THE END OF THE WORLD!

Until one of the robed figures farted loudly.

"Sprocking Hell, Ummo, what have you been eating? It's like the Sargasso of Space in here now!"

"Taco Bell. I mean, I figured go out on a high note."

"I agree with going out on a 'high note' but this isn't what I meant..." the third one said as he smacked "Ummo".

"Keep your frakking hands to yourself, Serpo--I never know where they've been!" Ummo retorted.

"Ahem." the first speaker said and cleared his throat, signaling he wanted his fellows' attention back. "My friends, today is the day."

The other two nodded. "Mekka lekka hy."

"For three decades, we have prepared."

"Mekka hynii hoh."

"And now, the culmination of all of our work." The leader stepped back, then into the candlelit circle with a box. From the box he extracted a cylinder. "For over thirty years we have met here every week, performing the rite that brought this world into harmonic convergence with the energies of the modulus. Complete revolutions of this world, and all of the ones that affect it the most--we only had to await the ringed world to complete one revolution, and today is that day!"

"Klattu baradda nikto" the other two chanted. Then one of them sighed. "We know this shock already, Nibiru. Can we get on with it?"

"I understand your impatience, my brother." Nibiru replied. "But we can't be impatient now! It's the critical moment!"

He threw off his robe, revealing a short creature that was humanoid, but definitely not human. His diminutive frame was covered in a sparkly black and green jumpsuit; his head was over-large, hairless, and a greyish color with large, solid black eyes.

His partners took their robes off, and looked much the same, though one was slightly taller, the other slightly chunkier.

"In the name of Great Xeno, we will cast the final spell, and send this world to the sacred land of Kobol! There, you and our brethren will consume the pitiful creatures here and extoll your glory forever!!!"

"I'm gonna miss the Taco Bells, though." Ummo (the chunky one) sighed. "And the strawberry ice cream."

"So...time to light it!" Nibiru said gleefully. "Serpo, light it!"

Serpo pulled out a Zippo, and flicked it a few times.

"Why isn't it lighting?!" Nibiru cried.

"You have been so pissy since Bigfoot ran away with our gold." Serpo snorted. "Hey, I had some primo weed and I knew if I didn't have it yesterday, I never would!" He flicked it a few more times. "If you didn't put out so many sprocking candles. Maybe it's out of fluid..."

"I may have some matches..." Ummo offered.

There was a knock at the door.

"You gotta be sprocking kidding me!" Nibiru snarled. "I thought I told the front desk not to bother us!"

Ummo looked at Serpo. "Did you forget the door tag again?"

Serpo shrugged, and opened the door.

"Room service!" said a man in a wheel chair, as he shot Serpo.

"FRAK!!!" Nibiru shouted.

More people ran into the room, training their weapons on the three conspirators.

Four of them were, of course, Dr. Roland Jackson, Dr. Kylie Griffin, Eduardo Rivera, and Garrett Miller--the "Extreme Ghostbusters" that had investigated and eliminated paranormal phenomenon for the previous nineteen years.

Two more individuals were close behind; one was a woman with a gun, the other a man dressed in an ornate green robe, and carrying a staff.

"I don't sprocking believe this!" Nibiru shouted again. "This was supposed to be our day! This was supposed..."

The robed man gestured, and the cylinder floated away from the angry creature.

"No Earth-shattering kaboom for you!" Garrett snarked.

"What's the verdict, Kylie?" Eduardo asked his wife, who was staring at her PKE Meter.

"They're definitely ghosts." Kylie said.

"I owe you twenty bucks, don't I?" the woman with the gun said.

"We're not saying it's aliens, but...it's not aliens." Garrett quipped.

The four Ghostbusters proton throwers were held at the ready.

"How!? How did you know?!"

"Funny story there." Roland said. "Agent Ortiz?"

"We got a tip at the FBI, and it was forwarded to me--Special Agent Melanie Ortiz, Occult Crimes Unit." the woman said, holstering her gun and producing a tablet. "I consulted with GBI when we realized they had a piece of corroborating evidence--a previous statement, all the way back in 1988. With some digging, we found out that three 'weirdoes' had been renting a room at the same Paramus Holiday Inn every week for the last thirty years."

"So when you checked in this week, you got flagged, and here we are." Roland summed up.

"What do you mean 'corroborating evidence'?" Nibiru snarled. "We told nobody! Nobody!"

"Not true." Ortiz said, tapping the tablet. A video began to play--it was somewhat grainy, having been uploaded from a decayed VHS recording.

The back of the set was a cheesy mixture of colored spheres, on the very back section were the words "World of the Psychic, with Dr. Peter Venkman", in horrible gold lettering.

"Hi! Welcome back to World of the Psychic. I'm Peter Venkman. I'm chatting with my guest, author, lecturer and psychic Milton Anglund. Milt, your new book is called The End of the World. Now, can you tell us when it's gonna be or do we have to buy the book?" Venkman asked, taking a quick sip from a mug which read "Eat Me".

"Well, I predict that the world will end at the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve." the author replied, squirming slightly in his chair.

"This year?" Venkman asked, a little surprised.

"Mm-hmm." Milton added.

"Well, that's cutting it a little bit close, isn't it! I mean- just from a sales point of view! I mean, your book is just coming out, you're not going to see any paperback sales for at least a year, it'll be at least another year before you know whether you've got that mini-series or movie of the week kind of possibilities- I mean, just devil's advocate, Miltie! Shouldn't you have said, 'Hey, the world's gonna end in 1992!' or better yet, 1994!" Venkman joked away at Milton's expsense, causing Milton's face to turn a light shade of red.

"Dr. Venkman, Dr. Venkman, this is not some money-making scheme, all right! I have a strong psychic belief...that the world will end on New Year's Eve." Milton replied, almost caught up in the raw emotion. Venkman rolled his eyes.

"Well, for your sake I hope you're right, okay, but I think my other guest may disagree with you. Elaine, now you had another date in mind?" Venkman asked.

"Hey! I know her!" Serpo exclaimed excitedly. "I picked her up at the bar one night!"

"You WHAT?!" Nibiru spat.

"According to my source, the end of the world will be on February 14th in the year 2016." Elaine replied, almost embarrassed to say it.

"Valentine's Day. Bummer." Venkman said deadpan. "Where'd you get your date, Elaine?" He asked, almost with genuine interest.

"I received this information from an alien. As I told my husband: It was in the Paramus Holiday Inn. I having a drink at the bar, alone, and this alien approached me. He started talking to me, he bought me a drink and then I think he must have used some kind of a ray or a mind control device, because he forced me to follow him to his room, and that's where...he told me about the end of the world." She added.

"Mind control my output." Serpo guffawed.

"So your alien had a room at the Holiday Inn, Paramus?" Venkman asked, doubtfully.

"It might have been a room on the spacecraft made up to look like a room at the Holiday Inn. I can't be sure about that." She admitted.

"Of course not." Venkman started, standing up from his seat. "And that is the whole problem with aliens, is you just can't trust them. Occasionally you meet a nice one. Starman, E.T. But usually they turn out to be some kind of big lizard! That's all the time we've got for this week on World of the Psychic. Next week, though-" Venkman paused. "Gimme Ira." Venkman near-hissed off camera. Someone handed him a shaven cat "Hairless pets. Weird!" He showed the cat to the camera, and then gave the cat back to a crew member. "Until then, this is Peter Venkman, saying:" Venkman put a finger to his head, pretending to broadcast the message. He then laughed. "See you then!" He waves to the camera as the video ended.

"YOU SPROCKING IDIOT!!!" Nibiru howled, then began to choke Serpo. "You could never keep your zarth in your normal suit, now look where it got us!!! Thirty years of work down the black hole!!!"

Ummo pulled Nibiru off of Serpo.

"Okay, so I blabbed, but c'mon...who would have thought anybody'd take that story seriously?" Serpo shrugged. "It was totally worth it--the lonely housewives are the biggest absolute freaks in the ol' dormancy pod..."

Nibiru made another shriek of anguish and anger.

"On three." Kylie said.

"Could I get one last Chalupa before we go?" Ummo gulped.

"THREE!!!" the other three Ghostbusters shouted. Proton beams washed over the three "aliens".

Ten seconds later, they were inside a ghost trap.

"Good job." Ortiz said.

"Thanks for the head's up on that one, Mel." Kylie nodded. The Ghostbusters had encountered Agent Ortiz and her then-partner on a case years ago, with "alien ghosts" being sighted in New Mexico. The ghosts had turned out to be deceased soldiers at the Roswell army base, but that experience meant that when the FBI formed their own Occult Crimes Unit, Agent Ortiz became their GBI liaison.

"Jim's gonna be disappointed, but I'm not." Ortiz shrugged. "Less paperwork for me if it's ghosts."

Garrett turned to the robed man. "So what's the verdict on the Alludium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator, Dumbledore?"

"Um, it pains me to say this, Vincent, but I have to agree with Garrett's skepticism." Roland said. "Those three didn't look smart enough to walk and chew gum at the same time--did they really have something that could have destroyed the entire planet?"

Dr. Vincent Belmont, Hermetic wizard and leader of the Ghostbusters Arcane Division, regarded the cylinder. "Leaving aside Garrett's remark...it's definitely something. And while klutzy, they did make a plan when we were all playing with Power Guy action figures and stick to it for three decades. Gabe and I will give this a full analysis and let the home office know."

Kylie had an uncomfortable thought. "Sure, these guys were dumb, but what if there's another group out there with the same recipe? A group that isn't stupid?"

Ortiz shrugged. "First law of crisis--only panic about one thing at a time. We won today, leave it at that."

"Yeah, Babe..." Eduardo said, sidling up to Kylie. "The kids are at Yaya's, so maybe we spend some quality time together before we pick them up."

Kylie groaned and rolled her eyes, but not without fondness.

"I mean, it is still Valentine's Day."