Odd Thomas

wrathful spirit stormed through the kitchen, and from his hands streamed pulses of energy that were visible to me. The air quivered with them, a sight similar to the concentric ripples that spread across water from the impact point of a stone.
        Cabinet doors flew open, slammed shut, open, shut, banging even louder and with less meaning than the jaws of ranting politicians. Dishes erupted from shelves, each cutting through the air with the whoosh of a discus thrown by an Olympian.
        I ducked a drinking glass, which exploded into an oven door, spraying sparkling shrapnel. Other glasses spun wide of me, shattered against walls, cabinets, countertops.
        Poltergeists are all blind fury and thrashing torment, without aim or control. They can harm you only by indirection, a lucky blow. Even by indirection and chance, however, decapitation can ruin your day.
        Accompanied by the hardwood applause of clapping cabinet doors, Robertson flung bolts of power from his hands. Two chairs danced in place at the dinette table, tapping on the linoleum, clattering against the table legs.
        At the cooktop, untouched, four knobs turned. Four rings of gas flames shimmered eerie blue light into the otherwise gloomy kitchen.
        Alert for deadly projectiles, I edged away from Robertson and toward the door by which I'd entered the house.
        A drawer shot open, and a cacophony of flatware exploded out of it, glittering and clinking in a levitated frenzy, as if starving ghosts were carving-forking-spooning a dinner as invisible as they were themselves.
        I saw those utensils coming - they passed through Robertson with no effect on his ectoplasmic form - and I turned aside, brought up my arms to shield my face. The flatware found me as iron will find a magnet, pummeled me. One fork speared past my defenses, stabbed my forehead, and raked back through my hair.
        When this brittle rain of stainless steel rang to the floor behind me, I dared to lower my arms.
        Like some great troll capering to a dark music that only he could hear, Robertson punched-clawed-twisted the air, appearing to howl and shout, but thrashing in the utter silence of the mute departed.
        The upper compartment of the ancient Frigidaire sprang open, disgorging beer, soft drinks, the plate of ham, strawberry pie, a vomitous deluge that splashed and clattered across the floor. Ring tabs popped; beer and soda gouted from spinning cans.
        The refrigerator itself began to vibrate, violently knocking side to side against the flanking cabinetry. Vegetable drawers chattered; wire shelves jangled.
        Kicking aside rolling cans of beer and scattered flatware, I continued toward the door to the carport.
        A juggernaut rumble alerted me to the fast approach of sliding death.
        I dodged to my left, skidded on a foamy sludge of beer and a bent spoon.
        With its grisly freight of frozen body parts still nestled in the freezer drawer, the Frigidaire slid past me and crashed into the wall hard enough to make the studs crack behind the plaster.
        I plunged outside, into the shadows under the carport, and slammed the door behind me.
        Inside, the tumult continued, the thump and crash, the rattle and bang.
        I didn't expect Robertson's tortured spirit to follow me, at least not for a while. Once committed to a frenzy of destruction, a poltergeist will usually thrash out of control until it exhausts itself and wanders off in confusion to drift again in a purgatory zone between this world and the next.
        

CHAPTER 51
        
        AT THE CONVENIENCE STORE WHERE I PURCHASED the No-Doz and the Pepsi, I bought another cola, Bactine, and a package of large-patch Band-Aids.
        The cashier, a man with a face made for astonishment, put aside the sports section of the Los Angeles Times and said, "Hey, you're bleeding."
        Being polite is not only the right way to respond to people but also the easiest. Life is so filled with unavoidable conflict that I see no reason to promote more confrontations.
        At that moment, however, I happened to be in a rare bad mood. Time was flushing away at a frightening rate, the hour of the gun rapidly drawing near, and I still had no name to hang on Robertson's collaborator.
        "Do you know you're bleeding?" he asked.
        "I had a suspicion."
        "That looks nasty."
        "My