Oleander House: Bay City Paranormal Investigations, Book 1

hands trembled. “You’re right. I can feel it.”
Andre frowned fiercely. “But how? Explain to me exactly how you think monsters could appear like magic, kill people and vanish again. It’s physically impossible, Bo. Surely to God you’re not basing this theory of yours on the rantings of one psychotic street kid.”
“No, I’m not.” Bo pushed back from the table, stood and leaned against his chair. “Are y’all aware of Fodor’s poltergeist theory?”
Sam thought he knew where Bo was headed. Dread sat like a stone in his guts, but he spoke up without hesitation. “Repressed anger, hostility, sexual frustration or other strongly negative emotions can cause subconscious psychokinetic powers to become active in susceptible people. That’s why poltergeist activity tends to center around a person rather than a place, because the person involved is actually causing it without realizing it.”
Bo glanced at him with raised eyebrows, and Sam felt a sharp pang of annoyance that Bo would be surprised that he knew such a theory. “That’s exactly it, Sam,” Bo said. “It’s been the most widely accepted theory for the cause of poltergeist activity for over fifty years now.”
“And what’s it got to do with Oleander House?” David asked impatiently. “There’s never been any poltergeist activity reported here.”
“There was a theory proposed last year by a Dr. Lingerfelt, over the internet because no reputable journal would publish it. Hell, even the shady ones wouldn’t publish it because it was so out there.” Bo started pacing a slow, tight circle behind his chair. “What he basically proposed was a theory that takes Fodor’s theory a few steps further.”
“And this crazy idea of his was…?” Andre prompted when Bo fell silent.
Bo stopped pacing and leaned on the chair again, long braid swinging down over his shoulder. “He proposed that those same latent psychokinetic powers at the root of poltergeist activity could cause beings from another dimension to manifest in ours.”
David laughed. “I don’t guess this quack managed to explain how his other-dimensional critters got around the laws of physics.”
“He did explain,” Bo said. “And strange as it sounds, no physical laws were broken. Lingerfelt’s doctorate is in theoretical physics, so that part actually made the most sense of any of it. That section took up ten pages in PDF format and contained a whole lot of complex equations, so I won’t go into detail right now. Anyone who’s interested can look it up later, I wrote down the link. What it boils down to is that in areas with a strong or unstable electromagnetic field, the barrier between dimensions is sometimes very thin. Things can pass through under the right set of circumstances.”
“And he thought that people with psychokinetic abilities could cause enough disturbance in the electromagnetic field to break down that barrier,” Sam guessed. It felt right. All the hairs stood up along his arms.
“Exactly.” Bo stared at Sam, and he stared back, unable to look away. A sudden wave of desire surged through Sam’s body. He fought it with all his strength. I promised, he thought desperately. He resolutely ignored the heat in Bo’s eyes.
“That’s nuts,” David said, bringing Sam abruptly back to earth. “Even if you buy that moving between dimensions is possible at all, hell, even if you buy that there are all these other dimensions, the idea that there could be homicidal monsters living in them is just crazy.”
“Is it?” Bo resumed his pacing, faster this time. He tugged the rubber band loose from the end of his braid and snapped it around his wrist. “There’s plenty of evidence to support the existence of what could be infinite dimensions in addition to the three we experience. Who’s to say, really, what inhabits those dimensions? We don’t know enough about them to know what’s possible and what’s not. And there are several documented cases of unusually violent poltergeist activity that center on a place instead of a person, or in addition to a person. No one’s ever been able to explain those cases before. I think this theory, crazy as it sounds, could explain it. It could explain the history of this place, too. The killings, with no suspect ever caught, and only intermittent paranormal activity.”
“Oleander House has got the unusually high EMF, that’s for sure,” Andre said. “But what about the focus? Assuming that a person with