Egon was the one who noticed the problem first, though he didn't realize it at the time. He had been hard at work on one of his mold experiments when the wind had picked up and swirled in through the open windows with sudden violence, scattering a stack of papers before the physicist could jump up and grab them. Muttering to himself, he hurried around the lab, slamming the windows, then went to retrieve his papers. Rain beat against the windows, drumming hard as the storm struck, reminding him the windows in the bedroom were open and it might be raining in on their beds. The other three Ghostbusters were downstairs; even Peter had gotten up at a respectable hour this morning; and they were out of range of his call for assistance. Stepping carefully to avoid his scattered report, Egon raced for the bedroom, pausing momentarily in the doorway at the sight of a trail of litter--candy wrappers, empty potato chip bags, giant dust balls--that must have been blown out from under Peter's bed. If the dust bunnies got any bigger, Peter would have to get them pet licenses. With a grimace of disgust, Egon stomped across the room, mentally composing the stern lecture he planned to give to Peter about neatness. After all, food wrappers under the bed were sure to draw cockroaches and Peter hated roaches. That might work better than any appeals to the psychologist's better nature. When it came to housecleaning, Egon wasn't sure Peter had a better nature.

After he had closed the windows and checked the beds with a quick hand over the bedspreads to make sure none of them had gotten wet, he turned to head downstairs, and paused, frowning. The candy and junk food wrappers still lay strewn about, but the dust bunnies had vanished as if they'd never been there. Egon heaved a sigh, imagining them being blown under other beds and into open closets, then he went after his report, smoothing each paper and putting the stack in order. Rain thundered against the windows in a savage beating for a few more minutes, then the storm eased. It was still raining, but not with its earlier fury.

Egon returned to his experiment. He'd have to chastise Peter later. His work was at a critical stage and needed to be done right away.

Ray came bouncing up the stairs, poked his head into the bedroom to check on the windows before coming into the lab. "Wow, Egon, that was quite a storm." He saw the physicist sorting papers. "Gosh, did it blow all your notes away."

"Not only my notes but Peter's trash collection," Egon said dryly, waving a hand in the direction of the bedroom.

"I saw it." Ray's eyes twinkled. "Want me to call him up here?"

"I think I might enjoy that." Egon smoothed the last page and set it into place. "Yes, Ray, call him."

Peter came cheerfully, only to stop abruptly at the look on Egon's face. He'd seen that expression before; it meant he was about to be read the riot act. Not only that, it probably wasn't for anything serious because Egon's eyes held amusement carefully banked. When he looked like that, he meant to take Peter to task, but it wasn't for anything life-threatening, such as failing to put away a trap or accidentally freeing a demon.

"Okay, you got me," he said, spreading his hands in a conciliatory way. "What'd I do this time? Squeeze the toothpaste tube in the middle or some other horrendous crime?"

Egon banished his amusement sternly. "I suggest, Peter, you take a look in the bedroom."

Peter went in, studied the room. He saw immediately what Egon meant to complain about. That temporary tornado or whatever it was must have done what Peter had been putting off for weeks, cleaning under his bed. Meant he didn't have to bend down and do hard work sweeping it out. Whistling to himself he returned to the lab. "Okay, I looked, Egon." He knew that innocent tone was guaranteed to irritate his friend; that was why he chose it. This might be fun. As if he thought so too, Ray hid a grin. Ray was an easygoing kind of guy, besides, he probably remembered how Egon had forgotten to take out the trash last week when he ran the experiment he'd designed that was supposed to measure Slimer's IQ. Somehow all it had done was make the ghost more hungry than usual, apparently triggering the part of the little ghost's 'brain' that was fixated on food. The spud had rushed off, discovered the trash bags, and had proceeded to tear into them, leaving a week's food remnants all over the kitchen. It had taken all four Ghostbusters to put things right. Peter wasn't entirely ready to let Egon live that down.

"Did you notice the refuse from a garbage heap?" Egon asked with careful sternness. He probably knew he was treading on dangerous ground.

Peter kept his face calm. "I couldn't miss it. So, Spengs, have you been testing the spud again without warning us?"

Ray gave a smothered giggle, and Egon's jaw tightened. "Don't try to change the subject, Peter."

"Hey, would I do that?"

"Of course. You always do."

"Well, maybe I was just pointing out to you that we all have our little lapses," Peter concluded triumphantly.

"That doesn't negate the fact that leaving food remnants and containers under your bed makes the area a prime breeding ground for cockroaches," Egon said smoothly. Typical Spengs, he wanted the last word. And it was a good one, too. Peter shivered.

"Roaches? Under my bed?" he demanded in alarm.

"I would not be surprised."

"I saw one in the bedroom just yesterday," put in Ray, changing sides again for the fun of it. Never mind that this was New York and the little beasts existed everywhere. Peter had even heard the cockroach called New York's official pet. It was not a thought he relished.

"Okay, Egon, you got me," Peter admitted. He hated cockroaches. "I'll go clean up. But remember, you gotta promise to take out the garbage when it's your turn, no matter how fascinating an experiment you've got going. You never know when something'll go wrong and the Spud will get an urge for a garbage snack."

"Maybe now we know why he likes to sleep on your pillow, Peter," Egon said quickly, unwilling to yield.

Peter grimaced. Trust old Spengs to belabor his point. He grinned and edged toward the lab door. "Guess you're the only one around here who's entitled to have a mold experiment," he concluded as he went in search of the broom.

The dust bunnies he swept out from beneath his bed along with the remainder of wrappers and empty food boxes were almost as big as New Jersey. Peter studied them uncomfortably, hoping he didn't see any movement within. If he found a roach under his bed he'd be awake all night imagining it crawling up the leg of his bed and joining him beneath the sheets. The thought of such a bed partner made him feel prickles of unease. Roaches were supposed to stay in the bathroom and the kitchen and even then have the decency to run and hide when he put the lights on, not cozy up with him in the comfort of his bed.

Fortunately, he didn't find any roaches, though he didn't make as careful a search as he could have. What he didn't see couldn't hurt him. Or could it? He emptied the dustpan into the trash, lifted his pillow to see if he'd left any candy wrappers there, and added them to the collection. Satisfied he'd defended his bed from a cockroach invasion he turned, ready to enjoy a little nap, when the alarm bell rang to signify the Ghostbusters had a new job. Someone in the city needed them to battle ghosts. With a sigh, he abandoned the nap and went out to join Ray and Egon on the stairs.

Something moved, just out of the line of his direct vision. Winston Zeddemore paused in the bedroom doorway, staring. He'd switched on the light and caught the movement. "Slimer?" he called expectantly.

The ghost didn't appear, and Winston glanced around, trying to decide what he'd seen. After the last bust of the day, or at least the one he hoped was the last of the day, Winston had come upstairs to fetch the mystery he had been reading to take it downstairs. It was just getting dark, earlier than usual because the cloud cover that had come so suddenly had shown no signs of lifting. Rain fell steadily outside, bringing with it an early night. Peter had headed straight for the shower when they'd come home, claiming he had to clean up because not only had he been slimed, he'd been rained on. Behind him, Winston could hear the faint drumming of the shower through the closed bathroom door.

Nothing moved. The bedroom waited, quiet, innocent. It must have been a trick of the light. He went over to get his book, but he felt decidedly odd, as if he were being watched. He'd learned to know that feeling in Nam, and the wary, uneasy sense that eyes were on him, eyes that meant nothing good, was a feeling he had never forgotten. It stood him in good stead on the job when ghosts might pounce from an unexpected direction, but he'd never expected to experience that feeling when he was safe in his own bedroom.

Snatching his book, he turned to go. That last bust had been a doozy. Ray had nearly been zapped by the demon, Peter had fallen partway through a hole in the floor and only the quick reaction of Egon and Winston, who had grabbed him by the arms as he started to go had saved him from serious injury. The demon had been particularly hard to catch, and they'd come away exhausted, and with Peter covered with slime from the demon-weakened floor. Maybe he was just edgy, seeing things that weren't there.

But as he walked out of the bedroom, he was sure he could feel malicious eyes upon his back.

"Something in the bedroom?" Ray echoed, staring at Winston in fascination. "What kind of something? You mean a ghost, Winston?"

Egon put down the new physics book he'd been perusing off and on for the past three days. "A ghost in our bedroom? I don't usually expect them to come to us."

"They do sometimes," Ray pointed out. "They came when Mee-Krah attacked, remember? And Pete thought it was that 'ghost attractor' contraption he'd built." Ray frowned, remembering. "Philip Spade came here too. And there've been others. Gosh, Egon, do you think we ought to check?"

"Hey, come on, guys, it was just a feeling," Winston reminded them. He looked a little embarrassed. "It was probably me just being jumpy as a holdover from that last bust. That demon wasn't fun."

"No, he was most unpleasant," Egon replied.

"Who was most unpleasant? Say it wasn't the famous Doctor Venkman?" Peter paused halfway down the stairs, clad comfortably in his sweats. "Just because you caught me on the trash this morning, Spengs, is no reason to make a personal observation like that." He grinned to show he didn't really mean his words.

"The demon, Peter," Ray told him. "It was a nasty one."

"I'll buy that." Peter came down and flung himself onto the couch beside Egon. "I've got bruises on my bruises." He contrived to look pathetic. Ray knew that look of old. It meant Peter had taken no serious hurt but hoped he could convince his friends to baby him a little. He hid a smile and began to lay it on with a trowel.

"Oh, gosh, Peter, you didn't say you were badly hurt. We'd better take you straight to the hospital. This is terrible." He even faked wringing his hands in distress.

Peter gave him a dirty look and stuck out his tongue, realizing he'd been busted. "Yeah, right, Stantz."

"Well, two can play at that game." He smiled. "You're really okay, aren't you?"

"Yeah, Ray. I'm really okay. Just a little sore, nothing that'll kill me or keep me from enjoying life. So what's going on down here?"

"Winston thinks there's a ghost in the bedroom," Egon explained.

Peter tilted his head back against the couch cushions so he could look at the spiral stairs. "I didn't see anything up there just now."

"You don't see the laundry piles when it's your turn to wash until you trip over them," Egon observed enthusiastically.

"Geez, Egon, one little mistake and I'll be paying for it for days."

"You also weren't considering the possibility of ghosts up there," Egon pointed out. "I suggest we resolve the problem by taking readings. Most likely it was a trick of the light or simply fatigue. Quite often, when one is tired, shadows at the edge of one's vision will take on a particular ominousness."

"I know what I saw, man," Winston defended himself, though he looked a little like he wasn't sure why he was doing it. "And I know how I felt. Somebody was watching me."

"Maybe it was the spud," Peter offered. He cast a sidelong glance at Winston, brow puckering as he considered him. "You know, guys, Winston's not the type to jump to crazy conclusions. Maybe there really is something up there. I don't like to say it, but we better check it out."

Egon picked up a P.K.E. meter that had been lying on the table in front of him, causing Ray to hide a smile. Egon seemed to carry them around with him half the time or leave them planted at strategic intervals in case he needed one. "Very well, but we do have an alarm system that should alert us to ghosts of any classification should they enter the firehall."

Armed with the meter, they went upstairs, knowing there was at least one proton pack in the lab, should they need it. But all the way up the stairs, the meter didn't react. Egon frowned and fiddled with it, but it didn't give off so much as one faint beep.

The bedroom was peaceful and deserted. Not even dust balls and candy wrappers hid under Peter's bed when Egon lifted a corner of the bedspread to check. Smug with conscious virtue, Peter grinned broadly. "So tell me, Spengs, do you think the dust under my bed came to life and watched Winston or what?"

"Heck, maybe it was a pigeon sitting on a window ledge," Winston conceded as Ray opened closet doors to check for traces of invaders and Egon, satisfied that the bedroom was clean, drifted over to the lab to make sure his precious experiments were safe.

Satisfied with the closets and noting no trace of invaders, Ray followed him. "I didn't see anything to indicate anyone's been up here; you know, a prowler, Egon. I think we should check the roof, though, just in case."

"You think Winston surprised a burglar?" Peter asked in astonishment.

"It's a possibility. This is New York after all," Ray replied. He smiled. "Just because we haven't had anything like that before doesn't mean we couldn't have. I bet the idea of ghosts would scare away most people, but there's always somebody out there who isn't afraid of ghosts and doesn't care that we used to be Crimebusters."

"So what did he do?" Peter prompted as they climbed the stairs to the roof, pausing to shine a flashlight around the attic crawlspace just in case. "Climb up the outside of the building and break in up here?"

"Not likely, Pete," Winston said from the top. "The padlock's in place; on the inside. Nobody could have gotten in this way."

"Nobody solid," Peter said, grinning. "But a spectral burglar wouldn't have to climb the stairs. He could drift right through the door."

"Leaving no ectoplasmic residue or residual energy readings?" Egon passed his meter over the sealed door. It didn't stir at all. "I'm afraid not."

"Sorry, guys," said Winston as they returned to the third floor. "I was sure somebody was there."

"I hope you're talking human somebody and not rat somebody," Peter said uneasily.

"Gee, Pete, with no midnight snacks under your bed any more, what could there be to tempt a rat?" asked Ray. "But just in case, we'll recruit the spud patrol and see if he can chase out any rats or mice that might be living here."

"Mice like junk food, too," Winston pointed out.

"Hey. I cleaned," Peter defended himself.

"Then we'll just have to hope the rodent and roach population haven't spread the word, won't we?" Ray teased him.

Peter's eyes widened in alarm. "Come on, Ray, that's not funny."

Egon smiled broadly as he ran his meter over the psychologist's bed. "I think it's actually rather amusing." The meter stirred faintly, once, then returned to normal.

"What's that?" Peter asked uneasily, his expression revealing he half believed Egon had done it on purpose. "Come on, Egon, it's not nice to tease Dr. Venkman."

"Nothing," Egon replied, twiddling the dials. "Old residuals. Perhaps from last week when I was working in the lab on that class five and he momentarily eluded us."

"Momentarily eluded us?" Peter asked in rampant disbelief. "We had to chase that nasty gooper all over the firehouse. Slimer had hysterics and wouldn't let go of my neck, and the ghost slimed all my clean shirts, trying to hide out in my closet. You guys singed my bedspread with your throwers and I had to get a new one. That was not fun."

Ray grinned reminiscently. "I thought it was great."

"Sure if you like running around mindlessly blasting everything that moved," Peter said darkly. "And I want to remind you, my Armani jacket was peacefully minding its own business before a certain person got trigger happy."

"Gosh, Peter, I said I'd buy you a new one," Ray defended himself. "But it was still great. That ghost was a fast one."

"And we're sure we've got him trapped?" Winston asked, determined to clarify the matter. "He didn't divide into two ghosts or something and leave part of himself behind?"

"I put him in the containment unit myself," Egon replied. "The readings and power levels matched exactly."

They retired downstairs, Egon shutting off the meter. "There's nothing here. I'll take periodic readings to see if the residuals have faded, but I don't believe we're in any danger."

"You hope," said Peter as he hurried ahead of the other three to bag the corner seat on the couch.

As soon as they were gone, faint motion stirred. It was as if something had been holding its breath, and now gave a relieved sigh. Under Peter's bed, golden light glowed for a moment, casting eerie shadows into the corners. There was a scurrying sound, faint but discernable had there been ears to hear it. Another sound, a chittering, might almost have been voices, though they spoken in no familiar language. For a long moment, the light gleamed, the sound sputtered, then the noise faded and the glow disappeared. Once more, the bedroom was silent and empty. But hidden beneath the bed, something waited...

"Well, it's about time you staggered downstairs, Dr. V. Did you have a late night or something?"

Peter grimaced. "It's not that late," he said, casting a surreptitious glance at his watch. Only ten-fifteen. He'd slept later than this lots of times. And he hadn't even been out partying last night. It was just that his sleep had been restless, disturbed, and only partly because he was still sore from the fall through the floorboards. Every time he'd finally drifted off, something had awakened him, though he could never figure out what it was. Each time he opened his eyes, the bedroom was quiet, or at least as quiet as any room with three other snoring men could be. Peter was used to those sounds, though, and never roused for them ordinarily.

Egon had pointed out the habit of a midnight snack didn't always guarantee a peaceful night, and Ray had asked quickly, "You didn't toss the wrappers under your bed again, did you?"

Peter, who had shoved them into the drawer of his nightstand because he'd felt disinclined to get up and wander over the wastebasket, had responded, "Heck no. The way you guys get on my case, I wouldn't dare. The great brain would never let me live it down."

But he couldn't help remembering the weird feeling he'd had once, as he awakened in the darkness, a sense that something hovered over him unseen. Slitting open his eyes he'd discovered it was true; Slimer drifted overhead, making eating noises in his sleep, every now and then a dribble of ectoplasm splattering down on Peter's blanket. He'd wadded up a snack wrapper and tossed it at the sleeping ghost, and Slimer had shifted restlessly and drifted lower.

Oddly enough, the uneasy sensation retreated as Slimer curled himself up on the foot of Peter's bed. Ordinarily quick to kick the spud away, Peter found himself rolling over to occupy the other side of his bed. It would never do to admit that to the guys, that he'd felt uneasy in the darkness and had even taken comfort from the little ghost's presence. No, that was something he could never tell anyone. The guys would never let him live it down.

He went over to the Mr. Coffee machine and got himself a cup, carrying it with him toward his office. Janine called after him, "You need to talk to that reporter Benny at the National Register. He wants to do another write-up on you guys."

"Bad idea, Janine," Peter said, grinning reminiscently. "Egon will probably neutronize him if he shows up around here again. I don't think he's forgotten the last time."

"Tell him, not me," the secretary said, industriously filing her nails. "Oh yeah, I forgot. When did you guys get a cat?"

"A cat?" Peter queried, turning to stare at her. "We don't have a cat, Janine."

"I saw it when I brought Egon a cup of coffee. It went zipping into the bedroom and hid under your bed. You were sawing logs too loudly to hear it."

Peter grinned. "We don't have a cat, Janine. Slimer must have let that old alley cat in again. Winston said he was sure somebody was watching him yesterday. He's gonna be embarrassed when he realizes it was just our neighborhood fence-singer."

"Is that the one Egon threw his boot at last month?" Janine asked with a wicked grin.

Peter grinned back. "You got it. That cat who lives in the back of the deli was in heat and I swear there were cats all over the place going nuts."

"Why are you so happy about it?" Janine asked, noting his big grin.

"I didn't get home till morning that night," Peter confessed. "I missed all the action--well, all that action."

Janine swatted his arm with a rolled up newspaper. "Just thought I'd mention Tabby. You guys better get a litter box or something--unless the guys kept the one they bought when you got changed into a cat."

Peter grimaced. That incident didn't rank up there in his list of fondest memories. He shook his head, though it would be just like old Spengs to have kept it. "No way, Big J. Oh well, I'll have Ray warn the spud about letting animals in here. Though getting Slimer to listen--and then actually do what he's told--is more than I could manage."

He strolled into his office, deposited his coffee cup on the desk, and snagged the telephone, punching in a familiar number. "Yo, Benny. Pete Venkman. Hey, guy, be careful about the article you want to write. Egon's still hot for your blood..." He listened to Benny's eager expostulations a minute, then his smile brightened. "Yeah, guy, I hear you. Listen, I never turn down free publicity, but we've gotta play it safe. Here's what we ought to do..."

"I still haven't found the cat," Ray said early that evening when the four of them had gathered for dinner that evening. "Do you think Janine made a mistake? I went all over the place, and Slimer swears he never let the cat in. Last time it ate his food, and he's mad at it. I don't think he'd risk anything getting to the goodies before he could eat them."

"And Slimer usually leaves food lying around?" Peter asked skeptically. He reached for a chicken leg and took a quick bite. Winston had prepared the meal and he was probably the best cook of the four of them. "It's gone before it has a change to lie anywhere."

"No, usually you do, Peter," Egon told him, amusement lighting his eyes. "Slimer was probably trying to defend your secret horde from the cat. I don't believe a cat has been here. I've seen no cat hairs in my experiments or on my bedspread."

"And the last time, we had to fight the thing to get it off your bed," Winston remembered with glee. "I bet Egon still has the scratches."

Egon held up his left hand, looking in vain for the wounds he'd sustained in that battle, disappointed to discover they had faded without a trace. "I would as soon not get more." He ladled mashed potatoes onto his plate. "Is Janine sure she saw a cat?"

Peter's eyes narrowed. "You're not talking very large mouse here, are you, Egon?"

"Rat, Peter," Ray corrected. "You can say it. It's just like 'cat' but with an 'r' instead."

"You say it, I'm not gonna. Besides, I think our illustrious secretary can tell the difference between a cat and a rat. A rat's low-slung with a thin, ratty tail and a cat's taller with longer fur. Anybody can tell the difference. Maybe it sneaked out right after that. The ground floor windows were open this afternoon."

"I'll get some rat poison and lay it down," Winston said practically.

"But what if it really is a cat?" Ray asked in distress. "It might eat the rat poison and die."

"Something's been here," Egon reminded him. "It may still be here. I don't know about the rest of you but the thought of having a rat run across my bed in the night does not rank highly on my want list."

Peter shivered elaborately, wondering unhappily if that was what had awakened him in the night. The chicken didn't taste quite as good as it had the moment before.

"Janine saw something," Winston reminded Ray. "And so did I. We've run tests for ghosts, and haven't had much luck."

"So that means we don't have a ghost cat?" Peter asked brightly.

"No, though we did have faint residuals around your bed, Peter," Egon reminded him.

"Probably the ghosts of all those junk food wrappers," muttered Ray with a wicked glint in his eyes.

"Come on, guys, are you ever gonna let me live that down?"

His three friends grinned and shook their heads. "No," they said in perfect chorus.

"That's what I figured." Peter shrugged. "Okay, Egon, bottom line here. What do you think's going on?"

"I, Peter? Most likely nothing, although the faint readings I took were intriguing. As you know, we filter Slimer's frequency out of our P.K.E. meters automatically so he won't contaminate tests we make here; I check the city's ambient energy level daily. Should there have been something seriously wrong in our own bedroom, those tests ought to have revealed it. They didn't."

"So either we've got a mini crisis in the bedroom, like a ghost cat, or whatever's going on doesn't register on the meters?" Peter asked.

"A ghost cat would be a class six, Peter," Ray reminded him waving his chicken thigh for emphasis. "Class sixes aren't all that powerful, but they register a different kind of energy from class threes, fours and fives. If there had really been a ghost cat in the bedroom, we'd have been able to tell. It wasn't that kind of residual, was it, Egon?"

"No, though most often residuals are too faint to determine classification unless they are fairly recent, say within the past hour. The residuals I got in the vicinity of your bed were quite generic, a trace, no more."

"But Winston felt he was being watched right before that," objected Ray. "If it was a ghost, it should have been recent."

"Hmmm," Egon stroked his chin as he considered it. "A good point, Raymond. Perhaps what we are dealing with is not a ghost, per se."

"Yeah, because cats don't set off meters," Peter reminded him.

"Tonight when we go upstairs, I'll take additional readings," Egon decided. "Even if Winston did see Janine's elusive cat, that doesn't explain why I got readings in that one location and nowhere else. A cat would have left none, but something did."

Peter's eyes widened in alarm. "Egon, are you trying to say my bed is haunted?"

"I told you it was the ghost of all those candy wrappers," Ray reminded him gleefully.

"Or maybe it's monsters under the bed," Winston teased, eyes alight with amusement. "You know, like little kids always claim. They don't want the lights out because the monsters will come out and grab them."

"Thanks, guys," Peter groaned. "You really know how to cheer up a buddy. Monsters under the bed," he scoffed. "Well, I'm not possessive. I'll share. If I've got monsters under my bed, I'll let you guys have a few, too."

"Hmm," said Egon again, intrigued. "I hadn't considered that possibility before."

"Egon, you aren't saying there are really monsters under my bed?" Peter demanded, staring at Egon in alarm. You couldn't always tell with old Spengs. He could say the most outrageous things with a straight face and you never knew if he meant them or not.

"I believe, if that were the case, the readings would have been stronger," Egon said, quite seriously. "I'm simply recalling my own experiences with the Bogeyman."

"Now you're saying the Bogeyman's under my bed?" Peter demanded, outraged. "Come on, guys, little Petey Venkman's not that gullible. We'd know if he was out of the containment unit, and it wouldn't be my bed he'd hide under."

"No, Peter, the Bogeyman is quite safely confined. I checked the containment unit only this morning. I'm simply considering that for years the Bogeyman was considered a legend, except by the children who feared him. I would postulate that most children, when they grew up and were no longer troubled, simply convinced themselves that what they experienced was no more than overactive childhood imagination. In fact, I'm not certain that, except for unusual circumstances, adults could even see him."

"We could," Winston reminded him, raising his milk glass and taking a big swallow.

"Our exposure to unlimited ectoplasm and a wide range of ghosts have granted us above-average awareness of the spirit world. That coupled with our certainty of the existence of ghosts, spirits, specters, wraiths and spooks, enables us to see what the average man on the street sometimes cannot," Egon replied.

"So what's your point, Egon?" Ray asked excitedly. "Are you saying monsters under the bed are real, too?"

"I can't say that with any certainty, Ray. I never experienced them myself. However, my experiences with the Bogeyman might have prevented it."

"Yeah, like each baddie that scares little kids has his own turf," Peter put in. He cast his mind back to his childhood and couldn't remember any encounters with monsters under the bed, or requests to have a night light on to protect himself. "They never bothered me, not that I can remember."

The others shook their heads, though Ray hesitated. "You know, I knew a little kid once when we first went to Morrisville. He and my mom were friends. He was a few years younger than me and he used to tell me there were monsters under his bed. He always had a night light. I was just enough older that I thought he was a baby, you know how kids get." Abruptly his eyes widened with horror.

"What, Ray?" Peter asked, sensing Ray's change of mood.

"He was kidnapped out of his bed, and nobody ever found him. It was all over the local papers. They thought some crazy person had done it and murdered him. Or that somebody had stolen him who didn't have any kids and wanted some. They never closed the case. Because there wasn't a single clue."

"Wait a minute, Ray," Winston objected, gesturing with his glass. "Are you saying the monsters under the bed took him away? I think you're really pushing here."

"Winston's right," Peter assured him.

"But I never said anything," Ray said softly, focused within as he recalled that time. "I never told anybody about the monsters."

"You didn't believe in them yourself, Ray," Peter reminded him. "What were you then? Nine? Ten? Do you think anybody would have listened if you'd claimed he got stolen by the fairies or whatever? Course they wouldn't. And even if anybody had, there weren't any Ghostbusters back then anyway. Nothing anybody could have done. It wasn't your fault."

Ray looked over at him, his eyes shadowed. "I know, Peter. Even if all this is more than a wild theory, I couldn't have helped him. I know that."

"And it sure wouldn't have been any comfort to his folks to think monsters under the bed took him away," Winston put in. "Pete's right. Nothing you could have done."

"Quite correct, Ray," Egon added. "But the possibility is intriguing. Children do occasionally vanish from their beds. Should this be more than an old wives' tale, we should investigate it."

"Whoa, wait a minute, time out," Peter cried, raising his hands, one on top of the fingers of the other in the classic gesture. "You guys are saying monsters under the bed are real and maybe they don't set off P.K.E. meters, and even worse, they steal kids. And now they're under my bed?" He rolled his eyes expressively. "Come on, guys, it's not nice to kid Dr. Venkman."

"No kidding, Venkman," Egon said automatically, the look in his eyes proving his mind was going a mile a minute on his new theory. "If such a thing could actually be real, perhaps the monsters are like the Bogeyman, physical. I should have checked for a negative valence."

"Shouldn't that have come up on the meter automatically?" asked Ray.

"Yes, if an entity were present. But negative valence readings have short term residuals. They would require actual proximity of an entity to trigger the meter."

"But something did trigger the meter," Ray pointed out. Then his eyes widened as a new theory occurred to him. "Hey, a gate! I bet it's a gate."

"A gate? A dimensional gate? A cross rip under my bed?" Peter waved his hands for attention. "Okay, enough. I see where this is going. You're trying to yank my chain, pay me back for the candy wrappers. Well, I'm not buying it. Janine's cat, maybe, even a ghost; after all we had that ghost loose in the building last week. But monsters under my bed? Give me a break."

"Maybe they're attracted to dust and clutter, Peter." Winston burst out laughing. "You should have seen your face, homeboy."

"I wasn't joking," Egon said gravely, though Peter could see amusement at the back of his eyes, too. "I do want to research the possibilities. When we go up tonight, we'll take additional readings."

"Yeah, because a gate would leave residuals long after it was closed," Ray concurred. "So what's for dessert?"

Still not entirely convinced the guys hadn't been yanking his chain, Peter went upstairs reluctantly at bedtime. He brought with him a piece of cold chicken for munching and a glass of milk, setting the glass and plate on his bedside table as he opened the drawer and pulled out the current Playboy magazine, prepared to give his dreams a jumpstart by enjoying the attributes of Miss May. Heck, maybe he'd even be virtuous and read one or two of the articles.

He was forestalled by the sight of Egon and Ray converging on his bed, each with an armful of detection meters and devices. Peter groaned. "Are you guys still on this kick?" he demanded. "I didn't buy it downstairs and I don't now."

"We never found the cat, Peter," Winston reminded him, grinning broadly.

"No, but maybe it was a cat that had been slimed right before it got in here," Peter theorized. He took a flashlight out of the drawer and bent to examine the darkness beneath his bed. Already new dust had begun to form there. It wasn't fair. Dust should wait at least a week before coming back. He grimaced. But when he darted the light under Egon's bed, he noticed the start of dust there, too. He pointed it out in triumph.

Egon ignored him. He was good at that, when he chose to be. Peter frowned at his friend. "Come on, Spengs, there's nothing under my bed. There isn't, is there?" he insisted when the physicist simply made an adjustment on the plasmatometer.

"There seems to be no disturbance," Egon replied. "I'm not getting readings. What about you, Ray?"

The ecto-scopes over his eyes, the occultist knelt beside Egon and peered under the bed. "Hmmm," he said in tones much like Egon's.

Ray had a wicked sense of humor, and it irked Peter that he couldn't tell if Ray was teasing him now or not. Usually Ray's humor wasn't that subtle; siccing Slimer on Peter in the shower, short-sheeting his bed, and Ray was a great fan of slapstick so his practical jokes usually tended that way. The monster-under-the-bed game was more Egon's style, and it could well be payback for the state he'd found the concealed area in when the storm had hit. Only Peter didn't think Egon would capitalize on Ray's childhood memory of the missing boy as a part of one of his pranks. It simply wasn't part of his nature, especially since it would hurt Ray. Egon would never do that.

"Hmmm, what, Tex?" Peter asked.

"I can't really see anything unusual," Ray admitted. "But there's almost something, as if I just missed it or if I looked at the exactly right angle I'd see something."

"That is interesting, Ray." Egon switched devices and moved the new one around, passing it beneath Peter's bed then widening his scan to include the rest of the bedroom. There was no reaction.

"If anything was actually here, I believe it's long gone now," the physicist decided, taking one final P.K.E. reading. "I'll check again when we're ready to go to sleep, just to be safe, but I don't believe anything is here now."

"So there's no monsters under my bed?" Peter asked, just to get it straight. Ray grinned.

"No, Peter. I think you're safe."

"Good, then I'm gonna read my magazine and I don't want to be interrupted unless nasty things start crawling up my bedposts."

"We shall remember that," Egon replied. Picking up a heavy tome that didn't look anything like Peter's idea of light bedtime reading, he propped his pillows against his headboard and settled himself comfortably. Winston grabbed his latest mystery and Ray took a stack of comic books and retreated to his own bed. It was the best time of the day for the guys to enjoy some uninterrupted reading and they usually spent a little time doing so before they went to sleep.

Peter reached out for his piece of chicken and gnawed at it absently while he skimmed one of the articles just enough so he could tell Egon about it in the morning and prove that he was motivated by more than prurient interest. Actually it was a pretty interesting article and he soon found himself absorbed in spite of himself. Promising himself the reward of Miss May once he'd finished, he took another bite of chicken and washed it down with a glass of milk.

Save for turning pages it was quiet in the bunkroom, except when Ray let out a chuckle over the antics of his comic heroes, and once when Egon muttered, "Of course!" as if something in his book had triggered a revelation. Winston simply turned the pages; he was a fast reader and he was so absorbed he wouldn't have noticed if the Bogeyman materialized at the foot of his bed and leered at him.

Finishing his article, Peter reached for the chicken again and paused, looking around at his three buddies, realizing for the umpteenth time how lucky he'd struck it when he got them for friends. He didn't usually wallow in sentiment, but there was such a sense of peaceful companionship at the moment that he paused long enough to revel in it before he took his last bite of chicken. Chewing absently, he started to get up, prepared to toss the bone in the trash before Egon could remind him to dispose of it properly. He'd show the guys he wasn't really a slob.

As his foot touched the floor, tiny hands grabbed him, maybe half a dozen of them, clawed hands, small talons digging painfully into his ankle, his instep, even his big toe.

Dropping the chicken bone Peter gasped and tried to yell but the shock and his unwary attempt to draw breath made the chicken go down the wrong way and all at once, he couldn't breathe, not at all, no matter how hard he strained to draw breath.

Jerking wildly to dislodge the entities that held his foot, he grabbed for his throat, arms flailing, trying to yell for help, but no sound emerged, no more than the faintest of a wheeze. Windmilling wildly on his other foot, he tried to kick away the grasping whatever-it-was while he struggled unavailingly to draw air into his lungs. The claws vanished and he was aware of a faint skittering sound but it was unimportant in the face of his present crisis.

His wild gyrations drew the attention of the other three and he clutched his throat with one hand and pointed wildly with the other. That was supposed to let people know he was choking. He remembered it from one of their first aid classes; the guys would know; they'd help him. Then he waved down at his foot so they'd realize there were two things wrong. God, if only he could breathe. He struggled to draw air into his lungs but all that happened was a helpless sense of paralysis that prevented him from satisfying his craving for air.

Misinterpreting his frantic gestures, Ray and Winston went into gales of laughter at what they must have thought a comic routine. Winston groaned, "Come on, Pete, I was just to the good part," and started to pick up his book again.

No. Help me, guys. I'm not joking.

Peter struggled to turn. Spots danced before his eyes and he knew he couldn't hold to his feet much longer. He'd collapse in a few moments and it wouldn't be long after that before he'd lose consciousness. He could die, die of something so stupid as a piece of chicken in his throat, and the coldness that ran through him was motivated by fear, fear of losing everything that mattered to him.

Completing the turn he found himself face to face with Egon and stared at him desperately, trying to gesture at his throat, his eyes locking with Egon's in a wordless plea for help.

Egon must have seen the stark fear in Peter's eyes and recognized it--and Peter's desperate contortions. Alarm flashed on his face, and understanding. He didn't speak, simply acted, launching himself from his bed in a leap that tore away his bedclothes and almost sent him sprawling to the floor, but he caught the bedpost of Peter's bed and saved himself. Grabbing Peter by the shoulders, Egon spun him around, pressed up behind him, his arms around Peter, his right fist below the ribcage, his left hand grasping his closed fist.

"Omigod, he's choking," cried Winston as he recognized what Egon meant to do. His book slammed against the floor as he leaped for Peter.

Ray arrived in a rush. Peter could see his wide, frightened eyes as he urged Egon on. "Go ahead, Egon. Quick. He doesn't have much time."

Egon knew that. He pulled his arms abruptly upward, and the force of the motion would have made Peter gasp, but the chicken remained lodged and he couldn't do anything but try futilely to wheeze. He felt himself growing dizzy, desperate, starved for air. His knees began to lose their starch and he sagged back against the physicist's body. Egon repeated the motion with strength lent by desperation and the food shot out of Peter's mouth. All at once he could breathe. He sucked in a huge, shaky breath while Egon released him from his grip, put an arm around his shoulders and eased him down on the bed, supporting him all the while as the psychologist struggled to replenish his body's oxygen supply.

"Easy, Peter," Egon's voice said in his ear. "It's all right."

Venkman leaned back against his stacked pillows and concentrated on drawing air into his lungs, letting it out, drawing more in. The act of breathing had never seemed quite so miraculous before. The dizziness retreated and his vision cleared immediately.

"All right?" Egon asked him, his hand still clutching Peter's arm. His face was white but he was maintaining his calm, though with an obvious effort. Peter suspected it wouldn't take much for him to shiver into reaction himself.

He nodded quickly to reassure the other three. "Yeah. Scared me for a minute. Good thing you were paying attention, Spengs."

"Gosh, Peter." Ray stood at the foot of Peter's bed, grasping the footboard in both hands, his knuckles whitened from the tautness of his grip. "I thought you were just kidding around. You could have--"

Winston's fingers dug into Ray's arm as if to prevent him from completing the sentence and saying something none of them needed to hear just then. "Sorry, homeboy," he said quickly. "I thought you were faking a monster attack. Good thing Egon knew better."

"I was closer," Egon said in as matter of fact a voice as possible. "I could see in his eyes that it was real." He looked down at Peter, who could perceive the utter reassurance in the physicist's eyes, and for a moment he let himself bask in it. Egon put his hand on Peter's shoulder and gave him a comforting squeeze as if he knew how terrifying those moments when he couldn't breathe had been. Peter smiled back, comforted. It had been nasty but he should have known all along that he'd be safe when his friends were here. If not Egon, one of the other two would have realized in time. He was positive of it.

"Thanks, Egon. You get a new merit badge for this one," he lauded, reaching up to clasp the blond's wrist in gratitude. The two men gazed at each other, then Peter looked up to include the other two in his smile.

Suddenly he remembered what had caused him to choke in the first place and he launched himself off the bed as if scalded, looking around wildly for whatever it was that had attacked him. "Egon, I choked because something grabbed my foot and when I went to yell, the chicken went down the wrong way! There's something in here! I don't know what it is, but it's got claws!"

"Say what?" Winston asked, not quite sure if he should take this claim seriously or not, but he knew Peter hadn't faked the choking, so this was probably real too. He looked around warily, and Ray, his eyes huge, stooped down to look under Peter's bed.

Peter sat down on one of the chairs around the table by the front window and held up his foot. "Omigosh, it's bleeding," he wailed in dismay at the sight of his injured foot. Tiny puncture wounds had spouted little blossoms of blood, a series of patterned dots at his ankle, his toe, four other spots.

"The cat?" Ray asked.

"Sure, Ray," Peter agreed dryly, though the sight of the wounds reminded him something had been in and out of the firehall for some time, something that left residual readings on the P.K.E. meter. "Most cats are six-legged and can attack with all six legs at once."

Winston went for the first-aid kit, though Peter himself knew he wouldn't need more than band-aids. Being choked and treated like a pincushion in the same five minutes was not his favorite way to spend an evening.

Automatically Egon picked up his P.K.E. meter and turned it on, scanning under Peter's bed. The meter reacted more strongly than it had the last time, but it still didn't show anything other than residuals. As Winston daubed alcohol on Peter's injuries and Peter yelped in protest at the way it stung, Egon made hasty adjustments to the meter and Ray got down on his hands and knees and felt under the bed as if he could touch something he couldn't quite see.

"Be careful, Ray," Peter cautioned. "Those things could rip your eyes out."

"Not when I've got the scopes on," called Ray in return. "I still can't see anything, though." He straightened up on his knees, sitting back on his haunches and looking at Peter over his bed and Egon's. "Are you okay, Peter?"

"Other than the fact I'm just discovering what a joy breathing is and I've left a major blood trail all over the floor..." Peter began.

"He's fine," Winston said, a hand on Peter's shoulder. "Though maybe we ought to consider taking him to a doctor."

"Why? Egon did a great job on the Heimlich," Peter argued, repressing a shudder. "And this isn't anything, is it?" He hated hospitals.

"Well, it doesn't look like anything," Winston agreed. "It's just that we don't know what attacked. It sure doesn't look like cat claw marks. They're more likely to be long scratches than just punctures, and unless it grabbed and let go a bunch of times, there shouldn't be so many of them."

Leaving the activated meter on his own bed, Egon came over and knelt in front of Peter, taking up his foot by the heel and examining the tiny wounds. They had already stopped bleeding except for the two deepest ones which were still sluggishly oozing a trace of blood. Frowning, the physicist pondered the injuries. "I have never seen marks like that."

"They're not ectoplasmic, are they, Egon?" Peter asked. He knew he was still reacting to the near miss; people died of choking every day. That was what had killed Mama Cass, if it came to that. Risking his life against major ghosts that threatened the city was one thing, though not Peter's first choice, but choking--it was undignified, but it was still scary. The marks on his foot seemed minor in comparison.

"No, there's no trace of ectoplasmic residue, unless Winston observed some when he was cleaning the wounds," Egon replied.

Winston shook his head in ready denial. "Didn't see a thing."

Snagging the meter, Egon passed it over Peter's foot. It didn't react at all.

"Whatever attacked you was physical in nature, and not even paranormal, Peter," Egon explained, "at least not in any way the meter can detect."

"But there's something paranormal, Egon," objected Ray, boosting himself up and coming over to join them. "The meter was reading something."

"Maybe it's a gate," Egon considered. "A very small gate, between our universe and one that is not inhabited by demons, ghosts and goblins. Gate energy would register on a meter, but once the gate closed would leave only fading residuals. If nothing paranormal came through, the meters would have nothing to react to. Whatever it was might have been a living being in the other universe. Flesh and blood. The meters don't react to that."

"Well, there's nothing flesh and blood under Peter's bed now," Ray objected. "Only tiny little dust bunnies. And unlike regular bunnies, they don't have veins for blood to be in."

Winston started to stick band-aids over the slight injuries. "I think you're gonna live, Pete."

"Yeah? Well, I'm not getting back in that bed and turning the lights off. Not if you paid me. No way."

"It is an idea that is singularly unappealing for all of us," Egon replied in agreement. "Peter, what made you get up when you did? Did you hear something or sense a presence?"

"No way, Egon. I didn't sense anything until I felt those claws. I was gonna toss my chicken bone in the trash so you guys could see how virtuous I was. Guess it proves what I've always known. No good deed goes unpunished."

Egon cocked an eyebrow at him in amusement, but before he could comment, Ray asked, "Then what happened to the chicken bone?"

"If it comes to that, what happened to the meat that stuck in Peter's throat?" Egon asked, and he and Ray went to look. They found not a trace of either one. Worse, Peter's milk glass had vanished as well, though when Ray got down to look under the bed again, he found it rolled up against one of the legs of the bed. He snatched it hastily and held it up. It was polished clean. Not a drop of milk remained.

Peter hummed the Twilight Zone theme. "I don't think I like this, guys."

"Nor do I," Egon replied with complete certainty. "But I suspect I now have a motive for everything that's happened?"

"Aliens from dimension X are going to eat our faces while we sleep?" Winston asked, sharing a look of comical dismay with Peter.

"No," Egon replied sharply, adding with typical honesty, "or at least I hope not. I meant that wherever they come from, they come seeking food. The place they're most likely to find it abandoned has been under Peter's bed. Which should point out to you, Peter, the virtue of neatness."

"I knew I was gonna get blamed before too much time passed," Peter groaned. "Egon, get real. If they want food, there's lotsa places where they'd find more than under my bed. That Chinese take out place down the block, the deli over by the park. Or just outside in the trash cans, for Pete's sake. Why pick on me?"

"I doubt it was personal, Peter," Ray assured him, lowering the ecto-scopes over his eyes to study the glass. "Gee, there's nothing ectoplasmic here at all, well, not much. There's sort of a lingering--something. You know, like the way you can smell smoke in the air when somebody's had a cigarette? It's like whatever finished the milk is exposed to psi but not part of it."

"So they can't control the gate?" Egon postulated, passing the meter over the glass.

"We don't know that," Ray replied. "Maybe they can, the way we can control the air conditioning or the TV. Each dimension would be different. Maybe they're physical beings who can control their paranormal universe."

"Come on, Ray, they were carnivores," Peter complained. "Mindless feeding machines."

"Omnivores, perhaps," Egon corrected. "They drank the milk. Apparently the residuals we've been getting are from the opening of the gate. I wish now that I had left my meter active; we may have had some warning of their presence."

"But why come here?" Peter persisted, standing up cautiously and grinning when he realized his foot didn't really hurt. "Just because we're Ghostbusters..."

"That might be it, Peter," Ray replied, grinning. He set the glass on the bedside table. "I mean we've got weird things going on here all the time."

"And last week we had a ghost break free," Egon reminded them. "That class five. Perhaps it triggered something. It did take refuge momentarily under your bed, Peter."

"Yeah, and half a dozen other places," said Peter quickly. "Slimer's a class five, and he's taken refuge under my bed about a zillion times, and I never had monsters from the eighth dimension grabbing my toes before when he'd been there."

"Well, Peter..." Ray began, avoiding the psychologist's eyes.

"I knew it!" Peter exploded, advancing on Ray and grabbing him by the shoulders. "I knew there was something going on. What is it, Ray? What have you done?"

"Well, it was me and Egon, really," Ray replied, lowering his head, abashed. "We were trying to get that ghost; you and Winston were downstairs in case it came down there, and it went under your bed. Egon and I fired at it."

"And?" prompted Peter, favoring the two scientists with a baleful look. "Come on, guys. Give."

"It was only for a split second, Peter," Egon said quickly. "We didn't mean to cross the streams."

"Cross the streams?" Peter echoed in utter disbelief, his eyes wide with shock. "You guys crossed the streams in our bedroom? Come on, Egon, you know crossing the streams leads to universal destruction. And you did it under my bed?" He shook his head. "For all I know, that's how the candy wrappers got there in the first place. Geez, guys..."

"We didn't destroy the universe, Peter," Egon defended himself. "There wasn't even an explosion. We took a multitude of tests after we'd captured the entity, and it seemed quite safe." He met Peter's eyes levelly. "You don't imagine I'd have let you sleep there if I thought there was any real danger, do you?"

"Well..." Peter tilted his head watching the other two. Ray squirmed slightly but Egon met his look head on. Peter heaved a sigh. "Okay, yeah, well, it was an accident. Don't let it happen again." He grinned faintly. "So you think even a split second of crossing the streams weakened a dimensional wall under my bed, and now hungry little things with claws are starting to come through?"

"The focus has been your bed all along, Peter. I am not sure what else to think unless we buy the concept that monsters under children's beds are real. While there may be something in that legend, and while I would like to investigate it more seriously one day, I theorize this is a cross-rip induced by protonic--"

"Okay, I get the picture," Peter said, waving his hands to prevent Egon from proceeding with his technical explanation. "So how do we close the thing before you guys wake up in the morning and find me stripped down to a skeleton?"

"They'd take the bones, too, Peter," Ray reminded him.

"Thanks, Ray. You really know how to make a guy feel good."

"We can't close the gateway until it's actually open," Egon replied. "And then I believe that if we take readings of the settings, and reverse our streams before we cross them for an equal amount of time, we should be able to seal the gateway permanently."

"And if we can't tell when it's open, how're we gonna do that?" Winston asked, not a shred of enthusiasm in his face.

"We have to lure it open," cried Ray. "With food."

"Bait," Peter agreed. "At least you're not planning to put Dr. Venkman in the firing line."

"Not this time," Egon said instantly. "I doubt you could run fast enough." Under the hasty words, Peter heard what Egon didn't say, that Peter had already come too close once this night and none of the other three were prepared to risk him a second time.

Warmed by their concern, Peter grinned. "It's my bed, guys. I can do it--geez, listen to me. I must be nuts."

"I don't say we stake one of us out down there with an apple in his mouth," Egon assured him. "I merely thought we'd get a plate of leftovers and push it under the bed. I wonder where Slimer is? Perhaps he could sense the gateway opening."

"He hasn't been here for some time," Winston said. "You don't suppose he can sense the little nasties and is staying away, do you?'

"Gee, he might be," Ray responded.

"He slept at the foot of my bed last night," Peter said. "Either he was scared and didn't want to get very far away from one of us or he thought I'd protect him." Never mind Slimer's presence had evidently reassured them both. With a mental apology to Slimer, who might have saved him from a nasty fate the night before just by his presence, he continued, "But then I never thought the spud was very bright. Maybe the dust bunnies under my bed will eat him. You don't suppose--"

"Peter!" chided Ray.

"Just a thought."

"I suggest we get our packs," Egon told them. "I'll set several meters around the bedroom and then we can put a plate of food under the bed and see what happens. Since it seems unlikely any of us would be content to sleep in here now that we know what is happening, we'll have to resolve the crisis now." He looked at them. "Well? What are you waiting for? Go get your packs."

"I don't think this is a great idea, Egon," Peter said as they regrouped in the third floor hallway. Now dressed in their work coveralls and armed with proton packs and throwers, they were prepared to act. Egon held a tray with the rest of the chicken on it, a few slices of bologna and a chunk of colby cheese.

"It will work, Peter," Egon replied. "Ray and I have set our throwers as they were last week, with reverse polarity to use against the gateway. You and Winston have your throwers set normally in case we are able to see the entities and blast them. However, I suspect they may be invisible."

"Invisible?" Peter screeched, clearly unhappy with the possibility. "Is there anything else you've forgotten to tell us, o great guru?" he demanded sourly.

Egon smiled. "I don't believe so. I'll put this under the bed." He hefted the plate of food. "The rest of you wait here. Ray, you come into the bedroom and stand where you were standing before. As soon as I'm up, I'll move to my position. I've left an activated meter on Peter's bed, boosted to maximum gain and full volume. It should alert us to the gateway's opening. As long as it doesn't react the gateway remains closed."

"Just so it doesn't react when you're sticking your hand under the bed," Peter said with a quick grin.

"Thank you, Peter. That makes me feel so much better." Egon squared his shoulders then, with thrower in one hand and plate in the other he marched across the room to Peter's bed, knelt beside it and set the plate on the floor. Pushing it forward, his eyes moved constantly scanning the area. Ray was correct. There was nothing under there but dust.

Abruptly it stirred, quivered. As he pushed the plate into place, there was a flurry of movement as all the miniature dust balls jerked and shifted, swirling around before his startled eyes and coalescing into one large dust bunny--or at least a creature. It had a narrow, ferretlike head and eight long arms ending in taloned fingers. Eyes gleaming malevolently it leered at Egon and then grabbed with the speed of lightning, engulfing his stretched out hand and yanking with all its strength. He felt the claws digging into his flesh, securing a grip, then the meter overhead squealed into ear-splitting life as light bathed Egon's face in an otherworldly glow. At once three more of the entities surged out of the brilliance, grabbing for the food even as they moved. The one who held him chittered at them faintly, and two of the entities left the food to the third and grabbed at Egon, swirling out from under the bed as lightly and effortlessly as the dust bunnies they must have been all along, and grabbed at his shoulders and other arm. He felt himself start to slide toward the light as the entities pulled with all their strength.

Ever since the first movement, he'd been conscious of the other three yelling, Peter first. "Look out, there's something there. Egon, get out of there."

"It's changing form. Egon! Move!"

"Get out of there, m'man, so we can blast it!" Their voices cut through the screech of the meter and the vibration of their footsteps beat against him as they ran toward him.

But moving wasn't one of Egon's options. He didn't have any leverage, the way Peter had had when he'd been able to shake the creature free. Instead, he felt himself being tugged forward into the light. The entities dug into his flesh more deeply, causing pain and confusion, and while he was able to grab one of the legs of Peter's bed, it only served to delay the inevitable.

Then he felt arms grab his legs, wrapping around him tightly, holding on with desperate strength. "I've got you, Egon. I've got you," Peter yelled.

"So have they," he replied. "Peter, don't let go."

"I won't," Peter promised fiercely, tightening his grip and pulling. "I won't. Ray, Winston, grab on."

Egon felt two hands close tightly around his left wrist and yank with pure brute strength. It was as if he were being torn in two, and he cried out involuntarily. Peter dug in his heels, holding Egon in place, while Ray threw himself flat beside Egon, aiming his thrower over the physicist's shoulder, and fired directly into the light.

The gateway closed so quickly all of them blinked away afterimages. In a burst of movement the entities that held him dissolved away to dust as if they'd never been there, leaving a score of bleeding puncture wounds in Egon's arms, shoulders, and neck. The suction created by the cross-rip stopped so suddenly that the force they had been exerting against it made him shoot backward from under the bed, scraping his chin painfully across the floor and dislodging his glasses. He yelped, as he landed hard, and Peter loosed his legs and surged forward to grab him in a fiercely relieved hug then freed him to examine him for injuries. Once the gate was closed, the P.K.E. meter fell silent abruptly, leaving the four of them in an echoing silence.

"It's all right, Peter," Egon said shakily. "I don't think they're deep. My uniform protected me from the worst of it."

"Sure, but you didn't have a uniform on your neck," Peter said almost angrily. He whipped out a handkerchief and pressed it against the side of Egon's neck, causing the physicist to flinch and Peter to ease the pressure quickly. "Too close to the jugular. God, Egon..." His face was white and shaken. "I could feel you start to slip away. I couldn't hold you." To make up for it, he did it now, settling the shocked physicist against his shoulder, one arm around him for support.

"I know," Egon replied, grateful for his presence and for the comforting hand Ray dropped on his arm. "I could feel it, being pulled across. I was nearly there when Ray fired. Ray, you did exactly the right thing." He smiled at the occultist.

"But I didn't close it permanently, Egon," Ray replied, disappointment coloring his voice. "And now I think we've made 'em mad."

"You had to say that, didn't you?" Peter grimaced, still fussing over Egon's injuries. "Winston, get the aid kit. Egon's bleeding like crazy."

"The dust bunnies came to life," Egon explained, remembering how startled he'd been when the dust coalesced and came to life.

"Right, Egon," Peter said doubtfully as if he wasn't sure whether Egon was feeding him a line or not. "The dust bunnies came to life. You sure you're not hysterical here?"

"I know what I saw, Peter." He leaned against Peter's shoulder as Winston thudded up with the kit and started to check out the wounds on his neck.

"Looks like vampire hickeys," he muttered.

"Maybe they're vampires from another dimension," Ray said excitedly.

Egon frowned. "Evidently they are able to shapeshift. Whether dustballs are their normal form or whether they chose that shape to blend in because they found a plentiful supply of dust when they first came through I'm not certain. I do remember when I entered during the storm to close the windows that there were dustballs all over the room, but when I turned around after closing the windows, only the candy wrappers remained. I assumed that the dustballs were lighter and had blown away, but it was an unwarranted assumption."

"No, just a natural one," Peter reassured him. "What gets me is that they've been here for days and only now are they getting vicious."

"Well, you did clean, Peter," Ray pointed out. I'd guess they found a plentiful source of food until then and were satisfied. Maybe they even took it as a personal offering, like Brownies are supposed to when you put out food for them. As long as you give them that much respect, they won't do anything to mess you up. Once there wasn't any more free goodies, they got bolder."

"See, Egon. I shouldn't have cleaned in the first place," Peter said irrepressibly.

"They might not have come here more than once if they couldn't find food, homeboy," Winston told him. "You're not off the hook."

"So does this mean the dust under my bed is really a nasty gooper, or did they all go home again?" Peter asked, grabbing the flashlight off his belt and shining it beneath his bed.

There was no trace of dust there at all. The only thing that remained was the plate the food had been on, and it was polished clean.

"It left," Ray cried. "Gosh, maybe they won't come back."

"Then you sleep in my bed tonight, Tex," Peter challenged him. "Because wild horses aren't gonna drag me any closer than this."

Finishing the bandaging on his neck Winston bade Egon remove his jumpsuit to examine his lesser wounds They were no more serious the ones on Peter's foot. He cleaned them and put band-aids on them. His pack beside him, Egon held his thrower in his hands in case the entities returned.

"I don't think we'll need wild horses, Peter," Egon replied. "Because either one of two things will happen now."

"And why do I assume I won't like either one of them?"

"One of them is tolerable, though unsatisfactory. It is that the entities were unhappy with our attack and won't trouble us again."

"Yeah, but how would we know that?" Ray asked.

"We wouldn't," said Winston. "They could lull us into complacency and then attack when we weren't expecting it."

"See, I knew I wouldn't like it." Peter gave Egon a hand to his feet, looked him up and down to make sure he was well enough to stand unaided, and then hauled up the physicist's pack as Egon slid into his jumpsuit again and passed it to him. "What's the other option?"

"They want revenge, and come back with an army," offered Ray excitedly. "Gosh, isn't it great? We'll be ready for them."

"Yeah, right, especially if they come a week from Thursday at 3 a.m." said Peter balefully.

"Are you kidding," Winston replied. "I think they'll come right away. They're an instant gratification bunch if I ever heard of one. Put more food there--no, throw more food there--and they'll be right back, with a lot of their friends. And we'll be waiting," he said, satisfaction rich in his voice.

"I still don't think this is a great idea," Peter said to Winston as they once again prepared to close the gateway. Egon and Ray had taken the positions they'd been standing in when they had accidentally created the weakness between dimensions, their throwers at ready. Winston, a box from the Chinese take out place in one hand and a salami sandwich in the other stood poised to toss them into place while Peter stood prepared to cover him, striking a John Wayne pose, his thumb poised over the trigger button. "The minute those land, you get over here, and don't get in the way of Ray's or Egon's streams. I don't want another buddy risking being sucked in over there." He glanced at Egon involuntarily. "Once was enough. No. Once was too much."

"You got it, m'man," Winston concurred.

"We're ready," Egon instructed. "Go, Winston."

He took two hasty steps closer and tossed the food beneath the bed.

For a few moments nothing happened. Peter held his breath as Winston jumped away from the danger zone, his eyes never leaving the spot where light had blossomed so unexpectedly before. Since he was watching under his bed, he saw the first movement out of the corner of his eye, a sort of swarming together from all over the room as a fine layer of dust coalesced into an eight-legged frenzy, bent on reaching the food. "Eyahhh!" he yelled and jumped as a part of the gathering beast went right between his legs. The moment the entity formed, the P.K.E. meter squealed, the sound rising abruptly in pitch to a level that hurt his ears. Peter wanted to drop the thrower and clap his hands over them, but he didn't dare.

Light blared out again and this time, it was more than three entities that surged forward. There were about twenty of them and they exploded from the light as if launched from cannons, going right for each of the guys.

"Now!" Egon cried as two of the monsters struck him, one near his ankle and the other just above his other knee. He cried out once, but his thumb came down on the trigger button anyway.

Peter didn't have time to fire at the entity that hit his right shoulder and started clawing away for all it was worth. He got off a good blast at three of them that went for Ray, and the one he hit dissolved into dust and didn't reform. "Yahoo, we can blast 'em," he bellowed in triumph.

One of the creatures attached itself to Ray's hand, drawing blood instantly, but Stantz's thumb went down on the firing button anyway. Peter adjusted his stream and took careful aim, just brushing the entity that affected Ray's shot causing it to burst into dust that drifted down to the occultist's feet. Ray corrected his stream and he and Egon began to draw their beams together, closer and closer to the glowing area still spitting out living dust bunnies.

Spying Peter take a couple out, Winston started firing like mad, blasting any free ones he saw, batting at the one that gnawed at his knee. Feeling like a human pincushion, Peter tried to blast the one off his ankle and nearly hit his own foot. Correcting quickly, he zapped it and it crumpled to dust.

The glowing streams from the reversed particle throwers met, joined. Overhead, the lights flickered and the air in the room suddenly went funny. Peter held his breath, feeling as if he were being sucked upward into a strange, new vortex. The light from the open portal blazed more brightly than before, causing all four men to cry out in protest. Peter squeezed his eyes tightly shut, peering out through a narrow opening.

"Nearly there," panted Egon, moving closer to Ray so the streams joined closer to the tips of the throwers.

Squealing, shrieking entities, these even bigger than the first, shot into the room. Peter felt one land on his back and reeled from the impact. It dug in just above his pack, dangerously near the power cable. Its claws were the longest yet. He danced around wildly trying to shake it off, but it was holding on too tight.

Then the air that had bunched together seemed to explode in all directions, as if it had been aimed down the joined streams. With a vast whoosh, Peter's bed shot into the air and crashed against the ceiling. For a moment it hovered there as the golden light blazed like a beacon, then, with a immense sucking sound, the golden glow collapsed inward, smaller and smaller, until it was no bigger than a man's clenched fist. Sucked from the Ghostbusters' bodies, entities zipped through the little hole the way any free object is drawn from a depressurized airplane.

"Ow, ow," Peter cried as the claws in his back were unceremoniously torn free and the gigantic entity that had clung there shot across the room to squeeze through the still-narrowing gap. "That hurts!"

"Shut down, now," Egon shouted, his voice ringing above the roar of wind that filled the room.

All four throwers stopped. With a resounding echo like thunder, the golden hole collapsed.

One second later, Peter's bed crashed down to the floor, the legs snapping, the headboard slamming against the wall. One of the footboard posts nearly brained Ray, who yelped and scrambled backward just in time to avoid receiving a new hole in his head, and the other slammed down across Egon's bed with shaking force. The P.K.E. meter crashed at Egon's feet, already silent before it landed.

For a long moment, no one spoke.

Then Peter's voice rang out in the silence. "That does it," he announced. "I'm never gonna have a bedtime snack ever again."

"What happened to you?" Janine Melnitz asked as Peter came cautiously down the stairs from the second floor to find the secretary at her desk just powering up the computer. "And why are you up so early."

"What, you don't like the bandaged look?" Peter asked, pretending affront, as he stretched out his arms to display his collection of band-aids. "Good thing it isn't warm enough for shorts, 'cause I've got 'em all over my knees and ankles, not to mention my foot." As she stared at him as if waiting for the other shoe to drop, he added, "And I'm up early because last night Egon and Ray shot my bed against the ceiling and I never did sleep well on the couch."

"I always wondered what you guys did when I wasn't here," the secretary announced, straightening the papers on her desk automatically. "Now I think it's better if I don't know."

Ray hurried down the stairs after Peter, liberally adorned with bandages of his own, including a big one on his right hand. "Hi, Janine. Did Peter tell you about the attack of the dust bunnies?"

Janine shot a quick, reproachful look at Peter. "He never said anything about dust bunnies. Just about his bed hitting the ceiling."

"Oh, hi, Janine." Winston had a band-aid on his forehead, half a dozen on his forearms, and one across the bridge of his nose.

"Winston. You guys blasted out the windows again, didn't you? Funny, I didn't notice any broken glass out there when I came in."

"Gee, no, all the windows are fine," Ray reassured her. "And so are we. Well, Slimer was so scared he didn't come home till dawn, but nothing got broken but Peter's bed."

"I can understand how Peter might break his bed," Janine said. "But not if the rest of you were home too."

"If you're implying I sneak my dates in here for some heavy duty action--" Peter began hotly.

"Why should she have to imply it. We know all about it already," Egon said, joining the others. Peter recognized the moment she saw the dressing on his neck, because her eyes grew huge and she launched herself at him and flung her arms around him, fussing worriedly.

"Oh, Egon. You're hurt."

Peter rolled his eyes at Ray and Winston. "Guess our bandages are just for effect, guys."

"I'm quite all right, Janine," Egon replied. "While we look like refugees from an explosion, almost every cut is minor. We didn't even need a doctor. We're fine."

"You'd better be," she said. "I'll check those dressings out for you after breakfast. You guys are up awfully early this morning, and you don't even have a job until eleven."

"It's pretty hard to sleep when your room has been overrun with killer dust bunnies," Ray said cheerfully. Peter shook his head. Ray had slept the sleep of the just all night long. He always did. Peter's own sleep had been disturbed with a brief nightmare or two, all involving the lack of air, but each time he'd awakened on the uncomfortable couch, he'd turned and saw Egon, who had chosen to come downstairs, too, and sleep in the reclining chair. He'd said it was because Peter's collapsing bed had weakened one of the legs of his own, but Peter knew better. Egon had come because he'd seen Peter's terror at being unable to breathe and had chosen to be at hand in case Peter needed someone. It had worked. Just the sight of old Spengs sawing logs in the chair had reassured Peter and he'd been able to go back to sleep.

"Dust bunnies?" Janine cried. "If somebody doesn't tell me what you mean by killer dust bunnies, I'm gonna scream."

Slimer screamed for her. "Nasty dust bunnies," he wailed, zipping down to embrace the secretary around the neck. "Lots of arms and claws, tried to suck Egon into other dimension."

Janine's eyes lit on Egon and the physicist shifted uncomfortably. "Um, obviously they failed, Janine. I'm here and quite well."

"I'm not sure you don't need your mother's cure-all recipe," the secretary said. "All of you do. You're delusional about dust bunnies. I never heard the like."

"Actually they could not exist in our dimension in their actual form unless the gateway was open, or was about to open, or had just closed," he said. They simply became dust. They had awareness and could move and conceal themselves, but they were not a threat unless they were fed from the energy of their own dimension. The gateway could open fractionally to allow them to feed, or it could open completely, generally when none of us were present. They weren't ghosts, not as we know them so they didn't set off the meters, and I'm not certain they had any actual intelligence. I believe the 'cat' you saw, Janine, was in fact one of them. Your mind presented you with something familiar, rather than an eight-legged monster, since it was the size of a cat and was moving on the floor."

"It was a monster I saw?" the secretary asked in alarm.

"It came through the gateway," Peter explained. "They're all gone now, though. Egon and Ray closed the gateway--after first opening it."

"It was an accident, Peter," Ray told him sincerely. "We didn't want it open any more than you did. We didn't mean to cross the streams."

"Besides, it was the food particles under your bed that made the entities come through once the gate was open," Egon reminded him.

"Then it's a good they were there, is all I can say," Peter announced. When the others stared at him in disbelief, he grinned wickedly. "After all, they might've just snuck out into the city and started attacking people right and left and we wouldn't have even known about them until it was too late. But they stayed for the food and we were able to prevent them coming through and the gateway getting bigger. You know, now that I think of it, I'm a hero."

"Honestly, Peter," Egon groaned in disgust. "I'll allow that only because of what happened to you last night--but I won't allow it more than once."

"What happened to him last night?" Janine asked warily, her eyes moving over Peter's form as if to check for major injuries. "Or do I want to know?"

"Egon got to be a hero," Peter said quickly, preferring to speak of it himself rather than have someone else tell her. "He had to do the Heimlich maneuver on me."

"Oh, Egon," breathed Janine, gazing up into his face. Her eyes traveled down to the dressing on his neck and she started to look worried again. Peter decided it was time to get Egon off the hook. After all, old Spengs had saved his life. Though who was to say he might not relish Janine's attention? He didn't exactly look uncomfortable under her intense scrutiny. Still, none of them were really hurt and they'd won after all. Peter grinned.

"Hey, it's okay, Janine," he assured her. "We're all gonna live, though we wouldn't say no if you came up and cooked us a big, delicious breakfast and even fussed over us a little. And once you do that, you can call and order me a new bed--Egon and Ray said they'd pay for it, complete with force-field to keep anybody from opening a dimensional gate under it, right, guys?"

"Or prevent you from stowing food wrappers under it," Egon challenged, not quite prepared to admit that he would accept being billed for it.

"Okay, fine. I think I'll go queen sized this time," Peter said consideringly with a wicked smile. He winked knowingly at Janine. "After all, you never know when I might want to sneak in a girlfriend. Right, guys? Uh, guys? Guys?" He fled up the stairs, the other three in hot pursuit, yelling:

"Peter. Come back here! We're gonna get you."

Janine shrugged. "Typical," she said. "I don't get paid enough for all of this. Then with a rueful grin, she hurried after them. She didn't want to miss anything.

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