Ghost Haunting at the Amityville Horror House
It was a Friday night, and Peter Venkman decided to cook dinner for his girlfriend at her apartment. The table was set for two by candle light and on the stove was a pot of boiling pasta and in a sauce pan was creamy fettuccini sauce. The relaxing evening at his girlfriend's apartment had been planed well. "How's dinner coming along?" his girlfriend asked, as she came up behind him and placed her hands on his shoulders tenderly.
"It's coming along great, Linda." Peter said with a smile.
"I'm Lisa!" she said, looking at him with hurt-filled eyes of anger.
"Opps...I...I meant Lisa...! Really I did...I'm sorry..." Peter said, waving his hands in the air frantically, as if he were about to be hit by a mac truck.
"You know, Peter, that's the fifth time you've called me Linda...Is there something that you're not telling me that I shouldn't know about?" Lisa hinted at him with glaring eyes. Her hands were on her hips, looking at the now nervous Peter fidgeting and trembling at a standstill, while tapping her foot as she waited for him to answer.
Just then, the phone in the living room began to ring. "Could you just hold that thought...?" Peter said, as he quickly rushed out of the kitchen and into the living room. He picked up the phone, and pressed the receiver up to his ear. "Hello?" he said, as Lisa peeked through the kitchen entrance. There was a long pause, and then Peter began to talk again. "Listen, Ray, I can't. I'm over Linda...uhh...Lisa's house now....................Well can't you guys just do it without me? ....................Ray, I'm busy! ..........RAY I CAN'T...................................................FINE!!" he said, slamming the receiver down as hard as he could on the phone's hook.
"I'm guessing dinner has just been canceled," Lisa said in a huff.
"You knew what this kinda lifestyle would be when I first told you. It's like I'm Batman by night and Bruce Wayne by morning...Only a lot cuter and without the mask." Peter said with a smile. "Don't worry, Linda, I'll be back tomorrow with an even better dinner planned." he said with a sly wink.
"Keep calling me Linda, and there won't be dinner." Lisa said with a frown. She walked Peter to the door, and was so frustrated; she didn't kiss him good-bye like she normally would do.
Peter hailed a taxi and rode back to the firehouse angrily the whole way there. When he entered the firehouse, Ray, Egon and Winston were there waiting for his arrival and were already dressed in their jumpsuits. "Well, I'm finally glad you could make it," Ray said sarcastically as Peter walked up to Janine's desk where they were waiting.
"Do you realize what kinda night I could've had, Ray?" Peter said angrily looking down at Ray.
"Sorry, Pete, but we gotta call from a Mrs. Tibbits at the Amityville house on Long Island's South Shore." Ray said enthusiastically.
"And what does this have to do with dragging me away from my dinner with Linda...I mean Lisa?" Peter said with a stern face.
"Don't you realize it, Peter? We're going to the Amityville house!!" Ray said even more excited.
"Again, Ray....What?" Peter said confused.
"Peter, the Amityville house is a suburban tragedy that has become the source of bestselling novels and the subject of several movies!" Ray exclaimed.
"According to Tobin's Spirit Guide," Egon began, "on November 13, 1974, on 122 Ocean Ave., Amityville, a twenty-four year old man named Ronald DeFeo murdered his family. He used a high-powered rifle and shot his father, his mother, and his two brothers and two sisters. All six members of his family were killed instantly as they slept. Police later said that the bodies were found lying in the same position, on their stomachs with their heads resting on their arms," he said. "That's no all," he went on, "at his murder trial, DeFoe testified that he had killed his family because he heard voices, and when he looked around, there was no one around. He thought that God was talking directly to him. Then on December 18th of '75, the Lutz family moved into the DeFeo house—"
"Let me guess, the property value was a steal." Peter said with a smirk.
"Peter, this is serious," Egon said sternly, "when the Lutz family moved in, they began experiencing extreme amounts of psychokinetic energy pulsating throughout the entire house. Windows flew up and down and doors were repeatedly ripped off their hinges in the house even though they were securely locked. Mrs. Lutz levitated a foot above her bed on several occasions and floated toward an open window. On one of the occasions, her husband pulled her back inside and saw her thirty year old face transformed into the face of a ninety year old woman.—"
"That's defiantly not something you wanna wake up next to." Peter said with a chuckle.
"After living in the house for twenty eight days, the family fled the house, claiming it was haunted. Before they left, Mrs. Lutz discovered a small secret room in the basement, a room that appeared in none of the blueprints of the house. It was painted solid red and had the smell of blood. In one of the red walls, Lutz saw a vision of a face...a face that she later found in newspaper photographs was that of Ronald DeFeo."
"Interesting ghost tale, Egon, but why did this Mrs. Tibbits lady call?" Peter asked. "Is she trying to con us into believing that she too was haunted by evil spirits?"
"She's not conning anyone, Peter," Ray said, "anyone who lives in that house experiences weird disturbances."
"Yeah, and Egon even said that Mrs. Lutz would sometimes feel invisible hands gripping her, and one day found flaming red welts covering her body!" Winston said in amazement. "And also green slime began to ooze from the ceiling and from door openings! I'm tellin' ya, Pete, this is one hellava job we're looking at."
Winston's last words began to put thoughts into Peter's mind. Soon dollar signs began to pop into his head and could be seen through his eyes. "How much are we talking, here?" he asked. "$300 or $400?"
"Try $10,000, if we do the job successfully." Winston said with a smile.
"Well that settles it, I'm in!" Peter said with a big grin. "Let's rev up ecto-1 and get goin'!"
After Peter put on his jumpsuit, all four men piled into the ectomobile and took off with their sirens blaring in the wind. They arrived at the Amityville house on Long Island within a little over an hour. It was pitched black outside as they stepped out of their car and were putting their proton packs on. The house was an old Victorian style home, and had paint chipping away at the sides. The shingles were brittle and some were falling off into the rafters. The grass looked like it hadn't seen a mower in months, and had not been fertilized. It was a disgusting piece of property in a suburb among beautiful well-furnished homes. "Great art deco," Peter began sarcastically. "Early Munsters...? Or perhaps late Adams Family?"
As they reached the front porch Ray rung the doorbell, and within a matter of seconds a beautiful lady answered the door. She looked like she was in her mid twenties and had blonde wavy crimped hair that she kept in a headband and sparkling blue eyes. She wore a red and white stripped shirt; tight stone washed jeans that cut off at the ankles, and all-star high tops. Peter was stunned by her beauty, and his feet went numb. "Are...are you Mrs. Tibbits?" he asked in shock by her lovely beauty.
"No, I'm her daughter Linda Tibbits. My mother's inside waiting for you," Linda said with a smile.
"Funny. I had a girlfriend that was named Linda," Peter said with a smile.
"I thought her name was Lisa, Pete," Ray whispered in his ear, but Peter didn't pay any attention to him.
Linda led the Ghostbusters into the living room, and sitting on the couch waiting for them was Mrs. Tibbits. Mrs. Tibbits was a woman in her early fifties and was starting to get deep-set wrinkles and grey and white strands of hairs throughout her light brown hair. She was a little overweight and wore a white blouse with a navy blue sweater, a long blue skirt that went down to her ankles, and white hushpuppy flats. "Mom, the Ghostbusters are here," Linda said as she entered the living room.
"Oh good," Mrs. Tibbits said happily. "Please, do sit down."
Linda sat next to her mother on the couch, Peter decided to sit next to Linda, and Winston sat in one of the chairs across from the couch. Ray and Egon were the only two left standing.
"So what's the trouble, ma'am?" Ray asked.
"Well, it all started a few months after we moved in. You see, my husband died about six months ago, so my daughter and I sold the house and moved in here. Everything was normal until a few weeks after we moved in. Books would fly off of the bookshelves for no apparent reason, and pictures of the family and I hung on walls would fall off and glass would shatter everywhere. We just figured small earthquakes were common around here, so we thought nothing of it. Then about two days ago my daughter noticed a strange room inside the basement. She opened it and saw the face of a decapitated dead man," she said.
"Why didn't you call us sooner?" Egon asked.
"Well we didn't know what to make of it," Linda said. "I thought I was going crazy from envisioning things like that."
"I don't think you're crazy," Peter said, as he put a hand on top of hers comforting her. "A lot of people that come to us are schizophrenics and wacos off the streets. I can tell when people are telling the truth and when they're lying."
"Oh, that makes me feel a whole lot better," Linda said sarcastically with a smile. "What would you like to see first?" she asked.
"I'd like to get a PKE reading in the basement and possibly explore that room you were talking about," Egon said.
"Alright. Mom, I'll be down in the basement showing them that room," Linda said, as she got off the couch and lead the Ghostbusters down the stairs.
"I'll be in the kitchen washing the dishes," her mother said, as she got off the couch and walked into the kitchen.
Linda led the Ghostbusters down a staircase in the butler's pantry that was located off of the kitchen. "This is the basement," she said as they arrived at the bottom of the staircase. The basement was spacious, damp, and drafty. There were boxes filled with all kinds of stuff that were starting to collect dust. Cobwebs filled the corners of the basement's ceiling, while old furniture and a few manikin sewing dummies cluttered the basement's floor. "Where's the room?" Egon asked, as he got out his PKE meter.
"Well I just happened to stumble upon it one day when cleaning up the basement. I leaned up against that brick wall, and then the wall gave way to another room," she said.
As Egon walked along side the brick wall, that Linda earlier found to be a secret passage leading to another room, the PKE meter shot up suddenly to an enormous rate. "There's defiantly something behind this wall. I'm getting 9.8 on the PKE. Ray, Winston, I want to get further readings of this area, get out the giga meter and ecto-sniffer."
Ray took out his giga meter that he had strapped onto his belt, and began to take readings. Winston unloosened the ecto-sniffer, which was strapped to his belt, and then released the sniffer's pump and wand-like nozzle that were connected to the sniffer, and began pumping air in and out of the nozzle as he began collecting data. "Wow!" Ray said in excitement. "I'm getting 1.7 GeVs on the giga meter! This is the biggest reading I've seen in a long time!"
"What's a 'GeV'?" Linda asked.
"Giga-electron-volt," Ray said.
"Big word...Bid word..." Peter said.
"One GeV equals one billion electron-volts," Ray explained.
"The ecto-sniffer's giving me ectoplasmic energy readings in the atmosphere of up to negative ten dash six!" Winston said excitedly.
"What does that mean?" Linda asked.
"Well, a normal reading on the ecto-sniffer usually ranges between zero dash zero to positive one dash one." Egon began. "The sniffer pumps in any ectoplasm energy in the atmosphere through its nozzle, then gives us a reading. Any ectoplasm energy found in the atmosphere gives us a negative temperature reading from between negative zero dash one to negative ten dash ten."
"Well, what if it's a high positive number?" Linda asked. "What would that mean?"
"High positive numbers ranging from positive one dash two to positive ten dash ten exceed the normal ectoplasm energy rate and are highly unassociated with the readings on the ecto-sniffer and therefore never occur." Egon explained.
"English, Egon...English!" Peter said frustrated and confused.
"It means that readings more than one dash one can never occur on the ecto-sniffer." Egon explained in a more condensed version.
"I wonder...How are we going to break through that wall?" Ray asked Egon.
"We could probably rent a jackhammer, or possibly use sledgehammers..." Egon said muttering to himself.
"Has anyone ever thought of saying, 'open sesame'?" Peter asked, as he leaned up against the brick wall. At that moment, the wall gave way, and Peter fell through into another room. "Hey, it worked!" Peter said, as he got up again.
The inside of the secret room was painted red, just like the descriptions that Egon read from Tobin's Spirit Guide. Green slime was dripping from the doorway and nooks in the ceiling. The room was barren without furniture, and was covered in abundant amounts of dust that clumped together and formed dust bunnies on the hard wood floor. "Venkman," Egon said, as he took a small Tupperware container from one of his pockets, "I'd like to get a sample of this slime."
"Again, Egon?" Peter asked, referring back to the time when Egon made him get a slime sample in the New York Public Library. "What do you do with this stuff anyway, I never see you testing it?"
Egon blushed, "Ahem..." he coughed as he turned away. "Where exactly did you see the head, Ms. Tibbits?" he asked.
"It was right over there on that wall," she said pointing to the right wall adjacent to the door.
Egon pointed his PKE meter towards the right wall, and the arrows shot up as high as they would go. "There is defiantly some sort of psychokinetic activity beyond the boundaries of this wall. The PKE meter's off the charts and is reading 12.8!"
"What do you think it is, Egon?" Winston asked.
"I don't know, but by my theory of knowledge, I'm guessing that this could just be a class nine motionless reappearing cranium phantasm or possibly even a porthole to another dimension," Egon said. "Linda, may we come back tomorrow so that we can do further testing on this room?" he asked.
"Sure, for as long as it takes; my mother and I don't mind at all," she said.
"Alright then, we'll be back here tomorrow at eight o'clock in the morning," Egon said.
"Better make it eleven...I need my beauty sleep, Egon," Peter said.
"Alright, Peter...We'll be back here at ten o'clock in the morning...I hope you'll be rested by then...?" Egon said sarcastically.
"That's fine," Peter said nonchalantly.
At 9:30 A.M. the next morning, Ray, Egon and Winston were already up and eating breakfast in the firehouse. Ray had just finished making all of them his famous "breakfast of champions," which were omelets, hash browns, bacon and waffles. "Man, Ray, you sure out did yourself again!" Winston said, as he took another helping of omelet onto his plate.
"Thanks...I try...By the way, where's Pete? Shouldn't he be ready by now?" Ray asked.
"Knowing Peter, he's still in bed asleep," Egon said, after taking a bite of hash browns.
Just then the sound of a door opening and shutting was heard from downstairs, and what followed was the sound of shoes clopping up the staircase to the living quarters. "Hi, guys, didn't think you would be up this early," Janine said, making her way to the top of the staircase and noticed them eating breakfast. "I was just going to file some paperwork downstairs, but I smelled bacon cooking, so I decided to see what was up,"
"Pull up a chair, there's always room for one more," Ray said, as he flipped over some strips of bacon; turning them over on their other sides.
"Naw, I couldn't...I just ate at home," she said, declining.
"No I insist," Ray said. "Pete's not up yet...You can have his bacon...Go ahead and have a seat next to Egon."
"Alright," Janine said, she couldn't pass up a moment like this; sitting next to Egon that is.
Ray finished cooking the bacon, and dried the grease off on a paper towel, then put a few strips on a plate and handed it to Janine. "Here you go, on the house, free of charge," he said with a smile.
"Thanks," she said, as she began to dig into her "breakfast of champions".
"We need to get Venkman out of bed...He's been sleeping for almost nine hours!" Egon said.
"Well I tried to wake him up last time, but he threw a pillow at me," Ray said. "Winston, do you have any suggestions?" he asked.
"Don't look at me," he said, "I tried pulling the covers off of him, but he keeps pulling them back over himself...How 'bout you, Egon."
"I set his alarm clock to wake up in his ear, but he threw it back at me."
"Well, somebody has to go in their..." Ray said.
"Yeah, somebody has to go in their..." Winston said.
Just then all eyes pointed towards Janine. "Oh no! I'm not his mother! If he wants to sleep in that's on him," Janine said angrily.
The door to Peter's room slightly began to creek open. Janine began to tip-toe in quietly, but then thought, 'Why am I being silent? I'm supposed to wake the idiot up!' So she became much bolder, and walked up to his bed. There, Peter lay sprawled out snoring softly. "Rise and shine, sleepy head! You gotta get up, Peter, the boys are waitin' for ya down stairs!" Janine yelled, but Peter didn't respond. Janine bent down to take the sheets off of Peter so that he would wake up quicker, and when she bent down, Peter grabbed her arm.
"How's about a kiss, Linda?" Peter said, dreamily, he was still not awake. He grabbed Janine arm, pulling her closer to him, and kissed her on the lips.
As soon as the kiss ended, Janine yelled right into Peter's ear, waking him up suddenly out of a sound sleep. Peter woke up and saw that he was face to face with Janine, and also yelled with her. "What the hell are you doin' in my room?!" Peter yelled frantically at her.
"Why the hell did you KISS me?!" Janine yelled back.
"I kissed you?! WHERE'S LINDA?!" he frantically asked.
"Peter, hurry up and get dressed," Egon shouted from the entry of his room, "we're supposed to be at the Amityville house by ten...So hurry up!"
"I'm goin' I'm goin'..." Peter said. "Well..." he said, looking back up at Janine, who was still in shock over what just happened between them.
"Huh?" she said.
"Do you mind?! I'm naked under here!" he said in a firm voice.
"Fine, I'm going back down stairs," she said, as she got off of his bed, "oh, and if they want me to come in here to wake your sorry ass out of bed, they're gonna be the ones to kiss you next time," and with that, she left his room.
"Pete, finally you're up, were leaving right now," Ray said as he and the others were zipping up their jumpsuits and were about ready to take off.
"Already?! I just got up," Peter said with a yawn.
"Peter, hurry up and put on your equipment and get in," Egon said in a huff as he opened the passenger door to ecto-1.
"Yeah yeah yeah..." Peter said with a sigh, as he made his way over to his locker.
Moments later, they were driving to the Amityville house. When they got there, they equipped their proton packs and made their way up to the door. Peter knocked on the door, knocking a "Shave and a Haircut" knock. A moment later, Linda answered the door to let the boys in. "I'm so glad you came back," she said worriedly, as she let them into the house.
"Why? What happened?" Peter said concerned.
"My mother...She floated off her bed last night...and...and..." Linda fell down to her knees and started to cry. Peter helped her up, and led her to the couch to sit down.
"What happened to her? Is she alright?" Ray said, also concerned for Linda's mother.
"She fell out of the window to a two story drop...She's in the hospital now...I had to stay behind to let you guys in in the morning...Please, hurry and take care of whatever's in the basement...! I...I don't want to be next!" she said in a panicked cry.
"Ray, this is just like what happened to Mrs. Lutz," Egon said.
"You're right..." Ray said in thought.
"What happened to this Mrs. Lutz lady?" Linda asked.
"It's a long story," Peter began, "but this woman, Mrs. Lutz, she owned this house about five years back and almost floated out of her window too."
"Gee, the realtors never mentioned that little tidbit," Linda said upset and frustrated.
"Normally realtors never mention the fine print," Peter said sarcastically.
The Ghostbusters made their way down the butler's pantry, down the long stairway, and into the basement once more. "Hold on...Before we go in again," Egon began, "Let me get another PKE reading." Egon pulled out his PKE meter, and as soon as he turned it on, the wings skyrocketed. "Ray, check this out," he said, showing Ray the PKE.
"Oh yeah..." he said in concern.
"What's wrong?" Winston asked.
"The PKE's reading is a lot stronger than yesterday. It's up to 12.6!" Egon said excitedly.
"So...What do you suggest we do?" Peter asked. Egon and Ray looked at each other; they hadn't the foggiest idea how they were going to execute their plan. "Are you tellin' me we came all this way here...And you don't have a plan?!" Peter said frustrated.
"Well...I'm guessing we could use our pocketron gliders to destroy the entity or porthole...or something..." Ray said. "But we're talkin' class nine or maybe ten...!! Egon, what do you think?"
"I suppose we try our pocketron gliders and then play it by ear after that..." Egon said.
"Play it by ear...Sure, that's scientific..." Peter said sarcastically.
They walked into the mysterious red room clutching onto their positron collider. Egon walked up to the wall and tapped it with his hand, suddenly; his hand fell through the other side. Instinctively, he pulled his hand back out. "There's definitely something beyond this wall," Egon said.
Just then a gnarly hand came from without of the wall and grabbed Egon and dragged him into the porthole, sucking him proton pack and all. "Egon!!" Ray screamed. "EGON!!" There was no answer.
"Okay...So what do we do now?!" Peter said, panicking. Ray didn't say anything; the expression on his face was a good enough answer for what he was thinking. "Oh no...! You can't be serious?" Peter said exasperated. Ray jumped into the porthole face first and was sucked in completely by the vortex. "I can't believe it! He did it!" he said completely flabbergasted. Then Winston was up to bat, and jumped into the porthole after Ray. Peter looked at Linda and rolled his eyes. "I guess I can't be a party pooper, now can I...? Hold down the fort while we're gone, will ya?" and with that, Peter took his leave and fell face forward into the porthole.
When Peter fell to the bottom of the long and winding porthole, he fell face down on top of Winston. "Ouch! What a drop..." Peter said in pain, "...When this is all over, remind me to personally give Spengs a smack down," he said frustrated and tired.
"Hey, I'm all for that!" Winston said. "You can get off of me now," he said, noticing that Peter was still lying on top of him.
"Sorry there, Winston," Peter said, getting off of Winston and helping him up. "So where the hell are we?" he asked, looking around the new world they had fallen into. The surroundings around them were bleak and dreary. The Ghostbusters were in a large barren field with nothing in front of them or in back of them. It was as though they were in the middle of an empty desolate space. There were no trees, grass, or signs of life. The ground was dried up with huge cracks running throughout the surface in a grid-like fashion. The sky surrounding them was desolate, bleak and grey. Dark luminous clouds hung overhead and were full of eerie atmospheric precipitation and electric currents.
"It looks as though we are in some kind of intergalactic parallel dimension," Egon said.
"No foolin', Egon, I could have told you that," Peter said, rolling his eyes.
Egon pulled out his PKE meter to check out the paranormal status of the environment surrounding them. "According to the PKE, this new dimension is pulsating with incredible amounts of psychokinetic activity," he said. "The readings are off the charts! This is incredible, Ray...Do you realizes what a psychokinetic size this big could do to our universe?"
"It could crush us into subatomic particles," Ray said in shock and dismay. "Egon, did you bring the gravimeter?" he asked.
"Sorry, unfortunately I didn't. I would have loved to get a reading on this dimension's gravitational pull."
"Spengs, Ray, I'm sorry for your loss but we have more important things on our mind," Peter said.
"Yeah, like how the hell we're gonna get out of here," Winston said.
"First of all we should figure out why this plain of existence is overflowing with extreme measures of psychokinetic activity," Egon said, as he and Ray started to walk off together ahead of Peter and Winston.
"Hey, you guys...Wait up!" Peter yelled back, as he and Winston caught up to them. "Egon, we are in the middle of infinite space," Peter said, after catching up with Egon and Ray, "how do you know which way we're going is the right way?"
"I don't," Egon said.
"Oh...That was helpful...Ray, what do you suggest we do?" Peter asked.
"I...I...I don't know...I suggest we just keep going in one direction till we find someone...Or something..." Ray said fearfully, as he took a deep gulp in his throat.
"That sounds reassuring, Ray," Peter said as he rolled his eyes. "Winston....Got anything?"
"Man, is it too late for me to put in my resignation slip?" Winston said unconfidently.
"With that attitude, mister, you're not even qualified to scrub the boots of a Ghostbuster. Now everyone, pull yourselves together! We're the Ghostbusters, for Christ sake! We're paranormal investigators and eliminators...We're professionals, and three fourths of us have doctorates in science...Sorry, Winston...You're still good too."
"Thanks," Winston said sarcastically.
"Where are you going with this, Pete?" Ray asked, "You haven't even told us your idea."
"I'm getting to that, Ray...I'm thinkin' we should all go back to the porthole and travel back to our world, then devise a plan there, and then come back here," Peter said.
"I don't think we can do that, the dimensional porthole is situated approximately thirty feet above us," Egon said reluctantly, "and I seriously doubt we could give each other a boost thirty feet in the air to reach the gate."
"So we're stuck here...?" Ray asked unwilling to believe it as Egon nodded his head in response to Ray.
"Oh, this is just great!" Peter said, "I'm stuck with you three numb nuts for all eternity, when I could've had it made with that girl Linda."
"Peter, do you seriously believe that for one week you could sustain a relationship with a single woman?" Ray asked.
Peter stood there and tried to think about it for the longest time and was dumbfounded. "I didn't think so," Ray replied.
"Look, you guys, do you see what I see up ahead?" Egon said, as they kept walking strait ahead into nothingness.
"Yeah...What is that?" Ray said wondering the same thing. Up ahead of them, was what appeared to be a figure bent down and staring at the ground with its head between its knees. As the Ghostbusters walked further to the figure, they noticed that it appeared to be a young boy about seven or eight years old. The boy had a brown, orange and white striped shirt, brown corduroy pants, and navy blue shoes. He had light brown hair in a bowl hair cut, and the rest of his face was shrouded between his legs. "It's a young boy," Egon said.
"Yeah, but who is he and how did he wind up in this place?" Peter said, suspicious of the child.
"I don't know...? Maybe one of us should talk to him," Ray said, as all of the Ghostbusters looked simultaneously at Peter.
Peter rolled his and walked forward to the young child. "This is just like that time at the New York Public Library..." Peter mumbled to himself as he walked further to the child. "Hi, my name is Peter Venkman...Are you lost, little boy?" The boy didn't look up or say anything; he looked down at the ground with his hands on his knees. "I said are you lost, kid?" The child yet again said nothing. "I guess he wants to be left alone," Peter said, looking back at his friends.
"We are all lost," the child finally said, not looking up.
Peter looked back at him again and wondered why it took him so long to respond. "What do you mean, kid? What do mean, 'we are all lost'?" Peter asked. The child didn't respond again. "Hey, kid, where do you get off anyway? Who are you and how did you wind up in this world?" Peter said frustrated.
"I created this world, you fool...And I'm not a kid, I'm the Prince of Darkness," the child said as his head raised up slightly to reveal his glowing red eyes. Peter jumped back a few feet from the eerie look the child gave him.
"Umm, guys, I think we have trouble!" Peter yelled back the others.
"Peter, get away from that kid! The PKE meter is off the charts with that kid. It was reading 99.9 and then the wings broke! That child is pulsating with large amounts of psychokinetic energy!" Egon yelled at Peter.
"Damn, really?!" Peter said astonished, then looked back at the child and ran back to his friends.
"What did he tell you, Pete?" Ray asked.
"He said that he was the 'Prince of Darkness,' so what do you think?"
"I think that kid's not that far off with the readings that I got off the PKE meter. The kid might be telling the truth," Egon said.
"Wait a minute!" Winston said, "Are you tryin' to tell me that that kid's Satan himself?!" Egon nodded his head in response. "Whoa, this it too much for me...I mean, how the hell are we supposed to trap the devil with our packs?"
"Ray, you better talk to him. I didn't get anywhere with him," Peter said.
"Hey, who has the doctorate in psychology?" Ray said sarcastically.
"You're better at this sort of stuff...I mean, you talked to Gozer..." Peter said.
"Yeah, and looked where that got us...A near death experience with a hundred foot marshmallow man," Winston said.
"Well, does anyone else have any bright ideas?" Peter asked frustrated.
"No no...I'll go..." Ray said. Ray walked slowly over to the demon child. "Good evening, I'm Ray Stantz of the Ghostbusters, and I was wondering if you could tell me how you came to be in this parallel plane of existence?"
Just then, the child looked up with blue eyes and a trembling. "I...I'm Ronald DeFeo...Wh-where's my mommy and daddy and sisters and brothers? Where is everyone?" the child said trembling in a child's voice.
"Ronald DeFeo?" Ray said surprised. "You can't be...? Robert DeFeo's at least thirty-five years old! Who are you really?" Ray asked."
"I...I'm Robert DeFeo...Where's my mommy and daddy...?" just then Ronald's eyes glowed red once more. "I am the Prince of Darkness, not that damned infernal child!"
"What did you do to Ronald DeFeo?" Ray asked coldly to the demon child.
"Ronald DeFeo, that is to say, this child form of him, is a faint memory of his former self. Long ago, I possessed his body as a child. To test how strong his mind was, I had him murder his family nearly twenty- five years ago. In the end his mind was weak and I had no more use for him."
"So you cast him aside and have him thrown off into prison," Ray said sternly.
"Surly that was not my intention. It happened by pure circumstantial evidence," the demon child said with a smirk.
"So why did you keep Ronald's child body?" Ray asked.
"After I possessed Ronald, a part of his childhood memory was stored inside of me and I couldn't get rid of him ever since. The only thing I could do was to create a parallel dimension and subdivide a part of me that had Ronald's memories in this world to get rid of him."
"So you're the devil...But only a small fraction of him, plus have the memories of the young Ronald DeFeo?" Ray said puzzled, and trying to confirm his thoughts.
"You sure catch on quick," the demon child said, laughing maliciously at Ray. "Leaving so soon?" the demon child asked, as he notice Ray leaving to return to his friends. "You know that there is no way out from which you have come. You and your friends might as well make the best of things because you're all going to stay in this plane of existence for as long as you live, or until which some point you all starve to death."
"What do you mean 'starve to death'?" Ray asked.
"There isn't any food or civilization in this plane of existence on which to survive. I'm guessing all of you have at least three or four days before starvation sets in...It's only a matter of time before you all turn against each other and become cannibals...Heh heh heh heh heh...It'd be one of the first times I didn't kill someone intentionally."
Ray ran back over to the other Ghostbusters and told them his discussion with the demon child. "So what do you suppose we do?" Ray asked afterward.
"I suggest we find a way to get the hell out of here!" Peter said.
"I second that!" Winston said.
"We can't. As I told you all before, the dimensional porthole is situated approximately thirty feet above us," Egon said.
"Dammit! Why don't we use our proton packs and fire at the bastard!" Peter said frustrated.
"Peter, do you not remember the last time we fired our positron colliders at a large psychokinetic entity like Gozer? It was hard to catch Gozer in our beams, and it disappeared into thin air then reappeared as Mr. Stay Puft," Egon said.
"Yeah, but I don't think this time the devil has a right mind to turn into Mr. Stay Puft," Peter said with a cunning smirk.
"Peter, this is the devil we're talkin' about! He could do anything he wants and turn into anything he wants...Under the supervision of God, that is..." Winston said.
"So if this is just like a Gozer battle...Why don't we cross the streams and blow up the porthole above our heads?" Peter asked.
"That would be incredibly stupid, Peter," Egon said, "if we blew up the porthole to this world, we would blow up ourselves along with it. It was different with Gozer. We weren't in Gozer's dimension we were still in our world."
"Ray, you've been quiet this whole time," Peter said, turning over to Ray. "Do you have any bright ideas?"
"I think we should use our positron colliders. We might have a one percent chance in contacting Ronald DeFeo's childhood spirit. Every now and then while I was talking to the devil, Ronald's spirit would take over his original body and communicate with me. I wonder...If we use our proton packs, do you think it would weaken the devil to where Ronald can take over his old body again and conquer the devil?" he asked.
"Anything's worth a shot, Ray," Peter said, "and that's the best idea I've heard all day...Hell, what do we gotta loose...Let's do it! Ya in, Spengs...? Winston...?"
"Man I don't wanna turn into a cannibal and eat you guys, I'm in!" Winston said.
"Most defiantly. I believe there might be a one to two percent chance we might survive this," Egon said.
The Ghostbusters made their way over to the demon child entity, and took out their neutrona wands from their proton pack and began powering them up. "Okay, Winston and Egon, you guys take the left. Ray and I will take the right. Everyone spread out evenly around him then fire," Peter said, directing orders. "Okay Lucifer, you didn't want to cooperate on our terms so it's time to pay the piper!" Peter said, as powered up his neutrona wand and fired at the demon child.
Just then, Egon blasted his wand from his side, then Ray and then Winson. All three neutrona beams surrounded the demon child, and encircled around him. "We got him! We got him!" Ray said happily surprised with his team's efforts.
"FOOLS!! Do you really think these foolish futile attempts would hold me down?!" the demon child said. As soon as he finished his sentence, the neutrona beams retracted and all four wands shut down.
"Oh shit! I knew this would happen...It's just like what happened with Gozer!" Winston said in shock.
"No...Look!" Ray said, as he noticed the demon child's glowing red eyes turn blue once more. "He's weakening!"
"MOMMY...!! DADDY...!! Where are you?!" Ronald screamed. "Mommy...Daddy...!! I'm scared! Where am I?!"
Just then the Ronald's blue eyes turned back to a glowing fiery red. "Rrrrrrrrr...You'll pay for that!" the demon child said.
"We better hurry, he's regaining consciousness," Egon said. They each began to fire their wands once more at the entity, and encircled the demon child. As soon as they encircled the demon child, his eyes turned back to a crystal blue.
"MOMMYYYYYY...DADDYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WHAT'S HAPPENING TO ME?!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! IT HURTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! IT HURTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WHERE AM I?!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Ronald yelled while begin entangled in the neutrona beams.
"NO...!!! I WON'T BE DEFEATED BY A MERE CHILD!! NOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THIS.........ISN'T HAPPENING.........TO.........ME.........NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" the demon child said one last time. Suddenly a dark cloud of smoke came out of Ronald's mouth and evaporated into thin air as soon as it was coming out. Ronald's lifeless childhood spirit collapsed to the ground and faded away slowly. Then almost instantly, the dimension began to fold up on itself and began to dematerialize as a strong gust of wind began to blow the world apart like a sand storm blowing grains of sand in a desert.
"QUICK!! This whole world is falling apart!!" Egon said, panicking.
"Where the hell are we supposed to go?!" Peter said in fear for his life.
"Look over there!" Ray said out of breath, as he noticed a small porthole open up a few yards away from them. "A porthole ripped open from a seam in the fabric of this world, it might lead to our world!"
"Or it could lead us into another dimension, Ray," Egon said, a bit skeptical.
"What the hell, it's better than dieing in this world!" Winston said.
Finally they all reached the porthole, and one by one, they all dived head first into the opening.
As soon as they arrived in the new dimension, everyone fell on each other as they reached the ground with a loud thud. Each one looked up simultaneously and were staring face to face with Linda Tibbits looking down at them. They all gave a deep sigh of relief, knowing that they were in the right dimension and got up. "Linda! Oh, thank God! We're in our own dimension!" Peter said with a huge sigh of relief.
"Oh my God! Was that ever a close one!" Ray said.
"What's wrong with you guys? You were only gone for five minutes," Linda said confused by their actions.
"Five minutes?!" Winston said in shock, "That can't be...It felt like we were gone for at least two or three hours!"
"The molecular time structure of that dimension must run slower than our dimension, and when we entered our dimension, what seemed like two or three hours in the other dimension only appeared to be fifteen minutes...Amazing!" Egon said recalling the differences between the two dimensions.
"So what happened? Did you guys find the problem?" Linda asked.
"What you had was the Godfather of specters," Ray said excitedly.
"What do you mean the 'Godfather of—'" Linda asked as she was interrupted.
"What he means is that you, Linda Tibbits, had the devil in your basement," Peter said.
"The devil?! That's preposterous! How could this basement inhabit the devil?!" Linda said in disbelief.
"Well, how could all the weird disturbances happen to you and your mother, not to mention the porthole that sucked us into the devil's lair," Ray said.
"I'm sorry I was so judgmental...I...I just can't believe that the devil of all things was in my basement!" she said.
"Now let's talk money..." Peter said, getting out his notepad and pen. "...Now for the first call out here that's gonna cost $250. And for destroying a dimension, and a devil-possessed child spirit of Ronald DeFeo...We're gonna have ta ask for $500,000...But since you don't have that kinda money we'll drop the amount to $10,000."
"$10,000?! I'm gonna have to pay that along with the mortgage for this house for the rest of my life!" Linda said angrily.
"Pete, that's kinda askin' for too much...I mean, her mother's in the hospital and all..." Ray said sympathetic towards Linda.
"Alright alright...$9000," Peter said, then noticed that Linda was still shocked over the amount and Ray looked at him sternly. "$8000...? $7000...? $6000, and that's my final offer."
"Pete," Ray looked at him sternly.
"Alright alright...::sigh::...eight payments of $500 a month, plus a bonus...A date with yours truly," Peter said with a smile and a wink at Linda.
"Agreed!" Linda said, as she shook Peter's hand. "Let me write you a check for the visiting call and the first payment of five hundred dollars," she said, leading the boys back up stairs. She wrote the two checks and gave them to Peter.
"And here's my number as the bonus for the eight payments," Peter said, handing her his personal office line phone number. "Call us again sometime," he said with a wink, as he and the others left the house; closing the door behind them.
"How's dinner coming along?" Linda asked Peter, as she came up behind him and placed her hands on his shoulders tenderly.
It had been a month after the ghost bust at her house when Linda decided to take Peter Venkman up on his "bonus offer" and called him up one day. Soon after that phone call, they have had several more dates. It was a Saturday night at the no.8 firehouse. Ray, Egon and Winston were on duty, and were on call of a doubled nighter, and Janine went home at five three hours ago. Peter and Linda had the whole firehouse to themselves. The table was set for two by candle light and on the stove was a pot of boiling pasta and in a sauce pan was creamy fettuccini sauce, and in the oven was a tray of garlic bread baking. A relaxing evening at the firehouse had been planed well, thanks to Peter. "It's coming along great, Linda." Peter said with a smile. "The pasta's almost al denté, and the garlic bread is about done as well. Here, try some of this sauce..." Peter said, as he scooped a small amount onto his wooden spoon and put it up to Linda's lips.
"Mmmm...It tastes great," Linda said, as she sipped the fettuccini sauce.
"Ah ha...!! I caught you in the act, I see...Linda, I presume?" It was Lisa, Peter's former girlfriend. She secretly snuck into the firehouse unnoticed and walked up stairs to see Peter.
"Why yes it is...And who might you be?" Linda asked.
"I'm Lisa...! I'm sure Peter slips up on your name too on occasion and calls you "Lisa" just as he calls me "Linda"," Lisa said in a huff.
"No, not really...He calls my Linda," Linda said, as she looked at Peter with suspension, then back at Lisa.
"Girls girls...There's plenty of fettuccini and garlic bread for three...Now why don't we settle this like adults over dinner," Peter said stepping in to save his relationships with both girls.
"Butt out, Venkman," Linda said sternly.
Peter backed slowly away from the two women and looked nervously at them. He didn't want to jeopardize his relationships with either woman.
"How long has he had a relationship with you?" Lisa asked.
"About a month or so now, you?" Linda asked.
"It would be three months tonight...Peter, I thought you made plans for our third month anniversary, that's why I showed up tonight...But I guess you had other plans," Lisa said sternly at Peter as he nervously smiled back shrugging his shoulders. "Don't bother calling...It's over, Peter," she said with a huff, and stormed out of the firehouse, slamming the door behind her.
"How dare you take up a relationship with me while still in a relationship with your girlfriend! You've really got some nerve...How do you think I am?!" Linda said in a fit of rage as she walked further towards Peter. With every step Linda took, Peter took a step backwards. Soon Peter was pinned up against the kitchen table by Linda's body.
"Now, Linda, I was going to break up with her...I just forgot her number," Peter said.
"Yeah, along with her name! Peter, how could you do this...? When I asked if you had any girlfriends you said no...I trusted you...I believed in you...Why did you lie?"
"Lisa was my girlfriend but I haven't dated her or called her in over a month...I swear it!" Peter said.
"I can't believe you...After this, I don't think I can ever believe you," she said.
"But—"
"But nothing...Good-bye, Peter...It was fun while it lasted..." Linda said as she walked away from him and grabbed her coat. "Oh, and don't worry. I'll pay the last seven payments as planed...Good-bye."
"But—" Peter said, trying to explain himself.
"Good-bye," Linda said firmly, and walked down the staircase leading to the offices and exit, and was gone.
Peter sat back in a kitchen chair and heard the entrance door downstairs open and then shut. Silence filled the firehouse as soon as the entrance door shut. The pot of bubbling pasta was the only noise that was heard. Soon after the door shut, the ectomobile burst into the firehouse and parked in the large garage. Ray made his way up the stairs along with Egon and Winston. "I saw Linda walk out of the firehouse as I was making my turn down the street. What happened? Did you call your date off, or did she not like your cooking?" Ray said with a smile.
"No worse...Lisa showed up," Peter said.
"What?! You're still going out with Lisa behind Linda's back?" Egon said surprised.
"Man, that is not cool, dude! You don't lead on a woman like Linda while you're still going out with another woman!" Winston said.
"I stopped calling and dating Lisa over a month ago when I started up with Linda," Peter said. "Lisa came over hopping that I still had something planed with her for our third month anniversary. Then she saw Linda and thought that Linda was the mysterious girlfriend I had on the side, which was the reason for me calling Lisa Linda."
"Was it?" Ray asked.
"NO...!! The reason why I called Lisa Linda was because I get the name Lisa mixed up with the name Linda...They sound the same, it's hard to tell the names apart," Peter said frustrated.
"Well, I hope this teaches you a lesson, Peter," Egon said.
"And what's that? Lock the doors when you know you're former girlfriend's third anniversary's coming up?" Peter said sarcastically.
"No, you should always remember to nullify your relationships with your former girlfriends before taking up another girlfriend," Egon said.
"Oh sure, and this is coming from a man who's girlfriend is a big giant ball of mucous sealed in a Tupperware container," Peter said sarcastically.
"Hey, don't talk about Claire as a big giant ball of mucous. You are to refer to her as ectoplasmic residue," Egon said firmly.
THE END
It was a Friday night, and Peter Venkman decided to cook dinner for his girlfriend at her apartment. The table was set for two by candle light and on the stove was a pot of boiling pasta and in a sauce pan was creamy fettuccini sauce. The relaxing evening at his girlfriend's apartment had been planed well. "How's dinner coming along?" his girlfriend asked, as she came up behind him and placed her hands on his shoulders tenderly.
"It's coming along great, Linda." Peter said with a smile.
"I'm Lisa!" she said, looking at him with hurt-filled eyes of anger.
"Opps...I...I meant Lisa...! Really I did...I'm sorry..." Peter said, waving his hands in the air frantically, as if he were about to be hit by a mac truck.
"You know, Peter, that's the fifth time you've called me Linda...Is there something that you're not telling me that I shouldn't know about?" Lisa hinted at him with glaring eyes. Her hands were on her hips, looking at the now nervous Peter fidgeting and trembling at a standstill, while tapping her foot as she waited for him to answer.
Just then, the phone in the living room began to ring. "Could you just hold that thought...?" Peter said, as he quickly rushed out of the kitchen and into the living room. He picked up the phone, and pressed the receiver up to his ear. "Hello?" he said, as Lisa peeked through the kitchen entrance. There was a long pause, and then Peter began to talk again. "Listen, Ray, I can't. I'm over Linda...uhh...Lisa's house now....................Well can't you guys just do it without me? ....................Ray, I'm busy! ..........RAY I CAN'T...................................................FINE!!" he said, slamming the receiver down as hard as he could on the phone's hook.
"I'm guessing dinner has just been canceled," Lisa said in a huff.
"You knew what this kinda lifestyle would be when I first told you. It's like I'm Batman by night and Bruce Wayne by morning...Only a lot cuter and without the mask." Peter said with a smile. "Don't worry, Linda, I'll be back tomorrow with an even better dinner planned." he said with a sly wink.
"Keep calling me Linda, and there won't be dinner." Lisa said with a frown. She walked Peter to the door, and was so frustrated; she didn't kiss him good-bye like she normally would do.
Peter hailed a taxi and rode back to the firehouse angrily the whole way there. When he entered the firehouse, Ray, Egon and Winston were there waiting for his arrival and were already dressed in their jumpsuits. "Well, I'm finally glad you could make it," Ray said sarcastically as Peter walked up to Janine's desk where they were waiting.
"Do you realize what kinda night I could've had, Ray?" Peter said angrily looking down at Ray.
"Sorry, Pete, but we gotta call from a Mrs. Tibbits at the Amityville house on Long Island's South Shore." Ray said enthusiastically.
"And what does this have to do with dragging me away from my dinner with Linda...I mean Lisa?" Peter said with a stern face.
"Don't you realize it, Peter? We're going to the Amityville house!!" Ray said even more excited.
"Again, Ray....What?" Peter said confused.
"Peter, the Amityville house is a suburban tragedy that has become the source of bestselling novels and the subject of several movies!" Ray exclaimed.
"According to Tobin's Spirit Guide," Egon began, "on November 13, 1974, on 122 Ocean Ave., Amityville, a twenty-four year old man named Ronald DeFeo murdered his family. He used a high-powered rifle and shot his father, his mother, and his two brothers and two sisters. All six members of his family were killed instantly as they slept. Police later said that the bodies were found lying in the same position, on their stomachs with their heads resting on their arms," he said. "That's no all," he went on, "at his murder trial, DeFoe testified that he had killed his family because he heard voices, and when he looked around, there was no one around. He thought that God was talking directly to him. Then on December 18th of '75, the Lutz family moved into the DeFeo house—"
"Let me guess, the property value was a steal." Peter said with a smirk.
"Peter, this is serious," Egon said sternly, "when the Lutz family moved in, they began experiencing extreme amounts of psychokinetic energy pulsating throughout the entire house. Windows flew up and down and doors were repeatedly ripped off their hinges in the house even though they were securely locked. Mrs. Lutz levitated a foot above her bed on several occasions and floated toward an open window. On one of the occasions, her husband pulled her back inside and saw her thirty year old face transformed into the face of a ninety year old woman.—"
"That's defiantly not something you wanna wake up next to." Peter said with a chuckle.
"After living in the house for twenty eight days, the family fled the house, claiming it was haunted. Before they left, Mrs. Lutz discovered a small secret room in the basement, a room that appeared in none of the blueprints of the house. It was painted solid red and had the smell of blood. In one of the red walls, Lutz saw a vision of a face...a face that she later found in newspaper photographs was that of Ronald DeFeo."
"Interesting ghost tale, Egon, but why did this Mrs. Tibbits lady call?" Peter asked. "Is she trying to con us into believing that she too was haunted by evil spirits?"
"She's not conning anyone, Peter," Ray said, "anyone who lives in that house experiences weird disturbances."
"Yeah, and Egon even said that Mrs. Lutz would sometimes feel invisible hands gripping her, and one day found flaming red welts covering her body!" Winston said in amazement. "And also green slime began to ooze from the ceiling and from door openings! I'm tellin' ya, Pete, this is one hellava job we're looking at."
Winston's last words began to put thoughts into Peter's mind. Soon dollar signs began to pop into his head and could be seen through his eyes. "How much are we talking, here?" he asked. "$300 or $400?"
"Try $10,000, if we do the job successfully." Winston said with a smile.
"Well that settles it, I'm in!" Peter said with a big grin. "Let's rev up ecto-1 and get goin'!"
After Peter put on his jumpsuit, all four men piled into the ectomobile and took off with their sirens blaring in the wind. They arrived at the Amityville house on Long Island within a little over an hour. It was pitched black outside as they stepped out of their car and were putting their proton packs on. The house was an old Victorian style home, and had paint chipping away at the sides. The shingles were brittle and some were falling off into the rafters. The grass looked like it hadn't seen a mower in months, and had not been fertilized. It was a disgusting piece of property in a suburb among beautiful well-furnished homes. "Great art deco," Peter began sarcastically. "Early Munsters...? Or perhaps late Adams Family?"
As they reached the front porch Ray rung the doorbell, and within a matter of seconds a beautiful lady answered the door. She looked like she was in her mid twenties and had blonde wavy crimped hair that she kept in a headband and sparkling blue eyes. She wore a red and white stripped shirt; tight stone washed jeans that cut off at the ankles, and all-star high tops. Peter was stunned by her beauty, and his feet went numb. "Are...are you Mrs. Tibbits?" he asked in shock by her lovely beauty.
"No, I'm her daughter Linda Tibbits. My mother's inside waiting for you," Linda said with a smile.
"Funny. I had a girlfriend that was named Linda," Peter said with a smile.
"I thought her name was Lisa, Pete," Ray whispered in his ear, but Peter didn't pay any attention to him.
Linda led the Ghostbusters into the living room, and sitting on the couch waiting for them was Mrs. Tibbits. Mrs. Tibbits was a woman in her early fifties and was starting to get deep-set wrinkles and grey and white strands of hairs throughout her light brown hair. She was a little overweight and wore a white blouse with a navy blue sweater, a long blue skirt that went down to her ankles, and white hushpuppy flats. "Mom, the Ghostbusters are here," Linda said as she entered the living room.
"Oh good," Mrs. Tibbits said happily. "Please, do sit down."
Linda sat next to her mother on the couch, Peter decided to sit next to Linda, and Winston sat in one of the chairs across from the couch. Ray and Egon were the only two left standing.
"So what's the trouble, ma'am?" Ray asked.
"Well, it all started a few months after we moved in. You see, my husband died about six months ago, so my daughter and I sold the house and moved in here. Everything was normal until a few weeks after we moved in. Books would fly off of the bookshelves for no apparent reason, and pictures of the family and I hung on walls would fall off and glass would shatter everywhere. We just figured small earthquakes were common around here, so we thought nothing of it. Then about two days ago my daughter noticed a strange room inside the basement. She opened it and saw the face of a decapitated dead man," she said.
"Why didn't you call us sooner?" Egon asked.
"Well we didn't know what to make of it," Linda said. "I thought I was going crazy from envisioning things like that."
"I don't think you're crazy," Peter said, as he put a hand on top of hers comforting her. "A lot of people that come to us are schizophrenics and wacos off the streets. I can tell when people are telling the truth and when they're lying."
"Oh, that makes me feel a whole lot better," Linda said sarcastically with a smile. "What would you like to see first?" she asked.
"I'd like to get a PKE reading in the basement and possibly explore that room you were talking about," Egon said.
"Alright. Mom, I'll be down in the basement showing them that room," Linda said, as she got off the couch and lead the Ghostbusters down the stairs.
"I'll be in the kitchen washing the dishes," her mother said, as she got off the couch and walked into the kitchen.
Linda led the Ghostbusters down a staircase in the butler's pantry that was located off of the kitchen. "This is the basement," she said as they arrived at the bottom of the staircase. The basement was spacious, damp, and drafty. There were boxes filled with all kinds of stuff that were starting to collect dust. Cobwebs filled the corners of the basement's ceiling, while old furniture and a few manikin sewing dummies cluttered the basement's floor. "Where's the room?" Egon asked, as he got out his PKE meter.
"Well I just happened to stumble upon it one day when cleaning up the basement. I leaned up against that brick wall, and then the wall gave way to another room," she said.
As Egon walked along side the brick wall, that Linda earlier found to be a secret passage leading to another room, the PKE meter shot up suddenly to an enormous rate. "There's defiantly something behind this wall. I'm getting 9.8 on the PKE. Ray, Winston, I want to get further readings of this area, get out the giga meter and ecto-sniffer."
Ray took out his giga meter that he had strapped onto his belt, and began to take readings. Winston unloosened the ecto-sniffer, which was strapped to his belt, and then released the sniffer's pump and wand-like nozzle that were connected to the sniffer, and began pumping air in and out of the nozzle as he began collecting data. "Wow!" Ray said in excitement. "I'm getting 1.7 GeVs on the giga meter! This is the biggest reading I've seen in a long time!"
"What's a 'GeV'?" Linda asked.
"Giga-electron-volt," Ray said.
"Big word...Bid word..." Peter said.
"One GeV equals one billion electron-volts," Ray explained.
"The ecto-sniffer's giving me ectoplasmic energy readings in the atmosphere of up to negative ten dash six!" Winston said excitedly.
"What does that mean?" Linda asked.
"Well, a normal reading on the ecto-sniffer usually ranges between zero dash zero to positive one dash one." Egon began. "The sniffer pumps in any ectoplasm energy in the atmosphere through its nozzle, then gives us a reading. Any ectoplasm energy found in the atmosphere gives us a negative temperature reading from between negative zero dash one to negative ten dash ten."
"Well, what if it's a high positive number?" Linda asked. "What would that mean?"
"High positive numbers ranging from positive one dash two to positive ten dash ten exceed the normal ectoplasm energy rate and are highly unassociated with the readings on the ecto-sniffer and therefore never occur." Egon explained.
"English, Egon...English!" Peter said frustrated and confused.
"It means that readings more than one dash one can never occur on the ecto-sniffer." Egon explained in a more condensed version.
"I wonder...How are we going to break through that wall?" Ray asked Egon.
"We could probably rent a jackhammer, or possibly use sledgehammers..." Egon said muttering to himself.
"Has anyone ever thought of saying, 'open sesame'?" Peter asked, as he leaned up against the brick wall. At that moment, the wall gave way, and Peter fell through into another room. "Hey, it worked!" Peter said, as he got up again.
The inside of the secret room was painted red, just like the descriptions that Egon read from Tobin's Spirit Guide. Green slime was dripping from the doorway and nooks in the ceiling. The room was barren without furniture, and was covered in abundant amounts of dust that clumped together and formed dust bunnies on the hard wood floor. "Venkman," Egon said, as he took a small Tupperware container from one of his pockets, "I'd like to get a sample of this slime."
"Again, Egon?" Peter asked, referring back to the time when Egon made him get a slime sample in the New York Public Library. "What do you do with this stuff anyway, I never see you testing it?"
Egon blushed, "Ahem..." he coughed as he turned away. "Where exactly did you see the head, Ms. Tibbits?" he asked.
"It was right over there on that wall," she said pointing to the right wall adjacent to the door.
Egon pointed his PKE meter towards the right wall, and the arrows shot up as high as they would go. "There is defiantly some sort of psychokinetic activity beyond the boundaries of this wall. The PKE meter's off the charts and is reading 12.8!"
"What do you think it is, Egon?" Winston asked.
"I don't know, but by my theory of knowledge, I'm guessing that this could just be a class nine motionless reappearing cranium phantasm or possibly even a porthole to another dimension," Egon said. "Linda, may we come back tomorrow so that we can do further testing on this room?" he asked.
"Sure, for as long as it takes; my mother and I don't mind at all," she said.
"Alright then, we'll be back here tomorrow at eight o'clock in the morning," Egon said.
"Better make it eleven...I need my beauty sleep, Egon," Peter said.
"Alright, Peter...We'll be back here at ten o'clock in the morning...I hope you'll be rested by then...?" Egon said sarcastically.
"That's fine," Peter said nonchalantly.
At 9:30 A.M. the next morning, Ray, Egon and Winston were already up and eating breakfast in the firehouse. Ray had just finished making all of them his famous "breakfast of champions," which were omelets, hash browns, bacon and waffles. "Man, Ray, you sure out did yourself again!" Winston said, as he took another helping of omelet onto his plate.
"Thanks...I try...By the way, where's Pete? Shouldn't he be ready by now?" Ray asked.
"Knowing Peter, he's still in bed asleep," Egon said, after taking a bite of hash browns.
Just then the sound of a door opening and shutting was heard from downstairs, and what followed was the sound of shoes clopping up the staircase to the living quarters. "Hi, guys, didn't think you would be up this early," Janine said, making her way to the top of the staircase and noticed them eating breakfast. "I was just going to file some paperwork downstairs, but I smelled bacon cooking, so I decided to see what was up,"
"Pull up a chair, there's always room for one more," Ray said, as he flipped over some strips of bacon; turning them over on their other sides.
"Naw, I couldn't...I just ate at home," she said, declining.
"No I insist," Ray said. "Pete's not up yet...You can have his bacon...Go ahead and have a seat next to Egon."
"Alright," Janine said, she couldn't pass up a moment like this; sitting next to Egon that is.
Ray finished cooking the bacon, and dried the grease off on a paper towel, then put a few strips on a plate and handed it to Janine. "Here you go, on the house, free of charge," he said with a smile.
"Thanks," she said, as she began to dig into her "breakfast of champions".
"We need to get Venkman out of bed...He's been sleeping for almost nine hours!" Egon said.
"Well I tried to wake him up last time, but he threw a pillow at me," Ray said. "Winston, do you have any suggestions?" he asked.
"Don't look at me," he said, "I tried pulling the covers off of him, but he keeps pulling them back over himself...How 'bout you, Egon."
"I set his alarm clock to wake up in his ear, but he threw it back at me."
"Well, somebody has to go in their..." Ray said.
"Yeah, somebody has to go in their..." Winston said.
Just then all eyes pointed towards Janine. "Oh no! I'm not his mother! If he wants to sleep in that's on him," Janine said angrily.
The door to Peter's room slightly began to creek open. Janine began to tip-toe in quietly, but then thought, 'Why am I being silent? I'm supposed to wake the idiot up!' So she became much bolder, and walked up to his bed. There, Peter lay sprawled out snoring softly. "Rise and shine, sleepy head! You gotta get up, Peter, the boys are waitin' for ya down stairs!" Janine yelled, but Peter didn't respond. Janine bent down to take the sheets off of Peter so that he would wake up quicker, and when she bent down, Peter grabbed her arm.
"How's about a kiss, Linda?" Peter said, dreamily, he was still not awake. He grabbed Janine arm, pulling her closer to him, and kissed her on the lips.
As soon as the kiss ended, Janine yelled right into Peter's ear, waking him up suddenly out of a sound sleep. Peter woke up and saw that he was face to face with Janine, and also yelled with her. "What the hell are you doin' in my room?!" Peter yelled frantically at her.
"Why the hell did you KISS me?!" Janine yelled back.
"I kissed you?! WHERE'S LINDA?!" he frantically asked.
"Peter, hurry up and get dressed," Egon shouted from the entry of his room, "we're supposed to be at the Amityville house by ten...So hurry up!"
"I'm goin' I'm goin'..." Peter said. "Well..." he said, looking back up at Janine, who was still in shock over what just happened between them.
"Huh?" she said.
"Do you mind?! I'm naked under here!" he said in a firm voice.
"Fine, I'm going back down stairs," she said, as she got off of his bed, "oh, and if they want me to come in here to wake your sorry ass out of bed, they're gonna be the ones to kiss you next time," and with that, she left his room.
"Pete, finally you're up, were leaving right now," Ray said as he and the others were zipping up their jumpsuits and were about ready to take off.
"Already?! I just got up," Peter said with a yawn.
"Peter, hurry up and put on your equipment and get in," Egon said in a huff as he opened the passenger door to ecto-1.
"Yeah yeah yeah..." Peter said with a sigh, as he made his way over to his locker.
Moments later, they were driving to the Amityville house. When they got there, they equipped their proton packs and made their way up to the door. Peter knocked on the door, knocking a "Shave and a Haircut" knock. A moment later, Linda answered the door to let the boys in. "I'm so glad you came back," she said worriedly, as she let them into the house.
"Why? What happened?" Peter said concerned.
"My mother...She floated off her bed last night...and...and..." Linda fell down to her knees and started to cry. Peter helped her up, and led her to the couch to sit down.
"What happened to her? Is she alright?" Ray said, also concerned for Linda's mother.
"She fell out of the window to a two story drop...She's in the hospital now...I had to stay behind to let you guys in in the morning...Please, hurry and take care of whatever's in the basement...! I...I don't want to be next!" she said in a panicked cry.
"Ray, this is just like what happened to Mrs. Lutz," Egon said.
"You're right..." Ray said in thought.
"What happened to this Mrs. Lutz lady?" Linda asked.
"It's a long story," Peter began, "but this woman, Mrs. Lutz, she owned this house about five years back and almost floated out of her window too."
"Gee, the realtors never mentioned that little tidbit," Linda said upset and frustrated.
"Normally realtors never mention the fine print," Peter said sarcastically.
The Ghostbusters made their way down the butler's pantry, down the long stairway, and into the basement once more. "Hold on...Before we go in again," Egon began, "Let me get another PKE reading." Egon pulled out his PKE meter, and as soon as he turned it on, the wings skyrocketed. "Ray, check this out," he said, showing Ray the PKE.
"Oh yeah..." he said in concern.
"What's wrong?" Winston asked.
"The PKE's reading is a lot stronger than yesterday. It's up to 12.6!" Egon said excitedly.
"So...What do you suggest we do?" Peter asked. Egon and Ray looked at each other; they hadn't the foggiest idea how they were going to execute their plan. "Are you tellin' me we came all this way here...And you don't have a plan?!" Peter said frustrated.
"Well...I'm guessing we could use our pocketron gliders to destroy the entity or porthole...or something..." Ray said. "But we're talkin' class nine or maybe ten...!! Egon, what do you think?"
"I suppose we try our pocketron gliders and then play it by ear after that..." Egon said.
"Play it by ear...Sure, that's scientific..." Peter said sarcastically.
They walked into the mysterious red room clutching onto their positron collider. Egon walked up to the wall and tapped it with his hand, suddenly; his hand fell through the other side. Instinctively, he pulled his hand back out. "There's definitely something beyond this wall," Egon said.
Just then a gnarly hand came from without of the wall and grabbed Egon and dragged him into the porthole, sucking him proton pack and all. "Egon!!" Ray screamed. "EGON!!" There was no answer.
"Okay...So what do we do now?!" Peter said, panicking. Ray didn't say anything; the expression on his face was a good enough answer for what he was thinking. "Oh no...! You can't be serious?" Peter said exasperated. Ray jumped into the porthole face first and was sucked in completely by the vortex. "I can't believe it! He did it!" he said completely flabbergasted. Then Winston was up to bat, and jumped into the porthole after Ray. Peter looked at Linda and rolled his eyes. "I guess I can't be a party pooper, now can I...? Hold down the fort while we're gone, will ya?" and with that, Peter took his leave and fell face forward into the porthole.
When Peter fell to the bottom of the long and winding porthole, he fell face down on top of Winston. "Ouch! What a drop..." Peter said in pain, "...When this is all over, remind me to personally give Spengs a smack down," he said frustrated and tired.
"Hey, I'm all for that!" Winston said. "You can get off of me now," he said, noticing that Peter was still lying on top of him.
"Sorry there, Winston," Peter said, getting off of Winston and helping him up. "So where the hell are we?" he asked, looking around the new world they had fallen into. The surroundings around them were bleak and dreary. The Ghostbusters were in a large barren field with nothing in front of them or in back of them. It was as though they were in the middle of an empty desolate space. There were no trees, grass, or signs of life. The ground was dried up with huge cracks running throughout the surface in a grid-like fashion. The sky surrounding them was desolate, bleak and grey. Dark luminous clouds hung overhead and were full of eerie atmospheric precipitation and electric currents.
"It looks as though we are in some kind of intergalactic parallel dimension," Egon said.
"No foolin', Egon, I could have told you that," Peter said, rolling his eyes.
Egon pulled out his PKE meter to check out the paranormal status of the environment surrounding them. "According to the PKE, this new dimension is pulsating with incredible amounts of psychokinetic activity," he said. "The readings are off the charts! This is incredible, Ray...Do you realizes what a psychokinetic size this big could do to our universe?"
"It could crush us into subatomic particles," Ray said in shock and dismay. "Egon, did you bring the gravimeter?" he asked.
"Sorry, unfortunately I didn't. I would have loved to get a reading on this dimension's gravitational pull."
"Spengs, Ray, I'm sorry for your loss but we have more important things on our mind," Peter said.
"Yeah, like how the hell we're gonna get out of here," Winston said.
"First of all we should figure out why this plain of existence is overflowing with extreme measures of psychokinetic activity," Egon said, as he and Ray started to walk off together ahead of Peter and Winston.
"Hey, you guys...Wait up!" Peter yelled back, as he and Winston caught up to them. "Egon, we are in the middle of infinite space," Peter said, after catching up with Egon and Ray, "how do you know which way we're going is the right way?"
"I don't," Egon said.
"Oh...That was helpful...Ray, what do you suggest we do?" Peter asked.
"I...I...I don't know...I suggest we just keep going in one direction till we find someone...Or something..." Ray said fearfully, as he took a deep gulp in his throat.
"That sounds reassuring, Ray," Peter said as he rolled his eyes. "Winston....Got anything?"
"Man, is it too late for me to put in my resignation slip?" Winston said unconfidently.
"With that attitude, mister, you're not even qualified to scrub the boots of a Ghostbuster. Now everyone, pull yourselves together! We're the Ghostbusters, for Christ sake! We're paranormal investigators and eliminators...We're professionals, and three fourths of us have doctorates in science...Sorry, Winston...You're still good too."
"Thanks," Winston said sarcastically.
"Where are you going with this, Pete?" Ray asked, "You haven't even told us your idea."
"I'm getting to that, Ray...I'm thinkin' we should all go back to the porthole and travel back to our world, then devise a plan there, and then come back here," Peter said.
"I don't think we can do that, the dimensional porthole is situated approximately thirty feet above us," Egon said reluctantly, "and I seriously doubt we could give each other a boost thirty feet in the air to reach the gate."
"So we're stuck here...?" Ray asked unwilling to believe it as Egon nodded his head in response to Ray.
"Oh, this is just great!" Peter said, "I'm stuck with you three numb nuts for all eternity, when I could've had it made with that girl Linda."
"Peter, do you seriously believe that for one week you could sustain a relationship with a single woman?" Ray asked.
Peter stood there and tried to think about it for the longest time and was dumbfounded. "I didn't think so," Ray replied.
"Look, you guys, do you see what I see up ahead?" Egon said, as they kept walking strait ahead into nothingness.
"Yeah...What is that?" Ray said wondering the same thing. Up ahead of them, was what appeared to be a figure bent down and staring at the ground with its head between its knees. As the Ghostbusters walked further to the figure, they noticed that it appeared to be a young boy about seven or eight years old. The boy had a brown, orange and white striped shirt, brown corduroy pants, and navy blue shoes. He had light brown hair in a bowl hair cut, and the rest of his face was shrouded between his legs. "It's a young boy," Egon said.
"Yeah, but who is he and how did he wind up in this place?" Peter said, suspicious of the child.
"I don't know...? Maybe one of us should talk to him," Ray said, as all of the Ghostbusters looked simultaneously at Peter.
Peter rolled his and walked forward to the young child. "This is just like that time at the New York Public Library..." Peter mumbled to himself as he walked further to the child. "Hi, my name is Peter Venkman...Are you lost, little boy?" The boy didn't look up or say anything; he looked down at the ground with his hands on his knees. "I said are you lost, kid?" The child yet again said nothing. "I guess he wants to be left alone," Peter said, looking back at his friends.
"We are all lost," the child finally said, not looking up.
Peter looked back at him again and wondered why it took him so long to respond. "What do you mean, kid? What do mean, 'we are all lost'?" Peter asked. The child didn't respond again. "Hey, kid, where do you get off anyway? Who are you and how did you wind up in this world?" Peter said frustrated.
"I created this world, you fool...And I'm not a kid, I'm the Prince of Darkness," the child said as his head raised up slightly to reveal his glowing red eyes. Peter jumped back a few feet from the eerie look the child gave him.
"Umm, guys, I think we have trouble!" Peter yelled back the others.
"Peter, get away from that kid! The PKE meter is off the charts with that kid. It was reading 99.9 and then the wings broke! That child is pulsating with large amounts of psychokinetic energy!" Egon yelled at Peter.
"Damn, really?!" Peter said astonished, then looked back at the child and ran back to his friends.
"What did he tell you, Pete?" Ray asked.
"He said that he was the 'Prince of Darkness,' so what do you think?"
"I think that kid's not that far off with the readings that I got off the PKE meter. The kid might be telling the truth," Egon said.
"Wait a minute!" Winston said, "Are you tryin' to tell me that that kid's Satan himself?!" Egon nodded his head in response. "Whoa, this it too much for me...I mean, how the hell are we supposed to trap the devil with our packs?"
"Ray, you better talk to him. I didn't get anywhere with him," Peter said.
"Hey, who has the doctorate in psychology?" Ray said sarcastically.
"You're better at this sort of stuff...I mean, you talked to Gozer..." Peter said.
"Yeah, and looked where that got us...A near death experience with a hundred foot marshmallow man," Winston said.
"Well, does anyone else have any bright ideas?" Peter asked frustrated.
"No no...I'll go..." Ray said. Ray walked slowly over to the demon child. "Good evening, I'm Ray Stantz of the Ghostbusters, and I was wondering if you could tell me how you came to be in this parallel plane of existence?"
Just then, the child looked up with blue eyes and a trembling. "I...I'm Ronald DeFeo...Wh-where's my mommy and daddy and sisters and brothers? Where is everyone?" the child said trembling in a child's voice.
"Ronald DeFeo?" Ray said surprised. "You can't be...? Robert DeFeo's at least thirty-five years old! Who are you really?" Ray asked."
"I...I'm Robert DeFeo...Where's my mommy and daddy...?" just then Ronald's eyes glowed red once more. "I am the Prince of Darkness, not that damned infernal child!"
"What did you do to Ronald DeFeo?" Ray asked coldly to the demon child.
"Ronald DeFeo, that is to say, this child form of him, is a faint memory of his former self. Long ago, I possessed his body as a child. To test how strong his mind was, I had him murder his family nearly twenty- five years ago. In the end his mind was weak and I had no more use for him."
"So you cast him aside and have him thrown off into prison," Ray said sternly.
"Surly that was not my intention. It happened by pure circumstantial evidence," the demon child said with a smirk.
"So why did you keep Ronald's child body?" Ray asked.
"After I possessed Ronald, a part of his childhood memory was stored inside of me and I couldn't get rid of him ever since. The only thing I could do was to create a parallel dimension and subdivide a part of me that had Ronald's memories in this world to get rid of him."
"So you're the devil...But only a small fraction of him, plus have the memories of the young Ronald DeFeo?" Ray said puzzled, and trying to confirm his thoughts.
"You sure catch on quick," the demon child said, laughing maliciously at Ray. "Leaving so soon?" the demon child asked, as he notice Ray leaving to return to his friends. "You know that there is no way out from which you have come. You and your friends might as well make the best of things because you're all going to stay in this plane of existence for as long as you live, or until which some point you all starve to death."
"What do you mean 'starve to death'?" Ray asked.
"There isn't any food or civilization in this plane of existence on which to survive. I'm guessing all of you have at least three or four days before starvation sets in...It's only a matter of time before you all turn against each other and become cannibals...Heh heh heh heh heh...It'd be one of the first times I didn't kill someone intentionally."
Ray ran back over to the other Ghostbusters and told them his discussion with the demon child. "So what do you suppose we do?" Ray asked afterward.
"I suggest we find a way to get the hell out of here!" Peter said.
"I second that!" Winston said.
"We can't. As I told you all before, the dimensional porthole is situated approximately thirty feet above us," Egon said.
"Dammit! Why don't we use our proton packs and fire at the bastard!" Peter said frustrated.
"Peter, do you not remember the last time we fired our positron colliders at a large psychokinetic entity like Gozer? It was hard to catch Gozer in our beams, and it disappeared into thin air then reappeared as Mr. Stay Puft," Egon said.
"Yeah, but I don't think this time the devil has a right mind to turn into Mr. Stay Puft," Peter said with a cunning smirk.
"Peter, this is the devil we're talkin' about! He could do anything he wants and turn into anything he wants...Under the supervision of God, that is..." Winston said.
"So if this is just like a Gozer battle...Why don't we cross the streams and blow up the porthole above our heads?" Peter asked.
"That would be incredibly stupid, Peter," Egon said, "if we blew up the porthole to this world, we would blow up ourselves along with it. It was different with Gozer. We weren't in Gozer's dimension we were still in our world."
"Ray, you've been quiet this whole time," Peter said, turning over to Ray. "Do you have any bright ideas?"
"I think we should use our positron colliders. We might have a one percent chance in contacting Ronald DeFeo's childhood spirit. Every now and then while I was talking to the devil, Ronald's spirit would take over his original body and communicate with me. I wonder...If we use our proton packs, do you think it would weaken the devil to where Ronald can take over his old body again and conquer the devil?" he asked.
"Anything's worth a shot, Ray," Peter said, "and that's the best idea I've heard all day...Hell, what do we gotta loose...Let's do it! Ya in, Spengs...? Winston...?"
"Man I don't wanna turn into a cannibal and eat you guys, I'm in!" Winston said.
"Most defiantly. I believe there might be a one to two percent chance we might survive this," Egon said.
The Ghostbusters made their way over to the demon child entity, and took out their neutrona wands from their proton pack and began powering them up. "Okay, Winston and Egon, you guys take the left. Ray and I will take the right. Everyone spread out evenly around him then fire," Peter said, directing orders. "Okay Lucifer, you didn't want to cooperate on our terms so it's time to pay the piper!" Peter said, as powered up his neutrona wand and fired at the demon child.
Just then, Egon blasted his wand from his side, then Ray and then Winson. All three neutrona beams surrounded the demon child, and encircled around him. "We got him! We got him!" Ray said happily surprised with his team's efforts.
"FOOLS!! Do you really think these foolish futile attempts would hold me down?!" the demon child said. As soon as he finished his sentence, the neutrona beams retracted and all four wands shut down.
"Oh shit! I knew this would happen...It's just like what happened with Gozer!" Winston said in shock.
"No...Look!" Ray said, as he noticed the demon child's glowing red eyes turn blue once more. "He's weakening!"
"MOMMY...!! DADDY...!! Where are you?!" Ronald screamed. "Mommy...Daddy...!! I'm scared! Where am I?!"
Just then the Ronald's blue eyes turned back to a glowing fiery red. "Rrrrrrrrr...You'll pay for that!" the demon child said.
"We better hurry, he's regaining consciousness," Egon said. They each began to fire their wands once more at the entity, and encircled the demon child. As soon as they encircled the demon child, his eyes turned back to a crystal blue.
"MOMMYYYYYY...DADDYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WHAT'S HAPPENING TO ME?!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! IT HURTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! IT HURTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WHERE AM I?!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Ronald yelled while begin entangled in the neutrona beams.
"NO...!!! I WON'T BE DEFEATED BY A MERE CHILD!! NOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THIS.........ISN'T HAPPENING.........TO.........ME.........NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" the demon child said one last time. Suddenly a dark cloud of smoke came out of Ronald's mouth and evaporated into thin air as soon as it was coming out. Ronald's lifeless childhood spirit collapsed to the ground and faded away slowly. Then almost instantly, the dimension began to fold up on itself and began to dematerialize as a strong gust of wind began to blow the world apart like a sand storm blowing grains of sand in a desert.
"QUICK!! This whole world is falling apart!!" Egon said, panicking.
"Where the hell are we supposed to go?!" Peter said in fear for his life.
"Look over there!" Ray said out of breath, as he noticed a small porthole open up a few yards away from them. "A porthole ripped open from a seam in the fabric of this world, it might lead to our world!"
"Or it could lead us into another dimension, Ray," Egon said, a bit skeptical.
"What the hell, it's better than dieing in this world!" Winston said.
Finally they all reached the porthole, and one by one, they all dived head first into the opening.
As soon as they arrived in the new dimension, everyone fell on each other as they reached the ground with a loud thud. Each one looked up simultaneously and were staring face to face with Linda Tibbits looking down at them. They all gave a deep sigh of relief, knowing that they were in the right dimension and got up. "Linda! Oh, thank God! We're in our own dimension!" Peter said with a huge sigh of relief.
"Oh my God! Was that ever a close one!" Ray said.
"What's wrong with you guys? You were only gone for five minutes," Linda said confused by their actions.
"Five minutes?!" Winston said in shock, "That can't be...It felt like we were gone for at least two or three hours!"
"The molecular time structure of that dimension must run slower than our dimension, and when we entered our dimension, what seemed like two or three hours in the other dimension only appeared to be fifteen minutes...Amazing!" Egon said recalling the differences between the two dimensions.
"So what happened? Did you guys find the problem?" Linda asked.
"What you had was the Godfather of specters," Ray said excitedly.
"What do you mean the 'Godfather of—'" Linda asked as she was interrupted.
"What he means is that you, Linda Tibbits, had the devil in your basement," Peter said.
"The devil?! That's preposterous! How could this basement inhabit the devil?!" Linda said in disbelief.
"Well, how could all the weird disturbances happen to you and your mother, not to mention the porthole that sucked us into the devil's lair," Ray said.
"I'm sorry I was so judgmental...I...I just can't believe that the devil of all things was in my basement!" she said.
"Now let's talk money..." Peter said, getting out his notepad and pen. "...Now for the first call out here that's gonna cost $250. And for destroying a dimension, and a devil-possessed child spirit of Ronald DeFeo...We're gonna have ta ask for $500,000...But since you don't have that kinda money we'll drop the amount to $10,000."
"$10,000?! I'm gonna have to pay that along with the mortgage for this house for the rest of my life!" Linda said angrily.
"Pete, that's kinda askin' for too much...I mean, her mother's in the hospital and all..." Ray said sympathetic towards Linda.
"Alright alright...$9000," Peter said, then noticed that Linda was still shocked over the amount and Ray looked at him sternly. "$8000...? $7000...? $6000, and that's my final offer."
"Pete," Ray looked at him sternly.
"Alright alright...::sigh::...eight payments of $500 a month, plus a bonus...A date with yours truly," Peter said with a smile and a wink at Linda.
"Agreed!" Linda said, as she shook Peter's hand. "Let me write you a check for the visiting call and the first payment of five hundred dollars," she said, leading the boys back up stairs. She wrote the two checks and gave them to Peter.
"And here's my number as the bonus for the eight payments," Peter said, handing her his personal office line phone number. "Call us again sometime," he said with a wink, as he and the others left the house; closing the door behind them.
"How's dinner coming along?" Linda asked Peter, as she came up behind him and placed her hands on his shoulders tenderly.
It had been a month after the ghost bust at her house when Linda decided to take Peter Venkman up on his "bonus offer" and called him up one day. Soon after that phone call, they have had several more dates. It was a Saturday night at the no.8 firehouse. Ray, Egon and Winston were on duty, and were on call of a doubled nighter, and Janine went home at five three hours ago. Peter and Linda had the whole firehouse to themselves. The table was set for two by candle light and on the stove was a pot of boiling pasta and in a sauce pan was creamy fettuccini sauce, and in the oven was a tray of garlic bread baking. A relaxing evening at the firehouse had been planed well, thanks to Peter. "It's coming along great, Linda." Peter said with a smile. "The pasta's almost al denté, and the garlic bread is about done as well. Here, try some of this sauce..." Peter said, as he scooped a small amount onto his wooden spoon and put it up to Linda's lips.
"Mmmm...It tastes great," Linda said, as she sipped the fettuccini sauce.
"Ah ha...!! I caught you in the act, I see...Linda, I presume?" It was Lisa, Peter's former girlfriend. She secretly snuck into the firehouse unnoticed and walked up stairs to see Peter.
"Why yes it is...And who might you be?" Linda asked.
"I'm Lisa...! I'm sure Peter slips up on your name too on occasion and calls you "Lisa" just as he calls me "Linda"," Lisa said in a huff.
"No, not really...He calls my Linda," Linda said, as she looked at Peter with suspension, then back at Lisa.
"Girls girls...There's plenty of fettuccini and garlic bread for three...Now why don't we settle this like adults over dinner," Peter said stepping in to save his relationships with both girls.
"Butt out, Venkman," Linda said sternly.
Peter backed slowly away from the two women and looked nervously at them. He didn't want to jeopardize his relationships with either woman.
"How long has he had a relationship with you?" Lisa asked.
"About a month or so now, you?" Linda asked.
"It would be three months tonight...Peter, I thought you made plans for our third month anniversary, that's why I showed up tonight...But I guess you had other plans," Lisa said sternly at Peter as he nervously smiled back shrugging his shoulders. "Don't bother calling...It's over, Peter," she said with a huff, and stormed out of the firehouse, slamming the door behind her.
"How dare you take up a relationship with me while still in a relationship with your girlfriend! You've really got some nerve...How do you think I am?!" Linda said in a fit of rage as she walked further towards Peter. With every step Linda took, Peter took a step backwards. Soon Peter was pinned up against the kitchen table by Linda's body.
"Now, Linda, I was going to break up with her...I just forgot her number," Peter said.
"Yeah, along with her name! Peter, how could you do this...? When I asked if you had any girlfriends you said no...I trusted you...I believed in you...Why did you lie?"
"Lisa was my girlfriend but I haven't dated her or called her in over a month...I swear it!" Peter said.
"I can't believe you...After this, I don't think I can ever believe you," she said.
"But—"
"But nothing...Good-bye, Peter...It was fun while it lasted..." Linda said as she walked away from him and grabbed her coat. "Oh, and don't worry. I'll pay the last seven payments as planed...Good-bye."
"But—" Peter said, trying to explain himself.
"Good-bye," Linda said firmly, and walked down the staircase leading to the offices and exit, and was gone.
Peter sat back in a kitchen chair and heard the entrance door downstairs open and then shut. Silence filled the firehouse as soon as the entrance door shut. The pot of bubbling pasta was the only noise that was heard. Soon after the door shut, the ectomobile burst into the firehouse and parked in the large garage. Ray made his way up the stairs along with Egon and Winston. "I saw Linda walk out of the firehouse as I was making my turn down the street. What happened? Did you call your date off, or did she not like your cooking?" Ray said with a smile.
"No worse...Lisa showed up," Peter said.
"What?! You're still going out with Lisa behind Linda's back?" Egon said surprised.
"Man, that is not cool, dude! You don't lead on a woman like Linda while you're still going out with another woman!" Winston said.
"I stopped calling and dating Lisa over a month ago when I started up with Linda," Peter said. "Lisa came over hopping that I still had something planed with her for our third month anniversary. Then she saw Linda and thought that Linda was the mysterious girlfriend I had on the side, which was the reason for me calling Lisa Linda."
"Was it?" Ray asked.
"NO...!! The reason why I called Lisa Linda was because I get the name Lisa mixed up with the name Linda...They sound the same, it's hard to tell the names apart," Peter said frustrated.
"Well, I hope this teaches you a lesson, Peter," Egon said.
"And what's that? Lock the doors when you know you're former girlfriend's third anniversary's coming up?" Peter said sarcastically.
"No, you should always remember to nullify your relationships with your former girlfriends before taking up another girlfriend," Egon said.
"Oh sure, and this is coming from a man who's girlfriend is a big giant ball of mucous sealed in a Tupperware container," Peter said sarcastically.
"Hey, don't talk about Claire as a big giant ball of mucous. You are to refer to her as ectoplasmic residue," Egon said firmly.
THE END