Despite Peter's off-hand comment, this wasn't precisely an everyday type
call for the Ghostbusters. They routinely dealt with cases of extra-
terrestrial manipulation of inanimates, but possessed people were not
something they handled often. Their equipment was designed for more sturdy
targets than the frail human body; thus, it was with no little trepidation
that the four pulled up to the warehouse/manufacturing complex noted on the
work order, and piled out of the car.
Stantz read the large sign affixed prominently to the building's wall; his pleasant, youthful features showed less enthusiasm for the bust than usual, and he scrubbed vaguely at his eyes when he thought no one was looking. "Standard American," he murmered aloud. "I wonder what they do here?"
The pockets of his blue uniform bulged with notes and gadgets; Egon Spengler chose one seemingly at random and extracted a tidy packet of papers. "According to the spokeswoman, Mrs. Santiago, they manufacture ... er... bathroom fixtures," he replied, checking the topmost sheet with satisfaction. "Toilets, sinks...."
"We know what bathroom fixtures are," Winston snapped, unloading his proton pack from the wagon. "What I don't know is why we're here at all. We ain't got the equipment to handle a possession. Why didn't you tell this Santiago chick to call a priest or something?"
"In the first place," Egon responded with great dignity, "I didn't talk to Mrs. Santiago -- Janine did. Secondly, you know very well that paranormal control by an extra-dimensional entity will not be affected by ritual or religious trappings. We're dealing in the realms of science..." He sniffed. "...not myth."
"Besides, they're paying us," Peter added practically. "You may be on salary, Winston, but we're getting a hefty service fee just for showing up. A couple more of these and we might even make the mortgage this month."
Zeddemore's dark features creased. "You---"
"Will you two knock it off?" Egon's gruff voice forestalled the retort. "You've both been bickering all morning."
"Yeah. We've got work to do." Ray shrugged into his own proton pack, snapping it securely around his waist. "We're going to have to work together on this one, guys. We're a team."
Peter stuck out his tongue. "Thank you, Tommy LaSorda."
Tossing his auburn head at the acid rebuke, Ray led the way into the modern office section of the plant. They were greeted at the door by a plump, middle-aged woman who introduced herself as the president of the firm, Delorus Santiago.
"I'm so glad you're here," she said, hustling them past a bevy of curious secretaries and clerks. "I just didn't know who else to call. Ramon...."
"Ramon?" Peter winked at a particularly curvaceous clerk-typist, who smiled fetchingly back, fluffing her hair with one hand. "I've got to wander through this office again on the way out," he decided sotto voce. Louder, "Ramon is the name of the ... er ... possessee, right?"
"Yes. Ramon Cerrito" The woman wrung her hands agitatedly, her light accent intensifying. "He's been acting a little odd for weeks now, but we didn't know.... I mean, we never suspected...."
"Take your time, Delorus." Peter spoke soothingly, flashing the disturbed woman his brightest megawatt smile. He placed a hand under her elbow and ushered her forward until they were even with the rest. "Just take it from the top, and tell us what happened."
Ray Stantz started when Egon brushed him out of the way to assume the lead. The Ghostbusters engineering specialist narrowed his eyes but made no remark; simply fell into line, watching closely when the big blond stopped before a heavy firedoor and pulled out his meter. Spengler touched a button and the folded arms attached to its forward edge stirred weakly. "Hmmm, P.K.E. readings are higher than normal, but not excessively so." He touched a green dial, turning it to right and left, but the indicator needle barely twitched. Spengler scowled and inclined toward the company's president. "What evidence disposed you to infer that this Ramon is being unnaturally controlled? Perhaps the police would have been a better choice instead of paranormal eliminators."
Mrs. Santiago, who had been visibly relaxing under Peter's sensual charm, stiffened again. "We... didn't want the police here," she said cautiously.
"Because...?" Venkman prodded, still smiling despite the new suspicion that darkened his eyes to the color of the sea.
Nervously wiping her hands on her silk suit, the woman glanced from one man to the other, mouth working on the answer. "Because ... most of my employees are from the old cultures and.... Oh, see for yourselves." She tugged open the firedoors and led the way into a warehouse filled from floor to ceiling with cartons, stacked bathtubs, toilets and other articles normally associated with indoor plumbing. Several crates had been haphazardly strewn about near the doorway, and a bathtub lay on its side across the main aisle. Here and there, piles of broken porcelain and dented metal marked the remains of fixtures abnormally used.
"Some of these products weigh in at over 200 pounds," Santiago explained, stepping daintily over a chunk of steel as large around as her head. "Ramon threw these -- including that cast iron bathtub. Actually picked them up and threw them!"
"But that's not...." Winston began.
"Ramon weighs no more than 120 pounds himself." She wrung her hands again. "And...and he's only...only fifteen years old!"
Light dawned. "So that's why you didn't want to call in the police," Winston accused, giving the distressed woman a fish eye. "I bet he doesn't have a green card, either."
No reply.
"Uh-huh." Egon drew his particle thrower and checked the controls, making sure they were set as low as possible. "I suggest you evacuate the building, madam. Considering the quantity of packing materials in the vicinity, there exists a finite probability for induced combustion."
"He means we could accidentally start a fire," Ray translated automatically, when the woman only returned a blank stare.
"I'll get my office personnel out; this section is already empty because of Ramon." She turned, starting away as if glad for the escape, stopping when Venkman called her name.
"Call the police first. I want an officer on site as son as possible." He checked his own thrower but, unlike Egon, reracked it immediately. "There's still a chance this is not a case of possession," he explained at his companions' puzzled looks, "and I'm not about to fry some teenager over a mistake."
Egon drew himself stiffly erect, sky blue eyes frosty. "Are you implying I would?"
"Frankly, Spengs, baby, what you would or wouldn't do has been a mystery to me for years." Venkman jerked his head towards the woman, who was gaping at the exchange. "Call the cops. Now."
"Oh, yes -- yes, of course." Without a backward glance, she turned and fled.
"Fire hazard. Terrific." Winston adjusted his own thrower, imitating Egon's low-power settings exactly. "Come on -- let's validate the dude, fry the spook and get out of here. It's getting on time for lunch."
"I am so sorry if we're keeping you from your meal." Peter's acid retort cut off short at a look from Egon, quelling the incipient argument before it could start. "All right, let's just do it."
Ray, who had been silent through most of the morning, shot his colleagues a reproachful look, his soft voice carrying a bite not normally associated with the amiable engineer. "Try not to forget, that's still a man there. If you 'fry' the ghost, you'll kill the man -- the boy -- too."
"So what do you suggest?" Peter demanded, changing sides just to be perverse. "You want I should pscho-analyze him clean? Sorry, Tex, but I left my couch in my other pants."
"But we really should have a plan," the younger man persisted, halting the group to the accompaniment of at least two groans.
Sharp green eyes darting from aisle to aisle, Peter stepped around the small knot of men, advancing two more paces before coming to a halt. "Before we plan anything, I want to see a psi reading on the victim. Let's see what we're dealing with first."
Winston's wide nose flared as though smelling something distasteful. "That goes without saying," he replied coolly, also retreating from his comrades as though they were the offensive odor. "If that's the best you have to offer...."
"Perhaps I can do better." The deep bass grew even more resonant as Egon drew himself up to his full height. He tipped his head until he was staring haughtily down at his shorter colleagues, who were watching him with vague animosity. "If we can contain the host..."
"Provided that's what he is," the brown haired psychologist interjected rudely.
"...in a low-level pyramid configuration attuned to the abnormal psychic wave fluctuations, the atmospheric hyper-ionization may induce spontaneous disengagement."
"You sound like a dictionary," Peter complained, for once neglecting the game of making Ray reiterate the physicist's pedantic speech. He unclipped his thrower, hefting it easily in one hand. "Okay, we'll have to stay close on this one. We'll need at least three of us for a pyramid configuration."
"Thank you, Tommy LaSorda," Winston mimicked, examining the distant ceiling for slime. "And don't think I'm gonna be solo man out on this one, either."
The psychologist glowered, but before he could formulate a suitably crushing reply, a figure appeared atop one of the myriad piles of boxes lining the aisles; Ramon Cerrito, a slightly built Latino in coveralls, regarded the four men boldly, black eyes glassy. "I don't suppose you want to make this easy on us?" Peter called plaintively, waggling his fingers in greeting.
Obviously not. With an inarticulate yell, the newcomer kicked out, unbalancing the heavy crates on which he stood, sending them crashing down onto the scrambling Ghostbusters.
"Look out!" Winston shouted, clearing the end of the cascade with a bound. Egon was right behind him but too slow to escape completely unscathed; he leaped gracelessly over the first tumbling box only to be bowled over by the second. It caught him a glancing blow, knocking him sideways into Winston and sending both men crashing to the floor, fortunately out of the way of the rest of the pile. They landed relatively unhurt if winded, the PKE meter skidding some meters beyond.
Several feet away, Peter and Ray were having problems of their own. Sandwiched between the aisles and too far from either end of the man-made avalanche to escape, they could do little more than stare as certain doom tumbled towards them. Peter took one involuntary step backwards, stumbling when he found himself in a miniature cul de sac formed by the junction of two machines. Without hesitation he reached out, grabbed Stantz by the collar and yanked him to safety only an instant before the younger man would have been squashed flat by a half-ton of massed urinals.
"Ohhh, man." Peter breathed the phrase gratefully while staring at the white porcelain spilled out of one shattered crate. He gave it a shove, budging it not an inch, then leaned weakly on the frame of a fork lift. "That was close. We would have looked like pie crust."
Ray Stantz stared at the too-solid evidence of their near miss. Rather than relief, however, his boyish features hardened, growing white with rage. "He tried to kill me!" he howled, soft brown eyes now flashing murder. "I'm gonna fry that jerk!" To Peter's obvious astonishment, the normally gentle hearted young man twisted the dial of his thrower to full power and jumped lightly on top of the nearest crate. "Ramon!" he bellowed, glaring around the warehouse with undisguised fury. "Come out here and face me like a man ... or whatever."
A wild laugh answered this challenge, seeming to come from all directions at once. Peter joined his colleague atop the makeshift platform, picking up his ears to make out their opponent's slurred words.
"Bet ya!" Cerrito gibbered gaily, peeking around a corner. "Bet ya brains with a baseball bat!"
The words might have been a red flag before a bull to judge by the effect they had on Ray Stantz. He flipped a strand of auburn hair back off his forehead and deliberately brought his particle thrower up, then down in an awkward marksman's stance. His finger tightened on the trigger; another second would have seen the madman's life end in a fiery hell of hard radiation, but Peter snagged his wrist, dragging the barrel down. "Wait," the older man ordered, forced to drop his own weapon to maintain a grip.
The response was hardly amiable and completely unreined. Spitting with fury through clenched teeth, Ray yanked at his entrapped wrist, using his free arm to give Peter's chest a hard shove. "He tried to kill me!" he repeated loudly. "Let me go!"
His own well-developed muscles tight as bands, Peter held firm, now having to use both hands to prevent his youngest partner from carrying out his intention. "I said wait." Despite the effort it required to hold onto Stantz, he cocked his head, listening closely to the endless stream of babble, enlightenment as the pattern emerged.
"Beachball, best bat your bar." The young Latino seemed to have an endless supply of 'B' words and was obviously seeking to use them all up at once. "Barbara, before...."
"Winston." Peter beckoned the black man nearer by jerking his head, not daring to loose his restraint on Ray for an instant. "Go out to the car and look into the second compartment on the driver's side rear. You'll find a black leather bag there. Bring it to me."
"I thought the slaves done got freed," Zeddemore snarled, but nonetheless slipped past the entwined two and headed for the firedoor, mumbling oaths to himself.
Peter's jaw tightened at the comment, green eyes boring into the man's blue clad back. But he made no reply, rather cutting his gaze to the tall blond watching dispassionately from the side. "Egon, did you get a reading on our friend there?"
The PKE meter remained where it had fallen after Ramon's induced 'avalanche.' Reminded, the physicist retrieved it, giving it a single expert scan before arcing it from east to west. "PKE relatively normal," he reported, studying the readings with a raised brow. "No evidence of N-E presence anywhere in the building."
"I figured as much." Venkman released Stantz as soon as Cerrito had dived behind a crate out of sight, busying himself with retrieving his trailing barrel. Ray rubbed at the red marks on his wrist, lips parted to give voice to the hatred that lived in his expressive features, but Egon spoke first, giving him no chance.
"You know what's going on?" the physicist asked, following Peter's example and holstering his thrower. He stood slightly crouched, confident his gangly frame could react with the speed of a jaguar at need. But he was more reasoned than Stantz, his gaze fixed expectantly on the psychologist. "What's your plan?"
Venkman waved one hand expansively. His smile was slow and lazy and obviously contrived to hide the racing mind behind the facade. "I'm working on it guys," he drawled. "I will tell you one thing -- that baby's loco."
"No kidding." Refusing to stow his own weapon, Stantz maintained his 'ready' position, features still tight, alert for further signs of ambush. There was implacable death in his gaze, and only the tattered fray of control. "You have any other revelations for us?"
Peter shook his head. Although resentment flashed in his eyes, his voice was calm enough, perhaps misleadingly so -- the eye of a hurricane, perhaps. "I mean that literally. This kid's no more possessed than you are. I think he's schizophrenic."
"What?" Egon's blond brows drew together in a frown, disbelief further edging the sharp planes of his face. He pushed his red-framed glasses higher on his long nose, until he could look through them down at his colleague. "That's a rather premature diagnosis, isn't it, Doctor Venkman? How can you possibly tell that from here?"
"From his speech." Thudding footsteps heralded the return of Zeddemore; Venkman accepted the black bag and set it on a nearby workbench. He rummaged around inside for a moment, coming up with a glass bottle and wad of cotton. "That obsession he has with sound patterns is symptomatic of certain forms of schizophrenia, and the lack of high PKE levels proves it. That boy isn't possessed -- he's sick."
"What are you going to do?" Winston puffed, interest making him forget his irritation with the psychologist for the moment.
Peter held up the bottle. "If we can get him down long enough, I can knock him out with this chloroform. Then we call Bellview and hit a pizza parlor. With our fee, of course."
The explanation made sense. Relaxing fractionally, Winston and Egon nodded their approval; Ray, however, still impassioned by his near miss, was not so easily convinced. "If he's not possessed," he insisted, fingering his thrower handle, "then how do you explain a skinny little teenager tossing whole bathtubs around?"
"Easy enough." Peter stowed the bottle and cotton safely into his pocket, resting his fists lightly on his hips. "The strength of the human body should not be underestimated when dealing with a disturbed mind. The body is fully capable of overriding its normal psychologically induced physiological limitations on the muscular system, availing it of all the strength of which said system is capable of producing." He grinned. "Clinical Psychology as Applied to the Psychotic Mind, 1971 edition."
Though singularly unhappy about the situation, even Ray dropped his argument to Peter's plan. By unspoken agreement, the four automatically assumed combat positions, spacing themselves several feet apart. "You better be right about this, Venkman," Winston warned, leading the way down a likely side aisle. "One slip up and this dude could turn the Ghostbusters into Ghostsushi."
"Oh, ye of little faith," Venkman mourned, bringing up the rear. Breaking into two teams, the men began a systematic search of the huge warehouse, always careful to remain in sight of their fellows. Faint scrabbling was often heard, but their target knew the warehouse too well to be cornered easily. Quadrant by quadrant the building was covered, nearly twenty minutes elapsing before a flash of movement brought Ray's head up and to the left. There, standing precariously on a stack of piled bathtubs, stood Ramon, boldly surveying them from above.
Contact and response were nearly simultaneous. "I have him!" the young engineer exclaimed, firing a short burst of proton from the hip. At Peter's warning, he growled something and altered his original target -- one that would certainly have removed Ramon's head from his shoulders. His aim was good, the stream hitting exactly six inches from one dirty loafer. The psychotic youth windmilled his arms several times in a failed attempt to maintain his balance, then uttered a loud yell and pitched forward to the floor, eight feet below.
"Come on, let's get him!" Ray leaped onto the rolling body, receiving a punch in the midsection and a kick to the shin for his trouble. He yelped in pain but didn't stop his scramble to grab one skinny arm. "That ... that's the second time my stomach...." He broke off as Ramon twisted again, lashing out with a strength far superior to what his small frame should have been capable. Ray was thrown off a split second before Winston joined the fray, Egon close at his heels. The blond threw himself across the boy's flailing legs while Zeddemore and a snarling Stantz each clung to one bony wrist.
"Hurry, Pete! Ow!" Egon gasped, taking a kick on the arm. "He's getting free!"
Ever the consummate professional where his own field was concerned, Peter took his time, carefully measuring the chloroform out before clapping the wet cotton over Ramon's nose and mouth. "Breathe deep, kid," he said quietly, securing his hold on the tossing head. "You're all right now ... deep ... that's right." Twenty seconds later, Ramon was unconscious.
Tension reigned a moment longer until they were sure Cerrito was out, then Ray swallowed hard and rolled off the limp body, rubbing ruefully at his re- bruised abdomen. "Whew! For awhile there, I was afraid you were wrong about him not being possessed, Peter. He sure put up a fight."
"I'll have you know, Dr. Stantz, that I'm a specialist, too." The twice- Ph.D recipient Venkman's words were light enough, but his eyes were very cool indeed at the perceived slight. "I don't question you on your gizmos, do I?"
"Doesn't matter now, anyway." Zeddemore pulled himself to his feet and prodded their captive lightly with the toe of one boot; the Latino made a little snoring sound but didn't react beyond that. "I'll tell those chicks outside to call an ambulance, then I'm going to wait in the car. I'd rather not be anywhere in the neighborhood if Ramon here decides to go for round two."
***
Stantz read the large sign affixed prominently to the building's wall; his pleasant, youthful features showed less enthusiasm for the bust than usual, and he scrubbed vaguely at his eyes when he thought no one was looking. "Standard American," he murmered aloud. "I wonder what they do here?"
The pockets of his blue uniform bulged with notes and gadgets; Egon Spengler chose one seemingly at random and extracted a tidy packet of papers. "According to the spokeswoman, Mrs. Santiago, they manufacture ... er... bathroom fixtures," he replied, checking the topmost sheet with satisfaction. "Toilets, sinks...."
"We know what bathroom fixtures are," Winston snapped, unloading his proton pack from the wagon. "What I don't know is why we're here at all. We ain't got the equipment to handle a possession. Why didn't you tell this Santiago chick to call a priest or something?"
"In the first place," Egon responded with great dignity, "I didn't talk to Mrs. Santiago -- Janine did. Secondly, you know very well that paranormal control by an extra-dimensional entity will not be affected by ritual or religious trappings. We're dealing in the realms of science..." He sniffed. "...not myth."
"Besides, they're paying us," Peter added practically. "You may be on salary, Winston, but we're getting a hefty service fee just for showing up. A couple more of these and we might even make the mortgage this month."
Zeddemore's dark features creased. "You---"
"Will you two knock it off?" Egon's gruff voice forestalled the retort. "You've both been bickering all morning."
"Yeah. We've got work to do." Ray shrugged into his own proton pack, snapping it securely around his waist. "We're going to have to work together on this one, guys. We're a team."
Peter stuck out his tongue. "Thank you, Tommy LaSorda."
Tossing his auburn head at the acid rebuke, Ray led the way into the modern office section of the plant. They were greeted at the door by a plump, middle-aged woman who introduced herself as the president of the firm, Delorus Santiago.
"I'm so glad you're here," she said, hustling them past a bevy of curious secretaries and clerks. "I just didn't know who else to call. Ramon...."
"Ramon?" Peter winked at a particularly curvaceous clerk-typist, who smiled fetchingly back, fluffing her hair with one hand. "I've got to wander through this office again on the way out," he decided sotto voce. Louder, "Ramon is the name of the ... er ... possessee, right?"
"Yes. Ramon Cerrito" The woman wrung her hands agitatedly, her light accent intensifying. "He's been acting a little odd for weeks now, but we didn't know.... I mean, we never suspected...."
"Take your time, Delorus." Peter spoke soothingly, flashing the disturbed woman his brightest megawatt smile. He placed a hand under her elbow and ushered her forward until they were even with the rest. "Just take it from the top, and tell us what happened."
Ray Stantz started when Egon brushed him out of the way to assume the lead. The Ghostbusters engineering specialist narrowed his eyes but made no remark; simply fell into line, watching closely when the big blond stopped before a heavy firedoor and pulled out his meter. Spengler touched a button and the folded arms attached to its forward edge stirred weakly. "Hmmm, P.K.E. readings are higher than normal, but not excessively so." He touched a green dial, turning it to right and left, but the indicator needle barely twitched. Spengler scowled and inclined toward the company's president. "What evidence disposed you to infer that this Ramon is being unnaturally controlled? Perhaps the police would have been a better choice instead of paranormal eliminators."
Mrs. Santiago, who had been visibly relaxing under Peter's sensual charm, stiffened again. "We... didn't want the police here," she said cautiously.
"Because...?" Venkman prodded, still smiling despite the new suspicion that darkened his eyes to the color of the sea.
Nervously wiping her hands on her silk suit, the woman glanced from one man to the other, mouth working on the answer. "Because ... most of my employees are from the old cultures and.... Oh, see for yourselves." She tugged open the firedoors and led the way into a warehouse filled from floor to ceiling with cartons, stacked bathtubs, toilets and other articles normally associated with indoor plumbing. Several crates had been haphazardly strewn about near the doorway, and a bathtub lay on its side across the main aisle. Here and there, piles of broken porcelain and dented metal marked the remains of fixtures abnormally used.
"Some of these products weigh in at over 200 pounds," Santiago explained, stepping daintily over a chunk of steel as large around as her head. "Ramon threw these -- including that cast iron bathtub. Actually picked them up and threw them!"
"But that's not...." Winston began.
"Ramon weighs no more than 120 pounds himself." She wrung her hands again. "And...and he's only...only fifteen years old!"
Light dawned. "So that's why you didn't want to call in the police," Winston accused, giving the distressed woman a fish eye. "I bet he doesn't have a green card, either."
No reply.
"Uh-huh." Egon drew his particle thrower and checked the controls, making sure they were set as low as possible. "I suggest you evacuate the building, madam. Considering the quantity of packing materials in the vicinity, there exists a finite probability for induced combustion."
"He means we could accidentally start a fire," Ray translated automatically, when the woman only returned a blank stare.
"I'll get my office personnel out; this section is already empty because of Ramon." She turned, starting away as if glad for the escape, stopping when Venkman called her name.
"Call the police first. I want an officer on site as son as possible." He checked his own thrower but, unlike Egon, reracked it immediately. "There's still a chance this is not a case of possession," he explained at his companions' puzzled looks, "and I'm not about to fry some teenager over a mistake."
Egon drew himself stiffly erect, sky blue eyes frosty. "Are you implying I would?"
"Frankly, Spengs, baby, what you would or wouldn't do has been a mystery to me for years." Venkman jerked his head towards the woman, who was gaping at the exchange. "Call the cops. Now."
"Oh, yes -- yes, of course." Without a backward glance, she turned and fled.
"Fire hazard. Terrific." Winston adjusted his own thrower, imitating Egon's low-power settings exactly. "Come on -- let's validate the dude, fry the spook and get out of here. It's getting on time for lunch."
"I am so sorry if we're keeping you from your meal." Peter's acid retort cut off short at a look from Egon, quelling the incipient argument before it could start. "All right, let's just do it."
Ray, who had been silent through most of the morning, shot his colleagues a reproachful look, his soft voice carrying a bite not normally associated with the amiable engineer. "Try not to forget, that's still a man there. If you 'fry' the ghost, you'll kill the man -- the boy -- too."
"So what do you suggest?" Peter demanded, changing sides just to be perverse. "You want I should pscho-analyze him clean? Sorry, Tex, but I left my couch in my other pants."
"But we really should have a plan," the younger man persisted, halting the group to the accompaniment of at least two groans.
Sharp green eyes darting from aisle to aisle, Peter stepped around the small knot of men, advancing two more paces before coming to a halt. "Before we plan anything, I want to see a psi reading on the victim. Let's see what we're dealing with first."
Winston's wide nose flared as though smelling something distasteful. "That goes without saying," he replied coolly, also retreating from his comrades as though they were the offensive odor. "If that's the best you have to offer...."
"Perhaps I can do better." The deep bass grew even more resonant as Egon drew himself up to his full height. He tipped his head until he was staring haughtily down at his shorter colleagues, who were watching him with vague animosity. "If we can contain the host..."
"Provided that's what he is," the brown haired psychologist interjected rudely.
"...in a low-level pyramid configuration attuned to the abnormal psychic wave fluctuations, the atmospheric hyper-ionization may induce spontaneous disengagement."
"You sound like a dictionary," Peter complained, for once neglecting the game of making Ray reiterate the physicist's pedantic speech. He unclipped his thrower, hefting it easily in one hand. "Okay, we'll have to stay close on this one. We'll need at least three of us for a pyramid configuration."
"Thank you, Tommy LaSorda," Winston mimicked, examining the distant ceiling for slime. "And don't think I'm gonna be solo man out on this one, either."
The psychologist glowered, but before he could formulate a suitably crushing reply, a figure appeared atop one of the myriad piles of boxes lining the aisles; Ramon Cerrito, a slightly built Latino in coveralls, regarded the four men boldly, black eyes glassy. "I don't suppose you want to make this easy on us?" Peter called plaintively, waggling his fingers in greeting.
Obviously not. With an inarticulate yell, the newcomer kicked out, unbalancing the heavy crates on which he stood, sending them crashing down onto the scrambling Ghostbusters.
"Look out!" Winston shouted, clearing the end of the cascade with a bound. Egon was right behind him but too slow to escape completely unscathed; he leaped gracelessly over the first tumbling box only to be bowled over by the second. It caught him a glancing blow, knocking him sideways into Winston and sending both men crashing to the floor, fortunately out of the way of the rest of the pile. They landed relatively unhurt if winded, the PKE meter skidding some meters beyond.
Several feet away, Peter and Ray were having problems of their own. Sandwiched between the aisles and too far from either end of the man-made avalanche to escape, they could do little more than stare as certain doom tumbled towards them. Peter took one involuntary step backwards, stumbling when he found himself in a miniature cul de sac formed by the junction of two machines. Without hesitation he reached out, grabbed Stantz by the collar and yanked him to safety only an instant before the younger man would have been squashed flat by a half-ton of massed urinals.
"Ohhh, man." Peter breathed the phrase gratefully while staring at the white porcelain spilled out of one shattered crate. He gave it a shove, budging it not an inch, then leaned weakly on the frame of a fork lift. "That was close. We would have looked like pie crust."
Ray Stantz stared at the too-solid evidence of their near miss. Rather than relief, however, his boyish features hardened, growing white with rage. "He tried to kill me!" he howled, soft brown eyes now flashing murder. "I'm gonna fry that jerk!" To Peter's obvious astonishment, the normally gentle hearted young man twisted the dial of his thrower to full power and jumped lightly on top of the nearest crate. "Ramon!" he bellowed, glaring around the warehouse with undisguised fury. "Come out here and face me like a man ... or whatever."
A wild laugh answered this challenge, seeming to come from all directions at once. Peter joined his colleague atop the makeshift platform, picking up his ears to make out their opponent's slurred words.
"Bet ya!" Cerrito gibbered gaily, peeking around a corner. "Bet ya brains with a baseball bat!"
The words might have been a red flag before a bull to judge by the effect they had on Ray Stantz. He flipped a strand of auburn hair back off his forehead and deliberately brought his particle thrower up, then down in an awkward marksman's stance. His finger tightened on the trigger; another second would have seen the madman's life end in a fiery hell of hard radiation, but Peter snagged his wrist, dragging the barrel down. "Wait," the older man ordered, forced to drop his own weapon to maintain a grip.
The response was hardly amiable and completely unreined. Spitting with fury through clenched teeth, Ray yanked at his entrapped wrist, using his free arm to give Peter's chest a hard shove. "He tried to kill me!" he repeated loudly. "Let me go!"
His own well-developed muscles tight as bands, Peter held firm, now having to use both hands to prevent his youngest partner from carrying out his intention. "I said wait." Despite the effort it required to hold onto Stantz, he cocked his head, listening closely to the endless stream of babble, enlightenment as the pattern emerged.
"Beachball, best bat your bar." The young Latino seemed to have an endless supply of 'B' words and was obviously seeking to use them all up at once. "Barbara, before...."
"Winston." Peter beckoned the black man nearer by jerking his head, not daring to loose his restraint on Ray for an instant. "Go out to the car and look into the second compartment on the driver's side rear. You'll find a black leather bag there. Bring it to me."
"I thought the slaves done got freed," Zeddemore snarled, but nonetheless slipped past the entwined two and headed for the firedoor, mumbling oaths to himself.
Peter's jaw tightened at the comment, green eyes boring into the man's blue clad back. But he made no reply, rather cutting his gaze to the tall blond watching dispassionately from the side. "Egon, did you get a reading on our friend there?"
The PKE meter remained where it had fallen after Ramon's induced 'avalanche.' Reminded, the physicist retrieved it, giving it a single expert scan before arcing it from east to west. "PKE relatively normal," he reported, studying the readings with a raised brow. "No evidence of N-E presence anywhere in the building."
"I figured as much." Venkman released Stantz as soon as Cerrito had dived behind a crate out of sight, busying himself with retrieving his trailing barrel. Ray rubbed at the red marks on his wrist, lips parted to give voice to the hatred that lived in his expressive features, but Egon spoke first, giving him no chance.
"You know what's going on?" the physicist asked, following Peter's example and holstering his thrower. He stood slightly crouched, confident his gangly frame could react with the speed of a jaguar at need. But he was more reasoned than Stantz, his gaze fixed expectantly on the psychologist. "What's your plan?"
Venkman waved one hand expansively. His smile was slow and lazy and obviously contrived to hide the racing mind behind the facade. "I'm working on it guys," he drawled. "I will tell you one thing -- that baby's loco."
"No kidding." Refusing to stow his own weapon, Stantz maintained his 'ready' position, features still tight, alert for further signs of ambush. There was implacable death in his gaze, and only the tattered fray of control. "You have any other revelations for us?"
Peter shook his head. Although resentment flashed in his eyes, his voice was calm enough, perhaps misleadingly so -- the eye of a hurricane, perhaps. "I mean that literally. This kid's no more possessed than you are. I think he's schizophrenic."
"What?" Egon's blond brows drew together in a frown, disbelief further edging the sharp planes of his face. He pushed his red-framed glasses higher on his long nose, until he could look through them down at his colleague. "That's a rather premature diagnosis, isn't it, Doctor Venkman? How can you possibly tell that from here?"
"From his speech." Thudding footsteps heralded the return of Zeddemore; Venkman accepted the black bag and set it on a nearby workbench. He rummaged around inside for a moment, coming up with a glass bottle and wad of cotton. "That obsession he has with sound patterns is symptomatic of certain forms of schizophrenia, and the lack of high PKE levels proves it. That boy isn't possessed -- he's sick."
"What are you going to do?" Winston puffed, interest making him forget his irritation with the psychologist for the moment.
Peter held up the bottle. "If we can get him down long enough, I can knock him out with this chloroform. Then we call Bellview and hit a pizza parlor. With our fee, of course."
The explanation made sense. Relaxing fractionally, Winston and Egon nodded their approval; Ray, however, still impassioned by his near miss, was not so easily convinced. "If he's not possessed," he insisted, fingering his thrower handle, "then how do you explain a skinny little teenager tossing whole bathtubs around?"
"Easy enough." Peter stowed the bottle and cotton safely into his pocket, resting his fists lightly on his hips. "The strength of the human body should not be underestimated when dealing with a disturbed mind. The body is fully capable of overriding its normal psychologically induced physiological limitations on the muscular system, availing it of all the strength of which said system is capable of producing." He grinned. "Clinical Psychology as Applied to the Psychotic Mind, 1971 edition."
Though singularly unhappy about the situation, even Ray dropped his argument to Peter's plan. By unspoken agreement, the four automatically assumed combat positions, spacing themselves several feet apart. "You better be right about this, Venkman," Winston warned, leading the way down a likely side aisle. "One slip up and this dude could turn the Ghostbusters into Ghostsushi."
"Oh, ye of little faith," Venkman mourned, bringing up the rear. Breaking into two teams, the men began a systematic search of the huge warehouse, always careful to remain in sight of their fellows. Faint scrabbling was often heard, but their target knew the warehouse too well to be cornered easily. Quadrant by quadrant the building was covered, nearly twenty minutes elapsing before a flash of movement brought Ray's head up and to the left. There, standing precariously on a stack of piled bathtubs, stood Ramon, boldly surveying them from above.
Contact and response were nearly simultaneous. "I have him!" the young engineer exclaimed, firing a short burst of proton from the hip. At Peter's warning, he growled something and altered his original target -- one that would certainly have removed Ramon's head from his shoulders. His aim was good, the stream hitting exactly six inches from one dirty loafer. The psychotic youth windmilled his arms several times in a failed attempt to maintain his balance, then uttered a loud yell and pitched forward to the floor, eight feet below.
"Come on, let's get him!" Ray leaped onto the rolling body, receiving a punch in the midsection and a kick to the shin for his trouble. He yelped in pain but didn't stop his scramble to grab one skinny arm. "That ... that's the second time my stomach...." He broke off as Ramon twisted again, lashing out with a strength far superior to what his small frame should have been capable. Ray was thrown off a split second before Winston joined the fray, Egon close at his heels. The blond threw himself across the boy's flailing legs while Zeddemore and a snarling Stantz each clung to one bony wrist.
"Hurry, Pete! Ow!" Egon gasped, taking a kick on the arm. "He's getting free!"
Ever the consummate professional where his own field was concerned, Peter took his time, carefully measuring the chloroform out before clapping the wet cotton over Ramon's nose and mouth. "Breathe deep, kid," he said quietly, securing his hold on the tossing head. "You're all right now ... deep ... that's right." Twenty seconds later, Ramon was unconscious.
Tension reigned a moment longer until they were sure Cerrito was out, then Ray swallowed hard and rolled off the limp body, rubbing ruefully at his re- bruised abdomen. "Whew! For awhile there, I was afraid you were wrong about him not being possessed, Peter. He sure put up a fight."
"I'll have you know, Dr. Stantz, that I'm a specialist, too." The twice- Ph.D recipient Venkman's words were light enough, but his eyes were very cool indeed at the perceived slight. "I don't question you on your gizmos, do I?"
"Doesn't matter now, anyway." Zeddemore pulled himself to his feet and prodded their captive lightly with the toe of one boot; the Latino made a little snoring sound but didn't react beyond that. "I'll tell those chicks outside to call an ambulance, then I'm going to wait in the car. I'd rather not be anywhere in the neighborhood if Ramon here decides to go for round two."
***