DISCLAIMER: Don't own. 'Nuff said.
Chapter One: Well Read Ghosts
Peter Venkman had taken the blow rather well, considering one does not often have a tyre iron collide with out warning into one's head.
"Alright, Peter?" Winston said, dodging the shrapnel in order to get to Venkman's side.
When the call had come in, Peter had decided they had to go, considering it was a bit of a dry spell for activity, and they needed the money. The Ghostbusters, having been warned about the violent nature apparition, arrived on site armed to the teeth and ready to bust some chops. They were led into a room by a woman Venkman had described as a 'total spaz' and were surprised to find that nothing in the room was touching the floor. It seemed to have been a library before the books and shelves had decided to hurl themselves wily nilly across the room.
Venkman shook his head fiercely and widened his eyes. Suddenly the world looked like it was made of cotton balls.
"Peter?" Winston said, though not before dodging another book.
"Who the hell keeps a tyre iron in an office!" Peter exclaimed over the noise, rubbing his head with his free hand.
Winston shrugged, "I think it's moved on to the garage."
He was referring to the poltergeist that Ray had affectionately nicknamed 'The Coolest Thing EVER'. It seemed to have manifested into a blackish blob, and was obviously having the time of its life hurling things at the Ghostbusters.
"Christ, that hurt," Peter said over Ray and Egon's excited banter, ("Did you see that? It has to be bigger than the Resch Poltergeist!" "And I think the fact that it's not centred around a person is unusual…")
Winston and Peter ducked behind an overed desk and stuck their positron rifles over the top. Winston was, for a moment, reminded of Vietnam. It was easy to shake off, for a very large, leather-bound book soon smacked him straight in the face.
"The Complete Works of Jane Austen," Peter remarked, looking at the book now strewn across the floor, "That bitch."
Meanwhile, Ray and Egon were struggling to get the Ghost Trap in the centre of the room. They had tried the run-really-fast-in-spurts technique, but it proved unsuccessful.
"What if we distract it?" Ray said, his eyes wide with excitement, "One of us can cause a distraction and the other can set the trap."
"I don't know, Ray," Egon replied sceptically, "This apparition is a higher class than most. If he has enough power to hit all of us with a separate copy of the World Book at the same time, I don't think a distraction would be too hard to handle for this guy."
Ray nodded.
"Alright then," he said, "Why don't you guys try to wrangle it, and that'll give me time enough to get the trap under him."
It was at this point that Winston got hit by Austen.
Egon nodded. "Well, it's one step closer to getting back to the firehouse." He replied, setting down the Gigameter and fixing his rifle. Ray took up the trap and began slowly crawling out of the safe area.
Egon called over to Peter and Winston. "Peter!" he said, "On my count!"
Peter and Winston stopped whatever they were doing (it seemed that they were ripping a slightly bloodstained book to shreds) and readied their wands.
Ray had made it almost unbludgeoned (though an Evelyn Waugh gave him a run for his money) to directly under the poltergeist.
"One," Egon began, taking aim.
"Two," Ray was starting to worry. The black cloud floating above him had armed himself with encyclopaedias A through H.
"THREE!" With the sound of cats gargling razor blades, three posotronic beams shot to the poltergeist, freezing him in motion. The encyclopaedias dropped to the floor, missing Ray, who was sprinting to behind the desk, where he set down the activator.
Ray hurriedly slammed down on the activation button with his boot, and in a spray of light and humming, the thing was swallowed up. The books and various office supplies clunked to the floor, and in a swirl of dust and teeny tiny bits of the Complete Works of Jane Austen, the Ghostbusters rose from the burgundy carpeting.
"Well, that went well, I think," Peter said, brushing himself off. "Now we all have matching concussions. Except for Egon. Egon, you can't be in our club."
Ray picked up the steaming trap. It still felt hot, even holding it by the wires. He couldn't wait to put this in the records.
The spaz woman referred to earlier had noticed a change in the air, and she poked her head in cautiously, he perfectly thinned black eyebrows perked in surprise at the condition of her office. She was even more surprised by the bill that Venkman chose at this time to shove in her face.
"That's a little costly, don't you think?" she said it an impeccable Liverpool accent.
"Three of us sustained semi-serious injuries, ma'am," Peter said, raising an eyebrow to attract attention to the reddish gash on his forehead. "Unless you'd rather chat with your lawyers about that?"
The woman turned almost as white as when she had first seen the poltergeist.
"Uh, no, no, that's not necessary," she said, taking the bill and reading it again, "This will be fine. Just fine. Do you take cash?"
Venkman's ears perked up.
"Do we ever!"
The Ecto-1 blazed through the streets of New York City. Normally, they would only use the siren if they were on the way to a bust, but Peter didn't feel like stopping for pesky lights or stop signs, so eventually he had persuaded Ray to turn on the siren. Of course, this included threatening Ray's extensive Paranormal Digest Special Edition collection in a way that almost ended in someone being knocked out, but that is how tired Peter was.
"I am going straight to bed when we get back," Venkman said, stretching out in the back seat.
"It's only five o'clock," Winston said, checking his watch. "Did you stay up watching 'Rawhide' again?"
"By emotional law, I am obligated to watch every Clint Eastwood show, or send him money in the mail." He replied, "And I don't really want to do that."
Ray removed his ecto goggles with one hand as he drove with the other one.
"You can't go to bed when we get back, Pete," Ray said, rolling his eyes at being forced to repeat himself, "We've got a meeting with Dr. Graham."
Peter's smile morphed into a frown.
"Oh, come on, Ray!" he said, annoyed, "It's Friday night! And I know some of us want to spend that time discussing the latest research and sucking up to the parapsychology chair over a Shirley Temple, but I for one would just like to curl up with a beer and watch some TV."
Egon and Ray sighed.
"Fine," Ray said, pulling into the firehouse and coming to a stop. "Your loss."
Four doors slammed, and four proton packs were mounted on the wall.
"Yeah, I'm sure," Venkman said, walking to his office.
Janine Melnitz sat filing her nails and reading Glamour Magazine. She was about to turn on the television when Peter Venkman leaned up against her desk. She looked up and gave him a 'what-the-hell-is-important-enough-to-bother-me' look.
"Janine," he said, his voice dripping with saccharine mush, "Any calls today?"
Janine stopped filing.
"Of course not, Dr. Venkman," she said in that voice that could summon goats, "The last bust you went on was the first this week."
Venkman nodded and patted the desk.
"Thanks Janine," he said sarcastically, "I can tell your pay check is going to good use."
She rolled her eyes as Venkman went back into his office. Ray Stantz was the next to bother her. Why, she thought, why couldn't Egon ever bother her?
"Hey Janine." Ray said, flipping through the day's mail. "Has Dr. Graham called?"
Janine had begun filing her nails again, and had also turned on the television.
"The meeting's not cancelled, if that's what you mean," she said over the theme music to her favourite talk show. "Nobody called."
"Thanks." Ray said, resolving to go upstairs, take a shower and change into his good suit. He set the mail down and walked up the stairs, leaving Janine to her talk show.
Janine sighed. Maybe it was time to break out the Scrabble board.
