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First published in Our Favorite Things 20 (2004)
What are you supposed to do when your two best friends aren’t getting along?
Well, okay, so Egon and Peter weren’t exactly not getting along. If I didn’t live with them and know them as if we’d been together all our lives, I wouldn’t have even been able to tell something was wrong. Peter was watching out extra hard for Egon on busts and didn’t tease him very much, and Egon was going out of his way not to bug Peter by using those big words he likes or doing any of his, uh, smellier experiments.
But that was the problem. Egon not using those big words and blowing up the lab every second Tuesday, and Peter being, well, nice, isn’t really them, either of them. And isn’t the point of friends, that you can be yourself around them?
It wasn’t hard to tell when things started going wrong. Sometimes I don’t see it right away — I guess I tend to be kind of happy, and usually figure others are, too. I mean, why be anything else if you don’t have to be? But for a while there, I wasn’t, either, when Egon left—
Maybe I’m getting ahead of myself. I have a way of doing that, too.
None of us were really surprised Egon’s Uncle Cyrus wanted Egon’s help back at Spengler Labs. Egon’s the smartest guy I’ve ever met, and that includes a few Nobel winners. I’d want him to work with me if I had a lab, and Uncle Cyrus was family, too. Somehow I figured Egon would turn him down, though, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t upset and, yeah, maybe a little hurt when he decided to go back. After I thought about it, it made sense — Egon’s really loyal, and he’d had that tie to his family even longer than he’d been connected to us. I could see why he did what he did, even if I didn’t like it. But then he came back and it was great, like getting your family back. I was so glad, I didn’t even care any more that he’d left.
Peter did.
Maybe we should have seen that one coming, too. I mean, I get a little … sentimental when it comes to my parents, and Winston has some war memories he doesn’t much talk about, and Egon still changes the subject whenever the Bogeyman comes up. I think everyone has something like that, their kryptonite that can hurt them like nothing else. Peter’s is being afraid of being abandoned and alone. Even after I lost my parents, I had my Aunt Lois and I never really felt that way, not deep down. But Peter has, and I don’t even like to think about what he’d gone through to do that to him. All I know is, it took a long time to really get to know Peter because he was scared to let people in and then have them leave him. I think we’ve proved him wrong over the years, Egon and I, and then Winston, but that kind of weak spot never goes away completely.
And then Egon left us, without even saying good-bye.
I don’t think Peter slept well or smiled again until he came back.
Winston and I knew what had happened to him—I think even Egon over in Ohio probably knew what was going on—and we were worried, but we got Egon back soon enough that we figured things would go back to normal. It wasn’t even like Egon wanted to go away; we all knew that, even Peter. But Peter … it’s hard to let your guard down again after you’ve been hurt like that, even for someone you really do trust.
So Peter started hanging out more upstairs, pretty transparently keeping an eye on Egon in the lab. Egon, as stiff as Peter but a lot guiltier, was on good behavior, not going anywhere or doing anything without telling us first, not poking fun at Peter in that great dry way he usually does. It was pretty obvious to all of us he was regretting things but didn’t know how to make up for it any more than Winston or I, or Peter, and it made him … sad. None of us were really happy, honestly. My birthday was coming up, and while I usually really looked forward to it, all I could think about this time was how it wouldn’t be any fun with my friends not getting along. Their making up would have been the best gift I could think of.
Winston said they’d work it out if we left them alone, and I think he was right. Things like this have happened before, especially whenever one of us got hurt. I guess it’s kind of normal to feel like someone who nearly died was going to abandon you, even if that doesn’t make sense, and in Peter it was just stronger than the rest of us. But it always got better with time, and being around each other. Just being together sure makes me feel better when things are hard.
When it became obvious Peter was going to shadow Egon more than usual on busts, Winston and I talked again. That wasn’t something we could just give time, because not paying enough attention to what you’re doing can get you killed on a bust. We finally decided I should try talking to Peter, see if I could help things along, and Winston would talk to Egon.
Well, I tried. I found him that afternoon in the bedroom, flopped down on his four-poster, reading a book while one of his records played loudly in the background. I almost shook my head and smiled. Peter was only subtle when he was being a psychologist. And he didn’t even know I’d seen him finish that book a few weeks ago.
I’d turned down the music before I sat on Egon’s bed next to him. “Peter, can I ask you a question?”
I wasn’t really trying but I guess I pushed one of his buttons: friend who has a problem. He put the book down right away and sat up to face me. “Sure, Ray. What gives?”
“It’s Egon.” I saw him freeze, but I kept going like I hadn’t. “Doesn’t he seem kind of … different to you since he got back?”
“Like how?” Definitely wary.
This was about as far as I’d gone in thinking about what I’d say. I was never very good at acting. “Like he’s worried we haven’t really forgiven him for going to Ohio.”
“What’s to forgive? Family called—we all know that comes first, right?” Both of us knew how true that had been of his dad. “And he’s back now, so it doesn’t matter, anyway. Life goes on.”
“I don’t think he believes that,” I said quietly. “He acts like if he makes one mistake we’re going to throw him out or something.”
There is a darkness in Peter that he usually keeps locked away pretty well but that sometimes still shows up in his eyes and reminds me of when I first met him, before he believed in people again. It crept in now when he looked at me, his mouth a little twisted. “That didn’t bother him when he walked out on his own, did it?”
Oh, Peter, I thought to myself mournfully. There were times when even I didn’t like his dad very much.
Peter shrugged. “Egon’s a big boy, Ray. He can take care of himself. I think he proved that plenty last week.”
I took a deep breath and plunged in. “Is that why you’re watching him all the time?”
He gaped, flushed, and the darkness in his eyes was gone just like that, pain in its place. “Ray…” He was suddenly talking softly, like all the fight had gone out of him. “I know it’s … I know I should just be glad he’s back, but I’m not … I can’t just forget like you did that he left. If it could happen once, it could happen again, right? And I’m not sure I can stand—”
He stopped suddenly, as if realizing what he was saying. What he’d probably never said out loud in his life, except maybe in a quiet admission some time to Egon. I don’t know if it’s embarrassment, or not wanting to admit it, or worrying about looking weak. I’m not sure Peter knows, either. All I know is, everything was suddenly gone from his face except for a smile I didn’t buy for a second.
“Look, I’m sure Egon’s gonna be okay. I bet he’ll be dragging me out of my bed at the crack of dawn and sending Slimer through my closet before long, just watch.”
“What about you, Peter?” I asked quietly.
We’ve been friends too long for him to lie to my face. I saw him struggle again for a moment between truth and something he could live with, and the smile changed into something sad. “I’ll try, okay? That’s the best I can promise, Ray.”
It wasn’t okay. It didn’t solve the problem with the busts and it sure didn’t make me feel better about the way things were going between Peter and Egon, but I think it was the best Peter could do just then, and I didn’t want to make it even harder for him by pushing. Soon we were talking about the album he was listening to, but I could tell it was conversation for my sake. He didn’t have to bother. Peter should know by now if he’s unhappy, I will be, too. I felt worse after that than if we’d never talked, because I knew now Peter was trying hard and things were still bad. Even time was going to have a struggle healing this.
And then it turned out we didn’t have any left.
Janine had taken a call that morning about a ghost that was scaring people near the docks. We seem to get a lot of them there, something Egon and I have talked about before. Best theory we’ve ever been able to come up with is that it’s something about the water meeting the land, maybe bringing out the worst in both realms. Neat stuff I wanted to study sometime, except there never seems enough time to research everything we come up against. Maybe later, but all that was important now was that a ghost that was scaring people could also drive them to do something dangerous, especially around the docks, or could turn violent and really do some damage. It was a bust we had to take.
Winston hadn’t had much luck with Egon, either; Egon knew there was a problem but didn’t know how to fix it any more than Peter did. I never really understood why two people who love each other and want to get along don’t just get along, but I felt bad for both my friends. And Winston and I decided we’d just let Peter be protective for now and keep an eye on both of them as best we could on busts. What else could we do?
So when we got to the warehouse, I guess the plan Peter came up with didn’t surprise anyone.
“Okay, Egon and I will go through the front. Winston and Ray, you guys go around back. We’ll wait a minute until you guys get in position, then we’ll go in. Maybe we can trap this gooper between us and catch it with its pants down.”
I smiled at the thought. “I don’t think they said it was wearing any clothes, Peter,” I offered, more to lighten the mood than out of any serious observation. We’d had ghosts wearing clothes before. And all kinds of other costumes and props you wouldn’t believe.
Peter gave me a smile and a flash of appreciation. “Okay, then, catch it before it has a chance to tidy up the place for us.”
This is where Egon would have normally jumped in to offer a deadpan statement about his doubting ghosts ever cleaned or even cared about cleanliness, but he seemed really engrossed in a PKE meter that I probably wasn’t the only one who noticed was turned off.
Winston spoke up instead. “I don’t know about this, Pete — the place looks kinda unstable. One of our shots hits it the right spot and the whole place could come down on us.”
When Winston talked construction, it was smart to pay attention. Peter gave the building a serious look, even as he reached over and snapped Egon’s meter on. Egon turned an interesting red color, but I pretended not to notice for his sake, following Peter’s gaze instead. “Well,” he said, “the ghost was last seen going in there, by a couple of different people. And it doesn’t sound like one that’s gonna go away until it does some damage, so we can’t just let it go, guys. Any better ideas?”
“Call it outside?” I offered weakly. Hopefully.
“See if it can come out to play?” Peter’s mouth twisted. “Sure, that works all the time. Ghosts are always anxious to come play with us."
“Worth a try, Pete,” Winston offered.
Still no response from our resident genius, even though I saw Peter give him a sideways, half-expectant glance. Which soon changed to disappointment as Egon just fiddled with the beeping meter.
“Sure,” Peter finally waved an indulgent hand. “Why not? Go for it, Tex.”
I was always game to try something new. I stepped forward a few steps, cleared my throat, and yelled. “Hey, you in there, ghost. Why don’t you come out and scare us, too?”
I could swear I heard a laugh from somewhere inside. That was actually kind of neat — even though I’d been the one to suggest it, I knew most ghosts couldn’t understand us, or at least what we were saying. They knew well enough what we were there to do. But this one was laughing at us … which meant he probably understood and had no intention of coming out. Which meant we’d probably have our hands full if we went in after it, but also that we had no choice. It wouldn’t be hard for a smart, malicious ghost to do some real damage.
I thought it would be fun, a new challenge. I was really, really wrong.
“Aw, he thinks you’re funny, Ray,” Winston said with a half-grin.
“Yeah, makes me feel a lot better,” Peter added. “So, we ready to go in?”
“One more moment. I just want to adjust…” That was Egon, this time really engrossed in his meter. I smiled at him even if he wasn’t looking at me, glad to see him acting more normal, and even Peter looked relieved there for a minute. Before something lonely slipped into his eyes again.
I sighed. What did I say about two friends not getting along? I felt so bad for both of them.
Still, you wouldn’t have thought anything was wrong from Peter’s voice or his confident pose. “Okay, that should give you guys time to get to the back door. We’ll go in here,” he indicated the door not too far from Ecto, “and meet you guys inside. Maybe we can trap Giggles between us.”
I nodded, willing enough, and Winston followed me, only a little less reluctant. My last sight of Peter and Egon was the two of them huddled over Egon’s meter, discussing something in a way that seemed so much like old times, I was feeling cheerful again as we rounded the corner.
A minute passed, then Winston slowed down.
He’d been looking at the building as we went, the warehouse stretching farther back than it’d looked from the front. I figured he was still worried about the place being sound, and while I usually trusted Winston’s judgment, I also knew the city didn’t usually leave unstable buildings up.
That was when I saw the sign Winston had also just spotted.
Condemned. Closed by order of Safety Inspector, New York City. Dangerous! Do Not Enter!
“This is not good,” Winston muttered darkly as he reached for his radio. I already had mine out and toggled the switch.
“Peter, Egon, maybe we shouldn’t go in — there’s a sign here that —”
The very faint sound of a thrower firing was unmistakable, even through the walls of the building. Winston and I glanced at each other and immediately started running back to the front of the building. It seemed faster than trying to find our way through the insides of the warehouse.
The condemned warehouse groaned and then ominously shuddered even as we ran faster
Winston was saying something under his breath, and it took me a moment to realize he was praying. I think that scared me worse than the sounds the building was making, which were getting louder and soon drowned out Winston altogether.
And then with a particularly loud rumble, the building began to collapse inward on itself.
“Pet—” That was all I got out before Winston tackled me from the side, rolling us both between and then behind stacks of barrels and crates piled next to a chain link fence that surrounded the warehouse. It knocked the breath out of me, and all I could do for a few seconds was lie there and listen to the horrific crash and crunch and screech of the warehouse’s death knell.
The warehouse Peter and Egon were most likely in.
Winston was already kneeling next to me as I pushed myself up on bruised and sore knees and peered around the crates that had sheltered us. The air was full of dust and it was hard to see anything, but when I got my first glimpse of the building, I wished I hadn’t.
“Dear God in heaven,” Winston murmured beside me.
I couldn’t say anything, but I silently agreed.
The formerly one-story building was now flatter than a man’s height, except for the odd beam or pile that protruded from the ruins. Stone, wood, and metal had been reduced to rubble in most places, leaving a debris field that looked like a war zone. A war no one could have survived.
Peter and Egon, buried under that? It made my eyes sting worse than the dust did and left my thoughts as crumbled and wrecked as the area in front of us.
“Oh, gosh, Winston, they aren’t…?” My voice, and my question, sounded feeble even to me, but I wanted more than anything to have someone tell me what I was thinking was wrong.
“I—I think they were in there, Ray.” He sounded as shell-shocked as I did.
We staggered to our feet and, like wounded survivors, stumbled out to look for our friends nonetheless. I didn’t remember him putting it there but I realized Winston’s hand was on my shoulder, gripping hard as if I might fall over otherwise. Or he might. The doctor said later we were in shock, and that’s the best word I can find to describe it. My world had just fallen into a heap, too.
But we staggered on nonetheless, denial at least allowing some hope to survive.
Winston unerringly headed for the area that would have been right inside the front door. Clearly, Peter and Egon had gone inside while we’d been on our way around back, and the ghost had probably shown up the minute they entered. Peter had known to be careful but maybe Egon hadn’t heard Winston’s reservations, or maybe there just hadn’t been any choice, a shot required in self-defense. But at any rate, it seemed likeliest we’d find them close to the door. Them or their … bodies.
I gulped, and Winston squeezed so hard, my arm went a little numb.
The doorway was just a pile of timber now, and in front of it seemed the worst of the damage, the rubble flattened to just a foot or two off the ground. In other places the wall and roof had simply collapsed, leaving large chunks and recognizable sections, but this part had obviously gotten the brunt of the collapse and was smashed. How could a large building fold up into such small remains, I wondered dumbly. The only protrusion here was a mound of wooden beams and a chunk of what looked like a corrugated tin roof. It was the one place where there was maybe a … a body intact.
“We should wait for the experts,” Winston murmured beside me.
There were people around, those attracted by our arrival and those who’d come to see a catastrophe. I didn’t look at them but I heard them behind us, and I knew help would be on the way soon. But Winston and I didn’t even look at each other as we both suddenly started to shed our equipment with frenzied motions next to a dusty and half-buried Ecto, before we headed for that heap.
“Peter!” I called desperately as I went. “Egon?”
Winston didn’t even try. That scared me, too.
I couldn’t even really think about what we’d find or I would have curled up right there and bawled. How do you go from having two people you see and talk to and be with every day and who you love so much it amazes you sometimes, to having them both suddenly gone for good, never to see or talk to again? I don’t think I could have understood that just then if I’d wanted to, and there wasn’t much I wanted less.
Except to find two bodies.
Winston reached the pile first and dove into it with a fury that took even me aback. He would have been feeling the same way I was, but maybe he was blaming himself for not stopping Peter and Egon from going in? We’d have to talk about that … sometime. Time had sort of become foggy all of a sudden.
The distant sound of a siren washed over my detachment and it took me a moment to realize what it was and to connect it to us, but I tried to talk over all the coughing we were both doing from the dust. “I think…I think they’re coming to help.”
Winston didn’t answer, just grimly kept going, moving on to a particularly large beam. I didn’t say any more than that, not even thinking until later that maybe we should have stopped and waited for help, just put my shoulder to the same beam.
It groaned, moved a little, stuck again. Then, with a long protesting shriek, it slid away and fell into the dust around us with a crash. Winston immediately went on to the next obstacle, while I was forced to bend over and clear my lungs so I could breathe.
I never would have seen the hand otherwise.
I stared at it a moment, thinking my eyes and the dust were playing tricks on me, but they weren’t. It was a grey-coated hand, visible only from the green cuff down to the fingers.
Peter’s hand.
I don’t know if I wavered or shouted or what, but somehow Winston was kneeling beside me, and even with my dust-caked mouth, I could taste blood as I bit my tongue waiting for a verdict. Winston’s fingers gently pressed against the exposed wrist and held there for a moment, and then he looked up at me with the most peculiar mix of anguish and joy I’ve ever seen in my life.
“He’s alive.”
The dust must have moved into my throat because I couldn’t even swallow, just traced the hand to the invisible body underneath. It meant his torso and maybe his legs were under the highest part of the rubble pile, perhaps protected somehow from the worst of the debris fall? I’d heard of crush injuries in which the trapped person was fine until they were freed, and then they quickly died of hemorrhaging, and some of my emptiness turned into a hungry fear. Nor was there any sign of Egon still. We were so deep in the woods, I could barely see any light.
But there was a glimmer now, revealed by that dusty hand.
I crouched right next to it, wrapping it carefully in my own hand even as Winston surged to his feet next to me, quickly surveying the area around us.
“I’m scared to move anything else, maybe bring the rest down on top of him,” he finally said in an agonized voice.
Just as quick as he’d been to offer me comfort minutes before, I was pulling firmly at his sleeve and saying, “It’s okay, Winston. Help will be here soon and we’ll get them out.” The sirens were very loud now. I sounded so calm, but the calm came from inside, some sort of sureness that Peter would be all right. I wasn’t thinking — couldn’t think — about Egon just yet.
Maybe it was denial, but that seemed to steady Winston. His chin rose and his back straightened, and he looked the pile over again more critically. Then he pulled gently out of my grip and climbed a few feet over to get a different angle.
The hand in mine spasmed briefly before going limp again, and I didn’t realize I was crying as I felt for and found the pulse again. “It’s okay, Peter, we’re getting you out,” I said sternly.
The emergency workers arrived.
And with a sudden screech, so did the ghost.
All I remember of that was really a blur of colors: yellow firefighters, blue paramedics, red equipment, and a sort of translucent vibrant green ghost. Later I realized it reminded me of the color of Peter’s eyes, but I didn’t need anything to make me more mad than I was. I wasn’t even curious about how or how much it understood humans, or what its readings were. I knew it was a Class 5, and that meant we could trap it, and that was all that mattered. Winston and I scrambled to get our packs while everyone else ducked.
It was fast. Maybe Peter had thought he could hit it but the ghost had moved too fast and he’d hit the ceiling, or a beam, instead. Normally, we would have needed all four of us to trap a ghost like this one, laying down fire until one of us managed to snag it and the rest pounced. But this time was far from normal. We had people to protect, and vengeance to deliver.
The ghost cackled, swooping toward me like a roller coaster. I didn’t duck, just took careful aim.
“That was for my master,” it suddenly said in a thin voice, and changed direction just as fast, leaving me standing there with gaping jaw. Its master? It had done this all on purpose?
Winston made some sort of furious sound across from me and dove to try to catch the ghost as it swung up behind him, missing by inches.
I recovered myself just as quickly. The paramedics and rescue workers were barely able to do their jobs, hunched over the rubble and Peter to try to stay out of the way and protect him. Although I wished now we did have readings and I had a reason for what had happened to us, this had to end now.
I stood straighter, stared that … thing in its eyes. I’d hated few times in my life as I hated at that moment. “Hey! You didn’t do a very good job for your master, then, did you? I’m still here!”
With a growl, the green ghost wheeled around and headed straight for me.
I waited until the last second, then hollered “Now!” as I flattened myself on the debris-strewn sidewalk.
I could hear Winston’s thrower, and mine joined it a second later. We’d caught it. I fumbled for my trap but Winston was already throwing his out, stomping on it with vicious glee.
“You’re lucky this is the worst we can do to you,” he growled as the ghost stretched and got sucked, wailing, into the trap. I knew exactly what he meant.
It seemed anticlimactic, the blinking trap. It was why we’d come and it just didn’t seem to matter now. Or even who its master was, although I would have to look into it just to make sure it didn’t come after Winston or Janine, or Peter in the hospital. I couldn’t remember ever feeling so tired as I threw the trap into Ecto.
But there wasn’t time to think about it. I turned and hurried back to where a dozen people were now working on digging Peter out in some careful plan I didn’t really understand to not bury him in the process. Someone pointed out a beam that two others were working to move as I moved in closer, and I immediately went to it, so desperate to do something. I think I could have moved the timber by myself, I was so focused and determined.
Soon Peter’s arm was uncovered. Then his side and right leg, followed by the left. The mound seemed particularly heavy and precarious on his chest and left arm, and there were some brief consultations before that area was gingerly attacked, while two others worked on the sheet of roof that covered his head.
And had apparently protected it. They heaved the sheet aside to reveal the bloodied and grey but intact face of Peter Venkman.
I started praying, too, my eyes blurring so badly I couldn’t see sometimes and the lump in my throat and chest huge and growing.
They were still working on his torso, the paramedics calling out frightening things like 'hemorrhage' and 'flail chest,' when Peter stirred, his eyes looking like they were struggling to open.
Winston was working with the firemen on freeing him all the way, but I bent down next to his head, gently lifting away the hair that was plastered to his forehead with blood, sweat, and dust, and stroking it out of his eyes. “Peter?” I whispered, doubting anybody could hear me in that noise.
But the eyes fluttered again, then opened a crack to stare, first at nothing, then finally at me. Joy squeezed all the breath out of me, a light, fizzy happiness as I felt in my dreams about my childhood, when I saw his mouth curve up in the barest of smiles. “Ray?” he breathed, his lips barely moving.
“I’m here, Peter, and so is Winston. We’ll get you out in a minute.”
A long moment passed in which I wasn’t sure Peter had heard me, then his head rolled a fraction of an inch to one side. That was all the collar they’d put around his neck would allow, but even that took so much energy that his eyes closed again for a long minute, then reopened to blink sluggishly at me. “Egon?” he whispered.
The joy turned dark. “Egon’s not here, Peter — we’re still looking for him.”
“Other … room.” Peter’s free hand twitched briefly as if it wanted to point. “T’ left.”
I automatically looked up, scanning the terrain that would have been to the left of the main room. It was half hidden behind the crowd of rescue workers, but I saw enough.
It was the worst crumbled of the whole field around us, no promising mounds or heaps breaking its surface, nothing but crushed and mangled masonry and wood.
I swallowed hard, not allowing the welling grief to burst out. “We’ll find him next,” was all I promised Peter in a hushed, unsteady voice, once again stroking the dark hair.
“Good…” The exhaled word barely stirred my ear as I knelt close to hear it. It was followed by a flinch and a groan. “Hurts.”
“I know,” I soothed. “It’ll be better soon. I’ll stay with you until it is.”
There might have been another “Good,” or it might have just been a half-cough as Peter faded out of consciousness.
I had to keep rubbing my eyes clear to watch as the last of the debris was lifted off Peter and the paramedics finally swarmed in, taking stock, moving my friend carefully onto a backboard, then easing him free of the fallen building . I took a step to follow them and hesitated, turning instead back to Winston.
“Peter said Egon was in the room on his left,” I said quietly.
Winston’s gaze went over to the level area I had looked at a minute before, and I could see the same realization dawning in his eyes.
“They’re taking Peter in. Are you coming?” I asked.
Winston shook his head heavily, his shoulders bowed as if he were still wearing his pack. “No, I want to stay, help them find Egon’s … Egon. You go, brother.” His hand squeezed my arm this time, trying to find strength and give it at the same time.
Brother — we’d lost a brother. My hands were shaking and I balled them to keep them still. “Okay,” I said, hushed. “We’ll be waiting for you.”
I climbed in after Peter, staring out the back window until the collapsed building was out of sight. Only then did I turn back and watch as the paramedic worked on the broken body of one of my two remaining best friends.
I didn’t know who to think about, alone in that waiting room, Egon or Peter.
Actually, Janine was the one who came to mind as I stepped out of the emergency room, into the hallway, and my eyes fell on the phone. There was no worse way to find out about a loved one getting hurt than on the news, and I hoped to reach her before she heard it somewhere or the reporters started calling.
“You’ve reached the Ghostbusters at 555-”
I stared at the phone dumbly for a minute before realizing she hadn’t been there that morning, either — she was upstate, visiting her sister for two days. Whose number was back at the firehall but not on me or in Ecto. Egon probably knew it by heart, but…
My eyes unexpectedly welled with tears. There had been so many close calls and injuries and bad scares during our years on the job. You’d have thought I’d gotten used to it or … or desensitized over the years, or something. But it hurt so bad each time that I couldn’t imagine possibly hurting worse before or after. Peter I still had no word about, although he hadn’t come to on the whole trip in, and Egon … was there even any hope for Egon? My heart kept pushing for it and wishing for it, but my head knew better. Every time I thought about him, all my strength seemed to leave me and the giant weight on my chest got a little heavier. If Peter wouldn’t be all right, either, I didn’t know what I’d do. Honestly, I couldn’t even imagine life without either of them. And if he did wake up, how was I going to tell him about Egon?
I wished Winston were there because I’d never felt so alone in all my life, not even after my parents died.
Peter hadn’t been in the emergency room long — they kept saying the word 'hemorrhage,' and soon they were rolling him out to surgery. The doctor hadn’t had time to tell me anything more than that, and the nurses hadn’t wanted to say. So I just sat and waited and tried not to think.
The waiting room was pink. Or maybe it was rose. It looked like the same color as Egon’s favorite shirt, the one Peter always teased him about.
The picture that hung on the wall across the room was of a seascape, kids playing in the sand and a sailboat on the distant horizon. Peter had always wanted a yacht, or at least the status of having his own yacht, but he’d gotten so seasick after we’d gone after his dad in the New Jersey Parallelogram, he would probably never have gone out on it.
The blond boy in suspenders playing in one corner while his mother sat nearby could easily have been a young Egon, especially with the curl that dipped onto his forehead.
I groaned silently and bent over to press my face against my hands.
Egon was the brain of our team. How could a body survive without a brain? I could build the machines, but it was usually Egon’s theories that helped me work out what to build in the first place. We couldn’t even do our jobs without that.
That seemed callous. I bit my lip. We hadn’t even found the body and I was thinking about the business’s future? Even Peter with all his practicality wouldn’t have been that insensitive.
Oh, God, what was I going to tell Peter? Egon had left him again, permanently this time, before they’d made their peace about his last departure… Peter would never forgive him. Or himself. The two of them had meshed so naturally, he’d never find a fit like that again, but even worse, the damage would be huge. I didn’t think I could stand to see him go back to the way he was when I first met him, suspicious of every kindness, holding himself distant from everybody, cheerful in that superficial way that turned out to be so hollow for anyone who cared to look closer. Even if Peter were okay physically, he’d never again be the person I knew and loved.
The thought was an unexpectedly dark and bleak one for me, the team optimist, but what was there to hope for? How could this possibly turn out all right? Could things ever be right again if we lost Egon? And – I flinched deeper – Peter?
I would have sworn I was too miserable and preoccupied to fall asleep, but I’d had all I could stand, body and soul, The next thing I knew, Winston was gently shaking me awake.
“Hey, Ray.”
There was no condemnation in his face, just a grey tiredness beneath the dust that caked every inch of him. And no joy, no good news — I know because I looked hard. “Is he—?” I croaked.
Winston shook his head, sagging onto the couch beside me. “We haven’t found him yet. But … they pretty much seem to agree it doesn’t look like anybody could have survived there.”
I stared down at my hands, grimy around the nails and red and scratched in a few places. That wasn’t really news; I’d been trying to accept as much in my heart the whole time, and failing.
“They’re gonna keep trying but they stopped for a little while to bring in nighttime equipment.”
I hadn’t realized it was so late, but a glance at the window showed it was dusk outside. I nodded at my lap.
“Any word on Pete?”
I took a deep breath. “He went into surgery after we got here — they said he was hemorrhaging inside. I haven’t heard anything since, but I don’t know if someone came in while I was…”
I felt Winston nodding next to me, and we both lapsed into silence. Winston sat so heavily, I half-expected him to fall asleep right there, too. I almost heard Peter’s voice telling me to do something, knowing he’d have been out there taking care of us if he could have.
I struggled for a smile and the energy to get up. “We should have something to eat.”
Winston barely shook his head. “I’m not hungry, Ray, are you?”
I couldn’t keep the image of enthusiasm going. “No. But are you going back out there to keep looking for Egon?”
His expression answered that, if I hadn’t already known.
“Then you’re going to need to eat,” I said gently. “We can ask about Peter on the way.”
That seemed to do it. I’m not sure if he leaned on me or I leaned on him, but we managed to get to our feet and out to the nurses station. There we were told Peter was in recovery and the doctor would be down soon to talk to us but we had time to visit the cafeteria first. For all the good it did. I think Winston’s burger and fries had about as much flavor as my soup and sandwich, but at least we wouldn’t be collapsing of hunger. There was plenty else to drain our spirits just then.
We got back just in time to meet the balding, plump doctor who radiated authority and experience along with his kindness.
“Peter Venkman is in recovery. He’d broken and cracked several ribs and one of them tore a blood vessel and caused some bleeding, which we’ve stopped. But, considering the circumstances, he’s very fortunate the damage was not worse. There were no other major broken bones, incredibly, just some superficial lacerations, cuts, and a lot of bruising. It’s the kind of injury that’ll keep him down for a while and in some pain, but he should recover completely.”
The room seemed to rock for a minute. I don’t think I staggered but I’m sure I looked stunned because the doctor smiled with a caring all doctors should have but too many don’t.
“I take it you’re the other Ghostbusters I’ve heard so much about today.”
“Two of us,” Winston said, sounding as dazed as I felt. Why weren’t we happier? “The fourth — we don’t think he survived the collapse.”
Oh. Right. I wanted to feel glad for Peter and there was an undeniable relief making me feel light-headed, but there was also the horrible weight of loss dragging me down.
The doctor’s face creased with sympathy. “I’m very sorry. Perhaps you’d like to sit with Peter for a while after he comes out of Recovery? I think that might be good for all three of you. Although I would ask that you not tell him about your colleague yet. He needs to rest right now, not be upset.”
“Sure,” I said. Peter would probably ask about Egon, but we could cross that bridge when we got to it. For right now, I couldn’t think of anything I wanted more than to see Peter.
Except maybe to see Egon, alive and well.
I hope I didn’t sniff. This wasn’t the time or place for that, not yet. We had to take care of Peter first, and then I could afford to think about Egon. Even if I wasn’t sure how I could do the one without the other.
The doctor gave orders for us to be taken to Peter’s room when he was settled, and left after a heartfelt good-bye. I was glad Peter had somebody like that caring for him. It seemed to make things a tiny bit more bearable.
Winston turned to me after the doctor left. “I think I’m gonna go back out there.”
I blinked, surprised. “Don’t you want to wait and see Peter first?”
He shook his head soberly. “Pete’s gonna be okay — that’s all I wanted to hear. I’ll have plenty of time to sit with him later — right now I think one of us should be there when they find Egon.”
I tried not to wince. “Thank you,” I said quietly. He was doing what I didn’t think I had the strength to do.
Winston smiled, but it looked painful. “Don’t kid yourself, Ray — I think you’ve got the harder job here. Pete’ll need you when he wakes up.”
I didn’t feel up to tending to my own wounds, let alone Peter’s, but he was right. We’d lost a fourth of ourselves, although it felt a lot more than that, and there were less of us now to look after the others. Peter would need a lot of tending, too, for a while, both physically and emotionally. It was time for us to circle the wagons and draw even closer together than usual.
I just nodded mutely at Winston, and then he unexpectedly drew me in for a quick hug. I was surprised but … it felt good. I guess we were both hurting so much, any reminder we weren’t alone was like water to a parched man. I hugged him back fiercely, and then he left without another word.
Just like I said, drawing closer together, leaning on each other. It’s what we’d always done. We’d just do it with a gaping hole beside us.
Sighing from what felt like the bottom of my soul, I went to sit and wait until I could see Peter.
They keep you in recovery until you start to shake off the anesthesia, but in case of serious surgery, it can be hours before you really wake up again. And even then I could remember the groggy disorientation of waking up in a strange place, not sure how I got there, afraid and in pain until I saw a familiar face. I had every intention of being there for Peter to provide that relief.
But it surprised me when barely an hour had passed and he was already starting to come out of it, fingers curling around my hand, body starting to stir cautiously. Maybe the memory that something was wrong had followed him down into sleep and wouldn’t let him rest. I knew how that was, too. I stood, leaning over the bed and putting a hand on his hair just above his forehead.
That stopped his moving around, but his face drew into a slight frown as if he were trying to place something, and I couldn’t help but smile. Peter had never awakened easily in all the years I’d known him, and now was no exception.
I could feel it when he really became awake, because while his eyes didn’t open, his whole body went stiff.
“It’s okay, Peter,” I said quickly, calmingly. “You’re in the hospital but you’ll be fine.”
His lips moved but I couldn’t hear anything even when I leaned closer.
“It’s Ray. I’m right here. Go back to sleep for a little longer, okay?”
Not okay. He was stirring again, freezing every few seconds as some movement obviously hurt, expression growing more troubled. I wrapped my hand tightly around his, and he clung to it.
You never could pull one over on Peter. He always knows when something‘s wrong.
Finally his eyes winced tighter shut and then swam open, just a crack like out at the warehouse. Everything was a reminder of that awful scene, and it was all I could do to make myself smile for Peter.
“Egon…”
Not “Ray,” no relief at seeing a face he knew. This was a question rolled up in a name and all he cared about just then. He had remembered. And I didn’t know what to answer him.
My smile was probably getting gruesome, but the doctor had said not to tell him yet, so I tried. God knows, I tried.
“Egon’s not here yet. They’re still getting him out.”
It was as close to the truth as I could get. It was enough. Even sedated and half-conscious, Peter could see right through me. His whole face crumpled and he squeezed his eyes shut, but the tears seeped out anyway.
“Oh, Peter,” I said brokenly. “I’m so sorry. We’re still trying, but…”
If he’d been well, he’d have been saying the same thing to me, putting off his grieving to help his friends deal with theirs. But weakness and the drugs had left him without any way to deal with the grief except to hold on to my hand as if his life depended on it.
I couldn’t bear his sorrow; I could barely stand mine. We sat there and cried together until he finally fell back into restless sleep and I, a long time later, followed him.
I only slept an hour. Peter was still out when I woke up, and after assuring myself he was deeply under, I’d crept out to call a friend. Janine still wasn’t answering, and I needed some books from the firehall.
I was in the midst of a heavy volume, an older and broader reference than Tobin’s, when Peter’s heart rate monitor began to pick up its pace and he started to wake up again. Any escape I’d found in my beloved books fled as I set them aside and took up my post, hanging over the head of the bed.
It was more gradual this time, less drugged. I watched the almost comical expressions that crossed Peter’s face before his eyes finally fluttered open, nearly all the way this time. They immediately relaxed at the sight of me, making my throat tight, and then just as he seemed about to smile, memory must have caught up with him and he flinched instead.
“Egon’s dead.” It was barely a whisper, but I think I could have heard it across the room.
It wasn’t a question but I jumped on it. “We don’t know for sure yet. They haven’t found him yet — they’re still looking.”
The barest shake of his head. “He’s dead. Ghost … pushed the beam… tried to shoot it …yelled to Egon but couldn’t hear him…” He pressed his eyes shut, looking like he was trying to keep his composure. Considering every word he spoke was strained and painful, I didn’t know how he could talk, much less stay calm. I already had tears in my eyes.
“The building was condemned. We didn’t see it until we got around back. I guess there wasn’t a sign out front…” Had the ghost done that, too, or was that just awful luck? “The ghost was trying to hurt you — he said he was doing it was for his master.”
Green eyes that were sharper than they should have been glittered at me. “Master? Who…?”
“I don’t know yet. I was just trying to figure it out. But we got the ghost.”
Peter rolled his head away from me. “Doesn’t matter. Egon’s still…” I could see his lip tremble
I didn’t think I could hurt more, but I did. “Peter…”
“Couldn’t forgive him … for leaving … pushed him away, didn’t I … Great psychologist, huh?” he finished with a faint snort.
“It’s not your fault, Peter. Egon understood. He knew it would take time and he didn’t blame you for it,” I insisted quietly.
But I’m not sure Peter heard me. “…last few days together an’…blew it.”
I had no answer to that but a very weak, “You didn’t know.”
“Didn’t deserve what I had…” His voice was running down but it still managed to be overflowing with bitterness.
That did it. I set my jaw firmly and strode around the bed to the other side where I could face him. “Peter, stop it. You loved Egon, and he loved you. That never changed, even these last few weeks. Egon knew that, too. Don’t take that away from him.”
“’Course I love him… love all you guys…” He was starting to fade out again. “Just wish…” His face creased once more, pain trying to follow him down, before it smoothed out in sleep.
I stood there feeling old. I’d never felt old before, not even when I’d been the one lying in the hospital bed. Childhood had never seemed far away for me; I got to live and work with my buddies, and the others were usually more than enough serious for all of us. They let me be myself that way, just as we let Egon get away with using all those big words and Peter keep up his reassuring act of clownishness and Winston pursue all his different interests. It was one of the many, many things I valued in our friendship. But I had to be the serious one now, strong enough for all of us because Winston would be exhausted when he returned and Peter barely had enough strength to deal with his physical injuries, let alone the emotional ones, and Egon was … gone. I had to be old.
And if that’s what my friends needed, that was what I’d be. Maybe there were only three of us left, but I’d be damned before I’d let any of the others go, too. We would survive… even if I didn’t see how. But we had to.
I lifted my chin, determined to do this, quietly gathered my books together, wanting to let Peter rest, and backed out the door.
Then turned and walked straight into Egon.
All the books, even the old ones I always handled gingerly, fell to the floor and I didn’t even give them a glance. I don’t think I could have looked anywhere else but at that familiar long, thin face, now heavily caked with dirt, the equally grimy blond hair with the curl in front drooping dejectedly, the cracked and crooked red glasses ready to fall off the end of his nose. Vaguely I did see Winston past his shoulder, or at least his huge grin, but my eyes were glued to this … ghost standing in front of me. The ghost that had felt very real when we’d collided.
“Egon?” I ventured, not quite believing it yet. Ghosts weren’t solid but there was no way… He couldn’t have escaped the collapse, not without a scratch and not without letting us know, but there wasn’t a mark on him except for a welt on his cheek and a small bloody tear on his jumpsuit.
“Ray,” was Egon’s warm answer, which didn’t explain a thing but sounded so good, my eyes involuntarily filled.
How…? I finally did turn to stare at Winston in shocked question.
“Floor was bad in the room he was in.” I’d never seen Winston look so pleased. “He fell through it when the building started collapsing, into a storage cellar. He was in there all along, trapped but fine.”
My gaze flew back to Egon, whose eyes were searching me as thoroughly as I was searching his. The affection in them was what finally did it, and I lunged at him, heedless of the puff of dust that went up as I threw my arms around him. Egon was back, not dead — I was so full of joy, it made me shake.
“It’s okay, Ray,” he rumbled in that one-of-a-kind deep voice of his. I didn’t think I’d ever hear it again. It was near my ear as he hugged back, one hand curled reassuringly against the back of my neck. “I’m fine, truly.”
“I know,” I sniffed. I did; good news didn’t take nearly so long to get used to as bad, but I was content to stay there a minute and thoroughly soak it in. “But we thought you were dead.”
“I’m sorry.” He sounded like he understood completely and really meant it.
I swallowed. “It’s okay. But Peter was so upset, and I didn’t know what to do…”
Egon pulled back at that, not letting go altogether. “How is Peter?” he asked gravely.
It hadn’t occurred to me that while we’d been worried sick and grieving topside, Egon had probably been just as scared trapped and not knowing how we were. “He’s been awake twice already. He had to have surgery — he was bleeding inside — the beam —”
“I told him,” Winston said quietly from next to us. He had a grip on Egon’s shoulder, too, like he wasn’t quite ready to let go of him, either.
“I—I tried not to tell him, like the doctor asked,” I said, biting my lip. I’d never forget Peter’s devastated expression. “But he kept asking for you and… I think he’d already figured what we had…”
Egon was staring at the door with fierce concern.
“But he’ll be okay when he sees you.” I brightened. Egon being there made everything all right again. I had no doubts any more that Peter would be just fine, too.
“Is he sleeping?” Egon asked in a tight voice. I guess he wouldn’t be okay until he saw Peter, either, and I couldn’t blame him.
“He just went back to sleep… he was kinda upset before.” I didn’t think there was any need to give details. He’d see the tear tracks on Peter’s face and the pain even sleep couldn’t take away completely, and imagine the rest.
“Why don’t you clean up and then go sit with him?” Winston suggested, giving Egon’s shoulder a squeeze.
Egon was still staring at the door, clearly wanting nothing more than to burst through it and go see Peter.
“You can use the bathroom in Peter’s room,” I suggested gently.
He gave me a grateful glance for that, then paused. “It’s good to see you, Raymond,” he said solemnly.
“It’s great to see you, too, Egon.” I meant it just as earnestly but couldn’t help but grin. I think Winston’s joy was catching. I felt like I’d been washed clean with relief and everything inside had fallen back into place.
He opened the door and went in, Winston and I following, skirting my fallen books. Everything else could wait right now.
Egon’s breath caught at the sight of Peter, who, I saw with new eyes now, really did look pretty awful. I’d been so happy he was alive and caught up in mourning Egon, I hadn’t really taken in before how pale and sunken he looked or how many monitors and IV stands were attached to him.
“The doctor said he’d be okay,” I offered in a small voice.
“Ray talked to him already — he’ll be all right,” Winston added. He sounded a little like he was trying to convince himself, too, and I saw him wince. This had to be just as hard on him. We’d probably be inseparable for a while again, I figured, like we were when one or more of us had a close call, just soaking in that we were all okay and together.
But Winston gave Egon a gentle push toward the bathroom. “Go wash up so he’ll recognize you,” he said with a softer smile than before.
I knew as well as he did that Peter would have recognized Egon in a gorilla costume, but Egon was even dirtier than Winston and still looked a little shell-shocked himself, and splashing some water on his face would probably help him pull himself together, so I added an encouraging nod.
Egon went reluctantly, giving Peter a long final look and not shutting the door completely behind him as if not wanting to break the connection.
“It was a long ride here,” Winston told me, as if I needed any explanation. There were still lines of strain around his eyes, too, and I’d noticed he hadn’t stopped anywhere to wash up, and was holding onto the railing of Peter’s bed with hands that weren’t totally steady.
I smiled at Winston. My friends still needed me to be strong, but I felt jubilantly, energetically up to it now.
We finally heard from Janine, who’d seen news of the warehouse collapse on TV. I was so grateful Egon himself could tell her we were all safe and Peter would be fine. She still sounded shaky but promised to come down in the evening. I think it did Egon good to talk to her, too. They may not be officially dating or anything, but I think she’s a lot more important to him than even Egon realizes.
Peter didn’t wake for a long time, and Winston finally decided to run home for some fresh clothes for everybody and a few more books I asked for. I had narrowed my list of possible 'masters' now to a handful of demons powerful enough to have an intelligent Class 5 doing their bidding. I had my own personal suspect, a nasty demon that could have been Tolay’s cousin, named Chikar, who’d vowed personal vengeance on us before we’d banished him to the Netherworld a few months back. Chikar had almost brought a stack of shipping crates down on Winston before we could stop him, and this seemed like his kind of plan. But in any case, it would take a little while before news of the ghost’s failure would filter back to the Netherworld to whoever his master was, so I decided we were safe for now. Strategic planning could wait until we were all back at the firehall and a little more settled. The books just gave me something to do in the meantime.
Egon was usually the one who hated the most to do nothing, but ever since he’d seen Peter, he wasn’t interested in anything else but sitting next to him and watching over him, occasionally reaching over to rub his wrist or his fingers when Peter grew restless. I was reading over by the window but sometimes I stopped and just watched them.
I’m not so sure Winston and I had the worst of the deal. Yeah, we’d thought Egon was dead for hours, and Peter for a lot shorter than that, and I wouldn’t want to go through that again for a million dollars. But we had each other to lean on, and the small consolation that our friends probably hadn’t suffered. Peter, on the other hand, had been practically alone, first buried in the rubble in what had to be awful pain, and then mourning Egon. The few minutes he’d been awake, I’d tried to help him with that, but between the drugs and the guilt of those last few weeks, Peter had been in a private hell. I couldn’t wait for him to wake up and find out Egon hadn’t left him again, after all.
As for Egon, trapped, not sure when or if he’d be found, while imagining the worst possible fates for his friends, was an image that made me shy away and shiver in distress. And just like Peter, he’d already been hurting before we even got to the warehouse. Maybe he didn’t have any serious physical injuries, but he needed to talk to Peter as badly as Peter needed him.
How I could be so sad and happy at the same time, even I didn’t know.
Winston still wasn’t back when Peter rolled his head on the pillow, fretfully murmuring something.
Egon’s attention sharpened, like when he was in the lab and on the verge of some great discovery. I bet Peter would have liked that analogy. There were very few things more important to Egon that science, and even though Peter pretended like he didn’t, he knew he was at the top of that short list.
Egon had slid his hand into Peter’s as if they were shaking on it, and I saw his thumb stroking up and down Peter’s. There’s a gentle side to Egon he doesn’t often show, usually only in little flashes here and there, but that he offered generously for any one of us who was hurting, and was open wide now for Peter.
Peter muttered something again, and once more I hid a smile as I was reminded of a hundred mornings when we’d tried to wake Peter for a bust and gotten only that petulant mumble. But there was a real thread of pain in the sounds he was making, and my smile quickly disappeared. Physically or emotionally, or both, my friend was suffering.
“Peter?” Egon said quietly. He put his free hand up to Peter’s cheek, feeling for fever, and then cupped it against his jaw. “Are you awake?”
He would be if Egon kept talking, I thought, but that was probably for the best. I think Peter needed to know his friends were all safe more than he needed to sleep just then.
“Peter?” Egon repeated. “Wake up for me, please.”
I could barely hear Peter’s half-asleep sigh. “Egon…” But it was grief, not recognition.
I saw Egon flinch as he realized the same thing, and I thought for a second about getting up and going over to him, but I didn’t want to interrupt.
“I’m right here,” he rumbled to Peter. There is something so steadying in Egon’s voice. I’ve heard other people complain that he’s a stoic, never revealing emotion, but that just goes to show how little they know him. As evenly as they were spoken, those three words were overflowing with empathy, reassurance, tenderness, and pain.
Peter was still so long, I thought he’d gone back to sleep. He hadn’t been sleeping very deeply and kept rousing a little and then sinking back. But then he whispered again, uncertainly this time. “Egon?”
I couldn’t see most of his face from where I was sitting, but I guess his eyes must have been open because Egon stood and eased himself onto the side of the bed directly in Peter’s line of sight. “Here, Peter,” he said. He let go of Peter’s hand long enough to pull his blanket higher — Peter never liked being cold — and then took it back like some sort of stabilizing connection. There was no sign of his reserve of the last week, of the awkwardness between him and Peter. “Can you hear me?”
“…real?” I could just imagine Peter staring at him, even more mixed-up than I had been, with the effects of the drugs to contend with.
Egon bent forward, less than a foot from Peter now. “I am real and very much alive, Peter, I promise you.” He raised their conjoined hands so Peter could see them. “Can you feel that?”
I could see the hand move feebly in Egon’s clasp. “Can’ b’lieve…” His voice was shaking from more than just weakness.
“I was in the cellar when the building collapsed — Winston helped dig me out. I am fine. It is you I’m concerned about now,” Egon said gently.
I wondered for the first time why he hadn’t yelled or, if he had, why we hadn’t heard him, but Winston hadn't mentioned how much they’d had to dig to get him out. It had probably been a lot. I felt really blessed all over again that it hadn’t all crashed through the rotten floor onto Egon and crushed him in that cellar. He must have thought about that, too, as he’d sat helpless and trapped in there.
But you couldn’t tell that looking at him now. Peter was breathing funny; I guess he was crying. Losing your best friend and then getting him back can do that to you. I felt a lump in my throat, too. Egon just let him get it out of his system, gently kneading his hand and occasionally reaching up to wipe tears away before they could get his pillow wet.
“It’s all right, Peter,” Egon soothed. “Please believe that. I’m here now.” He said it a couple of times, while I stared out the window and tried to get myself under control. I guess we’d all been through a lot those last 24 hours.
“You … were gone…” Peter finally choked out.
“I’m sorry I left,” Egon said regretfully. “I didn’t want to. But I won’t leave again if I have any say in it, I promise. I’ll be right here.”
I wasn’t sure if either of them meant now or two weeks before, but I guess it didn’t matter.
Peter had finally pulled himself together, strengthless but with his considerable will. “’M sorry.”
“There’s no need,” Egon said consolingly. “I understand.”
“’M sorry anyway.”
“I will accept your apology if you accept mine.”
“Already did.”
Peter stiffened briefly, shaking his head when Egon made a move to try to help. I could just imagine how much his chest was hurting, but Peter barely seemed to notice that.
“I thought…” he said softly a moment later.
“I know.”
I didn’t, but Egon and Peter have always had a special bond. I found myself smiling as I watched the invisible gap between them silently, swiftly mend.
“Missed you.” Guys didn’t usually say “I love you” to each other. At least not out loud.
“I missed you, too,” Egon answered seriously.
“You do anything like … that again, an’ —”
My smile turned into a grin. Peter was already finding his balance if he was making threats.
“— you will flush my fungus collection down the toilet,” Egon finished very gravely.
“An’ sell all your books … an’ the lab stuff.”
Egon’s eyebrows rose. “Indeed. Then I shall endeavor not to test your resolve.”
"Better…b’lieve it.” Peter sniffed. He sounded exhausted. And relieved. Not quite happy yet, but that would come when the conversation sank in. At least the most important matter had been resolved.
The door opened quietly and Winston slipped inside, brightening when he saw Peter was awake.
“Hey, Pete!”
“W’nston. Hey. Ray ‘round?”
“Right here, Peter,” I spoke up, wondering guiltily if he’d mind I’d been there all along, listening.
But he didn’t seem to, just gave me a hint of a tired smile as I came over to stand next to Egon. “Glad you guys’re here.” His words were starting to slur. I was surprised he’d stayed awake even this long.
“We’re here, Peter, and we won’t go anywhere. Go back to sleep now,” Egon gently ordered.
Peter’s eyes closed and he was out just like that. But he looked peaceful now, the difference between hanging on and healing. The biggest wound had finally been treated and was mending. We all just needed time now, and we had plenty of it, after all.
Winston moved up behind Egon and leaned an elbow on his shoulder just like Peter sometimes did, and Egon placidly let him. I squeezed Egon’s other shoulder as we just stood and watched Peter sleep.
You know, I thought gratefully, we do pretty good work.
“Ready?”
Egon adjusted something on his PKE meter, then nodded. “Ready, Ray.”
I flipped the switch and the grid came on, a sort of electrified cage surrounding the blinking trap. We’d used it before when we needed to talk to a ghost without taking the risk of it getting away, and we definitely had some questions for this one.
Egon pressed down on the button and the trap opened, its searing light briefly washing out the grid.
The green ghost was actually a lot paler than I’d remembered — maybe its reminding me of Peter’s emerald eye color was due more to my state of mind at the time than the ghost’s actual appearance. But its hateful expression was just as I’d recalled, and it made an equally cold hate rise in me.
“Why have you released me?”
Not the usual string of curses — like we’d thought, this was a pretty clever ghost. I guess we’d been lucky to trap it with so few casualties. If you considered hours of torture of thinking a good friend was dead was a minor casualty.
Egon’s voice was even colder than I felt. “Who sent you?”
The ghost sneered at him, lip curling to reveal a dark hole of a mouth. “Wouldn’t you like to know!”
Winston raised a thrower. “We may not be able to kill you, but we can make it hurt if you want to do this the hard way.”
The ghost actually flinched, I saw to my satisfaction. It looked furious, but in the glowing mesh, it was impotent anger. “Very well. My master does not hide in shadows. He is the great Chikar, Lord of the Underworld, and he will see you all dead soon.”
Chikar! I’d been right, but I felt no elation, only a grim satisfaction.
“Chikar sent you to kill us?” Egon asked flatly.
“Kill, hurt, maim,” the ghost gleefully recited.
I could see Egon’s lip tighten fractionally. He was probably thinking of Peter, lying upstairs in his bed, still in a lot of pain and sleeping most of the time since he’d gotten home from the hospital the day before. That bothered Egon far more than the fact he’d been buried alive for hours, not knowing whether he’d get out or whether we were alive or dead.
There didn’t seem to be any more questions to ask, and after a brief inquiring glance at us, to which Winston and I both nodded our agreement, Egon stomped on the trap pedal again, as violently as Winston had at the collapsed warehouse. The ghost shrieked all the way down, which I was privately, unashamedly, very glad for.
“So, it was Chikar. You were right, Ray.” Winston holstered the thrower, then eased the pack off his back and set it next to the other equipment in the basement.
I turned off the grid and watched dispassionately as Egon took the trap and put the ghost into the containment unit. “Yeah. I just wish I’d figured it out before.”
“We had no reason to think this was a personal attack, Ray,” Egon answered, stowing the empty trap with the rest on the shelf. He walked back to us and gave me a stern look. “You have nothing with which to reproach yourself. With Peter injured and me missing, I find it astonishing you were able to put as much together as you were.”
I blushed a little. “Thanks, Egon. But what are we going to do about Chikar?” I’d already read up as much as I could find on him, sharing with the guys the facts that while he was one of the nastier demons, he couldn’t travel from one dimension to another on his own, and his demonic gifts seemed limited to great strength and some degree of telepathy. Neither of those could help him cross into our world again nor could they hurt us from where we’d banished him unless he sent more ghosts after us.
Winston shrugged. “What can we do, short of going down to the Netherworld and busting him for good, which you know, guys, I’m not real anxious to do.”
“Certainly not when we’re a man down, anyway,” Egon said. He thought for a moment. “Nothing for now. Perhaps this was Chikar’s only attempt at vengeance — it is conceivable this attack satisfied his desire for revenge. Finding him in the Netherworld also seems unlikely if he doesn’t want to be found. We will simply have to be on our guard for other attacks, now that we know.”
“I guess.” I know I didn’t sound too convinced, but there wasn’t any other solution I could think of right now, especially not while Peter was laid up.
Egon unexpectedly put a hand on my shoulder. “We will be ready,” he said solemnly. “I have no intention of putting you through that again, Raymond. Nor you, Winston.”
I smiled a little, then more widely. Yeah, there was a demon with a vendetta still out there, but I had my friends back and nothing was going to take that pleasure away from me. I had gotten a brief but bitter taste of what it was like without them, and I wasn’t about to forget how blessed I was.
Egon seemed to relax, too. “Now then, there is one more matter we need to attend to upstairs.”
“You’re right,” Winston instantly agreed. “How could I forget?”
I frowned at both of them. “What? Something about Chikar?”
Winston and Egon had both started for the basement steps and I followed them. “No, Ray, but something just as important,” Egon answered.
“You really don’t know?” Winston held the door for me at the top, and as we crossed in front of Janine’s desk, I noticed she rose and followed us.
“No,” I said, more baffled than ever and trying to think. Maybe just getting back to Peter? Even though he was usually fuzzy when he woke up, one of us tried to be there most of the time to make sure he was okay and didn’t need anything. He’d awakened the first few times not sure if Egon had really made it out of the warehouse collapse or if he’d dreamed it, and so Egon had claimed it was logical he sit with Peter the most to reassure him of Egon’s well-being. I suspected it made him feel better, too, since he’d been just as scared for a long time that Peter was dead, but neither Winston nor I questioned it. Going down to the basement to question the ghost was the longest Egon had been willing to leave Peter’s bedside, and even that only because he didn’t want us to face it alone. Wanting to hurry back to him made sense, I decided. With Peter’s weak jokes and the quiet contentment in his eyes when he looked at Egon, things were getting wonderfully back to normal.
Janine disappeared into the kitchen — I guess she hadn’t been following us up, after all. More certain now we were going to keep Peter company, I followed the guys up the stairs to the top floor, where Egon eased open the bedroom door and practically tiptoed in.
I still cringed inside when I saw Peter, his face a rainbow of bruises now and his bandaged hand lying on top of the cover. Two of his fingers had turned out to be broken, thankfully not in the hand I’d clutched while they’d dug him out. And those were only the visible bandages, more covering his chest under the blankets. He looked battered and exhausted and creased with pain, even in sleep, but I reminded myself he was getting better. Thank God, he was getting better.
Egon sank slowly onto the edge of his bed and then put a thin hand on the pajama-clad shoulder. “Peter?”
I wasn’t sure why we were waking him — the doctor had said he mostly needed rest now, and we were only too willing to oblige. Peter would get his fondest wish and be waited on for at least the next week or two. But I held my tongue and watched silently as Peter struggled to wake up.
For once, there was no murmur of protest or burrowing into the blankets. He blinked at us, first unfocusedly, then more sharply. “’S it time?” he asked, voice rough with sleep and injury.
“Yes,” Egon said simply.
“Great.” An unexpected smile lightened his face immeasurably, lifting a layer of fatigue, and he looked right at me. “Happy birthday, Tex.”
I blinked, confused.
“Yeah, happy birthday, Ray,” Janine said from behind us, and as I turned in surprise, she walked into the bunkroom balancing a cake full of lit candles in her hands. Winston hurried forward to help her, and between the two of them they set it down on the table in the middle of the room.
“I—” I was stammering, speechless. Birthday? It was my birthday?
Egon was smiling, too, from next to Peter. “We thought it might have slipped your mind, with recent events, but it hadn’t slipped ours. Happy birthday, Raymond.”
“Happy birthday, brother.” That was Winston, pounding on my back with a wide grin.
It was my birthday, and I’d completely forgotten.
And my friends, who’d gone through as much as I and more, hadn’t.
My eyes were watering, and I clumsily rubbed at them, embarrassed. “I — I don’t know what to say.”
“Don’t say anything, just blow out the candles,” Winston answered kindly.
“Go on, Ray,” Peter encouraged me in a whisper. Egon’s hand was still resting on his shoulder, but Egon was looking at me, his eyes understanding.
I stumbled over to the table, still feeling overwhelmed, and stood and stared at the candles for a long time, thinking of wishes made and granted. Then I closed my eyes and blew.
A cheer went up. Winston and Janine swept in to start cutting the cake, and I heard Egon gently but firmly telling Peter he could only have a few bites but they’d save him a piece for when he was better, and Peter’s half-hearted but happy grumbling. The sheer normalcy hit me like a wave, and I think I might have staggered under it because I found Winston holding on to my elbow.
“You okay, Ray?”
All eyes were on me, the chatter falling silent.
I abruptly grinned, almost more happy than I could bear. “Oh, yeah,” I answered wholeheartedly, including all my friends in my grateful gaze. “Yeah, I am.”
I’d gotten exactly what I’d wished for for my birthday. And, you know, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt so … young.
The End