Poltergeist

by James Kahn

  Steve stormed out the sliding glass door to the patio at the side of the house, and yelled over his fence to a man standing in the back doorway of the house behind them. “We got a game going on over here, Tuthill!”

  “My kids wanna watch ‘Mister Rogers’!” Tuthill yelled back.

  “I don’t care what you’re watching, as long as you show a little mercy with that thing!”

  “Move your set!” neighbor Tuthill’s voice rang out before he slammed his back door.

  “Move yours!”

  “Mister Rogers” went on again just as Steve reentered the den. The assembled moaned; Shaw tossed a handful of Doritos in the air. Furiously, Steve aimed, and fired his remote once more. A muffled “goddammit” could be heard from the Tuthills.

  Carol Anne, meanwhile, made it upstairs and slipped into Dana’s room. Dana lay prone on the floor, having a Serious Conversation with Heather and Serena.

  “Hi, Dana, wanna hear my dream?” Carol Anne asked.

  “Hi, squirt. Not right now; we’re talking.”

  “Can I listen to your heart?”

  “I haven’t got a heart, punk.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “How gross this place is.”

  “I don’t think it’s gross.”

  “That’s because everything about it has the mentality of a five-year-old—which is fine if you’re five, squirt, but it’s a drag for the big kids.” She sat up, unbuttoned her shirt. “Okay, here, you can listen to my heart.”

  Robbie suddenly burst into the room with a clue in his hand. Dana closed her shirt and shouted. “Robbie! Mom!”

  “Jeez, take it easy, I thought the treasure was here. It’s only you trolls, though.” He ran out as she threw a shoe.

  “Come on, let’s go to the drugstore.”

  The three girls got up and left.

  Carol Anne wandered down the hall toward her parents’ room.

  Robbie sat on the stairs, studying his clue: Between the frill and the grill. He thought at first it had meant between the frilly apron on the living room couch and the grill of the heating vent against the wall. But there’d been nothing around there. He’d looked all around the kitchen grill, even though there were no frills there at all. Then he’d gone up to Dana’s room, which was full of frills, but of course had no grills—and anyway, creepy Dana was there. So now what? Bill Moone already had his prize—a great ray gun that sprayed red light with D batteries. So where was this frill and grill stuff?

  The barbecue grill outside! That was it! It was right next to that real frilly tablecloth Mom dumped over a pile of bricks way out back. He jumped up and ran downstairs, tore out the side door, and across the grassy yard. Some kids had found their prizes, and were gloating smugly in the living room; others were still hunting all over the house, up-ending pillows, looking under rugs; others had given up, and now either played or moped. Robbie made it out to the grill, looked inside it, behind it, under it. Nothing. He went to the cloth over the bricks, peeled it back, poked around between the gritty cinderblocks until . . . wait . . . yes, over there, wedged in among those three—with the excitement of impending triumph, he reached into the little cove, put his hand around the object . . . and jumped back with a yelp. Something had bitten him.

  He looked at his hand, more startled than anything else. His index finger was a bit red, and still stung. He peered back into the dark collection of upright bricks at the obscure thing—whatever it was. There . . . did it move? Robbie picked up the barbecue poker in his right hand, raised the poker over his head, kicked away one low wall of bricks, and jumped back.

  It was the clown doll.

  His old stuffed clown doll, grinning devilishly, a little too broadly. It gave Robbie the creeps to look at it now. He backed off.

  This didn’t make sense. Was this his prize? Couldn’t be. Besides, the clown had been up in the bedroom just before the party; Robbie had seen it there; he was certain. Sitting right up in the rocking chair. Now it grinned at him from a funny angle, caught between two bricks.

  For a brief moment, Robbie’s teeth chattered.

  Then he heard his mother call him from the house, so he turned and ran back in.

  The party continued. Prizes were passed out, even to those who hadn’t discovered their own. The Opening of Presents took place on the living room floor, with only one serious squabble developing over first use of the Malibu Speed Raceway Set. E. Buzz came in from his Frisbee marathon and barked a lot.

  Finally the main event: the cake, the candles, the singing, the blowing-out, the paper plates, the plastic forks. The traditional food fight. It was during the earliest tactical maneuvers of saturation cake-bombing that they all heard the screams. Coming from upstairs.

  Diane was up the steps first, Steve out the den and right behind her. Others followed, electric with vicarious fear: these were the screams of a child. Coming from the master bedroom.

  When they entered they found the television on, tuned to static snow. Carol Anne stood in front of it, inches from it, staring into it, her eyes wild with alarm. The little red plastic stethoscope was still around her neck. She was screaming uncontrollably.

  The party quickly ended.

  They put Carol Anne to bed. She slept soundly for an hour, then woke up refreshed and unconcerned, in time for dinner. She had no memory of the event.

  “Pass the peas,” Robbie shouted across the table. He was feeling imperious on this significant occasion. This was his day.

  “Pass the peas, please,” grumbled his father. Steve was still pissed off about Tuthill, still upset about Carol Anne, still fed up with the Rams.

  “Peas please, peas please, peas please . . .”

  “Robert . . .”

  “Would you please pass the peas please?” Robbie intoned sweetly. One could afford to be magnanimous on one’s birthday, as well.

  “Dad, can I sleep over at Heather’s tonight?” asked Dana.

  “Not unless you can show me you’ve finished your geometry . . .”

  “Come on, that’s not fair, I . . .”

  “Life is not fair. That’s a good lesson to learn. In fact, you can’t go to Heather’s even if you do finish your homework. How’s that?”

  “Mom!” Dana whined.

  “Do your math, and we’ll see,” Diane mediated. “Now, can we please have a little peace around here for a change?” There was a thin edge to her voice.

  “Pass the peace, pleace,” piped up Robbie. There was a pause, and then, quite unexpectedly, everybody laughed. Tension broken. You could be magic on your birthday.

  “From the mouths of babes.” Diane shook her head.

  “I’m no babe. I’m eight.”

  They were all feeling better still by the time they actually got some food down—nothing but cake and soda pop all day for the young kids, and beer and Doritos for the big kids, hadn’t helped anyone’s temperament. E. Buzz sensed it was time to shuffle under the table for handouts.

  By second helping, Dana was talking about school, Diane was raving about the latest book she was reading on textural design elements, and Steve was even joking about Tuthill.

  “That guy has to be the biggest jerk ever born—I think he uses the remote just to annoy me.”

  “How’s that work, Dad? Making the channels change from way over there, I mean. Seems kinda magic.”

  “Well . . . it’s like radio waves, sort of, Robbie. People send out these electrical signals from far away, and they get picked up by the radio and turned into music. Same with this. The remote box just sends an electrical signal, and it jiggles up the electrical signals inside the set, makes ’em switch over to another channel. It’s all electronics.”

  “But electricity’s supposed to make sparks, I thought.”

  “Well, some does. Some just makes signals, though—they move through the air, and you can’t see ’em.”

  “Like ghosts?”

  “Sort of. Yeah. Friendly ghosts.”

  “L
ike Casper.”

  “I had a dream about ghosts,” said Carol Anne, with wide blue eyes.

  “Was it scary, Carol?” asked Dana.

  “Uh uh, they were friendly ghosts, too.”

  “What happened in the dream, sweetheart?” Diane nudged. She always encouraged her children to tell their dreams—dreams were the window to the soul, her mother used to tell her, and she believed it still.

  “I was walking in the park, and these people were floating through the trees, and they wanted to play with me, but they couldn’t see where I was, but I didn’t tell them, but they liked my new dress, but they were afraid of the ugly man, so I wanted to leave, but then I was falling.”

  “You know what Freud said about falling dreams, Mom,” commented Dana.

  “No, what did he say?”

  Dana just raised her eyebrows up and down.

  “That’s a very interesting dream, honey,” said Steve. “Were the people wearing sheets like ghosts, too?”

  “Uh uh, they had all kinds of funny clothes.”

  “You mean like a clown?”

  Robbie was suddenly jolted by this remark, remembering his incident with the clown in the bricks out back. Unconsciously, he rubbed his finger.

  “Uh uh, not like a clown.” Carol Anne shook her head. “Like the pictures in Gramma’s big book.”

  Steve furrowed his brow at Diane. “Your mother’s scrapbook?”

  “Uh huh,” Carol Anne nodded. “The crapbook.”

  Dana smirked; Robbie clapped his hand over his mouth. “All right, you two,” Diane muttered. Then, to Carol Anne: “That’s ‘scrap book,’ baby. Not crapbook. Scrapbook.”

  Dana fluttered her eyelids. “She’s just being scatological, Mother.”

  “And you can stop being so precocious; it’s very tedious. And you can clear the table, too.” Diane piled two plates in front of her elder daughter.

  “Yes, Mother.” Dana spoke in her most gracious voice, balanced four plates on her head, turned, said, “Perfect posture, stately elegance, and grace,” and walked into the kitchen without dropping a single leftover pea.

  Robbie jumped up and walked behind her a few steps, wiggling his rear in caricature.

  “Okay, that’s enough. Help your sister, Robbie,” Steve said. Robbie returned to the table and gathered silverware.

  Diane tipped her head toward Carol Anne. “Guess she was impressed with those old photos. Some of them are of my grandparents. A few great-grandparents, even, I think.”

  Steve smiled at Carol Anne. “Well, that was very interesting, sweetheart. And it just goes to show that ghosts aren’t always scary.”

  Carol Anne nodded, but she was more interested now in trying to pick up a pea off the table with her tongue.

  Diane scrunched up her face at Steve. “What did Freud say about falling dreams?”

  There was suddenly a major crash in the kitchen—the sound of dishes breaking on tile counter top.

  “That comes out of your allowance, young lady,” Diane called.

  “Aw, Mom, that’s not fair!”

  “Don’t you remember?” Steve boomed jovially. “Life’s not fair!” Then he leaned over and gave Diane a playful kiss. “How soon they forget,” he murmured.

  Diane showed up late at the PTA meeting, sat in the back row so she could leave early, and then spent the entire question-and-answer period arguing with the speaker about the reinstitution of corporal punishment in the school system.

  When it was all over, and they adjourned to the back of the auditorium for coffee and doughnuts, Diane ran into Doris Melnick. Doris’s son, Eddie, was in Robbie’s class at school; moreover, coincidentally, Doris and Diane had attended the same high school in Encino—though in different graduating classes—many years before. They’d never really been friends, exactly, and they didn’t keep in touch now, really, but those connections were enough so that when they bumped into each other at functions like this one, they felt gratefully friendly. And even, oddly enough, intimate, in a way people are when they don’t know each other very well.

  “Diane!”

  “Doris, hi! Thank God, a friendly face. Can you believe that idiot up on the podium?”

  “They lay a hand on my kid, I’m gonna get my .32 that Larry bought me, and waste ’em. That’s what.”

  “I mean, these are supposed to be educated people. Educators! Don’t they know children respond better to positive reinforcement than negative? I mean, my God, you show a kid love, and he’ll behave ten times more than if you whack him,” Diane said.

  “Ah, what do these turkeys know about raising kids?”

  “Not a damn thing, obviously. But how you doin’?”

  “Can’t complain—oh, I could, but what good would it do? Am I right? You bet I am. But anyway, I’m going back to school. Did I tell you that?”

  “No! That’s terrific. You know, I’ve been thinking of doing that, maybe not necessarily going for my degree, but like extension courses—now that Carol Anne’s in school . . .”

  “Your youngest in kindergarten already? Well, I’ll be. She was such a cutie pie. How is she?”

  “Well . . .” Diane let the vaguest cloud thicken her voice. “She started sleepwalking a few weeks ago.”

  “No lie!” exclaimed Doris, wolfing down a chocolate doughnut. “Somnambulism! Poor baby. What are you doing for her?”

  “Well . . . I took her in to the school psychologist. They, you know, gave her a couple tests, and said she was fine. Said she’d outgrow it.” Diane sipped her coffee uncertainly.

  “Honey, I don’t want to worry you—and I’m sure your little girl is just fine—but these school psychologists are like school nurses. About all they can do is take a temperature wrong. This speaker here tonight—he was a school psychologist. If I was you, I’d get a second opinion.”

  “Why? What do you think it could be?”

  “Hell, I don’t know, I’m no specialist. Look, probably it is nothing; she will outgrow it—all I know is, you need a specialist for everything these days. For your left eye, for your big toe. Carol Anne’s got somnambulism, she needs a somnambulism specialist. Am I right?”

  “Where in the world would I find one of those?”

  Doris beamed. “It just so happens, my cousin Bernice’s sister-in-law has a little boy who had—guess—somnambulism. And they took him to this incredible specialist; they couldn’t stop talking about this guy. They said the kid was cured. This was probably, oh, less than a year ago. So I’ll get the number tomorrow and give you a call.”

  “Would you?”

  “Would I? You gotta getta specialist, Diane. Am I right? You bet I am.”

  Thunder rumbled over the distance, came closer, rattled the windows. Robbie and Carol Anne looked up from their respective vantage points in the bedroom—he on his bed, gluing a new model rocket ship together—birthday booty—she on the floor playing with a train—and looked down again. Carol Anne just thought it was the sky coughing, but Robbie didn’t like the thunder at all. He feared the tree was angry. And then just as he thought that thought, a stark flash of lightning illuminated the yard, and he could see the old oak clearly just outside his window: its silhouette bent ominously in the wind, its branches scraping the windowpane like claws scrabbling on porcelain. Once more, thunder shook the house.

  “I think it’s watching us,” whispered Carol Anne. She wasn’t afraid, only commenting.

  “It is not,” Robbie crabbed at his sister. She said the dumbest things sometimes. He didn’t look out the window.

  Diane walked in. “Okay, you two, time for bed. Both brush your teeth?”

  They nodded.

  “Under the covers, then, and get to sleep.”

  “How can anybody sleep with all that noise?” Robbie insisted. “I think we should . . .”

  Diane turned out the lights.

  “Closet light, turn on the closet,” Robbie cried urgently.

  “Okay, okay,” Diane answered. “I’m getting it now.�
�� She turned on the bulb in the closet they used for a night light. “Now, good night.”

  “No, wait, look inside first,” the boy pleaded. He sat up in bed. Far away, thunder growled.

  Diane opened the closet door wide and made a grand show of exploring its depths. “Okay, I’m looking behind the clothes. Nothing here. Now inside the shoe boxes. Nope. Now behind the broken footstool. Nobody here. Looks okay.” She emerged smiling. “Looks clear, nothing hiding.”

  Robbie appeared satisfied. Diane went to each bed, gave them each a good-night kiss, and went back to her own bedroom.

  That was when Robbie noticed the clown doll sitting in the rocking chair.

  He actually jumped, it startled him so. Not that the clown had suddenly appeared, exactly—it was only that Robbie had become suddenly aware of its being there. And suddenly aware that it had been outside, lying under a pile of cinderblocks earlier in the day. It seemed to be laughing now, a silent, frozen laugh.

  Robbie got up from bed without looking at the laughing doll, picked a plaid shirt off the floor, and threw it over the clown’s head. Then he got back in bed.

  Lightning struck far away, electric blue, and a few seconds later the thunder throatily thundered.

  Or was it muffled laughter?

  Steve sat in bed in his shorts, rolling a joint and watching an old Bogart movie on the tube. Diane jumped in and sat beside him.

  “Were you that scared when you were his age?” she asked.

  “What scared?”

  “Robbie—the poor kids scared of the closet.”

  “It’s the age. Seven is closets. I remember.”

  “Oh yeah? What’s thirty-seven?”

  “Interest rates. I’m scared of interest rates now. What worries you?”

  Lightning sizzled miles away; the television set crackled with static. Steve licked the paper, put one end in his mouth, lit the other, inhaled.

  “Carole Anne’s sleepwalking. That’s what really worries me.”

  “Shell outgrow it.” He passed her the joint. Thunder.

  “But did you see her last night? Glued to the set downstairs and having a conversation?”

  “All kids talk to themselves.”