Parts of this story might distract young readers.
"They're so many!" said Ray and ducked. "Egon, can you count 'em?"
......"Approximately thirty-two," he answered.
"So far, we've caught six - with Winston's ongoing catch, that's seven."
......"We ain't got that many traps!" Peter
blurted out and made an acrobatic jump to avoid getting covered in ectoplasm.
"Can we catch them by the dozen in the traps we've still got?"
......"Of course not," Egon made clear in
a dry voice.
......"Let's look on the bright side - they're
mainly class twos," said Ray. "We could leave a few and they won't cause
too much trouble."
......"Ray and his bright sides," mumbled
Peter with a smile.
......"Wait! A class seven is coming in fast!"
Egon called out.
......"What? A class seven?" asked Ray and
turned around. "Where, Egon?"
......"Five o'clock from where I'm standing,"
answered Egon and put his glasses higher up, turning around with the meter
in his hand.
......"I've got one more trap," said Peter.
"This sucker's mine!"
......"My children!" screamed the shadowy
ghost. "Release my children!"
......"Oh, it's a Mom ghost," said Winston.
"You sure you wanna catch her? She doesn't seem happy."
......"She'll have a great time in the unit,
with her kids," Peter clarified and took an aim.
......"This is the one that must have caused
the disaster in the factory," said Egon and pulled out his thruster.
......"Take them back!" she yelled to the
smaller ghosts, the ones she called her children. "Take your siblings
back from them!"
......"Oh man, hoochie mama's got a strategy!"
said Winston and fired at one of the little specters. "They're stealing
the traps!"
......"No you're not," Peter warned three
of the airborne creatures and pulled back a trap by the cable. "We got
that thing copyrighted."
......"Okay, better get ourselves a plan,
and that's plan B," decided Ray. "Get to Ecto before they take off with
any trap! We have to go back and catch more ghosts, and the Mom, once
we picked up more traps from the Headquarters."
......"Plan B, that's my favorite plan,"
Peter agreed and shot a ghost in solar plexus. "I'll make way and you
guys watch the runaway traps."
......"Egon! That greenish guy's got one.
I'll deal with the funky hair spook," commanded Winston.
......"Affirmative," Egon stated and hurried
to fire.
......"Get the traps, Ray, and come this
way," said Peter and started to run, his blazing beam reaching far up
against the ceiling. "We gotta get outta here."
......"I got all of them, I think," said
Ray and tried to run as fast as he could with the chinking equipment in
his arms, a few cables threatening to make him trip.
......"No! My children! You can't kidnap
my children!" wailed the ghost.
......"You wanna bet?" Peter called out to
the mother ghost before he ran out the door, followed by Ray.
......Within seconds, Winston and Egon came
out the factory, carrying one trap each. Running after their two colleagues,
they set for Ecto-1 and jumped in the seats.
......"Wow, look at her!" said Ray and put
his head out the window as Winston backed in a circle in order to leave
the parking lot. "She's big!"
......"And she's mad," said Peter.
......"I will revenge my children!" the ghost
roared and flew from side to side above the building. "I will catch your
children and do to them what you did to mine!"
......"Was that a threat?" said Winston.
"We don't have any kids."
......"Slimer!" Ray gasped. "She's gonna
abduct Slimer!"
......"Oh, I'm scared now," Peter snorted.
"Anything else she could help us with?"
......"I find this relationship of the ghosts
fascinating," started Egon.
......"Of course you do," Peter threw in
and grinned.
......"Technically, paranormal beings don't
reproduce," said Egon. "But my readings says they are related somehow.
She seems to have brought them up with the help of her psychokinetic energy.
That's why they're weaker than she is. They're... it seems like they're
growing up, their PK valence increasing as they mature."
......"That sounds unusual," said Ray and
frowned. "Life is determined by the ability of reproduction. She's paranormal,
not alive."
......"Yes, but this is just my preliminary
evaluation," Egon pointed out. "I want to study the offspring we caught
as soon as possible."
......"Whatever you want," said Peter. "Hey,
who's the Dad, if she's a Mom?"
......"We haven't gotten that far in the
investigation," said Egon coldly.
......"Who'd wanna shag her? She's butt-ugly!"
Peter laughed, Winston chiming in.
......It took them about half an hour to
get back to the Headquarters. Janine opened the doors, as she'd heard
them approach because of the siren, and she seemed pretty upset.
......"What's the matter, sis?" Winston asked
her through the open car window and braked.
......"Kids!" she called out. "It just happened!
Five minutes ago! It's on TV, you gotta see it before you go there!"
......"Man, why do we always have to rescue
the innocent," said Peter and got out the car. "Who's paying? Their parents?"
......The Ghostbusters and Janine rushed
up the stairs to the TV-set in the living room. It was already on, showing
a female reporter with ruffled hair in the front of some ordeal.
......"That's her!" Ray called out.
......"Who? May O'Neal?" Janine wondered.
......"No, no the reporter! The ghost, it's
the Mom ghost!"
......"What's she doing?" asked Winston.
......"That's children," Egon said and bit
his lip. "They seem to be about eight years old... or seven, a few of
them... and there's a baby! No, two."
......"She lined them up on top of a building?"
Peter hissed. "What kind of monster would do that?"
......"That's her revenge!" said Ray. "She
wouldn't go after Slimer, but real human children!"
......"The ghost has a message," said the
reporter. "She's repeating it over and over again: Ghostbusters, bring
back my children and I'll spare yours!"
......"Please," said a teary-eyed woman on
the screen, "Ghostbusters, you must come here and save my twins!"
......"Janine, where is this?" asked Winston.
......"Up Fourth Avenue," their secretary
replied. "You're gonna go, right? People are calling in like crazy."
......"Of course," said Egon. "We'll go right
away."
......They took off with blaring sirens and
reached the street in no-time. Once they got out the car, people were
cheering and clapping hands. A dozen reporters attacked the Ghostbusters
with their microphones, wanting a statement, but the men in coveralls
waved them off.
......"That's at least two dozen kids!" said
Winston. "Man, they look like siblings from two families!"
......Ray wasn't sure if it was Peter or
Egon stiffening up first. The two looked at each other, saying nothing.
Egon started to look sinister and questioning, while Peter looked surprised
and then upset.
......"I swear," said Peter, "Egon, don't
be mad at me, I give you my word he said he'll destroy it."
......"What are you talking about?" asked
Winston.
......"This can't be happening," said Egon
and looked like he both panicked and got furious.
......"They look like you and Peter," Ray
said to his physicist colleague. "Egon? Egon, don't say..."
......"It seems like it," Egon explained
in a low voice. "She really found or children."
......"Mine and Egon's", added Peter and
took out his thruster, powering it up. "I'd even forgotten all about it."
......"Me too," Egon agreed and looked at
the blond boys and girls on the rooftop. "Since you promised to deal with
it, Peter, to have it all undone."
......"The son of a bitch said he destroyed
the load, okay? Should we take care of saving our offspring or not? Our
kids, Egon, goddamnit!" Peter yelled.
......"Yes," Egon agreed shortly.
......"Mom! Hey, hoochie mama!" Winston bellowed.
......"You! The Ghostbusters!" she roared
back. "See, I have your children! Surrender mine and I'll surrender yours!"
......"Eight ghosts more or less," said Peter
to his friends. "Let's do it! She, and that heap of ghost kiddies, outnumbered
us. They're just class two anyway, the ones we caught. The kids up there
are in danger. We must surrender."
......"If we let you have your children,
will you let ours go?" asked Egon in a loud voice. "Will you promise not
to cause any trouble here with the people in the crowd?"
......"Yes!" she yelled back, letting a cold
wind sweep along the street. "I play fair, while you do not! You started
this fight."
......"Once you bring the kids down here,
we release your ghosts! That's a promise! From one parent to another,"
Peter called out.
......"Fine," she purred and collected the
human children in her many slippery arms. "That's a deal."
......The ghost flew steadily down to the
street, while the blond and brown-haired children in her arms screamed
with horror. The crowd split like magic and she could land comfortably,
releasing each child with a sort of motherly care.
......It took the Ghostbusters no time to
get to the children she put down. Peter ran to the little gathering and
hugged two brown-haired boys, obviously being twins.
......"Come to papa Venkman," he comforted
them and couldn't help that he swiftly sobbed. "You're safe now."
......Egon ordered Ray and Winston to empty
the traps they still kept in the back of Ecto-1. The two spook hunters
turned around and hurried to get to the car, while Egon himself kneeled
down and put his arms around a shy blonde girl. He let two gangly blond
boys with glasses join in and they all felt strangely like family, even
as the four had never met before. Three more fair-haired thin children
of the same age approached them and smiled through their tears, hugging
each other and Egon.
......"And I never thought I was gonna be
a Dad," said Peter with a lump in his throat.
......"Me neither," answered Egon shortly
in a strange voice and looked into the blue eyes of one of his daughters.
"Me neither."
......"Mom!" the twins from Peter's lot screamed
and ran to their crying parents. "Mom, we were so scared!"
......Some of the children had their parents
there, while others were alone. Egon sat down on the concrete and let
two of the girls sit on his lap, while three boys stood just beside him,
their hands on his shoulders. Peter picked up the two-year-old and the
infant, not knowing what to do.
......"I guess these are…" he started awkwardly
and tried to grin, looking at Egon. "The ladies never told me."
......"I should be upset about this," said
Egon, "but I'm not. We have to talk about it later, just you and me."
......"Yeah, I know," Peter answered and
struggled to make the infant stop crying by rocking her back and forth
on his arm. "Tonight, maybe?"
......"Tonight," Egon agreed and stood up
as a woman ran over to him and put her arms around one of the girls. "Ma'm,
she's alright. Please take good care of her."
......Eventually, it came to Ray and Winston's
knowledge what had actually happened. Nine years ago, in the beginning
of the friendship of Egon and Peter while they were at the Weaver Hall,
the two had run low on money and agreed to make a donation to Peter's
friend's bank. In just two day's time, they had raised the money they
needed and changed their mind about the sperm donation. Peter gave the
money back to the bank and his friend agreed to destroy their donation.
That, obviously, was a lie on his friend's behalf.
......"It feels really weird," Peter would
say later on, "to know I've got kids. A whole football team, almost! The
two little ones I don't know about... I had so many women... but I hope
the girls will contact me, in time."
the end
Written September 6, 2003