GHOSTBUSTERS: TERROR IN PARADISE (Fan Fiction)
PART I: TOUCH OF EVIL
Steam enveloped Cecelia as she stepped from the shower and stretched for her towel. Wrapped in the soft, bronze-coloured cotton, she leaned forward to wipe fog from the bathroom mirror and froze.
The noise was louder than it had ever been. Almost like a gunshot. It vibrated the walls and trembled up through the tiles beneath her feet.
She pinpointed the source instantly: the front door. The apartment was modest—two bedrooms with an ensuite upstairs, a second toilet, kitchen, laundry, lounge and small patio downstairs—and that solid fire door was the only thing capable of producing a bang that size.
Mysterious noises had plagued her for weeks. Sporadically at first, they came often now, and exclusively when she was alone and vulnerable: showering, on the toilet, hovering on the edge of sleep. When she worked at her laptop in the dining room, there was not a peep. Her second bedroom (the unfurnished one she’d planned to convert to a home office) was quieter than a cemetery. Her lounge was a haven, anchored by her parents’ housewarming gifts: ancestral shells and rocks from the Yugambeh people, a collection any indigenous Australian would be proud of.
Footsteps tramped methodically up the stairs. She should run.
From the top of the staircase, an intruder could turn left toward the empty second room or right toward hers. The footsteps veered her way.
She shivered beneath her towel.
Snap out of it, Cecelia! Naked beneath that towel or not, she should be hightailing it down the street. But how? On the legs she’d break leaping from the bedroom window? Because at this stage, that was the only exit. Both the front and rear patio doors were impossible to reach when the hallway was blocked by what sounded like a very large person.
Or none of this was real, as her recently dumped ex-boyfriend Eric had always insisted. “Probably imagining it,” he’d said, having never heard the noises himself. “Or a rodent problem.” During their final argument about it, she’d told him he wasn’t being supportive. He’d called her crazy. That had been the end of them.
The problem was that his words had planted doubt, and doubt had kept her from acting.
And yet there were incidents she’d found harder to dismiss. Happening in that liminal space between waking and sleep, when unseen hands began caressing her. On one occasion, they’d pinned her to the mattress. Eric had insisted it was sleep paralysis—a neural glitch, the body asleep while the brain floats half-conscious. That might have explained the bed incidents. It didn’t explain the sounds she heard while fully awake.
Scratching. Pattering. The kind a giant spider made crossing a wall, except she’d checked for spiders. Besides, her gut said it wasn’t critters in the drywall. Her gut had been saying that for weeks.
And now, the true culprit had smashed in her front door and thumped up her staircase.
A new thought surfaced, ugly and specific: what if it was Eric? Bitter at being dumped, willing to gaslight—
The footsteps halted as if he’d read her mind.
Patter patter patter. Along the ceiling. Across the skirting boards. Down the walls.
Could whatever was in her hallway be simultaneously inside the roof and the bathroom walls? Even Eric, at his most devious, wasn’t capable of that.
Pitter-patters crisscrossed the large frameless mirror in front of her. The steam stirred. Shapes emerged upon the glass like a dozen invisible fingers cutting through the condensation, each stroke accompanied by an irritating, protracted squeak.
Her mouth twitched. Her throat locked tight. A scream rose, desperate for a key.
This was not Eric. Nor a spider. This was not anything with a logical explanation.
The shapes connected. Letters formed. A simple, terrifying phrase:
Tonight you’re mine.
A chilly draft wafted across her face from an unseen source. The fog in the mirror parted, and a pinkish-purple skull drifted forward through the condensation. It had no ears or nose, just red eyes that crackled with electricity. Clawed hands shoved her from behind and pinned her against the basin. Those claws ripped the towel away. Defenseless, the key finally found her throat, and Cecelia released her scream.
The ensuite door crashed open. A fresh flood of cold air buffeted her. A new noise: something powering up. A red glow intensified at the edges of her vision, but she couldn’t turn her head to confirm the source. All she could do was brace herself and pray that when the demon killed her, it would be quick.
Glass exploded beside her face. Heat like she’d never imagined licked her skin. Smoke infiltrated her nostrils. There was a churning electrical buzz and flashes of orange and blue. Inside the small ensuite, the cacophony was deafening. She kicked forward against the vanity, freeing herself from those beastly hands, and screamed again. A deep, guttural roar joined the din—a cry of rage.
It might have been seconds or minutes before she reopened her eyes. Crouched beneath the sink, she had no memory of dropping there. Her face was sore and cut, possibly scorched. Around her was the broken mirror and globules resembling pink hair gel.
“Let me know when you’re decent,” a baritone said from around the corner.
Cecelia’s heart slammed as she eyed the bathroom door; it swung on its hinges, useless. “Whoever you are, I’m calling the police.” Total bluff. Her phone was under her pillow.
“You’re not dead,” the voice said, and then quieter, to himself, “that’s a first.”
“Who are you and what do you want? Touch me and… and I’ll rip it off!”
“Rip it off?”
“Your penis!”
“Thanks, I got it.” A pause. “Is that shrill tone because I singed you, or because I wrecked your bathroom? I guess it could be both.” The voice was moving closer. “When you report this, mentioning I was trying to save you might be worth including.”
A large man filled the splintered doorway. He wore an undersized khaki jumpsuit, its sleeves and trouser legs sheared to accommodate his size. The fabric above the left breast was torn and exposed a hairy nipple she found as unappealing as his black hair, which hung long and unkempt around his face. One hand was raised in surrender. The other covered his eyes. “Not looking,” he said, “in case your bits are showing.”
Using her arms to cover herself, she reached for the towel.
“Bad idea,” the man warned. “Glass shards might be in the fibers.”
“You said you weren’t looking!”
“You weren’t responding and I was worried.”
“Get me some clothes!”
He vanished into her bedroom. As he went, Cecelia registered a second tear in his coveralls: a small patch below the right shoulder. Messy, but at least he didn’t stink. Beachy, if anything.
Rummaging sounds came from the direction of her wardrobe. “There are a few choice dresses. A flashy little yellow number or—hey, this blue one with the white dots—”
“Those are clubbing dresses! Just get me jeans and a T-shirt!”
“Ugh, so shrill,” he said. More rummaging. “Jeans: check. I’ve also got a white shirt that says, Crazy? I prefer the term hilariously unstable.” He paused. “Perfect.”
“Just pass them in!”
His choices appeared around the corner. Cecelia shook her head at the novelty shirt, but was relieved she was dry enough that it wouldn’t turn transparent. She wrapped her damp hair into a bun and surveyed the bathroom. Merely grazed, her wounds had already started to coagulate. She rinsed them at the tap.
“We should debrief so you don’t accidentally tell the cops I was the attacker,” the man called from her bedroom.
“How do I know you weren’t?”
“You think I resemble that hairless dick?” He waved the comparison away when she stepped out to face him, and instead tugged at his hair and beard to demonstrate they were real.
Cecelia studied him. Wild-looking, yes. Dangerous-looking, less so. She cast around for a comeback. “You look like Charles Manson.”
He crossed to her dresser mirror, studied his reflection, and said mildly, “Fair. In my defense, there aren’t many reflective surfaces where I shower.”
“Where do your shower? A swamp?”
He looked at her for a moment. Then his face settled into something like ambivalence. “Good luck when that demon returns,” he said. “Try to remember things accurately when you talk to the po-po.” He moved in her direction.
She backed up and raised her fists. “I know Krav Maga.”
“The one that teaches penis-ripping?” He continued towards the stairs without breaking stride, leaving that faintly beachy scent in his wake. “Maybe threaten the monster with that next time. Not that demons have genitalia to tear off, but if you say it scary enough?” Gruffly, he mocked, “I know Krav Maga!” He shrugged. “Worth a shot.” He paused at the first-floor landing. “I’ll lean the door. You should drag something heavy against it. Won’t stop the demon, but, you know, strangers.”
Cecelia watched from the balustrade as he crunched over the splintered wood, propped the broken front door at a skewed angle over the entrance, and walked out into the night.
“Good riddance,” she said, surprised to feel a small, inconvenient flush of guilt. It must be his eyes, she decided, which were a warm hazel. And for a homeless person, he was surprisingly clean. Weirdest of all, there had been something steadying about his presence.
“So what?” she muttered to herself.
She was in the street after him before she’d decided to move. “Hey, you.”
“Hud,” he said, not stopping.
“Fine, grunt at me; way to sulk.”
“My name,” he said, pausing and tapping his chest as if talking to a non-English speaker, “is Hud.”
“Fine, Hud. You said demon. A ghost, like on the news?” His jumpsuit suddenly looked less like a random choice. “Are you with the—wait, are you a Ghostbuster? I’ve seen the ads about growing incidents. The Gold Coast branch seems to be constantly recruiting.”
“I definitely don’t work for them. Well,” he tilted his head as if weighing options. “Not officially.”
“But you did? Or you know someone in the compan—”
“I’m familiar with what attacked you because I’ve been tracking it. Trust me, they don’t know shit about what’s after you.”
“Why track it if you’re not an employee?” She grabbed the tatters of his sleeve and circled around him, angling him toward the streetlights. Secured to his back was a Compressed Neutrona Wand, the kind advertised for increased field-operative maneuverability. “Did you steal all this?”
“It was left to me.” He waved the topic away. “Look, all I want to do is bust that thing. If you can hold off calling the so-called professionals and let me handle it, I’ll solve this.”
“Solve? You’ve multiplied my problems!”
“Multi-pwha—?”
“You broke my door! I don’t own this place, and damage gets deducted from my bond.” She threw her hands up. “Forget it, I’m going to my mum’s.”
“When that thing latches onto someone,” Hud said, “it follows them.” He paused. “Might fancy her when it’s done with you.”
Cecelia’s stomach sank. “A motel, then.”
“Perfect. No big deal if you lure it there to kill strangers; who are they to you?”
She stared at him. “You’re not worried it’ll target you?”
He smiled bitterly. “If only it would.”
Inviting Hud back to her home ranked low on her list of desirables, but his honesty was difficult to argue with. “How are you with tools?”
“This?” He said, tilting his head to the device on his back. “Crack shot.”
“Regular tools,” she said. “Fix my door, and you can patrol all you want after that.”
He contemplated, then said, “Deal. Though I can’t mend it like new without proper material. Probably just enough to stop crooks waltzing in.”
The trees along the road rustled. The night breeze carried pine. Nature seemed to be validating her decisions.
“Come on,” she said. “But while you’re fixing the door, I have to call the Ghostbusters.”
He stopped. “What the hell—why?”
“It’s either them or the police. I have to report this.”
He looked pained. “You don’t have to.”
“I’ll do all the talking,” she said. “You can just eat something in the background.”
Hud’s lips moved as he continued to weigh his options. “Eat what?”
She rolled her eyes. “Whatever I have. Anyway, sharing what you know might help catch this thing faster.” She didn’t tell him the other reason for logging the incident: having someone official note Hud’s presence, just in case her instinct about him was wrong.
“This,” Hud said, thumbing the CNW over his shoulder, “is what will catch it.”
She scoffed. “If another mirror needs exploding, go for it.”
He shrugged, seemingly unoffended. “To make an omelette…”
“Yeah, well, my bathroom costs more than some broken eggs.”
“Get the materials, and I can fix that too.”
She’d believe it when she saw it. “Prove yourself with the front door first.”
Hud sighed. “Fine, make your call, but I won’t sacrifice my dignity to share what I know with one of them.”
“Whatever,” she said, and they started walking again.
“You’re my hero,” Hud said as they neared her unit. “That’s what you’ll be telling me when this is over.”
She halted him in front of the shattered entrance. “Let me be clear, my feeding you and letting you inside to fix what you broke is not an invitation for future interactions. You’re here for carpentry and a supernatural matter. After that, you go back to wherever you came from.”
He tilted his head. “So, dinner and a movie is out?”
As condescendingly as possible, Cecelia patted his chest. “I’ll fix the door myself.”
Hud raised his hands in surrender. “Obviously kidding. Not a date. I’ll help, then I’m gone.”
“Good,” she said, noting again how disarming the man was. Complicating things further were hints that beneath all that hair lurked a handsome guy. All worth vigilance. Charming men with kind eyes weren’t necessarily kind people. And handsome or not, there were limits to what she’d accept in a rebound, even hypothetically. Unemployed and homeless was firmly outside the boundary.
“Sacrifice your dignity,” Cecelia muttered as they crossed the smashed threshold of her home.
“You joke,” Hud said, “but only because you’ve never dealt with a Ghostbuster before.”
PART II: INVESTIGATION
“I thought you were fixing this,” Cecelia said through strained breaths, holding the front door an inch off the ground so it remained aligned with the newly drilled hinge holes.
“Use your body weight,” Hud suggested, upending an ice cream container full of assorted screws onto her kitchen bench with a loud clatter.
“Couldn’t you hold this while I found the screws?”
“Toned girl like you must go to the gym.” He sorted through the metal with the leisured calm of a man oblivious to her struggles.
“Do I look like I do weights?” Her whole body began shaking.
“Sounds like a trick question.” Then, glimpsing her about to set the door down: “That’ll set us back. Bad idea with all the crooks in the Goldy. They can spot an open door a mile away.”
Hair escaping from her bun, sweat stinging her eyes, she said, “Then get over here!”
“No point without the right screws.”
“It’s slipping!”
In three quick steps, the broad-shouldered man caught the door and lifted the weight cleanly off her. Cecelia stumbled and collapsed onto the carpet, fingers stiff from holding the door’s edges. Hud propped the door on his bare foot, held it in place with one hand, and used a power drill with the other to affix the correct hinge.
“You could have held it yourself?” she sputtered.
“We needed the right screws first.” He tested his work by swinging the door back and forth. “Ain’t no locking it,” he said, examining the demolished doorjamb, “but if we close it and lean something heavy against—”
Blue light pulsed across Hud’s face. The rumble of a heavy engine grew close.
“No siren,” he muttered. “Bummer.” He sulked to the sofa, crashed down, and stared at the blank TV.
With the overhead lights off, he was all shadows. It matched his mood, which had turned steadily darker since Cecelia had called the Ghostbusters’ Gold Coast branch. He’d complained in general terms about the organization without being specific, and when she’d jokingly sung ‘Who ya gonna call?’ from the ads, had said, “Keep going, and I drill a hole in my head instead of your wall.”
She’d rolled her eyes and filed the mystery away. In retrospect, it might have been her mix of prying, assumptions and singing that caused him to assign her door-holding duty.
“You think the original Ectomobile was an ambulance or hearse conversion?” she asked as the replica white 1959 Cadillac rolled into the driveway. If Hud had worked for them as she suspected, he ought to know.
“Don’t care,” he grunted. Then, more quietly: “I can admit to digging the siren though. Whoever they sent couldn't even get that right.”
Radiant bursts from the roof lights infiltrated the room, bathing everything in blue. Cecelia raised a hand against the glare. “They’re not going to siren the neighborhood for a ghost that’s already gone.”
Hud ignored her and groped beneath the sofa’s armrest for a recline lever that didn’t exist. He gave up and leaned back, yelped as the CNW dug into his spine, and grudgingly slid the weapon off its V-Hook to set it beside him.
“My deepest apologies none of this matches your usual high standards,” Cecelia said.
The engine died, but the lights remained on, keeping the approaching figure silhouetted until Cecelia opened the door wider. The foyer fluorescents brought him into sharp relief.
He cut a slim figure: a flight suit the same color as Hud’s, complemented by an army-style pistol belt, black leather jump boots and grey elbow pads. The rest of him was loaded with equipment. Hooked to the man’s left shoulder was a two-way radio; over his right hung a medium-sized box that connected via cord to a long, burnt mahogany-colored rod. A Proton Pack rode his back, a traditional Neutrona Wand latched along the right side. Clipped to his belt was a black, oblong-shaped device with a handle and folded silver wings. She recognized most of it from company ads; what everything did was another matter.
“Cecelia Winterstone?” His voice was precise and unhurried. Except for a clean-shaven, severe countenance, the investigator had the look of a local: tanned with sun-bleached hair.
“Yes.” Her voice broke slightly. There was something about having an armed professional standing officially in your doorway that made it suddenly, viscerally real.
“Gene Riscraven,” he said, tapping the surname patch stitched below his two-way. “Gold Coast Ghostbusters. You called in a supernatural disturbance?”
“Yes,” she said, clearing her throat and mining confidence. “Please, come in.”
He stepped inside and attempted to close the door behind him. Without a functioning latch, it refused.
“Your assailant did this?” he asked, helping her position two kitchen stools against the door.
“Tangentially,” she said and felt her face redden.
“Interesting.” He followed her to the stairwell and leaned his Proton Pack and the grey box with the rod against the newel post.
“Should I take you to the crime scene?”
“Soon,” he replied. “Let’s review what happened first.” He gestured to the dining table.
As she sat, Cecelia marveled at his composure. Riscraven made Hud, probably ten years older and far more typical of the men she knew, seem positively juvenile by comparison.
The Ghostbuster settled across from her and paused, head turning as he registered Hud for the first time.
“You involved in this, sir?”
From the shadows of the lounge, Hud sighed. “Intimately.” He unfolded from the sofa and prowled to the dining table, drawing the chair nearest Cecelia and sliding it conspicuously close. Sprinkles of sand cascaded off his tattered coveralls onto the tabletop as he sat. Cecelia frowned, wondering how much else he’d scattered around.
“How you wanna play this, Gene?” he asked, sweeping the sand onto the carpet. Cecelia bit her tongue.
The paranormal investigator sniffed as if expecting a smell to match the vagabond’s unkempt appearance. He studied Hud’s outfit. “A CWU-27/P coverall.”
Hud grinned. “Amazing what you can find at Pacas Op Shop.”
“Interesting.” Riscraven retrieved a small digital recorder from one of his many pockets, stated the date and time, and gave a brief scene summary. Then, “I’m sitting here with resident Cecelia Winterstone, aged…?” He lifted his eyebrows to her.
She cleared her throat. “Twenty-six.”
“Gender?”
“You don’t have to answer that,” Hud interrupted.
“It’s fine,” Cecelia said. “Female.”
“Race?”
“Indigenous Australian.”
He shifted his eyes to Hud. “Also present is…?”
“Yes, present.”
“Your name,” Riscraven said, with the patience of someone paid to deal with difficult people.
“Hud. That’s singular, like Banksy, Prince or Coolio.” He crossed himself in respect to the deceased.
“Your relationship to Miss Winterstone?”
“Protector.”
“No,” Cecelia said. “We don’t have a…” She frowned. “I mean, yes, he arrived at a time when I was—”
“Put my race as Afro-Cuban,” Hud said to Riscraven. “It’ll avoid the whole white savior issue.”
“An Afro-Cuban male?” Riscraven asked.
Hud laughed.
“Hud interrupted the attack,” Cecelia said. “Savior implies the danger is over. I won’t be safe until that thing is contained.”
“And the thing,” Hud said, “is a class seven demon.”
“We won’t know the class or species until I’ve investigated,” Riscraven said, pulling out his phone and opening an app Cecelia didn’t recognize. “Please describe what you saw, Miss Winterstone.”
“I could simply tell you which demon,” Hud said.
Riscraven’s gaze shifted to Hud. “We follow protocol for a reason, Mr Hud. And that means we don’t guess.”
“It’s Spitswapper,” Hud said.
The Ghostbuster studied him long enough to let the comment register and short enough to refuse engagement. “Miss Winterstone. In your own words.”
“It was foggy when it appeared,” she said.
“It produced vapors?” Riscraven asked, using the app to input her response.
“No,” Cecelia said. “I’d been in the shower.”
“I see,” Riscraven stated. “And its guise?” At her blank look, he explained: “Most entities are ethereal. When it serves them to be seen, they manifest a guise. Some possess a living host. Others self-manifest. Think of it like a startle display—a praying mantis flashing bright colors to simulate eyes, or a frill-neck lizard expanding its frill. An exaggeration of form designed to frighten prey.”
“I wasn’t facing it,” Cecelia said. “It was hard to see properly. But in the mirror, before I was… pinned, I saw a purplish skull, red eyes that crackled.”
“Pinned,” Riscraven noted. “Had it tried this before?”
“A couple of times in bed, though I never saw it. Thought I might’ve been dreaming.” She described the incidents, glancing at Hud as she finished. He had dropped the facetious act and was listening carefully.
“And the grip? Firm or soft? Single appendage or multiple? Any residue?”
“Firm hands. Two, I think. No residue on the bed. But there's some kind of gunk in the bathroom.”
“Any other phenomena? Scratching, tapping—things in the walls?”
Cecelia’s lips compressed. “In the walls. Scratching, mostly. Tapping, like tiny feet. We—I thought it might be insects.”
“We?” Riscraven’s gaze flicked between Cecelia and Hud.
“Not me,” Hud said. “I know insects can’t pin you to the bed.”
“My ex-boyfriend,” Cecelia clarified and sank a little in her chair.
“He witnessed these occurrences?” Riscraven asked.
Cecelia shook her head.
Riscraven kept typing into his phone. “That’s it?”
“On the mirror, just before it attacked,” she continued, “it wrote: ‘Tonight, you’re mine’.”
“Interesting. A statement of ownership.” Riscraven glanced up. “It’s a shame you didn’t get a clearer visual of it.”
“I know exactly what it looks like,” Hud said. “I’ve seen it plenty of times.”
“Very well, Mr Hud,” Riscraven said, waiting for the man to proceed.
“It’s Spitswapper.”
The corners of the Ghostbuster’s mouth twitched. “No conclusions yet.”
“Look it up in your Tobin’s Spirit Guide app.”
“We don’t start with conclusions,” Riscraven stated. “It can taint our memories of what we actually saw.”
Hud sighed and threw his hands up. “It’s an ocean dweller. That’s not a hypothesis; I’ve seen it there.”
“I presume you reside at the beach?” Riscraven sniffed again.
“For now.”
“And your description of the entity?”
From the look on Riscraven’s face as Hud spoke, he was not expecting the level of detail he received.
“When it materializes,” Hud began, “its guise is bald. No ears, no nose. Red eyes, occasionally electric. The head exists purely from crown to upper jaw, which ends jaggedly in a row of sharp teeth. No lower jaw. Long tongue that whips out from the neck during an attack to latch on.” He took a breath. “Body is narrow at the top and flares at the base, like a wire-frame dress from a few centuries back. Floats, no legs. Arms are sinewy but strong. Two hands, three fingers and a thumb on each. Yellow claws. Overall color is purplish-pink, and it’s covered in protruding veins. Pulsing cords, basically. It looks,” he said, and apparently decided there was no more charitable way to put it, “like a giant dick in a dress.”
Cecelia frowned. “You should get yourself checked.”
“Didn’t say my dick.”
“Moving on,” Riscraven suggested, more interested in Hud than before. “Behavior?”
“Fast. Fifty or sixty kilometers per hour, probably. Slows during an attack. Leaves goo behind—the pink stuff in her bathroom. I’ve never seen anything coated in it react to emotional states, which points to ectoplasm rather than psychomagnotheric slime. But you’ll want to test it.”
A new expression crossed Riscraven’s face, something that might have been astonishment in a more demonstrative person. “It’s behavior during an attack,” he said, composure recovered. “You mentioned it attaches to a host?”
Whatever detail came next seemed to weigh on Hud. “The tongue wraps around the pinned victim. And then…” He set his hands flat on the table. “It fills them with some kind of poison. I think. I saw a victim once. She looked bloated. Like a drowned body.”
Riscraven noted this without comment. “Anything else?”
“Nope,” Hud said, quiet now.
The Ghostbuster pocketed his recorder and silently read from the app on his phone. Finally, he turned the screen so they could see: high-definition images of the monster, complete with a close-up of its tongue. It made Cecelia’s stomach turn.
“Is this what you saw?”
“You know it is,” Hud said.
“I need to examine the bathroom to be certain,” Riscraven said, “but I’m nearly convinced your attacker is a unique, class seven, semi-corporeal, free-roaming Metaspectre called Reponere Furantur.”
“Commonly called?” Hud prompted.
Riscraven hesitated. “Spitswapper.”
Hud winked at Cecelia. The name, now confirmed, landed with a revolting concreteness. “I’m going to be sick,” Cecelia said.
“If it is Spitswapper,” Riscraven said, standing and moving for the door, “it’s extremely dangerous. We’ve been pursuing it for decades. Its total victims are small relative to how long it’s been active, but when it strikes, it’s lethal. You’re lucky to be alive.”
“Mm-hm,” Hud agreed smugly.
Riscraven paused at the front door. “I need to get another piece of equipment from the vehicle. Please excuse me.”
When the Ghostbuster had gone, Hud shook his head. “Franchising diluted the service. He spent half that interview on his phone. Anybody can Google.”
“Bitterness out of your system yet?” Cecelia asked.
Hud chuckled. “It’s got the lifespan of a Proton Pack.”
Riscraven re-entered and sealed the door with the stools. The grey box with the wooden-colored rod hung over his shoulder again. On his head sat a pair of green goggles with protruding black-and-silver lenses. In his hand: a transparent cylinder roughly three feet long. It was attached to a thick, transparent disc, wider than the cylinder and covered in lights. It looked like a storage chamber on wheels. The Ecto-Vac, she’d later learn, though for now she simply tracked it with curiosity.
“Franchising,” Riscraven said, as if he’d heard every word from the driveway, “was unavoidable. Closing the gateway at Central Park West in eighty-four didn’t stop supernatural seepage. It wouldn’t be feasible for the founders to globe-trot from North Moore Street forever. As for a layperson Googling their way to a diagnosis? That’s like a sick person on Web MD. There are hundreds of supernatural species across the seven paranormal classes. Superficially similar entities can be vastly different in temperament and require entirely different approaches. That's why we follow protocol.”
“Does a technically accurate label change how you bust it?” Hud asked.
“It adjusts how we approach it,” Riscraven said.
Cecelia caught Hud’s eye and gave him a look that said, forfeit. He did, shutting his eyes and raising both eyebrows in the wordless gesture of a man conceding the minimum possible ground.
“Some good news on Spitswapper,” Riscraven continued, leading them toward the stairs. “By all accounts, it can conduct a physical assault only once per twenty-four-hour cycle before it needs to recharge.”
“Recharge?” Cecelia asked.
“It burns significant energy flying and corporealizing. The burst of a full attack drains the rest. However, because staying incorporeal costs far less, Spitswapper can spend months taunting a target—scratching walls, tapping ceilings—before committing to a strike. Prey that’s psychologically exhausted and incapacitated by fear is easier to take.”
“Isn’t that good news?” Hud said.
Upstairs, Riscraven fitted his Ecto-Goggles and unhooked his Ghost Sniffer—a Bacharach 500 model, which he made a point of naming when Hud called it “one of their little toys.” He also raised his PKE meter, the winged device she’d seen in the company’s ads, and let both instruments guide him around the bedroom. The PKE’s wings rose as he neared the bathroom, lights pulsing faster.
“The tapping in the walls,” Riscraven said, pausing in the doorway. “It occurs in the bedroom and ensuite. What about other rooms?”
“The downstairs toilet too. Not the kitchen.”
“Very helpful,” he said and asked them to wait while he examined the bathroom. Cecelia watched from the doorway as he activated the Ecto-Vac, which hummed like a low-voltage vacuum and then behaved like one, a forward-facing laser targeting the pink globules on the tiles and drawing them up into the storage chamber above. When it stopped, every trace of slime had been collected.
“Usually we’d only sample evidence,” Riscraven said, flipping his goggles up, “but the lab will appreciate extra for testing.”
“Would've got more points pretending you were being helpful,” Hud observed.
Riscraven cleared his throat. “My goggles convert the Sniffer and PKE data into visual information. I can confirm the residue is ectoplasm and that the particle density here is consistent with a Spitswapper event. This is, indeed, your problem.”
Hud slapped his own cheek in mock surprise. Cecelia ignored him. “If it had succeeded tonight,” she said carefully, “what would it have… done?”
“No point scaring yourself now when it’s not coming back tonight,” Hud said.
“It will be back, though,” Riscraven said. “Spitswapper doesn't stop until it’s completed its goal.”
“Which is?”
Hud stepped back from the bathroom doorway and crossed his arms against the bedroom wall. “You’ll regret this,” he said quietly.
Like he was explaining an ant crawls, the Ghostbuster said, “It swaps spit with you.”
Cecelia shook her head slowly. “Come again?”
“The common name should make it obvious. Its tongue is a proboscis. It drains saliva from your body while simultaneously pumping its own into you. Hence: Spitswapper. The ectoplasm in the bathroom was essentially its drool, and only appears during an active attack.”
Cecelia walked in a daze to the staircase.
“You good?” Hud asked and took a step towards her.
She flew down the stairs, through the kitchen, through the laundry, and emptied her stomach into the second toilet.
When she returned, damp-faced from splashing water on herself, Hud nodded in recognition. “I had the same reaction.” He turned to Riscraven. “One thing I’ve never worked out is why it likes the ocean?”
The sincere question visibly elevated Riscraven’s posture. “Salt water is an excellent conductor of electricity. The salt molecules—sodium and chloride ions—allow Spitswapper to recharge efficiently. The ocean is, essentially, its power source.”
“Hmph,” Hud said, as if he should have figured this out himself. “That solves that then. So, now you agree on what we’re dealing with, what’s the plan?”
Riscraven consulted another app and scrolled in contemplative silence. Hud and Cecelia exchanged a side-glance.
“This is a team job,” Riscraven said at last. “Spitswapper’s reflexes have proven too quick for a single field operative. Flanking with a series of feints and parries can box it for a trap. Given the trouble this thing has caused us over the decades, I should have no shortage of volunteers to return tomorrow.”
Hud groaned.
“One final thing,” Riscraven continued, gesturing to the bathroom. “How was your mirror destroyed. Property damage doesn’t usually accompany Spitswapper’s attacks.”
Cecelia flushed. “Oh,” she said, glancing at Hud. “Maybe it wanted to up the scare factor?”
“Was there any other unexplained activity you forgot to mention? Objects moving? A possible secondary spirit? Poltergeists are a common example.”
“Guess that makes me a noisy ghost,” Hud said, raising his hand. With a look, he reassured Cecelia he knew what he was doing. “I saw Spitswapper in the doorway. Fired a proton stream at it from my CNW.”
Riscraven went very still. “You fired a proton stream at this young lady?” He shook his head. “But there’s no way you have a Compressed Neutrona Wand.” His chin tilted up. “That’s proprietary Ghostbusters technology.”
“It was a gift.”
Riscraven stared at him for a long moment and then took a giant step forward. “Where is it?”
“What’s the big deal? You don’t need a license to—”
“You absolutely do! Even if you didn’t, you’d need training.”
“Really?” Hud said through a half-smile. “I’ve seen footage of your co-founders back in the late twentieth. If that’s the product of training...”
Outraged like mooned royalty, Riscraven said, “They were completely professional! But you… you… even if you had training, without a Muon Trap, all you would have done is temporarily stun the thing, get it furious, and then release it the moment your stream cut. And even if you had a trap—” he was accelerating now, arms beginning to flail, “—how long before the battery fails? Where would you transfer the entity? You have no Ecto Containment Unit.”
“Well, where’s your ghost trap?” Hud asked.
“In the Ectomobile!”
Hud regarded him patronizingly. “What good is it in there?”
“I don’t need it here; we’ve established Spitswapper won’t be back tonight!”
“You were only confident about that after your examination.”
“I…” Flabbergasted, Riscraven stormed across the carpet and tried to spin the much larger Hud around by the shoulder. The attempt was feeble, but it gave Riscraven sight of the CNW on its V-Hook. He staggered back as if struck.
“Gozer’s Minions! It’s real. You can’t have that.”
“It was a gift,” Hud repeated pleasantly. “I have ownership papers under Hudgins.”
The effect on Riscraven was instant. His hysteria went somewhere quiet and managed, and the stoicism he’d arrived with began to reassemble. “Hudgins?” he said.
“Authenticate it,” Hud told him. “Go ahead.”
Riscraven’s eyes moved over Hud’s coveralls again, slowly this time. Taking in the torn fabric at the right arm. The hole at the left breast where a nametag had been ripped free. “You were a Ghostbuster,” he said, not a question. “They removed your insignia. Which branch? Not ours.”
“Sydney. Three years ago.”
“National HQ,” Riscraven said. “There haven’t been redundancies in decades. Meaning, you were fired.” He paused. “Disgraced, unable to find work, you ended up here. Homeless.”
“Field workers don’t need PhDs anymore,” Hud said, “but listen to you.” He offered a slow, deliberate clap. “You’re a legit Doctor.”
Mistaking the compliment as genuine, Riscraven said, “Parapsychology is required. I attained my doctorate earlier this year. Psychology is optional.” He paused as if building suspense. “I opted.”
“Dr Gene,” Hud said and clapped again.
“Dr Riscraven. I don’t insist on the title in the field. Some might say, ‘But you spent years earning it.’ What they don’t realise is that arrogance doesn’t serve a field agent. Puts people at a distance. So, I let my work speak for itself.”
“That you do,” Hud said.
There was an awkward silence. Then, from behind, an unusual sound. Like the advance of tiny feet. They pattered along the walls. Growing louder.
Riscraven turned to Cecelia. Her expression turned him white. “But, it can’t be,” he said. “Not yet.”
Cecelia began to shake.
PART III: DEMON IN PARADISE
“No need for concern,” Riscraven said, scanning with his PKE meter. “These Nomex suits offer substantial protection against ectoplasmic substances.”
Cecelia and Hud looked at their own clothing: her novelty T-shirt, his tattered coveralls. “You think we can all squeeze in?” Hud asked the Ghostbuster.
“Maybe we should head to my lounge,” Cecelia said. “I think of my indigenous artifacts bother it.”
“Thinking demons respect cultural or religious artifacts is a misconception propagated by pop culture,” Riscraven said, trailing his PKE around the room. “A ghost might respond to totems from its own religious life. A demon has no such past.”
It was hard to say why this bothered her. Perhaps she’d found quiet comfort in believing those pieces from her heritage held power; that they were more than beautiful relics.
The PKE meter’s wings flew to their limit and began beeping wildly. Riscraven’s composure cracked. “Reponere Furantur,” he said.
“But you said it couldn’t recharge this fast,” Cecelia said, heart climbing. She edged toward Hud without thinking. Having him beside her was unexpectedly steadying.
“Exactly,” Riscraven said, his voice careful now. “Hence why this is so—”
“Interesting?” Hud proposed.
“Indeed.” He slid the meter into its holster. “I’m going to get my pack and a trap.”
“All good,” Hud said, unhooking his CNW. “I’ve got just the condom to bag this ugly dick.” He flicked the Activate switch near the handle, and the bass-whine of the unit powering up filled the room.
“Wait!” Riscraven was halfway down the stairs. He started back up. “You are not licensed to use that. Switch it o—”
The pattering on the walls rushed into the stairwell like an accelerating drumroll. A timpani slammed directly behind the Ghostbuster.
“Your gear!” Cecelia shouted at him.
“Yes, but—” He never finished the thought. A purple-pink blur materialized from the wall at his back. The demon corporealized fully, arms outstretched, claws landing hard on Riscraven’s shoulders. It lifted him an inch off the ground and drove him up the remaining stairs like he weighed nothing, his legs dragging behind him, feet catching each step. The violence of it stretched a mask of horror across Riscraven’s face.
Instinctively, Hud put an arm around Cecelia—support or self-comfort, she couldn’t tell—and they braced for impact.
A foot from collision, Spitswapper abruptly halted, and Cecelia got her first complete look at it. It spanned nearly six and a half feet from the crown of its skull to the flare of its lower torso. Absent a lower jaw, its gaping maw gave the impression of something built entirely for feeding. Its red eyes crackled like tiny erupting volcanoes. Those pulsing veins she’d seen on the Ghostbuster’s app made her want to vomit again.
“Do… something…” the Ghostbuster begged.
“Get back,” Hud told Cecelia, moving her behind him and raising the CNW.
Before he could fire, the demon’s tongue whipped from its purplish throat and curled around Riscraven’s face. Hud tried to find a shot, but Spitswapper kept shifting, using the Ghostbuster as an ever-moving shield.
“It’s… starting to—” A gargling noise replaced Riscraven’s voice. Slime seeped from the corners of his eyes like tears. The tongue widened, covering his face almost entirely. His eyes, the only visible part of him, rolled back to white. A sick, gurgling sound rose, and the Ghostbuster began to throb and contort like a ball being inflated and deflated in alternating breaths.
“Shoot!” Cecelia pleaded.
“I’ll hit him!” Hud circled, but wherever he aimed, Spitswapper pivoted.
Cecelia lunged forward and grabbed Riscraven around the waist, trying to pry him free. The demon’s tongue only widened. Riscraven’s arms flailed limply.
“Pull him sideways and keep your head low!” Hud shouted, flanking hard to get around the demon, which only pivoted again.
“Pull left!”
Confused and panicked, Cecelia yanked Riscraven right. When Hud shouted to go the other way, she confused things again. Anticipating her mistake this time, Hud darted in the opposite direction and found his angle. He pressed the firing button and unleashed a torrent of orange and blue particles at the demon’s exposed side.
Spitswapper unfurled its tongue and roared, dropping Riscraven lifelessly at Cecelia’s feet.
Hud stepped over the Ghostbuster in a single stride, the proton stream tearing long sparking strips from the walls and ceiling as he chased the demon out of the room and into the hallway. Even over the noise of the CNW, Cecelia heard him shouting curses. The demon’s veins pulsed as its claws raked the air. It struck back once and then vanished through the wall. Hud was leaping down the stairs after it before Cecelia’s voice stopped him.
“Call an ambulance! Gene’s still alive, but not for long!”
Hud turned and took in the Ghostbuster laid out on the carpet. “But the demon—”
“Now!”
She had Riscraven on his side in the recovery position before she’d fully thought it through, muscle memory from the first aid training she’d done two years ago. A trickle of slime dribbled from Riscraven’s mouth, but a finger probe suggested no blockage. She rolled him gently to his back, checked his airway and listened for breathing. Nothing. Heart still hammering under her fingers, but no breath. She tilted his head and gave two rescue breaths, then immediately worried she’d worsened a blockage she couldn't see.
Practice drills were one thing. This was another entirely.
“I don’t have a phone!” Hud called from the stairs. “Can you use his two-way?”
She unclipped it from his shoulder and tried to turn it on. Nothing. “The slime must have shorted it out!”
“Where’s your phone?”
She couldn’t remember. It was never in the same spot. Out of the blue, an idea struck her. She cast around frantically. Riscraven’s car keys were within reach. She threw them toward the stairs. “Ectomobile! Car radio!”
She heard him take the stairs in three bounds, knock the door-holding stools aside, and run out.
Monitoring Riscraven felt like an eternity. Every few seconds, she’d check his airway and try to clear whatever blocked it. Slime came out in trickles; nothing more. The thought of the demon returning circled her mind. It had already surpassed tonight’s supposed recharge window. What would she do if it came back for her while she was crouched over an unconscious man on the carpet?
Hud returned at a run, a two-way pressed to his ear like it was a phone. He dropped a ghost trap near the bathroom door and set Gene’s Proton Pack against the opposite wall. “Just hurry,” he said into the radio and clicked it off.
“Did you tell them he’s not breathing? Should I keep giving him breaths? His heart’s still beati—”
“They said not to worry about it.”
“Not to worry about it? He’s going to die!”
“This isn’t physical, it’s mystical. The Ghostbuster I spoke with said that as long as one of us maintains physical contact with Riz, he’ll hold. Even a toe is enough.”
“That makes no sense!”
“Does anything about tonight make sense?” He checked that Cecelia’s hands were still on the Ghostbuster, and then settled against the wall opposite her. “A Brisbane unit is on its way, but they’re working another job first. Hours off.” He laid the PKE meter beside Riscraven’s leg, still humming and blinking steadily. “This should warn us if dick appears without drumming the walls first.”
“Why would his dick appear?”
“Not his. I mean Spitswapper.”
“Just call it that or the demon!”
Hud sighed and placed the CNW within her reach. “For you. I’ll use the big one.”
She adjusted herself so she could pick the device up without breaking contact with Riscraven. The scaled-down Particle Thrower was light and barely the length of her forearm—triangular in shape, like a paper airplane. The handle buttons were labelled but ambiguous enough that using it would not come naturally without guidance.
“Be careful with it. It was a gift.”
She opened her mouth to ask about this when Hud’s stomach interrupted.
“My bad,” he said.
“There’s pizza and Pepsi in the fridge,” she said. “Help yourself.” She had promised him food for the door, after all.
“I’m not thrilled at leaving you alone if Spits comes back.”
“If it comes back,” she said, “it’ll come up here.” She dragged Hud’s leg over to rest on Riscraven. “Back in a sec.”
“Wait! Take the CNW. All you gotta do is flick the Activate switch on the left. Point the nozzle and push Intensify. Then hold on; it kicks.”
“And Gene made it sound so difficult,” she said, winking in a way that felt very Hud before hurrying downstairs.
She returned shortly carrying cold pizza, fruit, and a half-bottle of Pepsi. The apple and mandarin rolled off the pizza box as she lowered herself to the carpet.
“All yours,” she said, swapping back to Riscraven-contact duty.
Hud nodded thanks and dug in without ceremony. “I’ll try not to spill on your carpet.”
They both looked at the eviscerated walls at the same moment, then at the mirror shards on the bathroom floor, and something in the absurdity of it all cracked open between them.
“If you didn't laugh,” Cecelia said, through fits of giggles she couldn’t stop.
Hud nodded, settling. “Plus, I ran out of tears years ago.”
The words landed with weight. The giggles died, and in the quiet that followed, she wondered about his past again.
He was quicker than her, and on his third slice of pizza, asked about her ex. “Unless it’s too raw to discuss.”
“Not raw,” she half-lied. “We only dated a few months. Ending it was my decision.”
“Doesn’t mean it was painless,” he said, a little too astutely.
She told him the story and how, in the end, it was not the mysterious noises but Eric’s failure to hear her that caused the breakup.
“Communication is key,” Hud said. “Only works when it’s both ways.”
“Exactly.” She was briefly surprised at his perception. “Is that why you’re mad at the Ghostbusters?”
“Is Cecelia a common indigenous name?”
She was so startled by his question that she answered without challenging his deflection. “I was named after my great-aunt. From Vanuatu.”
“Vanuatu?” he asked, hunching forward.
“We were brought over as blackbirding. A term for what slavers did,” she explained. “Kidnapping was easier for them than cutting sugarcane themselves.”
Hud sank a little. “Our past sucks.”
“Wish I could say Dad’s ancestry fared better. My indigenous side comes from him, from the Gurang tribe. You’d know their land as Bundaberg.”
The slice of pizza in Hud’s hand drooped until it was about to fall. “How did he get the surname Winterst—”
“Your turn to answer my question. Why the dislike?”
He reached for the Pepsi and swung it too quickly to his lips. It frothed and spurted out of his mouth. He coughed and wiped his beard with the back of his hand, eyes watering when he looked at her. “Smooth,” he croaked.
When their laughter faded this time, a different kind of quiet followed, and Hud’s expression shifted.
“Lenora was fearless,” he said. “My wife.” He clarified. “Bloody stubborn, that woman. Probably why she suited the job. You remind me of her. I know that sounds like a come-on, but I’m serious.”
“Bloody stubborn isn’t the come-on you think it is,” she said.
“Determined?”
“Better. Is she a Ghostbuster, too?”
“She was the Ghostbuster,” he said. “Sydney had the first Australian branch, converted from Woollahra Fire Station. We’d known the building our whole lives; we met in grade three at the school across the road. Lenora was always interested in the emergency services. Wanted to help people.” He paused. “That urge made more sense once I understood her father. It’s unfortunate you can’t help the families you’re born into.” He didn't elaborate, and his expression said not to ask. “He was bumped off by a bookie when she was fifteen. You’d think that was a win. It was, for a while. Until he reappeared four years later. The Ghostbusters came, zapped and trapped him, and just like that, Lenora found her calling.”
It made sense. What remained mysterious was Hud’s hostility toward the profession.
“We married when she was twenty, still a cadet,” he continued. “Any emergency-service job is a serious commitment—I’d reconciled already—but I wasn’t prepared for how much of her it would consume. PhD study, on-the-job training. I saw Lenora most when I’d be working a site, and her Ecto tore past.”
“Site?”
“I was a tradie,” he said. “On my way to managing a crew,” he added, but as if it barely mattered. “She was the one to be proud of. She was helping people the way she’d always wanted to. But there’s more to life than work.”
No arguments from Cecelia there. Her job at the bank was far from a vocation.
“And instead of talking to her about it, I kept quiet. She was following her calling, and I didn't want to ask her to give that up. Instead, I looked into whether there was another role in the company that might be equally fulfilling. Turns out she’d been considering it herself. R&D. Nine to five, better pay, advancement opportunities.”
“That sounds like good news,” Cecelia said.
The way Hud’s face fell told her the story wouldn’t end on it.
“She applied and got it,” he said through a bitter smile. “The week before the transfer, she was working a gig at a massage parlour off Hall Street, close to the beach. It was late at night, the rest of her crew were on other jobs, and the dispatch had made it sound like a routine investigation.” He swallowed. “So Lenora went alone. The entity appeared. She fired at it with her CNW, but it didn’t stay corporeal and flew off before she could hit it.”
He reached for the Pepsi and found it empty. His eyes went equally vacant.
“I’d fallen asleep on the couch that night. Whenever that happened, she’d wake me after her shower and bring me to bed. So I was confused when I woke the following morning still on the couch.”
He stopped and pressed his eyes shut. When he opened them, they were adrift in something Cecelia didn’t want to name.
“She was in the ensuite. Bloated and slick with pink slime. Like a drowned body.” His voice cracked. “I was going to do CPR. Refusing to believe what I already knew. And as I leaned over her, I heard the tapping on the walls. Around the bathroom, just like in your place. The demon appeared behind me and fled before I could react. I ran out after it, caught its trail: a red blur headed for the ocean. Too fast to follow. What could I do, anyway? I didn’t even know how to turn the damn CNW on back then.”
“I’m so sorry,” Cecelia said.
“Before calling anyone, I hid her CNW. When the boys in grey arrived, I told them it was missing. I kept her uniform too. They let me, provided they could strip the insignia first. Impersonating a Ghostbuster is a federal offense.” He pulled at the torn fabric. “I probably should have let them do the stripping themselves. But I was furious, and I wanted them to know it. Might have made a slight spectacle of myself when I collected her things at the branch.”
“I probably would have done the same,” Cecelia said.
“I kept her two-way as well,” he said. “It picks up incoming calls and ghost sightings like a police scanner. I used it to track anything matching Spitswapper’s description. Learned the name that way, too. Problem was, the damn thing was always gone before I could reach it. Ghostbusters didn’t fare any better. Their forensic units would come for samples, but none of their findings amounted to much.”
“And you chased it all the way here?”
“Spits vanished from Sydney the one time I took a shot at it. Must have been fed up with me. Weeks passed, then months. I became obsessed with finding it. Eventually, I quit my job and sold everything except for the car, the two-way and the CNW. Lived out of the car for a while; that and my savings. Thankfully, I still had enough fuel to get me here when the Queensland branches started logging sightings. Ran out of savings shortly after, sold the car, and made a home on the beach at Surfers. That was,” he seemed to be counting. “About four years ago.”
“Four years on the beach?”
He raised a hand against the look on her face. “I knew it would need the ocean. I had the shoreline. It wasn't the most thought-out plan, but I made it work—sheltered behind a sand dune, golf umbrella for the other sides, CNW wrapped in plastic and buried under me at night so nobody could take it. Travelled the shoreline every evening, waiting. And then, one night, it burst out of the water, meters from where I was sleeping. I followed it a little further each night until I knew where it was going.” He looked at her. “Your apartment block.”
“You’ve sacrificed a lot,” Cecelia said. “I might have considered myself lucky you finally found it tonight… if you had a flipping ghost trap!”
“You make four years of hunting sound like a fool’s errand.”
“With no way to actually catch your quarry? You think?”
He lifted the rectangular Muon Trap by its handle. “Or was it?”
“Don’t give luck too much credit,” she said. Then, beside her, the PKE meter’s beeping intensified. The wings were rising.
Patter patter patter. Tearing up the walls.
“Tonight again?” Cecelia said, incredulous. She squeezed her foot further beneath Riscraven’s torso and collected the CNW off the carpet, cradling it tightly.
“This demon really has the hots for you,” Hud said, jumping up and scanning the room.
Cecelia flicked the Activate switch on the CNW. It powered up with a resonant ding. Hud strapped on the full-size Proton Pack, located the right switches, and brought the Neutrona Wand to life.
“Flanking is going to be harder with you anchored,” he said. “I’ll try and push it between us when it corporealizes. Soon as one stream snares it, the other cuts theirs and throws the trap.” He placed the Muon Trap beside her leg and held up the connected foot pedal. “Stamp once to open it. Stamp again to activate the pull. And two things I learned from the scanner: we cannot cross our streams, and don’t look at the trap when it opens.”
“Okay,” she said. Her heart was a fist against her ribs.
“You’ve got this,” Hud said when he saw her shaking. “We’ve got the tools.”
“If only we had the talent,” she said, and managed a nervous laugh.
Hud stalked the noise around the room. The longer it circled without appearing, the worse Cecelia’s anxiety climbed. Her palms were slick. She was close to pressing Intensify on nothing when the tapping rushed into the ensuite and began drumming on the tiles. The shards of mirror on the bathroom floor began to slide, not randomly, but with the deliberate, gathering momentum of things being collected for launch.
Recognizing the threat, Hud moved to the damaged bathroom door and tried to force it shut. Too warped to sit in its frame, it kept tilting back. “Better slide from the doorway,” he told Cecelia. “In case it—argh!”
He hoisted the door like a shield as a hail of mirror blades launched from the ensuite. Breaking glass crashed and echoed behind the wood. Hud pressed his weight against the door and held it there.
“Any get through?” he asked.
Jacked with adrenaline, she doubted she’d have felt it. She checked herself and shook her head.
Hud backed from the door, Neutrona Wand trained on it. “Get ready.”
The door rattled with a violent pounding. The rhythm leapt to the adjacent wall, then the ceiling. Hud followed it around the room. During his third lap, he slowed.
“Where’d you go, ugly?”
Cecelia held her breath.
She saw the tongue first; the purplish muscle unfurling in the reflection of the bedroom window like the proboscis of a mutant butterfly. The rest of the demon materialized behind it, and she understood the approach immediately: it had angled itself so that Hud’s body stood between it and a clean shot from her.
“Duck!” Cecelia screamed.
Hud dropped. Cecelia pressed Intensify, and an orange-blue proton stream rocketed from the wand’s tip, juddering her whole arm. The demon anticipated it and darted sideways. The bolt smashed through the window into the night.
It turned its full attention to Cecelia. The maw widened. The tongue shot toward her.
She fired again. The demon pivoted, but Hud’s stream entered from the opposite side, pushing it back toward her.
Her beam connected and she shouted with triumph.
Spitswapper writhed within the proton lasso, the noise from two weapons deafening in the small room. When Hud cut his stream and crawled for the Muon Trap, she barely registered the movement. She was only aware when the black-and-yellow gates at the trap’s top sprang wide and a white flash erupted from it.
Blazing colors splashed the room.
Foot raised above the pedal, Hud’s face was alive with something that wasn't entirely triumph and wasn’t entirely grief. The moment he’d spent years chasing was here. The demon twisted in the proton lasso and fixed its crackling red eyes on him. Hud grinned.
“You’ll get no pleasure from this box, dick!”
Down slammed his foot. An extra-intense torrent of light rocketed from the trap, which whined and bucked as it dragged Spitswapper in. Cecelia killed her stream and turned away. The demon’s howl cut sharply off. The light died.
A quiet beeping sounded from the trap. A curl of smoke rose from it.
Hud walked over and nudged it with his bare foot. A tendril of blue electricity zapped him.
“Shit!” He hopped on the spot.
Cecelia laughed until tears ran down her face. “You were this close,” she said, thumb and index finger a hair’s breadth apart, “to being cool.”
“Suppose you think you’ve earned bragging rights because you saved me?” he said, wincing through residual electric shock.
She realized, with a warm and unexpected pride, that she had.
“I suppose you’ve earned it then.”
She looked at him, confused.
“You’re my hero,” he said.
A moment passed between them.
Those damn kind eyes, she thought.
“Am I a ghost?” a weak voice gurgled from the carpet.
The Ghostbuster was moving.
EPILOGUE
“Gene!” Cecelia shifted her foot, still wedged beneath him.
Riscraven rolled awkwardly onto his side and vomited a liter of slime. “Not a ghost,” he said, and vomited some more. When he was done, he sat up carefully and looked at them with an expression of cautious dignity. “Apologies for the carpet.”
“Don’t mention it,” Cecelia said.
Hud, watching from across the room, had gone visibly pale. “You need to spew again?” he asked her.
“Do you?”
He nodded, covered his mouth, and took off downstairs. He was still down there when a knock came at the front door. “Ghostbusters, anybody home?”
Cecelia heard Hud remove the stools and let them in. “Took your time,” he said.
“We came from Brisbane,” a male-sounding voice answered. “Are you the homeowner?”
“She’s upstairs. I called it in.”
“We were told there was a class seven—”
“It’s upstairs. Trapped.” A brief silence. “We only need the paramedics. You three fieldies can wait in the car.”
There was a conference. Then grumbles. Footsteps left the apartment.
Two Ghostbusters climbed the stairs: a Polynesian-looking field agent with the name tag Ioane and a Caucasian partner named Moore. Both wore white versions of the standard uniform, the usual no-ghost logo modified on their sleeves: the cartoon ghost holding a caduceus, wings extending from its back. They carried a gurney.
“Riscraven, you’re awake!” Moore bent to check on him.
“Apparently,” Riscraven answered. “Have we met?”
“At the national conference last year,” Moore said.
“Did we dance?” Riscraven asked, earnest in his partial delirium.
“Alas, no. But that would’ve been a nice break from those Zeddemore Industries engineering lectures.”
“Thanks for taking care of him,” Ioane told Cecelia, unpacking a first-aid kit with a printed logo on the case that matched the one on her shoulder. Then she followed Moore’s gaze to the smoking Muon Trap.
“You were serious,” Moore said to Hud. “You busted a Reponere Furantur?”
“We busted it,” Hud said, moving to stand beside Cecelia.
“We did?” Gene said.
“Couldn’t have done it without you,” Hud said, patting Riscraven on the shoulder.
“Of course not,” Riscraven replied.
“This thing has been on our hit list for decades,” Ioane said. “Believed to have been terrorizing people for centuries.” She picked up the trap and turned it with the reverent attention of someone handling an artifact. “We’ll have to get you two on the payroll.”
“We’ll consider it,” Hud said, and Cecelia, surprised, detected no irony. “Depends on the department,” he said to her.
Ioane and Moore helped Riscraven onto the gurney. “Are you free tomorrow?” Moore asked Cecelia. “Forensic unit will want to come by for samples.”
“Like that?” She pointed to the slime-filled Ecto-Vac cylinder in the bathroom.
“That’s a start,” He looked at Hud. “We’ll need reports from both of you.”
“No problem,” Hud and Cecelia answered in unison.
“I’ll be back too,” Riscraven said from the gurney, attempting to sit up. “For my car. And my Proton Pack. They’re unlicensed to use it!”
“Big mess,” Hud said pleasantly. “Could be anywhere.” To Moore, then, as if confidentially, “He did lots of damage.”
Diverted by the accusation, Riscraven said, “File an insurance claim on our website. We should respond before the next sovereign eclipse.”
“Which is when?” Cecelia asked.
“FAQs are online,” he concluded and was carted away.
Hud and Cecelia watched from the balustrade as the paramedics loaded Riscraven into their Ectomobile, parked behind his in the driveway. The engine roared. Blue lights spun. Moore jogged back in to collect the E-Vac, thanked them, and was gone.
The vehicle reversed off the driveway.
“Almost doesn’t seem worth them having come,” Hud said.
“Because we’re the ones who caught Spitswapper?”
“None of them,” Hud said and shook his head, “used the siren.”
Cecelia looked at him and smiled. Ghostbusters branches were popping up nationwide. She was confident he’d hear another Ectomobile siren before long.
He might even be the person blaring it.
