ONE FROGGY HALLOWEEN

From the files of Dr. Fritz V. Baugh, GBWC CEO
GBI Case File No. GBWC-2014-32/405

The nervous man in the passenger's seat looked around. "Do you think we'll make it before nightfall?"

The woman in the driver's seat looked at the road in front of her. "I think we'll be good." She sighed. "Relax, Dear. It's hundreds of miles away now."

The passenger's eyes still darted back and forth far too quickly. "I hope you're right."

Within seconds, the car was no longer in sight of the sign. All was quiet.

"Bud..."


"Bud..."


"Bud..."


"Bud..."

With him was Charlene Zeddemore, GBWC Reservist. While she normally spent the school year back in New York, studying at Columbia University, she was spending fall break in LA. "Samhain still in the same ECU he's been in since 2003. Jeff and Uncle Ray both verify that. And they're all on high alert for goblins chanting 'evening' " Charlene raised an eyebrow. "Guys claiming to be Samhain's son?"

Jason visibly flinched. "Dear gods, no. I can't believe anybody'd even think about how something like that would...no...just no..."

Charlene smirked. "Jason, I could tell you about a friend of mine that not that long ago it wouldn't have been too much weirder than the guys she really was dating. She's better now, though."

"Okay..." Jason coughed, not really wanting to ask for elaboration.

"And tell me you're not dressing as Deadpool this year."

"There's nothing wrong with Deadpool, as long as it's the real Deadpool and not that fake one from one of the Wolverine movies..." Jason answered with mock indignation. "But no, I'm on duty tonight." Eager to change the subject somewhat, he looked back at the list. "Baccardio?"

"Full alert for that. But so far, no sign."

"Peoplebusters." Jason shuddered.

"No sign of tornadoes, regular or barometrically neutral ones." Charlene replied.

"None here either, thank goodness..." Jason nodded. "No signs of killer pumpkins, a Pumpkin Lord, or a ghost ship."

"Maybe we're just going to have a nice, quiet Halloween this year." Charlene mused. "We're about due, right?"

The alarm bell rang.

"Okay, maybe not" Charlene chuckled, rolling her eyes.

"A Ghostbuster's work is never done." Jason sighed, putting down the clipboard and starting for the garage.

"Oh, now isn't this adorable?!" Rose Prevost gushed. "It's the Chipmunks!"

"I'ma Chipette, actuawwy..." squeaked one of the Halloween revelers.

Rose chuckled. "True enough. Snickers is okay, right?"

"It is one Mom won't steal..." the tallest of the trick-or-treaters chuckled. "But Dad loves them, so we still can't win."

Two of the three little girls were, indeed, dressed like characters from Ross "Dave Seville" Bagdasarian's cartoons, one like Simon, another like Jeanette Miller, one of aforementioned Chipettes. The older one, on the other hand, was Twilight Sparkle from My Little Pony.

"Thank goodness none of them inherited that particular allergy." came the voice of the girls' mother. She was dressed in a red wig, and a black and white uniform that sported a very short skirt. Next to her was a man in a tweed jacket, bow tie, and a mess of floppy dark hair.

Rose chuckled. "Well, this is something new, Doctor. I think you've regenerated like seven times since your last Halloween outing."

"Eight, actually--don't forget John Hurt." The Doctor answered amiably. "It was her idea--I dress like Matt Smith, she'd be Kissagram Karen Gillen. How could I say no to that?" He smirked. "I can be Peter Capaldi next year."

"I'm just glad I can still make this work after four kids." "Amy" purred, stroking the tie. "Bow ties are cool..."

"Moooom..." "Twilight Sparkle" rolled her eyes.

"So the girls will be going to Grandpa's later to let you play 'Hide the Sonic Screwdriver'?" Rose asked leeringly.

"Rooose!!!" "Amy" hissed. "They may hear that!"

"Deresa Rose in Doct' Who, right?" "Simon" asked.

Rose laughed. The family was, of course, her boss, Dr. Fritz V. Baugh, the Ghostbusters West Coast CEO; Chelsea Aberdeen Baugh, Rose's fellow Client Administrator; and three of their four daughters--seven year-old Abigail and almost-four identical twins Gwen and Vicky. What is it with Ghostbusters and twins? Rose asked herself. Their five month old fourth daughter, Beverly, was currently in the care of her maternal grandfather, Jim Aberdeen.

"The van's gone..." Fritz noted.

Rose nodded. "Got a call about half an hour ago. Kyle, Charlene, and Jason took the job. Can't be too careful on Halloween after all. You never know when it's going to be the Peoplebusters again or something."

Fritz made a disgusted noise. "I've seen enough of those to last a lifetime."

Chelsea ribbed him. "We probably better get going, Doctor. We still need to take the girls to Dad and Clara's place." That provoked a grin--they knew that Uncle Scotty was planning a surprise...

But when she opened the door, it wasn't to children shouting "Trick or Treat".

A woman with short red hair was standing there; leaning on her was a tall man with dark reddish hair, going grey from the temples to the bottom of his ponytail; Rose chuckled--the man's glasses and hawk like nose brought to mind a movie actor to which just about every member of GBI was familiar with. "Egon and Janine!" Rose said brightly. "You're a little older than the usual trick-or-treater, but you got the look down pretty good. Though, as a personal friend of the Spenglers, I really must point out..."

"What in the world are you babbling about?" the woman interrupted, throwing Rose for a loop by not having a thick Brooklyn accent, more a Midwestern one. "We're not trick-or-treaters, we're here for help! My husband..."

The man's voice was somewhat strained as he nodded. "We've come a long way...we need the Ghostbusters...I need..."

Rose blinked. Suddenly, she realized that she had seen these two before. Her face became serious. "Right this way, Professor Baugh. I'll catch Fritz before he leaves."

The door to the lab opened. "Uncle Roger! Aunt Claire!"

"Fritz!" Claire said. "Thank the Gods."

"What's going on?" Fritz asked.

Mike Devicente and Jeremy Hicks were standing nearby, the latter looking at a PKE Meter.

"There's a PKE reading...but it's not very strong." Jeremy said.

"So this guy is your uncle?" Mike had to ask.

"Yeah." Fritz nodded. "My Dad's youngest brother." He looked at Roger. "What happened?"

"You have no idea how glad I am you're here..." Roger said, still sweating. "I need help..."

"Something supernatural, I take it?" Fritz asked.

Roger nodded.

Rose leaned in to Mike. "Roger's a literature professor at San Francisco Community College. We met him once at Fritz and Chelsea's wedding, but I hadn't seen him since and it took me a second to realize it was him and not trick-or-treaters posing as the Spenglers."

"There is kind of a weird resemblance..." Mike agreed.

"His wife's a writer...goes by her maiden name, I think." Rose finished.

"There's a team in San Francisco, Uncle Roger. I know..."

Roger shook his head. "You're family...I didn't always believe what you did was real, but I do now..."

Fritz pulled out his own PKE Meter. He turned it on, and the swing arms raised some. "What happened?"

Roger started to talk, but nobody could understand him.

"English, Roger, English." Claire prodded him. "Nobody here knows Swedish..." She looked at Fritz. "Tell me you can help him."

"I have every intention of trying." Fritz answered. "There's definitely an unusual signal here, but I can't quite isolate it. It's either weak or dormant, maybe, but I need to know more."

"He's burning up." Jay noted. "I'm gonna call Kyle and tell him to wrap up the job he's on double-time. We need him back here."

Fritz nodded.

Roger exhaled. "It all started about a week ago..."

Roger nodded as he walked. "Well, I understand...the Mean Green Teen Machine crossover should get you some attention. Just as long as it isn't anything like that God-awful movie they just put out."

"...Bud..."

Roger laughed. "I know...but what did we expect? Look how terrible those transforming robot movies were...Roy's kids had some of those toys, and I'm pretty sure they were nowhere near as ugly as..."

"...Bud..."

Roger paused.

After a few seconds. "No, just thought I heard something. Probably just my imagination. See you soon, Twinkle."

Roger hung up, and started to unlock his car.

"...Bud..."

"Hello?" Roger asked. "Is somebody there?"

After a few tense moments, he shrugged and got into his car.

Something slammed into his roof.

Roger cried out in shock.

A face appeared in the front window of his car--a face looking like nothing so much as a giant frog.

"BUD!!!"

"Gah!"

"I just...woke up." Roger shook his head. "It was maybe five minutes later, judging by the clock on the dash board, but when I got out there was no giant frog on top of the car or anything like that. I went home and thought it was just something I imagined. I have been working hard."

"Too hard." Claire rolled her eyes. "He told me about it and we had a laugh; maybe it was my fault for working on the MGTM comics, and he had mutant lizards on the brain."

"You work on the Teen Machine comics?" Mike asked excitedly. He looked at Fritz. "Your Aunt works on the Teen Machine comics?! Jason is gonna be so pumped! How could you keep this from us?"

Fritz shrugged. "Could you focus, Devicente?" He kept looking at his Meter. "So what changed?"

"I started having these terrible headaches..." Roger answered. "I went to the emergency room Tuesday they were so bad."

Claire shook her head. "The doctors didn't find anything wrong. They gave him some aspirin and sent him on his way."

"And then I started hearing it again...like I had the night I saw the frog..." Roger continued. "A voice saying 'Bud'."

Jay and Mike looked at each other. "Like in the beer commercials?"

"I'm not kidding!!!" Roger shouted.

"Uncle Roger!" Fritz said, a note of concern in his voice.

"Sorry, I just...the headache got bad again for a few seconds."

"I believe that." Fritz said. "The PK signal you're putting out just jumped twenty percent!"

"So..." Claire asked. "Roger said he saw the frog yesterday, and asked I drive him here. It's starting to sound like it was a good thing we did--so you're saying there is some sort of ghost haunting him?"

"I don't know yet." Fritz answered. "But there's definitely something of a supernatural nature going on with him. The question, obviously, is what?"

"Ahem." Charlene coughed.

"Present company excluded, obviously." Kyle added.

Jason laughed. "Yeah, well, I..." The ECTO-WC's phone light started to blink. Jason grabbed it. "Ghostbusters Mobile."

"You guys done with the job?" Rose asked.

"Yep." Jason answered. "Turns out it was just a frat prank. But we made sure to bill them anyway for wasting our time."

"Get back to HQ--we got a situation and Kyle's medical expertise is needed."

"Got it." Jason nodded, reaching over to turn the sirens and caution lights on. "They need us back at the warehouse--and now!"

"Hang on." Kyle said as he gunned the accelerator.

Then something hit the roof of the ECTO-WC.

"What the hell?" Charlene said, looking at the roof.

"SHIT!" Kyle barked, slamming the vehicle to a stop.

Something fell off, and rolled away.

The three Ghostbusters got out. "What was it?" Jason asked.

Charlene looked around. "No sign of it now."

Kyle climbed the ladder on the driver's side, and examined the roof rack. "Nothing looks broken or fell off." He shrugged as he climbed down. "Maybe a bird or something."

"Sounds like it would have been a damn big bird." Charlene grumbled.

A few seconds later, the converted SWAT van drove off. A pair of eyes were watching it.

"Bud..."


"Bud..."


"Bud..."


"Bud..."

"Well, go on." She told them.

The three little girls walked up to the porch. On the porch were three pumpkins and a shabby scarecrow laying in a lawn chair.

Abigail reached to ring the doorbell...

...And then the scarecrow jumped up, screaming "GRAAAAAAAAA!!!"

The two younger girls screamed, and ran behind their mother.

Abigail screamed, but didn't run. Instead, she slammed the scarecrow in the head with her candy bucket, and with all of her strength, kicked the scarecrow in a particular spot that shouldn't really cause any injury--if it had been a real scarecrow, that is.

But since it wasn't, the scarecrow made a gurgling noise and crumpled to the ground.

"Oh my God!" Chelsea exclaimed, moving toward the porch.

"I think it's safe now." Abigail told her sisters, cracking her knuckles.

"Are you all right?" Chelsea said, removing the "scarecrow's" head--which was actually a mask.

Abigail, Vicky, and Gwen all gasped. "Uncle Scotty?!"

"I'm all right, I'm all right..." Scott Aberdeen, Chelsea's eighteen year-old half brother (and thus the three girls' uncle) said. "I guess I should have figured the daughter of two Ghostbusters wasn't going to be impressed by a ratty old scarecrow."

Chelsea chuckled. "I hope that doesn't cause too big a welt."

"I'm so sorry, Unca' Scotty!!!" Abigail said, hugging him.

"Sorry enough to gimme a Munch Bar out of your haul?"

"Not that sorry!!!" Abigail retorted, causing her sisters to laugh heartily.

In fact, there was a little tiny laugh from inside the house.

"Good grief..." Scott rolled his eyes. "Is even Baby Bev laughing at poor old Uncle Scotty?"

Jim Aberdeen, Chelsea and Scott's father, appeared, carrying his wriggling, giggling five month old granddaughter.

"Aw, there's Mommy's baby..." Chelsea cooed, taking the infant from her father.

"She pretty much slept the whole time." Jim shrugged. He looked around. "Where's Fritz?"

"Work." Chelsea replied. "Hopefully nothing too bad." Especially since it's his Uncle Roger...

The three other girls surrounded Jim. "Trick or Treat, Grandpa!!!"

"I tell you, Pop, I thought I was gonna surprise them." Scott laughed, as he massaged his aching temple. "I'd say I was the one who got surprised instead!!!"

"Take a look at him, Kyle." Fritz ordered.

As Kyle looked Roger over, the cell phone in Rose's pocket rang. She moved to the corner to answer it.

"He's burning up." Kyle noted, not that it was a huge surprise--by this point, sweat was pouring off of Roger's face.

"Roger..." Claire said, with obvious concern.

"PK signal is getting stronger." Fritz noted.

"Any idea what it is?" Kyle asked.

Rose came back to the group. "We got another call."

"Fuck." Jay grumbled. He grabbed Mike. "It's our turn."

"But..." Mike protested.

"Take an Ecto-Cruiser and give it a quick look." Fritz told them. "It's probably another Halloween prank, but if it isn't call us. I'll send Jason and Charlene if I have to."

"Got it, Boss." Mike nodded, still looking a bit crestfallen.

A few minutes later, Rose and Claire had brought everyone up to date.

"A giant frog?" Kyle asked as he listened to Roger's chest with a stethoscope.

"Any idea what that means?" Claire asked.

"There are a few frog-like entities in various lores." Kyle said. "For example, the ancient Egyptians had a goddess of fertility named Heqet, who was often described as either a giant frog or a human with a frog's head."

"I never knew they taught stuff like that in Med School..." Roger grumbled.

"We're used to it around here." Rose shrugged.

Charlene looked up suddenly.

"What is it?"

"I thought I heard something." Charlene said.

Fritz looked at her, and then swung his meter around. "There is another signal!" he exclaimed. "And it seems to be resonating with Uncle Roger's anomaly!!!"

"Bud..."


"Bud..."


"Bud..."


"Bud..."

"Oh God!" Roger shouted. "IT'S HERE!!!"

"Packs!!!" Jason shouted, grabbing Charlene.

"Where is it?!" Claire shouted.

"Right behind you, Bud."

Claire screamed and turned around, but there was nothing there.

"Just messin', Bud."

"Show yourself!" Roger snarled.

"Whoa!" Jason said, as he was stopped at the door to the lab.

Crouched there was a sickly dark greenish creature, a frog as big as a human being, apparently dressed in scraps of leather armor.

"Long time, no see, huh Bud?" it said, flicking its tongue as it hopped toward Roger.

"Stay back!" Fritz said firmly, brandishing his sonic screwdriver. With luck, it won't know it's just a toy

Jason and Charlene managed to sneak around the frog creature, and scampered out the door.

"What...what have you done to me?!" Roger asked it.

The frog thing croaked a loud guffaw. "You should be honored, Bud. Not every ape thing gets the honor of hosting a Chaos Phage!!!" It jumped and did a somersault before settling back down.

"A...what?" Claire asked.

Kyle snapped his fingers. "Of course! You're a Slaad!"

"A...what?" Claire repeated.

"Slaadi are froglike creatures native to chaotic elemental planes." Kyle explained. "They're mentioned in The Codex of Demons And Other Planar Creatures As Scribed by Iggwilv, usually referred to informally as 'The Demonomicon'."

"Miskatonic Med School." Claire shook her head. "What about Roger?!"

"You said a Chaos Phage..." Kyle scratched his head. "That's..."

"Nah, I ain't a Slaad, Bud." the frog said. "I'm just a lowly Bullywug. But a Slaad gave me a Chaos Phage--said if I found a good place to plant it, I could become a Slaad!"

"What the hell is a 'Chaos Phage'?" Fritz asked.

"Hang on, hang on, it's been awhile since I..." Kyle started to say, then he went pale. "Oh God. A Chaos Phage is a Slaad embryo. It's planted in a creature's head. It drives them mad and then..."

"Then what?" Fritz asked.

"Um..."

"C'mon, tell him, Bud!" The Bullywug croaked happily. "This is the best part!!!"

"The Phage...leaves the host's head...but..."

"Aw, Bud, you're underselling it!" The Bullywug said. "When the Phage comes out---BOOM!!!" It gestured, pantomiming his head exploding.

"Oh my God!" Claire said, grabbing Roger tightly.

Fritz brandished the toy sonic screwdriver. "Get it out. Now!" Where the hell are Jason and Charlene?!

The Bullywug croaked a derisive laugh.

"NOW!"

Two proton streams ripped into the creature. It howled anger and pain. "Bud! No fair!"

"We're losing it!" Jason shouted.

The Bullywug broke free of the streams, and jumped onto a file cabinet.

"Zeddemore! I need you over here!" Fritz barked, intending to get one of the armed Ghostbusters close to Roger.

"BUUUUUUUUUUUUUDDD!!!" the Bullywug croaked, filling the room with an acrid, sickly green smoke that made everyone cough and gag; Claire fell to her knees, and Fritz and Jason especially looked ready to throw up.

"Not long now, Bud."

Roger could feel it now, a pulsing in his head. "Just...one...question..." he said through the pain. "Why me?!"

The Bullywug chuckled. "You deserved it, Bud. Your taste in movies sucks! I heard you bad mouthing Micheal Bay, who's the greatest movie maker of our time! He brought the Mean Green Teen Machine to the screen, and gave them a great makeover where he dressed them in garbage! He turned those awful, boxy looking Transformers into beautiful piles of grey, pointy scrap metal! Only Uwe Boll could have done it better, Bud!!!"

Roger felt like he was going to faint. "You're killing me...because I hate Micheal Bay?"

"You got it, Bud!"

Roger screamed, and grabbed his head, falling to his knees. Claire shouted his name.

Fritz glared at the Bullywug. "Get it out of him. Now."

The Bullywug croaked laughter. "Now!" Fritz said, so aggravated he pushed the button, causing the toy sonic screwdriver to blaze green and emit a high pitched buzz. It actually had an effect--the Bullywug, probably expecting a painful attack like the proton beams, jumped back.

"Huh. That didn't hurt at all, Bud." it realized. "I couldn't take the Phage out even if I wanted to! You die in Bay's name, Bud!!!"

"Then it sucks to be you, Kermit."

The voice came from Charlene Zeddemore, who kicked the Bullywug right in the face. "Because then we don't need to listen to your shit anymore"

Jason, also having shaken off the effects of the cloud of stench, fired. The surprised Bullywug writhed in the beam. "I'm going to lose him if you don't..."

"On it!" Kyle said, grabbing something from a nearby lab table. It was a round Mark 2 ghost trap, one of the ones Jeff Nash used as a "shield"

"Bud! Bud! Buuuuuuuuu...." the Bullywug croaked as it was sucked into the trap's innards.

"Looks like the Bullywug croaked." Charlene quipped.

"GAAAAH!!!" Roger screamed.

"Roger!" Claire cried, grabbing him. She looked at her nephew with pleading eyes. "You caught the thing, why isn't he better?"

"It doesn't always work that way, Aunt Claire." Fritz said, almost as drenched in sweat as Roger at this point. "Kyle! Meter!"

Kyle grabbed a PKE Meter from one of the lab tables. "On it."

"We only have one shot at this..." Fritz said

"Should I get a slime blower?" Jason asked.

"Not enough time." Fritz shook his head. "And that doesn't always work, especially as this isn't a possession case per se. We'll have to try something different."

Jason gulped.

"Jason! Thrower to Setting Five!"

"Setting Five, but..." He stopped protesting and did it. "Setting Five."

"Kyle, I need you to isolate Uncle Roger's PKE trace."

"Scanning..." Kyle said, realizing what his friend's plan was. "You know this plan is..."

"We don't have time for anything else!" Fritz barked.

"Signal is...amplitude 191...frequency 1.5706 times ten to the seventh..." Kyle read off. "Adjust beam to 3251"

"Inputting..." Jason responded.

"Move away from him, Aunt Claire."

"I..."

"We only have one shot at this!" Fritz shouted at her. "This is my job, Aunt Claire--let me do it!!!"

She stepped away. "Roger...I love you..."

Roger writhed on the floor holding his head, only a burbling noise coming from him.

"Confinement beam!" Fritz said.

Jason fired; Roger Baugh was bathed in a swirl of yellow light.

"Charlene...enter this exactly..."

"Ready, Doctor."

"8512"

"Set."

Fritz inhaled. "Fire."

The proton beam slammed into Roger. He screamed again, but this time another noise came into it--something garbled, and with an unearthly pitch.

"Dear God, Fritz, you're killing him!" Claire shouted.

"Sixteen seconds is all we have!" Kyle shouted. "If we keep it up any longer..."

A blob of energy began to appear.

"Seven!"

"Six!"

"Five!"

"Four!"

"Three!"

"Two!"

Fritz's order to shut down, to admit defeat, was on the tip of his tongue when a writhing translucent creature, appropriately enough resembling a foot-long tadpole, came into focus at the end of Charlene's beam.

"Jason, shut down! Charlene--pull it away!!!"

Charlene yanked the Phage away from Roger as Jason's beam switched off. Roger crumpled to the floor, Claire and Kyle rushing in to help him.

"It's fighting me!" Charlene snarled. "I can't hold it long!"

Jason grabbed the trap, the same trap that the Bullywug was in. He opened it, allowing the confused Bullywug just a second to realize he was about to have company. "Oh Bud! This is..."

It snapped shut, with both the Bullywug and the Chaos Phage inside.

"You better." Chelsea teased him. "Otherwise, all the candy'll be gone." She sighed. "Glad to hear Uncle Roger's okay; we'll have to have him and Claire see the girls since they're in town."

"Absolutely." Fritz replied. "So how did Scotty's 'surprise' go?"

Chelsea chuckled. "Turned out he was the one who got surprised. I'll fill you in later, but suffice it to say that if the girls never have any cousins from my side of the family, it'll be Abigail's fault."

There was silence for a moment. "Ooookay."

"So hurry up. I'm ready to get out of this Kissagram costume."

"And I'm more than ready to peel you out of it."

"You dirty old Doctor. See you soon." She made kissing noises into the phone before she hung up.

Her older daughter pantomimed vomiting.

"That's what Leon said." Kyle nodded. "It was tough not telling them all through the wedding and three births, but once Beverly was born, we had to." Kyle shrugged. "Chelsea'd already decided to have a ligation, so it was safe."

"Who could blame her? She and Fritz are obviously very fertile together." Jason chuckled.

They heard Fritz approaching, and Claire decided to change the subject. "So...what happened to the frog thing and the tadpole?"

"Well, since their signals will be scrambled together in the trap, I guess the stupid thing got what he wanted after all in a way." Charlene shook her head.

"Uncle Roger?" Fritz asked. "I told Chelsea I'd be going soon. You think you'll be okay?"

"I feel like the floor of a taxi cab." Roger replied as he nodded, bringing an eye roll from Jason and Charlene. "But it's better than the alternative."

"Thank you, Fritz." Claire hugged her nephew. "Thank all of you..."

"I had to." Fritz smirked. "Dad and Uncle Bob would kick my ass if I didn't."

Roger managed to chuckle.

"I love you, Roger." Claire said, holding him, in tears.

"And I love you too, Twinkle." Roger replied.

Kyle, Charlene, and Jason gave Fritz a look. " 'Twinkle'?" Charlene said.

"Don't ask." Fritz rolled his eyes. "I made the mistake of doing that once, and it scarred me for years."