13 Ghost Stories in 13 Days

The Ballad of the Cursed Mudville Maroons

Randy McRae’s knees were killing him.

He’d long since gave up any dreams of making it to the show. He was too old for this stuff. He thought about maybe giving Susan a call. Telling her he changed. Tell her he didn’t even like baseball anymore. Maybe they could buy that old house in the old neighborhood with the weeping willow out front like they always said they would.

But, deep down, Randy McRae knew he was never leaving the Cursed Mudville Maroons.

The clubhouse TV was tuned to a story about the Chicago Cubs finally making the World Series. The announcers talked about breaking the curse. His teammates stood in a circle and murmured insults at the television.

“Not winning a World Series in 100 years is hardly a curse,” said Doc Wilkins, the smartest player on the team, and a man whose entire skin was covered in hideous boils. “And it’s not like that billy goat is a demigod. It can’t summon a curse.”

He was answered by the screams of third baseman JoJo Tedesco, who’d been left on a torture rack in the trainer’s room.

Randy got up and changed the channel.

“Enough of that,” he said. “We have a game to win.”

“Forget billy goats,” said Jake Murphy, the utility infielder. “There was one season when Lothar the Destroyer ordered a satyr to bite my fingers off one by one after every game.”

Fast Willie Drake, the centerfielder, came running half naked into the clubhouse.

“Blood coming from the showers again?” Randy asked.

“Why does this always happen when I have a girl coming to watch me play?” Fast Willie asked.

Suddenly every light in the clubhouse went out. A dozen voices whispered a phrase in a language Randy did not speak. When the lights came back, second baseman Clay Derringer had been turned into a snake.

“Guess I’m starting today,” said Jake Murphy.

“Shouldn’t The Skip have given us a motivational speech by now?” Randy asked of no one in particular.

Then he dodged the rotting corpse of their former No. 2 starter and entered the broom closet the manager used as an office.

“‘Bout that time, don’t you think Skip?”

The manager, a gruff man whose specialty was motivational speeches, stood with his back turned in the corner of the broom closet. Probably one of his patented pregame meditative moments.

“Skip?”

Randy touched his manager on the shoulder and found nothing solid. The manager’s uniform collapsed into a heap. Randy dug through the crumpled baseball pants on the floor, hoping to find some remnant of his manager. Sand sifted through his fingers.

“Cancel the speech,” Randy yelled back to the clubhouse. “Someone turned the skipper into a pile of sand again.”

He exited the room. Slugger Jones was using his favorite bat to bludgeon a three-headed serpent that had taken up space inside his locker.

“He’s going to mess up his swing like that,” Randy sighed.

He looked around at his team. Such motley crew. Schmidty’s jersey never fit right, but the kid sure did hustle. Johansen had thick black smoke pouring from the sockets where his eyes should have been be, but he still managed to deliver the winning hit the night before. And how about Perez? Well, Perez had a real shot at The Show. They all knew it. But Perez had been turned to stone months ago and they couldn’t figure out how to bring him back.

Randy grabbed his catcher’s mitt off the petrified statue that used to be the Maroons’ leadoff man.

“I’m not really one for motivational speeches,” Randy said. “But, uh, let’s go out there and win this game.”

They all cheered and hooted except for O’Shaugnessy, who had been bit by the snake that used to be Derringer and was slowly succumbing to madness from poisoning. His screams filled their ears as they made their way on to the field.

A good crowd had come to watch and the sun was shining as Randy took his place behind home plate, where a swarm of bees had chosen to build its nest.

“Beautiful day for a ball game eh, Blue?” he said to the umpire, who had no face. “Let’s call a fair game today.”

Randy put down two fingers. He wanted Gutierrez to throw the curve.The bees crawled under his mask and in and out of his nostrils. At second base, he saw Murphy writing in pain. For months the kid had been haunted during the early innings by a high-pitch shriek that only he could hear.

Gutierrez would up and delivered the pitch.

The batter, expecting fastball, swung out of his shoes. Strike one. They’d been playing this game over and over again every day for millennia, and that batter never learned to wait on a pitch.

A thunderclap in the distance and then a crack in the sky. Randy knew The Unspeakable Beings would soon emerge through the fissure and devour half his bullpen. From the on-deck circle he could hear his father’s ghost whispering how disappointed in Randy he’d always been.

Randy put down one finger. He wanted Gutierrez to throw the heater. They had a game to win.

Previously on 13 Ghost Stories in 13 Days:

Day 1 The Ghost’s Girlfriend
Day 2 The Girl with the Puka Shell Necklace
Day 3 The Time I Went to the Old Church Later Than I Should Have
Day 4 Ride Scare
Day 5 Miranda, Who Appears as a Portent of Death
Day 6 A Halloween Carol
Day 7 El Mariachi de los Muertos
Day 8 Death on Demand