Poltergeeks

  POLTERGEEKS

  "The story gripped me from the first page and provided a dark but thrilling romp through a wonderfully constructed magical world. Poltergeeks is true edge-of-your-seat entertainment and I am really hoping there will be a sequel!"

  Linda Poitevin, author of the Grigori Legacy series

  "Poltergeeks rattles along at a fair old clip, shooting out thrills and spills and quite a few good jokes along the way. Sean Cummings is not just a good YA writer, but a good writer whatever genre he chooses to work in."

  Gary McMahon, author of Pretty Little Dead Things

  "Poltergeeks is Ghostbusters meets Sabrina The Teenage Witch with a dash of X-Files. A magical spell with equal parts humour, adventure and surprise"

  Sara Grant, author of Dark Parties

  "Poltergeeks is action and magic brewed into a fastpaced, death-defying spell of a read. Best friends Julie and Marcus make for a fantastic team with great chemistry and quick humor to balance out the dark peril in this high-stakes, do-or-die tale of witchcraft and suspense."

  Erin Kellison, author of the Shadow series

  "By turns funny, moving, and action-packed, Poltergeeks is almost too much fun!"

  Nancy Holzner, author of the Deadtown series

  BY THE SAME AUTHOR

  Funeral Pallor

  Shade Fright

  Unseen World

  SEAN CUMMINGS

  Poltergeeks

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Acknowledgments

  For Mary-Kate,

  you got it from the start

  and never let go.

  Oh! but if this torturing Witch-catcher can by all or any of these meanes wring out a word or two of confession from any of these stupified, ignorant, unintelligible, poore silly creatures, (though none heare it but himselfe) he will adde and put her in feare to confesse telling her, else she shall be hanged; but if she doe, he will set her at liberty, and so put a word into her mouth, and make such a silly creature confesse she knowes not what.

  Matthew Hopkins, THE DISCOVERY OF WITCHES

  Chapter 1

  Mrs Gilbert literally flew out the front door of her house. I should add that Marcus Guffman and I had absolutely nothing to do with it because frankly, I've had it with the whole irresponsible teenager thing. It's bad enough when people over forty look at you like you're planning on axe murdering their entire family just because you and your best friend since grade school are going door to door raising money for the Crescent Ridge High School Read-A-Thon.

  I blame Fox News, but that's just me.

  Now when I say that Mrs Gilbert flew out of the door I should probably preface everything by stating here and now that we're not talking about being chucked out the front door like some guy getting thrown out of a nightclub or a goon being kicked out of a hockey game. No, Mrs Gilbert was approximately six feet off the ground and actually flying in a lateral trajectory, landing squarely on an enormous bed of orange and yellow zinnias.

  "What… the… hell?" Marcus choked, as we observed the screen door slam so hard the screws zinged off the hinges. Mrs Gilbert groaned as she struggled back to her feet, clearly in a daze. I rushed over to her, my backpack thumping clumsily against my back. Marcus followed close behind, clutching the aluminium clip board to his chest along with a baggie containing thirty four dollars and twenty nine cents in pledges.

  "Mrs Gilbert!" I squeaked. "Are you OK?"

  She brushed the dirt off the front of her pink nightgown and then adjusted the giant lime-coloured curlers in her grey hair. "Oh now, don't you worry your pretty little head, Julie Richardson," she said trying to look dignified. "I'm pretty sturdy for a senior citizen. Mind you, things like this don't normally happen to me with any kind of regularity."

  I gave her a puzzled look and then glanced at Marcus who had an equally confused look on his face. "What normally doesn't happen?" I asked.

  "It's probably nothing, sweetheart," she said with a cautious attempt at a reassuring smile. "My stars, are you and Marcus doing some fundraising? I'd get my purse but … Well it's inside the house, isn't it?"

  Suddenly we heard a noise that sounded like a huge jet of compressed air being forced through an equally huge hose, followed by an ear-splitting screech that raised the hair on the back of my neck. We glanced skyward just in time to see Mrs Gilbert's cat jettisoned out of the chimney at something close to Mach One, landing squarely on the highest branch of the neighbour's poplar tree.

  "Slippers!" the old lady shrieked. "Lord have mercy, it's after my cat!"

  "What is?" I asked, as I shielded my eyes from the morning sun to catch a glimpse of Mrs Gilbert's Siamese cat clinging to the branch for dear life.

  She tightened the belt on her nightgown and glared menacingly at the front door of her house. "Now dear, it's not something that should concern you."

  "It shouldn't concern us?" chimed Marcus. "Cats aren't normally launched through chimneys like they're mortar rounds."

  "Marcus Robert Guffman, don't you dare take that tone with me young man!" she snapped. "Just because I'm a little old biddy doesn't mean I can't give you a lesson you won't soon forget!"

  He gave her a sheepish look. "Sorry ma'am," he said quietly.

  The old lady let out an impatient sigh and glanced back at her flower bed. "Well this just tops everything. Look at my zinnias! They're ruined! It's one thing to learn that your house is haunted on a Sunday morning, it's another thing entirely to wind up being tossed out the front door like a bag of trash!"

  I did a double take as I watched the curtains on her bay window repeatedly open and close like someone was pulling on the cord to amuse themselves.

  "Did you say haunted?" I asked in a suspicious voice as I slipped my backpack off my shoulders.

  Mrs Gilbert gave me a single nod and pursed her lips tightly. "That's the only explanation I can find for it, Julie. It all started about half an hour ago when I went to the kitchen to make a cup of tea. The dishes started rattling and then the walls started pounding. I've never seen anything like it. I'd appreciate it if you'd perhaps keep this to yourself. I'm not fond of people thinking I'm the token crazy woman on the block."

  I gave Marcus a look that told him to keep Mrs Gilbert distracted for a few moments. He nodded firmly as he stuffed the collection bag into his jeans.

  "Er… Mrs Gilbert, let's go to the neighbour's yard and see if I can't get Slippers out of that tree. Julie, I'll catch up with you after."

  I clenched my jaw tightly as Marcus led Mrs Gilbert up the front path and then turned my attention to the house.

  As I watched the blinds in the bedroom window spinning like a turbine, I decided that whatever launched Mrs Gilbert and her cat from the modest bungalow wasn't your average run-of-the-mill ghost. In fact, I was pretty sure that a poltergeist had taken up residence in the poor woman's home and it clearly regarded little old ladies in green curlers – not to mention Siamese cats – as nothing more than a mere nuisance.

  If Mrs Gilbert had any hope of getting back into her house, I had two options: try to identify the sou
rce of spiritual energy that gave the poltergeist the ability to interact with the mortal world, or I'd have to conduct an exorcism and that would guarantee me yet another blast from Mom if she found out. Still, it was a risk I was willing to take because nobody, supernatural or otherwise, puts the boots to senior citizens in my neighbourhood if I have anything to say about it. I reached into my backpack for the old copper amulet my mother had given me on my twelfth birthday and found it nestled between my textbook on the Enlightenment and a lukewarm bottle of Coca-Cola. I cleaned it off with my T-shirt and then I dropped the bag on the walk and cautiously approached the front door of the house, holding out the amulet for protection in case a TV set flew out the door and nailed me square in the head. The amulet, by the way, doesn't possess any magical qualities. It simply acts as a focus point for me to draw upon my spirit and invoke a spell or channel magical energy onto a target of opportunity.

  Oh yeah, I'm a witch; a pretty good one, actually, though Mom keeps reminding me that I'm still her apprentice and that drives me nuts because it's almost like she's rubbing my face in it, you know? As for magic, well, each person alive carries a measure of supernatural energy deep inside. Some people say that it's your soul while others call it living energy, but it's really all the same. Everyone has the potential to sling magic around, but very few people learn how to harness their spirit and channel that energy into feats that basically defy everything we've been led to believe about the world around us. It's actually pretty cool when you think about it, but as with all forms of energy, its use comes with a cost. If you draw on your spirit too much you can literally burn up – burn up as in bursting into flames. Ever hear of spontaneous human combustion? Yeah – that was probably a practitioner who burned up because they drew on their spirit past the point of no return.

  And I'm not that stupid.

  I could feel spectral energy crackling around me like tiny jolts of electricity with each step I took closer to the door, and I wondered for half a second if what I was about to do might possibly be better suited to a more advanced practitioner.

  OK, maybe more like five seconds.

  Bear in mind that I wasn't entirely sure what I was going to do when I got to the door because I'd never dealt with a malevolent entity before. Hell, I should have probably headed home with my tail between my legs, but then I'd be forced to play second fiddle to Mom while she dealt with Mrs Gilbert's little problem. No, I was going to deal with this – whatever this was – on my own.

  Or so I thought.

  I had just placed my foot on the first concrete step when the spinning window blinds suddenly stopped and the front door opened with a loud click. An ice-cold gust of foul air blew through my hair and I narrowed my eyes as I poked my head into the doorway. My stomach churned as I felt a very large and very old supernatural presence, like decades worth of dust on an old steam trunk in an attic. I couldn't tell if it meant me any harm, but I wasn't about to take any chances. It had, after all, punted Mrs Gilbert from the house and at this moment it was probably sizing me up since I give off a magical signature that blazes like a supernova when I'm freaked right out.

  Naturally, I just had to go inside and that's when it became abundantly clear to me that I probably should have called for backup.

  Awesome.

  Chapter 2

  Just because I'm a witch doesn't mean that I can't get in over my head when it comes to the supernatural. The first clue that I should have probably, God, called for my mother, was when I saw Mrs Gilbert's sofa hovering about two feet above the rose-coloured carpet in her living room. Of course, every stick of furniture was floating but the sofa, being the largest object, immediately drew my attention. I took a tentative step forward, and the sofa immediately spun around so that its polished oak feet were pointing at the ceiling. I held out my amulet and grated my teeth together as I increased my concentration. Somewhere inside the house was the source of the poltergeist's energy, I just needed to home in on it.

  I clutched the copper amulet tightly in my right hand and drew on my spirit. I could feel the swirl of spectral energy brushing against my skin, so I shut my eyes tight and cleared my mind. Within seconds the temperature inside Mrs Gilbert's house dropped like a stone. I intensified my focus, directing my senses through the curtain of shadow that separates the spirit world from the mortal plane. In seconds I'd detected the source of supernatural energy: the kitchen.

  "Well here goes nothing," I said, exhaling a shaky breath as I headed up a narrow hallway. No sooner had I reached the kitchen when Mrs Gilbert's stainless steel refrigerator slid across the chequered floor with a screech. The fridge door swung open and a jug of milk sailed past my head, smashing against a bookshelf. I dove for cover as a series of Tupperware containers flew off the counter. A dozen brown eggs splattered across the ceiling, the yolks dribbling down the powder-pink walls.

  "Nobody likes a show-off!" I barked. "I'm coming into this kitchen whether you like it or not, so you might as well just stop this lame haunted-house routine right now!"

  Apparently the poltergeist heard me.

  I watched as a set of multicoloured alphabet fridge magnets floated through the air and rearranged themselves into two simple words that sent a chill up my spine:

  L-E-A-V-E N-O-W

  At least the poltergeist was talking to me, which had to count for something. Rather than enter the kitchen, I decided to press the spirit for information.

  "Spirit, what are you doing in the world of the living?" I asked, trying to sound like I wasn't intimidated. The letters slowly rearranged themselves until another word formed:

  L-O-S-T

  "You're lost?" I was puzzled. "Spirits aren't supposed to become lost, so where should you be?"

  The letters floated to within arms' reach and assembled into a pair of words that told me this was not your average poltergeist:

  A-T and then R-E-S-T.

  At rest? This wasn't a malevolent presence. If anything it was the spirit of some poor, departed soul that should have crossed over but either chose not to or wasn't being allowed to. I decided to ask it one more question before offering assistance. Just as I was about to open my mouth, a set of enamel bake ware flew out of a cupboard and slid across the floor.

  I blinked a few times, half-hoping I wouldn't get beaned with a frying pan and said, "Spirit, were you on the other side? Did you cross over?"

  The floating alphabet rearranged itself again.

  Y-E-S

  Holy shit!

  I gulped as a surge of panic seized me. Someone had meant for this to happen. The spirit seemed to be lost and the poltergeist activity was either a cry for help to the living or a kind of supernatural rage at having been sucked back into the mortal world, I wasn't sure which.

  And I had a right to feel panic, too.

  While I'm still an apprentice witch, I'm old enough to know that pulling spirits who've passed on back into the world of the living requires boatloads of skill and is almost always done for a sinister purpose. More often than not, it's black magic – as black as it gets. I wasn't dumb enough to try to conduct an exorcism that would send the spirit back to the other side, because whoever or whatever had yanked it into the mortal realm would detect my magic, and they could easily send a counter-spell that could do something nasty like… Oh, how about kill me? If Mrs Gilbert was going to get back into her house, I had to figure out a way to get the spirit to leave without being detected by whoever sent it here.

  Suddenly every single cupboard door in the kitchen swung open and then slammed shut with a deafening crash. The kitchen light flickered on and off like a strobe as the fridge magnets spelled out three words:

  H-E

  I-S

  C-O-M-I-N-G

  My blood ran cold. I stared hard at the alphabet letters and tried desperately not to freak out. There had to be a way to get the spirit out of the house before he or it or whatever the hell was coming detected my magic. I needed something to act as a proxy for the spirit to occupy,
and yes, damn it all, I was going to have to ask for my mother's help after all. Then it dawned on me; Mrs Gilbert was a granny – there had to be children's toys in the house I could use. Something without opposable thumbs, because there was the very real possibility that whatever was coming might occupy the proxy as well. The last thing I needed was to get chased out of the old lady's house by a knife-wielding Cabbage Patch doll.

  I raced down the hall and checked each bedroom until I found a toy chest. I threw off the lid and began rifling through until I found a plush teddy bear with movable arms and legs. I gave it a quick once-over and then I darted back up the hall and threw the teddy bear into the kitchen. It landed against the side of the fridge and slid onto the floor.

  "Spirit!" I shouted. "I can get you back to the other side but I can't do it here. I need you to enter into that teddy bear and I can take you to someone who will help you cross over!"