Poltergeist II - The Other Side

by James Kahn

  “Promise,” said Carol Anne. She actually liked it when her mother left her alone—she saw things more clearly, usually.

  “Okay, I’ll be right back” said Diane, and entered the lingerie store.

  Robbie moved to the adjacent window to ogle a rack of BB guns while Carol Anne turned toward a sound at her back.

  It was the preacher man, standing right behind her. He was reaching out for her.

  She backed up rapidly half a dozen steps into the crowd. She didn’t want to be touched by this man; his teeth were yellow, and the air around him was damp.

  She looked for Robbie, but she’d gotten turned around and so looked in the wrong direction. When she looked back at the man in black he was becoming transparent, and he quickly vanished. She ran to look for Robbie, but she couldn’t see him. She heard him, though. “Mom!” he was calling.

  She ran toward his voice, but after only a step, she bumped into a pair of long legs, outfitted in loose black pants and lace-up boots. She raised her eyes. It was he.

  “Hi,” he purred, his voice like cream gone bad.

  “Hi,” she replied in monotone, trying to give no encouragement, yet too frightened to run or yell.

  In the background she could hear Robbie and Diane talking excitedly—“Mom, she’s gone, I don’t know where!” “Carol Anne?! Carol Anne!”—but she couldn’t answer them, couldn’t acknowledge them. As if in a nightmare, she couldn’t speak, couldn’t even move. Yet she heard them clearly, in a detached kind of way, while another part of her was taking the measure of this smiling, humorless man. It was as though she was two people, or the same person existing simultaneously on two different planes—the plane of this shopping center and the plane of this preacher.

  He reached out to touch her.

  Suddenly Diane scooped her up. “Honey, what’s the matter? You look pale as water. Why’d you run off like that? I told you I was coming right back . . .”

  “I dunno . . .” Carol Anne lied, her eyes fixed on the man.

  Diane turned to him now, smiling, a bit flustered. “Thanks for stopping her . . .”

  “My pleasure,” said the man, removing his hat. His hair was wispy, white, the texture of mealy corn silk. His voice, Diane thought, was too high . . . or something. His eyes were like moss.

  She walked off with Robbie holding her hand and Carol Anne clinging to her. Carol Anne looked back at the stranger. He put his hat on, then strolled away humming the melody that seemed to live inside her head: It made her start to cry. “I wanna go home, Mom. I don’t feel good.”

  Diane, concerned without knowing exactly why, felt Carol Anne’s forehead for fever as she took her children toward the parking lot.

  In the distance, Carol Anne saw the strange man walk through a closed door and disappear.

  The man’s name was Henry Kane.

  Grover Lane was one of the lesser streets on the outskirts of greater Phoenix. Lined mostly with succulents and an occasional juniper, it curved for only a few short blocks, connecting two main suburban arteries. Those few blocks were quiet blocks, though: residential bordering on backwater. The occupants of the homes were predominantly retirees, older couples whose children had grown and left to conquer new suburbs. Jess Williams lived here.

  Her house was actually built in the style referred to as California Bungalow—built by her now deceased husband, Avery, who’d grown up in Pasadena and longed for the architecture of his childhood. It was a big old two-story wood frame house with detail in rich oak and walnut, windows of leaded glass, and a garden that blossomed with rose, honeysuckle, azalea, star jasmine, and bold cactus flowers. Blossomed with life. The garden was Jess’s domain.

  After forty years out there, Avery had finally died of the chronic lung condition that had brought them to the arid land. He spent his last few nights lying on a cot Jess had set up in the garden, inhaling the perfumed memories of his youth, so that when death finally came he was at peace, and Jess felt that his spirit had simply entered the garden.

  She would otherwise have moved—the kids were long gone, and she would have been so lonely knocking around the big old house all by herself—but she sensed Avery in that garden they’d shared so many years. He was in every petal, every handful of earth. So she tended the garden—nurtured it, spoke to it, loved it, filled it with her life, and took life from it. And she was content.

  And then one of the kids came home, which was cause for great pleasure and comfort to Jess; great joy but for the obvious pain her child was in. Diane’s whole family, really, was close to a breakdown.

  They’d lost their house, nearly lost their sanity, it seemed. And they wouldn’t talk about it. Diane would break into tears at any loud noise, Steve couldn’t hold down a steady job, Robbie and Carol Anne had nightmares. Dana, Diane’s older daughter, could do nothing but fight with everyone, so when she graduated high school the following year, it took her less than a week to pack her bags and head east for college—as far east as she could get, and don’t bother to write.

  So of course Jess said they could live there. They were churning apart, trying to hold things together, and Jess foresaw that by being there for them, letting the currents of her home and her self ease them, their own boiling energy would first simmer, then cool, perhaps even jell. And to a certain extent, she was right. The nightmares receded, the arguments diminished, wild outbursts became controlled. Wounds, unhealed, were at least balmed.

  What Jess hadn’t foreseen was the special nature of her granddaughter, Carol Anne, or the special relationship that would develop between them.

  For Carol Anne had dreamsight.

  And Jess knew about dreamsight, because she had it herself. Dreamsight was a sense—a kind of sight that encompassed different realms. Many children had it, actually, but most lost it by the age of ten—lost it or had it schooled out, or badgered out, or ignored out, or scolded out by a culture that treasured its blinders. It was a second sight that most people unlearned—only Carol Anne hadn’t unlearned it.

  Nor, at the unchildish age of seventy-one, had Jess.

  So, though Steve and Diane were made uncomfortable by the way Carol Anne spoke to animals or watched the colors of the air, Jess encouraged the girl; she finally had someone who knew her language.

  Saturday afternoon, suburban backyard barbecue, burgers and franks sizzling over the coals. Gramma Jess puttered in her garden, talking to the lush flowers that responded quietly to her loving touch; Diane squeezed fresh lemonade in the kitchen; and Steve played whiffle ball with the kids.

  Steve was not doing well in his life. After the house had . . . disappeared . . . he’d suffered a serious undermining of his ego; he couldn’t hang on to a job or even take one seriously. He had let his appearance become somewhat slovenly—internal justification for his employment record—telling himself, in a sense, that the reason for his troubles was his long hair, his careless demeanor. That wasn’t the reason for his troubles, though. The reason was the bottle.

  He’d taken to the bottle when he had realized he was not in control of his life, his family, himself.

  Carol Anne had vanished for a week four years before, in what Steve believed must have been a wave of mass hypnosis. And Steve had done nothing to save the child. Diane and that strange dwarf had broken the spell.

  Then the house had disappeared, and the only way Steve could avoid examining that catastrophe too closely was to drink the memory away.

  Then Dana, the daughter of his first passion with Diane, had begun flying apart, tearing the edges of the family to shreds. The whole fabric of his life began to unravel. Now he was sponging off his mother-in-law.

  Unhomed, unmanned, he’d become a creature of last resorts. And his last, best resort was the fruit of the vine; or, more specifically, of the cactus: tequila settled in as his most steadfast friend and demon.

  Diane tried to get him to stop, but by now Diane was part of his problem. Her strengths—her sense of self, of family unity, of center—only magnifi
ed his weaknesses. So sometimes he drank just to annoy her, to wear her down.

  But after all the snipes and skirmishes, Steve remained afloat because of his children. He loved them unconditionally. Watching them grow was his only remaining solace. He felt that, in all his forty years, he’d produced nothing else of value.

  So playing whiffle ball with them this Saturday afternoon provided a real, if brief, measure of peace for Steve. For a few hours he could feel ordinary again.

  Robbie pitched, Steve batted, Carol Anne ran around like a jumping bean with legs, chasing stray balls and butterflies, and E. Buzz barked general encouragement.

  “Carol Anne, come on!” yelled Robbie. She’d stopped short, holding the ball, to sniff a handful of gardenias Jess had just cut.

  Steve took advantage of this break in the action to take a long pull on his beer and counsel his son. “Hey, be patient, kiddo. We got all the time in the world.” Then, to Carol Anne: “Sweetpea? The ball?”

  Carol Anne had lost interest, though; the flowers were humming to her. “I don’t wanna play,” she announced, dropping the ball where she stood.

  Robbie looked disgusted. Steve finished his beer. Diane came out onto the patio carrying a pitcher of lemonade, just in time to notice great black clouds billowing from the barbecue.

  “Steve!” she shouted.

  They reached it at the same moment. Steve yanked the lid off: on the grill, the charred remains of once-vital hot dogs and hamburgers shriveled pathetically.

  “You’ve burned the food,” she said, less an accusation than the remarking of a cheerless inevitability. She might have said, “It’s Monday.”

  Steve’s teeth went on edge instantly. “It’s not burnt,” he said with great control. “It’s well done.” There was a note of challenge in his voice, giving way to indignation. “And since when is this my responsibility?” He held up a scorched wiener.

  She thought: Since when is anything your responsibility lately?

  He continued, gathering steam. “I suppose you don’t cook anymore.”

  She wanted to avoid an argument. “I cook inside. You’re in charge of things outside.” The coals flamed brightly, crackling with sausage fat.

  Steve had a patronizing tone in his voice that she hated. “If I put a roof over the lawn, will you mow it?”

  “As soon as you take the roof off the kitchen.” She smiled, trying to keep it light.

  He took a big bite out of the still-smoking piece of evidence. “Mmm, just how I like it,” he said tersely. He had to grab another beer, though.

  “Good, hm?” She didn’t conceal her sarcasm.

  “Why are you arguing?” said Robbie. He’d been watching this interaction, as had Carol Anne. Both looked concerned.

  Steve felt pained, seeing himself with his children’s eyes. “We’re not arguing, Robbie . . .” he tried lamely.

  Diane helped. “We’re negotiating.”

  “Right,” Steve went on. “When you’re married, there’s lots of that.”

  The kids didn’t buy it, of course. Kids may be small, but they’re not dumb.

  Jess didn’t buy it either, watching sadly from the garden.

  Diane took the blackened stump of frankfurter from Steve and examined it like a true marital negotiator. “Gee, honey, I think these could use about fifteen more minutes on the grill. What do you think?”

  He stared at her, started to say something, then just sipped his beer instead.

  Diane walked back into the kitchen. “I’ll get the cold cuts. And call the fire department.”

  Later that afternoon, they all sat around the picnic table on the patio, digesting Chinese takeout—except Carol Anne, who didn’t like those slippery little noodles. She was eating an open-faced peanut-butter-and-honey-and-M&Ms sandwich.

  Diane couldn’t look at it directly. “Sweetheart, did you think up that sandwich all by yourself?”

  “No, Gramma helped,” Carol Anne admitted thoughtfully.

  Jess smiled at being allowed to share credit for such a monster creation. She didn’t respond, though; she just continued knitting the sweater she was knitting and asked Carol Anne to reach something for her, as if to say she and her granddaughter helped each other. “Honey, grab me the red yarn out of my bag, would you?”

  Carol Anne, without looking behind her, reached around her back and pulled a skein of red yarn out of Jess’s bag. Pulled it out of a bag filled with reds, yellows, blues, lavenders and ochers. Pulled out the red without looking.

  She handed the wool to Jess with a smile. No one else noticed what Carol Anne had done, but Jess noticed.

  Robbie was busy biting down on a giant egg roll that he couldn’t quite get his mouth around. It squirted its mysterious contents out the seams and into his lap.

  Diane slipped into her patient-Mom voice. “Rob, try to eat something that’s not big enough to eat you . . . okay?”

  Robbie nodded, giggling, as E. Buzz licked the spoils from his lap.

  Steve nursed a beer laced with tequila and wondered if he should tell Diane to leave the kids alone.

  Jess was concentrating on Carol Anne, though. “Honey, could you get me the yellow yarn now?”

  Carol Anne, fascinated with Robbie’s disgusting eating habits, again reached around behind her and again extracted the color Jess wanted. Again, without looking.

  Jess took the yellow ball of yarn from the girl and spoke softly. “Thanks, Angel,” she said. But what she thought was: Dreamsight, Angel. Dreamsight, in a world of cataracts.

  That evening Steve sat in the living room listening to a ball game on the radio as he read the instructions on the side of a new vacuum cleaner box. Other appliances sat boxed all around him, the arsenal of his current job: door-to-door household convenience salesman.

  He was having difficulty with the instructions.

  Robbie watched him intently. After the near-disaster with Carol Anne disappearing at the mall this morning (he became extremely nervous whenever Carol Anne’s whereabouts could not be accounted for, even briefly) and the barbecue disaster this afternoon, he was curious to see how things would take shape this evening.

  “You gotta be an engineer to figure this stuff out,” Steve was muttering over the advisory warning about shag rugs at beach houses. His attention was distracted, however, by the roar of the crowd over the radio. “Come on, Guerero,” Steve ordered, “hit it outta the park.” He had about as much control over the radio game as he had over the stealthy vacuum cleaner that seemed to be silently laughing at his impotence; as much as he had over anything else in his life, really.

  Robbie sensed his father’s frustration and tried to champion him past it. “Yeah, hit it!” he chimed—ostenisbly at the radio, but really at Steve.

  Suddenly static washed over the radio announcer’s squeal. Steve dived for the dial. “Not now, damn it.”

  Robbie wanted Steve to take this as an object lesson. “Dad, can’t we have a TV like everybody else?”

  Steve got the reception back. “No, Robbie, we can’t.” Firm. Bottom line. Television is how their troubles had all started back in Cuesta Verde. Those hypnotic visions—whatever they’d been—had entered Steve’s home through the television. Entered his existence. Ruined his life. “No TV,” he said softly.

  “Great. I’ll just grow up retarded.”

  “Listen, buddy, people don’t get retarded from lack of television . . .” There was a swing, and a hit . . . deep into center field . . . going . . . going . . . “Thattaboy, Guerero!” Steve shouted. “Did you see that, Robbie!?”

  “No, Dad,” Robbie sulked, “I didn’t see it.” He shuffled off to his room.

  “Use your imagination!” Steve called after him. “It’s good for you.” He chuckled at his object lesson, and plugged in the vacuum cleaner. Like a suddenly reanimated zombie, the machine inflated its lung with a yowling whine and charged across the floor, attacking the coffee table. A vase fell, crashing onto the thing’s casing. The thing turned, seeking new
dirt to inhale.

  Steve lunged for the vacuum but couldn’t find the right switch. The thing battered a chair. Steve yanked the plug from the wall. Sparks flew. The machine died. Steve sat down hard on the couch, sighed, and noticed Carol Anne standing in the doorway, watching. “How am I gonna sell these monsters to innocent housewives, Sweetpea?”

  “Don’t know, Dad.” She left him there staring at his hands and padded into the kitchen, where she found Gramma cleaning up.

  “Hello, hon—want to help me get the kitchen straight for breakfast?”

  “Sure,” said Carol Anne. She started wiping the counter as Gramma gathered junk from the table.

  “What’s this?” said Jess.

  Carol Anne looked over. “Just some stuff I drew yesterday.”

  It was a pile of manila papers covered with crayon drawings. “Well, let’s look at it!” Jess demanded gently, and sat down at the table with the collection. Carol Anne shrugged but came over to Gramma’s side.

  Jess knew Diane was working on art therapy projects with Carol Anne—drawing pictures to help the child work out her anxieties—but Jess was of the opinion that such focus sometimes created more anxiety than it worked out. Still, she loved the child’s artwork, and since some of it was quite abstract, she was curious about what it represented to Carol Anne—not for therapeutic reasons; merely for grandmotherly ones.

  “Now. You must tell me what this is,” she instructed with great affection.

  It was a big yellow circle with red beads all around it, green scribbles over the entire page, a blue background, a black-violet splotch in one corner.

  “That’s looking up at a daisy, if you were a rock—and that’s the grass you’re looking through, and that’s the sky.”

  “And what’s this dark purple thing up here?”

  “That’s a storm cloud. It’s gonna rain soon.”

  “That’s terrific,” Jess said, beaming. She put that one at the bottom of the pile, exposing the next picture. “And what’s this?”