Ghostbusters: Inescapable

The conclusion is inescapable.

This is all my fault, of that I am completely certain.

"Fairy Godmother", my framistat.

"They feed on a person's vanity...their desire to look good. The change you...make you closer to "perfect"...and then they steal your soul. They make you one of them..."

"So all we gotta do is blast the thing, and everything goes back to normal?"

"It may not be that simple, Peter. We don't know why Janine's been going along with it. And it...it may already be too late."

Normally, I'd be concerned that my comrades would catch the hesitation in my voice, and call me out on it. But right now, I simply cannot find it in myself to care about that.

"...Don't know why she's been going along with this..."

I know why.

"Some people tell me I'm too intellectual, but I think it's a fabulous way to spend my spare time. Do you have any hobbies?"

Despite it all, that moment became burned in my mind. I was suddenly aware that a healthy young woman of child bearing age was giving me...well, the kind of look I am wholly unused to recieving from healthy young women of childbearing age. I'm not Venkman. I panicked. I said the first inane thing that came to mind.

"I collect spores, molds, and fungus"

I know when it hit me. Ragnarok. Mortality about to close in--"four lives for billions" to paraphrase an obscure late Seventies movie--and just as I told my self I had no regrets, I suddenly realized that that fact was a lie. I suddenly had one regret. One powerful regret.

"...Don't know why she's been going along with this...":

I hid it too well. The delight every time she said my name. The rush of blood when she "accidentally" bumped into me.

I stuffed it in a box. A scientist must remain objective and logical at all times. My reactions to her are not logical.

"it's nothing fancy, but we call it home..."

"Then what do you call that? Your jalopy?"

How could she not have seen it?! My facade cracked so badly...I never wanted to strike another human being so badly in my life as that smug, cocksure businessman...not even Walter Peck for nearly bringing about the destruction of the entire world.

I was, quite simply, manifesting classic jealousy.

How could she have not seen that?

How could I have not seen this?

But that was part of the trap, I would theorize...fuel the desire for perfection...but keep those around you, those you most want to impress with your perfection, from noticing the transmogrication. And thus be drawn into further "improvements" Alll the while, all the sharp edges and quirks of the personality are slowly subverted...a soulless, mental "perfection" Until there is no will left to refuse the final transformation into one of them.

I see the image so clearly now...the smaller woman with all of the fire and passion...I hear the thick, high-pitched Brooklyn twang calling my name...how could I have been so blind?

"They live in the water, and usually stay pretty close to it..." Ray's words came back to me. "I guess this one wandered a little more inland..."

Of course. Makeoverus lotsabucks is a water spirit. Jamaica Bay is the closest body of water to her apartment.

"I'm coming Janine..."

She did this because if me. She thought I didn't notice her. Because I could never admit that I did. I could never admit that I thought she was already perfect...

That is my weapon. Maybe that's why the creature forced her to run...maybe I posess the truth that can unravel all of it's work. The simple, humble truth that binds me to this woman.

And if it doesn't work...I don't think either of our lives are worth the living, anyway.

My name is Egon Spengler. I will save Janine Melnitz. Because I love her.

And that is also inescapable.

INESCAPBLE

By Fritz Baugh