Free Poltergeist by James Kahn

It takes too much out of me. I’ve done with warnings. Can you help me?”
    “I’m not certain exactly what you want of me.
    “It’s my dreams.”
    “Recurring dreams?”
    “Yes . . . at least, I think so. They seem to be the same, at any rate. I can’t remember them, you see—but I’m certain they’re portentous. Or at least, telepathic. However, I wish to be rid of them. Telepathy is my disease. If you can cure me—give me a remission, in any case—you may borrow them.”
    “Borrow them?” Lesh’s first reaction was amusement, but the woman with whom she spoke was not amused.
    “Yes. I’ll make it a proposal—that is the currency of the scientist, I believe. You may use me—study my brain, register my abilities, measure my prescience, borrow my dreams—only help me, if you can, to draw the curtains on my second sight. For I’m weary to the bone, of knowing.”
    Dr. Lesh was moved by this plea, but somewhat at a loss for response.
    Tangina smiled understandingly, and helped her. “You needn’t answer now. You don’t know me, of course, and I know you have committees and budgets to answer to. Believe me—I wouldn’t have approached you if I hadn’t been desperate.”
    Lesh was a bit defensive at the suggestion that she had to answer to a committee before she could make a research decision. “No, that’s not it—there are no committees to whom I am answerable in matters such as this. And I make the budgets in our lab . . .”
    “Well, then,” smiled Tangina. “As I indicated when we first met—our association was practically a foregone conclusion. I only hope it ends profitably for us both.” She extended her hand.
    With combined bewilderment and inevitability, Lesh shook hands with Tangina. “I’d be happy if it ended profitably for even one of us,” the older woman laughed. “And I don’t care which one, at this moment.” She shook her head then. “Oh dear, I think I’d better have another glass of wine.”
    So it was Tangina’s hope that if an explanation could be found for her condition, a cure could be found as well. It was Lesh’s hope that a condition could be found. They ran tests on Tangina, recorded her dreams, her brain waves, her receptivity to direct and to telepathic suggestion. By the third week, Dr. Lesh felt she was beginning to see a pattern emerge—the PGO activity she’d mentioned to Ryan.
    By the third week, Tangina was beginning to despair of ever finding respite from her nightmarish sleep. But she’d made an agreement with Dr. Lesh, and would follow it to its end, no matter how unrewarding she feared it was becoming.
    Consequently, she sat quietly in her nightgown now, as Marty meticulously glued electrodes to her scalp, each lead trailing a fine wire that plugged into the wall behind the bed in the observation room. The room was filled with monitoring equipment of every variety—television camera, magnometer, electrostatic locator, infrared camera, high- and low-frequency microphones, electrohygrometer—all pointed at the bed.
    “One day I’m gonna wake up fried to a crisp,” Tangina muttered to Marty.
    “At least we’ll get it on tape,” he replied lightly.
    She gave him a look, but before she could make a comeback, Dr. Lesh entered the room.
    “All set?” Dr. Lesh asked.
    “Last electrode.” Marty stood back and admired his handiwork. “I’ll go make an equipment check.” He left the room.
    “Well,” said Dr. Lesh, sitting down on a stool beside the bed. “How are you feeling tonight?”
    “Tingly,” Tangina replied. She lay back in bed. “What’s on tonight’s agenda?”
    “The same as last week, as far as you’re concerned. I’m going to hypnotize you, and suggest that you enter into your maximally receptive state. Then I’ll do the same with one of our other subjects—Rita—who we’ve had some success with in the past—and we’ll have Rita try to transmit her thoughts into your dreams during the night. During all of