As the prosecutor stood stunned at her table, the spectators in court scrambled from their seats and ran for the back exit of the courtroom.
The judge, getting down on all fours, crawled to ward the defense table and quickly rolled underneath it. Sweating and shaking, he faced Spengler, Stantz, and Veckman. "You've got to do something!" he cried.
"Who are they?" Venkman asked.
"They're the Scoleri brothers. I tried them for murder. They were electrocuted up at Ossining in '48. Now ... they want to kill me!"
"Maybe they just want to appeal." Venkman shrugged.
"I don't think so." Louis moaned, watching the table slowly rise into the air above them.
From out of nowhere the Scoleri brothers materi alized and, hair and fingertips crackling, the long dead criminals lifted the defense table high into the air!
"This way," Spengler yelled, pointing to the rail of the jury box. The three Ghostbusters, the judge, and Louis darted across the room and dove behind the heavy oak wall of the jury box.
The Scoleri brothers roared and sent the defense table smashing into the wall above their heads.
"These boys aren't playing around," Venkman noted.
The Scoleri brothers, still hovering near the ceiling, noticed the prosecutor for the first time. Exchanging ghostly glances, they began to hover closer to her. The woman let out a bloodcurdling scream. The Scoleris emitted a howling laugh and promptly disappeared. The prosecutor exhaled and slowly began to back
toward the courtoom's exit doors, twisting and turning nervously, scanning the air above her for any sign of the
angry apparitions.
She reached the door intact and, breathing a sigh of relief, reached for the door's handle.
She heard a crackling sound.
She smelled the aroma of ozone.
The woman's hair nearly straightened as suddenly the ghost of the skinny Scoleri brother sparked to life before her. The ghost emitted an unworldly screech as it blocked the door with its transparent body.
The prosecutor turned and ran toward the front of the courtroom, the skinny apparition following her. Before she could reach the jury box, she heard a strange rumbling noise. Pop! Blocking her path was the plumper
ghost brother.
The big ghost glided forward.
The prosecutor froze in her tracks.
Hidden behind the jury box's railing, the judge pleaded with Stantz, Spengler, and Venkman. "You've got
to stop them, please!"
Wide-eyed, Stantz blinked innocently at the judge. "I'm sorry, we can't. "You issued a judicial restraining order that prohibits us from ghostbusting. Violating such an order could expose us to serious criminal
penalties."
The judge blinked at honest, heartfelt Ray. A wom an's scream cut through the air.
The judge slowly peeked over the jury-box railing. All color drained from his face. The titanic ghost of the obese Scoleri thug was calmly dragging the screeching prosecutor by her feet toward the rear of the courtroom, laughing and drooling devilishly.
The upside-down woman squirmed in the grip of
the spirit, trying desperately to keep her dress from sliding up over her head.
The exit doors to the courtroom mysteriously burst open. The fat ghost carried the screaming prose cutor out of the room, and as the doors swung closed, it vanished into thin air.
Behind the jury-box railing, the judge slowly sank into a sitting pose. He was defeated. "All right. All right. I'm rescinding the order. Case dismissed."
He noticed that he was still holding his gavel in his right hand. He pounded the floor judicially.
"Satisfied?"
"I guess so," Louis offered.
"Now," the judge said, fuming. "Do something!"
With that the three Ghostbusters leapt over the rail of the jury box and dashed across the room to the exhibit table. Their proton packs were lying there, tossed aside as useless evidence.
The three Ghostbusters strapped on their packs hastily, glancing above their heads for any signs of the Scoleri brothers.
Venkman felt like the Hunchback of Notre Dame as he affixed the pack to his back. "Geez, I forgot how heavy these things are."
Stantz cradled his particle thrower in his hand. "Okay"—he grinned at his long-lost high-tech friends— "let's heat 'em up."
The three Ghostbusters flipped on their proton-pack power switches in unison, then raised their particle throwers toward the ceiling.
"All right, throwers," Stantz barked, authority surg ing through his body. "Set for full neutronas on stream."
Stantz, Spengler, and Venkman switched on their throwers and raised them upward.
The throwers remained on standby. There was no sign of anything paranormal in the room. All seemed quiet. All seemed normal.
Suddenly, from the back of the courtroom came a ruckus. Chairs began to fly up into the air and then drop harmlessly to the floor. It seemed as if something were burrowing deep down underneath them, toward the front of the courtroom. Toward the Ghostbusters.
Stantz, Spengler, and Venkman stared at the court room before them.
There was nothing to be seen. Stantz smiled thinly. Ghosts were goofy, perhaps, but pretty crafty. He stared at the empty ceiling above
him.
"On my signal, gentlemen." He grinned.
He felt the Scoleri brothers nearby.
He was right.
A bolt of electrical energy shot across the ceiling above them and from out of the yellow mist appeared the gaunt and obese floating forms of the executed
killers.
"Open 'em up!" Stantz yelled. "Now!"
The three Ghostbusters shut their eyes as their
wands emitted squiggling, undulating, powerful streams
of energy.
Not having used the weapons in four years, Speng ler, Stantz, and Venkman fired wildly, allowing the harpy- like Scoleri ghosts to dodge the fluttering beams easily. The ghosts emitted a ghastly cackle and then promptly dematerialized.
The Ghostbusters were too shaken to notice. They continued to fill the air with orange-hot rays. Venkman took out an overhead lamp. Spengler blew up the court-
room railing. Stantz managed to obliterate half of one of the courtroom's towering pillars.
The three Ghostbusters opened their eyes as one. "That ought to do it," Venkman said with a smirk. "Spengs, take the door. Ray, let's try to work them down and into a corner."
Working as a team, they fanned the area.
Spengler carefully backed up toward the exit doors.
Venkman cautiously circled the exhibit table, his weapon trained toward the ceiling.
Stantz walked to and fro before the jury box. The judge and Louis stayed well down behind the protective gate.
A howl shook the air.
The emaciated Scoleri ghost materialized from be hind Stantz and lunged downward.
"Get down, Ray!" Venkman shouted as the ghost swooped down on his buddy.
Stantz leapt onto the ground and rolled out of the line of fire as Venkman let go with an undulating stream of rays that effectively trapped the screaming apparition within its force field.
"That's it, Venky!" Spengler yelled from the rear of the room. "Watch your streams. Hold him there."
Spengler moved toward the exhibit table, where two rectangular ghost trappers were set up, connected to five-foot-long cables attached to foot releases.
Spengler carefully moved the traps to the center of the courtroom.
"Easy, Venky," he cautioned.