All About the Anthonys

Ghostbusters Central – New York City . . .

It was a slow morning at the firehouse. Janine Melnitz-Spengler was using the downtime to catch up on her accounting. All the other denizens of the firehouse were elsewhere, so no one was around to bug her for a change.

Ray Stantz and his wife Alice Derleth were downstairs in the basement laboratory working on the second containment unit. Alice had moved to New York five years earlier to be closer to Ray and had soon become a full-fledged and indispensable member of the Ghostbusters. It was a few mere months before they were Mr. and Mrs. Stantz. They had no children yet, but four months prior, Ray and Alice had announced to the group that she was finally pregnant. From that day on, Alice no longer went out on busts.

Winston and Kelechi Zeddemore were at their restaurant, Abyssinia, overseeing construction of a third dining area. Winston had become Kel’s partnern hen he sank a huge chunk of his late aunt’s fortune into the place. He would have never regretted giving his inherited fortune to her anyway, but business was always booming, and they were actually very well off. Their toddler son Ashton’s college fund was already enough for him and maybe two or three siblings, if his parents ever wanted to have more kids.

Peter and Dana Venkman were at their son and daughter’s day camp discussing their children with the counselors. Nine-year-old Oscar was an honor roll student and very well mannered, much like his birth father, Louis Tully. But his little sister Veronica, was far from it. Six-year-old Ronnie Venkman was trouble with a capital ‘t’, just like her daddy. Needless to say, it would be an interesting parent-counselor conference.

As for Janine’s own husband, he had climbed out of their bed that morning mumbling something in ‘Egon-ese’ about an experiment he needed to finish. So they’d traveled to work together before rush hour to get an early start. They also had no children, but this was not for the same reasons as the Stantzes, who had simply been unlucky until recently. Janine’s transformation into a half-demon had rendered her infertile. It was an unhappy day for them both when Egon’s tests revealed this fact. He had wanted a child to pass down his wisdom to, and Janine was the only one of four sisters who did not have at least two kids. But the passage of time and their love for each other had healed all wounds. They were content to just be together, and perhaps one day they would adopt.

The only upside to this unfortunate situation was that it made them very efficient workers. Their lack of children freed their schedule up enough to go to Ghostbusters Central any time they felt like it. Only the equally childless Stantzes, last of the firehouse residents, were ever at work before the Spenglers, and that was unlikely to last long once Alice had her baby. Already, Ray had been looking for an apartment for them to keep away from the business. The firehouse was no place to raise children. Soon the firehouse would be inhabited only by Slimer until the Junior Ghostbusters were old enough to move in.

The other three Ghostbusters still slept at the firehouse occasionally, but only when absolutely necessary. The other three wives almost never did, citing that there was no privacy and that the place still gave off a ‘bachelor vibe’. Ray and Alice had their own separate bedroom, but the bunkroom still had its four full-sized beds and when the other three slept there, Ray usually did too.

Recently, the bunkroom had been unoccupied by anyone but Slimer for several weeks. Things had been pretty slow as of late. The phone had been silent for days, which was typical of the summer. So the sudden ringing nearly scared Janine out of her skin. She was more than a little miffed at the interruption to her concentration, a pity for the person on the other end of the line.

“Ghostbusters! Spill it!”

“Uh. Hello. My name is Quentin Randolph. I work for the United States Mint in Washington, D.C.” He said this rather haughtily.

“How nice for you,” Janine retorted, unimpressed. “Whaddya want?”

“Um . . . yes. Well, we need your help. There’s a ghost haunting our facilities, and we’ve had just the worst time trying to get anything done since it arrived.”

“Yeah? Well, hang on a minute. I’ll go get one of the Ghostbusters for you so you can explain the problem.” She put the man on hold. She finished what she was doing, even though it took several minutes, before she even addressed his call. She eventually used the intercom button to call the lab upstairs. “Egon!” she chimed in a sing-songy voice.

It took him a few moments to respond. Janine heard a crash and a small explosion coming from upstairs just before her husband’s voice drifted seductively out of the intercom. “Yes, beautiful?”

She grinned. “Flirt. Are you super busy?”

“Not really.” He absently sprayed the fire extinguisher at the small blaze he’d created by crossing the wrong wires. “Why? Is something amiss?”

“Nah.”

He smirked. “Nothing wrong, huh? Wanna have a quickie, then? Seems I’ll be taking an unscheduled hiatus from my experiment.”

She smiled up at the firepole hole. “Hmm. Sounds like a plan, but that’s not why I buzzed you. Maybe later though.”

“No emergency and no quickie. What else is there?” he joked.

“Believe it or not, the phone rang.”

“Astounding! Telemarketer?”

“Uh-unh.”

He cringed. “Bill collector?”

“Nope.”

“It’s not a Ghostbusting call, is it?”

“Bingo! Interrupted my train of thought too, the bastard!”

“Really? The nerve of some people!” he mocked.

She laughed out loud. “Quit makin’ fun o’ me or no quickie later!”

“Okay, okay!” he chuckled. “So give me the details.”

“Oh you’ll love this! There’s a guy from the U.S. Mint in Washington on Line 1. They’ve got a spook!”