Chapter Sixteen: Back to the Near-Future

 

Salem, Massachusetts – 1993

            Amid one area of the Old Burial Hill cemetery, there emerged a mansion. It laid its impromptu foundation upon several occupied plots, crushing multiple tombstones under its weight. Not that it would have mattered to the mansion’s current residents – the Sandersons sisters.

            Just as they landed in another place and time, Winifred stuck her head out the nearest window and breathed in the air. “Ah! Back in the 20th century!” she observed with glee. “The pollution is more potent now than it was the last time we were here!”

            “I wonder if the boys have become more handsome.” Sarah giggled at the notion.

            “I bet the children are more tastier,” Mary salivated.

            “For once, I agree with your stomach,” Winifred told Mary. “Let us rid ourselves of this disgusting manor and return to our real home to celebrate our successful evasion of that wench, Ash Williams.”

            Her sisters were all for that idea and proceeded through the front door. However, they came to a halt before stepping past the threshold, as soon as they discovered their current location. “Eek!” Sarah shrieked. “We’re in a cemetery!”

            “Holy grounds!” Winifred hissed. “No matter, sisters. We’ll get some brooms and then we’ll fly!”

            “I wouldn’t pop the champagne just yet,” a voice addressed them within the cemetery itself. Looking past a few gravestones, they spotted a tall, slim man in a top hat, leering in their general direction.

            The first thing Sarah noticed about him was that he was charismatically good-looking. “I knew the boys would be handsome,” she relished, not once taking her eyes off the man.

            “And who might you be?” Winifred asked him.

            “Ya’ll can call me ‘Dr. Facilier,’ and you ladies may have escaped the frying pan, but ya’ll are now in the fire. Ash Williams is still hot on your tails, and she got them Ghostbusters helpin’ her out.”

            “I’m sorry…Ghost Busters?” Winifred queried, unfamiliar with the affiliation.

            Facilier snapped his fingers in realization. “Oh, that’s right. Ya’ll haven’t been properly introduced to them yet. Lemme give you a visual aid of what they’re like.” He tapped the foot of his cane on the ground and four individuals materialized behind him – two men and two women – each one’s eyes permeated with purple energy, trapping them in a trance. “These are the Oogie Busters. Not quite Ghost Busters, but you get the general idea.”

            The Sandersons took analysis of the Oogie Busters, from the strange equipment they brandished to their equally strange uniforms.

            “They look mean,” Mary noted.

            “They look delicious,” Sarah ogled the one who had the nametag “Zeddemore” stitched on his uniform.

            “They look exactly like what we need to rid ourselves of Ash Williams,” Winifred smirked. “You’ve brought them to assist us, I assume, Dr. Facilier.”

            “More like the other way around,” Facilier said. “You ladies and my Oogie Busters will deal with our adversaries, while me and the Bagman himself fortify this mansion you girls so kindly brought here to Salem.”

            Winifred briefly glanced at the mansion. “How will you fortify it?”

            “Ya’ll just gonna have to live to see how,” the Shadow Man sinisterly replied.

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            Jacquelyn…Jacquelyn, wake up…Jacquelyn!

            In and out of consciousness, Jacqueline could have sworn she heard the voice of Edward Gracie speaking to her. As she slowly regained cognitive awareness, she realized it was J.G. He knelt over her within the confides of the bridge of the Enterprise, the décor of which had appeared differently than before. “What happened?” she groaned while sitting up. “Where are we?”

            “I have no idea,” Stantz replied. “We all blacked out at the same time.”

            Sure enough, everyone else that was on the bridge was just waking up. As far as Jacqueline could tell, a few suffered minor injuries, but all of them were otherwise alive and well. There was, however, one noticeable difference in one of the Enterprise crewmembers: the captain herself.

            Instead of the human redhead she was prior to the warp, her appearance had dramatically changed. She looked to be of the same Vulcan species as T’Eve with short hair styled in a bowl cut, eyebrows that were arched and up-swept, and pointed ears. She didn’t seem to notice the change particularly as she asked her crew, “Is everyone alright?” She did take notice of the surprised and bewildered glances her way. “Why’s everyone looking at me like that?”

            “We are well and accounted for, Captain,” T’Eve addressed. “But your appearance appears to have been altered during the warp, just as it was before.”

            This news made Captain Jace feel uneasy. “Oh, no. How bad is it this time?”

            “It seems you are now a Romulan-Vulcan hybrid,” T’Eve described.

            Captain Jace looked down at herself and noticed even her uniform had changed. While her yellow shirt had been altered to a shirt dress, she was donning a black leather jacket that cut off at her midsection, black leggings, and black boots. Her Starfleet badge was still pinned above her left breast.

            “This is gonna take some getting used to,” she dismally reflected. Moving onto other matters, she asked T’Eve, “What’s our status?”

            T’Eve looked to the controls at her station. “It will take a sec, Captain – it would appear the Enterprise has been altered in structural design as well,” she informed. Once she had the information, she relayed, “We have arrived at our destination…a thousand years into Earth’s future. The date is October 31, 1993.”

            “It’s Halloween,” Clary noted with amusement.

            “In 1993,” Venkman elaborated. “Half of the candy bar brands tasted way better at the time.”

            Captain Jace sat back in her captain’s chair, which also felt different on her posterior (whether or not that was due to her new Romulan-Vulcan physiology, she wasn’t sure), and activated the intercom system. She patched in with the Engineering Room and said, “Scotty, you still there?”

            “Aye, Captain,” Scott replied, still in her “Maighdlin Scott” form.

            “You and our Time Lord guest did it, Scotty,” Captain Jace praised. “We made it into the future.”

            “That’s good to hear, Captain,” Scotty acknowledged. “But I’m afraid I have some dire news: both Miss Kara and her TARDIS have disappeared, following the warp.”

            “What?!” Captain Jace exclaimed, shocked. “Where did they go?”

            “No idea,” Scotty replied. “They were just gone when I came to.”

            Captain Jace sighed from the distressing news. Just when it seemed like nothing but bad news at the moment, T’Eve gave a more uplifting update: “Captain, I’ve pinpointed the location of the Sanderson sisters’ spellbook – it is in a cottage in Salem, Massachusetts. The Gracie Manor is in the town as well.”

            “That’s fantastic news, Miss T’Eve,” Captain Jace approved. “With that spellbook, we have a direct line back to 2019. We’ll send an away team.”

            “No need,” Venkman told her. “We’ll go down and get it.” She spoke on behalf of herself and her Ghostbusters team.

            “Sally and I will join you,” said Jack Skellington, who emerged from the turbolift with Sally, just as the discussion began. “Kara left us behind, too, so we might as well make ourselves useful and assist.”

            “I also have this feeling we must come with you,” Sally added.

            “Don’t think for a sec you’re going down there without me,” Ash stated.

            “Or me,” Binx spoke up. “I have just as much a score to settle with the Sandersons as you do, Ash. Not to mention you’re going to need new weapons to replace those you lost in the Dunwyn battle.”

            “Our replicators will help you with that,” T’Eve told Ash. “Follow me.”

            “I’ll help her with the preparations, Miss T’Eve,” Captain Jace insisted. “You stay here and take helm.”

            T’Eve raised a curious eyebrow. “Captain, am I to assume you’re joining the away team on their mission?”

            “You bet I am,” Captain Jace told her. “It’s probably the Romulan in me now, but I’m itchin’ for a fight.”

            “I’m sure the other Jace and Scrooge McDuck will want to come, too,” Clary surmised. “But it’s going to be confusing having two Jaces with us.”

            “In that case, I won’t be Marie Jace any longer,” the captain declared with a clever smirk. “You can start calling me…Captain Sutaka.”