Screwed In Jersey

Extreme Ghostbusters/Clerks Crossover

Dan "Ectodude" Shannon

Chapter 1: Introductions

October 18th, 2001

Somewhere in Red Bank, New Jersey

7:22 PM

A young woman was walking down the darkened street. The only light source was one flickering streetlight, shutting off and re-igniting slowly. When the light went out she stopped a moment to see the light begin to restart, its bright orange light missing. It was only glowing blue as the ballast attempted to heat back up. As she turned back and walked up to her apartment building, she began to feel a terrible sensation roll up her back. She began unlocking the door when she heard someone walking up from behind her, the shuffling of feet crunching against the stray gravel dust in the street. The sensation intensified as she reached into her pocket, pulled out a container of mace, and spun around…

To find no one.

She had been holding her breath, releasing it in a sigh of relief as she put the mace back in her pocket. She turned back towards the door…

A shadow.

She screamed, but her cries were cut short by a loud, electronic sounding bang. As she dropped to the ground the street light went out again and once again began to restart. She convulsed and tried to reach for the smoking hole in her chest as her body became cold. She looked up at the figure over her as she faded to black, the malfunctioning light making it difficult for her to see the man who performed her assault. She finally leaned her head back and closed her eyes. The figure places a business card on the wound, pointing face up.

The orange glow of the light came back up to full shine, its illumination allowing us to see the card. On the back of the card was a cartoonish white figure in a red circle-slash design. The wind picked up and blew the card over as the sound of disembodied souls screaming was briefly heard. We see through the blood stain and read the text on the card…

"Ghostbusters: Dan Shannon - Field Manager."

Continental Airlines Arena

East Rutherford, New Jersey

8:49 PM

Even the best seats in the house were terrible. All of these New Jerseyan-New Yorker-types sitting around him and hissing his favorite hockey team that was on the ice. Dan Shannon - head field manager of the current team of Ghostbusters - loved hockey and he loved the Chicago Blackhawks just as much. Being a Chicago-born man he embodied all the stereotypes from the food, the music, the sports, and even the way he talked. When he was happy or at the very least relaxed he spoke in the Inland North-type dialect that the Bill Swerski's Superfans had, even going so far as to be the only fool in the arena wearing a Blackhawks jersey with team captain Tony Amonte's number 10 on it. He embraced his Chicagoan heritage and took it everywhere he went, including here where it was frowned upon. Dan always loved kicking hornets' nests.

Stupid move.

Standing from his seat he screamed out, "Come on, Hawks! Give these sumbitches an asswhippin'! Fuck these clowns! They ain't Devils; they're douchebags!" That was when everyone within an 8 foot radius started throwing cups of beer, popcorn, hot dog pieces, and other various stadium concession items at him. Having the experience and skill of a seasoned Ghostbuster he dodged the overpriced food and drink without so much as a scratch or stain. He started to get cocky, "Is that all you got? You could pitch for the Cubs!"

That landed him a Sno-Cone to the forehead, knocking his lucky Blackhawks hat off his head. He scraped the shaved ice off his face and looked at the slushed syrup on his hand, "Right."

As he sat down he continued to scoop the Sno-Cone off his face, the man beside him proceeded to hand him a napkin, "Here. Figured you'd need this." Dan opened one of his eyes and saw the offered paper product. He took it and proceeded to wipe his face clean, "Thanks." The man beside him laid commentary to what he just witnessed and decided to give the Ghostbuster advice, "You really need to learn not to piss off the home team." "Oh, I know better," Dan responded to his fellow spectator, crumpling the used napkin up and throwing it to the floor, "I gotta get my frustrations out somehow."

The man beside him had retrieved his hat and handed it back to him, "How's that workin' out for ya?" Dan took the hat and saw that the bulk of the Sno-Cone soaked the headwear, the smell of the artificial cherry flavor emitting off the hat. Dan rang out the hat and felt the stickiness of it in his hands, "I'd say fantastically if I loved the smell of Mountain Dew Code Red, but this is a bit much."

Dan turned and got a better look at the man beside him. He looked to be a man in his mid-20s with short brown hair, a Van Dyke goatee, and wearing a generic Pittsburgh Penguins jersey. He smirked at him as he responded, "You mean that fake cherry shit? Know the smell well. I'm just glad they stopped selling soda in glass bottles, it was always such a pain in the ass when someone broke the inventory." "Inventory?" Dan asked as he raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah," the man said with a sigh, "I work at this convenience store in Leonardo. Just about the dumbest part of the state, too, so…" he looked embarrassed he even brought it up. "I get it," Dan tried to quell the man's embarrassments, "I worked retail. It sucks. Man, I need to wash this goddamn thing."

"Hey, Chicago boy!" another white man in the crowd started hollering at him, "Why don't you take your ass back to flyover country where you belong?" Dan and the man beside him looked down a row of seats to see a rather drunk and belligerent person. He was wearing a suit jacket that was several sizes too big for him holding a very oversized bottle of Evian water. It looked like he was starting to sober up, but he was clearly still drunk and deranged, "You think you can just talk shit and think you know better?" Dan just huffed in annoyance and looked to his compatriot. The man beside him filled him in, "He was a famous writer. Finally got to the top and decided to make people think he actually cared about other people's opinions. He duped them with a bait-n-switch story about a subject he lied about being passionate over and ruined his reputation over it. Now he spends every home game insulting whoever cheers the visiting team." "Let me guess," Dan stated, "he got money for a new project and the project ultimately died."

The man was starting to crawl over the seats drunkenly as he tried to be intimidating with tears in his eyes, "So what if I didn't like their shitty franchise? I subverted expectations. I should be revered!" Dan grabbed the t-shirt under the man's oversized suit jacket and gave an intimidating ultimatum, "You don't need reverence, you need two things: One, to give me that water bottle, and second, to get out of here, sober up, and rethink your life because if you don't, I have a nuclear accelerator in the back of my vehicle that I'll shove up your ass sideways. Savvy?"

"Isn't that…" the man hiccuped and belched, blowing off a hops-scented breath as he talked that made Dan recoil at the smell, "four things?" Dan grabbed the bottle and shoved the man back, "Get outta here, you butt-monkey!" The man stumbled and tried to send a death glare Dan's way. He wasn't impressed, "Please, I've had more dangerous shit than you threaten me. Am Scray, I hear Bennegan's has mozzarella sticks on the starter menu."

The drunken writer got up and tried as he could to walk away with dignity and grace, but stumbled as he tried to make his way across the seating section. People actually started to clap as he made his way away from the aisle. Dan started using the man's water to wash his hat as the man sitting beside Dan was impressed, "Man, I've never seen anyone get brave enough to do that to him. Even security is afraid to eject him. One thing though," he asked, "what was that bit about a nuclear accelerator?" After Dan stopped washing the hat and mentally kicked himself for shooting his mouth off the way he did, he decided to introduce himself, "Yeah, it has to do with my occupation," he reached his hand out, "Dan Shannon." The man took his hand and shook it as he asked, "Dan Shannon, the Ghostbuster from New York, Dan Shannon?" Dan stopped the motion of shaking the man's hand and raised an eyebrow again, "Did you just insert my name at the beginning and end of the same sentence?"

"Uh," the man took notice that what the man before him said was accurate, "It's a talent?"

Dan was starting to smirk, "Was that a statement, or a question?" he shook his head, "Yeah, I'm the Ghostbuster. Why?" Releasing the man's hand he realized there was still Sno-Cone syrup on his hand. Dan winced as his fellow spectator gave him a look of annoyance then began asking as he wiped the syrup on his pants as he asked, "What did it take to work for a place like that? I mean, I have my questions with believing…" Dan held up a hand, "I know, I know, every asshole this side of creation says that." "I just mean…" he was trying to get to the point, "I was just curious what it took to get hired by that place?"

"You really hate your job that bad?" Dan asked, wringing out his hat again. He nodded his head while rolling his eyes. Yeah, that was all he needed to see to know the job was beyond idiotic. Back in his days working at the repair shop he worked when he was in college he had to deal with the batshit insane customer or two that walked in trying to unplug a dog turd from their vacuum cleaner hose. God knows what else got stuck where that had nothing to do with appliances.

Dan tried to reassure him, "It's not that great a job. You have to have the right mindset going in. Take a wrong step and you're as dead as the guy you're trying to catch. Nearly had that happen more than once," he rang out the hat for the last time and was about to put the hat back on when he sniffed it. He grunted in irritation, "Man, I'm gonna smell like cherries for the rest of the night."

He looked disappointed. It was clear this man's plight was in dealing with people that had less IQ and ability to think for oneself and that he was slowly being ground down because of that. He looked like an example of someone who was stalled in life and couldn't move, either by his own internal mental fallacies, or everyone around him sabotaging him.

By this time the alarm sounded signaling a goal. Everyone stood up to cheer as Dan and his fellow hockey watcher remained seated as they continued to talk, "Hey, man," Dan said, trying to lift his spirits, "shit'll get better. I mean, look at the players on the ice here," he waved his hand out towards the rink, "These guys get hit in the face with 90-mile-an-hour pucks; they get beaten with sticks; they get thrown into the boards. They take those poundings, clear the blood from their eyes, spit out their loose teeth, and get back up and score a goal. They basically say, 'Fuck you. You knocked out a tooth, but I took your glory in spite of that!' It's inspiring!" The man looked at Dan and saw the smirk on his face. The man heard the Ghostbuster's words and still wasn't feeling it. Dan knew and punctuated the statement, "That, and it's damned hilarious to watch these guys go into the penalty box for biting. I never knew that was a penalty before the first game I ever went to."

His fellow spectator started to laugh a bit. He was starting to head back into a good mood as he gave an opinion, "If I had it my way, I'd let them fight on the ice. First one to bleed gets the penalty."

Dan busted out laughing a moment before calming down and responding, "I like the way you think, uh…" that was when it dawned on him, "I never caught your name, man."

"Oh!" he cleaned his hand on his jeans again before reaching out to shake Dan's hand again, "Dante Hicks."