Rain Delay

Rain Delay

As the rain came down, and as the lightning grew bright enough no one could ignore, Hank James wondered for the thousandth time if Taylor Nickles was a madman or a genius. The HooseCows’ manager had already turned executing a murderer on their roster into a team event. After “Bud” Abbott was mutilated by farm machinery and left to finish dying in the middle of one of Taylor’s fields, Taylor had brought everyone together in his barn and told them they were all guilty, morally and legally, for “Bud’s” death. And if that wasn’t enough, he had scheduled a softball scrimmage during the two-week unplanned vacation. The HooseCows had stumbled into the time off because the Mason City Ugly Birds quit the season due to a death on their squad. To further display his genius, or insanity, Taylor Nickles had scheduled the scrimmage against the local sheriff’s department.

The HooseCows played sloppy, and gave up a lot of hits with poor fielding. At the plate, they struck out at a startling rate. The sheriffs took this all in good fun, and were happy to shake hands with some of the players they had heard of from the majors. A few even asked the HooseCows for autographs. The players obliged, and faked smiles for pictures, but no one told the cops anything about what happened to “Bud” Abbott in Taylor Nickles’ cornfield. When they thought about snitching, the players would look into the dead eyes of Taylor Nickles, who seemed to never blink in their dugout, and then the players would think better of it.

In the fifth inning, after the sheriffs had batted, the rain increased suddenly from a light mist to fat, pelting drops. The few fans who had come out to watch, and support a local charity, were leaving. The sheriffs’ team joked and pretend to catch the rain in their mouths, and the HooseCows just kept looking over to their manager for permission to leave. When the rain dumped down like solid sheets of water and the lightning was so bright it made the sky throb, no one needed permission. Both teams scurried off the field into their dugouts.

Everyone ducked out of the rain, except for Drew Harrold. The shortstop with the huge attitude problem, the man who had hooted excitedly when he did his part to kill “Bud” Abbott, had stopped near the pitcher’s mound. He was not saying anything, but he was looking down, as if he was talking to someone much shorter than he was. Lightning flashed again, and rain started to gully and pool on the field. Drew was alone on the field, but it looked like he was talking to someone.

“The river’s getting closer, I bet,” Mickey Danz told Hank. They were both watching Drew Harrold, who still refused to come off the playing field. “That means the children are getting closer, too.”

Hank knew Mickey thought Drew was talking to one of the ghostly children who had been hanging around the team, watching and occasionally making their presence known. Mickey had seen the children first, but he hadn’t been able to see them since they covered up a murder outside of Denver, IA (a murder Hank was now completely convinced had something to do with Taylor Nickles). Hank still saw the children sometimes, and he had thought he was the only one who could. That is, he did until he saw Drew reach down to flick the bill of a boy’s baseball cap, and then stop because there was nothing there at all.

Drew stomped the sixty feet, six inches from the pitcher’s mound to home plate with a wild, mad smile on his lips. The wind was picking at his uniform in the baggy places. He picked up a bat someone had left behind in their mad dash to get inside and took his position at he plate. Lightning hit, and within a few seconds the thunder rolled over the stadium like the heavy sealing of a tomb.

“All right,” Drew said, barely audible over the storm. “Let’s see what you got, kid.” Hank looked back to the mound, but still saw no one. He thought he had an idea of what Drew Harrold was seeing.

Moments later, Drew flailed and swung the bat around in a swing so sloppy one of his hands came off the handle on the follow-through. Hank could not see anything on the pitcher’s mound, and he could not see a ball the shortstop was swinging at. However, he felt even colder in the storm when he heard a loud splashing noise behind home plate, as if a baseball no one but Drew Harrold could see was rolling to a stop.

“I heard it, too,” Mickey said. The pitcher moaned in terror and sadness. “They didn’t like what we were doing to the game before what we did to ‘Bud.’ They’re really mad now.”

At the plate, Drew swung again. This time, even with the drumming of the punishing rainstorm on the dugout roof, Hank thought he could hear a baseball glancing off of the top of Drew’s swinging bat. Then, there was the splashing again. Hank tried to see if there was anything else on the field, but all he noticed was a spot on the pitcher’s mound not getting as soaked as the rest of the dirt. Branches were shaking free from some of the older trees around the stadium.

“Let’s do it!” Drew yelled, as he got into his stance like a fighter trying for one last punch. The sky lit up, and for one second Hank could clearly see the outline of a small boy on the pitcher’s mound. He could briefly see his shirt, but there was no name or baseball-related phrase written on it this time. Now the boy’s shirt read, in a boy’s sloppy scrawl, “Drew Harrold.”

This time, the sound of the ball hitting the backstop was audible, as if a giant had hurled it across the plate. Drew Harrold swung so hard he slid and almost fell into the wet muck around the plate. The bat flew from his hands and clattered out past third base. When Drew finally steadied himself enough to look up, he glanced to the dugout. Hank could see his fear.

Drew looked to the pitcher’s mound, now trying to appear tougher than he felt. He ran a thumb along his chin.

“Well, good. You got me.”

Then, the shortstop stood up straight and began taking little, hopping steps backwards. His jaw was chattering, and as it did the rain that was sluicing down pooled in his lower jaw and poured out, making him look like some kind of gargoyle. The lightning was striking closer now.

“Put . . . no. Put your other face back on. PUT YOUR OTHER FACE BACK ON!” Drew screamed, to nothing in particular.

The lightning struck hard and fast then, and one lightning bolt actually struck Drew Harrold. He fell to the ground. He landed face first in a puddle and didn’t stand back up.

Hank looked to Mickey. He knew they should go check to see if Drew was okay. And they would. Eventually.

The rain did not stop.

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