Darkness at Noon
Chapter Two - Storm Coming
Egon surveyed his class apprehensively, half fearing and half hopeful Janine would show up. He was of two minds of the matter, as he often was when it concerned her. Kylie was there, early as ever, but he only registered her presence in passing and acknowledged her with a flick of his fingers. He looked at his watch for a fourth time. Two minutes until class started.
He opened his briefcase and shuffled some of the papers he had taken home to grade even though they were already in order of importance with those ungraded on top. Really, he had no understanding of that woman. It had been so long since they had...Well, there was no use dwelling on it. That was long ago, and she had forgotten much of what had come before. No need to put unneeded stress on her, lest she recall things best left lying in the dust.
Then she walked in, sat down in the front row, and his heart caught in his throat, strangling his words before they could be spoken. Again. He cleared his throat and gathered his lesson plan for the day's lecture, allowing him a moment to clear that infuriatingly fuzzy feeling from his mind.
This was going to be more difficult than he had previously imagined.
He had lectured for the majority of the hour without really paying attention to what he was saying. He could have done it in his sleep. Possibly underwater. Probably backwards. He had spent far too much of his young adulthood explaining why this was all plausible to have any trouble explaining it now. One of his particularly brutal thesis defenses came to mind. Regardless, no one seemed to have noticed his distraction. He pushed his glasses back up his nose.
He was all too aware of her watching him now. He was currently trying very hard not to sweat or look discomforted. There were several reasons, if not dozens, as to why there could be no pursuit of her; student-teacher relationship being one of them, and even if it was not nearly the most important factor it could cost him his employment and her years of studiousness. His employment was the lesser of the two concerns on that matter; education was vital and compromising that would be an unforgivable offense.
He viciously cursed his luck. He could have lived with all the mishaps, injuries, molecular destabilizations, and possessions if just this one thing in his life had gone right. But, as it so happened, nothing was ever as simple as Occam's Razor would have one believe. And thus he had to make do with what cards had been laid before him.
A familiar babble and chorus of shrieks brought him out of his gloom.
He turned just in time to see Slimer burst through the doors, actually pushing them open rather than phasing through. Interesting.
Then he noticed all those people panicking outside...The Dean would have his head on a golden platter.
"Slimer?" Janine stood, crossing the short distance to the podium in record time.
"Slimer!" Egon called, getting his attention. Slimer floated towards them, obviously distressed.
Kylie was thrilled. "A ghost! Yes!" she shouted, standing up in her excitement.
"Let's get him!" cried Garrett, disengaging the brake on his wheelchair and rolling towards them. Egon chose to ignore how familiar that phrase sounded. Slimer would not be here if it wasn't an emergency, he had for some time feared that due to the diminished spectral activity the little ghost might have been tied to the latent energy associated with the Firehouse. Certainly he had decreased in intelligence and size over time, even his appetite had been affected...
"No, wait! Slimer's a friend!" Janine held up her hands, stopping Garrett in his tracks while Slimer fled to the sleeping Eduardo's lap.
Eduardo, predictably, shrieked and evicted the ghost from his hiding place.
Slimer drifted back towards Egon and immediately began rattling off a number of syllables that he could only just identify. His speech was improving with each passing moment, allowing him to vocalize sounds that could be associated with words, something Egon had not heard from the little spectre in quite some time.
"The PKE meters? They're...They're doing what?" he asked, watching the charades the ghost was re-enacting to get his point across. This could be Bad with a capital 'b'.
"He wants us to follow him to the Firehouse," he translated for the others, casting a worried glance at Janine. She returned the look with a furrowing of her brow and a frown. She understood the urgency. Good.
"Class dismissed! We have to go." He turned towards the door. The subway was probably crammed at this hour, great.
"We can take my Mustang, it's parked right out front," offered Roland, the quiet student who sat in the front row. Oh thank goodness, his left knee would not have looked forward to a sprint...
He had not counted on the rest of the class trailing them out. He was half tempted to tell them to go home, but the circumstances would have made arguing pointless and time consuming when time could be of the essence. So he begrudgingly permitted the rest of them coming, bouncing on his heels as he waited for them to load Garrett's wheelchair.
The ride was excruciating. Roland drove so slowly he was half convinced the young man was doing it on purpose.
Honking cars around them agreed. Out the window a cab driver rolled down his window to shout obscenities and encouragement to pick up the pace. He opened his mouth to agree and caught an elbow in the ribs. He smiled ruefully at Janine.
Janine gave him a sharp look before patting Roland's arm. "Don't mind him, Roland, you're very conscientious behind the wheel."
Dropping the subject he unlocked his seatbelt and opened his cardoor, ignoring Roland's soft sound of surprise as he headed for the Firehouse door and reached for his briefcase to get his keys.
His briefcase back on the podium. Forty-five minutes of Roland's driving away.
Hopefully, he tried the door. He had left it unlocked before by accident...No such luck today. "Darn!"
He gritted his teeth and closed his eyes, calming himself quickly as the rest of them got out of the car.
"What's the deal, don't you have keys?" Garrett asked.
"Yes...In my briefcase back in the lecture hall." He rubbed the back of his neck, abashed.
"Hey, no sweat, I got a surefire method for picking locks." Grinned the red-head, gripping his wheels.
Oh no.
Egon backed away fractionally, in apprehension.
Oh no no no, don't break my door...
But, of course, that was what happened. Egon winced when he heard wood splinter, the bolt bursting through the other side. He took a deep breath. Okay, that door needed replaced anyway...
Of course, in his momentary shock they entered before him, gawking at his embarrassingly dirty home. He bypassed them as they were occupied looking at Ecto-1 in all her late glory, picking up an intact PKE meter from the worktable and turning it on to take a look. The meter sprang to life, the waves spiking in ways he hadn't seen in years.
"PKE readings are through the roof..." He glanced back at his students to be sure they weren't touching anything potentially volatile. "This is indicative of a major outbreak of ectoplasmic activity." Hopefully they would sense the situation and go home, where it was safe.
"Ghosts walk among us." Kylie whispered in that strangely reverent tone.
"And so do weird chicks..." Eduardo muttered from the doorway. He had not entered and was looking around the place as though he could sense the magnitude of energy within. Maybe he could, Egon had met a few persons who had an instinctive sensitivity to the supernatural...
Seeing they weren't really touching much he headed around the low gate into Peter's old office to boot up his computer. His physical copy of Tobin's was all the way upstairs and he didn't want to leave four kids and Janine downstairs with all the potential disasters he was currently keeping down there.
"What's this do?" Roland asked, picking up a piece of equipment from the table. Case in point.
"That's what's known as a Spectral Proto-Capacitator, or what would be known in laymen's terms as-"
"A ghost beacon!" Kylie supplied.
Well, that was a pleasant surprise. "Correct. By emitting an ultra-sonic frequency it allows the user to summon a ghost." Marsha was still booting up, and taking her sweet time doing it. He stood to intervene with the equipment before anything happened.
Kylie took the beacon, eyes wide with wonder as she pressed the buttons along the bottom.
Egon quickly took it from her hands, pressing the fins closed around the emitter. "Ah...We...Don't want any accidents..." He held onto the device; the way she had looked at it was not very comforting.
"-and you still don't have a vacuum." Janine voiced her disapproval, tossing a dust coated book down onto a pile on her old desk with a cough.
All of those were her books, really. She had left them behind, in that spot, where they had sat untouched for the past five years. He hadn't had the heart to move them. Before they were so dusty as to obscure the titles - Pride and Prejudice, The Great Gatsby, and North and South, mostly classic or historic romances from what he had gathered - it was as if she might return for them.
She turned on the rabbit eared black-and-white television that still sat on her desk, shooting a disapproving look at Slimer as a splat of ectoplasm landed on the screen. Egon allowed himself a satisfied glance at the disturbed novels before focusing on the grainy screen.
"-kers claim to have seen something supernatural, or they may have inhaled too many exhaust fumes," Judy Lee, the reporter, winked at the screen. "It looks like the new tunnel will be dedicated on time tomorrow night. Back to you Tom."
"What do you wanna bet...?" Garrett glanced over at Egon.
Egon snapped his fingers. "That's it. The workers must have opened an ecto-triangulation breech -"
Kylie chimed in, eye bright. "A gateway to a ghostly dimension!"
Another pleasant surprise. The girl was quick, that was for sure. "You...Do know your Spengler, don't you?" he commented, feeling a tad self conscious. He smiled reflexively.
"I've read your book cover to cover six times," she grinned, not catching his embarrassment.
Eduardo muttered something under his breath behind them that Egon didn't quite catch.
"I have to get down to that tunnel, take some readings..." he muttered, staring down at the PKE meter. He had no fondness whatsoever for the way it was spiking, as though there was a slow leak in the containment unit. Like a deep wound the less it was tended to the more it would bleed, and he feared what might come through if it continued.
A hand on his elbow startled him out of his reverie. "-always gives you nosebleeds," Janine was saying sternly.
Even in this situation he had to actually try to ignore the slightly ill feeling he had in his stomach. He swallowed thickly, staring down at her with a frown. Surely she could understand this could be potentially dangerous. "Oh, uh...Class dismissed." Again.
"What? Can't we come along?" Kylie implored, crushed.
"Yeah, what about us?" Garrett huffed.
"I can drive you!" Roland offered.
A ride would be welcome, but these were just kids. They had no idea what they were getting into, none at all.
"No," he said firmly, turning away and heading out the door in hopes they would catch the hint. "See you Monday at 5:30."
"Egon, wait! Hey, lock up on your way out!" Janine yelled, pointing back at the kids as she caught up to his much longer strides.
Egon tried to ignore the stress this was putting on his mildly arthritic knee for about a block before he gave up and slowed to a more sedate pace.
"We could have gotten there faster with a ride, you know." Janine slipped a hand through the crook of his elbow, binding him to her pace. He forced himself to resist reacting overtly.
"And they would be more at risk, you know that as well as I do," he grimaced, glaring at the sky. It was going to rain tonight, no doubt. Spengler luck, wasn't that what Peter would have called this?
"Don't they get a choice in that?" she asked softly, eyes on the sidewalk. He looked at her out of the corner of his eye, gulping again and praying she didn't see the guilt he was so sure was written all across his face.
"Well...You know how dangerous this line of work is," he stuttered.
"To snoop around a subway tunnel?"
"The last time I 'snooped around' a subway tunnel we were pulled into a river of slime and almost killed each other. That was after we almost drowned. Slime is also most unpleasant to remove from your hair, as you well know, much less electromagnatheric slime under the will of a long dead madman. Shortly thereafter we were arrested and then placed in an insane asylum. Those records are difficult to expunge-"
"Okay, okay! Point taken," she admitted with an air of mild irritation, releasing his elbow for a moment to hold up her hands in a complacent gesture. That done, her hand returned to its prior location. He swallowed again and trained his eyes on the meter.
After a moment he cleared his throat. "You should go home as well, really, I can handle this..." he said softly. He would feel much more at ease if she was well out of harms way.
"Oh, shut up."
Alas. He shut up.
The trip to the tunnel, coincidentally using the subways as their means to get there, turned out to be nearly pointless. With the amount of police, firemen, and hazardous waste handlers investigating the site they were blockaded from entering far from where he needed to be in order to get any conclusive readings. At best he could tell that there was indeed a rip, but precisely where underground was another matter entirely, not to mention the best method to seal it. He would need to see what they were dealing with in order to formulate the appropriate response.
Thankfully Janine had the fortune to find one of the hazardous waste van unattended and was able to sneak two Hazmat suits from it. They slipped in with another yellow-suited group and were able to get just close enough to get what information he required to determine the location and rough size of the issue. They had snuck out again, thankfully unnoticed, and discarded their borrowed goods near the entrance to the tunnel. Really he would have gone further down the tunnel had he not been accompanied by Janine, but with her additional presence he felt it wise to err on the side of caution.
Egon found himself very glad that they had not been arrested, if that was any consolation to the fact he could not immediately act upon his findings. Not that it would have been his first time, but being in the lockup was always unpleasant. He also suspected Janine had far less experience in that area than he did and would rather it have remained that way.
He grudgingly accepted her offered tissue as they headed back above ground. Predictably, the thin capillaries in his nostrils had split minutely thanks to the combination of September's cooling dry air and his common dosage of aspirin working as a blood thinner. He dabbed at the offending fluid and then pressed his thumb to the side of his nose. No time to stop and let it clot, there was work to be done.
Now remained the issue of making sure the gateway could be sealed at all, which would involve the immediate cessation of all construction activities in that area until a thorough examination and seal could be placed. Considering the construction had disrupted said seal it was likely physical, which was common. Location pointed to possible Native American origins, unless it had been sealed somewhere in the 1600's or so, which would make properly repairing the means by which it was barricaded more difficult and potentially impossible if it could not be identified...
As soon as they reached the Firehouse, the door of which was hastily shut, he felt as though the weight of the world had just dropped onto his shoulders.
Cessation of construction? Yeah, right. Mayor McShane was not the type of man who would believe a word he had to say. Still, he had to try...And so he picked up the phone, and between himself and Janine they spent the following two hours trying to reach the mayor. It was a frustrating waste of time and eventually, once Janine reluctantly agreed to go home on his solemn word that he would not go back to the tunnel, he found himself sequestered in his laboratory pouring over any books that might lead to clues about what sort of leylines and potential weak points could have possibly been linked to that area.
Of course, every hour he spent looking meant that much more could have escaped. He read until the pages blurred and shifted. The last he was aware of was the sounds of the early morning dump trucks outside and the rose hue outside the window.
He woke with a jerk and a wordless yell when a hand fell on his shoulder.
"Hey," Janine said softly from behind him. He stiffened, feeling every muscle he had just abused by sleeping upright in an old office chair protest.
"Janine," he stated, carefully. "I thought you went home."
"I did, it's almost 2 in the afternoon."
That explained the gnawing feeling he felt in his stomach. He groaned inwardly, but not otherwise express his irritation that he had slept that long. He pawed around for his glasses - they must have slipped off as he rested - and found them placed into his palm. He grunted his thanks and stood, stretching.
"I figured you would want to go to the dedication, thought I might offer you a ride there instead of taking the subway," she continued.
Not an offer he could turn down, really. So he followed her out to her car, glaring at his still broken door on his way out. At the very least no one in the area would bother trying to go in; Slimer being present had thwarted enough would-be robbers to prevent it ever happening again.
He noted that the pink VW Beetle Janine was unlocking was the very same car she had driven for several years. Clambering into the passenger seat he remembered why he had not appreciated the car very much. His knees tapped against the dash as they rode away, leaving him feeling more than mildly ridiculous and cramped. If they were in an automobile accident he would surely perish.
Thankfully Janine had the presence of mind not to drive as though they were en route to a funeral.
Hopefully not, anyway.
They arrived in good time, just as the mayor was beginning his speech, garnering more voters by adding this last minute additional transportation.
"I was right," he hissed to Janine, holding his meter aloft to try and avoid the interference of dozens of bodies crammed in a small space. Janine, who was trailing in his wake, wordlessly pressed a tissue into his hand and he grimaced, holding it beneath his nostrils to stave the likely blood flow.
"This place is brimming with paranormal activi-" he stopped short of clunking the hard edge of the meter into a startled reporter's face. "Excuse me...pardon me..." he murmured, slipping through them, able to see over their heads with relative ease. Being taller than average had its advantages on occasion.
He slipped through the crowd with relative ease, reaching the stairs just as the mayor lofted a bottle of champagne to smash against a model subway, dedicating the future tunnel in his name. He halted in place, scowling at the former ghostbuster.
"What in blazes is going on here?" the mayor growled, staring pointedly at the PKE meter.
Egon shoved his glasses back up, barely noticing he had lost his tissue somewhere along the way. "Mr Mayor! You must shut down this tunnel, it could be a disas-"
Abruptly microphones were thrust uncomfortably close to his face, forcing him backwards up the stairs. "- Disastrous! It's opened an interdimensional rift, a gateway to the spirit world, who knows what's already gotten out!"
The reporters looked at each other with the blank eyes of sheep ready for slaughter. Most of the city was like this; many too young to remember, more that didn't believe because they had not seen it themselves. More than that thought it was a hoax, a publicity stunt. Debunking disbelief and doubt never ceased to be his Sisyphean task in life.
"Calm down everyone!" the mayor placated. "For those of you who are too young to remember, this is the illustrious Egon Spengler."
Egon hazarded a smile. Perhaps he had misjudged McShane.
"A charter member of those psychotic vigilantes known as the Ghostbusters!" the mayor continued. Egon's smile slid off his face. "Back in the 80s they thought they could pull a fast one on this city, causing massive property damage and claiming it was all ghosts! But fortunately, they were shut down."
Egon opened his mouth to speak but was cut off by the mayor's snarling visage. "Looks like old habits die hard."
"But that's totally untrue!" Egon protested. "We shut ourselves down because there weren't any ghosts left to-"
"Exactly. There. Weren't. Any. Ghosts," McShane's tone was laced with acid. A chorus of laughter echoed through the tunnel, from reporters too young or too blind to accept that not everything intangible could be fantasy.
The mayor sneered at him. "Now if you'll come this way, ladies and gentlemen, let me show you something real. Security, handle this mess, will you?"
"Wait, Mr Mayor! You've got to fill in this tunnel!" Egon yelled, backing up to the backdrop, away from the approaching security detail. "The public needs to know!"
"Know what? That you're an insane has-been? Everyone has seen the records, Doctor Spengler," McShane countered over his shoulder.
Egon winced.
"Hey! Where does the mayor get off violating doctor-patient confidentiality and commiting defamation of character!" Janine was standing near the stage now, having shoved her way through the last of the reporters.
"It isn't defamation if it's true, and it isn't confidential if everyone knows." At least McShane looked slightly nervous. "Get them out of here!"
"I asked you a question!" Janine snarled, glaring at the security guards that were trying to corner her. Her eyes flashed with fury. Even they looked taken aback. "Just where do you get off! Is this how the mayor treats the public?"
McShane stared at her for a moment, glanced at the security guards, and hurried away down the tunnel, flanked by his staff. Several of the reporters glanced back at them, hurriedly writing notes. McShane wouldn't come away unscathed by this.
"Get back here!" Janine yelled. A security guard moved to grab her, but Egon hurried across the stage and dropped down behind her. His knee protested, but he kept his balance, holding up his hands.
"Wait! Wait, we'll go peacefully."
"Like hell!" Janine rounded on him. "You're just going to let him get away with humiliating you?"
Egon gripped her shoulders, bending at the waist to look her in the eyes and speaking low and calm, hoping to sooth her. "If the mayor won't help I will just take care of it myself. We have other things to worry about and I'd rather not think about them in a jail cell." Much less with an angry Janine, the woman could be like a caged tiger. As much as he cared for her, being around her in a confined space when she was angry was the last thing he wanted to do.
Mostly because it might just be the last thing he would ever do. She was terrifying.
"Hey, just let them go. I'll take them up," offered one of the guards, waving off his compatriots.
"Right," Egon said shortly, turning Janine around and pushing her ahead of himself up the stairs despite her protests. He would not hear the end of this, but it got them out of a potentially volatile situation.
"Hey, uh..." the guard put a hand on his shoulder halfway up, pausing their progress.
"For what it's worth...I believe you." The young man smiled. "It's good to see you again, Doctor Spengler." Egon glanced down, noting the name tag on the man's shirt. L. Meredith. It seemed familiar, but he couldn't place it to this person's face.
Egon blinked, letting Janine go for a moment in his distraction. She rounded to launch into an argument about why they should repay the mayor in kind when the guard abruptly clasped Egon in a bear hug. She was apparently shocked into silence.
"Uh..." Egon articulated, not much better off. He was released just as quickly as he was seized, his ribs sore.
"You saved my brother and me, and I can never thank you guys enough for that. But this is about all I can do for you, so get out of here before the other guys change their minds." Meredith looked back down the stairs. "Go on, hurry."
Egon blinked, but Janine grasped his wrist and led him back to her car. Her earlier blind fury dissolved by the time they arrived, but she was by no means less angry with the mayor.
Her driving was testament to that. Egon willed himself to simply go limp; should they meet with a collision perhaps being limp would potentially save his life. It proved more difficult than expected.
"Lousy good for nothing politicians think they have to prove they're better than everyone by being so damned smug and arrogant..." she muttered as she drove. "Hey! Get your own lane, this one's mine!"
Egon sank further into his seat, glad she was no longer speaking directly to him.
The Firehouse was a welcome solace. As disorganized as it was, it was still home with all the associated amenities. The steady beeping, the soothing hum of the containment unit, the lingering odor of electrical fire that had never really left the aging building...The sound of angry stomping on high heels behind him as he gathered his gear.
"Janine. I have to do this, you know that. No one else will," he stated calmly, rifling through his closet in search of a flight suit that was not in tatters. When had so many of his uniforms gotten destroyed?
"That's what I'm trying to say! I'm going too." Janine crossed her arms, staring at him from the doorway.
He glanced up and took in how the light of the hall framed her pleasing symmetry perfectly. Then he returned to his task, kneeling to pull out an unopened UPS box. Good, these would have been the last uniforms they had ordered. "I can't let you do that, for one there are dozens of forms you would need to fill before I could allow you to handle a proton gun."
"Bullshit, and you know it. I'm going." Her arm appeared over his shoulder and snatched a flight suit off the hangar. She was away before he could mention that the one in her hands had a huge hole in the armpit he had once intended to mend. She would figure it out regardless, and it was uselessly frustrating to try and talk her out of it.
He sighed, shaking out a wrinkled uniform. Most of this box was in his colors. Small comforts.
Half an hour later he wondered when he had ever been so skinny as to fit into such a garment. He had managed it, but not with as much ease as he had hoped for. He grumbled under his breath as he tied his shoes.
Janine reappeared in the doorway, barefoot and biting her lip a little sheepishly. His old uniform was draped over an arm. "Um."
"The undamaged ones are in the box. I think Peter left a pair of boots under his bed," Egon supplied, surrendering the fight. It would have broken the First Rule to go alone, as much as he disliked dragging her into his battles.
She made a noise of thanks, pulled a fresh suit from the box, fished said boots out from under Peter's bed, and disappeared into the hallway again.
Egon buried his face in his hands with a soft groan as soon as she was out of sight. A splat near his ear announced Slimer's presence. "What am I going to do with that woman, Slimer?" he muttered through his fingers, dragging them down the sides of his face.
Slimer's incomprehensible answer was not the greatest of help. Nor was the cold, wet pat on the head he gave before floating through the floor to presumably get the proton packs like he had been asked.
"Well, at least a shower's inevitable," Egon sighed, running a hand through his now-plastered hair. "Yech."
"Yech is right, these boots still smell like Peter's feet." Janine reappeared.
He gave her a somewhat forced smile, still annoyed with her pressuring as much as he appreciated her company.
She looked so small with the sleeves rolled up and the cuffs tucked into boots that were a bit large on her. It was endearing on her, where it would simply look ridiculous on anyone else. Taking her into the field was daunting to think of.
"Alright, let's go," she stating, sliding down the pole with a practiced ease that he had forgotten she possessed. He watched her go with only a little less apprehension before joining her.
Ecto-1 wouldn't start up, of course, having been sitting in the same spot for so long. Janine didn't even scold him for letting the battery run down having been witness to his skills - or lack thereof - behind the wheel, which were embarrassingly well known to his long time companions.
So it was that they once again took her VW Beetle and he once again had his knees cramped up somewhere around his shoulders. At the very least it allowed him to concentrate on the PKE meter and call out directions. If they couldn't treat the cause they could at least treat the symptoms, and from the readings it looked to be a rather large one they were tailing.
"Stop here, it's in the area," he looked out the side window when suddenly a snake like head appeared beyond the windshield, watching them both. He stared, stricken as he reached blindly into the back seat for his pack. Janine honked the horn and revved the engine, startling the head enough for it to retreat.
"After it!" she called, hauling her own pack over the seat with a strength that caught him off guard, opening the door and giving pursuit before he could even slide his pack into the front and get it on his back.
Why had he made these things so heavy? Oh, yeah, nuclear accelerator.
He caught up to her at the junction of an alley, nearly out of breath. She brandished her neutrona wand expertly, eyes on the rooftops. He hadn't forgotten the brazen way she had faced down demons, and his admiration of such bravery returned full force.
"It's gone somewhere nearby, the meter is still reacting. We should try to corner it, lure it into an open area for entrapment."
"Shoot, the trap is still in the car!" Janine thumped the heel of her palm to her forehead.
Crumbs. "Go back and get it, I'll wait here. Hopefully we can pick up the trail easily." Egon looked back to the meter, the dial slowly ticking lower on the scale. Whatever they were chasing was good at covering its tracks, physical or ethereal. The thought of something being able to predict pursuit on the ethereal scale forged an uncomfortable knot in his stomach.
He watched Janine go, trying to keep her in sight as well as keeping an eye on the trail. He was so intent he did not even notice the attack until it was too late, his yell smothered by something fleshy and writhing.
He squirmed and felt himself lifted off his feet, then dropped abruptly. The air whooshed out of his lungs as 40 pounds of proton pack landed on his back, stunning him. His ears rang, but he could hear two feminine voices in what sounded to be an argument. Oh please, don't let Janine come back now...
Damp concrete scraped against his face as he tried to move, but the weight of pack made it more difficult for him to catch his breath. A hand covered the side of his face that was not pressed against the asphalt and he relaxed momentarily. Janine had probably driven it away.
Then came a burning agony, searing from soft fingertips into his flesh like so many hot pokers. He made a strangled noise in his throat and his fists reflexively clenched, unable to do much else. Stars burst in his eyes and he shut them against the glaring brightness.
Light seeped past his eyelids too, and suddenly the agony was gone, leaving a dull ache all along the right side of his face.
"Egon! Egon, are you alright?" Janine's voice.
He felt himself shoved onto his side and took a gasping breath of unrestricted air.
"Egon!" Arms wrapped around him awkwardly, threatening what little breath he could catch. "Are you hurt? What was that thing?"
Whatever it was, it probably wanted another piece of him and she couldn't be around when that happened.
"'M...Alright...Just got...the breath...knocked out..." he wheezed, forcing himself to sit up and turning the right side of his face away from her. It was dark, maybe she wouldn't notice.
"As long as you're alright..." she sounded uneasy.
"I...think that's enough...for tonight," he shot her a crooked smile. Ow. Oh that hurt. "Regroup and research it tomorrow, after class. Can you...drop me off?"
"Well, alright..." She conceded, helping him to his feet.
The ride back home was exceptionally difficult, mostly due to the fact his face itched and burned, and the lights all around were assaulting his eyes. He kept his hands firmly in his lap, allowing for no hint of his condition.
Once there he quickly said his goodbyes, exited the vehicle, and entered the Firehouse hoping she would just leave.
"Egon...? You're acting strange."
Of course she wouldn't, the woman was too perceptive and too good to just up and leave.
"I'm alright, I just have a migraine...I'd like to just lie down for a while. I'll see you in class tomorrow," he murmured. Even his own voice was making his ears ache.
"I could help you, get the packs put away..."
"Janine, just go!" He hadn't meant to be that harsh. He couldn't bring himself to turn and see the hurt on her face, not until long after he heard the soft closure of the door signalling that she had left him for the safety of her home.
Maybe this time that door shutting would be permanent.
Storm Coming is a song by Gnarls Barkley.