Welcome To The Ghostly Group

finding clues

The Ecto-1 pulled up in front of the museum where the painting was located, Peter was already there and waiting for them.

"You find anything at Dana's?" Peter asked, concerned.

"Nah, nothing but mood slime residue around the bathtub. But I did get something on that Vigo character you mentioned. Found it in Leon Zundiger's Magicians, Martyrs, and Madmen. Dig that." Ray said.

"Vigo the Carpathian, born 1505, died 1610," Egon told Peter.

"Hundred-five years old. He hung in there, didn't he?" Peter asked.

"He didn't die of old age, either. He was poisoned, stabbed, shot, hung, stretched, disemboweled drawn, and quartered." Ray explained.

"Ouch," Peter said.

"Ya think?" Silvia said as Egon helped her put on her proton pack as Silvia helped Winston with his.

"I guess he wasn't too popular at the end, huh?" Winston said.

"No, not exactly a man of the people. Also known as 'Vigo the cruel', 'Vigo the torturer', 'Vigo the despised' and 'Vigo the unholy.'" Egon listed.

"Wasn't he also 'Vigo the butch?'" Peter asked.

"And dig this. There was a prophecy. Just before his head died, his last words were "Death is but a door, time is but a window. I'll be back"." Ray went on as they all trudged up the stairs. As the group walked in, people gawked and stared.

"Let's suck in the guts, guys, we're the Ghostbusters," Peter said.

"Don't listen to him. He's trying to make us feel bad because he's put on weight too." Silvia said to Egon as loudly as possible.

"You can't talk, Silv. You know how much we love our Chinese food," Peter defended himself.

"True," Silvia added.

"No! No, please go! You!" A man with blonde curly hair shouted at them.

"Who's this wiggler?" Ray asked.

"He's yours, Ray. Sic him." Peter said.

"Hi, how are you? Ray Stantz from the Ghostbusters. Beautiful art you have here. We're just doing a routine spook check." Ray said as he walked around.

"Dr. Venkman, Dana is not here." The man said.

"Yeah, we know that, Johnny," Peter said.

"So why are you came?" The man asked.

"Someone needs to go back to school and re-learn their grammar," Silvia said.

"Well, we got a report there was a major creep in the area, we checked our list and you were right on the top. Johnny, where in the hell are you from, anyway?" Peter said.

"The Upper West Side." The man answered.

"The whole rooms extremely hot, Peter," Egon said. Just like you- Silvia's thoughts interrupted, but she awkwardly cleared her throat and got back to work.

"That's one ugly dude," Winston said, emphasizing the word ugly.

"Well, that's Vigo. Mr. Vigo! Would you look this way, please?" Peter said as he held up a camera. Not an ordinary camera though, one that saw if there was any supernatural activity behind it. "Come on, show me something!"

"No, no photographs! Slides are available in the gift shop!" The man yelled as he stood with his arms stuck out from his sides to protect the painting. Winston was quick to apprehend the man and get him away from the painting.

"Yeah, thanks. Thank you, Winston. All right I think... You know what? Give me angry will ya? You've had a bad day, you're cranky? Yeah, thank you. Good, good. Oooh, angrier. Ooh, you're scaring me, stop it." Peter rambled on as he took various photos of the painting. Meanwhile, Ray was using the PKE meter on the painting when he suddenly stopped working and just stood there on the ladder.

"Venkman..." Egon said, signaling he could shut the fuck up now. "We need to talk."

"Ray? Come on, you finished admiring that painting yet?" Silvia asked as she patted his shoulder. Ray snapped out of his trance and got off the ladder.

————

Back at headquarters, Ray, Silvia, and Egon went into a room with a red light on. Egon was using a giant magnifying glass on the pictures Peter took that were printed out.

"We were right, Ray. Multiplanar Kirlian emanations." Egon said. Silvia turned and used the magnifying glass on Egon's face, his brown eyes behind his glasses bigger and wider, which made Silvia snicker.

"What?" He asked. He had no clue what she was doing, but Silvia didn't care.

"Yeah? Well here's your next month's cover of GQ. Check out the aura on this sucker." Ray said as he turned off the red LED light. "There's definitely a living presence there." Egon held up the magnifying glass, seeing that Vigo's face behind the giant lens was all burnt or goo-like, almost as if it was melting plastic.

"We should get a deeper look," Egon said.

"Why don't I run this wider shot through the spectroanalyzer?" Ray said as he took one of the many photos out of a tray with water.

"Good, I'll try turning up the roentgen," Egon said.

"So what do you think? Chinese?" Ray asked.

"How about Thai?" Egon suggested.

"No, too spicy," Ray said.

"Greek?" Silvia said.

"Mexican?"

"Pizza," Ray said.

"Thin or thick?" Egon said. That's what she said-

"Chicago," Ray said. Egon took out another picture and hung it on the clothesline.

"What the hell is that.." Egon said as he used the magnifying glass once again. Besides Vigo's ginormous billboard forehead in the way, behind him was the same river of slime Ray saw before their trial.

"I've seen it before," Ray said.

"Where?" Egon asked.

"When you guys had me dangling like a worm on a hook a hundred feet below First Avenue... that's the river of slime," Ray said. As they finished talking, the picture in front of them lit on fire by itself. Then the other photos started doing the same, which scared the crap out of everyone.

"Uh, guys.." Egon said as he grabbed Silvia's hand and backed away from the burning photographs.

"We need a blanket or a hose or something!" Ray shouted as he frantically looked around, then went to the door.

"Why is this closed??" Ray asked as he tried to open the door.

"Why is this locked?!!" Silvia shouted.

"Winston!!" Egon shouted, hoping he would hear them before they became crispy bacon.

"Fire!! Help!!" All three of them shouted frantically as they banged on the door as loud as they could. Then they moved away from the door and towards the toilet to keep the fire away from them.

"What're we gonna do? Put our heads in the toilet?!" Ray shouted. Thankfully, Winston heard them and busted the door down with a fire extinguisher in hand, using it quickly to put out the fires.

"Dear, you can stop strangling my hand now. My finger is turning a bit purple." Silvia said.

"Oh, sorry about that," Egon said, kissing her hand, then on the cheek.

"Fun. Now I know what those pizzas feel like in the ovens." Silvia.

"We better get some food, she gets mad when she doesn't eat for a while," Egon said.

"Yeah, let's go eat before we all start exploring this slime and Vigo situation," Winston said as he set down the fire extinguisher before they all walked out.

"Now it smells like a campfire in here, lovely," Silvia commented as she wiped some of the small bits of ashes that were flying around off of her glasses.