BROOKLYN

Ray moves cautiously through the thrift shop, looking through his ecto-goggles for their quarry. Winston follows close behind him, proton gun at the ready. Ray adjusts a knob on the side and motions for Winston to stop walking. The goggles zoom in on the little specter that has been causing some trouble around the store. It resembles a bug from some cartoon with big eyes and fanged lips, antennas coming out of its blue head and a blue segmented body with a yellow underbelly. It sits there gnawing on a plate.

Ray holds his finger up to his lips looking back at Winston while slowly pulling his own proton gun. He points down at the approximate spot where the small spook is sitting and Winston slowly moves around Ray to point his rifle down at it. Unfortunately, the floorboard he steps on has warped from age and squeaks under the pressure of his weight. The bug looks back and Ray sees what can pass for surprise on its face.

Suddenly, there's a flash, disorienting Ray and Winston. Ray whips off the goggles and rubs his eyes, trying to get the sparkles out of them.

"Geeze!" Winston exclaims, his vision clearing first. Ray's soon joins him, although he'd rather it didn't. There before them was the bug…much bigger than both of them!

"Boy, they grow so fast these days!" Ray comments as he and Winston open fire. Fortunately, its size didn't have much bearing on its powers as the streams were able to hold it, causing it to roar out in anger. Ray grabs the trap off his belt and throws it out. Seconds later, the doors open and suck it in. The trap doors close and the indicator lights come to life. Ray walks over to the trap and picks it up, watching the sparks dance on it as the smoke billows out. "Exterminated," he says happily.

"Uh, Ray…" Winston starts, tapping his arm as he looks around.

"What's up, Z?" Ray asks. Winston motions around them.

"I don't think the bug grew." Ray raises his eyebrow curiously before looking around. That's when he realizes that suddenly everything in the shop was big. VERY big. In the ghost's surprise, it didn't grow as a defense…it shrunk THEM!

"Damn it, I quit…" Ray mutters.

GHOSTBUSTERS
PROFESSIONAL PARANORMAL ELIMINATORS
#6
"LITTLE TROUBLE IN BIG BROOKLYN"

bitty buchner-SCRIPT & CHIEFING
mini munoz-PENCILS
paltry king-INKS, LETTERS & EDITS
runty beslter-COLORS
little liberg-EDITS
bantam baugh-COVERS & CONTINUITY
wee aykroyd & teeny ramis-CHARACTERS

The shop is rectangular in shape, with old wooden floors and fixtures all around. The wooden shelves are massive and jammed to their edges with various trinkets and knick-knacks bought from various places and people. If you're looking for something obscure and don't have the patience for Ebay, this would be the place for you. In fact, many Brooklynites would say Mr. Fung is even BETTER than Ebay. If he doesn't have it in stock, he'll find it for you and still give you a good price on it. Of course, one can't live on second-hand goods alone; the store carries a nice array of general merchandise as well.

"Ray, we're two inches tall!" Winston exclaims, feeling a little panicked.

"I think it's actually closer to one…" Ray corrects.

"Really? Do you really wanna argue specifics right now?"

"Good point. Alright, let's keep cool…worse things have happened to us."

"Somehow, that other stuff doesn't seem to matter when the current problem is ongoing!"

"It must've been a Mite," Ray says, thinking.

"A what?" Winston asks.

"The ghost bug; it must have been a supernatural entity known as a Mite. They were used by wizards in medieval times to shrink the items from their labs so they could carry them around with them. Ever see The Sword in the Stone?"

"Yeah…"

"Like that, but without the music."

"So what's a Mite doing in a Brooklyn junk shop?" Winston asks.

"You know the old saying, 'One man's junk is another man's treasure'? The Mites were usually maintained in a wizard's amulet. One must have found its way into the store and gotten open." Ray looks at the massive shelves they stand next to. "If we can find the amulet, maybe it could tell us how to reverse the process." Winston looks around.

"Man, you want us to check out the inventory? All the shelves must be as tall as the Empire State Building!"

"Yeah, that's the problem. We need to contact Egon and Peter for help."

"Radios won't do no good at this size," Winston says, pulling his out of his belt to look at it. "The transmitters are so small I doubt the signal would get past the front door."

"And I can't get a signal on my cell," Ray adds, taking his out of his upper pocket long enough to look at the LCD on the cover. "We could try the store's phone. Where was it?" Winston points up towards the front of the store. Ray follows his finger down the aisle to see the cluttered counter by the front windows, the phone sitting next to the cash register. "It's never easy," Ray sighs. Suddenly, the ground begins to quake and the Ghostbusters are thrown off-balance. The shaking stops momentarily, only to be resumed again in rhythmic succession.

"An earthquake!" Winston asks.

"Worse!" Ray says, pointing towards the back of the store. Mr. Fung, the nice oriental man who hired them to deal with the troubles in his store, had returned from the lunch break he took to let the Ghostbusters work through the back door. He's a short, thin man, probably weighing no more than a hundred pounds. But, no matter his stature or mass, to the shrunken men on his floor he may as well be a meteor crashing on Earth.

"Hello? Mr. Stantz? Mr. Zeddemore? Anybody home?" he calls, looking around. He continues down the aisle towards the front. Ray grabs Winston and pulls him around the corner of the shelves just as Mr. Fung's foot lands where they were. "Hmm, guess they left. Oh well, time to reopen the shop!" he declares, his voice sounding like a sonic boom to the tiny men.

"Did you hear that?" Ray asks, taking his hands of his ears.

"Did I have a choice?" Winston responds sarcastically. "If he's opening back up, this place is about to get pretty hazardous to our tiny health."

"We need to get to that phone."

THE FIREHOUSE

Peter comes down the stairs, looking around the empty garage bay seeing Ecto-1 still isn't back from the last job. He heads over to Janine's desk where she files her nails while listening to her walkman.

"Janine," Peter says. No response. "Janine," he says again, a little louder. Still, Janine continues with her nails. "JANINE!" She stops filing and looks up at him from the corner of her eyes.

"I could hear you, I was just hoping you'd go away," she says. Peter gives her a glare.

"Ray and Winston get back yet?"

"Gee, let me check…" She stands up and peers over the filing cabinets. "Ray? Winston? You back yet?" she asks the empty office area. She turns back to Peter and sits down. "Guess they're not." Peter chortles as he leans forward on her desk.

"You know, sarcasm's an ugly color on you," Peter comments before standing up and heading towards the office gate.

"Oh, and thanks for that lovely advice you gave Egon for our date, Dr. Venkman," Janine says, returning to her nails, causing Peter to stop in his tracks momentarily. "It was very nice of you," she adds, making her words drip with as much sarcasm as humanly possible. Peter sighs and continues into the office.

BROOKLYN

Mr. Fung sits behind the counter, listening to a Chinese radio station while across the way, two micro-sized Ghostbusters try to figure out how to get up to his phone next to the register.

"If we can get over there, we can use the phone cord to climb up," Ray says.

"Yeah, but that's gotta be at least a mile or two," Winston adds, noting not only do they have to get down the front half of the aisle, then there's the trek across the main floor of the shop to the counter. Ray rubs his chin as he thinks, looking around. He smiles and slaps Winston's arm, pointing up. "Hey, Z! Look!" Winston follows his gaze up above them to see a few Hotwheels hanging from a plastic chain off one of the shelves. "I've got an idea. Pull 'em!" They reach back and draw their proton guns, turning them on.

"How effective can these things be at this size?" Winston asks.

"Effective enough. Aim for the plastic." With that, they open fire and the streams connect with the bottom of the plastic on the lowest package. After a few seconds, it begins to warp and melt under the heat of the streams. Eventually, the car is able to fall free from the package.

"Move!" The Ghostbusters dive as the car hits the floor where they stood, unheard by Mr. Fung over his radio. Ray and Winston look up from the ground at their prize; a 1965 Chevy Corvette convertible, metallic lime green with black stripes, #5s painted on the sides and replica Goodyear tires.

"Well, at least we have SOME luck today," Winston comments about the car's managing to land on its wheels as they approach the car. At least they could avoid the hernias of trying to upright it. Suddenly, they hear the door open and the ground begins to shake as a couple of customers enter. Ray glares at Winston as he tries to keep his balance. "I know! I know! I jinxed it!" They scramble into the car before the customers passed them, holding on to the dashboard as they floor shakes as they go. "Alright, we got wheels…now how do we use them?" Winston asks, checking his teeth with his tongue to make sure his fillings are still in place. Ray holds up his proton gun.

"Jet propulsion!" he says with a smile. He turns and leans against the back of the car. Pressing the trigger, the gun fires and the stream propels the car forward.

"Woah!" Winston calls out as he's pushed against the seat. He then realizes as they head out of the aisle that they were headed straight toward the leg of a display rack. "Uh, Ray? HOW DO WE STEER!"

"Fire your blaster out the side!" Ray responds. Winston quickly does as instructed and the car is turned right to avoid the leg…only to ram into the foot of the customer as he steps out of the aisle at the same time.

The car hits the sole of the shoe and flips, sending Ray and Winston flying over the foot. The customer looks down after noticing the green streak pass briefly by in his peripheral vision and spots the car. He bends down and picks it up, looking at it curiously. He heads over to the counter with his merchandise and holds up the car to Mr. Fung as he begins to ring him out.

"Hey, I found this car loose…" he starts.

"You break it you buy it!" Mr. Fung declares.

"Okay, but I didn't break it…"

"Fine, you open it you buy it!"

"But, I didn't…I found it! I'm just giving it back to…"

"No refunds, no returns, no exchanges!"

"But I didn't…"

"That'll be $24.50, please."

"Sigh…fine." With that, the customer pays, jams the car angrily into his pocket, and storms out the door with his stuff.

"Thank you! Come again!" Mr. Fung calls sweetly after him.

MEANWHILE, THE FIREHOUSE

"Hello, Ghostbusters," Janine says into the phone after she picks it up. "Uh-huh. Give me the address. Yes, we'll get right on it," she says, scribbling on a notepad. She hangs up the phone and presses the button for the bell. Peter falls back out of his chair in the office, creating a loud crash that put a smile on Janine's face. Egon slides down one of the poles from his lab and approaches her desk as Peter limps out of the gate. "We've got a haunting in Alphabet City," Janine tells Egon, handing him the paper.

"Where's Ray and Winston?" he asks, noticing Ecto-1 isn't inside the firehouse.

"They still haven't come back yet," Janine tells him.

"They call in at all?" Peter asks.

"Nope."

"Hmm, most unusual," Egon says, adjusting his glasses. "What was the last call?" Janine looks down at the carbon sheet of her notepad.

"A thrift shop in Brooklyn." Peter glances at the paper.

"I think we should hold off on this bust until we find out what happened."

"Egon, how bad does that sound?" Peter asks, motioning to the paper in his hands. Egon looks it over.

"Sounds like a Class 1, why?"

"Well, both of us don't need to check on the others at the expense of our customers. Since that's an easy bust, we should split up our efforts until we know what the problem is."

"Sounds logical."

"Dibs on Brooklyn!" Peter says, heading for the pack in his locker, Janine looking at him suspiciously.

BROOKLYN

"Oowwww…" Ray groans as he struggles to come around on the floor. It's one thing to land on a hard surface after flying through the air at high speed; it's another to make that landing on a very uneven and hard proton pack.

I'm getting too old for this shit… Winston thinks as he picks himself up slowly. He shakes his head to clear the haze out but stops when he catches sight of something. His eyes grow wide. "Rats…"

"Nng, you can say that again…" Ray painfully agrees as he rolls over to try and get up.

"No…RATS!" Winston shouts as he runs past Ray, quickly snagging his collar dragging him to his feet and along behind him. Ray struggles to find his step as he catches a glimpse of the two hairy creatures romping after them. He suddenly finds all the aches in his body making like Houdini.

"RATS!" Winston feels his arm moving forward as Ray zips past him. He picks up his own pace to keep up, ignoring the pain from the accident.

Outside, Peter looks at Ecto-1 as he heads inside the store. Mr. Fung looks up and a smile comes on his face.

"Ah, Mr. Venkman! So good to see you again!" he says, turning down the radio.

"Hey, Mr. Fung," Peter says, cautiously looking around as he moves past the counter. "My colleagues aren't still here, are they?"

"No, but guess what is!" Mr. Fung reaches down and pulls up a slim box from behind the counter. Peter's face lights up.

"Mr. Fung, you ARE amazing!" he says as he approaches the counter and takes the box.

Down below, Ray and Winston just keep ahead of the big rats after them, looking at them like they're on the menu.

"I don't suppose…huff…you have any…huff…cheese!" Ray asks between pants.

"Ray…huff…look! It's…huff…Peter!" Winston says, pointing up as they draw close to Peter's feet by the counter.

"We need…huff huff…to get his…huff…attention!"

"First things…huff…first!" Winston pulls his rifle and holds it over his shoulder. He presses the trigger and fires. The beam flies out and hits one of the rats in the face. It roars out in pain, but shakes it off and resumes its pursuit. Peter hears a loud squeak and looks down to spot the rats.

"Gah! Rats!"

"Oh! So sorry! So sorry! Exterminator was supposed to come last week! I take care of it!" Mr. Fung grabs a fly swatter from under the counter and steps out after the rats, swatting at them and chasing them off. Winston and Ray just barely avoid being stomped on as he passes. The two Ghostbusters collapse on the floor; partly to catch their breath and partly from the shockwaves of Mr. Fung's feet.

"Nice going, Winston," Ray says breathlessly.

"Thanks. Now it's Peter's turn." Winston turns up onto his knees and fires his blaster at Peter's leg. It has no effect other than singing the fabric.

"The blaster's not powerful enough at this size. Peter won't feel it between his uniform and his pants. C'mon!" Ray forces himself to continue over to the counter and Winston drags himself after. Suddenly, the ground begins to shake. "Crap!" Ray exclaims, realizing Mr. Fung was returning. "Winston!" he calls, leading them into the bottom shelf of the counter just as Mr. Fung returns behind it.

"So sorry, Mr. Venkman. Now, about your item…"

"Ah, yes," Peter says, opening it. "Oooh baby, you ARE a miracle worker. It's perfect!"

"You know, you'd think Peter'd be here to look for us," Winston mutters.

"You'd think Peter would do a lotta things," Ray says with a shrug.

"So what now?"

"You hadda do climbing in the military, right? Rope climbing, wall climbing, stuff like that?"

"Yeah, why?" Winston ask with a confused look. Ray motions over his shoulder to the phone wire dangling nearby. Winston looks at him like he's crazy. "Are you joking? Please tell me you're joking."

"Hey, the old plans are always the best ones. Besides, you need to get within blaster range and hit Peter's hand or something. THAT he'll feel."

"What did I ever do to you?" Winston asks exasperated. The pain in his body suddenly creeps back up on him in force. Now he almost wishes the rats got them. He sulks over to the wire, shoulders slumped. "I need a better line of work."

Peter hands over the money for his purchase to Mr. Fung. "Mr. Fung, you are STILL the best deal in Brooklyn."

"Of course!" he says, ringing up the register and depositing the cash while Peter admires the object inside the box with a smile. "And I hope she likes it."

"Yeah, me too." Peter closes the box and checks his watch. "Where are those guys? You didn't see them at all?"

"Not since I went to lunch. I assumed they went to eat too. Kind of hard to miss their car out front."

"Yeah, that's what I was thinking. Or another job came up. Or Ecto broke down again and they're stuck on a subway somewhere. Sigh…guess I should start scouring around for them, huh?"

"Yeah…NOW he worries about us," Winston grunts as he pulls himself up onto the top of the counter. Peter starts towards the door, waving the box at Mr. Fung.

"Thanks for this, though. Just hope I'm not too late with it."

"It is never too late if you really care."

"Ancient Chinese proverb?"

"Fortune cookie."

"Ah. Well, I'll be seeing yeeEEOUCH!" Peter exclaims, shaking his hand frantically. "What in the…" he starts, but stops when he sees a micro-sized proton beam coming from the counter to hit him in the chest. He leans down close to the counter to see a miniature Winston standing next to the phone with his proton gun slung over his shoulder. "Winston?" Peter asks. The sound, however, is booming to Winston and he's forced to cover his ears. "Oops! Sorry!" Peter whispers. Winston shakes his fist angrily at Peter as Mr. Fung pulls out a magnifying glass to look down at the counter.

"Oh my…" he says.

"What happened? Where's Ray?" Winston makes a downward pointing motion. "Down? Down where? Downtown?" Winston shakes his head and points harder, followed by a scooping motion to signify "underneath." "Down…under? He's in Australia?" Peter quips. Winston slaps his head. Mr. Fung looks down at his counter, then crouches with the magnifying glass.

"No! Mr. Venkman! Down here!" he calls as quietly as he can. Peter heads around and crouches down, seeing Ray through the glass on the bottom shelf. "Well, that solves that!"

A short while later, Mr. Fung had dug up an old megaphone and placed it in front of Ray and Winston on the counter. Having filled Peter in on the situation, Peter radioed Janine back at the firehouse to dig out their copy of Tobin's Spirit Guide to find out how to fix this mess.

"It says here," Janine says over the radio, "that the spell of the Mite can only be reversed by the Mite itself."

"Great, what are we supposed to do; let it out and ask it nicely?" Winston asks.

"It would help if one of us was a wizard. Too bad Phineas Eventide's on sabbatical in another dimension," Ray says.

"Oh, wait, it also says the spell can be broken by returning the mite back to the amulet from whence it came."

"Does it have a description of the amulet?" Ray asks into the megaphone.

"Does it have a description of the amulet?" Peter echoes into the radio.

"No, but there is a picture. It looks round, kind of raised up with a gem-ish thing in the middle and a bunch of things etched on it. Symbols, I guess."

"Oh! I remember that!" Mr. Fung says. He quickly shuffles from the counter to the back and returns a few seconds later with a golden amulet and red jewel in the middle, looking exactly as Janine described it. "Man with a long white beard came in with it the other day, very funny looking…had this red and white striped walking stick that was huge. Red robes too… Anyway, he asked me if I would like it, so I bought it. Needed some cleaning, thought I could make a profit on re-selling it."

"You must have let out the Mite when you were cleaning it," Ray says.

"And then we came in and got zapped," Winston adds. Mr. Fung hands it over to Peter.

"We got it, Janine. Now, how do we put it back in?"

"It doesn't say."

"Let me see the amulet, Peter," Ray says. Peter places it down on the counter and Ray takes a look at it. "These aren't symbols, it's Latin!"

"Can you read it?" Winston asks.

"Well, My Latin is a little rusty, but I think these are directions on how to use the Mite." Ray grabs the trap off his belt and sets it down next to the amulet.

"Ray, you sure about this? I dunno how much smaller I can take getting if it decides to get rough again," Winston says.

"Aw, where's your sense of adventure?" Ray asks with a smile.

"I left it at my original altitude." Ray steps on the pedal and the trap opens, letting the Mite back out. The Mite looks around, a little confused, before spotting the amulet. It walks up to it and the gem in the middle opens. The Mite turns into a small glowing form and flies inside, the gem closing behind it.

"Well, that's that."

"Yeah, so now what?" The two Ghostbusters begin to glow, and then in a quick burst of smoke they return back to their original sizes on top of the counter. However, as matter only being able to occupy empty space and the counter becoming too small for their now-large bodies, Ray finds himself falling to the floor with a thud.

"Let's not do that again," Winston says, turning to jump off the counter.

"I agree…" Ray mutters.

"I think we better hold on to this," Peter says, picking up the amulet.

"Of course!" Mr. Fung says, then adds "$30, please."

"Well, Peter, pay the man," Ray says with a smirk as he and Winston start for the door. Peter glares at him as he reaches into his pocket.

"Why is it every time you guys are in trouble it costs me money?" Peter asks as he pays Mr. Fung again.

THE FIREHOUSE, A SHORT WHILE LATER

The guys hang out in the office area dining out on some fast food from a local establishment. After all that exertion (well, mostly on Winston's part, anyway), the guys found themselves a little famished as well as tired. Hunger won out over sleep for the time being, though.

"I tell ya, I may never step on a bug again," Winston says between bites.

"Tell me about it," Ray agrees.

"Well, here's to standing tall!" Peter adds, holding up his bottle of beer. The other two clink theirs to his.

"Here, here!" they say before returning to their food. Janine sticks her head up over the cabinet looking around.

"Uh, guys? Where's Egon?" The guys stop chewing as their eyes grow wide.

"Oh hell!" Peter says as he scrambles to his feet. "I sent him on a bust alone!" Winston and Ray exchange a glance before jumping up as well. No sooner do they step out of the office area than the front door closes. Egon hobbles into the firehouse, a little frazzled. They all notice that his underwear and socks are on the outside of his clothes, and that all his clothing are all reversed inside-out. Peter starts to say something, but Egon angrily points at him.

"Not. One. Word." He drops his smoking trap on the floor and starts up the stairs. Janine shakes her head as she sits back down behind her desk to go over some files.

"Sigh...just another day for the Ghostbusters."

THE END

GHOSTBUSTERS: PROFESSIONAL PARANORMAL ELIMINATORS VOL. 1 NO. 6 MARCH, 2006 Q-CREW PRODUCTIONS. THE EVENTS DEPICTED ARE ENTIRELY FICTIONAL. ANY SIMULARITIES BETWEEN ANY LIVING OR DEAD PERSONS, BUSINESS OR ORGANIZATIONS IS PURELY COINCIDENTAL. RELEASED THROUGH ATOMIC MEDIA.