Poltergeist by James Kahn Read Free Book Online Page B

loudly, as if she possessed a huge, psychotic secret. “Okay, now, watch! Watch! Ready? Watch!”
    She let go of the chair, and stepped aside. Her eyes remained fixed on the piece of furniture. Steve’s eyes oscillated between the chair and Diane. He started to walk toward her, but she held her hands up and almost shouted: “Stop! Look!”
    He watched in disbelief as the chair began to tremble. More and more it vibrated, until it started moving forward—slowly at first, then picking up speed until it shot completely across the floor and stopped in front of Steve.
    Diane’s eyes widened in a grin of hysterical victory. Carol Anne yawned and rubbed her eyes.
    Steve kneeled by the chair, felt for wires, checked for magnets. Nothing. He looked up at Diane, his eyebrows furrowed in question.
    “It’s okay, it’s okay,” she grinned feverishly, ready to share her secret now. “Look. Carol Anne, show Daddy.”
    “I’m hungry,” the child grumped.
    “Don’t argue!” Diane snapped.
    Carol Anne saw discussion was futile. She put on the football helmet and sat down inside a large chalk circle near the sink. Steve walked toward the girl, but Diane held him back. All at once, Carol Anne began to tremble.
    Just like the chair, she vibrated for a few seconds, and then shot across the floor into Diane’s waiting arms.
    “Oww, that burned,” Carol Anne complained, rubbing her butt. “I don’t want to play anymore.”
    “Well?” Diane rasped at Steve triumphantly
    “What the fuck is this?”
    “You try!” Diane looked almost possessed.
    “What?”
    “You won’t believe what it feels like.”
    “Okay, so what’s the gag? Where’s the magnet?” He looked behind the kitchen door. He looked under the sink. He looked at Diane and yelled with helpless belligerence: “I hate Pizza Hut! I hate surprises! And I don’t understand what the hell’s going on around here!”
    Diane almost wept to find out she wasn’t imagining it all, to find out Steve was just as mystified as she was. “I knew I couldn’t possibly explain it to you—you’d have thought I was nuts. So I showed you instead. But don’t ask me how, or what, or how—just help me figure out what to do.”
    It began to dawn on Steve. “You mean . . . there’s no gimmick?” he whispered.
    “Not from in here. Maybe someone’s getting cute with some big new generator out there or something . . .”
    “What are you talking about, generator—what kind of generator could . . .”
    “How should I know? I’m no electrician.”
    “I wonder if what happened last night could have anything to do with this.”
    “No shit.”
    “Yeah, some kind of disturbance in . . .”
    “Daddy, Daddy!” Carol Anne called out—she’d inadvertently walked across one of the chalk arrows, and was now sailing full-tilt across the kitchen floor.
    Steve opened his arms just in time to catch her, whereupon she giggled furiously, as if he’d thrown her into the air himself.
    “Now can we get pizza?” she asked.
    “Evening, Ben.”
    “Freeling. Ms. Freeling.”
    The three of them stood on Tuthill’s back porch. The two men kept their hands in their pockets; Diane kept her arms folded.
    “TV’s off in here. If your set’s acting up again . . .”
    “No, no, uh uh. Nothing like that. We were wondering . . . although this is going to sound strange coming from me . . .”
    “I doubt it,” muttered Tuthill.
    A moment of awkward silence. The Freelings stared at their feet, getting more embarrassed by the second.
    “You been noticing anything . . . funny, lately?” Steve broached the subject uncomfortably. What he didn’t want most of all was for his jerk neighbor to think he was going around the bend.
    “Funny like what? Funny ha-ha or funny strange?”
    “Like . . . disturbances,” Diane tried to explain.
    “You mean like . . . vandalism?” Tuthill looked perplexed. Moreover, he began to look suspicious: he’d moved to Cuesta Verde to get away from all the nuts