by Sheila Paulson

Peter screeched to an uneasy halt at Egon's abrupt command and squinted uneasily into the fog. It had come down so fast and heavy that he couldn't see a foot in front of him. Egon could have been just beyond arms' length to his right; he sounded like it. Ray might be two steps past him. Winston was somewhere behind him. And right in front of them, so close that he could feel it in the way the hairs rose on the back of his neck, the cliff top lurked and waited for one unwary step. Peter's stomach tightened up.

"Wow, this is great," caroled Ray, invisible in the mist. "I haven't seen fog this thick in years."

Winston's disgruntled voice came from behind Peter. "And if I see it again, it'll be waaay too soon. Don't move, guys. One wrong step and we'll be over the cliff. I think it's in front of you, Peter. Take a step backward, toward my voice."

Peter did, carefully, edging his foot along and testing the ground before he put his full weight on it. He thought he'd bump into Winston, but he didn't. Everything was distorted in the fog and the drop lurked so near that it made his skin crawl. He shivered.

"Even the ecto-scopes don't really cut it." Ray sounded disappointed. "I can probably see a little better than you guys, but not great. I sorta see you, Egon. Don't move. I think you're awfully near the edge of the cliff. Take one step backward."

"Yes, Ray, I sense that." Egon's voice was in perfect control. "There, is that better?"

"Perfect. All we need is Rudolph," cried Ray.

"Rudolph?" Egon echoed in surprise.

"'Then one foggy Christmas Eve, Santa came to say, Rudolph with your nose so bright, won't you guide my sleigh tonight,'" sang Ray. "It's Christmas Eve and I haven't seen this much fog in years."

"Yeah, we'll never get back to Manhattan at this rate." Peter was not a happy camper. It was too warm for the roads to ice up so they'd taken the call. A big house, overlooking the Hudson, plenty of money. The lure of the almighty dollar always worked powerfully on Peter, so he'd advocated the bust, even if the spirit in question had sounded like a particularly irritating poltergeist. Poltergeists could be nasty; they were always troublemakers. They threw things, they played tricks. This particular one had a long history of causing trouble, but only at Christmas Time.

"Sometimes, I'll get a glimpse of a transparent figure," David Stark, their client, had explained. He was a big man, as blond as Egon, with horn rimmed glasses that magnified very blue eyes. He was a stockbroker with a prestigious Manhattan firm that had been in his family for several generations. "But usually it's so transitory that I can't make out features. It's fast and it's annoying, and I can't count the number of times it's thrown ornaments off the Christmas tree. It never seemed to do it when the kids were little, or I'd have called you a couple of years ago. But now that Randy's seventeen and Jana is eighteen, it doesn't seem to care if it disrupts our Christmas."

"Has it ever hurt anybody?" Peter asked. That was always the bottom line.

"No, but it nearly hit my wife with an ornament off the Christmas tree. I know it would probably not have injured her, but she wasn't expecting it and she could have fallen. I won't put my family at risk. Please, bust it."

"We will," Egon agreed. He took readings, intent on the P.K.E. meter.

"Well, Spengs?" Peter demanded.

"It's here," Egon replied. "I don't believe it is actually in the house, however. But it is nearby."

"Let's go get it." Ray pulled out the ecto-scopes and lowered the goggles over his eyes. "I bet I can find it with these."

"Yeah, and that's a great fashion statement, Ray," Peter observed. "What's that hanging on the edge of them. Mistletoe?"

"What?" Ray put up his hand and touched the goggles. "Yeah, I guess it is. I think Slimer put it there."

"Well, that's fine, just as long as you don't expect us to kiss you." Peter grimaced.

Hastily, Ray snatched away the mistletoe and laid it on a nearby table. "There, is that better? Slimer doesn't understand what it's for. I told him to give it to Janine anyway so she could have it at her desk when Egon...." His voice trailed off guiltily.

Peter chuckled. "You're learning, Ray. Take it back with us. I wouldn't mind snatching a kiss from Janine for the holidays."

Egon just glared at him. Peter spread his hands in a gesture of peace. "Just kidding, big guy." He wasn't, not really. After all, it was all in the spirit of the occasion. "Besides," he added self-righteously, "you wouldn't want me to stop liking Christmas again because I had to miss part of the perks, would you?"

"We have a ghost to bust," said Egon sternly and propelled Peter toward the door. He never let Venkman get away with that kind of thing.

Peter hid a grin. "Keeping your mind on the job, that's good. So what have we got?"

"Class three readings, guys." Egon frowned. "It's not a conventional poltergeist after all. It's simply a mischievous ghost."

Stark trailed them to the door. "What's a class three?"

"It's the ghost of a human being," Ray explained. "Do you know anything about it? Anyone who died here?"

"We don't know much of the history of the house," Stark replied. "It didn't come down in the family. I bought it when Jana was five. It didn't bother us at first. I don't know whether it was here all along and just not causing trouble or what." He shuddered. "I don't like the thought that it's been watching us all along."

"Maybe it just wandered by," offered Winston. "It doesn't sound like a fixed repeater--that's a ghost that sticks around in one place and appears at the same time of day or season of the year."

Stark's face tightened in concentration. "No, I think it's been here all along. Looking back, I realize there were always little hints; things moved that I didn't remember moving. But it never threw things before and it never fully appeared. Well, not before the last year or two. Then it would be something I'd glimpse out of the corner of my eye. This is the first year it's really been a nuisance."

"So it's been here but not troublesome," Egon said thoughtfully. "Hmmm."

"Any ideas, Egon?" Peter prompted.

"Not yet. I want to track it down. Maybe we can find out more that way. These readings are not residuals. It's present but it's not within the house. You have seen it in the house, Mr. Stark?"

"Yes, usually in the vicinity of the Christmas tree. That's odd. I don't think it ever appeared except at Christmas. Perhaps it's a, what was it?, fixed repeater after all."

"Maybe it just likes Christmas," offered Ray. "This'll be great. Let's go find it, guys."

"Be careful if you go around the grounds," Stark warned them. "There isn't a fence along the edge of the cliff and some of the ground there isn't steady. Anywhere the lawn's been tended is fine, but we don't go near the cliff edge. The weeds will be longer there except by the terrace, where there is a fence." He glanced out the window. "It's getting a little misty. So please be careful."

"We won't go near the cliff," Peter promised. "I don't like heights." He made it sound like a joke, but it was true. Heights made him very uncomfortable. Egon, who had once fallen off the World Trade Center, understood that fear best, although Egon had eventually worked through his own panic reaction and moved past it. An event-triggered panic was a lot different than genuine acrophobia, and Peter knew that, but sometimes he was envious of Egon's ability to work near sheer drops without tensing up. Peter could do it if he had to, and if his buddies were in trouble, he'd always act first and panic later, but he didn't like sheer places at all. He hoped the ghost would shun them, too.

It was more than a little misty. The clouds had dropped lower and lower and they walked through them. Visibility was probably no more than a hundred yards, but that was plenty to see the cliff and draw back from it. The thought of chasing the ghost near the edge was not fun. Peter hoped it wasn't smart enough to figure that it could zip out of range that way. Ray and Winston were utterly fearless around heights, Winston because he'd worked construction on high rises and didn't have a nerve in his body when it came to heights, and Ray because he got so excited on a bust that he simply never thought of danger. More than once, Peter had considered buying him a leash for his protection on risky jobs.

They only saw the ghost once in all the time they wandered through the Stark estate. Elaborate, well-maintained grounds spoke of major bucks; Peter entertained himself by drawing up the bill in his mind as they ran this way and that, following Egon's meter readings. The ghost was very much present, and it was enjoying leading them on a merry chase. Once they heard a faint tinkle of laughter as they pursued the elusive readings, and once they saw a misty image, barely discernable through the thickening fog.

"Hey, no fair," Peter hollered. "We've got a lot better things to do than this on Christmas Eve."

For an instant, he thought the ghost solidified. There was a definite shape, human in appearance, but a lot smaller than he'd expected, then it disappeared into the fog.

"After it, guys." Ray lowered the scopes over his eyes and plunged into the murk after it. "Come on, it went this way."

"Cliff, Ray," Winston hollered. "You're getting into the weeds. Slow down."

Ray stopped, disappointed. "I'm nowhere near the cliff," he called back. "Wow, did you see that? You know what I think, guys?" He waved them forward. "I think it was a little kid."

"You mean the ghost of a child?" Egon came to an abrupt stop and squinted at the meter screen as if he expected it to announce the fact in no uncertain terms. His face fell. None of them liked the idea of busting the ghosts of children. Bad enough to do it in the general run of things, but on Christmas Eve, it seemed so much worse.

Peter grimaced. "Maybe it was just small," he offered. Rather than bust a ghost child, he'd prefer to help it disperse peacefully. They'd all feel better about it.

"I wish we knew the history of the house," said Ray. He trotted back to join them. "Because I think that would really help. Stark wouldn't have paid any attention to its past. He's too much fixated on the here and now, his own family. He only liked the place because it's just what he wanted. Some people don't care about history."

"You think it's a kid who died at Christmas time?" Winston's face fell. The four men stared at each other, dismayed. Even Peter, who had long pretended to hate Christmas, felt that badly. What a lousy break.

"We may be speculating without proper facts." Egon's voice was stiff. He wanted to believe that.

"Gee, maybe it comes around at Christmas so it can be with a family," offered Ray in a small voice. "Maybe now that Mr. Stark's kids are nearly grown up, it's different. You know. They're older and it isn't quite the same as it is with little kids. They still would love it but there's a special magic for kids at Christmas." He cast a quick glance at Peter, and even though the scopes covered his eyes, Peter knew that Ray was thinking about Peter's disappointing Christmases, or even about his own after his parents were killed. All at once, Peter made a firm resolution. They were going to help this ghost, not bust it, or his name wasn't Peter Venkman.

"Maybe it just wants attention," Ray continued in a small, sad voice.

"Yeah." Winston's voice sounded slightly gummy with emotion. Peter exchanged a hasty glance with Egon. Old Spengs wasn't your most emotional guy going, but he looked moved, too.

Peter decided he'd better do something quick. "Hey," he called. "Where are you? Merry Christmas."

Egon nodded in approval and echoed the sentiment.

They spread out a little and started walking, carefully trying to avoid the cliff.

That was when the fog came down. One minute they still had visibility, the next, it settled on them as thick as a blanket, and Peter couldn't even see his own feet.

After Winston had him step backward and Ray coached Egon away from the edge, they stood unmoving. Ray, who had slightly better visibility, grabbed Egon by the arm and towed him over to Peter. They emerged from the fog, looming shapes that barely settled into clear resolution a foot away. Winston came up behind Peter and dropped a hand on his shoulder.

"Now what?" Peter asked.

"Well, the cliff is that way." Ray pointed, and his hand vanished into the fog. He jerked it back as if afraid it would be bitten off by invisible things.

"Yeah, but doesn't it jut out a little?" Winston said. "I think it's on two sides of us."

"We get down on our hands and knees and crawl," offered Egon. "Once we're back on the lawn, we'll be safe."

"But we still won't have the ghost," Ray reminded him. "We can't leave it out here alone, not if it's really a little kid. Not at Christmas."

"Well, I don't know about you, Ray, but I don't want to spend Christmas Eve out here in the fog waiting for a search party to lead us back to the house." Peter grimaced. "It's undignified, not to mention all those nifty presents waiting for us back home."

"The ghost doesn't have any presents," Ray reproached him. "Poor little thing, all alone, a ghost at Christmas."

They stared at each other.

"Well, I think we should give it a Christmas," Ray insisted pugnaciously. "There isn't much we can do, but there's got to be something." He took a deep breath and started to sing. "Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way." He broke off to encourage, "Sing, guys. Let's sing for it. At least it can have caroling."

It was one of the weirdest moments Peter remembered, standing near the edge of a cliff in pea-soup fog, singing Christmas carols for a ghost. They went on from Jingle Bells to Deck the Halls, to Joy to the World, to Silver Bells. When one of them stopped, another took it up. Even in the fog, even with the threat of the drop nearby, Peter discovered a strange sense of the season out there, singing like mad with his buddies. Was this what it was supposed to be about? Sharing the season? Yeah, he thought it was. Never mind his dad had never shared it with him. The guys always had, even back when he was too stubborn to admit it.

He didn't notice when the light began, but suddenly the fog around them glowed with a golden radiance that grew brighter and brighter. Peter's head came up and he exchanged a startled glance with Egon, who whipped up the meter.

The device beeped its way up the scale to a shrill, piercing sound that made their ears hurt. Egon shut the sound off to avoid deafening them. "It's the ghost," he said unnecessarily under his breath.

"Wow," breathed Ray as the light intensified. The ghost, its aura beaming like a spotlight, materialized no more than two feet away, much more solid than the misty images. It was a child all right, a little boy, maybe ten or eleven years old, wearing slightly old fashioned clothes. He had a shock of brown hair not unlike Peter's own, with a cowlick at the back of his head that jutted up like a rooster's comb. His inner luminosity brought the entire landscape into vague focus and Peter shuddered as he realized the drop was no more than two steps away.

The ghost spoke to them in a piping treble. "I liked your carols," he said timidly, braced to run away if they made any threatening moves.

"We sang them for you," Ray offered quickly. "For Christmas. It's sad to be alone at Christmas, isn't it?"

The ghost boy nodded hard enough to send his hair bobbing. "The children used to play with me, but they don't see me now they're grown up. I...." He swallowed manfully and put up small fists to knuckle his eyes.

"We can see you," Peter said. He took a careful step toward the ghost. "What's your name?"

The spirit hesitated. "Michael."

"I'm Peter. This is Ray, that's Egon, and that's Winston. It's Christmas Eve, and we can't see through the fog. Will you take us back to the house?"

"Yes. If you sing for me."

So they marched through the grounds, the little ghost drifting in the lead, lighting the way for them, all of them singing Christmas Carols at the top of their lungs. As they neared the house, the fog lessened, thinned, and finally vanished altogether. Behind them, toward the river, it lingered in patches, but it was going fast. Faint slanting sunlight illuminated it and burned it away.

Stark came out to meet them, trailed by his two children, both of them as fair-haired as their father, and they stared in disbelief at the glowing spirt and the singing Ghostbusters. The girl, Jana, slid up beside her father, who put his arm around her shoulders. The boy, Randy, didn't seek out that reassurance but he took an involuntary step closer to Mr. Stark. When the little party reached the steps, they stopped singing and Peter went forward to meet their client while Ray positioned himself at the ghost child's side.

"You didn't bust him?" Stark demanded.

"Gosh, no, he's just a little boy," cried Ray. "He didn't mean to cause trouble. He just wanted to celebrate Christmas." He patted the ghost on the shoulder.

"Michael?" gasped Jana Stark in surprise. She wiggled out of her father's grip and took a step closer, eyes huge with memories.

"You know him?" her father demanded.

"Randy and I used to see him, when we were little," she admitted. "He'd play with us at Christmas."

"And you didn't tell me?" her father asked wonderingly.

She and her brother exchanged the kind of conspiratorial glances siblings share. "He only came for Christmas," she said. "It was our secret. We didn't think you and Mom would believe us if we told you we had a ghost for a friend. I'd forgotten. It's been years...."

"I would theorize that, usually, only children can see him," Egon offered. "When you two grew too old to believe any longer, he would have realized he couldn't interact any longer. But he missed the holidays with young children here. He must have tried to appear to you so he could share Christmas, but it didn't work."

"Not until the fog got so thick," offered Winston. "Then he appeared to us and guided us back here. Lit up as bright as a Christmas tree."

"Saved our lives," Peter agreed. "We're not going to bust him. It wouldn't be right, not at Christmas."

"You can't make them bust him, Dad," Jana insisted. "He was our friend when we were kids."

"Yes, but I can't have a ghost throwing things at your mother," Stark countered uneasily. Ghost children were outside his level of reality.

"I don't think he'll do that again. Will you, Michael?" Peter squatted down before the boy. "Michael, you know you don't have to stay here anymore, don't you?"

The boy blinked at him in surprise. "I couldn't go away," he said. "I tried."

"No, but now you can. You might have been bound here, but I don't think you are anymore. You saved our lives. Whatever held you here won't hold you now." He wasn't sure how he knew that, but it flowed through him with certainty.

Michael's eyes brightened with joy. "I can go home?" he ventured. He looked at the house. "This was home once. We lived here. But my folks are gone now. I looked and looked and couldn't find them. Then I found Jana and Randy and they would play with me at Christmas." He shivered. "But then they got too old and it wasn't the same. I'd come but they couldn't seem me anymore. I want to...find my folks."

"You can find them, Michael," Ray told him. "I think you're free."

The boy's eyes glowed joyfully. "Merry Christmas," he exulted. He hugged Peter and then Ray. At least he didn't shed any ectoplasm on them. He then did the same to Randy and Jana. She misted up immediately as she hugged him back. So did Randy, but he tried to pretend he didn't.

And then the ghost faded away, the radiance vanishing last like the Cheshire Cat's smile.

"That's the most amazing thing I have ever seen," blurted David Stark.

Peter suddenly felt full of joy. He knew he was grinning like an idiot, and out of that good feeling he said quickly, "This one's a freebie, Mr. Stark." Conscious of his friends' amazed eyes upon him, he ducked his head uncomfortably. "Well, it is Christmas," he added, embarrassed.

Egon's hand came to rest on Peter's shoulder. "Yes, it is," he said. The sound of his approval warmed Peter to the soles of his feet.

"And one of the very best," exulted Ray.

Winston nodded. "You called it. Mr. Stark, you and your family have a great holiday. We've got to get back to Manhattan. There's a Christmas party there with our name on it."

"I wonder if we'll ever find out who Michael was?" Ray ventured as they headed back to Ecto-1.

"It doesn't matter if we do or not," Peter said. "What does matter is that he got to go home for Christmas. And so do we."

The four of them sang Christmas carols in perfect harmony all the way home.

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