Every two or three days, I make myself a nice sandwich and a cappuccino to watch guys start another afternoon baseball game.
Watching such a show is even more entertaining when I contrast it with the monotony I see on the avenue between the people and the grey cars of the city. Although I must confess that what happened last night scared me too much.
It was the seventh inning. Bases loaded and it was Barry's turn to bat. Iza was such a good pitcher that she got two strikes off him in the blink of an eye. But for the last pitch, Iza got overconfident and pitched a slower curve that Barry didn't miss and sent it flying with all his great strength.
Not even Young-ho Lee's quick and skillful fence-jumping could do anything to catch it. It was a grand slam. But there was no celebration, it was all despair: the ball landed in the yard of Misglow Ville's until then new mysterious neighbor.
As soon as I saw Mika faint and Lawrence start crying, I decided to go to the baseball field to help the guys.
“Hey, Mr. McKoy, good thing you came!” said Leo, the most mature of the group, when he saw me around.
“Don't worry, we'll be right back to retrieve the ball,” I remember saying to him and the rest of the teenagers present.
“You're an idiot, Barry, you know you can't hit home runs,” Iza complained to the big lug.
For a moment I thought Barry would say something when he raised his right arm, but he just picked his nose.
“Mr. McKoy, I'm not going in there,” Kley, the youngest of us all, said to me.
“Why not? We'll all go,” I replied.
“People say that guy is really weird. He's got a giant 'Keep Out' sign and every night you hear weird stuff in there,” Kley commented, his voice cracking and shaking.
“If we run into big foot after the fence, we'll send Barry out front,” Leo joked.
In the end, almost all of us started walking toward the fence, except Barry, who just stood there watching us in a very strange way.
“You're not so tough after all, are you?” shouted Kley repeatedly to Barry before Lee scared him with a simple 'boo'.
Dusk was already among us and the pretty stars in the sky had the guys debating amongst themselves which constellations they were seeing.
“Here we are, guys!” I stated loudly to the youth following me to convey confidence when we were finally in front of the big keep out sign.
“I'm scared, Mr McKoy,” said Amy, Iza's younger sister.
“If you don't go with us, you'll be on your own until we get the ball back,” Iza replied to her sister with a frown.
“I'll go first!” exclaimed Leo like a leader.
The buzz among the guys began to grow. No one knew what lay beyond the fence. But the more time passed, we believed the less chance we would had of retrieving the ball.
Seeking to calm them down a bit, I told them that before going down to the baseball field, I had spoken on the phone with a cousin who lived in the same neighborhood. He told me that this new neighbor was Mr. Green, barely a 55-year-old lawyer who had moved in for work.
“See? tThere's nothing scary about this yard,” Leo told the others with a smile after hearing me out.
“I crapped my pants already anyway,” Lee confessed.
After an intense guffaw, Leo pushed everyone aside to jump off and reach the top of the fence. In a matter of seconds, he had his entire body over it and we heard him land on the other side and his 'all clear'.
We all saw each other's faces smiling and shook hands as if humankind had landed on the moon for the second time.
But it was a short-lived success because it wasn't long before we heard strange noises from the other side that culminated in a desperate plea from Leo.
“Friends, help me, please!!!”
It was a summer night, but how cold it suddenly got.
Most of the guys ran away so fast that when I turned to ask them to stay, I only saw colored dots in the distance. It was Mika, Iza, Lee and me at the end.
“What? Leo saved my life once. I have to return the favor,” Lee said when we saw that he hadn't run.
One by one, I gave the guys a hand until I deigned to take the leap of courage with them.
“Wow, 28 years old and I didn't crack my bones on the way down,” I said as I stood on the other side.
The boys looked at me uncomfortably and then we walked into that vast courtyard.
The whole ground looked grey. There were holes in it with strange liquids all around. Scary. Only next to the house we discover something scarier: a pale tree with Spanish moss adorning its cadaverous branches and a trunk that seemed to look at us with an evil smile.
The house, with its battered roof and broken windows, looked abandoned to us, but we soon realized that there were lighted rooms.
I think we were so distracted by the place that we never realized that from one moment to the next, it was just Iza and me.
“This is a nightmare, Mr. Mckoy,” Iza said to me with tears in her eyes.
“We can't turn back, it will be worse,” I replied.
Panicking, Iza grabbed my hand and I immediately asked him to start walking in front of me.
The plan was basically to get to the house, ask for Leo, Mika and Lee, get out of there with them, and call the police.
We slowly walked around the house to see if Mr. Green and the boys were there, but all the rooms were empty.
Seeing none, we decided to go through the front door finally. We didn't know who would come out of it, but the last thing we could do before we died of fright was that.
Just as we passed the window of an unlit room, we heard loud and clear: “Another one, another one! Landing, ha ha ha!”
Iza almost revealed us with a scream, but I quickly covered her mouth and waved her into silence.
At that point I sped up the pace with Iza. I thought it was a house with aliens inside because of how strange that voice had sounded. I was afraid I wouldn't make it out of there alive, but I was more afraid of having to explain this craziness to the people outside.
In what was probably the most heroic act of my life, I almost knocked down the front door of the house and started calling out to the guys. I was acting on pure instinct in a main room that was nearly dark except for a single decrepit green light bulb.
Just a few steps later I felt a kick to one of my legs. I turned around horrified at first, but then rejoiced to see it was Leo!
He was tied up with a rope and his mouth covered with a metal tape.
Iza and I quickly helped him free himself. I swear it was the most intense hug I have ever given in my life.
“And where are the guys?” asked Leo anxiously.
“Most of them ran away when you started calling for help. We hopped the fence Mika, Lee, Mr. McKoy and I, although Mika and Lee disappeared like nothing when we were walking here,” Iza clarified.
“No lawyer lives here, guys, it's actually about...” those were the last words I heard from Leo before I saw her.
Behind Leo appeared an old woman with weathered features, snow-white hair, one-eyed and carrying a cane topped with a skull. Her clothes were black from head to toe and when she flashed her machiavellian smile, she had a single tooth gleaming.
I jumped on her as soon as she tried to attack Leo and Iza, and as if I had fought many street fights, I landed several blows and dodged others. Even on the floor, the horrible woman was still resisting with an abnormal strength for an old woman.
Some thunder announced the arrival of a storm and the wood creaking behind the old woman's back, that we would fall into the basement after so much struggle.
Before this fatal outcome, I saw out of the corner of my eye how Leo and Iza were carrying a large fire extinguisher and started to throw it at the old woman, I moved away and ran to grab a broken chair that was on the site to crush her and end this nightmare.
But before I could end it, we watched dumbfounded as a flying broom stood outside the front window waiting for her.
Still groaning in pain, the witch was up in an instant and darted through the window to grab her broom and snap her fingers to fly off into the cloudy skies until we saw her no more.
I really couldn't describe how shocked we all were to witness such a thing. As best we could, we searched the entire house and it was only on the roof that we found Lee and Mika tied together as we had found Leo earlier.
We also saw a parrot on the roof marching confusedly back and forth and took it with us as we feared it was another victim of the witch.
When Lee picked it up, the bird flapped wildly, then stood still and said, “another one, another one! Landing, ha ha ha!”
As soon as we left that horrifying place, I called the police, who didn't take long to arrive.
I still remember how they were still laughing at everything we told them. Predictably, no one would believe us.
The most important thing they did was to make the fence higher so there would no longer be any conflict with anyone.
I guess someday we will know what the heck happened there and why a witch had a parrot named Mr. Green.
I have told you all about it as I headed to the baseball field again.
Now I'm here, and it's a beautiful afternoon. Guys are having fun every inning. Today Barry is just a designated runner and Amy the MVP.
“You can have lots of hits, but no home runs,” Barry teased Amy several times.
Iza was still pitching, and because she didn't like what he was doing, she threw an easy straight ball to her younger sister, who in turn gasped as she hit, with great anger, a home run for the first time. The new fence worked. The ball stayed on our side.
A victory as unexpected from Leo's team as the happiness of the parrot 'Mr. Green' that joyfully vociferated “another one, another one! Landing, ha ha ha!”
