Poltergeist

by James Kahn

“I could come back in half an hour.”

  Bother. Well, better to get it out of the way now, than to have this eager pup barging in later during the middle of her projection. “No, no, come in, please. What can I do for you?”

  Berman sat down in a chair beside the bed, pulled out his pen and a hospital pad. “I’m the intern on this service. I just need to do a quick history and physical on you before rounds today.”

  “Fire away.”

  “Right. Well. What brings you here to the hospital?”

  “I, well, I collapsed.”

  “Uh huh, and what were the circumstances? Had you been feeling ill prior to the collapse?” He jotted down a few notes on his pad.

  “Ill? No. It was just a case of overexertion.”

  “Ah. What had you been doing?”

  “Strangling a she-ghoul in the lavender tides of the twelfth astral plane.”

  Berman stopped writing, put down his pen. “I see.”

  “It was the end of a long night, I mean to tell you. What with trying to find the direction of the little girl’s cries, and then getting lost in the Gray Zone myself . . .”

  “Ms. Barrons, are you taking medications of any kind? Oh, like Thorazine, or Haldol, or . . .”

  Tangina laughed gaily. “Is that what you think? You think I’m a few bubbles off the plumb, is that it? God, I wish I were; it would make things a lot easier. I guess I was being a little previous with you just then. Well, all right. I’ll back up.” She regarded the intern with a sense of impossibility. “I doubt if you’ll understand, though.”

  Dr. Berman poised his pen again, and smiled. “Try me.”

  Tangina looked him over for the first time. Innocence radiated from his face—she was immediately intensely envious; she hadn’t enjoyed that state of grace for a long, long time. But she couldn’t really begrudge him his ingenuousness, it just gave her a pang of regret. She looked straight in his eye. “You’re kind of cute, actually.”

  He blushed, put his pen down again. “Ms. Barrons . . .”

  “Call me Tangina.”

  “Tangina, I know I’m cute. You’re cute, too. There’s a nurse up on Five North, she’s real cute. But if you could just give me a quick run-down on the specific, physical events immediately preceding your collapse, I could get this all over with, and be out of your way.”

  She smiled wanly. Too bad, she’d scared him. Too bad for her—she could have used a little touch from the Hand of Innocence. It would have helped her in her upcoming conflict, and it would have been a gust of fresh air for her to enjoy, as well. God knew, she’d had little enough rest from her tormenting devils lately—a brief interlude with this naive and pretty healer would have done wonders for her spirit.

  But she’d scared him, she could see it—even though he was putting on such a cool facade: implacable in the face of delusional dwarves. Well, maybe she’d just have a little fun with him, anyway—shave some of the hard edges off the smugness in his demeanor. It would probably relax her to get playful. And she definitely needed to relax.

  She closed her eyes.

  “What are you doing?” Berman said skeptically, leaning forward.

  “I’m reading you. You seem rather tense, Dr. Berman. It seems your superior—Dr. Ellis? Dr. Elliot?—berated you yesterday, and you’re concerned about your performance. There’s also a lady on your mind—Julie, definitely Julie—a nurse, I believe—the one on Five North, I don’t doubt—who has engendered mixed emotions revolving around . . . your gender.” She smiled, opening her eyes, and looked a hint risqué. “Oh, my.”

  Berman couldn’t help laughing. “You know, I don’t believe any of that stuff. It’s hocus-pocus. Anyone could have found out those names, and every intern in the hospital has the hots for Julie. So?”

  Tangina arched her eyebrows. “I have a very strong image of you, all in fur—very like a great bear—and Miss Julie in something very brief and white, in flowing golden locks—Goldilocks?—wrapped around your—do you want me to go on?”

  “Okay, okay, who told you about that? It must have been Julie. I can’t believe she told you. It was . . .”

  “Truly, she didn’t tell me; I’ve never even met her. But don’t get yourself so worked up, I . . .”

  “Was there a camera in the room? What? I don’t get it, if she . . .”

  Tangina held up her hand. “Someone’s coming.”

  Dr. Berman looked perplexed, turned around to view the door. No one there. He swiveled back to Tangina. “Look. No one’s coming. And I’d like to know how you . . .”

  She held up her hand again. “Wait.”

  He paused, looked at his watch, sighed. This was starting out to be one of Those Days. He opened his mouth to speak again, but she lifted her hand once more to stop him. She beamed. There was a knock on the door. Berman jumped.

  “Come in,” said Tangina.

  A middle-aged woman entered, dressed in the uniform of a hospital volunteer. “Oh. I’m sorry, I don’t want to intrude . . .”

  “Not at all,” Tangina assured her. “Please come in. Dr. Berman and I were just discussing fairy tales . . .”

  Berman gave Tangina a look. The woman at the door took two more tentative steps into the room. She was clearly in a state of suppressed excitement. “I heard—I mean, one of the nurses just told me—you’re a medium. Is that true, are you a medium?”

  “Well, I’m usually a small, actually.”

  This only confused the woman, who apparently wasn’t ready for jokes. Tangina took pity on her. “Well, I’m a small medium,” she admitted.

  The woman smiled. Berman shook his head with a defeated chuckle. “I’d call you a medium rare, actually,” he said.

  “Why, thank you, Dr. Berman, how kind.” Tangina bowed her head. “You’re not such a bear after all.”

  He graciously dipped his head in return. The woman took another step forward. “I was wondering . . . excuse me, my name is Louise Dreyer . . . I was wondering if . . .”

  “You were wondering if I’d be willing to hold a seance for you . . . to . . . to . . . to locate someone. A missing relative, I think. Albert? Alfred? A long-lost brother?”

  Louise Dreyer gasped, put her palm against her chest. “That’s . . . that’s unbelievable,” she aspirated.

  Berman clapped. “Well done, medium!”

  “I’m terribly sorry, Mrs. Dreyer,” Tangina apologized in earnest, “but, I’m rather involved in something now that requires all my concentration. Perhaps in a few months, if you still need assistance . . .”

  “Yes . . . yes . . . of course.” Louise backed off. “Thank you. I’m sorry for bothering you now. Please excuse me. Yes, I’ll contact you again later.” She backed out the room and closed the door behind her.

  Tangina sighed. “You see, Dr. Berman—among other things, it’s very alienating being a seer. People don’t relate to you as a person—they treat you with either fear, awe, or . . . condescension.”

  Berman looked chagrined. “Touché. Sounds kind of like the way people treat doctors.”

  “I never treat doctors that way.”

  “I must say, you’ve given me an impressive display in just a few minutes.”

  She shrugged. “I can’t carry a tune. Nobody asks for the talents they’re born with. And no one can learn to see what they don’t have eyes for. I can’t read an X-ray, for example.”

  Dr. Berman leaned forward conspiratorially. “Frankly, Tangina, neither can I.” She smirked. He went on: “At least, that’s what Dr. Elgin told me yesterday.” They both laughed.

  “Well,” she said finally. “You’ve stopped being so insolent, I suppose I can forego being so oblique. Let’s just say I was in an agitated psychological state, and passed out.”

  “Fine”, sounds perfect,” he allowed, picking up his pen and writing again.

  “I’d been in a hypnotic trance for . . . listen, how long is this going to take?” she interrupted herself.

  “Oh, fifteen minutes, maybe.”
>
  “And then how long before you all come back on your rounds?”

  He checked his watch. “Probably not for a couple of hours.”

  She looked relieved. “Good. I’ll have time, then.”

  “Time for what?”

  “Oh . . . whatever.” She threw him a mischievous grin.

  “Look,” he said, standing. “I’m sort of rushed right now, and I think I’ve got the basic idea on the history, so why don’t I just do a brief exam, and then we can talk at length later on today.”

  “Fine,” she nodded.

  “Okay, why don’t I just have you lie back down, here, and I’ll get a listen to your heart . . .”

  She lay down as he put on his stethoscope. He stood at the side of the bed, opened her hospital gown, placed the palm of his right hand upon her chest—over her heart, to feel for the strength and character of its impulse.

  “Ah,” she sighed. “Touched at last by the Hand of Innocence.”

  For the second time, he blushed.

  When Dr. Berman left, ten minutes later, Tangina felt much better. She’d drawn strength from the intern’s clearness of spirit, strength she knew she would need shortly. Nor had she depleted him, or sapped his spirit in any way by her drawing on it—if anything, he too was heartier for the interaction. Matters of spirit abided by different laws than matters of thermodynamics—augmentation of one factor in a relationship did not necessarily result in the diminution of its complement.

  Not necessarily, but unpredictably—for there were times when one spirit did engorge at the expense of another. Such was her fear about the encounter she now faced. She hung a DO NOT DISTURB sign on the outside of her door, and got back in bed with a sigh of steadfast resolve.

  It was a serious business, this one. It made her a little sick just to contemplate the extent to which she’d already become involved, and the depths to which she had yet to plunge before she could extricate herself from the affair. Experience told her she’d have to see it through, though, before she could be rid of it.

  She’d gone so far so fast, this time—she wondered if her clairvoyance was becoming more acute. God, she hoped not. Perhaps it was only the intensity of the trance Dr. Lesh had put her in which accounted for the hypersensitivity. She prayed that was the reason.

  But these were idle considerations. It was time now to devote herself to the moment, to try to reach that poor little girl.

  Scrying had for many years been Tangina’s forte. She didn’t have her crystal with her now, of course, but then, a crystal was not absolutely necessary; any reflective surface would do. She reached into her purse, and extracted a pearl-tinted marble she’d found between two cushions of the Freelings’ couch the previous morning, as she’d lain there in a swoon. A pearlie, she’d heard children call it. This one belonged to Carol Anne.

  She knew the girl’s name clearly, now, had known it since the moment she’d entered the house. Knew the girl’s aura, too. The aura was all over this marble.

  With an air of forced calm, she raised the small glass orb to the tensor light above the hospital bed, and stared into its shattering stillness.

  In her eyes, in her brain, the light grew. Grew denser, brighter; darker. Filled her; enclosed her. Until she was the reflection upon which she gazed.

  On the hospital bed, Tangina began having shallow, rapid respirations. Her body became tonic—rigid, extended—and then went into a series of clonic spasms, resembling convulsions. Finally, she stopped moving altogether: no muscle tone, no breathing, barely a pulse. Anyone entering the room at that point would have thought her dead.

  In fact, her consciousness was in violent motion. Dislocated from her corporeal state, she wandered, in astral projection, through the void. Her wandering demanded great focus; it was always different. Here, there was no vision, only sense.

  “Carol Anne.” Tangina’s essence extended itself. “Carol Anne! Be!”

  For an unknown time there was nothing. Only the ether-wind, harsh and directionless.

  Then there was agonal death, clustered in a nether corner far below her; but it was sleeping for the moment, and she let it be.

  She rushed quickly over a pit of glaucous horror—it snagged her, as she disregarded it too soon; but after a brief, painful struggle, she was able to extricate herself, and went on.

  Disembodied singing, like crystal chimes, accompanied her for a while; hollow, gay.

  A pseudopod exuded itself across her path. Too late to rise above it, she pierced it instead, was caught in the sluggish ectoplasm. It tried to pull her apart, it wanted her to become one with it. She resisted the burning suffocation, though; concentrated on emerging . . . and broke clear.

  Bits of it stuck to her, but the fantailing wind soon pulled them free. She lost her balance momentarily—went into a spin—and when she came out of it, she was on another level. It was black here.

  Black, thick: like being in tar. No. Like being tar. Tangina was herself the substance of this dimension. Wandering was anguishingly slow, and without motive. Every millimeter took an eon to move.

  But Tangina took advantage of the fact that she was this entity, and thus knew minutely its contours, surfaces, depths, textures—knew these things intuitively. She sensed all her borders: she was proximate to three different universes. She exuded a wavelength toward one. Flash! she was in another plane. But she knew this place. This was the place of shadows. This was Sceädu’s domain.

  There were many ways into a place, and many ways out, and many ways never out again. Tangina knew Sceädu would stalk her here, try to snare her; Sceädu, or his brothers. She must avoid this.

  Cannily, she navigated the shadows. Some were deep, hauntingly chill, but empty. Some were thin; some, unexpected. One she approached with a discordant sense of foreboding, expecting any moment it would envelop her, suck her life away. She skirted it in mortal dread, but nothing happened.

  One shadow looked small enough at first, but as she passed, it grew much bigger, much faster than she’d anticipated: she raced sideways, with all her power. Even so, she couldn’t avoid being touched. The shadow left a nothingness in her where it had nicked.

  She balked in horror; she feared the emptiness would grow, would absorb her from within. Dark shapes loomed on all sides, now. A clangor arose. She lost her equilibrium. In that moment, Sceädu descended.

  Instinctively, Tangina toppled backward, and was through him before he could enshroud her. Out the other side she rolled, tumbling wildly into the plane of mist-layers and wandering souls. Carol Anne would be here.

  Tangina continued to tumble. She saw Sceädu scamper off, suddenly prankish and evasive in this world. Fantabel streaked by in fiery pursuit. Tangina fell through one stratum of cloud cover, and, before she could regain her steadiness, was snagged by the branches of the tree-creature. And before she could extract herself, it devoured her.

  Ageless darkness, ageless pain. She was within the corpus of the tree—yet slowly was becoming that entity. Already she could feel a little of what it was to be this thing—she could feel enough to know she wanted to know no more. The desolation of the hoary creature was excruciating. Limbs twisted in ancient grief, seeking solace; time-worn bark made bark-thick sounds of woe, torment, ageless pain.

  Fantabel whipped past, searing one branch, setting another afire. Tangina cringed—that part of her that was already the tree-being—in agony, her fingertips in flame. The tree desperately waved its branch, and the fire went out: Tangina’s fingers throbbed with memory. Smoke rose from the blackened branches. Sceädu fluttered over, feasted on the smoke, then scuttled away, frolicsome, fugitive.

  Tangina could not grasp the sense of it—the pain, the meaning, were incomprehensible. Yet only in meaning was there escape. Despair welled up in her.

  No, she must not despair. This was not her hell; it belonged to another. To many others, perhaps. But not to Tangina. And not to Carol Anne.

  Carol Anne, that was the crux. Carol Anne was the reason Tangin
a was here—the ache of the tree could not obscure that purpose. From the depths of her soul, Tangina cried out: “Carol Anne! Be! Carol Anne, deliver me from this ghastly wood.”

  Almost immediately she felt it: “Mommy. Mommy, where are you?”

  A child’s voice, Carol Anne’s. It appeared to Tangina as a color, rather than a sound—a color that grew in tone, that Tangina followed to its source, struggling, straining . . . until, with an exultant WHOOMP she found herself propelled far beyond the tree.

  She looked back down to see Fantabel bolt once more through the branches, then rush off into another plane. Sceädu cavorted in the mists. The tree-creature railed.

  Tangina floated in a cirrhus conformation. “Carol Anne! I am here for you!”

  “Mommy!” came the call. “Mommy, where are you?”

  “Your mommy’s not here, darling,” Tangina projected. “But I’m here to help you. Don’t be afraid.”

  “Where are you?” echoed Carol Anne’s voice. “I want to go home.”

  “You will, child. Only do as I say.”

  Suddenly the ether crackled.

  “Something’s coming!” Carol Anne whimpered. “I think it’s coming again!”

  A high, quavery vibration expanded and contracted, like pulsing fear.

  Then a vile grunting came.

  “Carol Anne! Do you see a light? Go toward the light! Go toward the light!”

  “Mommy told me not to!” squealed the voice. Terror, indecision; violation of vows.

  “Carol Anne! Go toward the light, but don’t go into it! Your mommy just said not to go into it! Go toward the light, child. The Thing is afraid of the light! Stand near the light, Carol Anne, and the Thing won’t come near you! Stay near the light, but don’t look into it! Do you hear me, child?”

  The smell of uncertainty clamored all around, like a great noise.

  “Do you hear me, child!” Tangina screamed, trying to force her will on the frightened child.

  The wind rose, buffeted Tangina’s spirit; she did not resist. Explosions of light flooded her; neither did she resist this assault. Her deepest, embryonic horror rose up in physical manifestation, ripped her open, poised its fangs. Still, she tossed without opposition, rolled with total surrender. The fear alone was almost unbearable.