"I am definitely incubating influenza," he thought while stepping out of Ecto 1 and onto the windswept deck of Cleveland, Ohio's Hope Memorial Bridge, He blew his nose before adjusting his hood against the arctic blast of horizontal Lake effect snow.
They had been waiting for him inside the fire station, Ecto 1 idling, winter coats pulled on over their coveralls. The painting was left propped against Janine's desk as with an aching head, he'd climbed into the old converted ambulance without any clear idea of where they were going.
Janine handed in coffee, sandwiches and a map before tossing a box of tissues at Egon from a safe distance, "I don't know what you're comin' down with MISTER Spengler, but keep it to yourself – I'm not getting' paid enough to catch your germs!"
Janine had been like that since the 4th of July bar-b-cue on the roof when Peter shoved the two of them into the third floor broom closet, locking them in.
This led to exactly 60 minutes and 35.2 seconds of awkward but not exactly unpleasant fumbling around in the dusty darkness until Winston needed more charcoal - both came tumbling out wearing each other's glasses with Janine yanking her skirt down and her halter up and Egon's shirt hanging out in the back. Those outside the closet cheered –after hurling Egon's glasses at him and snatching hers off of his face, Janine stormed home, refusing to answer her phone for a week. The knowing smirks Ray Stanz still kept shooting Egon every time Janine entered the room told him that plainly there were many things that the boy-faced Ray knew that Egon didn't and needed to research. What was strange, Janine now no longer wanted to go with him to museums; something which Egon kept telling himself was unimportant – so why did he always feel a little lost without her on his days off? A geranium as a peace offering might help.
Germs and geraniums aside, the Ohio Department of Transportation had called that morning; something was wrong with one of the bridges leading in and out of Cleveland – something wrong that only they could deal with now that everything else had been tried.
The bridge superintendent, hunched against the cold despite his heavy coat, filled them in on what had happened: for the last five days what they thought was a routine electrical fault kept stalling traffic on the bridge. A man had been injured when the bucket truck he was working out of shorted, burning out all the wiring in the hydraulics and engine – by ball lightning that acted like a mean dog. That same day, the electrical systems of vehicles crossing the bridge burned out, which meant traffic was brought to a halt by stalled vehicles needing to be towed. Ball lightning had been spotted bouncing off of hoods and windshields; anyone who left their vehicles got chased.
While Ray and the superintendent tried to hold onto a schematic of the bridge in the high wind as Winston and Peter suited up, Egon took out his PKE meter, activating it. Throat raw, he started walking across down the broken yellow line, intently watching the little screen – yes, there was something there, something he'd never seen before… sizzling, a ball of lightning rose up out of the salt and sand dusted asphalt beneath his feet, knocking him sprawling and his glasses flying.
"Whoah, whoah, WHOAH – man down! Man down" Peter yelled, dropping his proton pack and running towards Egon, who lay looking up at the dirty looking sky, hair on end, PKE meter in smoking pieces fanned around him. Ray ran up, and dropped to his knees, trying to support Egon's head, "Help me get him up, Peter easy, easy, watch his head,.oh my God, he's heavier than he looks!" Winston crab-ran, bring up the rear, proton pack activated, warily tracking Egon's assailant as it lazily bounced across the pavement, and with a hiss, flipped over the side with a gibbering Slimer right behind it.
"No mom, I'm not going to blow up the garage again… I'm going… to… pass out." Egon mumbled, hands reaching up to adjust his glasses, which now lay bent and half melted on the asphalt behind them even as Ray and Peter tried to get him off the bridge, one arm over each shoulder. "Has anyone seen my glasses?" Knees buckling under his own weight, Egon pulled free before they could catch him, sending him face down on the cold surface – the rubber soles of his boots were melted.
"Somebody call an ambulance!" Peter yelled. "Fuck, he's stopped breathing – Ray, start CPR!"