From the former site of Sunnydale, CA
I'm alive. If you call this living.
To start at the beginning...
While I was sure the paranormal event would take place during the night (as these things usually do), I patrolled most of the night without seeing anything -- no people, no vampires, no subterrestrials of any sort. The streets were empty, a lot of store were smashed in where looters had carried away their swag, a few overturned cars littered the roads and sidewalks, and all the power was out. Thank goodness for my multi-spectrun visor.
It was just before daybreak when I came across what appeared to be a military depot, what I believe was part of a small army base. And I could see that *someone* had cut away a large section of the fence...a section large enough to drive through.
And then I heard thumping sounds from inside the fence.
I stole in as quietly as possible, flattened against a small office building and edged around it until I could get a good look at the courtyard beyond. There, indeed, was a truck. And around it were about a dozen men in robes, carefully loading packages they were bringing out of a storage shed. Dark as it was, I was able to adjust my visor for a telescopic view to read the lettering on the side of the boxes.
High Explosives.
Not being well versed in military ordinance, I couldn't say exactly *how* dangerous the stuff they were loading was, but it was definitely not something to play with. And just then I got a good look at one of the robed men's faces. Oh boy. Ritual scarring over the eyes, talmanic symbols of servitude to ancient evil. And I remember the entry in Weissinger's Guide to Blood Cults. Harbingers. Servants of the Prime Evil.
I stood there frozen for what must've been fifteen minutes, and as I watched several of them began to crack open the cases and start adjusting what was inside. At that point I realized, they weren't just thieves. These yahoos were looking to do enact the traditional religious fanatic suicide bombing run. They were rigging this truck as a rolling missle. But for who? Or where?
I noticed at that point that things were growing a bit brighter around me. Yanking my visor up, I could see that the sun was rising. So I retreated back through the fence and across a field to a parking lot for an office building, where I crouched behind a dumpster to watch for what they would do next.
It didn't take long. A few minutes later the truck rumbled out through their makeshift gate, moving slowly to, no doubt, not set off their cargo prematurely. Keeping out of sight best as I could I trailed after them. I lost sight of them for a few minutes, until finally I caught side of the truck parked in a used car lot (advertising LOW LOW PRICES! on a large Zeppelin-shaped balloon that flew overhead) on the main drag into town. So I positioned myself behind a counter of a Doublemeat Palace (love their fries!) and watched for their next move.
They waited. So I waited. This wasn't exactly what I had expected to find. A trans-dimensional gateway or horde of flesh-eating hellhounds, sure, but suicide bombers? Not usually my area of expertise. Call the FBI. And also, I was getting hungry.
And then it passed by.
It was a school bus. Considering I doubted classes were being held in a deserted town, it was pretty full. Out of towners? People just too stubborn to leave? Or...and somehow I knew this was it...these were the local chapter of the brotherhood of monster fighters. (Or sisterhood, since most of them appeared to be young women.) And they were off to the source of the disturbance I had been tracing. Except they weren't going to make it, because these Harbringers were going to ram them and blow the lot of them to kingdom come. Suddenly I was glad I hadn't had any breakfast that morning...because it would've been coming up on me at that point.
I heard the engine of the truck spring back to life, and for a wild instant I stood there paralyzed. Until I remembered my trusty proton pack. I grabbed my discharged, took aim...
...and blasted their front tires flat.
Then to be safe, I ran out the front of the restaurant for the angle to shoot and blew their right rear tire clean off. A gritted my teeth as the back of the truck crashed downward, expecting the explosives to detonate.
It was kind of funny. I stood there stock still, waiting for the blast. The harbringers stared at me dumbly from the truck's cab, apparently unsure what to do now that their plan had been derailed. And when after a few seconds it became clear that nothing was going to blow up, I let out a sigh of relief...just as a dozen knife-welding maniacs jumped from the cab and the rear of the truck and charged at me.
Now understand, my proton weapons had been designed to work on spectral, incorporeal entities. But numerous run-ins across the years with more *formidable* opponents had led Egon and myself to upgrade our weaponry for additional functions. Although I admit I have a tendency to flip the switch in the wrong direction and set the discharger to "Blow Leaves".
Luckily this time I remembered the right setting, hit the right switch, and sent out a beam of concentrated electrons. I swung the discharger about wildly, and gave the harbingers the shock of their lives. Heh.
When I opened my eyes Uh, when I saw that the lot of them had been knocked unconcious I checked the back of the truck and found wires connecting various explosive devices into, I assume, one humdinger of a bomb. Having some experience in defusing bombs (gained when I helped run down the ghost of Guy Fawkes) I started disconnecting the various detonators, rendering the whole mess useless. No sense leaving it there for the Eye guys to play with when they finally came to.
As I unhooked the last connection, I heard what sounded like an explosion off in the distance. For a moment I feared they had armed a backup truck and had hit their goal anyway, so I climbed the roof a nearby van to see what I could. There was a dust cloud that seemed to be getting larger. And neared. Remembering my visor, I pulled it back down over my eyes and hit the button for telescopic view.
Below the dust cloud, there was a crater forming. And it was spreading in my direction.
I estimated the distance to the crater (about half a mile) the speed it was expanding (TOO DAMN FAST!) and my chances of hot-wiring one of the cars in the lot in time to get away (slim and none).
Looked like this was the end. As a parapsychologist I had always been curious as to what lie beyond this mortal coil...but not curious enough to want to miss seeing Ang Lee's THE HULK. So I checked my surroundings. Any helicopters nearby? No. Extra-dimensional vortex? None handy. Helpful and exceedingly large falcons? Uh-uh. Balloon?
Balloon! YES!
Acting quickly I grabbed the line that tethered the advertising balloon above me to earth, snapped a line belt grappler (never leave home without it!) to the nylon cord, then took aim and severed the line with a stream of focused protons. And just as the dust cloud swallowed me as the ground fell out from under, I was yanked upwards by the freed zeppelin-shaped balloon.
The debris falling into the spreading crater caused an updraft, which pushed me violently upward. For a moment I caught sight of (what I assume was) the same school bus that the harbringers had been targeting. It was trying to outrace the collapsing city and seemingly succeeding. And before the dust obscured my view, I though I saw a small figure jump from a building roof and land on top of the bus as it sped away.
Eventually the wind died down, and I drifted to a landing behind a small hill. The entire town had fallen inwards, towards what I surmised was a subterranean nexus point. Still, even a gateway to a alternate reality would probably be choked shut by a couple of million tons of California real estate.
I snapped my PKE meter from my belt to check. The readings from the direction of the (former) location of Sunnydale showed steadily dropping levels of ectoplasm. Whatever had been down there was gone now.
But then I got a curious reading. It wasn't coming from the pit, but rather the top of the hillock above me. I looked up but didn't see anything, so I once again pulled down my visor and started adjusting the astral-tracking. Slowly a figure came into a view: what appeared to be a young blonde woman, staring across the chasm with a look of what I can only describe as pure hatred in her eyes.
I checked the PKE readings again. Bingo. Whatever it was, it wasn't corporeal. Not quite a ghost, but certainly an ectoplasmic entity. Finally, something up my alley.
"Excuse me?" I said, climbing up the hill a little. It didn't turn. Probably it didn't realize I could see it.
Suddenly the figure of the girl changed. Morphed into a man of about thirty, light brown hair and dressed like a priest. And when it changed it suddenly let loose screaming the vilest string of obscentites I had ever heard across the pit. From what I made out, it was vowing to "eat the intestines" and "flay with hot irons" someone it could see over on the far side who was too far away to be visible to me.
Then it noticed me. Its head turned as if on a hinge to look at me. I've stared down ghosts and demonic entities, mythological nightmares and extradimensional boogeymen, but I've NEVER looked into the eyes of something that radiated sheer evil the way this thing did. Instinctively I raised my discharger...
...and then the priest was gone, and a huge bat-like thing with glowing eyes and fangs, a monster that seemed to have been molded from darkness itself, was there in his face. It hissed at me...
...and I fired. The protons danced across its surface as a look of surprise came over it. As if it had not expected to even feel anything, but was held tight by lines of protonic force.
I unhooked my trap from my pack, tossed it under the thing, and pressed the release trigger. Instantly the trap sprung open and a pillar of electromagnetic energy surrounding the creature, drew it down inside, and finally pulled the trap hinges shut. The metal container shook for awhile as the thing apparently struggled with its cage, but eventually it gave up and settled down. Score one for the good guys.
Not much else to tell. I started walking, found a highway and before too long ran into a line of rescue vehicles that came to check out the devastation. One of the police cars pulled over and gave me a lift to a nearby motel where they were putting up the refugees (surprisingly few, as most residents had already left town. Thanks again negative slime!)
Anyway, I lost my suitcase with my wallet, checkbook and credit cards. Not to mention my favorite gray shirt. I already fedexed the trap back to the firehouse for containment, and after a good night's sleep I'm going to see about a flight out of here.
I've had enough of Southern California. Time to head back to New York. I could use the peace and quiet.
Dr. Raymond Stantz
P.S. Winston, you know that idea I had about opening a branch office out here? FORGET IT.
To start at the beginning...
While I was sure the paranormal event would take place during the night (as these things usually do), I patrolled most of the night without seeing anything -- no people, no vampires, no subterrestrials of any sort. The streets were empty, a lot of store were smashed in where looters had carried away their swag, a few overturned cars littered the roads and sidewalks, and all the power was out. Thank goodness for my multi-spectrun visor.
It was just before daybreak when I came across what appeared to be a military depot, what I believe was part of a small army base. And I could see that *someone* had cut away a large section of the fence...a section large enough to drive through.
And then I heard thumping sounds from inside the fence.
I stole in as quietly as possible, flattened against a small office building and edged around it until I could get a good look at the courtyard beyond. There, indeed, was a truck. And around it were about a dozen men in robes, carefully loading packages they were bringing out of a storage shed. Dark as it was, I was able to adjust my visor for a telescopic view to read the lettering on the side of the boxes.
High Explosives.
Not being well versed in military ordinance, I couldn't say exactly *how* dangerous the stuff they were loading was, but it was definitely not something to play with. And just then I got a good look at one of the robed men's faces. Oh boy. Ritual scarring over the eyes, talmanic symbols of servitude to ancient evil. And I remember the entry in Weissinger's Guide to Blood Cults. Harbingers. Servants of the Prime Evil.
I stood there frozen for what must've been fifteen minutes, and as I watched several of them began to crack open the cases and start adjusting what was inside. At that point I realized, they weren't just thieves. These yahoos were looking to do enact the traditional religious fanatic suicide bombing run. They were rigging this truck as a rolling missle. But for who? Or where?
I noticed at that point that things were growing a bit brighter around me. Yanking my visor up, I could see that the sun was rising. So I retreated back through the fence and across a field to a parking lot for an office building, where I crouched behind a dumpster to watch for what they would do next.
It didn't take long. A few minutes later the truck rumbled out through their makeshift gate, moving slowly to, no doubt, not set off their cargo prematurely. Keeping out of sight best as I could I trailed after them. I lost sight of them for a few minutes, until finally I caught side of the truck parked in a used car lot (advertising LOW LOW PRICES! on a large Zeppelin-shaped balloon that flew overhead) on the main drag into town. So I positioned myself behind a counter of a Doublemeat Palace (love their fries!) and watched for their next move.
They waited. So I waited. This wasn't exactly what I had expected to find. A trans-dimensional gateway or horde of flesh-eating hellhounds, sure, but suicide bombers? Not usually my area of expertise. Call the FBI. And also, I was getting hungry.
And then it passed by.
It was a school bus. Considering I doubted classes were being held in a deserted town, it was pretty full. Out of towners? People just too stubborn to leave? Or...and somehow I knew this was it...these were the local chapter of the brotherhood of monster fighters. (Or sisterhood, since most of them appeared to be young women.) And they were off to the source of the disturbance I had been tracing. Except they weren't going to make it, because these Harbringers were going to ram them and blow the lot of them to kingdom come. Suddenly I was glad I hadn't had any breakfast that morning...because it would've been coming up on me at that point.
I heard the engine of the truck spring back to life, and for a wild instant I stood there paralyzed. Until I remembered my trusty proton pack. I grabbed my discharged, took aim...
...and blasted their front tires flat.
Then to be safe, I ran out the front of the restaurant for the angle to shoot and blew their right rear tire clean off. A gritted my teeth as the back of the truck crashed downward, expecting the explosives to detonate.
It was kind of funny. I stood there stock still, waiting for the blast. The harbringers stared at me dumbly from the truck's cab, apparently unsure what to do now that their plan had been derailed. And when after a few seconds it became clear that nothing was going to blow up, I let out a sigh of relief...just as a dozen knife-welding maniacs jumped from the cab and the rear of the truck and charged at me.
Now understand, my proton weapons had been designed to work on spectral, incorporeal entities. But numerous run-ins across the years with more *formidable* opponents had led Egon and myself to upgrade our weaponry for additional functions. Although I admit I have a tendency to flip the switch in the wrong direction and set the discharger to "Blow Leaves".
Luckily this time I remembered the right setting, hit the right switch, and sent out a beam of concentrated electrons. I swung the discharger about wildly, and gave the harbingers the shock of their lives. Heh.
When I opened my eyes Uh, when I saw that the lot of them had been knocked unconcious I checked the back of the truck and found wires connecting various explosive devices into, I assume, one humdinger of a bomb. Having some experience in defusing bombs (gained when I helped run down the ghost of Guy Fawkes) I started disconnecting the various detonators, rendering the whole mess useless. No sense leaving it there for the Eye guys to play with when they finally came to.
As I unhooked the last connection, I heard what sounded like an explosion off in the distance. For a moment I feared they had armed a backup truck and had hit their goal anyway, so I climbed the roof a nearby van to see what I could. There was a dust cloud that seemed to be getting larger. And neared. Remembering my visor, I pulled it back down over my eyes and hit the button for telescopic view.
Below the dust cloud, there was a crater forming. And it was spreading in my direction.
I estimated the distance to the crater (about half a mile) the speed it was expanding (TOO DAMN FAST!) and my chances of hot-wiring one of the cars in the lot in time to get away (slim and none).
Looked like this was the end. As a parapsychologist I had always been curious as to what lie beyond this mortal coil...but not curious enough to want to miss seeing Ang Lee's THE HULK. So I checked my surroundings. Any helicopters nearby? No. Extra-dimensional vortex? None handy. Helpful and exceedingly large falcons? Uh-uh. Balloon?
Balloon! YES!
Acting quickly I grabbed the line that tethered the advertising balloon above me to earth, snapped a line belt grappler (never leave home without it!) to the nylon cord, then took aim and severed the line with a stream of focused protons. And just as the dust cloud swallowed me as the ground fell out from under, I was yanked upwards by the freed zeppelin-shaped balloon.
The debris falling into the spreading crater caused an updraft, which pushed me violently upward. For a moment I caught sight of (what I assume was) the same school bus that the harbringers had been targeting. It was trying to outrace the collapsing city and seemingly succeeding. And before the dust obscured my view, I though I saw a small figure jump from a building roof and land on top of the bus as it sped away.
Eventually the wind died down, and I drifted to a landing behind a small hill. The entire town had fallen inwards, towards what I surmised was a subterranean nexus point. Still, even a gateway to a alternate reality would probably be choked shut by a couple of million tons of California real estate.
I snapped my PKE meter from my belt to check. The readings from the direction of the (former) location of Sunnydale showed steadily dropping levels of ectoplasm. Whatever had been down there was gone now.
But then I got a curious reading. It wasn't coming from the pit, but rather the top of the hillock above me. I looked up but didn't see anything, so I once again pulled down my visor and started adjusting the astral-tracking. Slowly a figure came into a view: what appeared to be a young blonde woman, staring across the chasm with a look of what I can only describe as pure hatred in her eyes.
I checked the PKE readings again. Bingo. Whatever it was, it wasn't corporeal. Not quite a ghost, but certainly an ectoplasmic entity. Finally, something up my alley.
"Excuse me?" I said, climbing up the hill a little. It didn't turn. Probably it didn't realize I could see it.
Suddenly the figure of the girl changed. Morphed into a man of about thirty, light brown hair and dressed like a priest. And when it changed it suddenly let loose screaming the vilest string of obscentites I had ever heard across the pit. From what I made out, it was vowing to "eat the intestines" and "flay with hot irons" someone it could see over on the far side who was too far away to be visible to me.
Then it noticed me. Its head turned as if on a hinge to look at me. I've stared down ghosts and demonic entities, mythological nightmares and extradimensional boogeymen, but I've NEVER looked into the eyes of something that radiated sheer evil the way this thing did. Instinctively I raised my discharger...
...and then the priest was gone, and a huge bat-like thing with glowing eyes and fangs, a monster that seemed to have been molded from darkness itself, was there in his face. It hissed at me...
...and I fired. The protons danced across its surface as a look of surprise came over it. As if it had not expected to even feel anything, but was held tight by lines of protonic force.
I unhooked my trap from my pack, tossed it under the thing, and pressed the release trigger. Instantly the trap sprung open and a pillar of electromagnetic energy surrounding the creature, drew it down inside, and finally pulled the trap hinges shut. The metal container shook for awhile as the thing apparently struggled with its cage, but eventually it gave up and settled down. Score one for the good guys.
Not much else to tell. I started walking, found a highway and before too long ran into a line of rescue vehicles that came to check out the devastation. One of the police cars pulled over and gave me a lift to a nearby motel where they were putting up the refugees (surprisingly few, as most residents had already left town. Thanks again negative slime!)
Anyway, I lost my suitcase with my wallet, checkbook and credit cards. Not to mention my favorite gray shirt. I already fedexed the trap back to the firehouse for containment, and after a good night's sleep I'm going to see about a flight out of here.
I've had enough of Southern California. Time to head back to New York. I could use the peace and quiet.
Dr. Raymond Stantz
P.S. Winston, you know that idea I had about opening a branch office out here? FORGET IT.