Poltergeist by James Kahn

and yo-yos in the city—why did he seem to find them wherever he went?
    Steve was sorry he’d ever come. Diane tried to sound supremely casual. “Oh, like dishes of furniture moving around by themselves?”

    “I don’t care, we’ve just got to keep this thing in the family,” Steve said quietly but firmly. “Did you see the look on Tuthills face? We’re lucky he didn’t call the wagon then and there.”
    He sat in bed beside Diane later that night, feeling foolish and confused. She looked at him dubiously. He pursed his lips. “All right, then. In the morning I’ll call someone in.”
    “Call someone in?” she whispered. “Who, for instance? I’ve already checked the Yellow Pages. Furniture movers we got already. Maybe if we looked under weird happenings . . .”
    “Okay, okay.” Steve held up his hands. “I have a plan. I have a plan. Something’s occurring here that we can’t explain. I just feel ridiculous . . .”
    “There’s nothing to feel ridiculous about . . .”
    “Well, how the hell did you feel with Tuthill staring at us like we’d lost our marbles? What do you think Teague would say if Tuthill mentioned something?”
    Thunder rolled in from the west, momentarily flickering the image on the television screen. Diane smiled. “He’d probably say you’d lost your marbles.”
    “So what do you want to do? Call an exorcist? The police? A seismologist? What?”
    “Don’t be stupid, Steven. Besides, you just said we should keep it in the family.”
    “Right. Okay. Let’s wake the kids. No big deal. Let’s wake them, spend the night at the Travel Lodge, and not come home until it’s safe.”
    “Now you’re scaring me. Don’t try to scare me, Steven.”
    “I’m not trying to scare you. I’m trying to unscare me. Look, it’s probably just the weather. It’s this weird electrical activity. Maybe everything’s magnetized.”
    “The weather, huh? Magnets, huh?” Madness in her eye. “What’s this, then?” She stood up in bed and pointed to the strange stain high on the wall. It was bigger now.
    “It’s a spot,” Steve suggested.
    “A spot. A spot that wasn’t there yesterday. A spot our dog has been fixating on since this morning. A spot I can’t . . .”
    “All right, all right. Now you’re trying to scare me !”
    They stared at each other in frazzled silence a moment, then burst into nervous laughter.
    “What the hell.” Steve shook his head. “Probably that lightning hit the damn wall last night, and we’re all electric zombies now.”
    Diane laughed until she was near tears, and curled in his arms. “I’m sure there’s a perfectly natural explanation. I lived with it all day, and nothing bad happened. It’s just another side of nature. A side we’re simply not qualified to comprehend. We’re just overreacting--we’ve made everything much too important.”
    “You’re probably right,” he agreed then paused. “The whole thing is just so damn weird.”
    Robbie lay grimly in bed, under the covers, watching the tree backlit by stark spears of lightning.
    “One . . . two . . . three . . . four . . . five . . .” he whispered. Ominously, the thunder mumbled in its ancient, throaty language.
    Outside, the tortured branches of the oak pounded and scraped the window under the tormenting gale. The sky was a gray, black shroud.
    Another streak of lightning fired the air. Somewhere, a power line must have bent under the force: the closet night light flickered, and went out.
    “One . . . two . . . three . . .”
    A great boom and rumble shook the house, rattled the glass. The wind keened like a mourner, and in the next ignition of lightning pulled the branches of the tree forward with terrible meaning.
    “One . . . two . . .”
    BADOOM! The building seemed to cringe. Carol Anne tossed fitfully in the other bed, as Robbie lay absolutely motionless under the covers—hoping the tree-monster wouldn’t see him.
    The wind rose to gale force. Ozone suffused the air