City Boys

or,

I Ain't Afraid of No Goats

by Atropos

"So this farm is pretty much the same as your cousin's?" Peter asked Ray, who was scanning their surroundings with ecto-goggles.

"More or less."

"But without the zombies, right?"

"Technically, the Petersons were revenants," Egon added as he passed by with PKE meter in hand.

"Okay, without the revenants."

"Well, we really don't know," Ray said. "Janine couldn't get any details out of the guy other than that he had a ghost problem."

Peter was silent for a few moments. "Why are those cows so short?"

Ray looked where he was pointing and didn't bother to hide his amusement. "Because those are goats, Peter."

"I thought this was a dairy farm."

"It is. They just have goats instead of cows."

"People drink stuff that comes out of goats? Ew." Peter made a face.

"You drink stuff that comes out of cows. Maybe I'll switch out the milk in the fridge someday and see if you can tell."

"I don't trust any milk that doesn't come from somewhere safe like the market." Peter trailed after Ray, who was still searching for signs of paranormal activity. "Why are the goats coming toward us?"

"They probably want to see if we have anything good to eat."

Peter looked nervous. "Do we?"

"No. You might want to keep an eye on your cables, though."

There was a sound of something hitting metal and a shout from Winston. "Hey! Get offa there!" Peter and Ray turned to see him shooing a goat off Ecto's front bumper. It jumped down and ran away, leaving dusty hoofprints on the chrome. "These things are a menace! What are they doing running around lose?"

"Maybe they escaped," Ray called back. "Goats do that."

Egon, meanwhile, was doing a thorough sweep with his PKE meter, keeping one eye on a goat that seemed to find him terribly interesting. "Shoo," he told it, poking gingerly at it with the toe of his boot. It bleated at him but didn't go away. He scanned it, just to be sure. He took a few steps sideways; it followed him and nosed at one of his jumpsuit pockets. "Er, Ray..."

"You guys are such a bunch of city slickers," Ray replied.

"I'm gonna pretend I didn't hear that," Winston said from over by the barn. There was another goat on Ecto's bumper, but Winston either didn't notice or had given up.

"Ray," Egon said again, trying to wave away the goats that were now following him around. More were headed his way.

Peter was starting to laugh. "I think you'd better give them the goods, Spengs." As long as the goats weren't trying to eat his uniform, he was happy.

"It was supposed to be my breakfast," Egon protested.

"We can stop on the way home if you're that hungry," Ray said. "I don't want to explain to your mom how you got mugged to death by goats."

"You didn't win with Janine, and you're not gonna win with these guys," Peter called, laughing so hard he had to lean on Ray for support. "You'd better give them what they want, too."

Egon spared him a withering look. "You're not as funny as you seem to think you are, Peter." He tried fruitlessly to discourage the goats at the front of the herd. The ringleader took exception to this and lowered her head, butting him in the hip. "Hey!" He staggered a couple of steps but kept his feet. Ray was now laughing almost as hard as Peter.

"You know, if they get you down with that pack on, you're screwed, man," Winston said. "They're like four-legged piranhas!" He was distracted by a clang and ran back to Ecto to try to chase away three more goats. One of them had made it all the way up to the car's roof and was looking very smug.

Peter gave up and sat down. "I wish we'd brought the camera," he managed between fits of laughter.

Egon had finally extricated a battered-looking muffin from his jumpsuit pocket. He held it over his head, out of reach, and immediately discovered goats' propensity for standing on their hind legs and leaning on things.

"Drop it, Egon! It's your only hope!" Ray called to him.

Egon broke some bits off the muffin, scattering them in front of himself; the goats dropped to all fours again and started jostling to get the goodies. Egon glared at Peter and lobbed the remains of the muffin at him, nailing him in the forehead.

"Hey--" Peter protested, adding "--oh shit," as several goats broke off from the herd and made a beeline for him with determination in their eyes. He scrambled to his feet, brushed off any tempting crumbs, and got away from the muffin as fast as he could. It was demolished in seconds.

The muffin gone, the goats gave everyone a final check for edibility and wandered away, looking for more interesting things to do.

Egon made a half-hearted attempt to get the dirt off his uniform. Peter was still looking shell-shocked by his close call, and Winston was muttering about dents and scraped paint. Ray wiped the tears from his eyes. "You guys are hilarious," he finally said. "They're just goats, for heaven's sake."

"I'm gonna call Janine and see if she's sure the client said he was having ghost problems," Peter grumbled. "And I'm not getting back out of the car until she convinces me."


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Last updated Tue Jul 20 2010 at 9:32:45pm

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