Poltergeist

by James Kahn

  Marty also had with him a tapedeck and microphone, an infrared camera, a Nikon, three heavy-duty flashlights, two walkie-talkies, and a large thermos of coffee.

  And so they were off

  Tangina had stayed awake the rest of the preceding night and all the preceding day, preparatory to this quest; consequently, she started out exhausted—so putting her to sleep was no problem for Martha.

  “I’m going to count from one to ten . . .” She began the hypnosis again, but Tangina was out cold by five. Thirty minutes later, they started seeing PGO spikes on the oscilloscope.

  “Let’s move out,” said Marty. They headed east.

  They drove for twenty minutes, due east, without any substantial change in the PGO activity. Infrequent BLIPS made bright, vertical green strokes across the screen, sometimes coming in twos and threes, sometimes as isolated events. Their incidence decreased somewhat at that point; Ryan turned north, and, after fifteen minutes, the little BEEPS vanished altogether. He turned south once more.

  They chattered on at first—about grant applications, Marty’s latest coed conquest, academic gossip, movies, courses—but after a while, the talk trickled, and then, at length, ceased. Only the hum of tires on road made any sound, syncopated by the occasional BLEEP from the oscilloscope.

  It was a painstaking, trial-and-error process. At times they lost the signal completely, and drove in circles until they picked something up again. That went on for hours. They began to tire.

  Just after six A.M., though, Tangina mumbled a few syllables and turned over.

  “I think I’m getting something over here,” Marty said almost simultaneously.

  “Where the hell are we?” asked Ryan.

  Lesh took out her map and turned on the overhead light. “I think we’re heading east southeast, about, oh, thirty miles from home.”

  They looked out the window. Sparse country, here: rolling scrub, occasional farms or small towns.

  “This is it!” Marty said breathily. “All kinds of activity back here. Wherever you’re going, keep going.”

  “Mommy . . .” The willowy voice floated from Tangina’s throat once more. It cut through the cab like a knife, silencing everyone else. So tormented, so thin: “Mommy . . . help me . . . something’s coming . . .”

  In the distance, a scattering of lights rose out of the low-lying hills.

  “That must be the place,” Ryan said softly. His throat was dry.

  Ten minutes later he passed a large sign:

  CUESTA VERDE ESTATES

  PLANNED

  PROPER

  and

  PROUD

  A few minutes after that, he was driving in the midst of an expansive, extended housing development, and Tangina was writhing in misery.

  “Ooohhhh . . . ohhhh noooo . . .”

  Her pitiable wails were becoming unbearable to the others in the car. Ryan gripped the steering wheel with sweaty palms. Martha fidgeted almost to distraction in her seat. Marty tried to concentrate on adjusting sound levels in the tape deck, but he couldn’t concentrate. Tangina rolled around convulsively, then suddenly sat up and scrabbled at the door handle.

  “Don’t let her out yet!” ordered Dr. Lesh. “Marty, switch over to telemetry. Ryan, stop the car!”

  Ryan pulled over to the curb as Marty pulled the wires out of the oscilloscope and plugged them into the portable transmitter. Dr. Lesh got out of the bus with Ryan, and together they helped Tangina down to the ground. The clairvoyant’s eyes were stark and staring; she was distraught.

  Martha carried the transmitter, whose wires now connected to Tangina’s electrodes. Ryan carried a walkie-talkie. Each took one of Tangina’s elbows, and slowly walked her into the night, as Marty remained behind, monitoring the oscilloscope.

  They were on what looked like a typical suburban street. Corner and porch lights illuminated the sidewalks in the chill of the false dawn; an occasional lamp flickered inside a living room window. The air was still and quiet—except for the random, falsetto cries of this visionary dwarf, Tangina, wandering in a fugue, supported by two frightened academicians who feared they were out of their depth.

  Ryan’s walkie-talkie squawked. “Getting warmer. Lots of PGO now. The whole screen is . . .”

  Before the words were out of the box, Tangina loosed a shriek and set off at a dead run down the street. Ryan was taken by such surprise he just stood there with his chin down, and Martha actually fell to the ground. By the time they’d collected themselves, Tangina was scurrying up the lawn of a house half a block away. The others took off in pursuit.

  All three reached the front door at just about the same moment—but Tangina was already banging, scratching, wailing; her nose was running, her knees scraped. She collapsed in a faint just as the door opened.

  It would have been difficult to judge who was in a state of greater disrepair: the people just inside the front door, or the people outside. Steve stood there with his hand on the knob, in a bulky white cardigan over a wrinkled T-shirt. His eyes were dark hollows, his lips were parched, his hair stuck out in cowlicks, his stubble was two days old. Behind him, Diane crouched at the foot of the stairs, like the shadow of a nightmare.

  In front of Steve—on the porch—a small, strange person lay unconscious, wires coming out of her head and leading to a box being held by an older woman with mussed-up clothes and bloody knees, standing beside a wild-eyed man holding a two-way radio.

  “I suspect,” said Martha Lesh to Steve Freeling, “we are both in need of help. Would you please invite us in?”

  Five of them sat around the low living room table in the gray morning: Steve, Diane, Martha, Ryan, Marty. Tangina lay sleeping comfortably on the couch. The others sipped coffee. All the curtains in the house were drawn.

  “So that is the substance of our story,” concluded Dr. Lesh. “I don’t know who you are, or exactly what Tangina saw that drew us here . . . but I know the nature of her work before we began studying her. Several police departments are impressed with her capabilities . . . so I assume you have lost someone close to you. I’d like to help you in any way we can. Otherwise . . . if our presence here is as mystifying to you as it frankly is to me, we will all of us take our leave now, with many thanks for the coffee and forbearance.”

  Diane half sobbed, half laughed at the prospect of hope, then immediately collected herself—she would need all her faculties, she knew, for whatever was involved. “No . . . please . . . the hand of God has brought you here—I know it. God, or Providence. Please, stay. Help us.”

  “Fine,” Lesh went on. “In that case, I’m going to have Ryan and Marty take Tangina back to the university—to the hospital. We’ve put her through quite too much, I’m afraid—she’s exhausted. I have an associate on the staff there—Dr. Farrow. I’ll call him presently; he’ll see she’s taken care of. In the meantime, perhaps we can continue our talk here: I’m at your disposal.”

  “You’re being very kind.” Steve spoke in a hoarse whisper.

  “Not at all. I feel quite like an intruder in your home.” Dr. Lesh turned toward her two assistants. “Marty, after you drop Tangina off at the hospital, why don’t you go on back to the lab and wait for my call? Ryan, when you finish helping Marty, come right back here for me—we can determine what’s to be done at that point.”

  The two young men rose, bid deferential good-byes to the Freelings, and helped Tangina to her feet. The psychic’s eyes fluttered briefly; she was even able to walk, more or less, between the two assistants, but she didn’t really wake up.

  When they’d gone, Diane got up, wiped her eyes, smiled bravely. “I’ve got to go get Robbie ready for school. Excuse me.” She walked briskly upstairs.

  Steve sat alone on the couch, facing Dr. Lesh. He looked very alone. It was a situation Lesh had been in a thousand times before, though, as a therapist. Her training and natural compassion rose to the occasion, and gradually she put him at ease.

  “May I call you Steve?”

 
“Yes. Yes, of course.” He licked his lips.

  “Steve, I’ve been talking a long time now. I feel as hoarse as Marlene Dietrich. So. It’s your turn to talk.”

  He looked down at his empty hands. “I . . . don’t know where to start.”

  “Start anywhere. Troubles have no beginning—just a big endless middle.”

  He laughed, shaking his head. “Oh, there was a beginning to these troubles, all right.” He paused, gathering himself together to go on. “It began with the . . . disturbances.”

  He tensed himself against the reaction of disbelief he anticipated. “Things moving . . . by themselves. That’s how it started. Then there are the flashing lights—in the middle of nowhere. Vague music that you can’t quite hear. Funny smells. Sometimes a big wind will just blow through the house. And, of course, the furniture is still moving by itself whenever it wants . . .”

  “Of course.” Dr. Lesh tried to redirect him. “Are . . . all the members of your family involved in these . . . events?”

  “Yes, yes. Yes. Diane—my wife—she was the first one to notice. Then my oldest daughter, Dana—she’s fifteen. Robert, my son, he’s seven . . . no, eight . . .” Steve rattled these facts off happily, rapidly. These things were his reality test; these were the things he knew. He paused. “And Carol Anne, she’s my youngest. She’s five.” He looked at Dr. Lesh in pain, pleading silently with her to ask the right questions.

  “Disturbances such as the ones you’re describing usually appear on the news, on TV—I haven’t seen any publicity, though.”

  In the background, the television was tuned to static. “No, we keep our set turned to Channel 23 usually . . .” Steve trailed off, then continued quickly, lest Dr. Lesh think him hopelessly crazy. “No—I mean . . . no. We haven’t had any publicity. Absolutely no. Uh uh.”

  Martha nodded. “Can you be reasonably sure of not letting any get started?”

  “It’s the last thing in the world we want. No three-ring circuses. My job, my family . . .”

  “Would your family welcome a serious investigation of the disturbances by someone who could make first-hand observations?”

  Steve almost broke down. He wrung his hands, tried to control the tremor in his chin. “Dr. Lesh. We don’t care about the disturbances . . . the pounding . . . the furniture . . . the flashes, the music.” He looked distractedly around the room, almost as if he were looking into the walls. “We just want to find our little girl.”

  CHAPTER 4

  For the next three hours, Lesh interviewed Steve and Diane, getting all the specifics of the case—what moved when, who was in the room when it happened, when the television was on, what channel it was tuned to, how, Carol Anne disappeared, and so on. They were so glad to talk about it with someone—anyone—they needed no coaxing to tell their story.

  Up to now, they hadn’t known whom to tell, or what to do. Call the police and file a missing persons report? They could just imagine the reaction that would have gotten them. Hire a medium to talk to the spirits? They had no idea how to contact such a person. They couldn’t tell friends, for fear of being laughed at. They hardly believed it themselves. Certainly they couldn’t allow the neighbors to find out—they’d be roasted out of the neighborhood, particularly by Teague, who had a distinct sense of propriety and community—and who didn’t react well to abnormal behavior in his neighbors or his salesmen. He’d already called once to find out why Steve hadn’t been showing up for work.

  But just as certainly, they couldn’t leave the house—not while Carol Anne was still there. She might reappear at any time; she might need them to help her; she was . . . somewhere here.

  Dr. Lesh’s appearance was a godsend. A sympathetic, credentialed scientist. A doctor. She could help them. She knew about paranormal events; she wouldn’t discard their apprehensions, or scoff in ridicule. She would help them.

  Ryan returned from the hospital just as Robbie was getting home for lunch.

  “How was school?” Diane asked.

  “Oh, I didn’t have classes today,” Ryan joked, coming through the front door on Robbie’s heels.

  “No lunch if you cut classes,” Diane riposted. Her spirits were elevated enormously already—she just knew these kind people would find her baby.

  “But the dog ate my homework,” Ryan tried hopefully.

  “Well . . . okay,” Diane relented. “You can have lunch, too.” She headed toward the kitchen. “You wash up, mister,” she yelled at Robbie.

  Steve entered the hallway with Dr. Lesh. “I was just going to take them up . . . to the bedroom,” he said to his wife.

  Diane went on into the kitchen, talking over her shoulder. “You guys go on. I’m gonna try to keep sane by making food for everyone—we all have our little tricks.”

  Steve nodded, and began to mount the steps, followed by Dr. Lesh and Ryan, with Robbie several paces behind. Ryan wore a 35-mm camera on his neck.

  “I should warn you,” Steve said as they climbed, “we’ve had to lock off the room from the rest of the house. Robbie sleeps with us now. Dana, our oldest, spends a lot of time with . . . with friends.”

  “How many disturbances have you recorded in this room?” Martha asked.

  “We just don’t go in there any more.”

  “We can set up in there,” Ryan assured him. “We’ll record any psychotronic energy or event that occurs—we’ve got all kinds of sensitive electronic devices; they can pick up the subtlest changes—things impossible to appreciate with the human eye.”

  Dr. Lesh nodded agreement. “Ryan filmed an extraordinary episode during a case in Redlands.”

  “It was!” said Ryan, his excitement rising at the prospect of more positive results to publish. “A child’s toy—a small matchbox vehicles—rolled seven feet across a linoleum surface. The duration of the event was seven hours.”

  “Seven hours for what?” Steve asked, a bit confused.

  “For the vehicle to complete the distance. The movement would never have registered on the naked eye, but I got the event on the time-lapse camera.”

  Steve nodded as they reached the landing. The hallway was dark. He crossed the carpeted corridor slowly, feeling his way along the wall until he reached the closed door to the children’s room. Lesh and Ryan followed closely behind, though Robbie had second thoughts. When he got to the top of the stairs, he turned right around and ran down again—to light, and mother.

  Steve extracted a key from his pocket, bent over, and fumbled at the lock on the door. Casually, Dr. Lesh and Ryan peered around the hallway, noting room positions, structural points. Quietly, Steve turned the lock and swung open the bedroom door. Casually, Ryan and Dr. Lesh looked into the room.

  Shattered furniture and toys were everywhere. And everywhere, in motion.

  The crippled bed hopped about in circles, as if something were vibrating the floor wildly. Records flew around in great arcs; a lamp careened by, nearly striking Ryan on the head. Toy animals sailed upside down, their stuffing half torn out; picture books flapped through the upper levels. A small plastic horse cruised by, ridden and slapped by a Barbie doll. The window was boarded up with a large piece of plywood, but inside the bedroom, a dark wind blew.

  Lesh and Ryan stood motionless in the doorway, paralyzed with incredulity. “This has got to be a hoax,” Ryan whispered. “Right?”

  The lamp sailed by again; as it passed, its bulb turned on, then exploded. Several books flew up to the door and hovered there, flapping madly as rabid bats. The books soared away, but were instantly replaced by a flying drawing-compass which rocketed straight at Lesh, its needle point spinning murderously toward her eye. She jumped back a step.

  The compass hung there a moment, spinning, when suddenly a record floated by, directly in front of it. The compass point locked down onto the record and rotated over it, producing an eerie, unnatural melody—the sound of spirits wailing.

  All at once, the door slammed shut, leaving Lesh and Ryan quaking in the hall.

>   Behind them, Steve nodded, and spoke quietly. “Like I said, we don’t go in there much any more.”

  After a subdued lunch, Robbie went back to school; the others sat around the kitchen table over coffee and devil’s food cake.

  Martha’s hands still shook imperceptibly as she lifted her cup to her mouth. Diane, on the other hand, had become totally calm, her frayed ends gathered together: for the first time in two days, she knew she wasn’t crazy; moreover, an expert was here.

  “None of us have been much fun to be around,” she said matter-of-factly. “I guess you can tell I haven’t slept very much. Steve’s been staying home from work; he’s really been wonderful. Really.” Nobody said anything—Ryan and Lesh were still both rather shaken—so Diane continued, with genuine interest: “How long have you been investigating haunted houses?”

  Dr. Lesh looked slightly embarrassed. “Well, Mrs. Freeling . . .”

  “Diane.”

  “The determination as to whether your home is ‘haunted’ is not a very easy one.”

  At that moment the coffee pot moved, of its own accord, two feet, to the very edge of the table, then stopped. With great force of will, Dr. Lesh overlooked this display, and, as casually as possible, went on speaking.

  “What I meant to say was, there could be numerous explanations for the things we see happening here.”

  “Such as?”

  “Might be a poltergeist,” added Ryan. “Instead of your classic haunting, that is.”

  “There’s a difference?”

  Ryan felt completely dislocated. Here he was, a scientist, a man who believed in natural cause and effect, seriously entertaining notions of ghosts and goblins. Every few minutes he quietly reassured himself under his breath: “I saw what I saw. A scientist must objectively report what he sees. I saw what I saw.”