Pitch

by William Ollie

“Not to mention the lady they found in the state park, huh Junior?” E.L. grinned, thinking he would claim the last word.

  All this time, Jimmy had walked along listening nervously to talk of yet another bogeyman. When E.L. finished, he saw his chance. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Looks like Abe Lincoln and has a big old beard hangin’ all the way down to his tally-whacker.” This, he said as sarcastically as he could make his little seven-year-old voice sound, which drew raucous fits of laughter from everyone, his brother Jackie eventually having to sit down on a concrete step to try and catch his breath, he’d laughed so hard.

  They were almost to the Ritz Theater.

  Talk of news and real life stuff would now take a backseat to Blood Feast.

  On their way through town, the boys eagerly ran through the different plot twists their minds had conjured for them, eventually deciding to just wait and see.

  At the ticket booth they found Gary Harbus arguing with Arnold Stern, the theater’s owner. “I’m tellin’ you,” Harbus said. “I’m only eleven an’ a half.”

  “Yeah, yeah, tonight yer eleven and a half. Next week when you gotta be twelve to get in, all the sudden yer thirteen.” Stern, shrugging his shoulders, hands on his hips, said, “Just gimme the fifty cents.”

  “No, Mr. Stern, you don’t understand,” Harbus said, and then went into some long, drawn out routine about how he was born in February, in a leap year no less, and since he was, then he was supposed to get in for a quarter.

  Halfway through Harbus’ line of absolute bullshit, Arnold Stern threw up his hands. “Just gimme the friggin quarter, ya cheap son of a bitch!”

  Harbus flipped him a quarter, received his ticket and waltzed into the theater, smiling from ear to ear as the High Street boys stepped up and forked over their money, Jimmy rolling his eyes when Stern leaned forward, and said, “Sure you wanta see this, kid? It’s pretty darn scary.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure.”

  “Okay, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  * * *

  On the way to the hospital, Nathan stopped at a pay phone to call his wife, who had stayed at Johnny’s while the two policemen had gone to the Dillon house. After telling her about Billy Dillon and Larry Dale, Nathan asked about the boys, concerned that with all the confusion they may have been forgotten.

  “I called your daddy, and he sent your mama over to stay with them till I get home. Was that okay?”

  “Yeah, that’s fine. How’s Thelma?”

  “She and the baby are fine.”

  “Well, Johnny and I are on our way to see about Larry Dale. I’ll call you later.”

  “Later Gator,” she said, and hung the telephone up.

  Nathan got back into his car and headed for the hospital. On the way, he thought about Billy Dillon, Barney Linton, and the strange but true story of Marty Donlan and Reverend Carlton Stone. Did one have anything to do with the other? He doubted it, but something sure as hell seemed to be going on around here. But if he believed that, he’d have to believe in spooks and haints, wouldn’t he? How else could four tragic events thirty-nine years apart have anything to do with one another?

  Witchery and goddamned spookery, he thought, almost laughing out loud, damn glad he hadn’t. Billy Dillon… Billy had come home, flowers in hand, looking to be forgiven by his angry wife. And when she had spoken to him with love in her voice, an innocent little question had set him off on a murderous tantrum.

  And then there was Barney Linton. Barney, who had walked into the bank as if he hadn’t a care in the world, and then calmly shot Annie Bridges in the face, and killed Jeb Davis like it was the most natural thing in the world to do. Mild mannered Barney, who’d told Nathan the same thing Reverend Stone and Marty Donlan had told Earl thirty-nine years before.

  Eight o’clock:

  Lester Hayes told his wife he would see her when she got home, and then hung up the telephone. He thought about calling Nathan at the hospital, but he’d already talked to one of the nurses, and figured he knew all there was to know for the time being. Besides, Nathan would call him if there was any news. Lester walked to the back of the house, into the bedroom his boys had shared before Newton disappeared. He looked at the portrait of Jesus that Myrtle had hung over Newton’s bed a week after his disappearance, and said a silent prayer for Larry Dale and Annie Bridges, and for Eunice Dillon, who by now would be out of her mind with grief. Then he said a prayer for the soul of his lost son, Newton Hayes.

  Lester returned to the living room, turned on the radio and tuned in a country music station. Then he went into the kitchen and grabbed a cold beer from the fridge. Listening to Hank sing about that old lonesome whistle call, he couldn’t shake the feeling that something bad was still on the horizon, worse than what had already happened. The radio played in the background as Lester sat back in his easy chair, nursing his beer. Ten minutes later he was sound asleep, walking around in dreamland, circa 1942:

  Lester walked down a long, narrow dirt path, and wondered what he was doing there. Then he traveled a little further, to the old ramshackle house Maudie Mason lived in. On the front porch, he found Maudie sitting in an old oak rocking chair. Kneeling at her side, her head cradled in Maudie’s lap, was Lester’s wife, Myrtle; Maudie stroking a gnarled hand across the side of Myrtle’s head, as if comforting her.

  Lester heard a noise, a footstep. He spun around but no one was there. When he turned to face the house, Maudie looked up at him, tears running from her eyes. He leaned forward and put a hand on Myrtle’s shoulder, and the hand disappeared inside her body, all the way up to his wrist.

  Myrtle, sobbing, said, “What’ll I do now?”

  Lester drew his arm back to find that his hand was gone. When he looked back down, the women weren’t there. Sitting in the rocking chair was an elderly gentleman, elegantly dressed.

  Once again, Lester heard a noise and turned to look, but found nothing, turned back to the rocking chair and found Maudie staring up at him, a horrified look of shock and despair on her face, as she said, “He’s back!”

  Lester woke with a start.

  Tap…Tap…Tap came a knock on the front door as he stayed in his easy chair, emerging from the foggy essence of his strange dream while the noise continued:

  Tap…Tap…Tap.

  Finally, he stood, and walked slowly to the front door, wondering who was out there, and why he was feeling so uneasy.

  Tap…Tap…Tap.

  Lester opened the door to find an elderly stranger standing on his doorstep, smiling at him, elegantly dressed in formal evening wear, as if he were going to a most important occasion.

  The man smiled. “Good evening, my good fellow,” he said.

  “What can I do for you?” Lester asked him. “You lost? Need directions? Maybe you’re goin’ up to the Mountain View.”

  Dressed like that, where else could he have been going?

  “Yes, well, you see, uh, I was, uh… driving around… and, uh… I… well… you see…”

  “No,” Lester said. “I’m afraid I don’t see.”

  “But you will!” the man cried out, laughing and raising his voice. “You’ll see, all right!”

  “Who the hell are you? What do you want?”

  “Well, you see, er, Uncle Lester. I was out driving around and I ran across this young man wandering aimlessly down the road like a lost little lamb, and I was wondering if you might know him.”

  “Well, why the hell didn’t you just say so?” Lester swung the door open, and saw standing in front of him the ghost of someone who had died many long years ago. “Th…this can’t… b… be… Newton. My God, Newton!”

  “Hello, Uncle Lester!” Newton Hayes said, and then forced his way through the door, grabbing his father by the shirt and pushing him slowly across the room… further… further, still, until his back touched the wall, while Pitch, who had stepped inside, closed the door behind him and hit the record button on Newton’s tape recorder, and then laid it next to the radio on the table beside Lest
er’s easy chair.

  “Newton, what’re you doing? Where have you been all these years?” Lester said, tears streaming down his face as his son’s cold, dead eyes stared through him, holding him in place against the wall, a grim smirk spread across his face, as he said, “I’m not Newton, Uncle Lester. My name’s John Smith. Perhaps you’ve heard of me? John Smith, the Charleston Butcher?”

  Lester’s eyes grew wide. “No,” he said.

  “Yes!” Pitch cried out with delight. “Yes!”

  “But you can call me John Slaney. Detective John Slaney, at your service.” Still smiling, Newton flipped open a wallet so Lester could see the cop’s badge nestled inside.

  Lester sagged against the wall, feeling the hope he had harbored the past twenty-six years melt slowly away. “Oh, Newton,” he said. “What happened to you?”

  Newton smashed his knee into Lester’s stomach, and then slammed his head against the wall. “But enough about me,” he said. “Allow me to introduce you to my mentor, the great and honorable William Pitch, the world’s foremost authority on the lost little children of Whitley, West Virginia… Huh? Huh?”

  All color drained from Lester’s face as Newton laughed, and then tossed him across the room as if he were an empty beer barrel, onto the end-table which crushed beneath the weight of him, the table-legs collapsing and the lamp shattering to the floor, the recorder and radio skittering along the floorboards as the music stopped and Pitch kicked him in the chest, thudding his leather shoes off Lester’s ribs, as he called out, “Bobby is dead, Baby Charlie’s turned blue, who will be next, I know, do you?”

  Lester struggled to his knees.

  “Once more with gusto!” Pitch cried out, and planted a foot on Lester’s chest, forcing him onto his back, kicking mercilessly at his ribcage with every line he spoke.

  “Bobby is dead.”

  THUMP!

  “Baby Charlie’s turned blue.”

  THUMP! THUMP!

  “Who will be next?”

  THUMP!

  “I know.”

  THUMP! THUMP!

  “Do you?”

  On his back now, blood bubbling from his mouth, Lester cradled his cracked and broken ribs. “Who, are you?” he croaked.

  Pitch put his foot back on Lester’s chest, pressed it down and Lester groaned.

  “What? Speak up, old man.” He laughed then, imitating the comical sergeant he’d seen on television, as he called out, “I can’t hearrrrr you!” Then he backed away and told Newton to get him to his feet.

  Newton pulled him up, forcing him against the living room wall, as Pitch walked over and put his face an inch or so away from Lester’s.

  “Now then, what’d you say, Honest Uncle Lester Hayes?”

  One more time, Lester rasped, “Who… are… you?”

  “Oh, it’s true, Lester,” Pitch said, and then happily supplied Lester Hayes with answers to questions that had haunted him and Nathan for the last twenty-six years, and others for even longer than that. “I’m the child stealer. Twelve of your innocent little fucks I’ve sacrificed to the Dark Master. You know, Dark Master, as in Evil Incarnate, as in, Satan oh Satan my soul to thee? Or should I say our soul to thee.” Pitch put an arm around Newton’s broad shoulders, giggling wildly as Lester’s expression of horror grew even more severe.

  Lester tried to cry out, but his busted ribs prevented anything other than a dry and rasping sound from escaping his throat.

  “Yes! Yes, Uncle Lester! It is I, Pitch! I’m the one they fear! I made the Indians leave Ward Rock Mountain! I’m the one who drove Carlton Stone to murder his wife, and then kill himself in that cell! Me! It was me! I made Marty Donlan drive his car off that bridge, and I told Barney Linton to rob the bank. And yes, Uncle Lester.” Pitch laughed, his face almost touching Lester’s. “That young policeman is clinging to life this very moment because I told Billy Dillon to shoot the son of a bitch. And just between you and me, Uncle Lester? Before this night is over, that little son of a bitch is going to die.”

  Lester tried to speak, but by now he could only mouth the words.

  “What? Huh? What’re you saying, Uncle Lester?” Pitch brought his face so close that his nose touched Lester’s cheek.

  Summoning his last bit of strength, Lester looked Pitch in the eye, and in a low but clearly audible voice, said, “I said, fuck you, you sick son of a bitch!”

  Pitch grinned, and Lester spat a mouthful of blood into his face.

  “Now you’ve done it,” Pitch said, his face smeared with blood-flecked spittle. “Has he done it, Mister Smith?” he added with a sarcastic smirk.

  Laughing, Newton pulled a small surgeon’s scalpel from his pocket. “Yes, Mister Pitch, I do believe he has.”

  “Oh boy,” Pitch said. “I’m afraid you’ve really done it now!”

  They stood for a moment, the house silent, save for the ragged breath coming from the horrified father. Silent as Newton ripped the scalpel across Lester’s throat, sending an explosion of bright red blood spurting onto the floor, the walls, and all over Newton himself, who kept right on laughing and giggling as Pitch fell back into Lester’s easy chair, enjoying the show as if it were being played out across the silver screen, gleefully watching Lester drop to the floor, gasping and clutching his throat.

  His legs kicked and his arms flailed.

  Then his body gave one final shuddering heave, and Lester Hayes laid still, eyes staring up at the ceiling, past the ceiling, as if gazing into another dimension.

  Newton left the room and wandered around the house, eventually winding up in the bedroom he and Nathan had once shared, a room virtually unchanged from the day he and his brother had gone off to spend the weekend with Charley Barnes. When he found his bicycle still sitting in the same spot he’d left it all those years ago, he squeezed the old rubber horn, smiling at the wounded duck sound it made.

  “You all right in there?” Pitch called out.

  “Yeah!” Newton answered, as he searched the closet for one of Nathan’s old shirts. Finding one, he went into the bathroom and removed his own bloody garment. After cleaning off most of Lester’s blood, he slipped into the clean shirt and carried the one he had taken off back to the living room, where he found Pitch sitting on the couch, drinking a cold beer.

  “Want one?” Pitch said, as he handed him a three by five index card.

  “Sure, why not?”

  As Pitch stepped over Lester’s corpse, his protégé picked up the telephone and dialed the police station, where Norval Jenkins informed him that Nathan was still at the hospital. Newton called the hospital and waited for his brother to come to the telephone. He recognized his voice instantly, and hoped Nathan would recognize his, as he sang out, “Bobby is dead. Baby Charlie’s turned blue. Who will be next? I know, do you?”

  “Who is this?

  Newton laughed. “Awww, poor baby. Don’t you know? Can’t you guess?”

  Pitch watched intently while his grinning protégé looked down at the back side of the card.

  “You still there?”

  “Yeah, I’m here.”

  “Larry Dale’s shot, and you wonder why. Believe it or not, your daddy just died.”

  Nathan gripped the telephone so hard his knuckles turned white. Knees trembling, his spine tingling with dread, he closed his eyes, desperately trying to place the voice as the caller spoke up one last time, “Hurry, Nate. Time’s running out!”

  Nathan slammed the telephone into its cradle and picked it back up. He dialed his father and got a busy signal, dialed the operator and asked her to butt in on the line.

  But no one was on the line.

  Leaving the receiver dangling off the counter, he ran to the elevator and pushed the down button, yelling “Go back” to Johnny Porter, who was running toward him.

  Johnny, stopping dead in his tracks, said, “What’s wrong?”

  “Just go back!” Nathan said.

  Then he jumped into the elevator, and the door slid shut behind him
.

  * * *

  Newton sat opposite Pitch, staring down at his father’s broken and bloodied body. The blood and the violence had sent him into a frenzy, but seeing his old bicycle had brought him down a couple of notches. He sat his beer on the coffee table and fished a small plastic film canister from his pocket, dumped a large mound of cocaine onto the table and pulled a hundred dollar bill out of his pocket. Twisting it into a tight, straw-like tube, he leaned over and snorted a pile of the white powder.

  Pitch too was high, but not from drugs. From having the ultimate power over another human being and using it to snuff out his life. “How do you feel?” he said.

  Newton grinned. “Like I could conquer the fucking world. How about you? How do you feel?”

  “Like a king, king of the world. Master to all I see.” Pitch smiled. “Am I Master to all I see?”

  “Hell yeah!”

  Pitch narrowed his eyes. “Am I your Master?”

  “Forever.” Newton got down on a knee, took the hand Pitch offered and kissed the Black Onyx on his ring finger.

  “Well then, give me some of that shit and let’s get the hell out of here before your brother shows up and shoots the both of us.”

  Pitch sucked down the rest of his beer, and threw the empty bottle against the wall, raining an explosion of amber-colored shards onto Lester Hayes’ corpse.

  Then he led Newton out the door, down the stairs to the old Ford.

  Once inside, Pitch headed into town, thinking about the night’s events. To Newton, it was just something they’d done… fun. After all, that was who he was, what he did, what he lived to do. As for Pitch, tonight was all part of his master plan. While Earl was sheriff, he never had to worry about the police. They had been free to move about as they pleased, to do anything to anyone they wanted. But Earl wasn’t here anymore, and he really didn’t know what to expect from the new sheriff. Would he be as easy to gain control of as Earl had been? Or would he come after the child stealers with the same courage and grim determination that had driven Aincil Martin to chase him all the way into Hell? The fact that he was still here, and was now the sheriff, pointed to the latter of the two. But no matter, losing good old Uncle Lester would take a bit of the lead out of his pencil, not to mention losing one of his deputies.