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]

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.