Poltergeist

by James Kahn

  Diane sat down beside her, and began sifting through some of the jewelry, “Some haul, huh?” She gestured upstairs: “Maybe they’re afraid we’ll sue them, and this is their idea of an out-of-court settlement.”

  Lesh held up a twist-o-flex digital wristwatch. “And this enigma . . . not more than a couple of years old. And not your husband’s?”

  “He said it wasn’t.”

  “I’ve heard about jewelry or perfume disappearing from a vanity in one room, later to reappear in another, but . . . but this doesn’t fit into any construct I’ve ever experienced, or heard of.”

  “Has anything, lately?”

  “No, I suppose not.” Lesh smiled. She’d grown tremendously fond of, and impressed with, this family during the brief time she’d shared their ordeal. Diane, in particular, seemed so strong to Lesh—refusing to abandon her baby in the face of this insanity, permitting her emotions to have full rein, yet not letting them paralyze or totally inundate her. And now, just the next morning: wearing a clean, yellow dress, Diane was bright and fresh, and even sarcastic.

  Steve entered the kitchen. “Okay, gang, what’s for breakfast?”

  Dr. Lesh stood, took off her glasses, smoothed out her dress. “Well, I’m off.” She put the artifacts into a bag. “I’ll take these back to the lab, along with the tapes. I’ve got to look in on Tangina, to see how she’s doing . . . Then, I’ve just been on the phone, setting up a Human Research Committee meeting for this afternoon—I’ll present all the evidence; we’ll see if anyone has any suggestions . . .” She paused, had a second thought, then went on a shade more tentatively. “I’ll have to display these, you know.”

  Steve smiled grimly. “Just please not on ‘Sixty Minutes.’ ”

  “Or . . . ‘That’s Incredible’?” added Diane.

  Martha laughed. “Not even on ‘Upstairs, Downstairs.’ ” She began walking toward the door. “I’m leaving Ryan here with you—I’ll return tonight. Marty won’t be coming back, did you know?”

  “Yeah, he told me that after he watched his face fall off last night, he decided to get a day job.” Steve chuckled.

  “He told me it was the worst acid flashback he’d ever had,” Diane commiserated. “Poor kid.”

  “Well, in any case, he’s promised not to talk about this for several weeks. After that, we’re all on our own.”

  The front doorbell rang just then. “I’ll get it,” said Steve. It made him feel somehow relieved, this doorbell. It was such a normal, familiar, suburban sound: people were out there, playing golf, driving to the store, ringing doorbells—doing the things that people do. Hearing the bell somehow made him part of all that again.

  With a light foot, he crossed the hall and opened the front door. Instantly he felt uncomfortable. Standing there was Frank Teague, briefcase in hand.

  “Morning, Steve.”

  “Morning, Frank.” Of all the people Steve didn’t want to see, Frank topped the list—Teague was not only suspicious by nature, he had rather distinct ideas about what constituted appropriate behavior among employees. And Steve just didn’t feel as if he was being on his best behavior.

  “Missed you at the office the last couple days, Steve. Nothing wrong, is there?”

  “No, no, no. Everything’s fine. Fine.”

  “The fellows were worried, you know, after you called in sick, so I took it upon myself to . . .” He stepped a little closer, to scrutinize Steve’s appearance. “Jesus, Steve, you look like shit. Aren’t you feeling any better?”

  Steve felt like nothing so much as a schoolboy caught playing hooky. “Well . . . now you mention it, I am still a little weak . . . this particular strain of flu’s not so easy to get rid of. I swear, the minute you’re back on your feet . . . it, uh . . . it’s back with you.”

  Teague peered past Steve into the living room. All the equipment was still up: cables, tracking across the floor. Three television monitors could be seen, tuned to static. Steve saw Teague eyeing the disarray, and subtly shifted his weight so as to block his boss’s view.

  Teague moved, too, not so inconspicuously trying to get a glimpse around Steve’s other side. “Looks like your cable is out, there,” he offered.

  “Cable? Yes, the cable. Yes. We’ve had no TV for several days.”

  “Well, we should look into that. Any other houses on the block dark?” Suspicion clouded his voice.

  “Uh, no, no . . . just us. Just us.”

  At the far end of the living room, the upright piano slid four feet, gently bumping into the couch, emitting a sustained, discordant vibration. Teague didn’t see it, but the noise made him furrow his brow. Steve immediately stepped outside and closed the door behind him.

  Instantly, the porch light came on, then increased in intensity to such a level it was dazzling, even in the full daylight. Steve laughed nervously.

  Teague squinted at the bulb. “Looks like you’ve got a number of electrical problems in the house, here. What’s that you got screwed in there, a three-hundred-watt bulb? You afraid of prowlers—in this neighborhood? Or you just trying to attract every insect in Cuesta Verde?” he laughed.

  Steve laughed.

  “Well?” Teague prodded after a moment.

  “Yes, oh that, we, uh, left it on for the delivery boy . . . for the groceries. That is, my, uh, wife’s not feeling well, either. Yes, she’s got a little of my bug.”

  Teague looked hard at Steve, as if he were trying to decide something. When he finally spoke, his tone was more serious than it had been; more intimate, even. “Steve, tell me something, are you happy here? I hope you don’t resent my leaping out to ask these things. I haven’t ever said this, but you’re our best rep—we wouldn’t want to lose you to either the flu, or . . . other ‘opportunities.’ I’m not sure what I’m saying, now . . . but all that hardware and software set up in your living room made me wonder whether you’ve got a little something going on the side.”

  Steve flushed. “Just hobbies. Popular Mechanics.”

  “Uh huh.” Teague nodded, not quite satisfied, uncertain whether to pursue the issue. “On the way over just now, Tuthill’s wife stopped me on the curb—on some pretense, the old gossip—but she told me she heard . . . funny noises over here last night. I don’t put stock in anything she says, of course . . . but she said she thought it sounded like a scream.”

  Steve felt the blood rush from his head; it was a moment before he got a grip on himself. “Feedback,” he nodded apologetically. “Jeez, I’m really sorry it carried that far—all that audio equipment in there, you know, it gets away from you sometimes. Blew a tube, in fact. I’ll try to keep it down from now on, though—Diane yelled at me about it, too.” He smiled sickly.

  Teague seemed to relax at that, seemed to come to a decision. “Are you up to a little ride? I want to show you something.”

  Lesh drove back to the university, Steve went off with Teague, Ryan took a nap on the couch. Diane was exhausted.

  For a while she tried to busy herself, hanging on desperately to all of her small, tangible realities—she finished putting the dishes in the dishwasher; she swept up fragments of broken pottery, fragments of her broken life.

  She went upstairs, straightened up in Dana’s room, found a Playgirl among the haphazardly strewn fan magazines, leafed through it, put it back.

  She walked out into the hall and stopped beside the closed door to the kids’ room. Always closed, now, always locked. Why was this happening to them? She put her ear to the door. Silent as a tomb.

  “Hello,” called Diane. “Anyone there? Carol Anne?” She rapped softly. Still, silence.

  With terrible ambivalence, she put her hand down to the knob, safe in the knowledge that it was locked, that it would not open to her, yet filled with dread at the thought of what might be happening inside—put her hand down to the knob . . . and it turned.

  She gasped, falling back, staring at the handle. For a minute, she didn’t move. Her heart pounded; her eyes welled up. She hesitated, the
n slowly began to open the door. One inch. Two inches. There was all at once a ferocious roar from inside the room—a hideous growl that slammed the door shut with pure vehemence. Diane jumped with a quick response, teary, jangled, apologetic, unstrung. Without turning, she backed down the hallway into her own bedroom and shut the door.

  That was her last ounce of strength, though. She’d been running on thin energy anyway, and this was the jolt that sapped even that insubstantial source. Suddenly, now the exhaustion of all those hours of sleepless horror came rushing around, engulfing her in weariness. She sank to her bed as if drugged, and, within a minute, was heavily asleep.

  The bedroom windows were closed. Nonetheless, briefly, the curtains moved as if teased by a small wind, then hung still once more. But of that, sleeping Diane was unaware.

  She lay, snoring softly, on her belly, still wearing the yellow cotton shift she’d put on earlier. Making up for lots of lost sleep and dreams. So she didn’t hear the bed creak, either.

  The mattress indented slightly all of a sudden—formed a shallow, distinct concavity, distinct, but queerly shaped—beside and behind the sleeping woman. A foul, salty odor settled over the bed. Diane’s dress began to slide up.

  Inch by inch the wrinkled hem rose, above her knees, past her thighs, over her hips. The material doubled against itself at the middle of her back, but kept rising higher, until the bottom of the dress was pulled up on top of her head, like a gay, yellow shroud, leaving her practically bare from the waist down.

  Her legs were completely flaccid, but somehow, they moved: straightened, pulled apart. The flesh of her thighs was kneaded by invisible manipulations—pushed in, squeezed; two tiny half-moon nail marks suddenly appeared at the crease of her left buttock.

  With a snort, she twitched once, roused a bit; her snoring stopped. She turned slightly, breathed deeply a few times, then settled back into sleep. For fifteen minutes, nothing else happened.

  Then there were the fingers again, unseen, poking, prying. Her cotton briefs were pulled to the side; her skin stretched tight.

  Gutteral sounds rose like bubbling sewer gas over the bed, but did not waken her. For sleep was her last refuge.

  All afternoon, she slept.

  Steve stood atop a dry hill with Teague, overlooking the entire expanse of Cuesta Verde Estates. Behind them sat Teague’s Bronco, and beyond that, nothing but miles and miles of rolling scrub land. But before them was Cuesta Verde, all green and modern and productive and consumptive.

  “I’m so very proud of this place,” Teague said with feeling.

  “I’ve been up here once or twice. Diane calls it ‘Vanity Point.’ ” Steve squinted down at the neat little rows of homes. Smoke curled out of one or two chimneys; tiny children ran around chasing imaginary villains; the random disembodied HONK of a car got caught on the wind, was lifted into the hills for Steve to hear, or think he heard. There was something so human in this scene—so contemporary, yet so ageless—Steve couldn’t help but feel a part of it. That feeling restored him somewhat, revitalized him.

  Teague filled his chest with air. “So who’s to say an artist shouldn’t step back from his easel to admire the sum of his parts?”

  Steve nodded, let his spirit glide for a few blessed minutes. “When they built our model home, there was nothing down there. Just freshly turned earth and a lotta wooden stakes, and miles and miles of string.”

  “One of your children was born in your house,” Teague remembered.

  Steve lost his wistful smile. “Carol Anne.”

  “I understand she’s missed a lot of school lately. Trask’s daughter’s in the same nursery class. She have the flu, too?”

  “Yeah. We’ve all got the same thing.” Demons, he thought. Reality came crashing back into his brain.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t see her.”

  “Oh, she’s around.”

  “Are you?” The question was suddenly pointed, like a spear. It jarred Steve out of the last traces of his reverie.

  “Am I what?” he queried from the dazed edge.

  “Are you thinking of leaving Cuesta Verde?”

  The question carried his thoughts back into the valley, to the homes and people to whom he felt so close. Yet here was distance, too. He reached his hand out in front of him—almost could touch the little community nestled in the hills below, as if it were a painting, just a few feet away—reached his hand out to touch it . . . but it wasn’t there. It was miles away. Was it real at all? The air here seemed rarefied. Steve inhaled the sunshine, the earth-dust, the shimmering wind. “I can’t believe how a day can be so beautiful.” He spoke to the hills. “You wonder how anyone can have a problem in the world on a day like this.”

  Teague eyed him circumspectly, kicking up some sod with his heel. “Nice spot for a bay window, wouldn’t you agree?”

  “If you’re living up here, great. Wouldn’t be so terrific from the valley, looking up at a lotta houses cutting into these hills.”

  “You don’t have to live in the valley anymore, you know.”

  “What are you getting at?” Steve regarded him sidelong.

  “Phase Five of Cuesta Verde is going up right where we’re standing, Steve. This could be your master bedroom suite. That could be your view. You interested?”

  Steve was flustered. “Frank . . . Mr. Teague . . . that’s a very generous offer. But I’m not a developer.”

  “You’re responsible for forty-two percent of sales, almost half of sales, almost half of what we’re looking at down there. Almost seventy million dollars of dwellings and property. Maybe a generation of security that no one can put a price tag on.” He paused for effect. “We should have made you a full partner three years ago. I don’t want to lose you now.”

  Steve almost reeled. So much was happening so quickly. Teague, all full of suspicion and innuendo, now brimming with generosity. His home, once his castle, now his hell. He felt suddenly blind, unable to reach the simplest conclusions, unskilled at reading the clearest signs. Maybe he’d had a stroke. Maybe he wasn’t really even conscious at all right now.

  But that was ridiculous. He knew who he was, and where he was. He knew his boss, Frank Teague, was standing beside him on top of a sunny hill overlooking his past and his future, offering him a golden opportunity that two weeks ago would have meant a Hawaiian vacation and days of happiness. But what did it mean now? What did anything mean?

  He turned and slowly began to walk, to try to sort it all out. Teague accompanied him. Just beyond the top of the next rise—barely twenty feet from where they’d been standing—spread a quiet little cemetery. Three acres of weatherworn headstones, surrounded by a low, broken picket fence, interspersed with poppies and baby’s-breath.

  Steve scratched his head, gesturing. “Not much room for expansion, looks like.”

  “We own the land.” Teague wagged his head. “We’ve already made arrangements to relocate the cemetery.”

  Steve was a little taken aback. “Can you do that? I mean, isn’t it rather . . . I don’t know . . . sacrilegious?”

  “Don’t worry about it. It’s not like an ancient tribal burial ground, or anything. It’s just . . . people.” Teague sloughed off the significance of the matter like dust on his lapel. “Besides,” he added, in afterthought, “we’ve done it before.”

  Steve stopped walking. “When?”

  “In seventy-six. Right down there.” Teague was nonchalant.

  “Cuesta Verde?” Steve was struck.

  “All three hundred acres. It was quite a job, let me tell you.”

  Steve blinked. Was this the key that translated the code to the cryptogram his life had become? Was there, in fact, meaning to all this insanity? His mind raced. He wanted to shake Teague. “I never heard anything about it.”

  “Well, it’s not something you go around advertising on billboards and the sides of buses.” Teague chuckled broadly.

  Steve was speechless. He looked back and forth between Cuesta Verde Estates bel
ow, and the cemetery behind him. Between the City of the Quick and the City of the Dead.

  Unexpectedly, the sun slipped behind a cloud. The temperature fell precipitously in the dancing breeze. Steve couldn’t stop staring, first in the one direction, then in the other.

  Teague put his hands in his pockets against the sudden chill. He could see Steve’s malaise, tried to put it away. “What are you worried about? You’re not a religious fanatic or something, are you? It’s no big deal, relatives and friends can go visit their loved ones at Broxton Memorial Park. It’s only five minutes farther out, for Christ sake.”

  Steve answered quietly, almost to himself. “Five minutes. I guess that’s no great hardship. I suppose that would be okay.”

  “Okay with who?” Teague looked perplexed.

  “Whoever might complain.”

  Teague just smiled. “Nobody’s complained yet.”

  In the iced light of dawn, Tangina prepared herself to do battle. She’d slept for twenty-four hours following her trance/ride with Lesh—all that next day, and the subsequent odious night. She’d slept deeply, to recuperate and to ready herself. And now she was ready.

  Her powers were still not at their fullest, however—this was one reason she was attempting the clairaudience with the child during the daytime: the forces of darkness were at their ebb. There would be less interference now, in general, for many spirits went into repose during the light: there would be less astral traffic to distort Tangina’s reception.

  Quietly, she got up out of her hospital bed and walked to the door: no one in the hall, a few noncommittal shufflings in the nurses’ station. Quietly, she closed her door. There was no lock on it, but nothing could be done about that. She only hoped nobody entered while she was in trance. She climbed back into bed. The door swung open, and a young man entered.

  “Good morning, I’m Dr. Berman.”

  “Good morning,” Tangina replied, with a rather tentative inflection.

  “Am I disturbing you?”

  “Well . . .”