Visitor's Game

Splash! Splash! Splash! I jumped in place at the sudden noise. I turned and looked across the parking lot and saw a group of teenagers huddled together, jumping in unison in a puddle from the rain earlier today as they chanted a fight song for their team. I didn’t realize I was staring at them until one of them saw me, broke from their circle raised their arms in challenge, and shouted, “What?” across the lot, his friends laughing and smirking at me. I blinked at them, realized how tense I had become, and turned away – I could hear them laughing at that as I did.

I wasn’t always so… Shy. Just over a month ago, I developed a kind of ‘sixth sense’. I started to see things that no one else could see; on that first day alone, I saw a mangled clown walking solemnly down the street, looking as if he had just been hit by a car. I stayed the night at a friend’s house where I heard rustling downstairs, as if someone were furiously digging through the kitchen drawers to find something – after going to look, I even saw someone in the dark moving back and forth in the kitchen, muttering angrily to themselves. But when I turned the light on, the figure in the dark was gone. I don’t know if I’ve gone crazy or if there’s something more going on with this. All I know is that this happened apparently at random and that it happens far less frequently at my own home. So, I’ve become a shut-in almost overnight – though it didn’t last long.

My friends Connie and Jan finally convinced me to come out with them tonight. I did my best to shoot them down, but they said they’d gotten tickets for tonight’s baseball game. Even though neither of them couldn’t care less about the sport, they knew I couldn’t pass up an opportunity for a game. So, here we are.

After showing our tickets, we made our way into the stadium. The air vibrated with anticipation, the scent of hotdogs and popcorn mingling with the acrid tang of sweat. To many, this would be a pretty off-putting sensation, and that’s fair enough, but to me, it was so inviting and relieving; for a moment, I had forgotten about everything that had made me stressed and paranoid about the world outside my house.

We weaved through the crowds of baseball fans who stood in lines for beer, snacks, and restrooms until we came into the clearing and headed down the aisles to find our seats. The spots we got weren’t terrible – I could still see the field and players good enough, but it was a little higher up than I would’ve preferred. Not that I was going to complain to my friends about a free baseball game ticket, obviously. I was still feeling grateful for them taking me here, and excited to see how the game turned out.

I sat down with a bucket of popcorn as well as a bag of Cracker Jacks, which Jan got for me. I wasn’t the biggest fan of Cracker Jacks, but Jan figured I loved them presumably because of that old ball game song. Anyway, they’re not a bad snack.

My eyes darted eagerly across the field, back and forth, up and down. I listened to the crowded fans roar and boo as gooseflesh sprouted across my arms. After a game, I would always think the large stadium lights to illuminate the field were too bright, but in the moment like I am now, I never seem to notice; in my mind, everything was just right.

That’s what made it so much worse when I started to feel a wave of icy cold coming from somewhere to my right. I thought that maybe if I ignored it, it would eventually go away. But it only got worse. I could see my breath as it left my face and I started to tremble, at first by the cold alone, yet was amplified by my rising anxiety as I felt my heart thumping in my chest so hard I thought it would rise into my throat and lodge itself there until I choked on it. It was the still, solid, stagnant cold of death. Slowly, I turned my head until I could see past my shoulder.

I saw it instantly. At the top of the walkway between the aisles leading back towards the concessions stood a small boy. I could tell from here that the boy was dirty and pale, and he stood motionless – too motionless. He had a way of him that implied he simply did not belong there… and he was looking directly at me.

I turned back around, squeezed my eyes shut, and counted under my breath. I had no idea if that would work, but I saw it happen several times in movies, so I hoped that there was some knowledge of the paranormal based on those movies when the main character tried to make the ghosts disappear.

When I opened my eyes again, the cold was still there. Worse, I could feel the eyes of that boy on the top of the stairs as they bore into the back of my head, willing me to come to him. I kept my focus on the game in front of me as I tried to ignore him. That seemed to only make it worse. The cold aura of the boy had enveloped me, making me quiver in my seat as if I were in the middle of a snowstorm, and not outside on a mid-July evening. My vision blurred as my eyes watered from the stinging chill, obscuring my vision of the players on the field.

“Nikki?” Connie said next to me, an air of rising concern to her, “Are you okay?” Now Jan was leaning forward to look at me, an expression of worry that equally matched Connie’s tone.

I blinked slowly at them and, after a bit of time, responded, “Yeah, I’m fine. I just need to use the bathroom real quick.” Before they could say anything else, I got up and walked towards the phantom child.

“Er… Hi,” I said awkwardly. Maybe it was a little flippant to talk to the dead like this, but I’m still new at this, and never asked for it anyway, “What happened to you?” I choked out at last. The boy looked up at me and I saw that his bagged eyes were sullen and red, and he looked like he had gone without sleep for a very long time. His clothes were dirty and ragged, and he was missing a shoe.

He raised one finger that looked eerily still as it seemingly floated in the air, and pointed past me. “That happened.”

I closed my eyes again and took a deep breath. I told myself I could still walk away, and ignore this whole encounter until the end of the game. Despite every instinct in me, I turned my head in the direction the boy was pointing and opened my eyes. There I saw a small boy who looked to be about the same age as the ghost child I was talking to. The boy was sitting at the end of the row and was eating a hot dog with one hand as he waved a foam finger in the other, cheering at the ball players below.

Looking behind the boy, I saw what looked like a human shadow, though its arms were at least twice as long as a regular person’s should be. These long, lanky arms hooked hungrily over the back of the little boy’s seat. The shadow seemed corporeal and appeared to be stuck in place as if it were frozen there mid-stretch. I turned back to the spectral child and started to ask what that thing even was, but before I could get a word out he shouted at me. “Don’t stop looking at it!” he pleaded, “it doesn’t work if I look at it, but you’re still here. You have to look at it until the sun comes up, or it will take him like it took me!”

I gulped as I whirled my head back around to the living shadow, and instantly knew what he meant – the thing had moved. Its too-long arms had stretched wide, preparing to snatch away the little boy watching the game. “So, it can only move when no one’s watching it? Why can’t anyone else see it?”

“I don’t know,” the ghost kid said beside me, “why can you see me?”

“Good point,” I said distressingly, “I’ll do my best to watch it, then… So, it got you, then? What… What did it do to you?”

My ghostly companion said nothing, though I felt the air get even colder.

That was answer enough for me. I kept my eyes focused on the shadowy monster. But I soon started to realize that I couldn’t keep my eyes open for that long, until sunrise. I thought about keeping my gaze until the game was over, blinking only when absolutely necessary. But who’s to say this thing wouldn’t find a way to follow the kid home once they’re out of sight? Or what if they find another child to linger toward? How could I explain to my friends why I can’t leave when they’re ready to go? What if security drags me away for staring intently at – what they would think – a little kid? Then it hit me. I would find some distraction. I could go tell that little boy’s family that there’s a fire in the stadium.

That seemed my best option. I started back down the stairs. I felt heavy as I lifted one trembling foot after the other. Despite the chilled air, I felt hot and started to sweat. I was terrified at the idea of moving around this thieving shadow, and even being near it. Maybe instead I’d simply shout that there’s a fire. I know I’d be outing myself for being so open, and the charges against me for causing such a mass panic unwarranted – but what other choice did I have?

I took a deep breath, raised my hands up, and prepared to exclaim –

“Nikki!” Jan yelled. And damn her for doing that. God damn me for not having the force of will to just for once not look without thinking, just because someone so easily distracted me by calling my name. I looked over to Jan who was waving with a big smile across her face, and gesturing to my empty seat. I let out a shocked, stifled scream as I looked back at the silhouetted demon.

But it, and the little boy in the seat in front of it, were both gone. The boy’s mother instantly noticed, stood up, and began looking around with increasing worry. “Ian?” she said.

“Ian?!” A little louder.

I wanted so badly to tell her what I saw, though I didn’t really understand it myself. What good would it do if I told her? She wouldn’t believe me, she would think I had something to do with her son – Ian – disappearing. Even if I lied and said it was a person, that wouldn’t do much good either; I would have no description to give, and I had a strong suspicion that wherever Ian was now, they were only there by the will of this shadowy visitor.

“Has anyone seen my son?!” The mother was yelling now as she darted aimlessly in semi-circles, trying to see everything around her. Some people slowly started to get up with a concerned look, willing to help however they could – though most people looked uninterested up at her, then back down to the field. The mother was running up the stairs now, her voice revealing the first cracks of a hoarse voice. “IAN?!”