Poltergeist (10 page)

“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.

Marty also had with him a tapedeck and microphone, an infrared camera, a Nikon, three heavy-duty flashlights, two walkie-talkies, and a large thermos of coffee.

And so they were off

Tangina had stayed awake the rest of the preceding night and all the preceding day, preparatory to this quest; consequently, she started out exhausted—so putting her to sleep was no problem for Martha.

“I’m going to count from one to ten . . .” She began the hypnosis again, but Tangina was out cold by five. Thirty minutes later, they started seeing PGO spikes on the oscilloscope.

“Let’s move out,” said Marty. They headed east.

They drove for twenty minutes, due east, without any substantial change in the PGO activity. Infrequent BLIPS made bright, vertical green strokes across the screen, sometimes coming in twos and threes, sometimes as isolated events. Their incidence decreased somewhat at that point; Ryan turned north, and, after fifteen minutes, the little BEEPS vanished altogether. He turned south once more.

They chattered on at first—about grant applications, Marty’s latest coed conquest, academic gossip, movies, courses—but after a while, the talk trickled, and then, at length, ceased. Only the hum of tires on road made any sound, syncopated by the occasional BLEEP from the oscilloscope.

It was a painstaking, trial-and-error process. At times they lost the signal completely, and drove in circles until they picked something up again. That went on for hours. They began to tire.

Just after six
A.M.
, though, Tangina mumbled a few syllables and turned over.

“I think I’m getting something over here,” Marty said almost simultaneously.

“Where the hell are we?” asked Ryan.

Lesh took out her map and turned on the overhead light. “I think we’re heading east southeast, about, oh, thirty miles from home.”

They looked out the window. Sparse country, here: rolling scrub, occasional farms or small towns.

“This is it!” Marty said breathily. “All kinds of activity back here. Wherever you’re going, keep going.”

“Mommy . . .” The willowy voice floated from Tangina’s throat once more. It cut through the cab like a knife, silencing everyone else. So tormented, so thin: “Mommy . . . help me . . . something’s coming . . .”

In the distance, a scattering of lights rose out of the low-lying hills.

“That must be the place,” Ryan said softly. His throat was dry.

Ten minutes later he passed a large sign:

CUESTA VERDE ESTATES
PLANNED
PROPER
and
PROUD

A few minutes after that, he was driving in the midst of an expansive, extended housing development, and Tangina was writhing in misery.

“Ooohhhh . . . ohhhh noooo . . .”

Her pitiable wails were becoming unbearable to the others in the car. Ryan gripped the steering wheel with sweaty palms. Martha fidgeted almost to distraction in her seat. Marty tried to concentrate on adjusting sound levels in the tape deck, but he couldn’t concentrate. Tangina rolled around convulsively, then suddenly sat up and scrabbled at the door handle.

“Don’t let her out yet!” ordered Dr. Lesh. “Marty, switch over to telemetry. Ryan, stop the car!”

Ryan pulled over to the curb as Marty pulled the wires out of the oscilloscope and plugged them into the portable transmitter. Dr. Lesh got out of the bus with Ryan, and together they helped Tangina down to the ground. The clairvoyant’s eyes were stark and staring; she was distraught.

Martha carried the transmitter, whose wires now connected to Tangina’s electrodes. Ryan carried a walkie-talkie. Each took one of Tangina’s elbows, and slowly walked her into the night, as Marty remained behind, monitoring the oscilloscope.

They were on what looked like a typical suburban street. Corner and porch lights illuminated the sidewalks in the chill of the false dawn; an occasional lamp flickered inside a living room window. The air was still and quiet—except for the random, falsetto cries of this visionary dwarf, Tangina, wandering in a fugue, supported by two frightened academicians who feared they were out of their depth.

Ryan’s walkie-talkie squawked. “Getting warmer. Lots of PGO now. The whole screen is . . .”

Before the words were out of the box, Tangina loosed a shriek and set off at a dead run down the street. Ryan was taken by such surprise he just stood there with his chin down, and Martha actually fell to the ground. By the time they’d collected themselves, Tangina was scurrying up the lawn of a house half a block away. The others took off in pursuit.

All three reached the front door at just about the same moment—but Tangina was already banging, scratching, wailing; her nose was running, her knees scraped. She collapsed in a faint just as the door opened.

It would have been difficult to judge who was in a state of greater disrepair: the people just inside the front door, or the people outside. Steve stood there with his hand on the knob, in a bulky white cardigan over a wrinkled T-shirt. His eyes were dark hollows, his lips were parched, his hair stuck out in cowlicks, his stubble was two days old. Behind him, Diane crouched at the foot of the stairs, like the shadow of a nightmare.

In front of Steve—on the porch—a small, strange person lay unconscious, wires coming out of her head and leading to a box being held by an older woman with mussed-up clothes and bloody knees, standing beside a wild-eyed man holding a two-way radio.

“I suspect,” said Martha Lesh to Steve Freeling, “we are both in need of help. Would you please invite us in?”

Five of them sat around the low living room table in the gray morning: Steve, Diane, Martha, Ryan, Marty. Tangina lay sleeping comfortably on the couch. The others sipped coffee. All the curtains in the house were drawn.

“So that is the substance of our story,” concluded Dr. Lesh. “I don’t know who you are, or exactly what Tangina saw that drew us here . . . but I know the nature of her work before we began studying her. Several police departments are impressed with her capabilities . . . so I assume you have lost someone close to you. I’d like to help you in any way we can. Otherwise . . . if our presence here is as mystifying to you as it frankly is to me, we will all of us take our leave now, with many thanks for the coffee and forbearance.”

Diane half sobbed, half laughed at the prospect of hope, then immediately collected herself—she would need all her faculties, she knew, for whatever was involved. “No . . . please . . . the hand of God has brought you here—I know it. God, or Providence. Please, stay. Help us.”

“Fine,” Lesh went on. “In that case, I’m going to have Ryan and Marty take Tangina back to the university—to the hospital. We’ve put her through quite too much, I’m afraid—she’s exhausted. I have an associate on the staff there—Dr. Farrow. I’ll call him presently; he’ll see she’s taken care of. In the meantime, perhaps we can continue our talk here: I’m at your disposal.”

“You’re being very kind.” Steve spoke in a hoarse whisper.

“Not at all. I feel quite like an intruder in your home.” Dr. Lesh turned toward her two assistants. “Marty, after you drop Tangina off at the hospital, why don’t you go on back to the lab and wait for my call? Ryan, when you finish helping Marty, come right back here for me—we can determine what’s to be done at that point.”

The two young men rose, bid deferential good-byes to the Freelings, and helped Tangina to her feet. The psychic’s eyes fluttered briefly; she was even able to walk, more or less, between the two assistants, but she didn’t really wake up.

When they’d gone, Diane got up, wiped her eyes, smiled bravely. “I’ve got to go get Robbie ready for school. Excuse me.” She walked briskly upstairs.

Steve sat alone on the couch, facing Dr. Lesh. He looked very alone. It was a situation Lesh had been in a thousand times before, though, as a therapist. Her training and natural compassion rose to the occasion, and gradually she put him at ease.

“May I call you Steve?”

“Yes. Yes, of course.” He licked his lips.

“Steve, I’ve been talking a long time now. I feel as hoarse as Marlene Dietrich. So. It’s your turn to talk.”

He looked down at his empty hands. “I . . . don’t know where to start.”

“Start anywhere. Troubles have no beginning—just a big endless middle.”

He laughed, shaking his head. “Oh, there was a beginning to these troubles, all right.” He paused, gathering himself together to go on. “It began with the . . . disturbances.”

He tensed himself against the reaction of disbelief he anticipated. “Things moving . . . by themselves. That’s how it started. Then there are the flashing lights—in the middle of nowhere. Vague music that you can’t quite hear. Funny smells. Sometimes a big wind will just blow through the house. And, of course, the furniture is still moving by itself whenever it wants . . .”

“Of course.” Dr. Lesh tried to redirect him. “Are . . . all the members of your family involved in these . . . events?”

“Yes, yes. Yes. Diane—my wife—she was the first one to notice. Then my oldest daughter, Dana—she’s fifteen. Robert, my son, he’s seven . . . no, eight . . .” Steve rattled these facts off happily, rapidly. These things were his reality test; these were the things he knew. He paused. “And Carol Anne, she’s my youngest. She’s five.” He looked at Dr. Lesh in pain, pleading silently with her to ask the right questions.

“Disturbances such as the ones you’re describing usually appear on the news, on TV—I haven’t seen any publicity, though.”

In the background, the television was tuned to static. “No, we keep our set turned to Channel 23 usually . . .” Steve trailed off, then continued quickly, lest Dr. Lesh think him hopelessly crazy. “No—I mean . . . no. We haven’t had any publicity. Absolutely no. Uh uh.”