Sweaty Underbelly

Sweaty Underbelly

It was ten AM, and it was already 90 degrees outside. The heat had crept in during the last two games the HooseCows played the Rochester Radiation, and both teams felt that walking out of the sweat and humidity splitting a four game series was quite all right. It was Tuesday, June 28th, and the team didn’t play again until Saturday. Hank was back at the ballpark, which was now deserted. He used his key to get in and prayed no one else was there.

After seeing the message scrawled into infield dirt by the spirits of long-dead children, Hank James had felt like he was half dead himself. He had seen just enough that questioning his own sanity seemed like an option he had passed long ago. He knew he had seen John Todd pocket “Bunk” Edward’s chewing tobacco tin before the cops came in to pronounce the relief pitcher dead. He was even beginning to listen to the other bizarre things Mickey Danz would talk to him about, when they were both in the dugout watching games. Mickey had a long, elaborate theory about baseball gods that was ten times crazier than anything Hank had heard another ballplayer say, but somehow Hank couldn’t stop listening to the pitcher.

The ghosts had told Hank, through their chicken scratches, that John Todd was hiding bodies under one of the sections in the ballpark. Hank assumed it was John Todd, at least. He knew Todd and Drew Harrold had been out late last night, and were moving slowly, made fragile with tequila hangovers. With the heat, he hoped no one else would dare come to the park until after things had calmed down, and that gave him time to search under all of the stands. He didn’t know exactly what he was looking for, but he was scared he would find it.

Empty and steaming, the stadium felt like a place where animals went to die, not a place where fans went to cheer. Part of the glamor of baseball at this level was that players did a lot of the grunt work themselves. Looking at the amount of popcorn kernels, french fries and half eaten hot dogs “missed” by players assigned to clean the stands, it was clear they did not take pride in this task. He was able to make it under the seats without hunching over in too uncomfortable of a position, but his hands were always touching dried gum, unknown wet substances, and unknown sticky substances. He wiped these latter two mysteries on his pants, and he could tell the fabric over his upper thighs was already changing colors.

The heat was rising, as well. Still unsure what he thought he was going to find, Hank winced every time fat drops of sweat slid into his eyes. He couldn’t rub them out without getting the foreign fluids in his eyes, and that seemed like a very bad thing. The sun was glaring off of the metal of the bleachers, and it was getting more difficult to see when the glare hit Hank. He was bumping into the support struts of the bleachers more now, feeling like some sort of caged animal desperate to reach out and swat at its surroundings until it was free.

The final frustration literally smacked him in the face. He walked into a cement wall, about six feet high. He staggered backwards, feeling his chin for the cut and the blood that would soon be seeping from it. His chest felt sore, and he hoped it wouldn’t be bruised; that would be too embarrassing in a locker room of younger guys who never stopped joking. Unable to keep his composure, Hank kicked at the wall and then remembered a relief pitcher who had broken a toe doing the same kind of thing. He flexed his foot, and was relieved everything seemed functional.

When he had blinked away the sweat, he noticed the wall he had run into had been constructed very recently. It formed a six foot by six foot by six foot cube. There was a small door in it, and it had both a deadbolt lock and a strong padlock holding it shut. Hank walked closer to the door and took a deep breath. It smelled like the garbage he had been walking through, but there was a heavier, sick smell hiding beneath the usual stinks. Hank looked down and saw a thin line in the dust, and when he used his forearm to brush the sweat from his eyes, he saw a brownish-red line of liquid where the door had opened. Hank did not want to touch the liquid.

Behind him, Hank heard the sound of someone shifting their feet in the dirt and dust. The hot sweat all over his body turned cold in an instant. He realized he was blinded by the glaring sun, trapped in an enclosed area, and unaware of where this other person was. There was nothing he could use as a weapon, and no way of running to escape.

“I can hear you,” Hank said loudly. This time, there were no noises.

“You wanna come here and talk about whatever’s on your mind,” Hank yelled. For a second, he winced, fearing he was just talking to someone come in to do maintenance. Then, he remembered the newly-made extra room under the seats, and the nasty smell from within it, and he didn’t regret yelling at all.

Hank heard another scuffling sound, and he began to run in the direction of the footsteps. He felt like he might pass out, with the heat and fear, but he couldn’t imagine sitting back and waiting for the other guy to do something. Unfamiliar with his surroundings, Hank hit his head on the bottom of a bleacher seat and stepped backwards, blinking. It would leave a bump, but nothing more.

His watcher, whoever he was, had taken this opportunity to run away, and he did a much better job of it than Hank had. Before the stars and little birdies had cleared from Hank’s head (and before the inevitable headache had arrived), the jogging footsteps were drifting out of ear shot. Hank rubbed his head and looked between his feet. The footprint he saw there looked new, but the tread wouldn’t help him. It was the same kind of running sneaker half the team wore on their way to the ballpark.

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