“ Ghostbusters, you’ve got a call. Ghostbusters?” Janine put her head round the door frame to see the four of them crashed out in various positions around the lounge. Sighing she turned and pulled the lever to set off the alarm. The results took a while to show but within ten minutes they were all awake and almost ready to move. “ This better be important. I am not getting enough sleep here.” Garrett grumbled. “ We’ve got some equipment and things going wrong on a building site next to this old chapel.” She handed them the address. “ Any fatalities?” Everyone fixed a puzzled look on Kylie. “ I’m just curious.”
“ No.” Turning Eduardo stumbled over to the Ecto-1 and sat down. “ Do we get holidays?”
“ No.”
“ Why not?” Janine looked momentarily concerned. “ I’ll tell you when you get back. Now go.” The faithful old car pealed out of the garage and down the street.
When they got there the destruction was wide spread. A JCB lay toppled on it’s side. Copper pipes lay in bent piles, tools were flying through the air, hitting whatever they got to first. A work man ran over. “ You gotta help us! It’s that God Damned chapel. So old, it’s almost falling apart. But people have tried to knock it down no-one’s survived the curse.”
Garrett dodged a hammer. “ What curse?”
“ The one that’s doin’ this! I’m out of ‘ere.” As soon as he left the tools stopped flying and hovered patiently in the air, before falling to the ground with a dull thud. “ P.K.E’s off the scale. Something nasty’s in there.”
“ Let’s check out the stupid Chapel and go home.” At Roland’s suggestion the others moved away.
They all stood (or sat) in the front entrance, shining their flashlights around. “ Man, how old IS this place?”
“ Too old.” A sound of stone grinding against stone filled the small room. Garrett let out a yell before disappearing into the blackness. “ Garrett!”
‘ He’ll be fine,’ a voice hissed quietly. ‘ As for the rest of you, who knows.’
“ Where are you, what did you do with Garrett?” ‘ That is none of your concern young Lady! Every aeon you act more and more like a ruler, don’t you, Anya? And you,’ Eduardo tensed, ‘ There was a time when you were on my side. When your soul belonged to me, not to her. And finally, the warrior. Against us you may have won. But now I will defeat you all.’
An inky dark shadow coiled around their bodies, squeezing tightly, pressing, constricting. None of them could breathe. Pain ricocheted along every available nerve. The last thing they, as mortals felt. Was a sense of total loss as the spirit that, at the end of every lifetime, leaves the body to seek a new shell was seperated from them. The three of the Extreme Ghostbusters collapsed to the floor, all life signs had drained from their empty frames.
Down deep in the Chapels basement Garrett regained consciousness. All around him it was dark. The old fear set in. Somehow he had managed to stay in his chair, but it wasn’t as much comfort as his torch. He wondered about the others, thinking, hoping that they were okay. The way out was around here somewhere. He put a hand out and felt a tall slim column. As he touched the candle a flame burst from the top. At least now he could see. A shudder went through his body. The crypt. Gross.
A slight sound murmured on the edge of hearing. Listening hard Garrett could make out a high voice singing quietly to itself. When the souls do rise once more,
they will open up the door.
Once the door is open wide,
Both heaven and hell will be inside.
It was sung like a chilling nursery rhyme, Stephen king here we come. He went through the open doorway, following the voice. In a shaft of light a transparent child sat rocking and rocking over and over. She stopped rocking and just sang in rhyme:-
His Son she stole,
Her only goal,
was freedom from all evil.
The fighting man,
He should have ran,
Is soon to meet the devil.
The three of them,
will soon condemn,
Their spirits to the fire.
Never more, ever more
Into the funeral pyre.
Now she spoke in the softest voice, looking directly at him. No longer in rhyme. ‘ You are the only one who will allow them to win, if they lose all is lost. They as mortals may not have known who they were, but know, as spirits their fame returns. Go up to the hall.’ She stood and calmly walked towards a doorway, Garrett followed mutely. Within seconds they stood in the front hall where the three bodies of the ghostbusters lay, prisoners of the choking blackness, ‘ Come, they are beyond help. Do not concern yourself, there is a fight to win.’ Even as panic numbed his brain he felt the urge to cry at the loss of the closest thing to a family he had.