you're kept awake dreaming someone else's dream

Ray's first impression upon awakening was that he must have been somewhere with Venkman, because he couldn't remember the last time he'd come down with a hangover that bad purely on his own merits. His head was pounding, his tongue felt furry, the pillow felt weirdly scratchy against his skin-

-wait. Pillow? What? He sat up, and wished he hadn't. The world swam alarmingly around him for several seconds. Eventually, it cleared. At least, he assumed it did; it could've been hallucinatory. . .

So far as he could tell, he had awakened in some kind of a rough-walled shack. It was a little hard to be certain, because the light- such as it was- came in through windows covered in what looked like oiled paper. There was just enough illumination to tell how small the place was, and to spot a few books heaped against one wall, near a stack of brown paper packages. One of his feet scuffed against the floor, and met only a little resistance-

Huh. That was dirt on his shoe. Not schmutz- dirt. Actual soil. Gingerly, he poked at the mattress upon which he sat; it gave the impression of being a sack filled with straw, as did the so-called 'pillow'.

Merciful Azathoth, he thought, it's Ted Kaczynski's old place.

With the greatest of care Ray got to his feet. The room swung back and forth warningly, but he managed to steady himself and started to walk along the wall with his fingers outstretched. He needed to inspect the place. Sure, the Unabomber wasn't coming back any time soon, but-

His fingers encountered something cool and hard. Plastic?

… yes, plastic. A telephone, in fact. An old one, by the look of it. The rotary dial had been pried off long ago, but he lifted the receiver nonetheless. To his shock, he heard some faint noise coming from the earpiece. He held it to his ear.

"-hello?" said the voice on the other end, a woman's hesitant tones.

"Um," said Ray, blinking and trying to draw his thoughts into a semblance of coherence. "Who is this?"

"Oh, it's you, Dr. Stantz," the woman said far more cheerfully. "Just a moment."

There was a brief speckle of hold music. Ray considered this, and reached up to pinch his earlobe as hard as he could. As a result he was already biting back a curse when the voice of Walter Peck said, "We were wondering when you'd contact us, Dr. Stantz."

He pinched again. Harder. It didn't help.

"Nothing to say? Tsk, tsk. And we went to such trouble with your accommodations, too. Do you have any idea how hard it is to peg a house of that size together entirely without the use of metal or plastics?"

"… what?" Ray said weakly.

"Oh, you just got up. All right, then. Welcome to your new home away from home. It's been designed as a special sort of- let's call it a contemplative retreat, shall we? The goal is to give you plenty of time to think about your future. We've arranged for you to have as few distractions as possible, other than the basic matters of eating, sleeping, and other bodily functions. There's nothing in the house that you can tinker with, other than the telephone- I wouldn't recommend you tinker with that, by the way. It's got a hard line that runs deeper and farther than you can ever hope to dig up-"

Ray wasn't listening. He'd just stepped into the puddle of something-like-sunshine that leaked through the window, and he'd looked down. "What did you do with my clothes, Peck?"

"Oh, that? Replaced them. Sorry. They were a mess. The ones you've got now should be all right for the next few weeks, according to the long-term weather forecasts. Try not to mess them up too much, all right? You won't be seeing another set for a long time if you do-"

"Give me back my pants, you misbegotten son of a she-demon!" Ray shouted, forgetting momentarily that he was probably the only person in North America to comprehend that much Sumerian.

"Yelling's not going to get you anywhere, you know."

Ray went silent, crossing his free arm over his chest and fuming.

"Much better. All right, Dr. Stantz. Here's how it works. You have roughly enough supplies there for one week, probably less. You have a copy of the United States Army survival manual, and several… potentially useful other books. You have no electricity, no heat beyond any fires you might make, no water other than what you can fetch from the local stream. You've got no metals other than the telephone, no glass, no plastic- no chemical reagents of any kind, in fact. And we've taken the precaution of selecting an area not known for its availability of any potentially useful minerals or ores beyond flint. When you get tired of the rural life, pick up the phone and give us a call, and we'll come get you."

"I could hold out here forever with the stuff you've given me, you know," Ray said; Peck just laughed.

"I have a note here from Scoutmaster Levis that says otherwise."

Ray froze. "You're bluffing."

"He says you were the single worst Boy Scout ever in the history of scouting. I'm sort of curious as to how you managed that distinction."

Not bluffing, then, Ray realized. He swallowed.

"You may as well face it, Dr. Stantz. We know you. I know you. I don't have to lay a finger on you to get you to crack. Just remember- the telephone's there whenever you need it, and I have more than half a roll of toilet paper."

There was a click, and the phone went dead in Ray's hand.