Attic Polters

Nikki Powers, a researcher in Oregon, is interested in people's beliefs about ghosts. When actual ghosts, or "Polters," appear in the attics of Portland houses, she must decide what she believes. Her boyfriend, Wald, a music-store technician, develops an app that translates the Polters' terrifying wailing. Nikki and Wald learn that in the Land of the Dead, the Polters were promised they could join the living, but the bodies did not come across properly, leaving them trapped as helpless, wavering wraiths. They beg their hosts for help. Using a trance-inducing virtual-reality system, Nikki and Wald go to Bardonia, home of the Polters. They encounter Salem, director of the institute that sends Polters over to the living. They advise her that the process is not working and ask her to stop. But Salem enjoys being Queen of Bardonia. She has throngs of Polters clamoring for the transfer. What does she care if they're not happy on the other side? Under pressure, Salem revises her method so Polters are transferred directly into the skulls of living people. The Polters thus have fully functioning bodies, but people in Portland become possessed. Most people are terrified, but some enjoy having a Polter voice in their head. They never feel lonesome and are full of new ideas. Salem missed something, though. Living people get old and die, leaving the Polters facing oblivion. Everyone panics. The word gets back to Bardonia where the resident Polters turn on Salem. In the chaos that ensues, Nikki and Wald become separated. Alone and grieving in a city gone hysterical, Nikki teams up with the Polters in her attic to save Wald and find a solution for both worlds. Both sides finally accept the truth that the living haunt the dead just as death haunts life. Attic Polters is a spirited adventure that unearths serious ideas about death and what comes after.