Dana backed away from the buggy, Oscar in her arms.

She knew better.

2

A slim, elegant 1959 ambulance tooled up Broadway on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. On the side of the vehicle was painted a portrait of a ghost, surrounded by a red circle with a crimson slash drawn through it. "No Ghosts."

The vehicle bore the license plate ECTO-1 and was, in fact, the Ghostbusters' emergency vehicle.

Inside Ecto-1, a very tired Ray Stantz helmed the steering wheel while a very bored Winston Zeddemore rode shotgun. Both wore their official Ghostbusters jumpsuits, and both were ready for trouble.

Stantz guided the vehicle around potholes. A tall, baby-faced man with a haircut that could only be de­ scribed as New Wave groundhog, Stantz rubbed his eyes occasionally, trying to get the red out.

As a light turned green ahead, he gave Ecto-1 the gas. The car produced a sound that sounded like a yak in a blender.

Big, burly, and black, Winston Zeddemore slid

deeper into his seat. He was beginning to hate this work. A lot.

"How many did she say there were?" Winston asked.

Stantz peered into the bus-fume-laced street before him. "Fourteen of them," he said in a monotone. "About three and a half to four feet high."

Winston heaved a sigh. "I don't think I can take this anymore, man. All the crying and the biting! The screaming and the fighting! It's starting to get to me, Ray."

Stantz nodded grimly. "I know it's rough, Winston, but somebody's got to do it. People are counting on us. Who else are they going to call... Bozo the clown?"

A thin smile played across Stantz's lips. "I ... don't ... think ... so."

Stantz guided the car into a parking space before a carefully restored old brownstone. Gritting his teeth, he marched out of Ecto-1 and strode to the back of the refurbished ambulance. He popped open the back hatch and produced two large, bulky proton packs attached to neutrona wands—ghostbusting guns hooked up to power-generating backpacks.

Winston and Stantz, grim-faced, shouldered their weapons in place and marched up to the building, their eyes darting this way and that.

They stopped before the front door. Stantz pressed a buzzer. "Who is it?" a female voice squawked over the intercom. "Ghostbusters," Stantz said coolly. "We have a job to do here."

The woman sighed over the intercom. In the back­ground could be heard wailing and screeching voices.

"I'll say," the woman said. "Come on in. It's Apart­ ment 1-B."

Stantz and Winston exchanged determined looks as

they entered the building and walked down a dimly lit, cavernous hallway, proton packs strapped firmly in place.

"This could be a rough one," Stantz stated.

"I know it," Winston agreed. "I heard."

They paused before the door.

"This is it," Stantz declared.

Winston nodded. "This is it."

Stantz made a move to reach for the knocker on the door. Before he had a chance to grasp it, the door was flung open. A birdlike woman with blue-gray hair and what appeared to be makeup left over from an Earl Scheib paint job greeted them nervously.

"They're in the back!" she gasped. "I hope you can handle them. It's been like a nightmare!"

Stantz and Winston exchanged knowing glances. Winston nodded and his jaw tightened. "We'll do our best, ma'am."

"Oh, thank you," the woman gushed. "They're right in here."

The tiny woman led the two Ghostbusters through an expensively furnished home. She stopped in front of a pair of opened French doors, leading into a vast living room.

Ray Stantz and Winston paused before the door. They carefully adjusted their equipment.

"Ready?" Stantz asked, sweat trickling down his forehead.

"I'm ready," Winston declared, straightening him­ self up to his full six-feet-plus height.

"Let's do it!" Stantz whispered.

The two men strode past the French doors and marched into the living room.

"Oh, my God!" Winston said.

"It's worse than I thought!" Stantz gulped.

Over a dozen children—short, birthday-cake- stained, and all between the ages of seven and ten— descended upon the two helpless men.

"Ghostbusters!" they screeched.

"Yeah!" others shouted.

Stantz glanced around the room. Tables were set with party favors, dripping with left-over ice cream and birthday cake. The place was scattered with discarded toys and games. Several exhausted parents were strewn across sofas. They glanced at Stantz and Winston as they entered the room. They made eye contact. Their eyes said, "Thank you, thank you, thank you."

Winston winked at the parents and faced the horde of ice-cream- and cake-stained short people before him. "How you doin', kids?" he asked.

A freckle-faced kid with a big belly glared at Win­ ston. "I thought we were having He-Man."

To stress the point, the mean little kid brought his right leg way back and kicked Stantz in the shin. Stantz smiled and, after making sure no parents were watching, reached down and grabbed the kid by the front of his shirt. He smiled at the little boy. "I'll be watching you," he growled. "Remember that."

He dropped the kid back onto the floor and turned to Winston with a wink. "Song?"

Winston reached into his utility belt and switched on a tiny tape recorder, which began belting out the Ghostbusters' theme song. Stantz and Winston began gyrating, singing, and bopping to the music.

Who you gonna call?" they crooned.

"He-Man," the kids replied.

Stantz and Winston glanced at each other, not breaking stride.

"It's gonna be one of those gigs," Winston hissed.

"Keep singing, we need the money," Stantz said, breaking out into the Twist.

A small eternity later, Stantz found himself sur­ rounded by drippy-nosed children. He was trying to keep them amused by recounting the Ghostbusters' finest hour. "So," he continued, "we get up to the very top of the building, and yep, sure enough, there was a huge staircase with those two nasty terror dogs I told you about. And guess what?"

"They were guarding the entrance," the wise-guy kid said with a sigh.

Stantz tried not to strangle the little beastie. "Ex­actly." He smiled. "They were guarding the entrance. Well, at this point I had to take command, so I turned to the boys and I said, 'Okay, 'Busters, this is it. Fire up your throwers and let's toast that sucker!' "

The mean little kid wasn't impressed. "My dad says you're full of crap."

Stantz's eyes almost left his head. "Well, a lot of people have trouble believing in the paranormal," he offered.

"Naah," the kid continued, "that's not it. He says you're full of crap and that's why you went out of business."

Stantz flashed a smile of the sort usually used by bodybuilders hiding a groin injury. "He does, eh? I see."

Stantz snapped his fingers, getting up from the crowd of children. "Hey! How about some science? Did you ever see a hard-boiled egg get sucked through the mouth of a Coke bottle?"

The kids nodded in unison. "Yeah," they said.

"A lot," the mean little kid added.

Winston sat in a corner and shook his head. "Oh, man," he said, then sighed.

After Stantz had pummeled every Mr. Wizard trick

into the carpet, the weary Ghostbusters packed up their gear and trudged out of the building.

Stantz popped open Ecto-1's back hatch and tossed his equipment inside. Winston neatly knuckle-balled his into the auto.