Poltergeist II - The Other Side

by James Kahn

  Steve and Diane stopped their dance in mid-step as Carol Anne’s smile wilted only barely. “Am I interrupting again?” she said, sensing the dansus interruptus.

  “Yes,” Steve and Diane chorused. Steve stood straight and intoned, “You’re late for bed, Miss Ballerina.” Then he raised his arms slowly above his head, flexing and wiggling his fingers, flaring his nostrils, taking one halting step forward.

  Carol Anne burst into uncontrollable giggles and raced out of the room. “Not the Tickle Monster!” she screamed.

  In a tickle frenzy, the Monster stalked her to her room.

  An hour later, the day seemed finally to be winding down. Robbie and Carol Anne were in bed, Steve in the shower, Diane and Jess in the kitchen having coffee, sitting at the table. Jess was absently turning pages in a seed catalogue as Diane perused Carol Anne’s crayon drawings. When she came to the picture of Henry Kane, she repressed a shiver but was unable to stifle an involuntary gag.

  Jess felt it and looked up.

  Diane said, “I don’t know,” as if Jess had just asked her a question out loud. Jess had only thought the question, though. Diane continued: “I think it’s something she made up in her imagination. It’s just a drawing.” A sense of loathing came over her she couldn’t describe; nor could she bridle the compulsion that seized her next: she tore the picture up. “It’s ugly,” she whispered.

  She was horrified with herself—how could she do such a thing as to tear up one of her child’s own creations? This picture was an expression of Carol Anne’s being; it was even an integral part of her therapy to draw such things . . . such ugly things.

  But Diane couldn’t help herself. She looked away from her mother.

  Jess saw the conflict on Diane’s face but was unsure what it was about. Doubts about Carol Anne, she suspected. “You know,” Jess said gently, “she can see colors with her hands. She has many gifts.”

  This thoroughly exasperated Diane. “Mother, please! I don’t want to hear this stuff. Steve doesn’t want to hear it either, and he doesn’t want Carol Anne to hear it most of all. Okay?”

  “It’s nothing to be afraid of.” Jess spoke calmly. It was obvious Diane was raw with fear. Of what?

  Diane was angry, too. “How do you know what we should be afraid of?” She paused as she thought of Carol Anne crying from another dimension, of demons and visions and corpses bubbling out of the ground and her house being sucked into the void, and Carol Anne’s nightmares and Dana leaving forever. “You weren’t there, were you?” She said it like an accusation. She was near tears.

  “Why don’t you tell me?” said Jess. “Maybe it will help.”

  “I did tell you.” Trying to cut off further questions.

  “Not everything.” Pushing.

  “Well, I don’t remember everything.” This was true. She’d forgotten as much as she could.

  “Try,” whispered Jess.

  Diane knew her mother just wanted to help, so she tried. “Well . . . first the parakeet died.” That was how she marked the beginning of that week of terror. Or maybe it was just an omen. But it reminded her of something else. “Then the chairs went funny, and I thought it was kind of exciting . . . but then it started.” She got cold, and her voice got soft. “Carol Anne was gone . . . and then I went . . . I don’t remember anything after that.” This was not true. But she didn’t want to remember anything after that.

  Yet the memories came—as if she’d taken her finger out of the dike, she was suddenly almost drowned with visions: strange silhouettes of people wandering beneath a ring of light, herded by a creature so vile she could not look, could only try to shun its putrescent odor and clattering teeth as she groped madly for Carol Anne, who was crying, crying . . .

  Diane twisted in the kitchen chair.

  “Something wrong?” Jess tried to tap into it.

  “No,” said Diane flatly. This was just what she wanted to avoid, these waking nightmares. “I really don’t remember anything . . . and I want to go on with my life. All that other stuff—it’s over.” She would make a fortress of herself. She would let nothing in. She would be strong.

  Jess wanted to hold her, but she felt the walls going up. “You’ve got to go unafraid into this life,” she urged. “You don’t want to instill fear into that child, who is truly gifted and filled with knowledge. Fear will only snuff it out . . . or pervert it.”

  “I don’t want her to be gifted!” Diane shouted. She wanted an ordinary child, leading an ordinary life in an ordinary house. When the gods bestowed gifts, the instructions were too often written in madness.

  Jess shook her head sadly. “I think you’re making a terrible mistake.”

  Diane’s drawbridge was closing, though. “Please, Mom, I don’t want to discuss it anymore. I’m going to bed. Good night.” Cold, the wind around stone walls. Cold and unyielding, she walked from the room.

  Jess watched her daughter’s retreat up the stairs and whispered: “I love you. I’ll be there if you want me.”

  Midnight. Steve and Diane slept soundly, not quite touching. At the foot of their bed, sleeping crosswise, was Carol Anne, wrapped in a blanket. She’d gotten scared in her own room, so she’d come down there. Clutched in her arms was the guardian angel doll, Katrina, that Gramma Jess had given her for her last birthday.

  At five minutes past midnight, Carol Anne opened her eyes.

  She didn’t know why; she was just awake. Silently she got up, carrying her doll and blanket out of the room.

  Down the hall, past Jess’s room, past the linen closet, toward her own bedroom door . . . suddenly she stopped, turned, and went back to Gramma’s room. She didn’t know why; she just went in.

  Gramma Jess was asleep, a look of profound peace on her face. Carol Anne walked to the side of the bed, leaned over, and kissed the old woman on the cheek. She didn’t know why.

  When she went into her own bedroom, Robbie was sleeping, hanging half off the bed, with E. Buzz lying smugly on Robbie’s pillow. Carol Anne was about to get into bed when she heard something and turned her head sharply. E. Buzz awoke at the same moment, staring immediately in the direction Carol Anne was looking: at her pink toy telephone sitting on the floor.

  What they’d heard was a voice.

  Carol Anne walked over to the phone and sat down. Moonshine through the skylight washed over the plastic, making it look almost luminescent, almost lit from inside.

  Carol Anne picked up the receiver. “Yes . . . yes . . . I’ll be good. I love you, too. Good night, Gramma.” Then she hung up, climbed into bed, and went to sleep.

  It was not a sleep of rest, though.

  There remained thirty minutes to midnight when Taylor reached the top of the obelisk. It was flat, ageless stone, twenty feet across, with sparse brush growing between the cracks. A small fire burned at the center of the plateau in a fire pit kept holy by local shamans, for this was a place of power, very near where the Hopi people were said to have emerged into this world. Nobody else was there, so Taylor sat by the fire to warm himself.

  The thunderclouds had passed, leaving the night sky again full of stars. Taylor stared through the fire at the outline of Black Mesa in the near distance, the thick stars rising above it like sparks from the fire, frozen in space and time. Then they seemed to unfreeze—to shift position, fold over on themselves, take on depth and shape within the flames—until suddenly Taylor realized the shape was human: there was a man sitting opposite him on the other side of the fire. It was the man called Sings-With-Eagles.

  He was an old man. A Hopi. He wore a white bandanna around his forehead to hold his long white hair back. His shirt was midnight blue, his beadwork desert red. His fetishes were spread out on the ground before him. He carried a tom-tom.

  He took some powder from a deerskin bag and sprinkled it over the fire. Sparks flew up to the sky with a rush, seeming not to stop until they found a new place in the heavens.

  He sang in the language of his people: “We ask this place of power
to bring forth the knowledge of smoke.” The sparks became as comets, trailing into deep space. “May the smoke teach us and guide us.”

  “Thank you for coming here, Sings-With-Eagles,” said Taylor, also in Hopi. “I have much need of your wisdom.”

  “I am sorry to be late,” said the old man, “but I could not locate a babysitter, and my wife ran away again.”

  After a suitable pause, Taylor said, “I would go to the Dark Canyon, in the land of Moski, where the Dead forever walk.”

  The old man’s eyes filled with laughing stars. “To get to the Land of the Dead is but a short journey from here, Wanderer. You have only to walk ten paces in any direction and fall, with grace or without, to the foot of this mesa.”

  Taylor smiled. “I would go, Grandfather—but I would also return.”

  “Ah,” said Sings-With-Eagles. “A more difficult journey. And the Dark Canyon is where the Evil Ones dwell—they are fearful to gaze upon, yet you must not look away, for then you will become lost there forever. The Dark Land is filled with spirits who feared to look on the Evil Ones and thus lost sight of the Way to the Upper World.”

  “The Navajo say, ‘Never shut your eyes in fear, lest ye go blind—for the Masked Dancers, the Yei, in the moment your eyes are closed, will snatch them out.’ ”

  The old man smiled. “The Navajo cannot have lived so long near the Hopi without learning something.” He nodded. Then he reached around behind himself and picked up an ornately tooled spear. “Great evil is coming,” he continued. “An ancient evil, one you know well. But now it is coming after another—after a child and, I think, her family. You can use this family, though—and if you use them with care, you may defeat the Evil One.”

  He handed the spear to Taylor and went on. “This weapon has been held by many hands in many battles, many lands. It was used by Spider Grandmother in the Fourth World to destroy the monsters of that place before our people emerged here. It was used by my grandfather against Carson, before the Long Walk . . .”

  “Your grandfather was defeated by Carson,” Taylor protested.

  “Because the spear was not used with care,” instructed the old shaman. “It must not be used in anger or vengeance, but with thought and truth. It has powers from another world, but it can only be an extention of the spirit that wields it. If the spirit is small . . .” Sings-With-Eagles shrugged, as if the results were self-evident.

  “And this spear can be of use in the Dark Land?”

  Sings-With-Eagles did not answer directly. “The door to the Lower World is attended by Masauwu, Guardian of the Land of the Dead. It is to him we must first sing.”

  And Sings-With-Eagles sang. It was a ceremony Taylor knew, but the old man knew it better, he blended with his music, and his music blended with the patterns of the universe in such a way as to achieve complete harmony, a perfect weaving of spirit, such that he was the knowledge he sought.

  Taylor stared deeply into the fire as the chant mixed with the smoke and flame. Sparks swirled there again, creating patterns and shapes of dark color, occult meaning. Taylor let himself merge further into the spirit of the fire.

  The smoke began to curl upward like a serpent, then twist and hover directly above Taylor, as if it would strike him.

  Sings-With-Eagles spoke. “It is frightening, but do not fear.” He motioned Taylor to rise.

  Taylor rose into the smoke. It billowed over him, snaking around his body like a second skin. Taylor inhaled, his arms upraised. The smoke entered his mouth and nostrils as if it were a living thing, fleeing into the warmth of his great chest.

  Sings-With-Eagles chanted. “Smoke . . . make him one with power and knowledge.” The fire burned brighter. The old man nodded, responding to the spirits that guided him. “Taylor, you are to enter this Lower World through your dreams . . .”

  Taylor’s eyes closed. Trance engulfed him.

  The old man continued: “Taylor, you are to die . . .”

  Taylor’s spirit flew into the fire, into the smoke . . .

  “Taylor, you are to pass first through a Canyon of Shadows . . .”

  Carol Anne floated through a canyon of shadows. This part of her dream was recurrent, and it was the only part she ever remembered—because it was the part she liked. And she liked it even though she knew it was supposed to be scary . . . because this was the place where Sceädu lived.

  He was the shadow-creature. He couldn’t be distinguished from the background—the bottomless pits, the congealed gray boulders, the darkling bends of space—except by his movement, which was furtive, full of mean stealth. His intent was grim: to engulf any passing spirit, to feed on its life force; and once a spirit was engulfed, there was no escape. Eternal darkness—life within Sceädu—was the fate.

  There was but one defense, and that was to jump through his shadow form in the moment before he was to consume your spirit. Most froze in fear at that moment and this succumbed to his darkness.

  Carol Anne thought it was a game, though. She tracked Sceädu around his own shadowy domain, surprising him from behind and leaping through him before he was even aware of her presence.

  Once through him, Carol Anne entered another plane. On this plane Sceädu still existed, but his nature was different: here he was a shadow-sprite who didn’t stalk but ran, elusive as shadow in a sunny fog. When she wanted to return to the original Shadow Land—to get home—it would be necessary to chase this elfen Sceädu, to find him, and to jump through him again. Much harder to do in this dimension—a place of mists and wandering souls and that bright, bright light that hurt Carol Anne’s eyes and made it hard to see.

  This was the place that scared Carol Anne. The place she never remembered in the morning.

  Once here, she could never understand why she’d come, which scared her even more. Tonight she huddled in the chill vapors, watching the pitiable faces of the wretched spirits that floated all around her. If she stayed long enough, they would come closer and closer, never quite touching her, but desperately wanting to. She backed away—away from the light, away from the weeping forms that gravitated toward her, away to someplace she hoped she could corner Sceädu so she could dive back through him to the other side and home again—and she backed into Henry Kane.

  She jumped and spun around and stood shivering, watching him. As before, he wore a black, wide-brimmed hat, a loose black preacher’s coat, a black string tie over a frayed cotton shirt. He hummed his sorrowful melody, smiling his gaunt smile, and reached out to touch her. She backed away a step. His hand seemed unearthly cold, and even though he and she didn’t actually touch, her teeth began to chatter.

  “Come child,” he said. “Don’t be afraid. Come along with Reverend Kane.”

  She shook her head no.

  “It was I who kept you from getting lost this morning at the shopping plaza. Don’t you remember?”

  She shook her head no.

  “Come, then, put your hand on my heart—you can feel how pure it is.”

  He took a step toward her; she took a step back.

  “Touch my heart,” he repeated, his smile mellowing to entreaty. “Then I’ll know you trust me, and we can be friends.”

  He pulled open his jacket, exposing the thin white shirt that covered the left side of his chest. A gesture of vulnerability.

  She shook her head no.

  “Please,” he beckoned. “Don’t reject me. I’m opening myself up to you.” His voice was soft, vaguely Southern, in a register high enough to suggest imbalance.

  She trembled, looked around for escape, but her feet would not move.

  He loosened his tie, began slowly to unbutton his shirt. “Let me lay myself open to your touch,” he pleaded, pulling his shirt open.

  Beneath his shirt, there was no skin—only glistening ribs, shreds of rotting muscle, oozing veins enclosing a dark red heart that beat, slapped against the ribcage, and gray-pink lungs that dripped like sodden sponges.

  Carol Anne gagged. She’d never seen the insides of
a person; it was a horror. But she couldn’t move.

  “Touch my heart,” he beseeched her. “Here, let me make it easy for you.”

  He grabbed his left third rib and, with a wrenching crack, tore it out of his chest wall and threw it away. Blood seeped from the ragged end of his breastbone; the pumping heart seemed to push itself against the space made by the absent rib, as if it were trying to squeeze through between the second and fourth ribs, as if it were straining on a leash to attack Carol Anne.

  She couldn’t breathe, she couldn’t think; she could only stare.

  “Let me make it easier for you,” he whispered, and grabbed his fourth rib.

  There was a sickening crunch as he pulled the fourth rib out and let it drop. His heart flipped around wildly now, jerking against its vascular connections, pushing the opening in the ribcage, getting tugged back.

  “There.” Kane smiled. “I couldn’t be more open. But you must meet me halfway. Come, child, it’s so warm. Come, touch my heart.”

  She couldn’t stop staring at the thing, all red-black and flopping like a bloated fish.

  “Here, now, it wants to be touched so badly.” There was gentle scolding in his voice. “You can see plain as anything how it’s tryin’ to get near you. Just wants to be held, like we all do. Here, I’ll show you.”

  Without even wincing, he splintered the remaining ribs out of his left chest, leaving only the heart exposed and pulsating along the underside of the dark, slippery lung.

  He looked down. “Ah, getting shy, now, are you?” he said to his heart. So he pulled his lung away as if it were a curtain; then he reached his other hand up, cupping his heart tenderly, like a dying bird, and lifted it out of the chest cavity toward Carol Anne, as far as it would go without tearing from the aorta.

  “Here,” he said to Carol Anne. “It’s not so wild now. It just wants to be held. Here, now—you can hold it.”

  CHAPTER 3

  Taylor had his own way of approaching Sceädu in the Canyon of Shadows. He located the creature by sensing disharmony among the shadows—the flow of darknesses that moved, wavelike, there—and when he’d found him, he chanted the song of the Shadow Way, restoring the harmony, putting the benighted creature at rest. And when Sceädu was thus nestled in his proper place, Taylor stepped through him to the next plane—the place of mists and souls and the One Light.