Poltergeist (20 page)

“Did you say ‘bitten’?”

“Bitten in the side, while there was, in fact, no visible cause for such a bite. Nonetheless, on examining him a few moments later, we found evidence of these tooth impressions, which we took photographs of—which I will distribute now.” Dr. Lesh passed around the photos of Marty’s flank. “As you can see, they appear to be made by a mandible which is approximately twelve inches at its greatest width. We took cultures of these tooth marks, as well, for both aerobic and anaerobic bacteria. As of this morning, nothing was growing on the aerobic plates. On the anaerobic media, two uncharacterizable forms grew briefly, developing small, unknown plaques, and then died within a few hours. Antigenic studies are now being undertaken. In addition, we gave the bite victim prophylactic tetanus toxoid immunization. We have, at this time, elected to withhold the antirabies vaccination series—even though I must say this bite appears to have been inflicted by a mammalian jaw of
some
kind—elected to withhold it at least temporarily, in the event that the animal can be found soon, and its rabies status evaluated.”

People around the table looked over the pictures with various degrees of bafflement, disbelief, or nonchalance. Lesh moved on to the core of her presentation.

“We then saw—all of us saw . . . creatures appear . . . unearthly apparitions whose nature I can hardly describe . . . I hesitate even to mention them, since we were unable to obtain any documentary evidence of their existence. Nonetheless, I
do
mention them, because I did see them.

“There were three to appear first. As nearly as I can describe them, they resembled a flame, a shadow, and a tree. They interacted primarily with each other, in a fashion which I was incapable of understanding. My impression, though I am almost certainly anthropomorphizing, is that they were engaged in some sort of ritual dance. I have, quite honestly, very little conception of how long this episode lasted—I was, frankly, in a state of amazement.

“And finally, while this was taking place in the living room, we actually did get to videotape perhaps the most bizarre events of all this bizarre episode.”

Lesh doused the room lights, took out the two videotapes, and plugged each into a cassette beneath its respective monitor. Someone at the end of the table mumbled, “Film at eleven.”

Lesh ran the tapes.

When the tapes were finished, five more people left. There was a silence around the table. Finally, Dr. LeMay from the Psych Department spoke up, with a soft southern accent. “Martha, just what are you trying to say?”

Lesh sat down, took off her glasses. “I wish I knew,” she smiled.

LeMay went on, “Now, I’m prepared to believe an awful lot, but this . . .” he gestured to the televisions . . . “is a bit beyond the pale, wouldn’t you say?”

“Quite beyond, I would say,” Martha nodded wearily.

“And wouldn’t you think it’s likely you’ve been hoaxed—probably by your Subject, in collusion with your Subject family? By magnets moving objects, and CB radio transmitters making voices on the tube, and holograms or mirror-projections accounting for what we just saw on your tapes? Don’t you think the most likely, most parsimonious explanation of all this is that it’s a wonderful, sophisticated magician’s illusion?”

Lesh rubbed her eyes. “I would think so, if I hadn’t been there.”

LeMay smiled—not unkindly—and rose. “Now I
do
have an appointment. And I thank you for your demonstration.” He, too, left, as well as a few more.

“Well,” smiled Lesh, looking over the dwindling numbers. “This the hard core, then.” There were a few appreciative chuckles. Someone turned the lights back on.

“We needn’t postulate poltergeists,” said Recht. “Perhaps the child is psychokinetic. She may be hiding, and producing these phenomena herself”

“I don’t
believe
in psychokinesis,” countered Schaffer, across the table.

“Well, I don’t believe in
ghosts
,” Recht answered irritably.

“What was that business about the ‘light’ the girl mentioned?” one of the grad students asked.

“I’m not sure,” Dr. Lesh shrugged. “The way she spoke of it, it reminded me of the light that people talk about who have had out-of-body experiences—people who have been close to death, or who have even died briefly, by our measure—in which they describe leaving their bodies, and seeing a ‘bright, waiting light,’ about which they feel a sense of well-being, or curiosity, or ‘blissful detachment.’ It was on the basis of those first-person accounts that I urged the little girl—wherever she was—to stay away from the light. I was afraid, in some way, it might mean death for her.”

“Aren’t we getting a little far afield, here?” Dr. Wallace wondered. “I mean, going from hypnotic-state EEGs to psychokinesis to phantasms of the dead to out-of-body experiences . . . I mean—what are we
about
, here, today?”

“Well, I don’t know about you, Wallace,” said Recht, “but I’m about ready for lunch.” He stood. “Thank you, Martha, it was fascinating. Please keep us posted.” He left, in heated discussion with several others.

When they’d all filed out, Lesh sat facing the one who remained. Dr. Anthony Farrow, her eighty-year-old mentor, professor emeritus in the Department of Psychiatry, smiled at her like a wizened sage.

“Quite an ordeal.” He pursed his lips, shook his head.

“And what did
you
think?” Martha asked.

“In a word?”

“In a word.”

“Too graphic.” He jabbed his index finger on the table.

“It was the episode as it occurred,” she insisted.

“Perhaps.”

“Oh, Tony . . . you, too?” Her spirit wilted visibly, as her last friendly support seemed to falter.

“I so wish to accept what I saw,” he protested. “I’m only steps away from the old wooden bridge myself, you know. To believe that something exists on the other side would be like a warm light in the window.”

“Perhaps if tendrils of ectoplasm were all that showed up?”

“Better . . .” He nodded.

“A smoky shape lasting merely an instant.” She drew her hand across her eyes, like a conjurer.

“Even better.” He clapped.

“Nothing on tape at all . . . only sounds, rappings, a sigh . . .”

“They’d still be in here asking all sorts of questions now—and they’d want to go back with you to the house tonight. As it was, you gave them too much, Martha. Too much too soon.” Dr. Farrow wrinkled his face at the television screen. “Nothing was left to the imagination. This isn’t a science yet—it’s still a sideshow, and your troubadours were not in their makeup.”

“And these? What do you make of these?” She swept her hand over the dozens of pieces of jewelry on the conference table. Farrow picked up a beautiful brooch, and held it to the light.

“It’s the real McCoy; that’s one thing for certain. If they’re charlatans, they’re spending an awful lot of money on a silly trick.” He pinned the brooch on Lesh’s sweater, then picked up an antique ring and placed it on her finger. “Dear Martha. May we cross that bridge together some day? May all we believe be true. May we picnic in the clouds.”

Martha laughed joyfully. “You old con artist. If only you were fifty years younger.”

“Let me give you some advice.” Dr. Farrow lowered his voice intimately. “Secret a few of those gems. Come out of this thing with something in your pocket.
The National Inquisitor
pays more for scandal-mongering what we bust our rumps investigating—and for what?” He pounded the table with his fist.

“For what do they scandal-monger? Or for what do we investigate? I would say the money, and the glory, respectively—although we both tell ourselves it’s for the Truth.” Now it was Farrow’s turn to laugh.

Lesh began folding the trinkets in a napkin, when one of them caught Farrows eye. He stopped her, reaching for it. “This is interesting.” He picked up a thin, wiry clip—it looked like a dog muzzle for a miniature poodle. “Did this materialize with everything else?”

“Yes, I picked it up myself. Why?”

He turned it over, inspected it closely. “It’s a staple—a clamp for the jaw.”

“Not something you’d wear to the masquerade ball.”

“No, but you would wear it to your own funeral. It’s a mortician’s trick. It prevents the mouth from suddenly dropping open when the body is in repose. It discourages a great deal of embarrassment, and . . . fainting.”

“Well, it just about had the opposite effect when it showed up last night.”

Farrow narrowed his gaze. “Where in the house did these pieces teleport?”

“In the living room—in living color. If only the cameras had been aimed . . .”

“So it was right where all your gadgets were stationed? TVs and cathode ray tubes, and all the other gizmos?”

“Yes. What are you getting at?”

“Oh, I don’t know. It just brings me back to discussions we’ve had in the past, relating these phenomena to electromagnetic waves of various kinds. Here you tell me you tracked these people because Tangina was receiving waves of some kind—you should go see her, by the way; she had a bad spell this morning—then you tell me you could actually see and hear this vanishing child on an unused UHF channel. Then you tell me you found a bilocation point, the point where these things actually manifested, in a room that must have been dense with all kinds of electromagnetic radiation of varying frequencies. Who knows, maybe these things appeared right at the confluence of the emissions from the color TVs.” Dr. Farrow smiled warmly at Martha. “Anyway, that’s my parting shot.”

They touched hands briefly. “Well,” Martha said. She stood up. “You’re right, I must see Tangina—thank you for watching her for me. And then I must sleep for two hours, and then I absolutely promised the Freelings I would be back before dark. So.” She kissed him on the cheek and arched her eyebrows in mock melodrama. “May the Force be with us.”

“I hear you had a little incident this morning,” Dr. Lesh said with some concern. “A vasovagal episode, the intern tells me—he said he thought you probably stood up too fast after having been in bed so many hours.”

Tangina merely looked at Martha’s eyes, without answering.

“Well?” Lesh pressed. “Is that what happened?”

“What do
you
think?” Tangina finally spoke. It was the same question Lesh had asked Farrow an hour earlier.

“I’m asking you,” insisted Martha.

Tangina closed her eyes. A tear overflowed one corner. “Is there no antidote for my malady?”

“You were in contact again, then? With the child?”

“You can’t understand; it’s not your fault, you just can’t. The pain of seeing things I wish I’d never seen—getting in strangle holds with other people’s monsters. I don’t choose my visions, you know—they choose me. And once I know a thing, I can never un-know it. It’s like paradise lost for me—God, I envy you your blindness.”

“The little girl—is she all right?”

Tangina sighed. “Yes. Yes. For the time being.”

Lesh could see the strain on the woman’s face. “It was . . . we had quite a night in Cuesta Verde, too,” she said. “We saw the creatures of whom you spoke—in your dream. The shadow, the flame-man, the tree-thing.”

Tangina twisted her head. “You saw them? Fantabel and Sceädu? Where?”

“In the living room of the house.” Lesh shook her head, hardly believing her own memory. “They were . . .”

“Ah, how they have become bold,” Tangina marveled, “to have come so audaciously into our plane—such impudence must have been incited. They are all touched by the heat of the Beast. I have no doubt.”

“The Beast?” Lesh saw something move out of the corner of her eye. She turned her head quickly, but it was nothing.

“Twice, now,” Tangina continued, “in my journeys to the dream lands, I have encountered this great evil near the child. It is not the lord of this dimension, but it holds great sway, all the same. Great power. This morning I saw it—almost clearly. It was chasing the little girl. It manifested itself to me in different forms, so that in my weakened condition I would lose my way from fear. We escaped, this time, the child and I. But the Beast remains strong. He exerts great will over all the pitiable beings of that universe. He is a thing of horror.”

Lesh remembered the phantom woman decending the stairs, holding court—remembered the way she’d begun to transform, become nearly transmogrified into something hideous. Something beastly.

“Twice, now, I’ve almost seen this thing,” Tangina went on. “The third time, I will have him.”

“What are you saying?” Lesh became concerned.

“I must try again.” Tangina spoke on a falling note, hoarse with weariness and regret.

“Tangina, please.” Lesh tried to be a friend. “You look simply awful. You have been sleep deprived to the limit by these trances, and I am as much to blame as you. Do you understand? You
must
get some rest.”

“Do you understand? I can
get
no rest until this—situation—is resolved.”

Lesh stared at Tangina sadly. “I’m going back tonight. I hope . . . if we can understand this thing . . . we can solve your dilemma as well as theirs.”

“There is no understanding it.” Tangina rocked her head from side to side. “It just
is
. I know that now. And there is no help for me.”

“Nothing
just is
, but that it can be understood—if not
why
it is, then certainly
how
.”

“That’s all right, Dr. Lesh—you keep your faith in your
what
, and I’ll keep my faith in mine.”

Lesh’s mouth twisted, almost bitterly. “And now you sound as skeptical and closed to my beliefs as the priests of my science were to you this afternoon.”

“Ah. So your committee meeting went poorly. Dr. Farrow told me he was going—he predicted the outcome. He must he clairvoyant.”

Lesh extended her hand, held Tangina’s on the bed. “Please, try to get some rest tonight. We’re doing what we can.” She stood to leave.

Tangina raised her arm. “Wait,” she whispered. “The Beast—it covets the child.”

Lesh shivered involuntarily. She tried to smile, but could only manage a pulled sort of grimace. “I’m going to sleep now, myself. I’ll see you in the morning.” She walked out.