7
Dr. Venkman met them out front where he stood laughing with a pretty redhead. The look between Egon and Ray signified that they both suspected Peter had promised her a favor as a means of impressing his way into her bedroom.
"We are getting paid for this," Winston warned, wary of Venkman's chicanery.
Pete walked over to drape an arm across his shoulders. "Relax, Wince. We might run into a Class 3 Repeater at best. Hey—how come you guys aren't suited up?"
They ignored him as they retrieved the same gear they had used at the last site. Ray asked, "You want Thai after this?"
"I was thinkin' Mexican," said Winston.
"Filipino," suggested Egon.
"Filipino?" echoed Ray.
"What's the hold-up, guys?" Venkman chuckled uneasily. "Grab the packs and let's hit it!" He had draped himself over the redhead who seemed to find nearly everything hilarious.
"This is just a preliminary investigation," announced Egon as he grabbed the last working PKE meter.
An elderly woman in a faded, floral print housedress emerged to gawk at them. "Are you here to take care of Old Henry?"
"If we find evidence of anything untoward," Ray began, "to whom should we send the bill?"
"Ah, that'd be Mr. Trask, I guess," she muttered. She blinked at the men and said, "I guess," again with a shrug.
Winston cut his eyes toward Raymond who adopted a stoic face. "Shall we begin?" asked Dr. Stantz, hitching up his belt.
Peter drafted the young woman for their tour guide, but it soon became clear that she hadn't been a tenant there for long and her story changed a few times under questioning—most of them sounding less and less like any kind of actual paranormal activity.
"So, a voice in the laundry room called your name?" Venkman prompted as the rest of the team stared dully at the equipment they'd brought.
"Well, maybe, but I think it said Callie and my name's actually Kaley."
"And had you been drinking on that occasion?" Ray piped politely. "Where you perhaps under any type of medication?"
"Oh, I'd had the flu," she admitted, "and I was takin' sizzurp-you know, 'cause it contains cough syrup an' all."
Winston smiled grimly, not needing to see the look Ray was undoubtedly shooting Egon's way.
"Well, I see no reason to continue," Egon sighed as they stood at the base of a stairwell. "This place is so clean it squeaks."
"But what about Henry?" bleated the old woman who'd been trailing them. "Everybody's seen him."
Ray asked, "Who is Henry, ma'am?"
"Why, he was the maintenance man way back in the 40's. I had an aunt who lived here and she said he was killed in a boiler explosion. He still does his job, though."
"Well, that sucks," Pete decided.
"Wonder where they send his checks?" Winston muttered.
Two small boys emerged from behind a door they'd been spying on the activity from. A television could be heard in the brightly lit apartment they came from. "My name is Andrew," the taller of the two announced importantly, stepping boldly within their midst. "An' I seen old, broken electric cords get pulled outta sockets by themself accause Ol' Henry knew it weren't safe."
The smaller one joined him. "I'm Tommy," he said shyly, "an' I seen 'im smooth down the rugs in the hallways so's no one don't trip over them an' fall." He nodded owlishly, his lips pink and wet and slack.
"See?" said Kaley. "I told you there's a ghost here."
"Boiler's in the basement," decided Dr. Spengler. "Which way might that be?"
By the time they'd arrived there, they had accumulated a small crowd of curious tenants. "You're not gonna bust 'em?" asked little Tommy worriedly.
"Not if you don't want us to," Winston reassured him.
They swept the area with their equipment and got nothing. Then Egon inquired about Henry's living arrangement. Soon they were checking out an abandoned apartment used for storage on the top floor and even the rooftop where Henry had once kept pigeons as a hobby. "Nada," reported Spengler.
"Not even a peep?" asked Pete. He grabbed the PKE meter from Egon and waved it threateningly at their audience, causing the lot of them to move back a step or two, then ran it up and down the length of Spengler's body for comedic effect. "Well, caca," he muttered, turning it on himself. He swung it toward Kaley and pushed it toward her nose so that her eyes crossed, and then at her cleavage.
"I'm hungry," decided Winston.
"I think there's a new Peruvian place just a couple of blocks from the firehouse," Egon mentioned.
Ray eyed him strangely.
Peter implored, "C'mon, guys! These lovely people have all wandered thoughtfully out of their apartments in various states of casual and even pajama-wear to insist they have a ghost here…somewhere…and I for one am inclined to believe 'em."
"You could sleep over," Kaley suggested. "See if he appears at midnight to walk the halls."
"I could stay the night," he said, reluctant to release the PKE meter when Egon reached for it. "But I'll need this."
"We need it," Spengler told him as the device moved back and forth between them.
"You've got like five more."
"We have three more, and they're all malfunctioning." He staggered backward when Venkman abruptly released the device.
"Well, that's significant," he said, casting a sly glance the way of his prey. "So, what's up with that? How'd you guys break 'em all?"
"We didn't break 'em," Stantz explained. "I met this girl today-"
"Oh, and you called the guys and broke out all the equipment just to impress her," he said, nudging the redhead with an elbow. She giggled.
"No, Peter, she's a…well, that is…we don't know exactly what she is-"
"She's just a teenaged girl," interrupted Zeddemore, shaking his head. "Maybe she has strange things happen around her when she's angry or somethin'."
Peter stepped forward, chest thrust outward. "You mean, like Carrie?" He scanned the gathered residents to see how many of them had caught the horror-movie reference.
"We're done here," Egon decided again, shutting down his equipment. Ray withdrew a business card from a pocket and handed it to the old woman. "If you need us, feel free to call."
"Show's over folks," Stantz told them with a gentle grin. "You don't have to go home, but you can't stay…oh."
As they descended the stairs, Peter became irate. "Guys! You know there's a ghost here!"
"I'll admit that something's undoubtedly happened here on sporadic occasions over the years…possibly," Egon told him, "but when all of our detection equipment is flatlining, there's literally nothing for us to do."
Venkman grumbled to himself. "I was gonna spend the night."
"Yes," Winston told him, "you do tend to haunt a number of different places around the city yourself."
They emerged onto sidewalk and found a couple of kids inspecting their vehicle. A young guy in shorts, flip-flops, and a peach colored T-shirt begged for a photo and got a teen to take it for him. "The guys back at the dorm won't believe this!" he enthused, collecting his phone and immediately posting the shot to some social media outlet.
"You comin' with?" Raymond asked Pete.
"Yeah. I had to ditch my buddy back at The Ear Inn so I could walk Kaley home."
Eyes skyward, Winston mentioned, "I'm sure he appreciated that."
"He owes me money," Venkman replied.
Winston walked around the car so he could enter on the far side. Peter continued to answer the questions of the neighborhood kids until he finally grew tired of the attention and dropped into the rear seat of the running vehicle. He turned to say something to Winston as he reached to close the door and noticed the stranger sandwiched between them. "Whoa! One of the buggers snuck in here!"
"That's Amanda," Ray informed him, turning halfway around in his seat.
Peter pulled the door tight and fixed her with a skeptical glare. "This is the kid you were talkin' about?"
"Yeah."
"She was out here, alone, in this car, with millions of dollars of delicate and valuable equipment—most of which could easily remove your choice of high-rises off the map—while the rest of you were inside doing an investigation on that apartment complex?"
Ray mentioned, "She seems harmless."
"Does she? Egon, where's that PKE meter you had?"
"You're not going to use it on her, are you?"
"Naw. I just wanna take a look at it."
Spengler pushed it over to Ray who passed it over the seat while Winston turned away in expectation. Venkman activated it, turned it toward the girl, watched it go berserk before a charge shocked his hand and he dropped it, smoking, to the floor of the vehicle where it expired.
Egon tried to see what was happening in the rear-view mirror. "You didn't-"
"No," Pete said indignantly. "Just wanted to see it." He stared worriedly at the girl who stared back until she grew bored with him. He offered his hand. "Hi there. Pete Venkman."
Her own small hand was unnaturally cool and smooth to the touch. "Hi."
"So, do you live around here?"
She nodded.
"What's your last name?"
"Just 'manda."
"Just Manda, huh? What're you, some kinda diva like Britney or Cher?"
"Britney…share?"
Peter's brows lifted and he performed a tight smile for her. "Are you just like all the other teenaged girls running around New York? Forever glued to your cell phone, crazy about Justin Bieber, wishing you were on Glee?"
She eyed him strangely.
He inhaled deeply. "Have the guys here introduced you to any of our fun testing apparati?"
"Janine threatened us with paperwork," grumbled Ray.
He looked at his watch. "And she gets off in just over an hour…so…let's see what kind of trouble we can stir up in the meantime." He smiled at Amanda and patted her arm. She smiled back while he withdrew his fingers and worked them like he'd just touched something strange.