Chapter Twelve
"Wasn't so hard." Peter said.
"What the fuck was that?" I looked around. "You call that a god?" I scoffed. We walked over to the platform.
"We neutronized it." Ray said. "You know what that means? A complete particle reversal!"
"And we had the tools, we had the talent!" Winston smiled.
"It's Miller time!" Peter held his hand out and we all put ours on top of his. Except for one.
"Ray, this looks extraordinarily bad." Egon said. He was holding up one of his devices.
"Oh, no..." Ray muttered.
"What?" Peter asked. A creaking noise was heard.
"Look out!" Egon cried. A stone head fell off of the building.
"Sub-creatures.." we heard. "Gozer the Gozerian, Gozer the Destructor, Volguus Zildrohar the Traveler has come. Choose and perish."
We all looked at each other. Ray spoke up. "What do you mean choose?" he asked. "We don't understand."
"Choose." Gozer demanded. "Choose the form of the Destructor."
"Oh, I get it! I get it! Oh, very cute. Whatever we think of. If we think of J. Edgar Hoover, J. Edgar Hoover will appear and destroy us, okay, so empty your heads. Empty your heads. Don't think of anything. We've only got one shot at this."
"The choice is made." We suddenly heard. My brother turned while everyone else jumped.
"Whoa! Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Peter said.
"The Traveler has come."
"Whoa, nobody choosed anything!" Peter pointed at Egon. "Did you choose anything?"
"No." Egon responded.
"Did you?" he pointed to Winston.
"My mind is totally blank."
"What about you?" he pointed at me.
"Nuh uh." I shook my head.
"I didn't choose anything!"
We all suddenly looked at Ray, who looked nervous. We advanced towards him as he backed up.
"I couldn't help it." He defended himself. "It just popped in there."
"What? What just 'popped in there'?" Peter snapped.
"I...I...I tried to think—"
"Look!" Egon shouted. We ran to the side of the building.
"No! It can't be!"
"What is it?" Peter snapped.
"It can't be!"
"What did you do, Ray?"
"Oh, shit." Winston's mouth dropped open. We all just looked at him.
"It's the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man." Ray said. Cars crashed into each other. Stay Puft growled and walked around New York City.
"Well there's something you don't see every day." Peter nodded his head.
"I tried to think of the most harmless thing. Something I loved from my childhood. Something that could never ever possibly destroy us. Mr. Stay Puft."
"Nice thinking, Ray."
"We used to roast Stay Puft marshmallows by the fire by Camp Waconda."
"And this is your payback. After all these years, Mr. Stay Puft is going to get you for eating his children." I said. Ray groaned. Peter walked over to Egon.
"Ray has gone bye-bye, Egon. What have you got left?" he asked.
"Sorry, Venkman." Egon shook his head. "I'm terrified beyond the capacity for rational thought."
"Which is a very fancy way to say that he's scared shitless." I said.
"Basically." Peter nodded in agreement.
"You know, this has always been my dream. Death by marshmallow." I spoke sarcastically, of course. People were screaming and some were actually filming the incident. Stay Puft roared and then looked up at us.
"Oh, no." Winston's eyes widened.
"Mother pus bucket." Peter said simply. Right after that, Stay Puft stepped on the roof of a church, which set Peter off. "Nobody steps on a church in my town!" he snapped.
"One, two, three, roast him!" Ray yelled.
The five of us shot at the marshmallow man, making his face contort in anger. He roared and stepped back once and then leaned on the building, the fire from his limbs shooting up at us. I screamed and the five of us fell back to safety.
"Funny us going out like this. Killed by a 100 foot marshmallow man." Ray shook his head.
"I said the same thing. Sort of." I sighed quietly.
"It sucks."
"It really does."
"We've been going about this all wrong." Peter said. "This Mr. Stay Puft okay. He's a sailor. He's in New York. We get this guy laid, we won't have any trouble."
"Don't look at me! I ain't seducing no marshmallow man." I held up my hands. "Besides, I'd probably end up eating him." I looked down. Peter started laughing. We felt the building shake and he stopped.
"I have a radical idea." Egon said after a second of thought. "The door swings both ways. We could reverse the particle flow through the gate."
"How?" Ray asked, curious.
Egon paused for half a second, not even liking the sound of his own idea. "We'll cross the streams."
"Excuse me, Egon. You said crossing the streams was bad." Peter said.
"Cross the streams..." Ray winced at the thought
"Yeah. Basically we'd explode if we did that remember?" I just looked at him.
"You're gonna endanger us. You're gonna endanger our client...the nice lady who paid us in advance before she became a dog."
"Not necessarily." Egon shook his head. "There's definitely a very slim chance we'll survive."
Winston rolled his eyes. We all looked at each other. Peter smacked Ray's face.
"I love this plan!" he exclaimed. "I'm excited to be a part of it. Let's do it!"
"This job is definitely not worth 11,500 a year!" Winston got up.
"Oh, God..." I mumbled.
"What? Are you just now becoming a scardy-cat?" Peter looked at me. I looked up at him.
"You kidding? We Venkmans got nerves of steel!" I stood.
"Damn straight."
Ray held in his laughter. "Nerves of steel my ass." He mumbled. I chucked and smacked him lightly upside the head as we got up. Stay Puft's hand landed on the holding behind us. Ray whimpered and we ran forward.
"Hurry!" Egon looked at us. Peter looked at Ray.
"See you on the other side, Ray." He shot at the space in front of him.
"Nice working with you Dr. Venkman." Ray gave a soft smile and then did the same. They crossed their streams. "Let's turn them on, Spengler!" the rest of us turned our streams on. "Now, Spengler!" we all crossed our streams, and there was a huge explosion.
Then, everything got quiet.