“Dang it, Rylund! What the heck was that about?” Stephanie snapped at him as she led him away from the Men’s Room crowd. She yanked his arm and pulled him to the left. He heard a clicking sound, then the telltale sound of a door opening then closing behind them. The room felt closer and cramped. A musty smell encompassed them.
“Where are we?”
“It’s a storage closet, I think,” she said.
“Why?”
“So you can tell me what happened!”
He bit his bottom lip and thought for a moment. His excitement to reveal what he saw was high but at the same time he was afraid. Not that she would probably ridicule him but she would burst his bubble of happiness at a sign of healing. The first sign he was recovering and could hope to see again someday.
Rylund shook his head. “No. Nothing happened. Let’s get back to our seats.”
“Suurreee,” she over exaggerated the word, clearly not believing him. They didn’t move.
“I’m okay. Honest. Just got sick from too much sun I think,” he lied.
“Suurreee,” she repeated, but this time she took his arm again and opened the door.
The wafting drafts of buttery popcorn mixed with fresh beer came over them. He then heard a wave of cheers as they drew closer to the stands.
He had a thought, a hunch he wanted to test.
“Wait. Let’s go higher. Take me up to the $5 dollar seats.”
“Why?”
“Humor me will ya? The usher won’t bother us. Who goes higher for a worse view on purpose?”
Stephanie didn’t answer but led on, hauling him to the right this time to a set of sticky, concrete steps. “Careful.”
He gripped the metal rail which grew hot as they climbed the stairwell.
At last they sat down, in the last set of benches of the stadium. The “cheap seats” were high above the playing field and almost too far away to tell who was at bat. Only a few die hard fans sat here.
“Is there a rail? I want to stand next to it.”
“Are you high?” Stephanie wondered aloud. “You said you got sick from too much sun and now you want to bake in it some more?”
Rylund shrugged. He couldn’t explain anything yet, but he hoped she trusted him enough to know he had some reason to do so.
Sighing, she cupped his elbow and guided him slowly to the rail. From the rail, one could overlook the entire game audience. Which was exactly what he remembered from earlier experiences at the park as a kid.
As the sun did cook their skin, he gripped the rail with both hands and leaned out over it. He swept the benches below with his blind eyes.
It worked! Almost hidden under the second level seating near third base, a watery circle appeared. That same elderly black man sat, eating a hot dog and sipping from a beer cup. “Oh my god!” he whispered awestruck.
“What?” Stephanie reacted to his sudden reaction. Her hands clenched his arms and tried to pull him back to his seat.
“No. Stop! Hold up, Steph!” he pointed down. “Can YOU see a black man there?”
Her hands loosened and he sensed her hesitation, but she eventually looked for herself. “Uh…. maybe. Wait! Yeah.”
“He’s drinking a beer, wearing a faded Kepperdine jersey right? Number 9.”
She pulled his hands suddenly hard and twisted him to face her. “How are you seeing him? Are you getting your sight back?” she squealed in curious delight.
Again he shrugged. It wasn’t true sight. Only a tiny window of vision. Only this man…
“I can’t understand it. I don’t know why, but I see him. Just him! He bumped into me in the Men’s Room and that’s how I spotted him the first time.”
“What about the three young girls behind him? Or that fat man two seats down from him in the stands?”
He shook his head. “Just him. And it’s not like I see him clearly. He’s visible but he also has something glowing, but like in yellowish patches. Remember that trip we took two years ago, when mom and dad wanted to go on that cave tour in Kentucky? We saw all those rocks covered in phosphorus lichen? It’s like that! The lichen is covering some of his shoulder and neck.”
They returned to the bench row, keeping their voices low.
“Why? What does it mean? Do you think it’ll get better? You will start to see more people or places. Did this happen before or–” Her questions were peppering him non-stop. Stephanie had a bad habit of rapid questioning when she was nervous and or excited.
He stopped her with a raised hand. “I don’t know any more than you do. From everything I have read online, nothing ever sounded like this. If my eyesight is returning, it is usually marked by dim images. Or I’d see in black and white or maybe shadows at first, I mean.”
“So this hasn’t happened before to you?”
“No.”
“Go back over there and see it is still happening and to only him.”
They worked together to another spot at the rail, about a dozen feet to the left of the first spot. “He’s on his feet, checking his watch right?”
“Yes.”
“Yeah, I can only see him.” Rylund said. “There has to be a reason I cannot see anyone else in the crowd. Let’s follow him!”
Moments later they were standing in a large hallway. It was sparsely populated as the seventh inning had already begun and the Phillies were at bat. They waited for the elderly man. He sat about five rows down in the sun-soaked bleachers.
“Is he alone?” Rylund asked.
“I don’t see anyone. There’s a family of five sitting in the same row with him but they haven’t paid him any attention.”
The crowd groaned in unison as the last batter was out after he popped up a foul ball.
“Here,” she said and guided him back further into the lobby. It was cooler so he assumed they were in a darker section. “We can wait here unseen when he comes out.”
“Good idea.”
“You still can see him, right?” Stephanie asked.
He shook his head. It was truly bizarre and baffled him.
Five minutes later, the other team ended the inning after a flurry of singles and a run scored. The home crowd grumbled at the poor performance.
“He’s leaving,” Rylund said.
“Yeah, I see him. Let’s let him go a bit ahead. We don’t want him seeing us!”
The man moved along the corridor, shuffling with a slight limp but still at an even pace. Whenever he passed signs or when someone walked close to him, Rylund caught glimpses. The window that surrounded the man was similar to a see-through curtain, almost aura-like. Or, Rylund mused, it was more like a candle since it lit up anything near him.
The crowd of baseball fans thinned out as the man headed out of the coliseum and toward the parking garages. Stephanie slowed them down even more to remain unnoticeable. However, the man never looked back over his shoulder.
He came to a set of elevators. He stabbed at the down button.
“Stay here a moment,” she directed him.
A second later he heard her speak out.
“Did you like the game?” Her voice energetic and excited. The elevator buzzed, signalling it was at their floor.
“It was s’alright,” he mumbled. His voice was garbled and he sounded distracted.
“Which level?”
“3 D please.”
“OH! Hold up. I’m sorry, but I forgot my phone in the seats.” She stepped out of the elevator. As the elevator closed, she ran to Rylund. He heard the patter of her sneakers smacking the pavement.
“Nice job! Are the stairs close?” he asked. He found she was scary clever sometimes.
She took his hand and they jogged to the stairwell door, chasing after the elevator.
At the bottom, the stairwell door was propped partially open with a small red brick. The man’s voice echoed and floated to them.
“Excuse me! Excuse me, Sir,” The man called out.
Stephanie narrated for him automatically in spite of the new narrow field of vision.
“He’s waving his hand at some police man. He’s trying to get his attention.”
“Are you, uh… Officer Fields? Officer Jason Fields?” he called out again.
“Yes, sir. May I help you?” The officer came into view as the old black man stepped over to him. The cop dressed in full uniform had been standing at attention next to a doorway.
“I am sorry to bother you. I think I have gotten lost. Is this the backstairs to the management office suites? My name is Sammy Samuels. I was told to find a Jason Fields. That is you, right?”
“Yes. Do you have business here? I will need an ID.”
“That’s alright, son. I don’t have business there. I really just wanted to get close.” With that his hand flashed out and pulled something white out from his jean’s waistband. It was long and clawlike. It was an engraved bone dagger.
He plunged the sharp, serrated tip quick into the man’s neck once and pulled back fast to thrust it again into the young cop’s throat. He stabbed over and over. Blood exploded and fountained all over the pair as Fields wrestled weakly with the old man. As his blood poured and the dagger kept making new holes in his neck and upper chest, the officer sank to his knees.
The old man wheezed and gasped from the effort but held the heavier officer upright. Samuels twisted and turned all about looking to see if anyone was around. He then leaned down and peered into Field’s dead eyes.
“Oh okay. You’s done now. Nothing left for you to worry,” he said as he let loose of the body which smacked the concrete with a sick thud. Rylund wasn’t sure if he was speaking to himself or the man he murdered.
Stephanie trembled and her hand clutched his arm so tight her fingernails bit into the skin.
“Don’t let him see us,” he whispered to her. She remained silent but backed them up and against the stairwell wall out of sight.. Unfortunately that meant he couldn’t see the murderer any longer as well.
“Why did he do that?” She whimpered. “How could he do that?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know. Take me home, I don’t want to see anymore.”
The Official Website of Author Derek Barton 
Nice!!
LikeLike