibrating nonstop when he stood up.

"Rachel, I'm gonna have to call you back." He could hear her confused voice but ended the call before she could say any more.

Feeling his lips suddenly go dry despite his drink, Derek felt himself tense up like he would when he was investigating a case alone. Though this time, he felt it even worse since he lacked the items that helped keep him a little more assured. Taking slow steps towards the door that he came from, Derek nearly jumped when he heard the distinct sound of his PKE meter going off on the table where his belt was.

A slight glance to his right let him see the screen mostly facing upward, but it produced more light in the room as the bar graph flashed to life and rapidly climbed to the top as the wing lights sped up.

When the center 5 bars flatlined the top, he let out a long exhale. It was the last thing his mind registered right before he saw the door come flying straight at him, knocking him clean off his feet. Sending him flying across the room, he stumbled down the opposite staircase with the door itself landing on top of him.

New York City:

"Derek?! Derek?!" Rachel frantically tried in vain to get through the call but was met by silence. Immediately she ended the previous call and quickly speed-dialed his number.

At first, it rang like normal, but after a few seconds, at the point, that anyone would have answered, a voice message popped up. Groaning, she ended the call and went to Leo's contact, hearing the ringing again as she started to get more nervous. After it failed, she tried Jack.

"Come on, come on, come on..." but as fate put it, like before, it went straight to voice mail. "Dammit!"

"What happened?" Mike asked, walking in from hearing her yell.

"I don't know. Something happened to Derek; the way he sounded didn't feel-" Rachel herself felt something without warning. It was like being in an old house right next to train tracks with a rumble similar to a heavy approaching train. The table, bookcases, and anything loose around them suddenly started shaking as, in seconds, the 'climax' of the event hit the hotel like an earthquake.

Feeling themselves get knocked down, Mike immediately brought them down to the ground, his training kicking in to use himself as a shield over her in the case anything fell as they moved towards the doorway. As they did, they and all of New York had their attention briefly stolen from the passing light of a pinkish wave phasing through the building. Went out as fast as it went in as the shaking gradually began to cease.

When it finally stopped, the two waited for a moment before Mike slowly moved away, getting back on his feet. "What the hell was that..."

"It was like before." Rachel said, using the door to help stand back up, "Like a few months ago when we first got here. Derek called it a 'psi-energy pulse' wave-thing that made us get that huge spike in calls."

"You think that has something to do with what happened to Derek?"

She sighed, "I don't know. I'm not a scientist. What I do know is we need to find out." Moving out the door, Rachel made a beeline to what they had dubbed their 'office' where they were keeping the makeshift call center and files.

Before she even got to the door, she could hear the ringing of several phones going off with the voice of Roger frantically talking. Looking back at Mike for a brief second, she opened the door to the bewildered sight of every phone on the desk ringing wildly while Roger himself had his own phone talking away.

"Ghostbusters, please hold! Ghostbusters, Yes, I know we felt it too and will try to get around to you as soon as we can. Ghostbusters, yes, we know about that and will soon as we-" he paused when he looked up to see the two standing at the door. A loss for words as he gestured to the mess in front of him as he went back to the phone, "Yes, and we'll get to that as soon as we can." Hanging up the call, he opted not to answer anymore. The three phones in front of them were all still ringing away with various lights indicating various callers still waiting on the line.

Giving himself a moment to collect his thoughts, the pilot looked back up, "What the hell just happened? One moment it an all fine; next to it's an earthquake, and then we're getting swamped with calls within not even two minutes."

"We need to get to that oil rig the others are on. How soon can you get the chopper going?" Rachel asked and was answered by the bemused look from the pilot.

"It'll take me at least half-hour to get it prepped and going. Let alone the fact that this city has gone to shit again." He moved over to the window and yanked it open to emphasize his point. Immediately the sounds of blaring car horns, screaming, and sirens joined the phones making their ears hurt. "It'll take us even longer to get to the warehouse given the hell that's gonna be out on the streets."

"Where's Danny and Ben?"

"They took Ecto-3 out for a late-night snack. I've been trying to direct calls close to them, and they called in saying they're getting overwhelmed by the stray ghosts popping up around them."

Thinking about this added info, Rachel tried to form up a plan. It was either trying to find the others or dealing with the sudden blast in activity in the city. If the Smiths were starting to struggle against rogue ghosts out on the streets, then the city's situation could get worse.

"Roger, go find the others." Mike ordered, confusing Rachel at the sudden change in command, "We'll take you to the warehouse and head back through the city. Try to get some crowd control done before the boys get overwhelmed."

Rachel went to object, "What? No, we need to" "We need to focus on what we can do. We don't know what happened to the others. They have a support ship with them that should be able to help them. We need to try to get this city back in order and fast. God forbid that it goes further down the toilet from the chaos all this is causing.

Wanting to counter his statement, Rachel rapidly found herself seeing reason in his words. While true Derek and Leo had been through some hellish situations (minus Jack still having the least field experience of them all), being stuck on an oil rig during a sudden paranormal outbreak wasn't something on that list. She wanted to race out there and find out what was happening, but the city needed them more now than ever.

Reluctantly, she nodded in agreement.

"Then we need to move, now."

So thinking about it now, after seeing Afterlife twice in theatres and multiple times on digital, got me back into a bit more GB thinking about what the franchise's future will be. Knowing how long it takes me to even try to think this through, I'll most likely be making big changes to what my original idea for this story and the future will be.

In a way, with what Afterlife had done for some of the equipment, I've opted to 'reset' some stuff in how the equipment works, one being how the PKE works (along with the packs, trap, slime, etc.). My 'source' is mainly based on the 'How Does: X' work from the youtube channel Channeling Spirits that have explained in a level of detail that does help to understand just how this all would 'work' in reality.

Part of this chapter and the following are mainly inspired by the movie Deep Water Horizon in the events leading up to the rig exploding. Such the first blowout scene makes me think of slime forcing its way out like in GB2, and a part that involves the falling mud in the tower sounding like a monster is somewhere in the facility. (You can find the videos for these on youtube)