Pitch

by William Ollie

  They liked him.

  They weren’t afraid of him.

  Why was he?

  He remembered the day Jimmy had gotten hit, how he had looked then: a nice old guy, concerned about ‘that little fella’. Now he looked like the Devil himself. What was different? He didn’t have a beard anymore. That was the only difference Junior could see, that, and his clothes were nicer, no jeans or boots. What was it that frightened him so?

  The man looked at Junior and smiled, but his smile was all wrong, a thing of intense evil, flashing like a grinning death’s head on an old pirate’s flag, laughing and leering, taunting, you’re next… you’re next… you’re next!

  Junior tried to turn and go back to his friends, but he couldn’t move. He couldn’t take his eyes off him. It’s him. I know it is. He took Jimmy and those other kids!

  A hand gripped Junior’s arm and he jumped sideways, yelping.

  “What’re you doing?” Billy asked him.

  “Wha… what do you mean?”

  “I told you to peek around the corner. You were standing right in the middle of the doorway.”

  “It’s him.”

  “I told you it was him. He ain’t got no beard but it’s—”

  Junior grabbed Billy’s shirt and pulled him close. “No man, it’s him.”

  “What do you mean, it’s him?”

  “I mean it’s him. He took Jimmy and all those other kids.”

  “Aw, c’mon, Junior. How do you know that? He’s probably just—”

  “I’m gettin’ outa here!”

  Billy chased Junior through the door and down the railroad tracks, and E.L. ran after them, finally catching up to his friends at the rear entrance of The Dime Store. All three were bent over, gasping and sucking air when Jackie came walking around the corner.

  “The fuck’s wrong with you guys?” he asked them.

  “You ain’t gonna believe this shit,” Junior said.

  “What shit?”

  “We just saw—”

  “Wait a minute, Junior,” Billy said.

  “What? Why?”

  “Yeah, why?” Jackie said.

  “’Cause when we tell you what we saw, you’re gonna take off like a bat outa hell for Donnie’s and do something stupid. Just promise me you won’t do anything ‘til we talk it over.”

  “The fuck’s going on here?”

  “Wait a minute,” E.L. said, and then motioned Billy and Junior closer, all three huddling up as he whispered something to them.

  They told Jackie about the old man and he went crazy.

  E.L. tackled him and Billy and Junior piled on top, holding their struggling friend in place until they had convinced him to call the sheriff and let him handle it.

  “I mean, what if he didn’t do anything?” E.L. said.

  “Yeah, what if—”

  “Bullshit!” Junior shouted. Then, lowering his voice to a whisper, “That son of a bitch took them kids. When I was standing there looking at him, I heard him saying you’re next, you’re next.”

  “C’mon, Junior,” Billy said.

  “I’m telling y’all, I heard him.”

  “I thought you said he was sittin’ with a bunch of miners.”

  “He was. Junior ain’t heard nothing,” Billy said. “If he did, all them other people would’ve heard him, too.”

  “I heard him with my mind.”

  “Your mind,” Jackie said, as if it was the most ridiculous thing he’d ever heard in his life.

  “I heard him.”

  “Look y’all,” E.L. said. “Let’s just go call the sheriff, go back and keep an eye on that old fuck-wad.”

  “I ain’t goin’ back in there,” Junior said.

  “We’ll watch from outside, follow him if he tries to leave.” Jackie looked Junior in the eye. “You ain’t too scared to do that, are you… Batman?”

  “You just wait’ll you see him,” Junior said.

  Jackie looked at E.L., who shrugged his shoulders. “I didn’t see him. C’mon,” he said. “Let’s get going before he has a chance to leave.”

  They called the sheriff’s office three times, but no one answered. Finally, they gave up and returned to the tavern. After a quick game of ‘odd man out’ to decide who would go in, (Junior flat out refused to participate) Billy walked through the door, looked around and hurried back to the corner. “He’s still there.”

  “Let’s go over by that big oak tree and wait’ll he comes out,” Jackie said. “We’ll follow him to his car and write the license number down and give it to the sheriff.”

  * * *

  Jimmy looked into eyes as cold as the grave. He tried to move but he couldn’t, tried screaming but nothing came out. When the knife found his chest, he rose up and hit his head on the bed frame, his heart pounding, his head aching as his eyes began to focus. To his left was the door he’d run through. On his right, a chair and a bedside table. Sunlight streaked through a window, framed by a set of stiff, beige curtains. Jimmy crawled over, stood up and stepped through the curtains to find a pair of French doors leading to a large balcony. He tried the doors but they were locked. He stood for a moment, looking out across the valley, at Ward Rock jutting out of the mountainside. A car winding its way up the driveway drew his attention, and he stepped away from the balcony.

  Jimmy walked over to a chest of drawers that stood against the far wall. He opened the first drawer, and found it to be filled with unopened packages of socks and underwear. Another drawer contained packages of shirts. Drawer after drawer he searched, but found nothing but clothes and blankets. Moving across the room, he opened a door and walked into a closet as big as his and Jackie’s bedroom. There was a light switch in the closet, and as Jimmy walked toward it, he heard the bedroom door open. A moment later, a woman’s cooing voice began singing a nursery rhyme, but it didn’t sound much like cooing and singing to Jimmy; more like taunting and teasing, and Jimmy wondered if little Johnny Porter was as frightened as he was.

  Jimmy got down on his hands and knees, and crawled slowly back to the closet door. Peeking around the corner showed him a haggard old woman holding little Johnny Porter in her thin arms; her wrinkled skin the consistency of old leather. Deep creases lined her cruel face as she took out one of her breasts and forced a blackened nipple into little Johnny’s mouth, which quickly clamped down on it, drawing from the woman an ecstatic moan, as Jimmy closed his eyes and backed further into the closet.

  * * *

  Upon arriving in Charleston, Pops went home to let his wife know he was all right, and to tell her about his trip to Whitley. She scoffed at the dreams of Maudie Mason. He didn’t blame her for not believing any of that. He didn’t believe it, either. And neither of them thought Vonda Peters had anything to do with Earl’s death. Around three o’clock, he kissed his wife goodbye, and then drove to the police station to give Danny Boggs the print cards, and to update his boss. Lieutenant Deavers wasn’t in his office, so he went to his own office and sat down at his desk.

  Pops opened his notepad and took out a blank sheet of paper. Starting at the beginning, he studied every entry he had made. Occasionally he would write something on the sheet of paper. Finished with his notes, he looked down at what he had written:

  1. John Smith used Nate Hayes as a name when he bought the car.

  2. Registered as Donnie Belcher in Huntington.

  Why did he kill the sheriff’s father? Who was with him?

  3. Three kids every thirteen years, but four the year the twin disappeared.

  Why are these kids being taken?

  Pops remembered what Nathan Hayes had told him. How only Nathan and Newton, their parents and Donnie Belcher ever called the twins Nate and Newt.

  “After Newton disappeared, I made them start calling me Nathan.”

  4. The poem in ‘55 referred to him as Nate, and the man who called the hospital called him Nate.

  “The son of a bitch that called me at the hospital didn’t sound that old to me.” />
  5. Bloody print found on Newton Hayes’ old bicycle.

  Pops laced his fingers behind his head and stared up at the ceiling. What was he doing in that bedroom? Why would he be interested in that old bike? He even honked the horn, for chrissakes. He looked down at his desk, remembering what he had told Nathan and his deputies last night: ‘Donnie and Nathan, John Smith knows you two boys.’… ‘We knew Smith wasn’t from our area, or even this region of the country.’

  “If he’s not from this part of the country,” Pops wondered aloud. “How could he know them well enough to use their names?”

  The conclusion he came to almost knocked him out of his chair.

  * * *

  Outside the tavern, Billy spotted the old pickup parked down by the railroad tracks. While he and Junior kept an eye on the bar, E.L. and Jackie ran for the truck. Jackie raised the hood, snatched a handful of wires out and slammed the hood shut.

  “Won’t be too hard to follow him now, huh?” Jackie said, grinning.

  * * *

  Pitch slammed the door on his truck, walked around front and kicked the bumper. “Old piece of shit!” he shouted, chuckling when he realized that, here he was, one of the wealthiest men in the world, and he couldn’t even get his truck to start.

  “Oh well,” he mumbled to himself. “Guess I’ll just have to call Hastie.”

  Pitch returned to Donnie’s Tavern, and dialed up Hastie. When the old man answered, Pitch told him to pick him up in front of the courthouse at five o’clock. Then, looking around at the coal miners and the other assorted hillbilly drunks, he grinned.

  Sheep for slaughter, he thought, smiling as a picture began to form in his mind: Pitch, walking down Main Street, knee deep in blood and gore from the torn and broken bodies of every citizen in town, who really were nothing to him but sheep to be slaughtered.

  * * *

  In the shadow of the oak tree, they watched him slam the door on the old truck, laughing when he kicked the front bumper and walked back to the tavern. An hour later they followed him through town. Out of sight, just inside The Dime Store, they watched him enter the courthouse. Minutes later, he came back out looking angry and disgusted.

  As darkness descended upon the town, they spotted the same brand new Cadillac they’d seen the other day pull up in front of the courthouse. When the nervous-looking driver stepped out, and opened a door for the man they’d been following, a sound rushed at them as if being driven along by the wind… a name… spoken by the wind:

  PITCH!

  Jackie and E.L. looked at Billy, who was standing very still with his mouth wide open. It was Junior who finally spoke up: “I guess you’re gonna tell me you didn’t hear that, either.”

  “Damn,” Jackie whispered, as if something, some thing, might get them if it heard his voice.

  Halloween

  Karen Belcher looked out her living room window. Her husband didn’t come home last night, or today. Her youngest son didn’t come home from school—none of the High Street boys made it home after school. She’d been on the telephone with Sharon Hayes and Sandra Davis all afternoon, had even called the mayor and Judge Lain.

  Charles Hadley told her to calm down, maybe Donnie and Nathan were tracking down a lead, and surely the children are out Trick or Treating. But she knew better. Donnie would’ve called by now. She’d been all over town, but nobody had seen them. When she returned home, she found out Johnny Porter was missing, too. When the streetlights came on, she called the mayor again, but now he wasn’t home, either.

  “Gone for the evening,” his wife said.

  Footsteps sounded on her walkway, and Karen ran to the front door, where she found a ghost and two goblins grinning up at her. She had forgotten all about Halloween. After taking care of those first trick or treaters, she turned off all the lights, picked up the telephone, and started making calls again.

  * * *

  When he got into the Cadillac, they knew who he was, and where he was going. First, they went to Donnie’s and called the police station. Seven times they dialed the number, and seven times no one answered. They didn’t know who else to call. After all, what would they say? We think the richest guy in town has those kids up at his big fancy house? Why do we think that? Because he hit Jimmy with a pickup truck and tried to take him to the hospital to get him checked out?

  As the sun disappeared behind the mountain, they had a decision to make. Go home and tell their parents, or what? Junior voted for going home and telling their folks.

  “Go on if you want to,” Jackie told them. “I’m going after my brother.”

  They went to The Dime Store, where Jackie took the hundred dollars he’d gotten from Pitch and bought Halloween costumes, Casper the Friendly Ghost, four of them. They put on the masks, and threw the rest of the packaged contents on the railroad tracks.

  And set out for Seeker’s Mountain.

  * * *

  Earl Butler was trick or treating, but his heart wasn’t in it. Ordinarily, he and his friends would be out soaping windows and stealing bags of candy from the smaller kids. Not to mention lighting bags of shit on fire and throwing them on some geezer’s porch.

  But not tonight.

  Tonight was different.

  At every house, he thought about Timmy. Every time he rang a doorbell… Timmy. Every little Halloween costume reminded him that this was his little brother’s favorite holiday, and he wasn’t here. All because his drunken asshole of a dad had to make Timmy go to the store, just to show his mom ‘who the boss is ‘round here.’

  At nine o’clock, he decided to go home. Hell, why not? He wasn’t having any fun, and he sure as shit wasn’t going to steal anything from any little kid. Not tonight. Not ever again. Half a block from his house, he heard his father yelling at the top of his lungs, and his mother screaming and crying. Earl paused at the front yard, listening to his father yell, “You stupid old whore! It’s your goddamn fault, not mine!”

  And his mother cry out, “Oh God!”

  “Get yore fat, ugly ass up off that floor, or better yet, stay down there where you belong, you fuckin’ sow!”

  “Stop it! Please, stop it!”

  Inside the house, Horace pounded his wife for having the audacity to blame him for sending Timmy to the store the night he disappeared.

  “Stop! Horace, please!”

  “Whose fault is it?” he yelled, and then punched her in the face. “Huh? Whose fault is it?”

  “Mine! All mine!”

  He grabbed her by the throat. “Who sent him to the goddamn store?”

  “I did! I did!”

  “You gonna bring it up anymore? Huh?” He threw her back to the floor. “Answer me, you fat bitch.”

  “I’ll never bring it up again!” she yelled.

  “What?”

  “I’ll never bring it up again!” she sobbed.

  “Well then, get yore fat ass off that floor and bring me a fucking beer. Now!”

  Earl spotted Timmy’s baseball glove by the bushes at the side of the house, the handle of an old bat protruding from the bush. He walked over, crouched down and picked up the little first baseman’s mitt. Timmy always wanted to play first base. The thought brought a tear to his eye. Guess that won’t happen now. He dropped the glove and grabbed the bat, headed for the house, and across the porch he went, rata-tap-tapping the bat against the floor.

  He opened the door and stepped into the living room—the bat resting on his shoulder—to find Horace sitting on their old beat up couch, a can of beer in one hand, a mason jar in the other.

  Earl stepped around the couch and stood directly in front of him, while his crying and sniffling mother moved around in the kitchen.

  “Well, if it ain’t big Earl,” Horace bellowed, and then narrowed his eyes. “What’re you doing with that bat in the house?”

  “This is my Halloween costume, Daddy. Hell, I’m Babe Ruth.”

  “Watch your mouth there, boy.”

  “I was gonna go as an ol
d wife beatin’ drunk—”

  “The hell did you—”

  “But you beat me to it.”

  “Why, you son of a—”

  “So I just decided to be Babe Ruth instead.” Earl squared off in a batter’s stance, raised the bat off his shoulder and stared down at his bug-eyed father. “What do you think, Daddy? Reckon I can knock one outa the park?”

  “I’m gonna knock somethin’ outa the goddamn park,” Horace said. He rocked forward, but a swing of the bat sent him collapsing to the floor with a disintegrated kneecap. He lay there in a puddle of moonshine, screaming and crying, writhing in pain as Earl shouted, “Hey, you son of a bitch! Who sent Timmy off to that goddamn store!”

  And Horace Butler, hatred smoldering in his eyes, looked up at his son. “You little son of a bitch. You’re dead.”

  “Wrong answer,” Earl said, and like a miniature Paul Bunyan, he swung the bat as hard as he could, laughing as it bounced off his father’s noggin, blood spraying from his howling father’s crushed forehead as he writhed on the floor and the blood pooled beneath him, and something that didn’t look much like blood at all oozed out of his ears.

  Horace tried to speak, but could only mouth his words. Like a fish gasping his final breaths on dry land, his mouth moved up and down, but no sound escaped him, as Earl, hefting the bat, said, “Here ya go, ya bastard, one more for the road!”

  “Earl!”

  Earl dropped the bloodied bat and ran out the door, leaving his horrified mother standing in the doorway, stifling a scream behind her trembling hands.