MORTAL FOE (excerpt)
I ease off the gas and drift to a stop across from the old ballpark's ticket gate, one of the few remaining parts of the structure still standing. The grandstands and most of the brick walls are long gone, as are the outfield fence, the clubhouse, the dugouts – pretty much everything but the grass and a makeshift infield. All that remains of the proud place that witnessed the World Series' first grand slam and only unassisted triple play is this forlorn and neglected building. Most folks today might mistake the ticket gate for an undersized, abandoned train depot.
The old bus sits idling beside the site. It has apparently reached the end of the line.
Has Popcorn been here all the time? What about Municipal Stadium, where all the real disasters took place?
I fumble around the passenger's seat for a moment, pull the Medalist from the paper bag as Popcorn makes his way the length of the bus to the front. The bus's forward hydraulic door “fooshes” open. I grasp a flashbulb in the bottom of the rumpled paper bag with my right hand while rolling my window down with my left. Popcorn descends the steps from the bus to the pavement. I snap the flashbulb in place and bring the camera up to my eye.
Popcorn turns slowly to face me.
I push the button. The street corner, the ticket booth, the back of the bus and the phantom are cast in the camera's bluish lightning, stark and quick and brief. My eyes don't take as long to adjust as they did at O'Leary's. I am both glad and sorry for that. What I can discern in an instant does not please me, but tells me a lot. Popcorn's slow, deliberate turn toward me tells me he was aware I was here and expected me to take the picture. The direct and unnerving gaze into my eyes says he does not fear me, doesn't worry about me catching up to him tonight.
The crooked, serpentine smile spreading across his face tells me he led me into a trap.
Movement catches my attention, a kind of shuffling at the far edge of the park a few hundred feet away. I distinguish nothing but dim shapes in the darkness, but that's what seems to be moving – the darkness itself. Shapes move within the shadows, shapes made of shadow except even darker. Darkness shaped like men. Shadow men rise up from the ground near the back yards of houses surrounding the park. They rise as if interrupted while lying flat on their stomachs doing push-ups. They gather, forming a column of lines four abreast, as though preparing for a parade.
I stare for a few seconds, fascinated. More movement distracts me, movement much closer to me. Shadow men stir behind the facade of the old ticket booth – they amble around the interior beyond the building's broken windows. The shadows begin to spill out through the missing and broken panes and the cracks of the door. They start gathering on the sidewalk in front of the building.
I've seen enough.
The old bus sits idling beside the site. It has apparently reached the end of the line.
Has Popcorn been here all the time? What about Municipal Stadium, where all the real disasters took place?
I fumble around the passenger's seat for a moment, pull the Medalist from the paper bag as Popcorn makes his way the length of the bus to the front. The bus's forward hydraulic door “fooshes” open. I grasp a flashbulb in the bottom of the rumpled paper bag with my right hand while rolling my window down with my left. Popcorn descends the steps from the bus to the pavement. I snap the flashbulb in place and bring the camera up to my eye.
Popcorn turns slowly to face me.
I push the button. The street corner, the ticket booth, the back of the bus and the phantom are cast in the camera's bluish lightning, stark and quick and brief. My eyes don't take as long to adjust as they did at O'Leary's. I am both glad and sorry for that. What I can discern in an instant does not please me, but tells me a lot. Popcorn's slow, deliberate turn toward me tells me he was aware I was here and expected me to take the picture. The direct and unnerving gaze into my eyes says he does not fear me, doesn't worry about me catching up to him tonight.
The crooked, serpentine smile spreading across his face tells me he led me into a trap.
Movement catches my attention, a kind of shuffling at the far edge of the park a few hundred feet away. I distinguish nothing but dim shapes in the darkness, but that's what seems to be moving – the darkness itself. Shapes move within the shadows, shapes made of shadow except even darker. Darkness shaped like men. Shadow men rise up from the ground near the back yards of houses surrounding the park. They rise as if interrupted while lying flat on their stomachs doing push-ups. They gather, forming a column of lines four abreast, as though preparing for a parade.
I stare for a few seconds, fascinated. More movement distracts me, movement much closer to me. Shadow men stir behind the facade of the old ticket booth – they amble around the interior beyond the building's broken windows. The shadows begin to spill out through the missing and broken panes and the cracks of the door. They start gathering on the sidewalk in front of the building.
I've seen enough.