Chapter One
Baseball every day after school, baseball every weekend, baseball on television every evening, baseball all summer long. Baseball, baseball, baseball. From the moment I could throw a ball it was the most important thing in my life. My parents thought all sports were for the juvenile and primitive, and weren’t exactly subtle about wanting me to pursue something more intellectual, but their disapproval only strengthened my love for the game. I was that type of kid. And it helped that I was good. Very good. Varsity as a freshman on a team that was top in the state, and already some colleges were showing interest in me. Instead of listening to my teachers as they droned on about algebra and physics and the Declaration of Independence, I daydreamed about making it to the big leagues, the crowd, the noise, the traveling, the cameras, the money, the fame, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t thinking about women. As cocky as I was on the baseball field, I suffered from a strong case of crippling shyness around pretty girls, but that would change once I made it big time. It felt inevitable.
Everything changed in my second year of high school.
On a cold and clear Saturday morning I was running the bases at the park around the corner from my home. The cold wind was sharp on my face. My cleats threw dirt into the air behind me. I was so focused on the sprint, on lifting my knees and pumping my arms while an imaginary crowd cheered me on into home plate, I never even saw them coming. I was tackled from the right. The impact shocked me into a state of paralysis, cold dirt burned and scraped my face as I slid across the ground, and a swift kick knocked the air from my lungs. Rough hands pinned down my arms. Pointy knees buttressed by heavy weight stabbed into my back. A pair of large cold hands clasped my head on both sides and pulled it back until I thought my neck might snap. I gasped and wheezed and spat as large fingers forced my eyes open. I stared into a bright winter sun. The fiery white brilliance was so overwhelming that immediately my eyes filled with tears and my eyelids tried to shut, but the fingers stabbed into my eye socket, nails piercing my skin until blood dripped down my face. Somehow my burning lungs released a scream but help never came. What felt like an eternity was probably only a minute or two. That’s all it takes. Before everything went dark that bright yellow ball in the sky expanded and flashed like a lightbulb that’s reached its limit. Pain throbbed behind my eyes and somewhere deep inside my head. I screamed again but I still couldn’t shake free. The feeling of absolute restraint and helplessness, like my whole body was held in a vice from which I would never escape, was almost worse than the sudden darkness. Almost.
When those boys released me, I scrambled away on my hands and knees until the top of my head collided with the backstop, then I brought my hands to my face, curled into a ball, and cried like a baby. One of my assailants laughed, a hollow cackle lacking joy and bitterness. Their footsteps traveled away from me. When they reached the outfield, frosted grass crunching under their shoes, another one of those boys actually apologized, and I swear he sounded sincere, like he himself might cry. Not that I gave a damn.
I remained against the backstop for a long time. Its firmness against my spine comforted the primal part of my brain while I opened and closed my eyes, waiting and wishing and praying for a glimpse of the diamond, the pitcher’s mound, the frosted green outfield, and the birds perched in the bare trees. But there was only darkness. Eventually I was found by a man teaching his own little kiddos how to play the game. He must have thought I was drunk. His foot tapped the bottom of mine and in a polite but firm tone he asked if I could move somewhere else to sleep it off, but his tone changed when he saw my tears, the bloody scrape down the side of my face, and the cuts around my eyelids. The fear I felt when he first approached me was intense. My heart pounded in my chest. I felt dizzy. I had never before felt so vulnerable, so weak, so fragile, but in the end that kind man drove me around the corner to my home and helped me to the door. His children whispered in the backseat the entire drive. I think they were scared.
Sometimes I still wonder why those boys did what they did, if it was their idea or if someone put them up to it, but I suppose it doesn’t matter. I had never seen those boys before and our paths never crossed again. This story isn’t about them, even if they are the ones who set things in motion, and it’s not about baseball either, even though that’s where it started and where it ended. This is about something worse, something that preys upon the world in quiet patience, something that reached down into the darkness and revealed an awful truth that cast the rest of my life in silent dread.
It’s about a girl named Cassie.
After I met her, that’s when the real trouble began.
