Chapter 16: West Shore Sprint

Monday June 30th, 2002

Ghostbusters HQ

1:40 PM

Darien had searched all over the Ghostbusters' firehouse; he checked the lab, the basement, the kitchen, and even the back office. Janine had walked down the stairs with her computer's main CPU when she saw the frustrated Japanese man standing there in Venkman's office with his hands on his hips, "You look like a man who's lost." He turned to face the Ghostbusters' office manager, a hint of worry on his face, "You haven't seen Serena anywhere, have you?" "Not since we started looking around for more on those Asatro people. She seemed really upset."

"Serena is not the type to let people talk bad about others," he rubbed the back of his head, "The other Dan looked so upset at how he was treated… I know Serena didn't like that, either." Janine had walked to the desk and put the CPU down, shortly after looking around the garage. She noticed a vehicle missing, "Speaking of the other Dan, where's he at?" Just then Dan and Roland walked into the garage from outside, Dan addressing the two people in Venkman's office, "Hey, have you guys seen that asshole version of me anywhere? We gotta move that goofy toy he left out front."

"We were hoping you could tell us," Darien explained, "Serena's missing, too."

Roland saw the worry on the man's face and knew how much she meant to him. From Amy's memories Roland knew of the random nature of Serena's curiosity and - dare he say - perchance to not noticing danger until it was right in her face. In truth, with everything happening he didn't believe Serena was that naive, "I'm sure she's just went for a walk."

Darien now looked even more uneasy, "She was pretty upset, but that was hours ago."

"She'll turn up," Dan assured Darien, "This is the safest place in the city with that generator thing outside. Hell, most criminals refuse to come around here due to all of Egon's stuff exploding." At that point Darien was starting to sweat. Everyone present realized what Dan had said, going so far as to make Roland slap Dan in the back of the head. Dan flinched, "Ay!" Rubbing the back of his head he now knew why he received it, "Okay, okay, that wasn't the best way to put it…"

Roland sighed, "We need to try and relocate that thing the other Dan put out, but we don't have a clue how it works. Honestly, I'm not even sure what it's using for power. It's not radioactive, but that makes me even more unsure." Dan finally stopped rubbing his head and added to the conversation, "Being my clone knew how to operate it we'd ask him," he looked around the garage and found that yes, the Explorer was missing. Then again, he looked to have been doing it in an exaggerated way as a means to be snarky, showing he obviously knew, "and of course, he's decided to fuck off."

The more Darien thought about what had happened he looked at the two Ghostbusters and asked with hesitation, "You don't think… I mean, am I crazy to even question…" "What?" Dan asked, "That Serena and my other self went out for a drive? I don't even know where that'd dick would go, let alone have her go with him."

A bad feeling was starting to crest at the back of his neck; Darien had this feeling Serena was in danger and it was getting stronger by the minute…

West Shore, Staten Island

At the small hot dog shack in the construction supply area of the island Old Man Dan and Serena looked up to the sky as the hundreds of winged beasts darkened the sky. They were now above the two of them and they began circling and creating a whirlwind. Old Dan lowered his PKE meter and started to try and calmly call out to Serena, "Kid, I think it's time to get the hell outta here…"

That was when the creatures started diving down. All this did was make Old Dan call out more urgently, "Now! Now!" Serena wasn't responding, here sapphire eyes wide in terror as she looked up. She was frozen like a statue. Old Dan grabbed her by the hand and started pulling her, "Come on, goddamnit!" He whipped her around and shoved her toward the passenger side door of Chi-Ecto. Serena nearly tripped as she ran toward the SUV car door. Quickly getting in Old Man Dan started the truck as Serena fumbled with her seatbelt asking in a panic, "Why are they after us?!" "Remember what I said about running a risk?"

A Man-Bat landed in front of the truck causing Serena to scream.

Old Dan pointed to the creature, "That's the risk!" He grabbed the gear selector and dropped the truck all the way into gear 1. The truck drove over the parking block and hit the creature with the vehicle, it being dragged under and causing the vehicle to bounce around wildly. The truck drove over the median, screeched on the road, and started barreling toward the highway. Reaching down, Old Dan activated the siren and the lights, even going so far as to turn on the headlights and fog lights on the brush guard. Once the transmission topped out on 1st gear Old Dan shifted the truck into proper drive and kept his foot down. Creatures started to swoop down toward the truck and started flying in front of it to blind its driver to what was ahead.

Hitting the brights on the turn signal switch the beasts became blinded and started running into each other. The Man-Bats cleared their way away from the front of the truck for Old Dan to see an oncoming dump truck heading toward them. Serena screamed and covered her head as Old Dan slammed the brakes, cut the wheel, and hopped the curb on the far side of the street. The truck passed them allowing the Ectomobile back onto the street.

A creature came down from above and grabbed the roof rack, flipping around like a gymnast toward the driver window making Old Man Dan jump in his seat. He looked back to the road and noticed an upcoming obstruction on the side of it. The beast was about to punch through the window when Old Dan cut the wheel and took the driver side of the truck to the oncoming lane's gutter. He looked out the window and screamed through the glass at the beast, "Hey, Fucktard? You need to go on a diet! Eat pole!" The beast heard him and felt the truck pick up speed, confused. Looking to the front of the truck it saw a telephone pole coming at it. Before it could react the beast hit the wooden pole and was knocked off the truck, the truck's rear view mirror going with it. Old Dan saw the damage, "Fuck it, it was worth it."

Old Dan started pitching the truck around a corner, the tires squealing as the rear end of the truck broke and went loose. Serena grabbed the handle on the roof of the truck as Old Dan straightened the vehicle out. Serena looked at the madman at the wheel, "What are you doing?" "We gotta get back to Manhattan. If I remember right, we can hit 440 to I-278. God I miss Chicago!" Coming to the intersection that was also the onramp to the State 440 highway several cars stopped their approach and some even skidded sideways. The truck flew through the light and onto the highway with the huge parade of bat-like monsters chasing after them. Old Dan pressed the gas harder as the truck's modified Ford 302 screamed, only being drowned out by Serena's screaming in fear as the truck erratically merged onto highway traffic. The Explorer dodged in between traffic and even went onto the shoulder to no only evade the creatures but also draw them away from the other cars.

A stopped semi-truck was stuck on the shoulder when Old Dan swerved onto it and immediately took notice. He yelped and swerved back onto the road as the Man-Bats attempted to follow the Ectomobile. Due to the split-second decision change a great deal of the ground level creatures ran into the truck's trailer knocking the trailer to the side and making it fall over the embankment of the highway. The driver of the truck - who was standing to the side of the open engine compartment - jumped away as the truck lurched forward followed by it flipping thanks to the trailer pulling it with it.

Old Dan witnessed the damage of the truck flipping in his passenger rear view mirror. The creatures that evaded the back of the truck began approaching the back of the Explorer again, one of the beasts getting so close as to shriek at the mirror itself. Old Dan commented, "Warning: Assholes are closer than they appear!"

Serena turned her head and saw one of the creatures just outside her window causing her to scream again. By this point Old Man Dan screamed back at her, "For the love of God, are you gonna scream every five goddamn seconds?!" She looked over to him terrified. Old Man Dan looked back to her to scold her more and saw how scared she was. He realized this wasn't a normal circumstance. He looked back between her and the road as he tried to walk back his exacerbated statement, "I'm sorry, I…" "No, no, you're right! I just…" She was interrupted by the creatures overtaking the vehicle and flying ahead, the rushing wind making the truck bob back and forth from the turbulence. Serena asked quickly, "What are they doing?" "They ain't telling me I have a broken tail light, that's for damn sure!"

The creatures flew ahead on I-278 and started coming down on semi-truck trailers. Two sets of two demons got behind the tractors and forcefully detached the trailers from the back of each truck. The trailers came off and started skidding along the highway. They finally pitched sideways and flipped causing cars all along the road to stop before colliding with the trailers. Various items of freight inside the trailers flew out as the trailers disintegrated all over the highway.

Old Dan had been watching what the creatures were up to when he saw something basically explode as brake lights lit up ahead of them, "Shit! They just stopped traffic!" "We can't stop," Serena yelled with worry, "They're gonna get us if we do!" Old Dan looked for anything that would get them away. He saw the exit ramp for the MLK Jr. Expressway and it was coming up fast. If he were to go the other way… "We're gonna have to turn around!"

Serena looked back at the driver again as she had both panic and confusion in her voice, "What do you mean, 'Turn around'?"

"What I mean is," he turned on the right turn signal as he screamed, "hang the fuck on!" The grizzled Ghostbuster slammed on the brakes, cut the wheel, and dropped the transmission into 2nd as again the rear wheels broke traction. Serena felt the truck go sideways as she put her head into her lap and covered her head with her arms again. Old Dan slammed on the gas and turned the wheel into a counter-steer. He started drifting the truck down the exit ramp of the highway. He was starting to turn red as he gripped the wheel hard to keep control of it. One hard jar and the truck could flip over. He groaned as he heard the tires wailing as he essentially performed a sustained donut on the ramp. Serena could hear him grunt as he pleaded with the vehicle, "Common, Chi! Hold it! Hold it!"

Before he knew it he hit the merge lane of the MLK, but he aimed his way toward the onramp for the westbound lanes of I-278. They were now effectively going up the ramp back onto the interstate. Old Man Dan kept encouraging the vehicle to continue on its difficult path, "Come on, baby! Almost there!" The truck emerged at the top of the ramp back on I-278 now heading back where they came. The truck swerved into traffic and started to straighten out, albeit with some difficulty. The truck swayed back and forth as Old Dan upshifted and corrected his steering to finally get the vehicle straight, panting as he did, "That… sucked!"

Serena poked her head up over the horizon of the truck's dashboard and looked at the road ahead of them. She squeaked out, "Are we safe?" There was a sudden THUMP on the roof of the truck, the truck's suspension dipping violently making the truck hop. Serena sat fully up in her seat and looked to the roof as she realized what just happened. Old Man Dan also looked to the roof as he also knew what was happening, "Jesus Christ, they turn around fast!" He started to hear clawing at the roof equipment, panic etching onto his face, "Oh, fuck me!" "What are they doing up there?" "They're starting to rip the roof gear apart! We got dangerous isotopes up there!"

"Iso…" Serena didn't understand the word, "Why do you have rubbing alcohol on the roof?"

Old Dan was clearly starting to get annoyed at this woman. He began activating the truck's nitrous heater on the underside of the radio controls, a red LED labeled "HEATER" started blinking, "Not 'Isopropyl'! Isotopes! Radioactive fuel!"

"Radioactive?!"

"We gotta get these toads off before they hit something vital!" He looked between the road, the blinking LED, and the girl in the passenger seat beside him, "You better have that seatbelt good and tight!" That made Serena sit in her seat properly and pulled on the seatbelt to tighten it. On the dash under the radio the red blinking LED lit up solid, "Bottle's hot!" he uncovered another switch under a toggle cover and flipped it, a small set of red LED numbers reading "250" lit up beside the switch, "Armed!" "Armed?" She looked between the switches and Old Man Dan, "What's armed?"

"Nitrous."

Serena didn't know what it was, "What's that for?"

"Going warp speed."

"What?"

Old Dan uncovered the final switch and clicked it…

The tires suddenly squealed hard as the truck suddenly picked up speed. Serena felt herself sink into the seat as her Ghostbuster host gripped the steering wheel hard. The number displayed on the nitrous controls began counting down quickly as the nitrous oxide in the system was fed to the engine, the 250 representing horsepower being fed to the fuel count.

On the roof of the truck two Man-Bats were scratching at the equipment on the roof when the sudden burst of speed knocked them off balance. Throwing their arms out made them unfurl their wings just enough to catch the wind and pulled them off the vehicle. They slammed into the highway before semi-trucks ran them over.

Serena strained to look behind them to see the creatures fall onto the asphalt of the interstate, witnessing them being crushed by the tractors. She was terrified at what she saw, flipping back into her seat, "Can we outrun them?"

"No," he started swerving between vehicles going slower than the Ectomobile, "They can fly faster than this truck can go. Besides," just at that moment the red number display counted to zero, the vehicle dipping in speed, "that bottle just ran out. I have another nitrous shot, but we got only one other chance here," he took one hand off the wheel and quickly pointed to the floor by her feet, "Grab that laptop." Serena looked at her feet and saw the silver and black laptop with "Panasonic" written on it. She grabbed it and saw it had a handle on the front. Opening it she saw the word "TOUGHBOOK" written in the top right corner of the screen. The machine booted quickly with a picture of the Chicago variant Ghostbusters logo in the background. She looked back, "Now what?"

"See that loom of cable under the glove box?"

Looking back under she saw a set of cables poking out of split loom tubing under the dash like she was told. She grabbed the cables after setting the laptop on her lap. He saw the cables in her hand and began to throw out the next set of commands, "Plug in the cables! It doesn't matter what ports; they're all USB, but they need to be put in. Now!" "I-I'm not very good with computers!" "That's okay," he tried to encourage her calmly, "just listen to me and you'll be fine!" She opened the port closures on the sides of the laptop and began plugging the cords in, compensating for the swaying going on with Old Dan moving between cars. She heard the laptop playing sound effects denoting the hardware being plugged in was being accepted by the operating system.

She got the last cable plugged in, "Done!"

"There's no password," he cut the wheel to dodge another car as he explained, "Just hit enter twice and you'll be on the desktop!" Two clicks and she saw the desktop emblazoned with the Chicago Ghostbusters logo. There were several icons in the shape of the original Ghostbusters logo scattered all over the desktop. Old Dan looked into the middle rearview mirror and saw the horde of creatures beginning to catch up to the vehicle. After he looked over and saw where she was he told her, now speaking quickly, "On the desktop is an icon that says 'Ectomobile Defense'. Open it!"

Double clicking on the icon a barren gray option box opened.

The creatures were now starting to envelop the Explorer. Serena looked to her side and saw one of the beasts looking over at her mid-flight. She wanted to scream again but managed to refrain. Old Dan looked out his own window and saw a flock of the creatures just outside. Serena looked back and tried to get Old Dan's attention, "Now what?" He wasn't responding. The sheer overwhelming sight of creatures around the truck was actively petrifying him. She knew what he was instructing her to do was important, but him freezing up was a bad thing. Looking back out, it was a bad time to be locking up. She had no choice…

She screamed, "Dan, what do I do?!"

That snapped him out of it.

He looked back and forth between her, the road, and the horde. He finally came back to reality despite the impending danger. He quickly got back to task, "Open the tab marked 'Exterior'."

CLICK! "Done!"

The interior of the vehicle started to darken.

"Check all of the boxes!"

CLICK-CLICK-CLICK-CLICK!

"Hit 'Accept'!" A creature dropped onto the brush guard of the truck like a perch and shrieked at the cab of the vehicle. Old Dan screamed, "Accept! Accept!" Serena clicked the button on the screen. Just then a number of whines started to emanate from the roof of the vehicle. Serena looked up at the cab ceiling again, "What's that noise?" "Our salvation if it works!" The noise's pitch topped out just as the creature in their view unsheathed its claws to slash at the front windshield. On the main window of the program Serena was clicking on, a line of text that read, "EM Field: INACTIVE" appeared in red letters…

It then turned green as it now switched to, "ACTIVE".

Serena suddenly felt the hairs all over her body stand on end like a big static charge came over her; it felt like she took off a sweater in the middle of winter. The creature sitting on the brush guard was suddenly flung from the front of the truck and into the road allowing Chi-Ecto to run it over. The truck bounced wildly again as another creature was killed by the truck's tires. Old Dan saw the creatures on either side of the vehicle attempt to touch the vehicle only to be repulsed by something unseen.

The horde started to back away from the vehicle as Old Man Dan relaxed a bit, "Thank fucking God, it worked!" Serena looked at the computer then out the window before proceeding to look at the extradimensional Ghostbuster, "You mean you didn't know it would?!" "It was a prototype," Old Man Dan wicked the sweat from his forehead from under the ratty Blackhawks hat with his sleeve, "We didn't have enough time to test it. Me, Dr. Stantz, and Dr. Belmont only got two installed before we got bum rushed by the bastards in our world," He watched as the welcome sign to New Jersey passed them. They were going to have to go through Newark and Hoboken before they could get back into Manhattan, but not without a party waiting for them.

It was a dark place. Matthew sat in isolation as he had his eyes closed and a hand to his temple. He looked to have been concentrating on something. Beads of sweat began to cover his forehead as a look of irritation came over his face. The look began to swell into anger as he suddenly threw his hand off his temple and opened his eyes, "Damn them!" he wiped the sweat from his brow as he cursed more, "This reprobate can stop these beasts. First the headquarters, now the vehicle. I have to stop this man before he gives them all of his secrets. He knows of the winged ones," from where he sat he pulled a set of scrolls from a bag beside him. They were old and fragile, but they were plenty strong enough for him to unroll them. Had the scroll open as he commented to no one, "Let's see if you can handle these?" Matthew looked at the scroll and began talking in ancient Norse. The scroll began to glow a faint yellow color as he continued.

In the depths of the Hudson River, the riverbed began to shift as a yellow glow began to emanate from the soft mud. Figures in the shape of bodies began to emerge, the sight of them quickly becoming skewed by the water current kicking up the loose mud and dirtying the water. The bodies glowed even brighter as the forms began to grow in size. There were three of them, becoming towering as they began to walk the riverbed to the banks. They broke the surface of the water and began walking to shore. On the outskirts of Hoboken, New Jersey three hulking creatures began walking onto the shores of the river. They carried large weapons of various types and wore armor of an ancient design. They were unnoticed at first, but then people began screaming and running away from them. The mud had washed off, their forms clear to see…

Matthew had summoned Draugrs.