The brilliant beams, all four, met their targets in mid air, creating an explosion of sparks and lightning, slamming the four beasts backwards, as if they had been hit under the chest with a sledgehammer. Careening backwards, the hellish hounds crashed onto the table, smashing it, sending cups and food everywhere, landing in a twisted heap of tangled legs and snouts.
Bassle felt her eyes go wide behind her glasses, shocked at the violence of the attack, and the surprising speed the four men that seemed like over done exterminators responded with. She could only hope that these guys had kept the backpacks their wore, and the rifles they fought with contained.
The sheer power screaming from those barrels was enough to make her think of the implications of what would happen should someone less than savory get a hold of them.
“Don’t just stand there! Get the lady out of here!” Peter yelled, taking aim again, the lightning from the storm and the strange blue glow from the demons giving him more than enough light to see by.
“Come on! Let’s get out of here!” Ray returned, grabbing Bassle by the arm, not roughly, but firmly enough for her to understand that this was their element and for the time being, she would best be served, and survive, by doing as she was told. Moving quickly, Ray, guiding Bassle, followed by Winston and Egon, ran for the door, ducking quickly past the still stunned ghosts.
One of the hounds had worked its long neck loose and reached out, faster than a rattler, and snapped at Bassle, snarling wickedly, its horrid eyes flashing, its fangs coming within centimeters of her right hand. Screaming, she leaped back, falling into Ray.
“MOVE!” Winston barked, shoving them out the door. Behind him, he heard Peter make for the door and the familiar growl of a proton pack seconds before he saw out of the corner of his eye the sun-bright yellow orange light of a proton stream being fired, followed by a screaming yelp.
“I’m with you!” Peter yelled back, diving past the hounds, letting up with his fire just as they untangled themselves, scrambling to their feet, jaws hanging hungrily, their eyes filled with murder. Quickly, Peter reached around, grabbed the door and slammed it shut. *At least they don’t have thumbs! *He thought, panting.
“AGHHHH!”
He leapt nearly a foot off the floor and away from the door as one of the hounds slammed into it from the other side, the wood giving off a distressing groan.
“I think that’s our cue to exit.” Egon said, already moving towards the lobby.
Bassle no longer needing to be prodded, ran as well. “What are those things?!” she panted, trying to keep up with the Ghostbusters. Behind her, Ray, Winston and Peter ducked around a corner. Further back down the hall, the door sagged in the middle, splintering as the hounds threw more force into their ramming, snarling and snorting like hogs.
“Class Six corporeal canine manifestations…looks like hellhounds of some kind!” Ray responded, nearly tripping over a piece of carpet. He quickly regained his balance, following the others out past Bassle’s office and back into the lobby.
“JOHNNY!” Bassle screamed. She moved away from the Ghostbusters, and dove behind the desk, where the lone officer, the younger man that had shown them in, lay on the floor, unconscious.
His skin was ashen gray, his eyes rolled back into their sockets, his body limp and his uniform ripped open at the right shoulder, exposing what looked like a puckered burn; it was is he had been branded with acid and the underlying bone was clear to be seen. “My God what the—Johnny!” Bassle shook him and checked for a pulse. She felt nothing and felt her heart sink. No. Not yet—
Suddenly Egon was beside her, his meter out, scanning Johnny’s inert form.
“He’s alive. He’s in a state of ectoplasmically induced catatonia. Let’s get him out of here. That door won’t hold much longer.”
As if in response to his words, the lounge door splintered further, this time down the middle, the wood screaming like a living thing as it began to smolder.
“Ecto-1. Let’s him and us out. We can think on the road.” Winston said, moving Egon aside, reaching down and picking up the fallen officer, holstering his thrower and throwing him over his shoulder in a fire man’s carry. “Good idea, now let’s move it!” Peter agreed. “Who has the keys?” Peter asked running to the front door.
Egon looked to Ray. Ray looked to Egon. Winston rolled his eyes. “Egon, YOU have the keys. You were driving. Come on man, snap out of it. What is with you tonight?”
Egon looked taken aback. “It’s been a long drive and nearly getting killed will do that to you.” He snapped back and reached in his pocket and felt the familiar edges of the car keys.
With a scream of tortured wood, the lounge door finally splintered, exploding into pieces, throwing jagged wooden chunks into the opposite wall as the hounds spilled out into the hallway. Egon realized they wouldn’t make it to the door if those things pounced again.
There was a type of emission on the proton pack he had wanted to test. He had not told Ray about it yet because it was utterly dangerous and could level a 3 square mile area. Desperate times called for desperate measures.
“I have a radical idea. Get her and him out of here. I’ll be right behind you,” he said, tossing the keys to Ray who protested immediately. “Oh no you don’t. Those things will rip you apart, let’s go—“
Egon cut him off. “I’m about to do something incredibly explosive and very dangerous, untested and possibly lethal. Raymond, I suggest you do as I said and run like hell.”
Ray took the point and bolted out into the storm, followed by the others, leaving Egon behind.
Outside, the storm lashed the building, and thunder roared. Egon looked back down the hall and made eye contact with the snarling beasts who had inched closer. This had better work or he wasn’t going to have to worry about any more board meetings with the American Science Board.
What the hell, they were boring anyway.
Twisting a knob on the stock of the particle thrower, throwing it’s dial into in the red, Egon felt the proton pack begin to vibrate and the thrower itself began to shudder in his hands. Sparkling electricity began to crawl over the black metal of the pack shell, arcing, like a Jacob’s Ladder. Every readout on the gun’s displays flashed red and a warning alarm began to pulsate, shrieking in protest.
Outside, Ray heard it. Was that the overload—
“NO!” he cried and began to move as fast as he could to reach the building.
“Oh boy…” Winston said, freezing in this tracks.
“What?!” Peter panicked, looking from each man hoping for an explanation.
Ray ran towards the glass doors of the building. “He’s removed the bosonic over-load inhibitor!”
Inside, Egon took aim and realized at that moment, he had absolutely no idea if this was going to work or not. He also found himself oddly thinking about Janine. What if this didn’t work? He would be incinerated instantly…or he would survive. Those were the only two possible scientific outcomes.
Swallowing, he depressed the trigger.
Outside, Ray mounted the steps.
“We’ve got to stop him that will create a blast big enough to—“
The explosion rocked the air, the ground shook and a fireball erupted out of through the walls, blowing out every window on the first floor, sending glass and brick raining like hailstones.
Throwing up his hands, Ray felt himself get flung backwards by the shockwave and after what seemed like an eternity, he slammed butt first onto the asphalt, the impact jarring his teeth, the heat from the blast warming him through his uniform. It was hot, like an oven, a deep sickening heat.
“EGON!”
Ray and Winston, unable to move to help, Winston still carrying the unconscious Johnny on his back, the heat pushing them back.
Peter threw himself over Bassle, knocking her to the ground, shielding her from the blast as best as he could.
Around him, Ray heard the sound of tinkling glass raining down like chimes, felt the rain slap into his exposed skin, saw the lighting and heard the thunder but felt nothing.
Nothing at all.
Inside, time seemed to slow as Egon depressed the trigger. The instant he did, the reaction occurred; a super charged bolt of boson particles erupted from the barrel of the particle thrower, like a teardrop shaped ball of plasma. It screamed through the air, crackling with heat. Nearly as soon as it left the barrel, the ball of energy smacked headfirst into the hounds.
Egon watched with a detached scientific eye as the dart exploded, seemingly to collapse in on itself and then out again. He didn’t stand up to watch the rest, but dove to the floor, throwing his arms over his head and turning his face to the floor.
At that second, the explosion intensified tenfold, erupting through the office with a massive fireball, ripping through the walls, burning wallpaper and paint instantly, sending a colossal shockwave of fire, pressure and heat through the lobby, blowing out walls and windows. Egon thought he heard the metal doors fly open and their hinges implode, sending their now empty frames crashing to the pavement.
His eardrums throbbed and the heat was almost unbearable, like the surface of the sun. He heard four screams of pain and a satisfying thunk as the hounds were sent clear through the armory wall and through the rear offices, and finally slamming to a halt against the brick wall that formed the west side of the building. Outside, the wall cracked, brick split and the outlines of the four dogs became instantly visible even as they slumped to the floor, temporarily stunned.
He knew the blast was powerful, but didn’t know how powerful. He wasn’t taking any chances of those things jumping up and ripping out his neck from behind so Egon quickly found his feet (thankfully his legs were working and he seemed to be alright), grabbed his meter which was lying three feet from him where it had been thrown during the blast. It was still going off. Egon quickly switched it off and clamped it to his belt and moved out the demolished doors and out into the storm.
Ray got to his feet and was about to rush into the now smoking building since the original fireball had abated when suddenly a smoking figure came, somewhat wobbly, running out of the destruction. When he realized who it was, he felt his heart soar.
“EGON!”
Coughing, Egon moved quickly to join the others next to the Ecto-1..
“What happened?” Winston demanded, grabbing Spengler by his shoulders.
Peter meanwhile hadn’t moved. Bassle was struggling to free herself from him.
“Dr. Venkman…If you could please move..I think I can—“
“It’s standard protocol to shield women first in the event of a large explosion, miss.” He said a grin crossing his face as he realized they weren’t short a team mate.
Bassle rolled her eyes and shoved Peter off of her, throwing him into a puddle that had formed next to Ecto-1’s running board.
Sopping wet, muddy, and half terrified, she got to her feet with Peter not far behind her.
“Oh my God…the station…” she said, her voice nearly robbed from her in her shock.
The entire facade of the building was gone, ripped open, blasted to pieces, smoking. It no longer resembled a police headquarters as much as a building that a bomb had hit.
“I experimented with a compacted boson charge. Was very explosive but it might be useful in the future if we can control the blast radius.” Egon said, his breathing now nearly normal, despite the fact that his glasses were cracked and his hair and uniform was smoking.
The proton pack on his back had stopped sparking but was now steaming steadily. He pulled the particle thrower off its secondary hook on his belt and looked at the status meter. It was solid red. Overheated. It would take several minutes for the excess heat to vent. That would be a problem as well that would need to be looked into if they wanted to be able to use such weapons on combat.
“Oh.” Was all Ray could say. Then as the idea hit him, “ You mean you fired a boson charge? An actual boson dart? Wow. I mean, those were only theoretical. We could seriously use that on more powerful entities—“
Egon waved him silent. “ Yes, but let’s not work with it for now. I’d rather work out a heat venting system and find out how to refine the dart itself before I fire another one. That one…was just a little bit dangerous.”
“I agree. When we get back to the fire house we’ll work up some specs but—“
Peter rolled his eyes. “Guys, I hate to break up the science talk but we need to get out of here. Those things in there probably aren’t going to be too thrilled with us now we’ve blown them up. Always works wonders for my temper so can we please GO.”
“Yeah, let’s burn some rubber and we can think about more powerful ways to do stupid things later. Right now we need to get Mr. Johnny here somewhere safe and find out what’s wrong with him…” Winston said, opening the rear hatch, and laying Johnny as gently as he could down on the space that in Ecto-1’s heyday would have held a stretcher.
Ironic how she was now serving as an ambulance again. Peter opened the rear driver’s side door, letting Bassle in. Peter dove in behind her too quickly for Winston stop him, shutting the door behind him. Rolling his eyes, he made sure Johnny was as secure as he could be and shut the rear hatch.
In the car, Peter looked over at Bassle who was giving him a look that spoke volumes.
Unfortunately, they weren’t going to be good reads, Peter could see.
“It’s just for your protection, Mrs. Bassle. Things could get nasty.”
Winston took the keys from Ray and jumped into the driver’s seat, while Egon and Ray squeezed into the front passenger seat next to him, slamming the doors shut against the rain. In her seat, Bassle looked behind her, to Johnny’s body laying on the floorboards, unmoving, except for his breathing which was so shallow she could barely see it.
Worry crossed her features and something else Peter instantly identified.
Fear.
Fear for a loved one.
He frowned at that and decided right now would not be the best time to be a hero. “We’ll make sure he’s ok.” He said. Bassle said nothing in reply.
As he started the engine and hit the headlights, Winston continued.
“ You know, if you guys really do start jury rigging the packs to do that stuff, you can find someone else to test it, ‘cause I’m out. I’d rather be able to have kids in a few years and be alive to see em.”
“Don’t worry. When the time comes, we will hire someone.” Ray said, looking over to Egon as the Ecto-1 pulled out of the parking lot, fishtailing and then straightening itself out as the rear tires grabbed onto the asphalt.
“Where we headed?” Winston asked, flicking on the wipers in the driving sheets of rain that slashed from the sky.
Egon spoke up. “ I’ve been thinking about my earlier theory—“
“You mean the one you have yet to tell us?” Peter quipped.
“Yes the one I have yet to tell you because I’m still working out the details,” Egon glared at him in the rearview mirror. “Ray, check Tobin’s for those dogs. See what you come up with. We also need a place to get our friend here some help,” he finished, nodding towards Johnny.
Reaching into his back pocket, Ray pulled out an old worn book, that had seen better days. Its many pages were dog-eared and yellowed with age. Ray flipped on the dome light and began to search through its pages. Egon turned around to face Bassle.
“Can you tell me a bit more about Eugene Simmons? I think he may be the key to all this.”
Bassle sighed and nodded. As they drove, she talked, Egon nodding every other word. “Let’s head over to my house. It’s not far. I’ll tell you everything there.”
The Ecto-1 soon vanished over the next hill, the red tail lights gleaming like eyes.
Back at the station, the hell hounds were still unmoving on the floor, their bulky bodies buried under brick, mortar and debris. The most that could be seen of their bodies was one of the heads of a beast who taken the most direct portion of the blast, its shaggy long snout resting on top of a pile of wood and glass. Blue slime dripped like blood onto the floor from their broken mouths and ragged jaws.
The lip on the exposed ones head jerked upward.
A set of black fangs gleamed into view.
The right eye opened onto a shattered socket, black ooze leaking from what had been an eye. The ooze was sucked back into the socket as if drawn by a vacuum and a black orb formed, pupil-less, and slowly, the eye itself re-grew with a sickening set of pops and snaps, nerves reattached and then, a hell-fire red glow began to simmer in it as the dog got to its feet, shaking off the debris, popping its shoulders back into place.
As it roused the others, a single primitive thought filled its inhuman brain:
Revenge.
