Dying on Second

by E. C. Bell

  I took my position. Karen was still beside me but she kept her mouth shut so I was able to concentrate. The third batter set herself in the batter’s box, and I got up on my toes so I could move quickly in either direction if I needed to. Lily threw the first pitch, and the batter fouled it off to the first base side. To my side.

  Shit.

  I glanced back at the girl playing my old position out in right field. She took a step or two closer to the right foul line, looking nervous. I knew exactly how she felt.

  I set myself and watched Lily pitch a fastball to the outside of the plate, trying to force the batter to hit to the left field and keep the ball away from all the newbies on the right side of the field. The batter didn’t bite and let the pitch go by, but it was a strike. Strike two.

  I could see the batter’s feet as she reset in the box. She was going to hit it to right field to take advantage of a neophyte second base person and an untried right fielder.

  Fine. If that was the way it had to be, then fine.

  The back catcher signalled for another outside pitch. I set and concentrated on the batter. The pitch came in fast. Just a little further inside than the second pitch and the batter jumped all over it. She hit a line drive back at Lily, who waved at it as it screamed by. She managed to get a teeny bit of her glove on it and changed the trajectory of the ball a hair. Right over to second base.

  I was within a step of second base when the ball slapped into my glove. Nearly tore it off, to be honest, but I squeezed it closed. Took a step and touched the runner—the lead runner, who had been momentarily frozen by the speed of the hit. I pulled the ball from my glove, and threw at first. Hard.

  The runner threw herself back toward first base but Stacey was waiting for her, foot on the base, and the ball in her glove.

  “You’re out,” the umpire intoned. Then he said, “That’s three.”

  “A triple play,” Karen said. She sounded dumbfounded. “You pulled off a triple play.”

  I didn’t have a chance to answer her, because, well, as they say, the crowd went wild.

  THE REST OF the game was a happy blur. I hit a couple of times, once for extra bases, and actually made a couple more pretty decent outs. Didn’t embarrass myself too badly, in any case. We won the game three to nothing, and I even got an “Atta girl,” from Greg.

  “Looks like I don’t need to worry about second base,” he said, as he patted me on the back. “If Rachel has to miss another game, I mean.”

  “Rachel’s going to crap her drawers when she hears about this game,” Stacey said. Then she laughed, and clapped me on the back herself. “Nice work out there.”

  “Thanks for the help,” I replied.

  She shrugged in a “I didn’t do a darned thing” kind of a way. “You coming for beer?” she asked.

  I shook my head. “I got family here,” I said, and pointed up to the bleachers at James and Jasmine. “The kids, they gotta get home.”

  “You have to come one of these times,” she said. “Promise you will.”

  I blinked. “Oh,” I said. “All right. One of these times.”

  Stacey laughed. “I’ll hold you to it,” she said. Then she turned away, and I was free. Well, mostly free. I could see Karen waving at me.

  “Can we talk?” she called. “Just for a minute?”

  Yeah, like I was going to stand out on second base all by myself and start chatting. I was pretty sure that Stacey’s “Let’s go for a beer sometime,” offer would disappear if I did that.

  So, I turned toward Karen, pointed to the right field fence, and held up ten fingers in front of my chest. Low, so nobody but her would be able to see.

  “See you in ten,” she called, then turned and wandered through the lush outfield grass to the fence.

  Jasmine and James had the kids all collected and ready when I finally changed my shoes and walked to the bleachers.

  “So, what did you think of the game?” I asked Ella, as her brothers whooped and ran around us in dizzying circles.

  She smiled. “That was actually pretty cool,” she said. “Especially that triple whammy thing you did. I didn’t get it at first, but James explained it to me. Thanks for letting me come.”

  “You are more than welcome,” I said. “Any time.”

  Jasmine shook her head. “I think that will be it for the season,” she said. “It’s a lot of work getting us all here, and I don’t think—”

  “She could come with James and me,” I said, impulsively. “We’d look after her. Wouldn’t we, James?”

  “Absolutely,” James said.

  “So it’s settled,” I said, and smiled at Jasmine. “If you think it’s okay, that is.”

  Jasmine nodded. “If Ella wants to.” She looked at her daughter. “Do you want to?”

  “Sure,” Ella said nonchalantly. “Could be fun.”

  Not exactly a screaming recommendation, but hey, whatever.

  “We were talking while we were waiting for you,” James said, a big grin on his face. “And we think we all need to go get some ice cream. To celebrate your win.”

  “I wish I could,” I said. “But I can’t. Sorry.”

  “Oooh!” Billie, Jasmine’s youngest, cried. “That’s not fair!” He looked like he was just about ready to burst into tears which meant his brother would probably start crying too. Dammit. I didn’t want to wreck the evening.

  I looked over their heads at James. Stared at him, willing him to understand. “I have to have a meeting with the coach,” I said. “He said it was important. You know? But maybe you can take them for ice cream and then come back and get me?” Please please please.

  Jasmine shook her head. “I have to get these two home and to bed,” she said. “We’ll have to forget the ice cream.”

  James was quick on the uptake. “I’ll take you all for ice cream, take you home, and then come back for Marie,” he said to Jasmine. When she nodded, he picked up Billie and grabbed the hand of his brother. “Go have your meeting,” he said to me. “We’ll be just fine without you. Won’t we, boys?”

  “Yep,” Billie said. And as quick as that, it was arranged.

  “I’ll pick you up in an hour,” James said. “That long enough?”

  “That’ll be perfect,” I said. “And I owe you.”

  I gave everyone a quick hug and then turned back to the dugout. Saw Stacey still standing nearby, talking to a couple of other girls from the team, and wheeled back around and grabbed Ella by the hand.

  “I’ll walk with you,” I said. “And put my equipment in the car.”

  She looked a little confused, but I walked them to the car, stuffed my bag in the trunk, and waved good-bye as they drove out of the parking lot, and away.

  When they were finally out of my line of sight, I headed to the other side of the ball diamond. I snuck around the back of the bleachers, behind the opposition dugout, and down the left field fence to the outfield.

  The next team was on the diamond warming up, but no-one gave me a second look as I scurried down the fence and around the corner, following the fence that encircled the outfield. I could see Karen’s weak glow at the far right end of the field. It looked like she was watching the warm up.

  “Karen,” I whisper-called. I didn’t want to catch her off guard, because sometimes ghosts act badly when they are frightened.

  “I hear you,” she replied. She didn’t say anything more as I scurried over to her, and I was actually quite glad. I didn’t have a clue what she would want to talk to me about. Maybe the game? After all, she liked softball enough to spend her afterlife here.

  “So, what did you think?” I asked.

  “The what?” she asked. She didn’t look at me. Just stared at the brightly lit infield as the two teams threw balls around to warm up. “What?”

  “Don't you wanna talk?” I asked. I pulled to a stop beside her and hung my arms over the fence. Stared at the infield, and tried to see it the way she saw it. “You’re the one who called this meeting, n
ot me.”

  “Yeah,” she said. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. I would have chuckled, because ghosts don’t need to breathe, but she looked spooked, so I didn’t. She looked at me for a moment, but couldn’t seem to keep her eyes from the infield.

  “The guy with the black hair,” she said. “The one who sometimes gives you a ride.”

  “James,” I said. “What about him?”

  “He should maybe watch who he talks to here,” she said. “I saw he was hanging around with a guy.” She stopped speaking, but continued staring at the infield as though mesmerized.

  “Yeah,” I said. I was starting to feel just a little bit aggravated, which usually meant I’d turn mean in a second or two. “James met him a couple of games ago. What about him?”

  “He’s—he’s not a nice guy,” Karen said. “Maybe tell James to watch himself around him. And don’t let him near your friend’s little girl.”

  That set off my alarm bells, big time.

  “What, is he some kind of a pervert?” I asked. “Have you seen him bother girls here?”

  If he was a sicko who hung around the ball diamond trying to harass the girls, I could make sure that James and I made his life a living hell. Or I’d tell Sergeant Worth. She’d make short work of him, no doubt about it.

  “No,” Karen said. “No. Nothing like that.” She stopped speaking, but her mouth worked, like she couldn’t decide whether to keep talking or not. “He has a temper,” she finally said. “Just tell James to watch himself.”

  “All right,” I said. “I’ll tell him.”

  Karen tore her eyes from the brightly lit infield where the game was now playing, and stared at me, hard. She still looked spooked, and for a ghost, that was something. “I wanted to talk to you about something else, too.”

  “What’s that?” I heard the crack of bat, and watched the right fielder drift over to catch the lazy pop up. Things certainly moved more slowly in the outfield. It almost looked like she was moving in slow motion.

  “I want to tell you about a crappy, crappy plan my friends came up with.”

  “Are these the same friends who decided that swarming me was a good idea?”

  “The very same.”

  “I thought that was a pretty crappy plan.”

  “This one’s worse,” Karen said. She smiled, briefly. “If you can believe it.”

  “So what is it?” I asked.

  “They decided we had to shun you.”

  “Shun me?”

  “Yep. Shun you. I guess they were hoping that you’d quit coming to ball or something. You know?”

  I thought of the last game, and Karen steadfastly looking every way but in my direction. Acting like I wasn’t even there. “I seem to remember you doing something like that,” I said.

  “Look, you’re not going to do anything to us, are you?” she asked. Her smile was gone, and she was half as bright as she’d been moments before. “Like make us all leave, or something. Are you?”

  “I already told you I wouldn’t do anything like that,” I said. “Remember?”

  “Yeah, I remember,” she said. “But the rest of them aren’t so convinced. And I also remember you talking about moving us on. Me on. What is that, exactly?”

  “I have the ability to help spirits move to the next plane of existence,” I said. “But only if you want me to. I can’t do it without your say so.” I looked at her, hard. “You understand?”

  “I guess,” she said. Then she shrugged. “It might be hard to convince the rest of them that you won’t hurt them. Some of them were pretty badly hurt in their lives. So, it’s understandable why they’d doubt that the afterlife would be any different. You know?”

  “Like that Joanne girl you told me about. Right?”

  “Right.” Karen sighed out the word and her brightness dropped another lumen. “You promised me you wouldn’t talk about her.”

  “What, I can’t even talk about her to you?” I asked.

  She shook her head a couple of times, then stared. “I—I don’t know,” she finally said.

  “Just so I know the rules,” I said. I was being a bit of a bitch, but hey, she was the one who’d gone along with the whole shunning thing.

  “This is all just so—uncomfortable,” she finally said. “I mean, we’re all here for the same reason. So we can all play ball. Right?”

  “Right.”

  “So, let me talk to them. Tell them the shunning thing is over as far as I’m concerned. Then, can we start again?”

  I looked at her and snorted unamused laughter. “You mean you want us to be friends or something?”

  “Well, maybe,” she said. She smiled again, but it was genuine this time. “And then, when we’re friends, we can talk about that amazing triple play you pulled off.”

  I smiled, and it felt genuine, too. “That was something, wasn’t it?”

  “Amazing was what it was,” she said. “Pretty freaking amazing. You have to have played second base before.”

  “Nope,” I said. “I never did.”

  And then, I told her about my dad teaching me to play softball, and playing for those three seasons.

  I’d never told anyone everything like that before. Not my shrink. Not my mom. Not even James. And it felt all right, letting someone in, just a little bit. Even if she was dead. Maybe because she was dead. Who knew?

  An interesting thing happened, though. After that, we just talked and the hour that I had to wait for James to come and get me absolutely flew by. When I finally saw him I felt a twinge of regret. It would have been nice to have stayed a little while longer. I’d actually had some fun.

  I GUESS THAT’S why I didn’t tell Karen that I’d been talking to her family and her old boyfriend. Why I didn’t ask her where her body was buried, so I could find out, once and for all, what had really happened to her, and why she was stuck at second base on Diamond Number Two.

  Karen:

  My Turn to Call a Meeting

  I HOPED MARIE listened to me about Andrew. I’d watched him weasel his way into other people’s lives at the diamond. Lots of times, those families—those girls—disappeared. I didn’t know if they’d just stopped coming to softball, or if the girls had actually disappeared, but I didn’t want to see Marie’s family hurt. They had to stay away from Andrew.

  It didn’t take long, after Marie left the diamond that night, for the rest of the dead to show up. I told them, tersely, I wanted to have a meeting.

  “Not another one,” Rita Danworth said. “This is starting to get boring, you know.”

  “I don’t care, Rita,” I replied. “We need to have a meeting. Behind the bleachers. Ten minutes. Make sure the rest know, including Joanne.”

  “She’s not going to like it, either,” Rita said. “You know.”

  “I don’t care,” I repeated, forcefully. “Get ’em all there, Rita. Ten minutes.”

  I scrambled down the bleachers without looking back at her. I didn’t want her to see how that small interaction had shaken me. I needed to seem strong. To make them go along with me.

  I had to.

  THE LIVING GAME was long done when Joanne finally appeared, and it was obvious to everyone there that she’d been trying to show up just for our game. Probably hoped she’d miss the warm up and just step into the game with no small talk. Instead, she’d walked into a meeting.

  “What the hell?” she said. “I thought we were going to play tonight. What’s this?”

  The huge overhead lights clicked and whomped to darkness, but our light kept the area behind the bleachers bright enough.

  “I called the meeting, Joanne,” I said. “We gotta talk.”

  Joanne whirled to face the two old umps who were standing off to one side and looking a little pissy. “Mr. Middleton?” she called. “Are you okay with this?”

  “Any player is entitled to call a meeting,” Mr. Middleton said. He sort of looked like he was choking on the words, but he said them. “That’s the rule, Joann
e.”

  “Maybe it’s time to change the frigging rules, then,” Joanne said. “Because this is bullshit. We got a plan. For Christ’s sake, we voted on it and everything. Didn’t we?”

  “Even if we did vote,” I said, “we made a mistake.”

  “A mistake?” Joanne squealed. “A frigging mistake? We voted, bitch!”

  “I don’t care,” I said.

  That stopped them all, including Joanne. I didn’t usually say those sort of things out loud. Mr. Middleton shuffled forward, looking old and worn out. Surprised me, seeing him change like that. Normally, the dead don’t change.

  I guessed that what was going on here really wasn’t normal.

  “You okay, Mr. Middleton?” I asked. “Want to sit down or something?”

  “No,” he said. “Karen, we did vote. The shunning must continue.”

  “Oh yeah, easy for you to say,” I said, more angrily than I intended. I waited a second for Mr. Middleton to tell me to act like a lady, or shut my mouth, or whatever he usually said when one of us swore or tried to start a fight during a game. “None of you showed up for either of the living games. Just left me alone. All alone. I had to face her myself, and that wasn’t fair.”

  Mr. Middleton still didn’t say anything, but he looked embarrassed.

  “So, if all of you are going to stay away from the diamond whenever Marie’s here, then I will not shun her,” I said. “Because I don’t think she’s a problem.”

  There was a small silence as we all thought about what I’d just said. Of course, it was Joanne who broke first.

  “If you can’t follow orders,” she said. “Then maybe we’ll all shun you, Karen.” She said my name like a curse. Guess in her mind, it was. “What would you think of that?”

  The anger I felt—the ugly, painful spurt of anger—ran through me like poison. “If any of you try that,” I said, “I will make this whole thing stop.”

  That shut them all up. Rita stood, her hand to her mouth, her eyes blinking like she was trying to signal for help by Morse code. The rest looked just as shocked. Except for Joanne. Of course.