Poltergeist

by James Kahn

  A stately spirit-woman, moving on the mists. Her gown was regal, fin-de-siècle; her manner, graceful. There was a pale beauty about her face; yet her eyes were the deepest hollows, plummeting to the abyss of another dimension. She had an air of waiting about her.

  Surrounding the spirit-woman were twenty souls, who somehow seemed to be looking out for her—on guard, even. Beyond them, a thousand souls milled aimlessly in the vapors, weeping, laughing, lost, wandering. Carol Anne was among them.

  The spirit-woman moved in their midst, encircled by her entourage. It was unclear how, but in some way she was the mistress of this astral level. She neither ruled nor guided these wandering spirits, yet was somehow their essence. She was good, withal, but goodness was not her quintessential aspect. Her quintessential aspect was attendance.

  The spirit-woman waited. She wasn’t lost, like others here, nor did she tarry in hopes of tempering her state by the timely arrival of that which she awaited. The lingering itself was her object and her element. It made her neither happy nor sad. The waiting was what she was. She abided.

  Tangina glided over the haphazard procession, looking for a sign. She saw Carol Anne at one point, rambling through the multitude, but left the girl to straggle, temporarily safe in her anonymity. It was the vile thing Tangina wanted now.

  There. In the mists, she dimly perceived him.

  She opened herself to sense—so exposed, she was dangerous and endangered. “Beast, I see you,” she glowered. The Beast was in the earthly plane, bending over a woman who slept in a yellow dress—groping, probing, drooling in demented foreknowledge. Suddenly it looked up from its unconscious feast, alarmed by Tangina’s presence.

  “I see you, Beast,” she called again. “Come to this one who knows you.”

  The Beast screeched in fury at the intrusion. It hobbled crabwise up and down the bed, back and forth, walking across the sleeper’s back, dragging its ragged claws, grimacing, salivating. It sat on her back, rolled her over, sat on her chest. It screeched again.

  “I am here, Beast,” announced Tangina.

  With a vacant hiss, it took one final look at the sleeping figure of Diane, put away its lust for another time, and loped off. Into the void.

  In the void, they circled—Tangina and the Beast. Neither could see, here; neither could hide. All was sense, here, and counter-sense. They circled, coalesced, evaporated.

  “Come, show me your fangs,” Tangina laughed. “Do your worst. Say your name.”

  Before she finished, he attacked—sank his saber teeth into her neck with an anger beyond all reason. Almost tore her head off. Tangina dissolved, though, into a vaporous presence; wisps of her smoke circled around him. A bit of her even wafted up his nostrils—he shrieked at her smell.

  In the moment before he violently exhaled her steamy substance, she crept up his nasal passages. A few motes of her reached his phthisic lungs; a few even needled his turbinates, went into his brain, before he could expel her.

  With a great snarling cough he was rid of her, but too late. She’d won the first round. A piece of her knew him now, intimately, from within. He’d never been so violated. It made him wary, and enraged.

  They hovered, facing again. Tangina felt powerful after her first strike; but also loathing almost beyond endurance at what she’d been able to sense in the Beast’s heart, and in his brain. It was vital knowledge for her to have, but at what cost!

  It gave her a temporary advantage, she knew, to have pierced his essence so quickly—he might falter, if she pressed. But care! He was still deadly, and how foul, she had barely touched.

  “So, Beast,” she gloated. “Now I can say your name. gHalâ, gHalâ. A paltry name, not even so base. It surprises me not, that you would not say it. It must be an embarrassment to you. gHalâ.” She said it as if she were clearing her throat. “gHalâ. Thou thing without mother.”

  The Beast howled and lunged. Tangina stepped aside, like a matador, did not engage him. He tumbled, whirled, drooled putrid matter. He paused, panted; assessed this meager adversary. “Khhhhh,” he hissed softly.

  “So, gHalâ, you come to kiss me and stumble like a fool. Begone from this plane; you shame yourself.”

  He turned into an acid jelly, squirted hard upon her face; she changed to glass, and the caustic gel oozed down her surface. He became a craggy boulder, tried to shatter her; she shifted shape to water, let him pass, and wet his skin. He heated up to burn her—sizzling, she evaporated. He supercooled the ether, caught the ice crystals as they condensed, crushed them in his fist—she transmuted into tiny spikes that slashed his palm. He roared. The lacerations spewed her with his odious blood, covered her with the oily black substance, like fluid depravity—it burned her, made her gag, the fumes reeked so of malignancy.

  They both returned to form, jumping back, winded, hurting. Again they circled.

  He feinted an assault with diamond-fire; she parried; he deceived the parry; she vaporized before the lance could touch her.

  She reconstituted in a locus behind the place the Beast had been—but he was waiting for her now; he faced the condensation of her spirit, well within his grasp. Before she could effect another transsubstantiation, he stabbed his talons full into her eyes.

  She wailed, fell back. He followed, tore her middle open, blew his fetid spit into the wound. Dizzy with pain and disgust, she dematerialized. Still, he was relentless. Before her smoky form could diffuse into the void, he inhaled mightily, sucking her entirety inside his lungs. He held his breath. He trapped her there.

  Thinly, he grimaced. He could hold his breath for a long time—time enough to suffocate this scum, absorb her pasty weakly spirit, then puff it out and smudge it, lifeless, on some hungry shadow.

  Tangina hammered at the sepulchral darkness, but to no avail. It sapped her breath, her hope, to be thus bound within the tomb of this monster’s chest. Rapidly, her spirit drained; her core began to shrivel.

  No. This could not be. Forcing all distraction aside, she dissociated into microcosmic particles, smaller even than the pores of the seal in which gHalâ’s lungs had encased her. He sensed the threat, and tightened the seal further still, tighter than the smallest electron—but not before two infinitesimal atoms of Tangina had trickled across the barely permeable membrane that separated lung from blood . . . and plunged into the Beast’s bloodstream.

  Through the malodorous stuff Tangina’s points of being coursed, through the heart, and out to the brain. They lodged themselves about a tender piece of brain tissue, and, forcibly, began to squeeze.

  The beast became aware of the throbbing in his head. He knew its cause. He must not falter. It was only pain, it would not kill him; it would stop if he could but hold his breath long enough to suffocate the spirit he’d imprisoned. He must concentrate. He must hold his breath against all pain. His densely vacant eye sockets grew deeper. The throbbing in his head increased.

  Tangina felt herself getting vertiginous with air-hunger. She lowered all her senses, all her energy demands, to the minutest fraction above death—all except the two beads of her essence squeezing gHalâ’s brain. In these two points she exercised all her will, her last undying strength, squeezing, squeezing.

  The pain was growing too intense. He couldn’t stand it. His head was exploding; he wished it would explode. His brain was twisting, pulsing, being squeezed beyond all comprehension—it was impossible to bear, his breath was holding, holding.

  In the final moments of her final consciousness, Tangina gathered what few filmy shreds of concentration she had remaining to the last two moments of her self, yet compressing fiercely on the creature’s bursting brain . . .

  “Well, what did he say?” asked Diane. “What are they gonna do?” She was referring to the other scientists at the university—Lesh’s colleagues. Diane had been feeling unsettled since rising from her afternoon nap, as if she’d had a discomfiting nightmare that wouldn’t quite leave her, but she couldn’t remember what it was. So she eagerly awaited Lesh
’s news—news of reinforcements, weapons, hope.

  “They were . . . stymied,” Martha answered, as evenly as she could. It broke her heart to see Diane’s face fall like that, so she hurried to amend her statement. “They want to keep close tabs on developments here, though—they insisted I stay here and continue our investigations.”

  Ryan silently shook his head, kept on puttering with the wires behind his amplifier: he knew what that meant.

  But Diane was no fool; she knew, too. Her chin quivered, yet she would not cry. Steve put his arm around her shoulder.

  “We’re going to go through it all again tonight, aren’t we?” said Steve. “There’s nothing we can do. Is there?” It was full night, now. Past ten o’clock. The television sets were all on. The electronic instruments were all set up. The Freelings were all going mad.

  Mischievous poltergeist activities had continued unabated all day—breaking dishes, strange knocks, a few teleportations. Nothing serious. For the past hour, though, a sticky odor had descended upon them that seemed to cling—they all picked at their clothes in useless carphology, as if trying to pull away the webs of death. Then, just as suddenly, the cloying sensation was gone.

  The sound of laughter came next—unkind, unmeaning. Laughter like sandpaper. A morbid intuition settled over the house. It made Martha feel physically nauseated. Ryan began to hyperventilate at one point, but Dr. Lesh talked him down, reminded him of his function.

  Around ten-thirty, they turned out all the house lights—they’d found darkness facilitated communication with Carol Anne. When all was ready, they took their positions. Diane stood in the center of the room, and called out.

  “Carol Anne. We’re here, baby. Can you hear us?”

  Silence. Diane tried for five more minutes, then sighed. Her chin quivered slightly, and she sat down on the floor. Everyone rested quietly for a while. Listening.

  Ryan noticed it first. Shadows in the hallway seemed to be moving. He jumped when the movement struck him initially, out of the corner of his eye. Training his vision directly at the hall, he saw nothing out of the ordinary for many seconds . . . and then it happened: a large, amorphous shape expanded slowly, changed inclination, resettled.

  Ryan leaped to his feet, hit the hall light in two long strides. Nothing there. In the bright glare of the hundred-watt bulb, the foyer was clean and empty. Not even a piece of furniture.

  “What is it, Ryan?” Dr. Lesh lifted her head.

  “Nothing, I . . . thought I saw something. Just getting jumpy, I guess.”

  They all smiled weakly. He killed the light and sat down again.

  Five minutes later, there the motion was again. More, this time. Shadows, moving over each other, expanding, contracting, nestling, watching.

  “Dr. Lesh?” whispered Ryan.

  “Yes?”

  “Do you see . . . something in there?” He tilted his head toward the hall.

  Before she could respond, there was a sound in the television. They all crowded around it.

  “Carol Anne?” breathed Diane.

  Shadows moved vaguely in the static snow of the screen, forming, dissolving, reforming.

  “Carol Anne, can you hear? It’s Mommy, sweetheart.”

  “Are you there?” came a voice from the television. “Are you there?”

  It wasn’t Carol Anne’s voice.

  The shock of this realization stunned them all, but Diane more than any. She reeled back from the set with a tiny cry.

  “Are you there?” the voice repeated, ethereal, distant. The image resolved more: it resembled the ghost-woman who’d descended the stairs the night before.

  “Yes,” Lesh spoke loudly. “We are here for you. Who are you?”

  There was a pause, as if the speaker were considering the question. “I am she . . . who waits.”

  Lesh felt a thrill to the red of her bones. “What are you waiting for?”

  Static washed the shadow out completely; then the woman returned. “I look for . . . him. He will return for me. I know he will.”

  “My baby,” Diane urged the television. “Is my baby in there with you?”

  The vision faded. Lesh addressed it loudly. “There is a child in there. With you. She’s five years old; her name is Carol Anne. Do you know her?”

  The moving dots took form again. “I am the mistress of all my people. I wait for them all. I speak to their biding. I am the mother of their longing; they are the children of my patience.”

  “No,” whimpered Diane. “No, God, no . . .”

  “We want her back!” shouted Steve. He’d given all his effort to remain in a semblance of control for so long, to being the model of silent strength, that now the thin superstructure holding him erect was starting to crack. He spoke again, his voice quavering. “She belongs here with us, not with you. She doesn’t want to wait.”

  The image in the picture tube seemed almost to smile, almost to sleep. “I am she who waits.”

  Lesh moved closer to the set. “There is . . . there is an evil thing there with you. Are you safe? Can it hurt you? What is it?”

  “My people soothe my longing pangs,” the voice returned inscrutably. “We shall not want, for want we shall.”

  “What . . .” Lesh had so many questions, she couldn’t sort them out, didn’t know which to ask first. “What do your people want? What is it they’re looking for there?”

  The spirit-woman’s voice faded in the static, as a car ignition kicked over down the block. The words were lost. Reception cleared in the middle of her sentence, then dissolved again. “. . . their mementos. They must be returned. They are the memoirs of . . . there must be . . . of remembrance . . .”

  “We can’t hear you!” Lesh pleaded. “Don’t go! What were you speaking of?”

  The image grew darker. “The jewelry. You can use it . . . as . . . uses me. But you must return it. We will wait.”

  Lesh hesitated. “As—what uses you?” She felt a chill creep down her neck.

  The resolution seemed to intensify. “FhÿrgHalâghûl, when he will. I don’t mind. I only wait for my beloved.” The face turned aside; tears could almost be imagined on the deathly white cheek, but the static was too coarse to permit such distinctions. The ghost of an image paused, then went on. “FhÿrgHalâghûl leaves the others alone if he . . . can take my spirit . . . from time to time. But I only wait. It matters not to me.”

  “But what about Carol Anne?” Diane whispered. “What about my baby?”

  “I only wait . . . I remain . . . he will return for me . . . I know he will . . .” Her voice faded, with her shape, into snow.

  Diane buried her face in Steven’s chest, crying. Lesh sat back and looked at the sack full of jewelry. “Give it back? How do we give it back?”

  Ryan checked the recorders to make sure everything had been picked up. As he was fiddling with the reset buttons, he noticed something zip across his peripheral visual fields again. He looked up into the darkened hallway once more, remembering suddenly he’d left them full of shadows. There were no vague shapes now, only solid darkness. Impenetrable. He shook his head, went back to his machines. Again, peripheral movement. Again, only blackness when he tried to delve into its subtleties.

  Wait. There was movement now. A darkening at the far wall, opposite the staircase. Once and for all, Ryan stood with a determined grip on himself, and stalked into the hall. He turned on the light switch. The light didn’t go on.

  Ryan was only standing six or eight feet from the sinister corner, now, though. He stared at it intensely. Before his eyes, across the entire face of the wall: two great, black holes appeared mid-way up, between them the skeletal depression of a nasal cavity. A bony brow started to protrude near the ceiling; the length of the floor glistened moist black with salivary juices: a face was coming through the wall. The face of horror they’d witnessed on the television the night before. The face of the Beast.

  The wall began to change its contours markedly—Ryan opened his mouth to yell,
when suddenly a voice came over the television again, loud and insistent: “Mommy! Mommy!”

  The face in the wall instantly receded. Wall again only. Ryan ran back into the living room.

  “Here I am, baby,” Diane called. “We won’t leave you. Mommy and Daddy love you.”

  Martha motioned to Ryan to start the tapes up, which he did. He refocused one of the cameras on the monitor, and began adjusting various dials.

  It was then that they heard the other noise. The noise outside.

  “What was that?” Ryan stopped what he was doing. His whisper was almost a shriek.

  “It sounded like a . . . rattling. In the back.” Lesh said that for the tape recorder—no one in the room needed to be told what it sounded like.

  Nobody moved. It came again. Whrwhrwhr.

  Lesh took a deep breath. “I’ll go look. Ryan, you stay here with the instruments.”

  “I’ll go with you,” said Steve.

  “No,” Lesh responded with great regret. “You stay with your wife and child. I have a feeling they may need you.”

  She took the heavy-duty flashlight, walked through the hall to the kitchen, and out the back door.

  The backyard was black under a cloudy sky. Wind rustled in the bougainvillea along the side of the house, and somewhere a rodent skittered for cover. Could that have been the sound they had heard? No. Whrwhrwhr. There it was again.

  Lesh followed her ears and the beam of her flashlight around the corner of the house and out. Fifteen steps, twenty. She stopped at a huge, cubical pit carved out of the earth, undoubtedly the future swimming pool. She shined her light down into it: thick brown mud, the color and consistency of coagulating . . .

  Something grabbed her; she swiveled on one foot, swinging her weighted light, ready to scream, not ready to die—and the arc of the flashlight passed inches over Tangina’s head.

  With her stomach in her throat, Lesh sat down hard on the cold ground. It was a few moments more before she found her breath. “Tangina,” she gasped.

  “I didn’t mean to frighten you, Doctor,” whispered the psychic. They were at eye level now, Tangina on her feet, Martha on her behind. “I have a strong sense about this pool, though. I was just doing a little excavating of my own to explore it. I tell you, quite frankly: this place is a wealth of senses to the sensitive.”