"The Phantoms From Within"
"The Phantoms From Within"
5/11/1974
I.
Cindy began seeing the floating smoke pythons when she was sixteen.
Most days, she didn't take the bus home after school. For about an hour, she would sit with Olivia and Kathy at Mazzini's pizza joint across Broadway opposite the high school. Getting one slice each and a Coke in a shaped glass with a straw, the three caught up on gossip, speculation and what they considered deep insights into life. While her pals lived a few blocks over, Cindy's house was uptown and a twenty minute walk away. She didn't mind. There was a lot going on in her head and the solitary walks gave her time to mull things over. Now, after a particularly giggly discussion that had almost gotten them thrown out of the pizza place, she waved to her friends, zipped up her windbreaker and started home.
At sixteen, Cynthia Lee Brunner was almost unbearably cute. It was more of a nuisance to her than the advantage her peers told her it should be. Not quite an inch over five feet tall and barely reaching one hundred pounds after a heavy dinner, she was thin but with breasts actually a bit too large for her frame. Sometimes they made her back hurt at the end of the day. Cindy had the coloring of her Norwegian grandparents. Her thick straight hair was a golden blonde with faint red undertones, her eyes were dark blue and she was pale with freckles that never went away even in winter. Boys her age thought she was hot as anything, old ladies thought she was adorable, even little children liked her instinctively.
But then, none of them knew what was going on inside her mind.
The long stretch of Midtown was busy but safe. Crime was rare in Maybrook, especially at four in the afternoon. She walked steadily but without hurry. The new Jack in the Box was almost ready to open and she gave it a withering stare of disapproval. A dignified old building with marble pillars flanking the front doors had been demolished to make room for a cheap gaudy plastic nightmare. Ugh.
As she walked, hands deep in her pockets, head down and eyes on the sidewalk, Cindy practiced reaching out with her mind at passersby. Her telepathy was getting stronger every day. Even as a child, her family had joked that Cin was psychic, that she would bring her mother something from the kitchen without being asked or that she was impossible for her sister to catch off-guard for a prank. After puberty, though, it became clear to Cindy that she actually did pick up what people were thinking. If she concentrated furiously, sometimes she could make people drop something or look the other way. She had gotten out of trouble many times this way by distracting teachers so she could sneak past without being noticed.
A car slowed down as it passed and a middle-aged heavyset man stared momentarily at her. She felt a flash of warm appreciation in his mind for a second, not so much lust as a wistful envy for someone still young and pretty with life ahead. It was a sad thought. Stretched out in a doorway was a small beagle with its leash tied to the doorknob. Cindy caught its eye and sent the thought, Stand up. Stand up now. She tried again. The dog grunted and got to its feet, only to immediately lie down again with obvious resentment.
Cindy grinned to herself. Maybe she would reach a point where she could make an attacking dog settle down. That would be useful. She might be a veteranarian who mysteriously calmed down agitated animals. Across the street, she saw two women in their thirties standing in front of a dress shop. Slowing her pace, the little blonde opened her mind to be more receptive.
Although she never talked about her gift, Cindy would have described telepathy as being more about feelings and impressions than actual words. Many times she caught glimpses of vivid imagery. Right now, one of those women was picturing the other one wearing a slinky black dress on display in the window. To Cindy's delight, the first woman's mental image of her companion suddenly had a ragged black X of disapproval stamped across it.
Hah hah. That shows what she thinks of her friend's taste, Cindy reflected. The next intersection brought her to the corner of Fair Street and Linderman. Still a few blocks too far away to tell if anyone was home yet. She was working on increasing her range both for receiving and sending but without any progress so far. Cindy stood on the corner, waiting for the light to change, shifting her weight from one leg to the other.
Drifting past her at head level was a thick cylinder of dark smoke, like a python swimming through the air. She gave a violent start and moved back a few steps. Seriously, what the hell? The smoky apparition didn't seem to notice her. It bent in the middle and drifted off in a different direction. No one on the sidewalk even noticed it.
But what made her heart pound painfully was the emanation of sheer anger that the thing gave off. It was like being next to some drunk who was mad at the world and spoiling to start a fight. Cindy pressed a hand to her chest and felt her hand tremble. She had never in her short life experienced such a feeling of being in immediate personal danger.
And no one else saw it. Everyone sauntered along the street, happily oblivious to the horror that was gliding past their heads.
II.
The Brunner family ate dinner in the living room when the Six O'Clock local news came on. The parents sat on the couch facing the TV, with their plates on the coffee table by their knees. Liz curled up in the recliner that she inevitably claimed, as always taking great risks by leaving her glass of milk on the arm of the chair where the chances of it being knocked off were good.
Cindy usually plopped down on the carpet way too close to the TV, sitting in an unconscious lotus position. She held her plate on her lap with one hand and nibbled in small continuous bites.
"Hey, that jock Keith called for you again," Liz said to her sister. "About three-thirty. He's still talking about going down to the city to see the Plungers at Madison Square Garden."
"Good for him," Cindy replied.
"And he says there's a ticket for you if you're interested. He wants to get at your boobs bad."
That made Cin come out of her reverie. "Heh. He can admire them from a distance like everyone else."
From the couch, their father Harold said, "So sick of war news. It goes on and on, and never gets anywhere. I wish there was a station that showed nothing but happy news."
With a twinge of regret, Cindy realized she had eaten all the Salisbury steak, mashed potatoes and peas without tasting any of it. She had been thinking about that phantom snake that had floated past her. Drat. She liked the way her mom sprinkled onion powder on the Salisbury steaks. Out loud, though, she said, "That was good."
"You eat double servings like that and never put on a pound. I have to leave the gravy off mine or I'd weigh a ton," Greta Brunner laughed at her eldest.
Unfolding herself from the recliner, Liz Brunner started collecting everyone's plate. "You know, Cin, maybe you SHOULD go to the concert with Keith. You like the Plungers. And there would be a couple of people riding with you, he wouldn't be able to pin you down or anything."
"Here, I'll help you," Cindy said. "Dad, you done? Okay. I dunno, Liz, I just don't feel social lately. Some of those kids are annoying. And I'd come home smelling like beer and pot."
"Do what I do, bring a fresh blouse and change before coming in the house. A couple of Tic-Tacs help, too."
"Elizabeth Marie, you better be joking," warned the mother.
In the kitchen, the girls gave the plates and silverware a perfunctory rinse before abandoning them in a basin of soapy water. Liz pulled a half gallon of Breyer's chocolate ice cream from the freezer and they scooped servings into little clear bowls and grabbed spoons before heading back to the living room.
Their father was studying that week's TV GUIDE. "Nothing good on. At all. At least we get PBS, there's a show about African wildlife."
"I wanna watch something funny," Liz told him, handing over one bowl of ice cream. "THE SARA GREEN SHOW is pretty good."
Positioning herself in the same spot as before, Cindy watched her family and was on the verge of telling them outright about her telepathy. But what if they gave her a hard time? One girl at school had been forced by her parents to see a psychiatrist because they found she had been writing morbid poetry in notebook after notebook. Cindy couldn't deal with the prospect of having everyone whispering about her in school, catching stray thoughts of envy or lust was difficult enough.
She wasn't even watching the TV. Her parents and her sister laughed frequently, repeated Sara Green's catchphrases and chatted about the products shown in the commercials. Cindy finished her ice cream and decided to experiment a little. What mood had she been in when she had seen that hateful phantom snake? What had she been thinking? The little blonde consciously untensed her shoulders. She expanded her perception and metaphorically opened up the doors of her mind.
There it was. Sliding into the room right through the wall without being slowed in the least. This one was smaller, though, no thicker than her wrist and only a foot long. It looked to her as if someone had somehow blown a cylinder of smoke the way you could blow smoke rings. And this one felt friendly. The waves coming off it were warm and relaxed. Cindy felt immense relief. Whatever these phantom snakes were, they weren't all angry, this one was like a pet that wandered into the room before floating out again.
Say, she thought, this one seemed to reflect the easy affection her family felt. Were these things affected by people's thoughts? Did they respond to anger or happiness? It seemed so.
"Well," said her mother. "That ice cream seemed to hit the spot, Cindy. That's the first I've seen you smile today."
The blonde telepath glanced over at her parents on the couch. "I do feel better," she admitted.
III.
Over the next several days, Cindy got used to the phantom snakes. For one thing, they weren't visible unless she opened up her mind specifically to seeing them. Since no one else even suspected the floating apparitions existed and since the things didn't seem to interact at all with people, she quickly dismissed them as a trick way her telepathy interpreted the world. If there were other telepaths out there, probably they knew about the smoky snakes too and ignored them.
Schoolwork gave her enough to occupy her mind. She loved English and History but Math was a real struggle. Getting the same answer to a question twice was never certain. Gym class was okay. Despite seeing herself as a hopeless runt, Cindy was in fact quick and well-coordinated.
Then there were the boys asking her out to movies or just to get some fast food and socialize. Most weren't serious about it, they asked out lots of girls apparently on the hope that if one out of ten said yes, they'd score. But Keith Laughlin was different. He was taller than any of the teachers, he had his day license and he worked weekends at a grocery store. Keith was more like a grown-up than the other students. And, just skimming his surface thoughts, Cindy saw that along with the normal sex fantasies he had about her, Keith was genuinely curious and wanted to know her better. His thoughts were sincere.
She was tempted. But trying to understand the whole telepathy situation gave her too much to think about to do any dating at the moment. She regretfully turned him down without giving him any reason to hope things would change. He took the rejection in a good-natured way that made her like him even better.
On Thursday, she got a slip to stay at the school library for the final study period. Over the past six months, she had memorized every book the library had regarding psychic phenomena and had dragged out the huge encyclopedia volumes to see what they had to say. None were of any help. Now she was digging through the books about other countries' religious beliefs and here she learned what a 'Tulpa' was.
The idea that concentrated thoughts could take material form... that they could manifest visibly as living beings... struck her like a splash of icy water. Of course. That was what these floating smoke creatures must be. The one that passed through her living room had either reflected her family's emotions or had been created by them. And the occasional angry ones she had encountered might be from irritated motorists or people at jobs they hated.
Although she didn't realize it, the little blonde sat for ten minutes without moving, no longer seeing the open encyclopedia in front of her, simply thinking things over. Yes. For her own sake, she needed to spend as much time as possible where people were happy. She should avoid being around groups who were worked up over something, because their anger manifested itself as these floating phantoms. Maybe sporting events would be a bad place for her, the competition and outrage from the losing side would affect her. Where should she go to soak up pleasant thoughts? Hmmm. There were those poetry readings in the coffee house on Fridays. Today was baby animal day at the public library on Monroe Street, that was around five if she remembered right. Too bad July was so far away, crowds watching fireworks must be filled with primal awe and delight.
The bell rang. Ten minutes after three. Cindy yawned and stretched, lugged the huge book back to its place on the shelves and hitched up her pants. She hated these bell-bottom, they never fit right and kept riding up on her. Her twenty-two inch waist and nearly flat butt made getting decent clothes a problem. That day, Cindy was wearing her favorite blouse, a long-sleeved red silk one with cream-colored swirls in the material. She would have liked it better with pockets but girls' shirt with real pockets were hard to find.
Gathering up her textbooks and her soft denim handbag, she waved to the librarian and strolled down the hall toward the stairs. Kids were everywhere. Chatting, flirting, arguing. At least ten minutes before the buses started loading up. Cindy was still mulling over the concept of thoughts taking solid form. She wanted to be left alone. Exiting the school by a side door, she trotted down to Broadway and swung left to start walking uptown.
In her handbag were six dollars and some change. More than enough to snatch up a hamburger if she felt peckish, and she thought she might call home and say she would be late. Five or six blocks up ahead was the public library. Cindy had already scoured its shelves for books on telepathy but now she had a new topic explore. Tulpas. That word stuck in her mind.
A car horn honked three times and she turned her head, her hair swinging behind with the motion. It was Keith again, in a beat-up VW Bug crammed with boys. Cindy couldn't help grinning at their expressions and she gave them a friendly wave. The Bug rolled on with that distinctive clackety sound. Despite herself, Cindy was warming up to the idea of going out with Keith to see how they got along. Her dating had been very limited because when puberty had hit, so had her mind-reading.
Swinging off the main boulevard of town onto Monroe Street, she felt fear sweep up over her as cold as a winter wind. What? Who? The little blonde wheeled around. Heading right toward her, radiating murderous rage, was one of the smoke pythons.
IV.
Cindy yelped and leaped way to one side, nearly tumbling over a chain link fence around someone's yard. She had dropped her books on the edge of the sidewalk. No one was in sight. The traffic on Broadway was far enough away that no one had seen her acting like a startled rabbit. Hanging in mid-air like a dark stormcloud, the manifestation raised up one end to form a sort of head and drifted closer.
"Get away from me," she told the thing. "I'm warning you."
"Are you really?" said a man's voice from the yard behind her. "And what do you think you can do to my Tolku?"
The little blonde turned her head while trying to keep an eye on the menacing smoke creature. She saw an old man with thinning white hair, his skinny legs sticking out pale from Bermuda shorts. The man had a predatory vulture-like face with a sharp beaky nose over a cruel mouth. "I wouldn't move if I were you."
Cindy felt her knees weaken. Something was pressing at her mind, trying to force its way in. "Who are you? I don't know you."
"My name is Viscardi. Pietro Viscardi. I've felt your presence in this town for a while now. True telepaths are rare enough that you seldom happen across one." He waved a gnarled hand and the smoke creature backed up. "I can tell you have a strong gift, my dear. But you need a teacher."
"Yeah? No thanks. Stay away from me!"
"It is too late for that," he replied, smiling with his lips while his eyes remained serious. "I wouldn't let a rival mind-reader run around loose. Sooner or later you might challenge me."
She pointed an accusing finger. "You. You're making these... these things appear?"
"The Phantoms From Within," Viscardi replied. "Oh yes. The stray thoughts and repressed emotions that leak out of ordinary people's minds. Left to themselves, they would dissipate and be lost. I have been collecting them, you might say. Rounding them up and distilling them."
For some reason she didn't have time to analyze, Cindy was not frightened. She was defiant. "I get it. That thing behind me, you pulled it together and now you're telling it to harass me."
"Heh, so true. The family next door is quite disfunctional. Both parents are alcoholics, the son is robbing unlocked cars, the daughter is pregnant at fifteen. The fighting and screaming goes on day and night. All I do is gather up the escaping hatred into a single mass." Viscardi took a deep satisfied breath and tucked his thumbs in his white vinyl belt. "Maybe I'm performing a public service by getting all the negative energy out of the air."
"And shaping it into an attack dog for your own use." She turned back to glare at the dark cloud which swirled nearer and nearer. "Make it go away."
"No, no, no," Viscardi laughed. "I see you need to be humbled, little girl. My Tulpa is potent enough to drop you with a shock like being hit by lightning."
"It'll have to catch me!" Cindy spun and took off full tilt, sprinting up Monroe Street, leaning far forward and arms pumping. Small and wiry, she was fast enough to have qualified for the school track team and now she had the strongest motivation to run she had ever known. She did not have to look back to know the smoky snake was right behind her. The tingling intrusion of the old man into her mind didn't weaken either. She had only seconds before she would be overpowered.
But it was not panic which drove her. Cindy vaulted across the side street to the public library. This had once been a grade school which had been converted, and its parking lot was sizeable. Here were gathered two librarians, an animal wrangler from the Catskill Game Farm and three awkward baby goats. A dozen children between five and seven were feeding the goats scraps of lettuce and carrots.
The area was saturated with innocent joy. The delight of the children, the affectionate amusement of the adults, even the simple pleasures from the goats hung in the air like a warm golden haze. Acting on instinct, Cindy dashed into the parking lot and whirled around to channel all that energy directly at the black manifestation behind her.
The smoke creature flew apart into fragments which dispersed and vanished. Two blocks away, a strangled cry sounded. As Cindy felt the oppressive pressure on her mind lift, she swayed and nearly fell. One of the adults noticed her and said, "Are you all right, honey?"
"Huh? Oh, sure. I'm fine." The blonde telepath walked over and crouched near the children. One of the goats took a few uncertain steps and nuzzled her. "That's a good boy," she cooed. "You're a sweetheart, aren't you?"'
A few minutes later, after her breathing and heartbeat had settled down to normal levels, Cindy got up and said a few appreciative words to the animal wrangler before walking back out onto Monroe Street. Flashing red lights from where she had met the old villain caught her eye. Cindy cautiously retraced her steps and saw an ambulance with the back doors open. Two paramedics were lifting Viscardi on a stretcher into the rear of the vehicle.
Before they closed the doors, one of them pulled the sheet up over the man's head.
Somehow retaining enough composure to retrieve her books from where she had dropped them only a few minutes earlier, Cindy watched the neighbors turn away and go back into their houses as the ambulance rolled away with its lights off. Viscardi must have had a link with the smoke creature, she figured. When the energy from the children and goats had broken up the phantom being, some sort of feedback must have recoiled to strike him with the same deadly force he had intended for her. It was like taking a shot at someone and having the ricochet hit you in the heart.
Cindy didn't feel sorry for him. Not a bit.
9/26/2020
5/11/1974
I.
Cindy began seeing the floating smoke pythons when she was sixteen.
Most days, she didn't take the bus home after school. For about an hour, she would sit with Olivia and Kathy at Mazzini's pizza joint across Broadway opposite the high school. Getting one slice each and a Coke in a shaped glass with a straw, the three caught up on gossip, speculation and what they considered deep insights into life. While her pals lived a few blocks over, Cindy's house was uptown and a twenty minute walk away. She didn't mind. There was a lot going on in her head and the solitary walks gave her time to mull things over. Now, after a particularly giggly discussion that had almost gotten them thrown out of the pizza place, she waved to her friends, zipped up her windbreaker and started home.
At sixteen, Cynthia Lee Brunner was almost unbearably cute. It was more of a nuisance to her than the advantage her peers told her it should be. Not quite an inch over five feet tall and barely reaching one hundred pounds after a heavy dinner, she was thin but with breasts actually a bit too large for her frame. Sometimes they made her back hurt at the end of the day. Cindy had the coloring of her Norwegian grandparents. Her thick straight hair was a golden blonde with faint red undertones, her eyes were dark blue and she was pale with freckles that never went away even in winter. Boys her age thought she was hot as anything, old ladies thought she was adorable, even little children liked her instinctively.
But then, none of them knew what was going on inside her mind.
The long stretch of Midtown was busy but safe. Crime was rare in Maybrook, especially at four in the afternoon. She walked steadily but without hurry. The new Jack in the Box was almost ready to open and she gave it a withering stare of disapproval. A dignified old building with marble pillars flanking the front doors had been demolished to make room for a cheap gaudy plastic nightmare. Ugh.
As she walked, hands deep in her pockets, head down and eyes on the sidewalk, Cindy practiced reaching out with her mind at passersby. Her telepathy was getting stronger every day. Even as a child, her family had joked that Cin was psychic, that she would bring her mother something from the kitchen without being asked or that she was impossible for her sister to catch off-guard for a prank. After puberty, though, it became clear to Cindy that she actually did pick up what people were thinking. If she concentrated furiously, sometimes she could make people drop something or look the other way. She had gotten out of trouble many times this way by distracting teachers so she could sneak past without being noticed.
A car slowed down as it passed and a middle-aged heavyset man stared momentarily at her. She felt a flash of warm appreciation in his mind for a second, not so much lust as a wistful envy for someone still young and pretty with life ahead. It was a sad thought. Stretched out in a doorway was a small beagle with its leash tied to the doorknob. Cindy caught its eye and sent the thought, Stand up. Stand up now. She tried again. The dog grunted and got to its feet, only to immediately lie down again with obvious resentment.
Cindy grinned to herself. Maybe she would reach a point where she could make an attacking dog settle down. That would be useful. She might be a veteranarian who mysteriously calmed down agitated animals. Across the street, she saw two women in their thirties standing in front of a dress shop. Slowing her pace, the little blonde opened her mind to be more receptive.
Although she never talked about her gift, Cindy would have described telepathy as being more about feelings and impressions than actual words. Many times she caught glimpses of vivid imagery. Right now, one of those women was picturing the other one wearing a slinky black dress on display in the window. To Cindy's delight, the first woman's mental image of her companion suddenly had a ragged black X of disapproval stamped across it.
Hah hah. That shows what she thinks of her friend's taste, Cindy reflected. The next intersection brought her to the corner of Fair Street and Linderman. Still a few blocks too far away to tell if anyone was home yet. She was working on increasing her range both for receiving and sending but without any progress so far. Cindy stood on the corner, waiting for the light to change, shifting her weight from one leg to the other.
Drifting past her at head level was a thick cylinder of dark smoke, like a python swimming through the air. She gave a violent start and moved back a few steps. Seriously, what the hell? The smoky apparition didn't seem to notice her. It bent in the middle and drifted off in a different direction. No one on the sidewalk even noticed it.
But what made her heart pound painfully was the emanation of sheer anger that the thing gave off. It was like being next to some drunk who was mad at the world and spoiling to start a fight. Cindy pressed a hand to her chest and felt her hand tremble. She had never in her short life experienced such a feeling of being in immediate personal danger.
And no one else saw it. Everyone sauntered along the street, happily oblivious to the horror that was gliding past their heads.
II.
The Brunner family ate dinner in the living room when the Six O'Clock local news came on. The parents sat on the couch facing the TV, with their plates on the coffee table by their knees. Liz curled up in the recliner that she inevitably claimed, as always taking great risks by leaving her glass of milk on the arm of the chair where the chances of it being knocked off were good.
Cindy usually plopped down on the carpet way too close to the TV, sitting in an unconscious lotus position. She held her plate on her lap with one hand and nibbled in small continuous bites.
"Hey, that jock Keith called for you again," Liz said to her sister. "About three-thirty. He's still talking about going down to the city to see the Plungers at Madison Square Garden."
"Good for him," Cindy replied.
"And he says there's a ticket for you if you're interested. He wants to get at your boobs bad."
That made Cin come out of her reverie. "Heh. He can admire them from a distance like everyone else."
From the couch, their father Harold said, "So sick of war news. It goes on and on, and never gets anywhere. I wish there was a station that showed nothing but happy news."
With a twinge of regret, Cindy realized she had eaten all the Salisbury steak, mashed potatoes and peas without tasting any of it. She had been thinking about that phantom snake that had floated past her. Drat. She liked the way her mom sprinkled onion powder on the Salisbury steaks. Out loud, though, she said, "That was good."
"You eat double servings like that and never put on a pound. I have to leave the gravy off mine or I'd weigh a ton," Greta Brunner laughed at her eldest.
Unfolding herself from the recliner, Liz Brunner started collecting everyone's plate. "You know, Cin, maybe you SHOULD go to the concert with Keith. You like the Plungers. And there would be a couple of people riding with you, he wouldn't be able to pin you down or anything."
"Here, I'll help you," Cindy said. "Dad, you done? Okay. I dunno, Liz, I just don't feel social lately. Some of those kids are annoying. And I'd come home smelling like beer and pot."
"Do what I do, bring a fresh blouse and change before coming in the house. A couple of Tic-Tacs help, too."
"Elizabeth Marie, you better be joking," warned the mother.
In the kitchen, the girls gave the plates and silverware a perfunctory rinse before abandoning them in a basin of soapy water. Liz pulled a half gallon of Breyer's chocolate ice cream from the freezer and they scooped servings into little clear bowls and grabbed spoons before heading back to the living room.
Their father was studying that week's TV GUIDE. "Nothing good on. At all. At least we get PBS, there's a show about African wildlife."
"I wanna watch something funny," Liz told him, handing over one bowl of ice cream. "THE SARA GREEN SHOW is pretty good."
Positioning herself in the same spot as before, Cindy watched her family and was on the verge of telling them outright about her telepathy. But what if they gave her a hard time? One girl at school had been forced by her parents to see a psychiatrist because they found she had been writing morbid poetry in notebook after notebook. Cindy couldn't deal with the prospect of having everyone whispering about her in school, catching stray thoughts of envy or lust was difficult enough.
She wasn't even watching the TV. Her parents and her sister laughed frequently, repeated Sara Green's catchphrases and chatted about the products shown in the commercials. Cindy finished her ice cream and decided to experiment a little. What mood had she been in when she had seen that hateful phantom snake? What had she been thinking? The little blonde consciously untensed her shoulders. She expanded her perception and metaphorically opened up the doors of her mind.
There it was. Sliding into the room right through the wall without being slowed in the least. This one was smaller, though, no thicker than her wrist and only a foot long. It looked to her as if someone had somehow blown a cylinder of smoke the way you could blow smoke rings. And this one felt friendly. The waves coming off it were warm and relaxed. Cindy felt immense relief. Whatever these phantom snakes were, they weren't all angry, this one was like a pet that wandered into the room before floating out again.
Say, she thought, this one seemed to reflect the easy affection her family felt. Were these things affected by people's thoughts? Did they respond to anger or happiness? It seemed so.
"Well," said her mother. "That ice cream seemed to hit the spot, Cindy. That's the first I've seen you smile today."
The blonde telepath glanced over at her parents on the couch. "I do feel better," she admitted.
III.
Over the next several days, Cindy got used to the phantom snakes. For one thing, they weren't visible unless she opened up her mind specifically to seeing them. Since no one else even suspected the floating apparitions existed and since the things didn't seem to interact at all with people, she quickly dismissed them as a trick way her telepathy interpreted the world. If there were other telepaths out there, probably they knew about the smoky snakes too and ignored them.
Schoolwork gave her enough to occupy her mind. She loved English and History but Math was a real struggle. Getting the same answer to a question twice was never certain. Gym class was okay. Despite seeing herself as a hopeless runt, Cindy was in fact quick and well-coordinated.
Then there were the boys asking her out to movies or just to get some fast food and socialize. Most weren't serious about it, they asked out lots of girls apparently on the hope that if one out of ten said yes, they'd score. But Keith Laughlin was different. He was taller than any of the teachers, he had his day license and he worked weekends at a grocery store. Keith was more like a grown-up than the other students. And, just skimming his surface thoughts, Cindy saw that along with the normal sex fantasies he had about her, Keith was genuinely curious and wanted to know her better. His thoughts were sincere.
She was tempted. But trying to understand the whole telepathy situation gave her too much to think about to do any dating at the moment. She regretfully turned him down without giving him any reason to hope things would change. He took the rejection in a good-natured way that made her like him even better.
On Thursday, she got a slip to stay at the school library for the final study period. Over the past six months, she had memorized every book the library had regarding psychic phenomena and had dragged out the huge encyclopedia volumes to see what they had to say. None were of any help. Now she was digging through the books about other countries' religious beliefs and here she learned what a 'Tulpa' was.
The idea that concentrated thoughts could take material form... that they could manifest visibly as living beings... struck her like a splash of icy water. Of course. That was what these floating smoke creatures must be. The one that passed through her living room had either reflected her family's emotions or had been created by them. And the occasional angry ones she had encountered might be from irritated motorists or people at jobs they hated.
Although she didn't realize it, the little blonde sat for ten minutes without moving, no longer seeing the open encyclopedia in front of her, simply thinking things over. Yes. For her own sake, she needed to spend as much time as possible where people were happy. She should avoid being around groups who were worked up over something, because their anger manifested itself as these floating phantoms. Maybe sporting events would be a bad place for her, the competition and outrage from the losing side would affect her. Where should she go to soak up pleasant thoughts? Hmmm. There were those poetry readings in the coffee house on Fridays. Today was baby animal day at the public library on Monroe Street, that was around five if she remembered right. Too bad July was so far away, crowds watching fireworks must be filled with primal awe and delight.
The bell rang. Ten minutes after three. Cindy yawned and stretched, lugged the huge book back to its place on the shelves and hitched up her pants. She hated these bell-bottom, they never fit right and kept riding up on her. Her twenty-two inch waist and nearly flat butt made getting decent clothes a problem. That day, Cindy was wearing her favorite blouse, a long-sleeved red silk one with cream-colored swirls in the material. She would have liked it better with pockets but girls' shirt with real pockets were hard to find.
Gathering up her textbooks and her soft denim handbag, she waved to the librarian and strolled down the hall toward the stairs. Kids were everywhere. Chatting, flirting, arguing. At least ten minutes before the buses started loading up. Cindy was still mulling over the concept of thoughts taking solid form. She wanted to be left alone. Exiting the school by a side door, she trotted down to Broadway and swung left to start walking uptown.
In her handbag were six dollars and some change. More than enough to snatch up a hamburger if she felt peckish, and she thought she might call home and say she would be late. Five or six blocks up ahead was the public library. Cindy had already scoured its shelves for books on telepathy but now she had a new topic explore. Tulpas. That word stuck in her mind.
A car horn honked three times and she turned her head, her hair swinging behind with the motion. It was Keith again, in a beat-up VW Bug crammed with boys. Cindy couldn't help grinning at their expressions and she gave them a friendly wave. The Bug rolled on with that distinctive clackety sound. Despite herself, Cindy was warming up to the idea of going out with Keith to see how they got along. Her dating had been very limited because when puberty had hit, so had her mind-reading.
Swinging off the main boulevard of town onto Monroe Street, she felt fear sweep up over her as cold as a winter wind. What? Who? The little blonde wheeled around. Heading right toward her, radiating murderous rage, was one of the smoke pythons.
IV.
Cindy yelped and leaped way to one side, nearly tumbling over a chain link fence around someone's yard. She had dropped her books on the edge of the sidewalk. No one was in sight. The traffic on Broadway was far enough away that no one had seen her acting like a startled rabbit. Hanging in mid-air like a dark stormcloud, the manifestation raised up one end to form a sort of head and drifted closer.
"Get away from me," she told the thing. "I'm warning you."
"Are you really?" said a man's voice from the yard behind her. "And what do you think you can do to my Tolku?"
The little blonde turned her head while trying to keep an eye on the menacing smoke creature. She saw an old man with thinning white hair, his skinny legs sticking out pale from Bermuda shorts. The man had a predatory vulture-like face with a sharp beaky nose over a cruel mouth. "I wouldn't move if I were you."
Cindy felt her knees weaken. Something was pressing at her mind, trying to force its way in. "Who are you? I don't know you."
"My name is Viscardi. Pietro Viscardi. I've felt your presence in this town for a while now. True telepaths are rare enough that you seldom happen across one." He waved a gnarled hand and the smoke creature backed up. "I can tell you have a strong gift, my dear. But you need a teacher."
"Yeah? No thanks. Stay away from me!"
"It is too late for that," he replied, smiling with his lips while his eyes remained serious. "I wouldn't let a rival mind-reader run around loose. Sooner or later you might challenge me."
She pointed an accusing finger. "You. You're making these... these things appear?"
"The Phantoms From Within," Viscardi replied. "Oh yes. The stray thoughts and repressed emotions that leak out of ordinary people's minds. Left to themselves, they would dissipate and be lost. I have been collecting them, you might say. Rounding them up and distilling them."
For some reason she didn't have time to analyze, Cindy was not frightened. She was defiant. "I get it. That thing behind me, you pulled it together and now you're telling it to harass me."
"Heh, so true. The family next door is quite disfunctional. Both parents are alcoholics, the son is robbing unlocked cars, the daughter is pregnant at fifteen. The fighting and screaming goes on day and night. All I do is gather up the escaping hatred into a single mass." Viscardi took a deep satisfied breath and tucked his thumbs in his white vinyl belt. "Maybe I'm performing a public service by getting all the negative energy out of the air."
"And shaping it into an attack dog for your own use." She turned back to glare at the dark cloud which swirled nearer and nearer. "Make it go away."
"No, no, no," Viscardi laughed. "I see you need to be humbled, little girl. My Tulpa is potent enough to drop you with a shock like being hit by lightning."
"It'll have to catch me!" Cindy spun and took off full tilt, sprinting up Monroe Street, leaning far forward and arms pumping. Small and wiry, she was fast enough to have qualified for the school track team and now she had the strongest motivation to run she had ever known. She did not have to look back to know the smoky snake was right behind her. The tingling intrusion of the old man into her mind didn't weaken either. She had only seconds before she would be overpowered.
But it was not panic which drove her. Cindy vaulted across the side street to the public library. This had once been a grade school which had been converted, and its parking lot was sizeable. Here were gathered two librarians, an animal wrangler from the Catskill Game Farm and three awkward baby goats. A dozen children between five and seven were feeding the goats scraps of lettuce and carrots.
The area was saturated with innocent joy. The delight of the children, the affectionate amusement of the adults, even the simple pleasures from the goats hung in the air like a warm golden haze. Acting on instinct, Cindy dashed into the parking lot and whirled around to channel all that energy directly at the black manifestation behind her.
The smoke creature flew apart into fragments which dispersed and vanished. Two blocks away, a strangled cry sounded. As Cindy felt the oppressive pressure on her mind lift, she swayed and nearly fell. One of the adults noticed her and said, "Are you all right, honey?"
"Huh? Oh, sure. I'm fine." The blonde telepath walked over and crouched near the children. One of the goats took a few uncertain steps and nuzzled her. "That's a good boy," she cooed. "You're a sweetheart, aren't you?"'
A few minutes later, after her breathing and heartbeat had settled down to normal levels, Cindy got up and said a few appreciative words to the animal wrangler before walking back out onto Monroe Street. Flashing red lights from where she had met the old villain caught her eye. Cindy cautiously retraced her steps and saw an ambulance with the back doors open. Two paramedics were lifting Viscardi on a stretcher into the rear of the vehicle.
Before they closed the doors, one of them pulled the sheet up over the man's head.
Somehow retaining enough composure to retrieve her books from where she had dropped them only a few minutes earlier, Cindy watched the neighbors turn away and go back into their houses as the ambulance rolled away with its lights off. Viscardi must have had a link with the smoke creature, she figured. When the energy from the children and goats had broken up the phantom being, some sort of feedback must have recoiled to strike him with the same deadly force he had intended for her. It was like taking a shot at someone and having the ricochet hit you in the heart.
Cindy didn't feel sorry for him. Not a bit.
9/26/2020