Poltergeist Read online

  “I’m one of your ghosts, huh?” Marty cackled. “That’s a laugh.” He wiggled his fingers in her face. “Booga booga booga.”

  “Now Marty there,” noted Ryan, essaying his most academic manner, “is an empiricist, I’ll wager. He believes all knowledge is derived from experience via the senses. Reality is observed, sensually.”

  “I’ll drink to that,” Marty smiled agreeably, lifting his Styrofoam coffee cup to his lips. He was a renowned Lothario, a great champion of the sensual realities.

  “And you?” Lesh addressed Ryan.

  “Me—I’m a naturalist. I believe all objects and events can be accounted for by scientific explanation. The universe is neither a derivation of the self, nor a function of reason, independent of experience. The universe is . . . what it is.”

  “What it is, and what it ain’t, bro.” Marty held out his hand, and Ryan returned him some skin.

  “And what it is,” Ryan continued, “can be explained. And what it ain’t, all comes out in the wash.”

  “And just what is it that it is, Dr. Mitchell?” Dr. Lesh asked jovially.

  “It’s waves, it’s definitely waves,” he asserted, half mocking himself, half serious. “Electromagnetic waves.”

  “It’s energy, man,” said Marty. “It’s all energy. There is no matter. This chair, here, it’s just another kind of energy. Atoms, that’s just energy, too. You got your dense energy, and you got your dilute energy. This chair, this is your dense energy.” He knocked the leg three times with his knuckles, to demonstrate. “But this light comin’ down here, this is your dilute energy.” He rapped his knuckles three times through the bright air beneath the light bulb hanging from the ceiling. The third time, there was a loud KNOCK. The scientists all jumped.

  Lesh looked at the monitor, and laughed. Tangina had just turned in her sleep—the back of her hand had hit the headboard, right under the microphone.

  The others shook their heads. Ryan wiped his brow. “For a second, there, I was worried we were all inventions of Marty’s mind. What a grim thought.”

  “Well, watch your step, pal, or I’ll think up an even grimmer thought, and it’ll eat you alive.”

  “Aha, now we have dueling solipsists . . .”

  “Wait, look, something’s happening.”

  They all looked at the EEG paper flowing unhurriedly under the jiggling pens.

  “Stage IV sleep—but you’re right, that is odd—there shouldn’t really be spindle activity like that. Marty, check the GSR.”

  Marty looked over one of the voltimeters, and shrugged. “No, it corresponds to Stage IV, too.”

  “You sure your leads were standardized?”

  “What do you mean, am I sure?”

  “I just mean . . .”

  “Hey, look at that!”

  They looked at the printout again.

  “PGO spikes.”

  “PGO activity isn’t so uncommon in Stage IV.”

  “But usually only one or two signals—we shouldn’t be seeing this much firing except during REM sleep—when she’s dreaming.”

  “Maybe she is dreaming.”

  “In Stage IV?”

  “Sleepwalkers can have a lot of PGO activity in Stage IV. People who get night-terrors, too.”

  “Right, it’s like this unnatural electrical activity breaks through during slow sleep . . .”

  “There—she just turned, and the PGO’s disappeared. Probably just . . .”

  “Holy shit, look at that!”

  The pens were going wild. There was suddenly more electrical activity registering on the brainwave patterns than they’d ever seen—and, oddly, during a stage of sleep usually characterized by slow, low-frequency waves. These pens were shooting off the page.

  “Check the Evoked Potentials.”

  Marty pushed some buttons on the computer console; patterns lit up on the screen.

  “I’ve never seen this before.” He shook his head.

  “Look at the monitor.”

  They watched the closed-circuit picture of Tangina lying in bed. She looked distressed.

  She tossed and struggled in the throes of an unnamed terror. Her face contorted; her fists opened and closed. Perspiration matted her hair to her forehead. Slowly, her mouth opened, as if to scream. But instead, out came a child’s voice, high and chill:

  “Mommy! I can’t see you. Where are you, Mommy?”

  Involuntarily, Dr. Lesh shivered.

  “What is that all about?” whispered Marty.

  “Doesn’t sound like she’s dreaming about any circus, that’s for sure.”

  “Mommy . . . Mommy . . .” whimpered the voice in Tangina’s mouth.

  “Kind of creepy,” said Ryan.

  “There’s an incredible ion flux in there.”

  “Look!”

  All of a sudden Tangina sat straight up, got out of bed, and walked out of her room. The camera lost track of her; the EEG electrodes pulled free.

  The three researchers ran from the control room and down the hall, just in time to see Tangina start down the stairs. Halfway down, they caught up with her, Dr. Lesh in the lead.

  “Tangina! Stop!”

  The entranced psychic stopped, looked strangely at the three—intensely, as if from a great distance—and then crumpled into Dr. Lesh’s arms.

  Tangina rose from the nothingness of sleep into the unremembered land that had been haunting her for weeks. The mists were here, still—cloying, frosty. She wandered through the darksome vapors for an eternity, searching; for what, she knew not. Shapes thickened in the brew, mocked her, evaded her, stifled her breath. Vertigo toyed with her. Vision was coy. Everything meant something else.

  She began to slide—her being was caught up in some ether-wind that pulled her, careening, down some ether-corridor . . . and deposited her in some unforeseen place.

  A dry place. Luminous, arid, without horizon. It was a relief, at first, this crucible—it parched the damp from her bones, left her bone dry. She drifted for a time here. Expanded. Her vision was endless, here, but there was nothing to see.

  After a while, cracks began to appear, as in dessicated clay. She followed these lines, branching, twisting, juiceless. It was a sere place.

  Then, far in the distance, she saw steam rising from one of the cracks. Like a solfatara, the vent spumed vaporous gas. She strayed over toward it, sensing. She strayed too close: though the vapor seemed to be rising under pressure, Tangina was sucked into its source as if it were a vacuum pump.

  Blackness.

  Becoming gray. A place of shadows, moving slaty values that crossed over and against each other, moving constantly; darker here, less dark there, formless, breathless, roving darkness. But then, fleeting, peripheral, a shape emerged. Tangina shrank from it. The shape pursued her.

  She tumbled back; it darted behind her. Almost, the shape laughed. She knew a darkness couldn’t laugh, yet that was what seemed to be. The shape had name, as well; its name was Sceädu. Tangina knew its name.

  Sceädu danced with her. She spun. It approached, she withdrew—it leaped . . . it tried to engulf her. At the last moment, she jumped into it, falling.

  Fell through it into another place. A lighter place, open, with clouds above and below. Sceädu was here, too—still dancing, only now more playful, as if he himself were the doorway between these two worlds, and his nature was different on each side. Tangina would have to go through him again to get back to the other side—but he was more elusive now; he would not be had so easily. She moved toward him; he backed sway, laughing.

  Another creature appeared. He was an orange flame, vaguely human. He flew; his voice was the voice of a brush fire. His name was Fantabel.

  Fantabel danced with Sceädu. They touched, sizzled, parted. Fantabel became many flames, red, yellow, white. He babbled in his fire-tongue. Sceädu extinguished him. He reappeared in another sector—only now he carried the girl.

  A small girl, perhaps five years old, Tangina thought. Carianna? Car
olina? A blond girl. She seemed lost, overwrought. Exhilarated, now, too. She soared on Fantabel’s arm. She was giddy with fatigue and tension. Fantabel rocketed into the clouds. The girl fell.

  The girl kept falling. She didn’t really seem to get anywhere, but she continued to fall, ceaselessly, end over end.

  A thing like a tree rose up out of the low-lying cloud cover. Like a tree, yet moving. Bark-encrusted, ancient, scleroid, deliberate. It had no name, or Tangina could not fathom it. Fantabel flew down out of the upper clouds, like a meteor, like a brazen comet; flew through the branches of this slow, woody thing—and it burned. Its branch-arms smouldering, twig-hair aflame, it writhed, it groaned in its barkish language. It settled into the fog.

  The little girl continued falling.

  The mists over the ground dissipated. In the clearing, Tangina saw people—hundreds of people. They walked in all directions, slowly, quickly, without touching, seemingly without even seeing each other. They dressed in clothes of many eras, of different centuries, different cultures. Some wept; many wept. Some laughed, some walked without expression. Some were in pain.

  Beyond this gathering, Tangina sensed a light—felt it, rather than saw it—but couldn’t place it. Whenever she tried to move toward the light, to characterize it better, it would shift position, delve deeper into the clouds.

  And under it all, something evil. The sense of evil made Tangina recoil, made her soul shrivel. She went around its fetid presence, trying to see it, trying not to see it. Every fiber of her being screamed at her to shun this thing. She moved low, edged closer; her spirit winced. She receded.

  The girl hit the ground.

  Unhurt, the girl picked herself up and began to walk among the countless other walkers. Tangina floated above her, floated into her, merged with her, touched her core.

  Lost, scared, wondrous, confused—that is what Tangina felt in the little girl. The girl spoke, and Tangina became her words: “Mommy! I can’t see you! Where are you, Mommy?”

  Fantabel circled overhead, babbling Fire. Sceädu ate, whole, one of the wandering people, then danced a special phantom dance.

  “Mommy . . . Mommy . . .” the girl whimpered; Tangina exuded.

  The evil thing congealed in a cloud bank. Its wretchedness was nearly overpowering. It approached—Tangina left the girl, set herself to do battle—but the thing dissipated, and was gone. The girl wandered off.

  Sceädu laughed merrily, soundlessly. In a flash, without warning, Tangina jumped into him—he sparkled briefly, like a photon cluster, a broken web of short circuits—and was through him to the other side.

  On the other side, all was shadow again, and Sceädu was darkness moving among darknesses. He stalked Tangina, now—this was his darker side, and his design was to envelop her. But she’d become dark-wise, and knew the ways of this land already. A shadow herself, here, she insinuated herself among shadows.

  In this place of formless half-tones, she sought absolute blackness to lead her home. For a prolonged, obscure moment, she straggled here, finally reaching the isthmus of void that connected to the arid land. She plunged into the blackness. The blackness went on.

  No time, here; no space. Only nothing. Then, without knowing when, or how, Tangina felt herself being spewed out, in a geyser of steam, into the baked, anhydrous ether through which she’d originally passed.

  Across this thin, dry incandescence, she returned. She found the wind that had carried her here, and forged mightily against it, inching into the heavy blow, until she attained, at last, the place of dank mists and murky haze whence her journey had begun.

  Suddenly, from out of this gloom, a voice arrested her: “Tangina! Stop!”

  Paresthesias filtered through her consciousness—tingling extremities, aching limbs. She knew this sensation. She was back in her body.

  She opened her eyes.

  She was standing in a dim stairwell. Dr. Lesh, Ryan, and Marty surrounded her, supported her, were staring at her with expressions of concern, wonder, disbelief.

  She looked strangely at the three of them—intensely, as if from a great distance—and then crumpled into Dr. Lesh’s arms.

  When Tangina awoke, she found Dr. Lesh sitting beside her.

  “How are you feeling?” Lesh asked.

  “Weak,” Tangina said. For a few minutes, she cried.

  “I think we’d better back off on these experiments,” Martha said quietly. She put her hand on Tangina’s brow, brushed back the moist hair.

  “No,” Tangina answered. “No. We must help…”

  “Who? Help who?”

  Tangina squinted. “Ca . . . Carin? Carrie? Cara . . .” She shook her head. “She’s not far from here, but I don’t know where. I saw her in a different plane.”

  “What kind of . . . plane?”

  “A different dimension. I don’t know how she got there—but a great evil lurks near her. The poor child.”

  “What . . . what exactly did you see?” Lesh was as fascinated as she was concerned.

  “I still don’t completely remember—but some of it has a face now.” Tangina cried and laughed together. “Thank God, I begin to see some of these demons.”

  “And what do they look like?”

  “Oh for heaven’s sake, stop sounding so much like a psychotherapist! These demons are real—they exist! Would to God I’d never heard of such places—but if they’re going to haunt me, at least let me see them and name them, so I can dispatch them and be done.” She looked into Lesh’s face. “You’ve done that for me, this time—brought them into focus. Thank you.”

  Lesh smiled like a grandmother soothing a skittish child. “You’re welcome. Now perhaps you will be so kind as to bring them into focus for me.”

  Tangina closed her eyes to concentrate. “One is a shadow—a darkling creature I cannot comprehend. He is himself a conduit to another plane. Others abound there—a flame-being, a tree-being . . . they all have names I don’t recall. Thousands of lost souls . . . and the child. And a blissful, waiting light. And something else—something nocturnal—I can’t recapture it now.” She shuddered. “The child needs our help desperately.”

  “What kind of help does she need?”

  “She’s lost.”

  “If you don’t know where, how will we find her?”

  Ryan spoke from the doorway. “Maybe we could follow the PGO activity.”

  The two women looked at him blankly a moment. Then a spark lit Tangina’s eyes. “What’s that?”

  “Yes, what are you talking about, Ryan?” Dr. Lesh felt faintly annoyed. She sensed sarcasm in her student’s manner, at a time when she was rather upset with all of them, herself included: she feared they’d gone too far with this poor woman.

  “Just being empirical, Doctor,” Ryan replied. “All those PGO discharges showing up on the EEG when they shouldn’t have been there—but then they changed when she turned, they went away. And then when she turned again, they really went to town.”

  “So?”

  “So we could hook her up to a telemetry unit—just a couple scalp electrodes and a small transmitter—and she could start walking, or riding, toward whatever it is she thinks she’s picking up . . . and we could direct her from here, with a two-way radio. You know, see what her EEG looks like back here, and if the PGO activity starts increasing, then we can assume she’s going generally in the right direction, and when PGO activity slacks off, we can tell her to turn some other way, until we start picking it up again.” Ryan smiled helpfully.

  “Preposterous,” said Martha.

  “I don’t know, I think it’s kind of innovative.”

  “Might it work?” asked Tangina, sitting up. “What is PGO activity?”

  “It’s a kind of brain wave we saw a lot of on your EEG around the time that . . . voice . . . came out. But first of all, you’re in no condition to continue with this study, and second of all, we’ve never even seen an EEG transmitted telemetrically—we do all our recording directly, through wires, here
in the lab. We’ve never tried to transmit and receive them over the air waves.”

  “Marty could rig something up easy,” Ryan interjected. “The paramedics transmit electrocardiograms over the air all the time. We could just borrow an extra portable transmitting unit from one of the cardiology offices at the hospital, and hook the electrodes up to her scalp instead of her chest, no sweat.”

  Dr. Lesh saw the possibilities in what Ryan was saying, but her scientific interest in Tangina, the experiment, wrestled with her compassion for Tangina, the patient. “No,” she finally said, “I can’t allow . . .”

  “Please,” said Tangina softly. “Please . . . if there’s a chance of this working . . . I . . . these dreams sap me. They toss me like a leaf in a typhoon, and I want them out of my life—but once they’ve started, like this, they won’t let go, until they’re resolved, one way or the other. A dream like this . . . it could go on for weeks. Please . . .” She began to weep again. “Please . . . if you can bring this one to an end sooner with your gadgets . . . please. Help me out the other side of this one.”

  Lesh shook her head uncertainly. “I’m really not even certain if Ryan’s idea has any merit or not . . .”

  “Of course it has merit!” Ryan protested.

  “Or, even if it does, I’m not sure we could fix up a telemetry unit as he suggests . . .”

  “Marty’s an electronics genius; he could do anything. In fact, I’ll bet he could modify our receiving unit with a filter to block out all of her EEG transmissions except her PGO spikes—that way, it’ll be real clear, the needle either deflects or it doesn’t: when it does, Tangina’s on the right track; when it doesn’t, she’s gotta turn until it does.”

  Tangina’s eyes supplicated Dr. Lesh.

  “All right. We’ll try it once.”

  They set out the next night in Marty’s VW bus. Ryan drove, Martha sat beside him in the front seat, and Tangina stretched out in the back like a child on a long trip.

  Marty had spent all day modifying equipment along the lines of Ryan’s plan. Now he sat in the rear section of the bus, behind Tangina, surrounded by electronics gear. There was an oscilloscope, with a wave-damper and frequency-filter on it, running off the bus’s generator. Three electrode leads were plugged directly into the, oscilloscope, and dangled loosely along the floor to connect to leads glued to Tangina’s head—one behind the right ear, one below the left eye, one at the left temple. Beside her was a small, portable telemetry unit—a transmitting box, easily carried, into which Tangina’s scalp electrodes could be plugged so that if need be, she could walk outside the car for several miles, and the oscilloscope would still pick up her signals.