Since the beginning of mankind there have been ghosts, but their numbers have always been small. Only a few out of every million people managed to survive after death; and only a tiny percentage of those survivors went insane during the transition, and became ghosts.

But the impact of those few was colossal upon a mankind fascinated by death, awed by the cold uncaring mobility of the corpse so recently quick and vital, shocked at the ghastly inapropos humor of the skeleton. Death's elaborate, mysterious figure seemed infinitely meaningful, its warning finger pointed toward the spirit-laden skies. So for every genuine ghost, rumor and fear produced a thousand. Every gibbering bat became a ghost. Marsh-fires, flapping curtains and swaying trees became ghosts, and St. Elmo's fire, great-eyed owls, rats in the walls, foxes in the bush, all became ghostly evidence. Folklore grew and produced witch and warlock, evil little familiars, demons and devils, succubi and incubi, werewolf and vampire. For every ghost a thousand were suspected, and for every supernatural fact a million were assumed.

Early scientific investigators entered this maze, trying to discover the truth about supernatural phenomena. They uncovered countless frauds, hallucinations and errors of judgment. And they found a few genuinely inexplicable events, which, though interesting, were statistically insignificant.

The whole tradition of folklore came tumbling down. Statistically there were no ghosts. But continually there was a sly, elusive something which refused to stand still and be classified. It was ignored for centuries, the occasional something which gave a basis and a reality to tales of incubi and succubi. Until at last scientific theory caught up with folklore, made a place for it in the realm of indisputable phenomena, and gave it respectability.

With the discovery of the scientific hereafter, the irrational ghost became understandable as a demented mind inhabiting the misty interface between Earth and the hereafter. The forms of ghostly madness could be categorized like madness on Earth. There were the melancholies, drifting disconsolately through the scenes of their great passion; the whispering hebephrenic, chattering gay and random nonsense; the idiots and imbeciles who returned in the guise of little children; the schizophrenics who imagined themselves to be animals, prototypes of vampire and Abominable Snowman, werewolf, weretiger, werefox, weredog. There were the destructive stone-throwing and fire-setting ghosts, the poltergeists, and the grandiloquent paranoids who imagined themselves to be Lucifer or Beelzebub, Israfael or Azazael, the Spirit of Christmas Past, the Furies, Divine Justice, or even Death itself.

Haunting was madness. They wept by the old watch tower, these few ghosts upon whose gossamer shoulders rested the entire great structure of folklore, mingled with the mists around the gibbet, jabbered their nonsense at the seance. They talked, cried, danced and sang for the delectation of the credulous, until scientific observers came with their sober cold questions. Then they fled back to the Threshold, terrified of this onslaught of reason, protective of their delusions, fearful of being cured.

“So that's how it was,” Melhill said. “You can figure out the rest. Since Hereafter, Inc. a hell of a lot more people are surviving after death. But of course a lot more are going insane on the way.”

“Thus producing a lot more ghosts,” Blaine said.

“Right. One of them is after you,” Melhill said, his voice growing faint. “So watch your step. Tom, I gotta go now.”

“What kind of ghost is it?” Blaine asked. “Whose ghost? And why do you have to go?”

“It takes energy to stay on Earth,” Melhill whispered. “I'm just about used up. Have to recharge. Can you still hear me?”

“Yes, go on.”

“I don't know when the ghost will show himself, Tom. And I don't know who he is. I asked, but he wouldn't tell me. Just watch out for him.”

“I'll watch out,” Blaine said, his ear pressed to the loudspeaker. “Ray! Will I speak to you again?”

“I think so,” Melhill said, his voice barely audible. “Tom, I know you’re looking for a job. Try Ed Franchel, 322 West 19th Street. It's rough stuff, but it pays. And watch yourself.”

“Ray!” Blaine shouted. “What kind of a ghost is it?”

There was no answer. The loudspeaker was silent, and he was alone in the grey room.

14

322 West 19th Street, the address Ray Melhill had given him, was a small, dilapidated brownstone near the docks. Blaine climbed the steps and pressed the ground-floor buzzer marked Edward J. Franchel Enterprises. The door was opened by a large, balding man in shirtsleeves.

“Mr. Franchel?” Blaine asked.

“That's me,” the balding man said, with a resolutely cheerful smile. “Right this way, sir.”

He led Blaine into an apartment pungent with the odor of boiled cabbage. The front half of the apartment was arranged as an office, with a paper-cluttered desk, a dusty filing cabinet and several stiff-backed chairs. Past it, Blaine could see a gloomy living room. From the inner recesses of the apartment a solido was blaring out a daytime show.

“Please excuse the appearance,” Franchel said, motioning Blaine to a chair. “I'm moving into a regular office uptown just as soon as I find time. The orders have been coming in so fast and furious… Now sir, what can I do for you?”

“I'm looking for a job,” Blaine said.

“Hell,” said Franchel, “I thought you were a customer.” He turned in the direction of the blaring solido and shouted, “Alice, will you turn that goddamned thing down?” He waited until the volume had receded somewhat, then turned back to Blaine. “Brother, if business doesn't pick up soon I'm going back to running a suicide booth at Coney. A job, huh?”

“That's right. Ray Melhill told me to try you.”

Franchel's expression brightened. “How's Ray doing?”

“He's dead.”

“Shame,” Franchel said. “He was a good lad, though always a bit wild. He worked for me a couple times when the space pilots were on strike. Want a drink?”

Blaine nodded, Franchel went to the filing cabinet and removed a bottle of rye whiskey labelled “Moonjuice.” He found two shot glasses and filled them with a practiced flourish.

“Here's to old Ray,” Franchel said. “I suppose he got himself boxed?”

“Boxed and crated,” Blaine said. “I just spoke to him at the Spiritual Switchboard.”

“Then he made Threshold!” Franchel said admiringly. “Friend, we should only have his luck. So you want a job? Well, maybe I can fix it. Stand up.”

He walked around Blaine, touched his biceps and ran a hand over his ridged shoulder muscles. He stood in front of Blaine, nodding to himself with downcast eyes, then feinted a quick blow at his face. Blaine's right hand came up instantly, in time to block the punch.

“Good build, good reflexes,” Franchel said. “I think you'll do. Know anything about weapons?”

“Not much,” Blaine said, wondering what kind of job he was getting into. “Just — ah — antiques. Garands, Winchesters, Colts.”

“No kidding?” Franchel said. “You know, I always wanted to collect antique recoil arms. But no projectile or beam weapons are allowed on this hunt. What else you got?”

“I can handle a rifle with bayonet,” Blaine said, thinking how his basic-training sergeant would have roared at that overstatement.

“You can? Lunges and parries and all? Well I'll be damned, I thought bayonetry was a lost art. You’re the first I've seen in fifteen years. Friend, you’re hired.”

Franchel went to his desk, scribbled on a piece of paper and handed it to Blaine.

“You go to that address tomorrow for your briefing. You'll be paid standard hunter's salary, two hundred dollars plus fifty a day for every working day. Have you got your own weapons and equipment? Well, I'll pick the stuff up for you, but it's deducted from your pay. And I take ten percent off the top. OK?”