Evil Origins: A Horror & Dark Fantasy Collection (9 page)

He moved
through the circular practice swing that batters individualize over the course
of their baseball careers. Samuel drew the back bat again, and again, Danny
brought the heat.

“Strike
two!”

Tony
snickered from behind his catcher’s mask and shook his head at Samuel.

“You’re chasin’
the count now, Sammy. You know he’s coming with his curve. Might as well strike
out right now.”

Samuel
ignored the comment and moved back into the batter’s box. He had Danny Cranston
in the palm of his hand.

He could
tell from Danny’s side-arm pitch that the ball was coming from the outside in. Samuel
saw the ball rotate in slow motion, the red laces spinning overtop of the white
rawhide. As it came closer, Samuel gripped the bat. He brought it a tad higher
over his shoulder and then started the swing forward. The contact felt so good
it almost made Samuel cry. The baseball shot from the meat of the bat with a
satisfying thud.

Samuel’s
eyes drifted up to follow the ball into the summer sky of 1979. He knew he
should have been running, but it didn’t matter. This swing was a textbook,
left-field pull, and he knew the ball was headed to the fence, probably over
it. Samuel took a stride toward first and dropped the bat into the dirt. He
smiled as the ball became a white dot doing its best to escape the atmosphere. The
noise of the moment froze into silence, and Samuel imagined the ball whistling
through the air like a space rocket.

But
then it started to drop. That space-bound projectile lost its booster fuel and
turned back toward the green outfield at Hawkeye Park. Samuel pushed his walk
into a slight jog around first base. The coach was screaming at him to run, but
Samuel could not hear him. He jogged toward second base, watching as the left
fielder ran to the fence underneath the baseball. The outfielder stopped and
raised his mitt over his head. Samuel saw the glove eat the ball a split second
before it cracked the leather and snapped him back into real time.

“Out!”

Before he had
made it to the second-base bag, Samuel was sobbing. He felt the demeaning glare
of every player on the field, every kid on the bench, and every parent watching
from just beyond the foul lines. When he reached the bench, he could not even
look at his dad. Samuel’s chest hitched and heaved as he ended the afternoon
going 2-4 and coming up one fly ball shy of a homerun and a third hit in the
game.

Samuel shifted
again, sweat building in his palm as he held the artifact from his youth. Those
feelings from so long ago had returned.

“I know, but
it was really close. I think it was the only fly ball that kid caught all
season.”

Samuel
looked out the window at the suburban world fluttering by at thirty-five miles
per hour. He pulled his bottom lip into his mouth with his front teeth.

“So where we
goin’, Dad?”

Samuel’s
father looked up at his son through the rearview mirror of the 1976 El Camino.

“Ralph’s
Army Surplus. I need some things for deer season,” he replied with a smirk.

“It’s April.”

His dad
pulled the car into the tight space at the side of the red-brick store. When
they entered, Samuel’s dad turned right toward the lit glass display case, and
Samuel had his hunch confirmed.

“Heya,
Billy,” said his dad.

“Yo. Wutch
yins lookin’ for?” Billy asked.

“A
pocketknife. Something that’ll fit a boy, something he can kill a Commie with.”

Samuel’s dad
looked down at his son with a wink.

“We’s got
exactly what you need right over here.”

Billy the
clerk waved toward the left end of the glass case, and before he could even
begin the sales pitch, Samuel saw it. The knife sat there with both blades
extended, fanned out like fingers on a hand. The mother-of-pearl on the handle
met the polished, silver tips. It was not more than three inches in length, but
it was the perfect size for a young man.

“Can I see
that one, Dad?” Samuel asked.

Billy
stooped and pulled a ring of keys from his belt. He produced several clicks and
pops before the back of the display case slid to the right. His disembodied
hand reached in and took the knife off the red velour covering the shelf. He
stood and closed both blades, then handed it to Samuel’s dad.

“That model
is called ‘the Scout,’ and it’s the last one left. Heard they ain’t got no more
left in all of Western PA, they been sellin’ so good.”

“How much,
Billy?”

The
clerk looked to the ceiling and rubbed a hand across the stubble on his chin,
producing a rat-like scratch.

“Listed
for fifteen ninety-nine, but I can prolly get it to you for eleven.”

Samuel’s
dad reached into his back pocket and removed his wallet. The cracked, brown
leather was wrapped around a bulging mass of scrap paper and business cards. He
opened it with both hands and used his forefinger to separate the tops of
several bills.

“Son?”

Samuel
had not stopped staring at the knife since the moment he saw it on display. All
of the kids at St. Bernadette’s school had one, except him. They would circle
up at recess and pull them out, far away from the eagle-eye vision of the nuns.
Sometimes, a boy would unravel a lint-covered, wilting photograph cut from his
father’s issue of
Playboy
,
and sometimes another would reveal the crumbled remains of a cigarette filched
from his mom’s soft pack of Marlboro Reds. But most of the time, it was knives.
St. Bernadette’s and the surrounding public school districts all closed down
the Monday after Thanksgiving for the first day of deer season. They kept the
façade, the idea that most of the male students would go hunting with their
fathers on this day. However, everyone knew that the teachers went, too. The
pocketknife was the first indication of readiness. Even though Samuel and his
chums would not be ready to take the Hunter’s Safety Course for another few
years, the pocketknife served as public notice that they would.

“Samuel,”
said his father, this time with more force.

“Yeah,
Dad. That would be awesome. Really cool.”

His
father nodded at the clerk.

“Lemme
box that for ya.”

“Can
I just put it in my pocket, Dad?”

Samuel
felt his father’s hand ruffle his hair and then move to the middle of his back,
where it guided him out of the store. Samuel did not even notice the
transaction, the receipt, or the small talk between Billy and his father. He
gripped the knife in his palm, and for the first time in his life, he felt like
a man.

Still
photographs rolled through Samuel’s head like a slideshow of his life. Each one
brought a remembrance of the Scout pocketknife and how it had become part of
him. Samuel always kept it in his right, front pocket, where it clattered
together with loose change. Through his early teen years, Samuel had kept the
knife clean and polished. He maintained the blade and would buff the mother-of-pearl
inlay. He remembered losing the knife several times, the last time in college
after a night of heavy drinking. He had to scour the basement of a frat house
the morning after, in a haze of hangover, stale beer, and the occasional used
condom. Samuel had found it next to the toilet. He rinsed it off in the sink
and placed the Scout back in his pocket, where it belonged. The images shot
across his mind, some lingering longer than others, until the procession slowed
and finally stopped on one. It was a picture of Samuel in the funeral home,
kneeling in front of his father’s coffin.

Samuel
looked down at his father’s face while keeping his own stoic.

He
felt a hand on his shoulder and turned to see his mother. She held a tissue in
both hands and had given up on keeping her makeup in check. She opened her
mouth, but no words came out, and she shook her head and gave Samuel a quick
rub on the shoulder before turning to greet another distant relative, in town
for the funeral.

Samuel
blocked out the quiet sobbing and muffled laughter of those gathered in the
room amidst the fragrant, arranged flowers, complete with ribbons strung across
the front. He looked again at his dad’s face, forever asleep.

“I
know you loved John more. It’s okay. You didn’t know what to do with a son like
me. I’m not really sure how you managed. You and Mom struggled to understand
what went on in my head, what the hell I wanted from life.”

He
felt himself chuckle and turned to make sure his outburst did not garner
attention from the rest of the family.

“I
mean, even now, with you lying here dead, I don’t fit in. Nobody will approach
me. But that’s fine. I’m not here to mend fences with Uncle Frank. I think you
loved me. I mean, you did as any man loves his son, but I think there was a
time when it was unconditional. You bought me the Scout. I didn’t deserve it. The
deal was three hits, and I went 2-4. But you bought it anyway, and you bought
it with your poker winnings. Mom wouldn’t have allowed that purchase to come
from the family budget. Don’t think I don’t know that.”

He
looked over his shoulder to confirm that the chasm of space still existed. None
of the relatives would come near the coffin until he finished. None would risk
a possible conversation with him.

“I
wish we could have had this conversation before cancer got you, but I guess
I’ll have to settle for it this way. I mean, I need to thank you. If I hadn’t
been so different than you and Mom, my siblings, I would still be stuck living
in the same shit-hole suburb, wasting my life away.”

He
paused.

“Sorry.
Even now, it’s hard for me not to take shots.”

Several
relatives gathered near the table with the photographic collage and other
remembrances.

“I’ll
miss you, Dad. Even after everything we’ve been through, I’ll miss you.”

Samuel
stood and shoved both hands into his front pockets. His right hand struck his
phone and then the Scout. He wrapped his fingers around the pocketknife and
held it in his palm. The tears created a wavering last image of his father in
the casket.

“I
want you to take it with you. You never know when you might need to open a
package or cut a string in the afterlife.”

Samuel
slid his hand into the casket and tucked the Scout underneath the edge of the
satin pillow, where the head of his dead father would rest until the end of
time.

***

Samuel
shook his head as if to dislodge the cobwebs gathering inside, and he licked
his lips, which felt dry as petrified wood. He glanced down at his palm and
opened it. The knife remained, as real as the fingers grasping it.

Samuel
did the only thing he could think of; he placed it in his right pocket, where
it sunk into the familiar space. He felt the coolness of the object through
thin fabric as it rested against his leg. He stood and used his hand to clear
the surface of the window, revealing the original, gray landscape of the
locality. The snowstorm and all of its fury were gone. Samuel could not find
any evidence of it, and began to wonder if it had happened at all.

He
looked around the cabin and noticed that it resembled the first cabin almost to
the point of being identical. The stove, the food, the coffee, the clothing, the
photographs hanging on the wall had all disappeared. Nothing remained but the
chair, the table, the hard bunk, and a faint smell of burnt coffee beans.

Samuel
opened the door and stood on the threshold of the cabin, which faced the
western horizon. The advancing cloud loomed overhead, and the landscape sat in
soundless solitude. He turned to face the east and recognized the path that he
hoped would lead to the Barren. He was determined to reach it and survive,
whether or not meeting Major there would really matter.

This
cabin is clearly done with me,
he
thought.

With
his rucksack full of a handful of meager belongings, Samuel set back off upon
the path toward the Barren. He hiked for hours around the base of the mountain,
putting the second cabin and its memories behind. Every so often, Samuel would
thrust his hand into his front pocket and feel the pocketknife nuzzled there. He
would shake his head, as if more surprised that it remained than that it had
come back in the first place.

***

The pale,
yellow flame caught his eye as it danced silently in the distance. Samuel
sensed movement, but could not see anything around it. He hiked the path and
realized it was close to night, based on the aches penetrating his muscles.

The fire grew
in size as he went closer. After another hour of hiking, Samuel could discern
the hot ash floating upward into the still trees.

“Anyone here?”
he asked as the pack slid from his shoulder. He stretched his arms and looked
around the camp. Before he could ask again, a figure pushed through the trees.

“You made it. So
glad you didn’t veer from the path,” said Major.

Samuel cast his
eyes down into the fire, avoiding Major’s.

“That fire. It
makes things worse here.”

“I’ll take my
chances,” replied Major.

Samuel sighed.

“What happened
to you?” he asked.

“Duty.” Major
shrugged. “The visitor I expected did not make it.”

Samuel shrugged
his shoulders. “What happened to him?” he asked. The old man ignored Samuel’s
question and stared into the fire. “I’ve been hiking all day. Can I rest?”

Major swept his
arm across his body and dipped with an exaggerated bow.