It was raining outside, raining hard, but to a Gobliner the sound of rain was as commonplace as a train in a metropolis; certainly nothing to wake to. And aside from the heavy patter against the windows, his rooms were quiet.

“So what woke you?”

Kamp, sitting up on his transparent bed, the single blanket across his thick legs, his reddish-blond hair rumpled with sleep, often talked to himself in times like these. For usually the fear of giving yourself away trumped the horror of what might erupt from the silence.

He was absolutely sure the noise he’d just heard was not the rain. His mind commenced its customary roll…a ticker tape of possibilities…

The wind.

Something fell over.

Mrs. Doris fell over.

A rat on the fire escape.

A bird on the fire escape.

A person on the fire escape.

A person was in his apartment.

A ghost was in his apartment.

Kamp swung his big legs over the side of his bed and planted his feet on the wood floor. He reached for the closest lamp and pulled the string. The bulb was aimed at the bed itself and Kamp spread his legs, slowly, looking down to the floor beneath the bed.

And yet, if not beneath his bed…then where? What had woken him?

Kamp had a vague idea that things were getting out of control. The numerous traps set up around his apartment took up more room than they didn’t. The shattered walls, the lack of mirrors, the Plexiglas bed. It was all in the name of removing the corners, all the places something might hide.

“Nothing’s here,” he said. But he wished he hadn’t, for right after saying it he looked to a pile of drywall illuminated deep into the living room and imagined something rising from behind it.

Come on, old man. Keep it together.

Kamp wasn’t that old. Forty-one by the time he’d fortified his rooms, ghost-proofing them as best as he knew how.

“Nothing is here,” he repeated. But the wheel of disquietude had begun its roll.

He knew well that just considering a ghost would quickly eliminate the other possibilities. No matter what he saw or didn’t see, within seconds he’d be convinced a ghost was down the hall, toying with him, going “bang bang” as he fooled himself into thinking he was protected.

The wind? You know better than that, Walter. The windows are sealed shut.

And you also checked the edges. Like you always do. The counter, the sink, the tub, the television. There’s nothing to fall over.

And Mrs. Doris is fine. She’s asleep, as always, in bed by seven, awake by five a.m.

And nobody got in here unless they took an ax to the door.

And so for Walter Kamp, there was no other option but a ghost.

“Shit!”