'Come on, you guys,' Roland said as he drove. 'There must be something you like about Christmas!'

'The food,' said Garrett.

'Figures,' said Eduardo.

'How about you, Eduardo?' asked Roland.

For a moment, Eduardo didn't answer. Then he said, 'I guess I like that Kevin likes it.'

'Sure,' said Kylie. 'Fine if you have nieces and nephews, or younger siblings. Of course you love Christmas, Roland, living in a house full of kids. It was different in my family. I was the only one.'

'Didn't you have cousins and stuff come round?' asked Garrett. 'We did.'

'No,' said Kylie. 'It was all for me. Well, every other year, when I wasn't being dragged through an airport and competing for space with all the other people who were too stupid to stay home for the holidays. At least my dad's efforts were better than that. But,' she added, with a sigh, 'I grew out of paper chains and Christmas cookies a long time ago – and then last year, without even Grandma Rose there to keep me sane... well, that was me done.'

'Cheery in this car, isn't it?' said Garrett.

'Sorry,' said Kylie. 'Look, here's a tree lot – is this the one we want?'

'Yes,' said Roland, parking the car on the corner. 'Wow. It doesn't look like there's anyone left!'

'Why are you surprised?' said Eduardo. 'It's just gonna do it to everyone who's buying or selling Christmas trees until we cut it off at the source. It's probably hit another ten places by now.'

'We still need to find it,' said Kylie.

'Why?' asked Eduardo.

'Well,' said Kylie, turning in her seat to frown at him, 'if you just had a little bit of forethought...'

She stopped speaking as the radio crackled, and Egon's voice said, 'This is Egon. We have some good news for you.'

Roland picked up the radio and said, 'Go ahead, Egon.'

'Four tree fellers went out tree felling two days ago and never returned. Their equipment and their vehicle were found on the site, along with several felled pine trees, and there are no clues as to the workers' disappearance.'

'Great,' said Roland. 'I mean, that's awful, but... that has to be it. So where are we going, Egon?'

'Galeton, Pennsylvania,' said Egon. 'It shouldn't be more than an eight-hour round trip, including the time it'll take you to cut down a tree. Mind you, there's also the question of finding it. The workers' vehicle and equipment are bound to have been moved, so you won't have that as a marker.'

'I thought of that, Egon,' said Kylie, leaning in close to Roland and the radio. 'What if we let the dryad know what we're planning? Then it would try to protect its tree and lead us right to it.'

'That's a classic tactic in situations like this,' said Egon. 'Certainly it's worth a try.'

Kylie leaned away from Roland and turned again to face Eduardo, saying, 'See?'

'Whatever,' Eduardo said.

'All right,' said Roland, replacing the radio. 'We need to pick up the PKE trail, try to beat this thing to its next tree lot and then... what?'

'Talk about cutting down its tree of origin in very loud voices,' said Garrett.

'Finding it shouldn't be too hard,' said Kylie, consulting her PKE meter. 'It doesn't know where the tree lots are – it's just attacking them as it finds them. And it's moving in an easterly direction. I guess that makes sense, since it came from Pennsylvania.'

'All right,' said Roland, as he stepped on the gas. 'East it is.'

It so happened that the dryad had ended up at the same tree lot as Steve. When the Ecto-1 arrived, the daylight was waning. People were running and screaming in the midst of a powerful wind, with somebody every now and then transforming into a pine tree. Steve's saleswoman was peeping out from behind the chipping machine and shouting, 'I'm telling you, all our Christmas trees are sustainable! SUSTAINABLE!'

Barely had she finished speaking before she was engulfed in a blizzard of pine needles, and had to hold onto the chipper for dear life. Then the wind died down; the dryad manifested just above her and, pointing its pine cone hand at the machine, demanded, 'What is this?'

The woman looked sheepish. 'Um...'

A heartbeat later, she was a hunched and drooping pine, but the dryad didn't leave it at that. With a great gust of wind, her roots were pulled from the ground and she was lifted into the air. The dryad grew in stature and, with arms spread and voice howling, began to direct her towards the chipper.

'NO!' Roland cried, as the four Ghostbusters appeared on the scene.

'I know you don't want to do that!' said Kylie.

'Right,' Eduardo added. 'She's a tree now, isn't she? You like trees!'

The dryad glared down at them with glowing green eyes, still holding the saleswoman-tree in a small cyclone above the chipper. Then, suddenly, the tree dropped to the ground and took root once again. Each of the four Ghostbusters breathed an audible sigh of relief, then Kylie pressed on with addressing the slightly less urgent matters at hand.

'Can you please just stop this?' she said. 'We really don't want to hurt you.'

'Speak for yourself,' muttered Garrett.

'Hurt me?' said the dryad. 'How can you hurt me?'

'The same way we can hurt any other tree,' said Kylie. 'And believe me, I would never want to do that.'

'But it looks like we don't have a choice,' Garrett added.

'Then,' said the dryad, its eyes narrowing, 'you will die.'

Suddenly Kylie was snatched up in a gust of wind. Her teammates all made a grab for her, but before they could even get close they were blown to three different corners of the lot, each crashing into a separate display of supposedly drop-free firs (as the signs among them proudly attested). Eduardo and Roland ended up on their backsides, and Garrett fell out of his chair.

Kylie, meanwhile, was being blown towards the chipper. She screamed like fury, and tried to reach her proton pistol, but her arms would not move in the cyclone that held her. Roland, Garrett and Eduardo struggled desperately against the dryad's powerful wind, to no avail. Fortunately, they were not the only ones attempting to go to Kylie's aid. At the sound of her scream, Steve had been lured out of hiding.

'DON'T!' he yelled, with such force that the dryad bothered to stop what it was doing to look at him.

Kylie stared at him in disbelief, but only for a moment, as she had to shut her eyes against the wind.

'Please don't,' Steve said to the dryad, more quietly this time. 'She's never harmed a tree in her life.'

'This is because I annoyed you earlier, isn't it?' Kylie yelled above the sound of the wind. 'You're not on a noble crusade at all, are you? You're just vindictive!'

'Kylie, shut the heck up!' yelled Garrett, trying and failing to climb back into his chair, his voice barely audible through the wind.

'Your friends will follow,' said the dryad. 'Be grateful that you will be spared the ordeal of watching them die!'

'Put her down!' yelled Steve. 'I mean it!'

Roland, Garrett and Eduardo were beginning to find the strength to fight the wind, and managing to get to their feet or, in Garrett's case, into his chair. Kylie wasn't in the chipper yet, at least partly because of Steve's distraction. The dryad glared at him through glowing eyes, then sent a roar of gale force winds in his direction. Steve was knocked nearly off his feet, and a green glow enveloped him. Then, in a moment, he was a pine tree.

'NO!' screamed Kylie, and suddenly she found the strength to move her arms and grab her proton pistol. She shot a powerful, ceaseless stream towards the glowing eyes, which soon disappeared, and the wind began to die down.

Through what was now only a moderate gale, Roland, Garrett and Eduardo ran towards Kylie. It was Eduardo who managed to intercept her fall before she made it into the chipper after all, and they collapsed in a heap on the ground. Kylie immediately leapt off Eduardo's prostrate form and continued firing her proton stream into the wind, though the dryad no longer had any discernible form. Roland and Garrett were firing too, but they both shut off their streams when they realised that the wind had died down almost completely.

Kylie, however, did not stop. She fired at nothing, then shut off her stream and ran after the wind until she slammed into the back of the Ecto-1. After that, she did not keep on running. She holstered her gun, turned her back to the car and slumped to the ground.

'Okay,' Garrett said in a whisper to Roland and Eduardo, looking at Kylie as she sat motionless in the street with her head on her knees. 'So what do we do?'

'Maybe somebody should go talk to her,' said Roland.

'I'll do it,' said Eduardo.

Garrett looked at him doubtfully. 'Ed, maybe Roland's better at this kind of stuff.'

'I've got this,' Eduardo said, and went over to Kylie. He crouched to meet her eye line. 'It'll be going to its tree, Kylie. Your plan's working. We better get after it.'

Kylie raised her head and looked at him blankly. 'Is that really going to work?'

'Of course.'

'What if... what if it's different this time?'

'Hey,' said Eduardo. 'Don't you know better than to think like that?'

'Kids always think about losing their parents, don't they?' said Kylie, dropping her gaze from his. 'I don't think it was just me. It's the worst thing you can imagine. And the last thing I said to him...'

'The last thing you said don't matter. Anyway, who says it was the last thing? We got our plan, remember?'

'I think I should be prepared.'

'There ain't no such thing,' Eduardo said. 'Did you ever think about the part where you actually get through it? You can't imagine that until it's happening.'

'I guess not.' Kylie took a deep breath, got to her feet and shook the pine needles from her hair. Then she looked at Eduardo, and said gently, 'It happened to you, didn't it?'

Eduardo answered with, 'It is not happening to you.'

A short time later, everyone was back in the Ecto-1 and Roland was driving them all to Pennsylvania. The sky was dark, and the mood in the car was sombre.

'What was he even doing there?' Kylie suddenly broke the silence.

'Buying a Christmas tree?' said Garrett.

'If he'd just listened to what I wanted,' said Kylie, 'he would never have gone there in the first place.'

'He did stop the thing from throwing you in that tree shredder,' said Eduardo.

'I guess he did,' Kylie said, and sighed heavily. Then she turned abruptly in her seat to face Eduardo, and said, 'You gave it the idea!'

'What?' said Eduardo. 'I did not!'

'Yes you did,' said Kylie. 'You said it shouldn't put that woman in there now that she's a tree, so it decided to put me in as I am!'

Eduardo opened his mouth to respond, but Egon's voice on the radio intercepted him.

'This has only just occurred to me,' it said. 'You're not professional tree fellers.'

'Sorry, Egon,' said Garrett, leaning forward and speaking over Roland's shoulder. 'Did we lead you to believe that we were?'

'Non-professionals cutting down trees is extremely dangerous,' said Egon.

'That's true,' said Roland. 'Our neighbours cut down their own tree once, and it completely flattened their shed.'

'So what?' said Garrett. 'There won't be any sheds in this forest, will there?'

'Unlikely,' said Egon, 'but there will be the four of you, not to mention at least four others that you won't even recognise as people. It's all right, though – I know what to do. I'll call Mitch the supervisor again and get him to meet you. He'll even be able to take you to the spot where his workers disappeared, and once you've found the tree, he'll cut it down.'

'Good plan, Egon,' said Roland. 'We should be there in a couple of hours.'

Mitch the supervisor was waiting when the Ecto-1 pulled in. He was standing ankle-deep in snow at the edge of the pine forest, a chainsaw dangling at his side.

'Thank you so much for helping us out,' said Roland, as he got out of the car.

'Yeah, well,' said Mitch, 'your boss said it would get my workers back. I don't know if I really believe that, but anything's worth a try. Y'know, I had to tell their families they'd disappeared. That was tough.'

'Well, Mitch,' said Garrett, 'you're about to give them the bestest Christmas ever.'

'We hope,' Kylie said quietly.

'Follow me,' said Mitch, and he led them into the forest by the light of an enormous battery-powered torch.

'I never knew,' Garrett said, as he struggled to wheel himself through the snow, 'how much I owed to those brave men and women who keep the streets of New York from being all over snow.'

They went a little way into the forest, then Mitch said, 'All right, this is pretty much where their equipment was found. I wish we had some tracks to be sure. Darn snow. So which tree is it?'

For a moment, no one said anything. Eduardo looked from Roland to Kylie, then said, 'Well?'

'I wish I knew!' said Roland, looking impotently at his PKE meter.

'All right,' said Garrett, 'so it's too scared to face us. No big deal. We'll just cut down every tree in the place until we get the right one.'

Kylie looked at him sharply. 'Garrett!'

'What's the problem?' Garrett asked. 'Mitch has a chainsaw!'

'That's a terrible idea!' said Roland. 'Four of these trees are –'

'Sure,' Eduardo said loudly, 'but we could start with the big ones. Egon said we were looking for an old one, right? All the victims stay people-sized, so let's just cut down every tree in the place that's over seven feet tall.'

'Eduardo's the only one who gets me, huh?' said Garrett. 'Come on, you guys!'

'Right,' Kylie said wearily. 'Worth a try, I suppose. Are you with us, Mitch?'

'I... don't know,' said Mitch.

'What's a stupid pine tree here and there?' Garrett said, speaking very loudly indeed. 'Nothing, that's what. So which is the biggest one in this neck of the woods? We could start with... this one!' He was practically shouting as he indicated the largest tree that was close to him.

'All right,' said Roland. 'Go for it, Mitch.'

Mitch made his way over to the tree and put his torch on the ground. Kylie, Roland, Garrett and Eduardo looked around uncertainly. Mitch started up his chainsaw. Kylie opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again. The chainsaw edged closer to the tree. Roland stared at his silent PKE meter. The chainsaw made a graze, and a little sawdust.

'Mitch, don't!' yelled Kylie, making a run at him.

Mitch hastily turned off his chainsaw and frowned at her. 'Miss, don't ever run at somebody who's operating a chainsaw.'

'I know,' said Kylie. 'I'm sorry. It's just... we can't cut down innocent trees!'

Garrett glared at her. 'But Kylie, if it's the only way...'

'But it can't be!' said Kylie. 'Don't look at me like that, Garrett. I know what you thought would happen, but it didn't, did it?'

'Right,' said Eduardo. 'It was gonna let Mitch cut that tree down because it's too chicken – whoa!'

He was cut off by a blast of wind in his face, and then a moment later, Mitch glowed green and transformed into a pine tree. His chainsaw fell into the snow beside him. Kylie, Roland and Eduardo stared at the Mitch-tree, open-mouthed. Garrett found some presence of mind and picked up the chainsaw. The PKE meters were jumping and beeping, but no one looked at them. It was clear where the dryad was; its great gust of needle-bearing wind was heading straight for Garrett, so that he was struggling to hold onto the chainsaw.

'Garrett, don't fight to keep it!' yelled Roland. 'You could cut yourself to pieces!'

'There's got to be another way to kill the tree!' Kylie said, shouting through the wind. 'We can find the right one now! It must be giving off a residual PKE signal now the dryad's only just come out!'

Roland acted upon this advice, and set about looking for the tree. Kylie looked anxiously at Garrett, who was out of his chair again, and hugging the chainsaw against his chest in the most dangerous manner imaginable. It was Eduardo who finally diverted the dryad's attention.

'Why don't we just nuke it?' he said.

When it heard this, the dryad whipped round and headed for nobody in particular. It went for a seemingly random spot, threw up the days' worth of snow on the ground and, at last, produced a chainsaw that was brown with rust and whose teeth were blunt. Not only this, but it managed to get the chainsaw going, with a series of sickening grinds and squeaks. It then carried the chainsaw, grating and screeching, towards Eduardo. He screamed and ran for his life.

'Eduardo!' Kylie yelled, running after him and the rusty chainsaw.

'How about that, Roland?' Garrett said breathlessly, as he hauled himself back into his chair. 'I kept a hold of Mitch's chainsaw!'

'And I found the tree,' said Roland. 'Kylie was right about the PKE signal. I wonder why it doesn't show up at all when the dryad's firmly inside.'

'Who cares?' said Garrett, making his way towards Roland with the chainsaw on his lap. 'We can cut it down now.'

'Um.' Roland looked at the chainsaw, then at the tree. 'I guess.'

'Well,' said Garrett. 'Go ahead.'

'Why me?' Roland asked indignantly.

'Because you can run if something goes wrong.'

'Running won't do much good if I cut my arm off,' Roland said, but he picked up the chainsaw anyway. 'I wish Mitch was here.'

'He is here,' said Garrett. 'What you really wish is that he wasn't a tree.'

'We both know what I mean, Garrett. All right, let's get this over with. You'd better get clear.'

The dryad chased Eduardo a fair distance into darkness and bright, penetrating snow. Then it stopped suddenly and turned back. It whipped past Kylie, who was following them, showering her with pine needles once again.

'We can't let it get back to them!' she shouted, shooting a stream of proton fire at the dryad.

'Well, that won't make it stay!' Eduardo said, looking around him for inspiration. All he saw was trees, so he went on, 'My idea to nuke the tree was pretty good, wasn't it? Let's try it out on some of these guys and see what happens.'

'Is that really enough to make it stay?' Kylie asked quietly, as Eduardo unsheathed his proton gun.

'I don't know,' said Eduardo. 'Do you got a better i– A-AH!'

The gust of wind came between them, knocking them thirty feet apart and onto the snowy ground. Kylie's proton pistol and ghost trap were whipped away from her before she knew it, and thrown into the snow some distance away. The dryad then went for Eduardo, still brandishing the rusty chainsaw. The wind around him grew stronger. He was pinned against the trunk of a tree, unable to move, and could only stare at the approaching chainsaw with a look of horror. Kylie's share of the wind, however, was dying down. She found herself able to climb to her feet and run after the dryad.

'Stop!' she cried. 'Don't you understand? If you kill us, then you're just as bad as the people who have been destroying your forest!'

The chainsaw stopped inches in front of Eduardo, its blunt teeth still whirring. The dryad took on its humanoid form and turned to face Kylie, but kept the chainsaw where it was. Eduardo stared at it, struggling against the wind, powerless to move.

'No,' the dryad said to Kylie. 'You cannot compare me to a human.'

'He never did anything to you or your kind!' said Kylie.

'Are you sure you don't want to get back to the others?' Eduardo asked, rather shrilly. 'You left them alone with your tree and their weapons!'

'They'll never find it,' said the dryad. 'And you will never again see the light of day!'

The chainsaw came nearer. Eduardo shut his eyes to the impending terminal agony, and cried out in desperation, 'KYLIEEEEEEE!'

'NO!' she screamed, reaching out to him, feet apart though they were.

Then, suddenly, the dryad roared with the voice of a hurricane. The chainsaw died and dropped into the snow at Eduardo's feet. The wind vanished. All was quiet. For a moment, Kylie and Eduardo stood perfectly still. Then suddenly she ran to him, saying, 'Oh my goodness – are you okay?'

'Um,' said Eduardo, staring blankly at the chainsaw on the ground. 'Yeah. So that must mean they killed it, right?'

'Right,' said Kylie. 'They must have.'

'Okay, so... let's go.'

Eduardo stepped away from the tree, over the chainsaw and past Kylie. She didn't follow him. He stopped and turned to look at her.

'So,' she said, looking at the ground. 'Now we'll know if it worked.'

'Yeah,' said Eduardo.

'What if it didn't?'

'It'll be okay.'

There was a pause, and they looked at each other. Then Kylie nodded, squared her shoulders and said, 'All right, let's go.'

They began to retrace their steps, following the footprints they had left in the snow. As they walked, Eduardo asked, 'Do you think they nuked it like I said?'

Roland turned off the chainsaw, and the tree lurched. Five of the forest trees were instantly replaced by human beings.

'Oh my gosh!' said Garrett, propelling himself forward. He grabbed Susie's arm and pulled her onto his lap, just before she was crushed by the falling pine.

'Oh!' cried Roland, running to them and looking in anguish at Susie. 'I am so sorry! I know I shouldn't have done that because I'm not a professional, but –'

'What the heck is happening?' said Susie, leaping off Garrett's lap, then turning to stare at him. 'Who are you?'

'Garrett Miller, Ghostbuster,' said Garrett. 'See, what happened is –'

'Susie!' someone cried, and all at once Susie forgot everything. With joy in her face she turned and threw herself into Todd's arms.

'Well,' said the one of their colleagues that was neither Mitch nor the moustachioed man. 'It's about time those two got it together!'

Eduardo and Kylie reappeared on the scene. Kylie looked first at the embracing couple, then at Mitch – whom of course she recognised – and seemed almost to vomit with relief.

'They're all right,' she whispered.

'Told you.'

'Shut up, Eduardo.'

The Ghostbusters were soon back in the Ecto-1, with Egon speaking to them again over the radio.

'Your father's here, Kylie,' he said. 'He's worried about you. I'll be glad to tell him you're all right.'

'He's worried about me?' said Kylie. 'He's the one who got himself turned into a stupid Christmas tree! Thanks for taking him in, Egon. It's so late!'

'Well,' said Egon, 'no one seems to feel like sleeping.'

'Egon,' Kylie said, glancing at Eduardo's sleeping form in the rear view mirror. 'We didn't really need Mitch, did we? We could have just nuked it.'

'Oh,' said Egon. 'Well now... I suppose Mitch's chainsaw was the quicker and cleaner death.'

'True,' said Roland, looking uncomfortable. 'We'll see you in a few hours, Egon. Over and out.'

'Don't want to tell him that you cut down the tree?' asked Garrett.

'I don't see any need for that,' said Roland. 'You know, it must be ages since midnight. Merry Christmas, you guys.'

Eduardo shifted in the back seat, yawned and said, 'It ain't Christmas until you've had a sleep.'

'So it's Christmas for you and not the rest of us?' said Garrett. 'You're not that special, Ed.'

It started to snow. Roland tutted with exasperation and turned on the windscreen wipers. Kylie looked through the glass of her window until it turned white, then opened it and watched the snowfall with a beatific look upon her face.

'Are you crazy?' Garrett said, hugging himself.

Eduardo shivered out of his light doze and said, 'Aw, man! What the...?'

Kylie said, 'Merry Christmas to you too, Roland.'

Egon and Janine were in the firehouse lobby, and Egon was wearing Slimer's mistletoe deely bopper. He was so distracted by it that he didn't notice Kylie walking past as he said, 'You know, Janine, mistletoe was originally thought by the Druids to possess powers of good luck. It doesn't seem to have very much to do with Christmas, and as a concept it's very unscientific.'

'Well,' said Janine, 'I happen to know that in Norse mythology, mistletoe represented love and friendship. You believe in love and friendship, don't you?'

'Yes,' said Egon. 'We psychologists study love and friendship all the time.'

'Well then,' said Janine, 'study this,' and she kissed him full on the mouth.

Steve was upstairs in the lounge, standing at the window and watching the snow. When Kylie arrived, he seemed to sense her without her making a sound, and turned towards her. She went to him, stood on tiptoe to reach his neck, threw her arms around it and said, 'Merry Christmas, Dad.'