Holding Out For a Hero

Queens – Mrs. Pinckerton’s apartment

Mrs. Pinckerton was exactly as Janine had described. She was a very t olt old lady, who was a little shorter than Janine, and of a thin frame. She walked hunched over a cane, and wore orthopedic shoes for support. She spoke in a soft, soothing voice. Ray just knew that she’d kissed away her fair share of boo-boos over the years. She was a truly endearing woman, and it broke their hearts to know that she lived by herself behind a dead-bolted, padlocked door in an unsafe neighborhood.

She told them about her ghost problem and that it was just a little thing, but because she was alone, she didn’t have the energy to keep cleaning up after it. Peter’s eyes filled with understanding and he made a mental note to introduce her to Mrs. Faversham.

Egon immediately began taking PKE readings, but he could find no evidence of spectral activity. “Hmmm. That’s odd.”

“What’s odd, Egon?” Ray asked standing to go look at the physicist’s meter.

Mrs. Pinckerton excused herself to go take her medication. She said, “I’ll be in my bedroom if any of you want me.”

Egon reset the meter, then tried to take readings again. “I’m getting absolutely nothing. No current spectral activity, nor any residual energy.”

Ray and Egon continued to scan the living room for any signs of psychokinetic energy, but without success. “This doesn’t make any sense, guys. There should be something detectable if the ghost is tied to this location. Do you think it could have left, Egon?” Ray was clearly perplexed, but excited.

“Highly unlikely. The entity is supposedly a Class 2, which is not powerful enough to leave this domicile. Only a stronger entity could depart, but something that powerful would give off very prominent readings, even in absentia.” He rubbed his chin in deep thought for a moment. “I suggest that we disperse and take distinctive readings. Perhaps it’s just my meter.”

They split up to take PKE readings. Egon continued to check the living room, Ray took the bathroom, Peter the kitchen, and Winston went to knock on Mrs. Pinckerton’s bedroom door to ask if he could come in to take readings. Each man diligently set about his task.

Suddenly, a series of loud crashes was heard coming from the bedroom, then nothing.

Silence.

Then Winston let out a blood-curdling, anguished scream of pure terror.

“It’s in the bedroom!” Ray yelled and ran to aid his comrade. “We’re coming Winston!” He charged to the bedroom, with Egon and Peter close on his heels. Ray, who kicked in the door, was horrified at what he saw.

When the shock wore off, he yelled, “ZOMBIE!” and prepared to fire.

Peter grabbed Ray’s thrower arm and forced it to the right so that he didn’t shoot the ‘apparition’. “Ray, STOP! LOOK RAY!!” Egon would have made a similar exclamation, but he was utterly speechless. Ray switched off his thrower and just gaped, open-mouthed. Then he swallowed hard and began to blush furiously when he really took in the scene before him.

Winston was lying on the floor on his back with his hands over his eyes, shaking in fear. The reason for this was standing over him, dressed in . . . well, not much at all.

Mrs. Pinckerton had changed into a pink, sheer baby-doll nightgown that didn’t hide ANYTHING, particularly the fact that her fetching little ensemble didn’t include any underwear. She had done up her face in thick reds and pinks. She was wearing impossibly long false eyelashes, which were crooked over her right eye. Her hair, which had been in a severe bun when they last saw her, was now loose and hanging limply in thinning, gray tresses around her face and shoulders. The cane and orthopedic shoes were gone, and she stood confidently in a pair of pink marabou pumps. All in all, she made the transformation pretty quickly, which was an impressive accomplishment in itself.

Unfortunately, Mrs. Pinckerton was at least 80 years old if she was a day, so thekagekage wasn’t nearly as flattering as she’d probably intended it to be. With the over think makeup and garish lingerie, she looked like a very old drag queen who’d been beaten unmercifully. It was no wonder Ray hadn’t recognized her at first.

She was just about to pounce on Winston when his fellow Ghostbusters had arrived. Ray’s wild shot had stopped her cold in her tracks, and set her headboard on fire to boot.

“Winston?” Ray’s voice sounded small and choked, like a child who’d walked in on his parents in the middle of an amorous moment. Winston peeked out from between his fingers then jumped up and ran past their client to stand behind his friends. He’d never used them as human shields before, but there’s always a first time for everything.

“Well look what we got here. I woulda taken you on one at a time, but all at once is fine with me!” Mrs. Pinckerton peeled off her negligee, pulling it over her head and tossing it at Ray where it hung on his proton thrower.

That did it.

Probably no man with a fifty-pound weight on his back has ever run so fast, let alone four men. Ray shot the locks off Mrs. Pinckerton’s front door and all four men clambered out of it, screaming and fleeing for their lives. They never looked back, and they didn’t stop to strip off their proton packs when they got outside to Ecto-1. They just dove into the car and tore out of the parking lane. They hadn’t run away like that since their first case at the NY Public Library.

Peter looked back as Ecto-1 was careening around the corner, almost expecting to see her running after them in her octogenarian birthday suit. She wasn’t there, but then again she didn’t need to be. The image was permanently burned into his retinas, much to his dismay.

Egon, a man capable of stating the obvious with measured poignancy, had the last word for the next ten minutes: “That was unequivocally appalling. Let us never speak of it again.” The others just nodded weakly, and they all fell into an embarrassed silence.