"No!" Dana screamed.
She watched in helpless horror as the nanny soared
off into the darkened skies, little Oscar huddled securely in the ethereal baby buggy.
The nanny chuckled.
Dana snapped to. She recognized the smile. She recognized the chuckle. She recognized the face!!!
"Janosz!" she breathed.
Louis and Janine helped Dana back inside the apart ment. She headed straight for the door. "Louis, you have to find Peter and tell him what happened!"
"Where are you going?"
"To get my baby back," Dana said, slamming the door behind her.
Meanwhile, seated silently around a table in Parkview's woo-woo ward dayroom, Venkman, Winston, Stantz, and Spengler carefully listened to the conversa tions offered by the newest members of the laughing academy.
The squinty-eyed shrink had his hands full. A well-heeled woman who claimed she was a guest at the Plaza Hotel was screaming at him.
"I'm telling you, Doctor, my mink coat bit me and ran off down the street!"
The doctor was clearly out of his league. He turned to a nearby nurse. "Where did you put the zookeeper who saw the pterodactyl?"
The nurse sighed. "He's in Room 5, and I have the three men who saw the Titanic in Rooms 10, 11, and 12."
She consulted her list. "The walking-dead witness is in 13, the strolling dinosaur skeleton is in 4. I seem to have misplaced the Elvis Presley spotter, though."
The doctor sighed. "I hate working on New Year's Eve. It really brings them out of the woodwork, doesn't it?"
"I think that eclipse thing has everybody spooked," the nurse replied.
"What about my coat?" the Plaza woman yelled. "Do you have any idea how much that coat cost?"
The Ghostbusters sat at the table, listening intently.
Venkman turned to Stantz. "You were right. The whole city is going nuts. If we don't do something fast, it's all going to go downhill from here."
Winston nodded. "Do you think all those predic tions about the world coming to an end in the 1990s are true?"
A Parkview patient with a face resembling a jack-o- lantern waddled up to them. "The year will be 1997. My dog told me."
"What kind of dog?" Venkman asked.
"Labrador."
Venkman shook his head sadly. "Habitual liars. They can't help it. It's in the breed."
The man nodded sadly and stumbled off. Spengler faced his colleagues. "Objectively speaking, all these apocalyptic predictions about the millennium make no sense at all. The year 2000 is a fiction based on a completely arbitrary calendar. The only thing that gives these predictions power is people's willingness to be lieve in them!"
Stantz agreed. "Sure. If everyone believes that things are going to start falling apart in the year 2000, they'll probably start falling apart."
Winston rubbed his chin. "Yeah, well, there are an awful lot of people out there who don't believe in the future anymore—their own or anybody else's."
"And that's where Vigo gets his power," Stantz deduced. "He's just been laying back, hiding in that jerky painting until enough bad vibes built up to spring him."
"I don't think there's any shortage of bad vibes in this town," Venkman replied. "This is one of the few towns where killing your landlord is considered a misdemeanor."
Spengler stared at his knuckles thoughtfully. "All Vigo needs now is a living human being to inhabit. He's had his eye on Dana, literally. So it's obvious that he's chosen Dana's child to make his reentry into our world. We all know that she has a psychic vulnerability to hostile entities. She's probably passed that onto her baby. Janosz Poha may be the human link between Vigo and Dana."
Venkman sneered. "I knew that guy was a wiggler the second I laid my eyes on him."
A thin Parkview patient leaned over the Ghostbusters' table. "Forget Vigo," he whispered confiden tially. "It's Hitler you should go after. I saw him hanging around the Port Authority."
"Where was he heading?" Venkman asked.
"New Jersey," the man said. "I think it was the 134 local bus."
"Thanks for the info," Venkman said, offering a crooked smile.
Downstairs in a Parkview examining room, Louis Tully was arguing with his cousin Sherman, a badly dressed and coiffed gnat of a man who defined the word "nebbish" almost as well as Louis did.
"Come on, Sherm," Louis whined. "You're my cousin. Do this for me. I'm begging you."
Sherman shook his head, flashing a superior smile. "I can't do it, Louis. It isn't ethical. I could lose my license."
"Why can't you just have them released? You're a doctor."
"I'm a dermatologist. I can't write orders for the psych ward."
"Sherman, I've done lots of favors for you, haven't I?" Louis wheedled.
"Like what?"
"I got you out of those bad tax shelters."
"You were the one who got me in."
"I fixed you up with Diane Troxler, and she put out, didn't she?"
Sherman thought hard about this. "Yeah, I had to give her free dermabrasion for a year too. Forget it, Louis. I could get in a lot of trouble."
"I'm telling you, Sherm, we're all going to be in big trouble if we don't do something fast. This ghost guy came and took my friend's baby and we've got to get it back. It's just a scared little baby, Sherm."
"Then you should go to the police," Sherman pointed out. "I don't believe in any of that ghost stuff."
Outside the window, shrieks and howls echoed through the darkened sky. The city seemed to grow darker and darker and darker.
Sherman faced the window. He could have sworn he saw a pterodactyl fly by.
"Do you believe now, Sherm?"
A half hour later the four Ghostbusters, in full uniform, stood next to EctolA, together with the Tully cousins. "Good work, Louis. How did you get us out?"
"Oh, I pulled a few strings. I wouldn't want to say more than that."
Louis winked at Sherman. "This is my cousin Sher man. Sherm, say hello to the Ghostbusters."
Louis leaned toward Stantz. "I promised him a ride in the car if he got you out."
"How bad are things getting?" Venkman asked.
"Real bad, Peter. You'd better get to the museum right away!"
"Why? What happened?" Venkman asked.
"A ghost took Dana's baby. She's gone to the mu seum to get it back."
Louis pointed to the EctolA. "I brought everything you asked for, and I gassed up the car with super unleaded. It cost twenty cents more than regular un leaded, but you get much better performance and in an old car like this, that'll end up saving you money in the long run. I put it on my credit card, so you can either reimburse me or I can take it out of petty cash."
The four stone-faced Ghostbusters, fully suited and well armed, dove into the EctolA and sped off, leaving Louis in mid-sentence.
Louis watched the car speed away. "Hey!" he shouted. "Wait for me."
The auto zoomed out of sight.
Louis sighed. "Okay, I'll meet you there."
Sherman stared at his cousin skeptically. "I thought you were like the fifth Ghostbuster."
Louis smiled smugly. "I let them handle all the little stuff. I just come in on the big cases."