After Many Months

[captainryan]

"Thank you so much for coming," says the dottery old caretaker as she escorts them inside. She must be in her seventies at least, though Ryan's going more on scent than sight. It's hard to tell ages when the faces are animated. "You don't know how much I appreciate it."

"Are you kidding?" Ray gushes. "For the chance to visit the original Walt Fleishman Studios, I'd do just about anything!" Ryan refrains from asking for examples. He really doesn't want to know.

"Yeah, same here. I grew up on his cartoons; they were fantastic!" Winston's grinning as broadly as Ray is, and Ryan wonders again why he hasn't heard of Fleishman if he's as famous as they're making him out to be. He eyes the lithographs on the walls as the caretaker goes on about the cartoonist's genius and his disappearance, half trying to recognize the characters in them, half trying to figure out what makes them cartoons in an animated world.

"The sounds were reported coming from here," the lady informs them as she lets them into Fleishman's private studio. "Terrible sounds, moaning, groaning, shouting, chains rattling--"

"Could be MTV," Venkman cuts in.

"Or a long latent paranormal surge. Might even have something to do with Walt Fleishman's disappearance," Egon says thoughtfully as he scans the room. "Strange, though, that I'm not getting anything on the PKE meter."

"Well, then, I'll leave it to you. If you find anything, do let me know." With that, the caretaker's gone, leaving them to their own devices.

Once she's gone, Ryan takes a good whiff of the air. "I don't smell any ozone either."

Comments

[captainryan.livejournal.com]

There's only the wolf, as far as Ryan can see, so...

"Be wary of traps," Ryan cautions as they approach the door.

"And now for trapdoor number 3,642," the wolf grins as he reaches for a button on his armrest, but the doors crash open before he can reach it.

"All right, buddy, show's over!" Peter yells.

"Oh no! It's the Ghostbusters!" the wolf cries as they make their way inside. Ryan watches the floor for seams. "I cannot hope to defeat them. There is only one thing I can do," the wolf prattles on, tone nearly mocking. Ryan looks up sharply as the wolf reaches for a button, but as far as he can tell there's nothing above nor below. What's he up to?

The button is pressed and quite suddenly there is no floor beneath the heroes. There's no warning, no whirring, no clicking, it's just gone. The men hang there a moment before plummeting into the darkness below.

[gone_byebye]

BANG! WHUMP! THUMP! KA-WHOMP! Down through the pipes in the factory room, then into the open empty darkness, then-

WHOMP.

Welcome to the desert, and to the wolf's distant voice cackling about how they're going to be there a long, long time...

[captainryan.livejournal.com]

"Son of a dog!" Ryan snarls as he gets to his feet. There were no signs of the trapdoor! How di--

Wait, what did he just say?

"Dog? Heck. Darn. Oh, that's just bloody charming, that is." Well. At least he can still use bloody.

"Bloody cartoon," he growlingly mutters to himself before he takes a chance to look around. A wide open desert, it seems. He scents the air, but all he gets is that ozone smell, which only serves to improve his mood even more.

"Now what?"

[gone_byebye]

"Now we start looking for a way out, I guess," says Winston, who doesn't sound happy about it.

Ray, by the look of him, has another opinion. "If this is Walt Fleischman's cartoon world, where are all the heroes? Where's Dopey Dog?"

"Dopey Dog, Ray?" says Egon, in a voice simultaneously laden with incredulity and scorn.

"No, really! In the cartoons, he said all you had to do to get him to help you was-"

We advise that the more sensible among the audience cover their ears and look away from the screen at this point. Calling on Dopey Dog's assistance involves a song that anyone over the age of seven would be embarrassed to sing- and a dance that makes the I'm A Little Teapot dance look like precision marching drill.

On the other hand, it does result in a bolt of lightning that yields up a caped, red-pyjama'd, one-eyed dog, who smiles and says, "You called?"

[captainryan.livejournal.com]

Ryan, for his part, is firmly convinced that the heat has gotten to Ray.

At least until Dopey Dog actually shows up. His look goes from surprised to blank to glower. Despite the sudden source of help, he's really starting to hate this place.

"Dopey Dog, can you help us get Walt Fleishman away from Winchester Wolf?" Ray asks hopefully.

"That's a pretty stupid name for a wolf."

"You have my permission to tell him that, Peter," Winston says.

"Please," Ryan grumbles, "allow me."

"It's a long sad story, my friends," Dopey Dog begins, explaining how Walt somehow created the cartoon world so he could film the characters instead of drawing them, and the creation of the evil Winchester Wolf who, too powerful to be controlled, captured Walt and trapped him in his own world for forty years. Ryan paces while he listens, still aggravated.

"Why not stop him?" he asks the dog.

[gone_byebye]

"I'm a cartoon, my friend," says Dopey. "It's one thing to play at being a hero. To actually be one-"

"Well, we're not cartoons," says Ray suddenly. "And we're not staying! We're gonna find Walt and get out of here!"

"Yeah," says Winston, "and nothing's going to stop us!"

Except, maybe, the big blue and green landscape painting FALLING OUT OF THE SKY- or the sudden arrival of Conqueror Duck- or the massive cliff that erupts out of nowhere under Winston, Peter, and Ray. Not that the cliff lasts long, thanks to Conqueror Duck tipping it over as Egon stares, aghast-

"just one chance, my friend!" says Dopey Dog, looking at the painting over his shoulder. "We've got to move the lake!"

"I beg your pardon?"

"This is a cartoon, remember?" says Dopey Dog, gesturing towards the painting.

"You cannot pick up a lake and move it! It's illogical!"

"DO WHAT HE SAYS!" the falling Peter yelps.

[captainryan.livejournal.com]

"This doesn't make sense, and I don't believe any of it," Egon insists stubbornly even as he, Ryan, and Dopey Dog start dragging the lake out of the painting and over to where the others' shadows are steadily growing on the ground.

"You're the one who pointed out this is a cartoon," Ryan annunciates flatly as Ray, Peter, and Winston splashdown. Winston is glad to be alive, if soaking wet.

"Just walk out of frame, my friend," Dopey Dog says cheerfully. The men do, and when they come back, they're completely dry again. "Works every time!"

"That does it, I'm leaving," says Egon firmly.

Ryan arches an eyebrow. "You're only deciding this now?"

[gone_byebye]

"That'll be a good trick, Egon, considering we don't know how to get out of here- or where Walt is," points out Peter.

"Hm," says Dopey Dog. "I may be able to provide a solution to both problems, but we'll need help. We've got to go to the very edge of the cartoon world, and it's very dangerous."

"Hey, I live by danger," says Peter. "I might as well die by it too. Lead on."

Dopey nods and sets off at a run, from the desert straight into- farmland? Farmland. Yeah. They're gathering up animals of all sizes and species with every step of the trip. By the time the motley crew returns to a line of cliffs overlooking the desert, Winchester Wolf's moved his venue. Walt Fleischman's tied to a pole in the middle of the desert, flinching in vain as an automated monstrosity beside Winchester's throne flings pies at him one after another. Winchester's allies- Ricky Roach, Conqueror Duck, and an assortment of other beasts- seem to be enjoying the show.

"Ready, everyone?" calls Dopey. "Then let's go, my friends! For the Walt Fleischman Studios!"

And the cavalcade of animals goes charging down the slope, with three very intent Ghostbusters and one Ghostbuster so thrilled with the situation that he's fit to burst, charging after them. As the animals join the melee, the humans draw their proton throwers and-

"You know," says Egon at the sight of the rather lame fireworks falling from his thrower, "I probably should've thought to test these to make sure they work in this world."

"Nice timing, Egon."

[captainryan.livejournal.com]

Ryan would say something, but they being approached by the animal villains not yet fighting. Instead he starts growling as reholsters the thrower, gladly stepping forward to release some frustration. He should probably be at least a little wary of his opponents, but it's difficult to be afraid of a simple cartoon.

"If they haven't had their shots, I'm in serious danger of cartoon rabies," Venkman says as they finish with the villains.

Ryan stalks up to Walt as a glasses-wearing mole finishes chewing through his bonds. "Let's go," he half snarls, roughly grabbing the man. He's in no mood to be polite.

"Now, my friends, do it for Walt!" Dopey Dog shouts as he restrains Winchester Wolf, keeping him from stopping the other animal heroes as they start pulling up the ground like a sheet of paper, revealing a black void beneath.

[gone_byebye]

"No!" shouts Winchester, trying to lunge away from his captor. "You're ripping the film! You're tearing the edge of the film! Stop it!"

And sure enough, the cartoon world gives way to a thunder-dark sky and filmstock rolling under foot, and sprocket holes along both edges stretching over an unimaginable void, and-

"There it is! The edge of the film! Those are the sprockets, and beyond, home!" says Dopey Dog as Winchester Wolf swells into immensity.

"What about you?" says Ray.

"Don't worry about me, my friends! Jump!"

The wolf lunges for the Ghostbusters and Ryan and Fleischman, hands flailing, but they've gone insubstantial. "You're killing us!" screams the wolf. "I can't exist without you! We had a contract! We had a contraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaact!"

And then there's a door, and a slam, and four Ghostbusters, one werewolf, and one bedraggled cartoonist are tumbling across the floor of the Walt Fleischman studios in front of the shocked-looking caretaker from that morning.

[captainryan.livejournal.com]

Ryan? DOES NOT CARE.

"I hate cartoons," he states flatly as he climbs to his feet yet again. "I'll be in the car." He stalks past the caretaker as she exclaims over Fleishman's reappearance, more than willing to let the Ghostbusters handle any remaining details.

He needs to hit something. He may decide to search out a mugger or two on his evening run.

Those poor, poor muggers.