The Ghostbusters are called in to deal with one of the most famous and thematically-appropriate ghosts: the restless spirit of the massively influential innovator of literary horror, H.P. Lovecraft.

EXT. THE QUAD, MISKATONIC UNIVERSITY – NIGHT

The gaseous, glowing ghost of H.P. LOVECRAFT looms over all four Ghostbusters, stretching and twisting to impossible proportions, tentacles and antennae slithering out of him like growing shadows. A dry, howling, unnatural wind swirls through the Quad.

LOVECRAFT
CHATTERING INTERBREEDERS! FOUL, GUFFAWING APES! I WILL CLEANSE–

VENKMAN
Yeesh, who knew Poe was such a dick?

Ray stifles a chuckle and Venkman gives him a wink. All four Ghostbusters know this tactic and fan out accordingly. The four goofballs cut a surprisingly heroic silhouette as they calmly and carefully strafe the ghost. They box in the undead author with short, controlled bursts of their particle beams. “Controlled” is being generous, they’re just barely not burning down the Dining Hall, but they are doing their best with crazy firehose-lasers.

LOVECRAFT
POE?! THAT MEWLING QUIM?! THAT DREARY, INSIPID, BIG-HEADED LITTLE–

RAY
What?

LOVECRAFT
I AH.. What?

RAY
I can barely follow what you’re saying. Why do you talk like this?

VENKMAN
Well he’s, olde tymey, right?

LOVECRAFT
INDEED, FOOLISH, THOUGHTLESS BLATHERERS! I AM FROM AEONS BEFORE. ANCIENT, FORGOTTEN AEONS MOLDERING BEYOND THE VEIL THAT–

Winston, with his cigarette bouncing in his mouth, starts laughing upROARIOUSLY AT Lovecraft. It is obviously fake and sarcastic and over the top and that just makes it funnier and more awesome. He does start genuinely cracking himself up. Lovecraft huffily stops vamping.

LOVECRAFT
WHAT’S SO FUCKING FUNNY?

WINSTON
Ancient aeons? You died in 1937!

LOVECRAFT
SO?

WINSTON
Nobody talked like that in the 1920s, ya weird dork!

VENKMAN
Yikes, nerd alert!

LOVECRAFT
FUCK YOU GUYS!

Lovecraft freaks out and launches an all-out attack focused on Winston and Venkman. They brace themselves as reality itself warps around them. Shadows and the ground itself twist and undulate, transforming into gnarled claws and chittering, grasping shadow creatures. They do their best to stay cool and stay breathing. Egon throws Lovecraft off-balance by hosing him down with a few hundred gallons of positively-charged slime.

LOVECRAFT
WHAT THE HELLARRGHGLGLGHRLHRLGBLKJARLBR–

Egon hammers one last slime-bomb right down Lovecraft’s gasping ghost gullet. RAY does a “cha-ching” gesture to the sky before just BARELY blasting a slavering CTHULOID away from VENKMAN.

RAY
I knew this batch of slime would respond well to Judas Priest!

Lovecraft spins his now-massive, spectral form and stretches into the sky above. Egon and Ray begin to have their minds bombarded with psychedelic, eldritch perceptions of reality. Venkman and Winston’s version of reality is even further along into madness, once-normal buildings now shimmering and fracturing off at impossible angles.

EGON
Whoa.

Winston coughs and struggles against the oozing, skittering masses of tentacles and centipedes climbing his body. Venkman is even further along, already up to his knees in eldritch muck, blasting Lovecraft. Winston gathers his breath.

WINSTON (hoarse and having his consciousness slowly splinter into different dimensions)
I can’t believe… I’m gonna get killed by… the poor man’s… Robert E. Howard…

LOVECRAFT
ARARRRHALKAHALRHALR

VENKMAN (up to his shoulders in black slime, eyeballs, and teeth, chuckles anyway)
N-Nerd alert.

From out of the warping, swirling dimensions of madness now inhabiting the Quad of Miskatonic University come two arcing jets of positronic energy. With Winston and Venkman unable to buy them any more time, Ray and Egon stumble through churning waves of earth and cobblestone to finally flank the core of the snarling deceased author.

RAY (not breaking eye-contact or beam contact with Lovecraft)
This is 6, Z!

Winston does his best to flex his tentacle into an appreciative thumbs up. Ray grows a third eye in response.

LOVECRAFT (snarling and writhing as he is trying to break free of Egon and Ray’s confinement streams)
FINE, I’LL ASK, 6 WHAT?

EGON
It’s the 6th time we’ve caught a ghost–

RAY
–because Winston minored in Literature!

LOVECRAFT
WAIT WHAT

Ray stomps the foot pedal on the ghost trap, sucking Lovecraft down in a cone of brilliant white light and crackling muons. With the ghost safely locked away in the trap, all four Ghostbusters are able to perceive normal reality once again–buildings, the earth, reality itself all snap back into shape. A shape that does also now include a lot of ghost AND Ghostbuster-induced structural damage to the immediate area. Said damage includes the ashen, neutralized ectoplasmic cocoons almost completely encasing the still-delirious and recovering Winston and Venkman.

WINSTON
I even like a lot of the stuff he wrote… but he was just such an… absolute turd of a man.

VENKMAN
Agreed. Also, was he seriously talking shit about Edgar Allen Poe?

WINSTON
Like he sucks… and he has bad taste?

VENKMAN (pouting exaggeratedly)
Yeah, yuck, tough night!! Tough night, Egon! EGON!?

RAY (chiseling Winston out of the hardened eldritch and collecting flakes of it in a vial)
Yeah, even as a casual fan this was (sighs) incredibly disappointing. Maybe it was something else that just took his form? Hopefully we can learn more from these samples…

VENKMAN
EGOOOOONN!!

EGON (hollering from over by the car, placing a call on a cell phone he invented)
I am putting in an order with Golden Wall right now!

VENKMAN, WINSTON, RAY (in unison and excitedly but also haggard and weakly)
Yay.

EGON
AND I AM MAKING IT A DOUBLE ORDER!

VENKMAN, WINSTON, RAY (in unison and excitedly but not quite as haggard and weakly)
Yaay!

The down-to-the-nub cigarette finally falls out of Winston’s mouth.

RAY (under his breath)
And beers.

VENKMAN
AND BEERS, EGON!!

Long shot of Egon on the phone. He thoughtfully considers the loopy hollering of his colleagues.

EGON
Peter, I do not think they have beers. Yes this is for pick-up.

Roll credits