Poltergeist

by James Kahn

  The spirit-woman almost smiled, almost paused a little longer. But she moved on. “I can stay,” she whispered. “I will wait.”

  Other souls found an end to waiting, though. They stumbled, drifted, or rushed into the glowing mouth.

  The Beast could contain himself no more. Much as he hated the light, he hated more the idea of losing the spirits he controlled to its radiance, and hated still more this shouting presence who lured them.

  With an inarticulate noise that nearly tore apart the very stuff of the ether, he threw himself at Tangina’s resounding form, gnashing his fangs, biting himself in demented fury.

  Hovering above the luminous corridor, Tangina closed her eyes, leaned forward, and changed into a mirror. The intense brilliance reflected off her face and exploded full into gHalâ’s eyes, blinding him. He rolled, flailing, into a collection of milling spirits, scattering them violently in a dozen different directions, and tumbled himself off into the nether mists.

  “Cross over, children!” Tangina roared, again in her own form—roared defiantly. “Go into the light! There is peace in the light!”

  Carol Anne came closer still, nearer the spectral window. She was only feet from Diane, now, and feet from the lip of the well.

  “Here I am, baby!” Diane wailed. “Come to Mommy!” Carol Anne’s attention flickered. Dazedly, she kept moving.

  “Go into the light!” Tangina cried. Scores of spirits converged on the source. Some knocked into the little girl, rushing ahead of her. “There is peace in the light!”

  In the howl of the storming bedroom, Tangina’s words rang out to Steve: Go into the light!

  To Steve, this was mad betrayal. “No!” he shouted to her small, prostrate body. “You said no! You said to stay out of the light!”

  In his terror and frustration and waiting, he thought he’d missed a beat—he suddenly envisioned Tangina leading his wife and daughter into the dreaded light . . . and beyond. Betrayed and lost!

  A strangled moan poured from his lips; he began pulling on the near-to-snapping rope. “Diane! Carol Anne!” His scream carried above the noise of the crashing storm; it carried downstairs to the tense duo on the other end of the rope, who looked at each other in confusion. And it carried deep into Tangina’s trance, and tore her painfully back into the room. She saw Steve pulling on the rope. She screamed.

  “Steven, not yet! Ryan! Pull! Ryan, pull!”

  Steve kept tugging. Suddenly a flash of electrical energy exploded from the closet, dying quickly to a low rumbling growl. The growl hit the lower registers of audible sound, then grew in intensity until the room, the entire building, was shaking at its foundations.

  At that moment, Steve looked up to see the face of the Beast forging slowly from the closet light.

  Like a simian skull, it had huge hollow eye sockets, a protruding mandible, savage fangs. Tense, stringy muscle gave it a hideous snarl. Maniacally, it salivated. A proto-human face, yet its canine teeth were almost tusklike, its nose hole fell into raw bone.

  The face filled the entire length and width of the closet door. Viciously, it opened its depraved jaws. Wretched, debased sounds blew the boards off the window, filled the room with vile gas.

  The head began to emerge.

  Steve froze. Doggedly, through his terror, against all reason, he held onto the rope. Held tightly—like a final act of will.

  With everything they had, Ryan and Martha pulled.

  Dozens of electrical discharges blossomed in the air above them as they tugged. Suddenly a primal cry, a cry of birth, rang out in the living room. A whirlpool of light arose at the bilocation point, a spinning vortex with glowing membraneous center—and suddenly Diane appeared at the pit of the maelstrom, with Carol Anne in her arms. The central membrane bulged, as from imminent embryonic eruption . . . when all at once the two figures burst through, clattering to the floor with an expulsion of gelatinous, amniotic fluid, and a shower of sparks. The swirling light vanished.

  The two were covered with the pinkish, jellied ooze from head to foot. Ryan untied the rope around Diane’s waist, as Steve ran downstairs to join them. Tangina followed, weakly.

  They were all crying. For a long moment they embraced passionately; then Steve picked up Diane and Carol Anne, and carried them into the bathroom. Gently, he lowered them into the tub of warm water Tangina had had him prepare earlier—so much earlier, a lifetime ago.

  The water foamed and bubbled, turned bright red, gave off an acrid odor as the jelly substance dissolved off the two. They were all still crying. Ryan ran out to get his portable video equipment, to try to tape the stuff. Martha and Tangina stood in the doorway supporting each other.

  “Hi, Daddy!” said Carol Anne. She’d just had a long, bad dream she would tell him about later.

  “Thank God,” whispered Diane through her tears. “Oh, thank God.” Her hair was salted gray.

  The three of them continued hugging in the tub.

  Tangina leaned, exhausted, against the bathroom door. Now she, too, could rest. “This house is clean,” she murmured.

  Lesh found it difficult to speak. “How . . . how do you know?”

  “The child was the connection—as long as she remained in that astral plane, the doorway between the two worlds was kept open. Bodies could move in and out at will, where before only spirits could maneuver. She’s back, now, though, and the hole is closed. The Beast won’t come back for more, I assure you. He lost more than he ever gained by the communication he created between the two worlds—he may even have lost his sight. No, he’s gone from here, and won’t be back.” She sighed a huge sigh of weary relief—for it meant her own ordeal was over, too. “This house is clean.”

  CHAPTER 9

  The Freelings decided to move.

  Steve worked out a deal with Teague—not the best deal for Steve, considering what a good salesman he was, but Steve wanted to move quickly, and was willing to sacrifice.

  Tangina went on an extended trip. She needed a long recuperation; she was finished with being studied. Her dreams, in any case, had ended, so she was content to live the life of the mindless—blind, deaf, and ordinary.

  Dr. Lesh went back to the university.

  Dr. Anthony Farrow, eyes twinkling, sat behind his old, oaken desk. It was piled high with journals, monographs, letters; the paraphernalia of half a century of scholarship. Opposite him sat Martha Lesh, elbow on the arm of the chair, chin in her hand.

  “So that’s it,” she said into her palm. “The saga of Cuesta Verde Estates. So what am I supposed to do with it?”

  Dr. Farrow raised his eyebrows hopefully. “Have you thought of selling it to the movies?”

  “Tony!”

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Just a thought. You know, it’s going to be impossible to get anyone in the scientific community to believe you for a moment.”

  “Except Ryan, anyway,” Martha glumly retorted.

  “Yes, except Ryan. And me. I believe you.”

  “You. They don’t even let you out of your cloister here, anymore, except to attend honorary dinners.”

  He laughed. There was a comfortable silence as they both reflected. “The family,” he said. “They’re all right now?”

  “Yes, thank God. A little the worse for wear—but a high-velocity emotional experience like that always brings people much closer together, if it doesn’t tear them apart.”

  He nodded, looked serious. “You’re a sage woman, Martha. What do you think happened?”

  “ ‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’ Or something like that.”

  “And how do you know what I dream of in my philosophy?”

  “Maybe this was a dream. How’s this for an explanation: Tangina was chronically sleep and dream deprived for weeks, because of nightmares which kept waking her. Now, you know when that happens to people, their dream-states break through into their waking life—they nod off for a second or two of intense REM activity, then
wake up to continue whatever they were doing. Well, maybe Tangina’s waking-dream activity was so intense, so strongly telepathic, she projected it into all our minds--starting with the little girl, and then eventually all of us concerned. So it was all Tangina’s dream, so intensely experienced and projected we all thought it was real.”

  Dr. Farrow bobbed his head as he considered it. “Not bad, not bad. I like it actually. It has some flaws, though. What about the jewelry, for example?”

  “The jewelry.” Martha nodded. “The jewelry is problematic.”

  “Well,” he ventured, “what is jewelry but matter, and what is matter but a special case of energy, and these phenomena you’ve described are certainly nothing more nor less than very special cases of energy, manifesting themselves in very special ways. Who can say what the source of the energy is? Not me. My brain is too atrophied to do anything but muse anymore. There are energy sources everywhere, though. Energy from our minds? Certainly. Energy from extraterrestrial beings? I couldn’t say impossible. From rents in the fabric of space and time? Black holes? Exploding suns, other dimensions, alternate universes? Yes, yes, yes. All, possible. And very likely something related to one of those generalizations was the cause of the Freeling Fantasy Mystery.”

  “How about spirits of the dead?”

  Dr. Farrow put his palm down firmly on the desk. “No. At spirits I put my foot down.”

  “That’s your hand.”

  “Rather would I subscribe to your silly solipsism—and say the jewelry and all of you are inventions of my mind—than postulate spirits.” He was adamant.

  “Ah, yes, I almost forgot—we are scientists, after all.”

  He pounded his fist gently in mock emphasis of her dictum. His look turned quixotic then. “By the way . . . what did happen to all the jewelry?”

  Martha lifted her shoulders. “She Who Waits asked us to give it back—but what was I to do? Send it parcel post, certified? I tried leaving it with the Freelings, but they wanted nothing to do with it—too many bad associations. They told me to study it—their donation to Science. It’s in the lab now. We’ll make some routine analyses, and get some answers, I expect. I don’t know, maybe we should use it to start a museum of paranormal artifacts.” She smiled wryly. “Perhaps the spirits of the dead will someday return to claim their necklaces and rings. For now, thank God, it’s over, though. Whatever it was, it’s come and gone.”

  Dr. Farrow made his eyes wide, and whispered: “Like a poltergeist.”

  Bekins boxes filled the living room, stacked in clusters all around. Half the furniture was packed and crated, the other half tagged and numbered. Curtains were down, books and papers were strewn everywhere, awaiting cataloguing. Moving day was dead ahead.

  The Freeling family sat around the dining room table as Diane entered from the kitchen carrying a succulent roast on a platter. This was to be the last supper in this house.

  E. Buzz sat patiently beside Robbie, knowing the treats he’d get if he behaved long enough. Diane sat down, and everyone bowed their heads. “Bless us oh Lord for these Thy gifts which we are about to receive . . .”

  “And for bringing serenity back to our home,” Steve added.

  At which Robbie chimed in, “Rub-a-dub-dub, Thanks for the grub. Yay, God.”

  They all laughed, and food was passed. Steve carved the roast. Diane got her purse off the coffee table, reached into it, and extracted an envelope addressed to the entire family.

  “This came in the mail today. It’s from Tangina—she’s in Acapulco.”

  She passed around a Polaroid of Tangina standing on a sunny beach beside a handsome young beach boy, nearly twice her height.

  “Who’s that with Aunt Tangie?” Carol Anne wanted to know.

  Diane read the accompanying letter out loud: “This photograph just goes on to prove that they do grow things bigger south of the border . . .”

  The others dug in eating as she read. Robbie and Dana exchanged a quick series of three punches over the last roll—no knockouts, the fight was called by the ref (Steve). Carol Anne surreptitiously dipped a fingerful of butter to E. Buzz under the table, during the main event.

  Diane’s voice trailed off, then picked up again. “She wants to know how our therapy is coming, and says there is no better road to a normal life than through the love we have shown for each other . . .”

  “You call this a normal life?” Dana wrinkled her nose.

  “You look like a hog when you do that,” Robbie attested.

  “Well, you are a hog.”

  “. . . and she thinks moving is a good idea even if the house is clean,” Diane continued as if she’d been uninterrupted. “You’re still seeing Teague tonight, aren’t you? About arranging a second for us?”

  “Yeah, he’s coming by after dinner. We’ll probably go to the club to set it up.”

  “Well, I’m going to the Roxy with Kirk and Franklin, so don’t expect me back until late,” Dana announced.

  “I don’t expect you back at all,” Robbie commented, making a monster face.

  “Creep.”

  “It’s a school night, young lady.”

  “It is not, Mother; it’s a Friday.”

  Diane frowned, then laughed. “Right. Right. I guess your mother is getting old.”

  “Just her hair,” razzed Steve.

  “Well, I like it,” Diane protested.

  “I can lend you some of my Grecian Formula . . .”

  “I like my hair like this—it’s very distinguished.”

  “I think it ought to be extinguished,” muttered Dana.

  “That’s what you oughtta be, hog.”

  This started round two, which the referee also had to call.

  “I thought all old people had gray hair,” piped up Carol Anne.

  “That reminds me,” Diane laughed, “speaking of forgetting things. We got a call from Dr. Bremer’s office today . . .”

  “Who?” cut in Steve.

  “Dr. Bremer, the ‘sleep disorder specialist’ I took Carol Anne to see last week. They said we missed the second appointment we’d set up, and didn’t call to cancel, so they’re charging us anyway, but they’re willing to give us one more chance.” She started laughing and couldn’t stop, and then Steve cracked up as well, and the two of them were a pair.

  Dana just rolled her eyes. Parents, it seemed, were inexplicable.

  “Mom, Carol Anne gots more sweet potatoes on her plate,” Robbie noted after Mom and Dad had finished being silly.

  “You can have seconds. Finish firsts first.” Diane wiped a residual tear of laughter from her eye.

  Carol Anne pointed at Robbie’s plate, singing, giggling. “Looky-loo. Looky-loo, lookylooky looky-loo . . .”

  And of course, Robbie rose to the challenge. “Looky-loo to you too too, looky-loo are you, too, looky-loo, looky-loo . . .”

  Dana shook her head and pushed her chair back. “I’m outta here . . .”

  She trotted upstairs to get ready for her double date.

  Steve and Diane stared at each other with monumental love, then leaned across the table and kissed.

  Robbie snuck a piece of fat to E. Buzz under the table, while Carol Anne squeezed some sweet potato in her fist, just to see how it felt.

  Diane watched Steve through the living room window as he got into Teague’s Bronco and drove off. She put the dishes into the dishwasher, finished packing a few more items, paused, sighed. Smiled. Time for some gratuitous self-indulgence.

  She walked upstairs, pulling the pins from her hair. Crossing the hall to her room, she stopped a moment beside Robbie’s and Carol Anne’s room. The door was closed; warm light filtered out from the crack at the bottom jamb. Quietly, she put her ear to the door: children’s giggled games filtered through—secret high-level conferences with imaginary friends and magical stuffed animals. Diane smiled contentedly, took her hand off the knob, and continued on down to her own room.

  It was pretty bare. Only the bed and dressing tabl
e remained up; everything else was boxed in the corner. The sheets were new. The television was gone. The stain on the wall had completely disappeared.

  She entered the master bathroom, stoppered the tub, began running in a mix of hot and cold water. Steamy hot, to soothe her aching muscles.

  She took off her shirt, draped it over the mirror, kicked off her Adidas, peeled off her sweat socks, unzipped and slipped out of her Levi’s. She put on a big terry-cloth robe. She walked back out into the hall, pinning up her hair.

  She crossed the corridor once more, once more put her hand on the children’s room door. It was hard for her, opening this door—it always would be. She was glad they were leaving this place. She could never live here with all these memories.

  She turned the knob, and the door opened easily. She peeked her head in, tentative as an intruding mother.

  Robbie and Carol Anne sat quietly, playing with a whole batch of brand new toys. They turned briefly to look at their mother, then went back to playing.

  “Just checkin’ up. I’ll be in the tub a few minutes. You get the phone?”

  “Sure, Mom. Hey, cut it out, Carol Anne, that’s mine!”

  “Yeah, but you said I could use it, too.”

  “You can’t use it until I’m done with it—then you could use it, I said.”

  “Play nice, or it’s bedtime right now,” Diane smiled. She turned to go, when she noticed the closet light was off. She reached in with her hand, feeling for the switch . . . fumbled with something a few seconds . . . felt something, and flinched. She pulled her hand . . . and the light went on. Warm, yellow. She let go of the pull cord. Edgy. This closet would always make her edgy. She hoped she didn’t get a thing about closets.

  She left the kids playing and padded back into her own room. Into the bathroom. She dropped the robe in a pile at her feet and stepped into the steaming tub. Inch by inch, she lowered herself into the luxuriously hot water. All the way up to her neck. She sighed, closed her eyes.