Ghostbusters: Des Moines

Episode 9: Finale

"What the hell?" he shouted and tugged at his hand hoping that maybe the glove would come off, but it wouldn't work.

Simon pulled out his own Ghost Mace and sprayed the panel, silently hoping that it didn't short out the elevator. The possessed button finally released its grip on the Ghostbuster who in turn pressed it again but with his entire fist. The moment that Jordan's fist hit the panel the lights went out in the elevator.

"Was that me or Simon?" Jordan asked to no one in particular.

Before anyone could venture a guess the elevator fell.

Each of the Ghostbusters was screaming at the top of their lungs as they floated around in the dark. Luckily for them, they were only a floor away from the basement and the emergency brakes still worked. The Ghostbusters helped each other to their feet before Jordan and Regina got to work pulling the doors open.

They stepped out of the elevator onto a rough stone floor. Laughter filled whatever room they entered. Spinning around, the Ghostbusters saw a face superimposed on the doors of the crashed elevator. It laughed at them loudly before the whole vehicle melted into the floor and disappeared.

Spinning back around, the Ghostbusters took in their environment. It wasn't the standard basement. Aside from the stone floor, the room they entered didn't resemble room so much as another realm. Specifically, it reminded the team of what they thought Hell should look like. Bodies hung on hooks along the walls. Each of them still moaning even though the placement of several of the hooks should have silenced them forever. Their pain was evident as blood leaked through every hole on their bodies and their faces contorted into shapes that faces shouldn't have been able to make.

"We have to help them," Regina gasped.

Jordan shook his head and touched Regina's shoulder. "We can't help them. They are as much a part of this world as the walls and floor. Their pain is an integral part of whatever this dimension is."

"Dimension?" Regina asked. "I thought we were in the basement."

Simon waved his hands at the distant walls drenched in blood and flame and the non-existent ceiling. "The spiritual energy coalescing here has been used to bring part of another dimension into ours. The elevator didn't take us to the basement, it bypassed the basement and took us into an amalgam of Hell."

Jordan fought to keep an excited smile from his face. "I would put money on us having entered a corner of whatever chaos dimension Erra calls home. I wish we'd have brought more sensory equipment. We're probably the first people to have crossed into an alternate dimension."

"Keep it in your pants," Cynthia ordered. "We're here for a job."

Simon shrugged. " Besides, the original guys have been doing this for over thirty years. If we entered an alternate dimension in our first few months, than I'm sure they've done several a few times. They probably found some nice ones and use them for vacation spots."

"Simon," Cynthia growled.

"Right," Simon nodded. "We're in Hell," he checked his slime thrower's status meter, "let's go find the Devil."

Mixed with the fire and blood along the walls was the obviously different shades of slime. Black and green slime dripped down on them from the ceiling that was too high to see. It crossed Regina's mind that in a universe of spiritual energy the slime could have just been an emotionally charged rain, pouring down on them from the cumulation of emotions in whatever the dimension considered a sky.

The conduit of ghosts that had funneled into 801 Grand continued from the elevator shaft and into this cavern. They followed it to a wall of flame that died down enough for them to walk through as they approached. Crossing the flaming threshold brought them into another cavern. On the far side of it sat Blake Hulner, his body ravaged from energies bursting from the inside as Erra became more powerful. Next to him stood Martin Murray with his hand on the copy of himself that had absorbed all of the spirits from the containment unit. As he pulled each spirit from the clone, it melted. Those spirits traveled through the Chairman and were funneled directly into Erra.