GHOSTBUSTERS: The Return Page 26

  Sure enough, Saturn was starting to expand now, as the computer-generated movie zoomed in on the planet. By craning his neck, Venkman could see the other planets moving into position as well.

  "YOU ARE HONORED INDEED THIS DAY. YOU SHALL BE THE FIRST TO WITNESS THE ASCENDENCE OF XANTHADOR. YOU SHALL BE THE FIRST TO QUAKE WITH A TERROR THAT PIERCES THE VERY MARROW OF YOUR SOUL. AND THEN YOU SHALL RECEIVE ONE FINAL HONOR: YOU SHALL BE THE FIRST TO DIE!"

  "Guys?" said Winston. "This isn't good."

  The three Ghostbusters were jammed together now, back to back, as the surrounding hordes of the undead continued to close in. It didn't seem to matter how many of their attackers they blew apart - as long as there was an entire museum full of displays and artifacts lust waiting to be possessed, there was no end in sight.

  Their only advantage was the fact that, as the circle around them tightened, the creatures were getting increasingly in each other's way. Fewer of them could attack simultaneously. But on the other hand, the close quarters were making it harder for the Ghostbusters to use their weapons without inadvertently blowing off parts of their own bodies in the process.

  High above, Geezil clung to the wall with one hand, his claws sunk deep into the marble. His other hand held a sandwich that he munched on as he watched the spectacle unfold below him. "Go, go! Bite his head off!" Geezil cheered. "Ohhh! Don't worry - you didn't need that leg anyway'"

  Down below, the Ghostbusters had long since realized that there was no time for strategy or domino effects anymore. All they could do was keep firing, and hope to avoid being overrun.

  "How much longer are we going to have to keep this up?" asked Ray. "I'm getting a cramp."

  "If you don't keep this up," Egon replied, "a cramp will be the least of your worries."

  "Where's the cavalry when you need them?" said Winston.

  "It'd settle for Pete beating Xanthador," said Ray.

  The echoes could be felt throughout the city.

  It was more than storm clouds and clammy air now. A psychic presence - a tangible emotion - was descending upon New York City and closing its grip.

  It began with the animals. Dogs howled inconsolably. Flocks of birds took to the sky. Mounted policemen were thrown from their saddles as their horses reared up skittishly.

  Then the ripples spread. Housewives found themselves speaking in hushed tones, without knowing why. Office workers sat frozen at their desks, unable to remember what they were about to do. Telephone lines were jammed and bars were flooded with mid-afternoon customers, as thousands sought solace in loved ones or liquor.

  For reasons the inhabitants could neither understand nor explain, every living soul in the city of New York - whether rich or poor, young or old, male or female, black or white - was haunted by the same all-consuming, undeniable conviction:

  Something bad is going to happen...

  The creatures were swarming over them now. The ecto-traps were long since out of reach, although they still sprang to life occasionally when one of the animated exhibits stepped on the pedal by accident. The Ghostbusters still held their nutrona wands, but with so many adversaries at such close range, they could only use the wands against a small fraction of the creatures. At this point, the crush was so bad that they couldn't even see their own hands, let alone their feet.

  "I have an idea," said Egon.

  "Well, I'd say this is the time to use it," Ray said, an edge of desperation in his voice.

  "Unfortunately, it requires having enough space to get my arms free."

  Ray and Winston groaned.

  It's funny what you think about at times like this, Venkman thought. As he hung above the ground, watching the movement of the planets mark the countdown to Armageddon, he would have expected to see his life flash before his eyes. But it didn't. Instead, he found himself thinking about the future - a future that, in all likelihood, would never be.

  It didn't look like he'd ever get to be mayor now.

  He'd never get to show Oscar the dinosaurs, let alone watch the little guy grow up. He'd never get to repay the five dollars he owed Ray... but, then again, he hadn't really been planning to do that anyway.

  Most of all, though, he thought about Dana.

  And that thought filled him with determination. Dana was everything to him. There was no way he was going to let some backwater demon kill him before he got to see her again. Besides, he'd just told her he loved her on live television. He had no intention of dying before he heard her response.

  Of course, all the determination in the world wasn't going to make any of this any easier. He was still dangling far too high in the air, and a quick attempt at moving his arms confirmed that he was still pinned tightly. Still, there had to be something...

  That was when a series of explosions blew the emergency exit doors off their hinges.

  Through the clearing smoke, Venkman could see a squad of men in dark clothes and flak jackets pour through the doors. With a precision that showed their extensive training, they fanned out around the theater, taking up their positions and leveling semiautomatic weapons at the towering demon. Even in the dim light of the theater, Venkman recognized one of them as the SWAT commander he'd met outside.

  "Police! Freeze!" shouted the commander. "Put down the Ghostbuster, then lie on the floor, hands on top of your...er, head!"

  "It's about time!" Venkman called down to him. "Where've you guys been?"

  "You wanted twenty minutes, you got twenty minutes!" the commander called back.

  "Seemed longer in here!" said Venkman.

  "INSIGNIFICANT FLEAS!" said the demon. "YOUR INSOLENCE HAS SEALED YOUR DESTRUCTION! KNEEL BEFORE XANTHADOR AND YOUR END SHALL BE SWIFT!"

  "Fire!" the commander ordered.

  The rapid-fire muzzle flashes of semi-automatic weapons created a strobe effect, illuminating Xanthador from below as the bullets bounced harmlessly off his scaly hide.

  The planets were getting closer.

  Venkman wasn't surprised to see that the bullets had no effect. He was more surprised when, for a brief moment, it looked as though Xanthador wavered slightly and reduced in size by a hairsbreadth. The effect was so small that he dismissed it as a trick of the light, caused by either the projector or the muzzle flashes. And yet...

  Encouraged, he struggled once again to free himself. As he expected, it was no use; Xanthador still held him too tightly. But something had changed. Maybe it was because the demon was distracted. Maybe it was simple overconfidence. Either way, a nearly imperceptible bit of slack had crept into Xanthador's tail. It wasn't enough for Venkman to wriggle free, but he could just barely move his right arm now.

  The planets had nearly reached alignment.

  Xanthador swatted at the rescue squad with one of his feet, effortlessly tearing up rows of seats in the process. Nevertheless, the police unit maintained the deadly barrage.

  Gritting his teeth against the effort, Venkman thrust his hand down below the coils of Xanthador's tail. He flexed the muscles of his hand a few times to get the blood flowing again. Then, straining mightily, he reached down to where his nutrona wand dangled from the cable attached to his proton pack. It took several tries, but by the fourth attempt, the weapon was in his hand.

  Despite Xanthador's preoccupation with the would-be saviors, one of his eyes spotted Venkman grabbing the nutrona wand.

  "FOOLISH SPECK!" Xanthador told him. "HAVE YOU NOT YET LEARNED THAT YOUR PUNY WEAPONS ARE AS NOTHING AGAINST XANTHADOR?"

  "Who said I'm shooting at you?" said Venkman.

  A brilliant streak of light shot downward, as the ion stream tore through the projector below. It exploded in a deafening roar and a shower of sparks.

  Instantly, the starscape around them vanished.

  "NO!" shrieked Xanthador.

  Outside the museum, the crowd was getting restless. They had already been experiencing a nameless feeling of dread. And the sounds of gunfire and explosions coming from the museum weren't helping. Without knowing what was goin
g on inside, all anyone could do was imagine the worst, fidget... and wait.

  The longer things went on, the worse the tension became. So when the big explosion hit the planetarium, one of the firefighters turned to the rest of her crew. "We've got to get in there," she said.

  They glanced at each other. Then, with a mutual nod, they grabbed their gear and ran toward the building.

  Once they saw the firefighters on their way into the museum, it wasn't long before the remaining police officers headed in, too. A moment later, the EMS medics followed suit. Then, with no one manning the police barricades to stop them, the reporters and television crews were on their way.

  That left only the crowd. The bystanders looked at each other, confused and not sure what to do next.

  Xanthador was under siege. His foes were everywhere, battering him from all sides. Dozens of people were shooting him with bullets, spraying him with highpressure water hoses, and pelting him with rocks, bottles, and whatever debris was close at hand.

  He was still far too strong for the attack to cause any physical damage. However, he was noticeably smaller now, stretching a mere twenty feet or so above the floor. And judging from the way the demon was writhing and screaming, there might not have been any physical damage, but the psychic pain was incredible.

  Venkman was still imprisoned in the coils of Xanthador's tail. However, the look on his face was triumphant.

  "That's the secret, isn't it?" he shouted at the demon. "The physical attacks can't hurt you. But you feed on fear. It's the special of the day at the Xanthador Grill. So if fear is the entree, then courage...

  "...Courage is like poison!"

  Only fourteen feet tall now, the demon reeled back. His tail drooped and went slack, letting Venkman drop to the floor. The fall was short enough that, even with the after-effects of being constricted by Xanthador's tail, Venkman landed on his feet.

  "You know your mistake, big guy?" Venkman told Xanthador. "Of all the places in all the world, you had to go pick New York City!"

  "See, the thing is, you need fear to survive. You need us scared. And if there's one thing the past couple of years have taught us, it's this: When things get bad, I mean really bad, and all Hell's breaking loose, then New Yorkers don't get scared - they get pissed!"

  Venkman fired his nutrona wand, binding Xanthador in an ion stream of pure white light. The demon struggled against the luminous bonds. He gritted his rows of teeth, straining with the last of his strength. Slowly, the ion stream began to give...

  The stream shattered, sending shards of light in all directions.

  Xanthador rose to his full, fourteen-foot height. He thrust his arms upward and cried, "TO ME, MY MINlONS!"

  They seemed to come from everywhere. Spectres, phantoms, and ghouls of every shape and size poured in through the planetarium's walls, ceiling, and floor. The humans on the scene pulled back as the wraiths flocked around their master and faced Venkman with menace in their ethereal eyes.

  "IT SHALL NOT BE XANTHADOR WHO PERISHES THIS DAY!" Xanthador told Venkman. "ALL MANKIND SHALL LEARN THE BOUNDLESS LIMITS OF MY WRATH!"

  "YET, YOU SHALL NOT BEAR WITNESS TO MY TRIUMPH, MORTAL - FOR I SHALL ADORN MY CHARIOT WITH YOUR SMOLDERING BONES!"

  The lobby was so densely packed that it took a while for Winston to realize that some of the combatants on the fringes of the crowd were actually fighting each other. And even then, Egon and Ray didn't realize it, because they were facing in other directions.

  "Hey, guys," said Winston, "we got company!"

  "Thank you for stating the obvious," said Egon, trying to shake off an Incan priest while blasting a warthog.

  "No, new company!"

  "Who is it?" asked Ray.

  "I can't tell," Winston replied, stretching to see over the crowd. "I think it's the cavalry."

  The dozens of new arrivals weren't armed with the Ghostbusters' high-tech arsenal. But the ghosts were inhabiting tangible objects, and they were operating at nowhere near Xanthador's level of power. That meant they could be hit - and their borrowed bodies could be broken. Police officers swung billy clubs to knock stuffed heads off the bodies of wild animals. Teamsters shattered walking suits of armor with crowbars and tire irons.

  Now that the odds were approaching something more even, the pack of animated exhibits was starting to thin as spirits were displaced from their hosts and forced to go off and find new bodies to inhabit. Not that there was any shortage of ghouls to battle, but once the ghosts had to split their attention across more than three living targets, the pressure on the Ghostbusters eased a bit. At the very least, they could move their arms and legs freely again.

  "Didn't you say you had an idea?" Ray asked Egon.

  "Yes," said Egon. As I said earlier, fire strategically. Place every shot for maximum effect."

  With that, Egon whirled. He fired upward, trapping Geezil in the grip of an ion stream. "Why waste time with pawns, when you can capture a knight?"

  Egon started to retract the beam. Geezil squirmed and struggled to maintain his grip on the wall, but it was no use. The relentless beam yanked the demon from his perch and pulled him down toward ground level. Geezil looked down at the waiting Ghostbusters with more than a little anxiety.

  "Hiya, boys," said Geezil as he reached the Ghostbusters' eye level. "Hey, whaddaya say we go settle this whole misunderstanding over a cold beer? My treat, okay?"

  "Call them off," said Egon.

  "It'd like to. Really," said Geezil. "But it's my boss, y'see. He gave strict orders, and he has this real problem with employees showing personal initiative - "

  "Call them off," said Egon, a little more insistent this time. "Now."

  "Wish I could, but it's out of my hands," said Geezil. "I'm just middle management. All the big stuff - possession, transmogrification - that's my boss's turf."

  "Call them off," said Egon, "or I'll shove you into an ecto-trap and slam the door when you're halfway through."

  "Can he do that?" Winston whispered to Ray, as he zapped a charging rhinoceros.

  "Nah, the traps don't work like that," Ray whispered back. "But five bucks says he starts working on modifying them tomorrow."

  Suddenly, without warning, all of the ghosts soared up out of their hosts and zoomed off in the same direction, through the wall and out of sight. The exhibits they left behind collapsed onto the floor, lifeless.

  Geezil looked as puzzled as the humans. "Don't look at me," he said. "I didn't do anything."

  A moment later, Geezil, too, was yanked out of the ion stream by an unseen force. He disappeared into the distance.

  The disembodied spirits hadn't returned to the netherworld. All of them - scores of wraiths - were inside the planetarium, facing Venkman at Xanthador's side.

  The other humans weren't shooting or using hoses now. Cowed by the threat and, to be honest, the sheer spectacle of it all, they stayed back and tried to attract as little attention to themselves as possible. As for the other Ghostbusters, they were still inside the museum proper.

  Venkman was going to have to handle this one on his own.

  "Y'know, Johnny," said Venkrnan, "There are a lot of things that scare me. Looking dumb on live TV? That scares me. Cafeteria mystery meat? Yeah, that scares me. And commitment? Don't get me started on commitment."