Field of Screams (3 page)

I felt pumped up as I approached the plate. My teammates cheered me on from the dugout. “Do it, Buddy!” “Go for it, Buddy!”

I stepped into the batter's box, ready to send this sucker downtown. Over the fence. Never to be seen again.

I grinned at the pitcher and waggled my bat a few times over the plate. He wiped some sweat from his brow.

Getting nervous? I taunted the pitcher in my mind. You better be. I'm going to mail this ball to Mars!

The first pitch was way outside. I let it go and moved closer to the plate, crowding it.

“Try to give me an outside pitch now, chicken,” I muttered.

The pitcher wound up again. I tightened my grip on the bat.

Then, from the corner of my eye, I glimpsed a familiar face.

Ernie Ames. The old man from the house on Fear Street.

He stood at the fence. Watching me.

His eyes burned into mine. I felt as if I couldn't tear my gaze away from him.

What did he want?

“Duck!”
someone yelled.

My head whipped around. Oh, man!

The ball was speeding straight toward me!

Whack!
The ball hit me and knocked me down. My head smacked into the ground.

Even though I was wearing a helmet, pain exploded in my head. I saw a huge flash of white light. Little stars danced in front of my eyes.

Then everything went black.

T
he next thing I heard was somebody calling my name.

“Buddy. Buddy, talk to me,” someone called.

I opened my eyes slowly. Man, did my head hurt!

My vision was blurry for a second. As it cleared, I made out faces peering down at me. Strangers.

“You okay, Buddy? That pitch hit you square in the head.”

The man speaking was tall. And he had dark hair he wore slicked back with some sort of shiny oil.

How does he know my name? I wondered. I've never seen him before.

“Oooh!” I groaned and sat up slowly. My head throbbed where the ball hit me. I felt a little dizzy.

“Thatta boy. Can you get up?”

Without waiting for an answer, the shiny-haired man grabbed my arms and hauled me to my feet. I stood, wobbling for a second.

“Feeling steadier? Good. Shake it off,” the man told me.

Shake it off? I thought. Is he crazy? I just got clobbered in the head with a fastball!

“I—uh—” I started to say.

“Hit by the pitch—take your base!” the umpire yelled.

“But I—”

“Come on, tough guy!” the man with the slicked-back hair interrupted. “You heard the ump. Go take your base.” He tucked his hand under my elbow and hustled me to first base. “Good, good,” he muttered, and trotted away.

Who was that guy anyway?

I stood at first base and squeezed my eyes shut, trying to get over my feeling of confusion.

“Batter up!” the umpire called.

I opened my eyes to see who was next at bat.

Whoa. Hold up, I thought. Who is
that
guy? He doesn't play on my team! And what's with his uniform?

The pants were baggy. The shirt was loose. The whole outfit looked like a sack. And instead of the red, white, and blue colors of my Shadyside Middle School uniform, it was white with black pinstripes.

Come to think of it, my own uniform felt strangely heavy and loose. I glanced down.

Black and white pinstripes! I was wearing pinstripes! How did that happen? Where was
my
uniform?

Before I could think, the batter hit a grounder toward the shortstop. I took off from first base. The ball skipped past the shortstop and into the outfield.

I rounded second at full speed, really running now. I slid into the bag and barely beat the throw to third.

I stood and brushed myself off. A rough hand clapped me on the shoulder.

“Way to hustle, Gibson,” a deep voice said in my ear.

Gibson? Who was Gibson? I turned—and found myself staring at a man with a heavy red face.

He had to be the third-base coach—why else would he be standing there? But he wasn't
my
third-base coach. In fact, I'd never seen
this
guy before either.

What was happening? Who were these people? Was I seeing things because of my knock on the head? Was I going nuts?

I started to get a really weird feeling. . . .

I licked my lips. “Sanders,” I corrected him. “My name is Sanders. Uh—who are you?”

The man laughed. “That's our Buddy. Always kidding around.”

“Quit gabbing and get your head in the game,” the man with the shiny hair called from across the field.
He had to be the head coach. But why didn't I recognize him?

I peered at the next batter—
another
person I didn't know. In fact, I couldn't find a single familiar face on the whole field—or in either of the dugouts. Eve, Scott, Glen—they had all disappeared!

It was the same with the people in the bleachers. Total strangers, all of them. And they all wore funny clothes. For example, there wasn't a woman there without a funny-looking hat on. And they all wore gloves. In the middle of the summer!

And where were my parents? They had been in the stands five minutes ago. But now I couldn't spot them anywhere.

The pitcher zoomed a fastball down the center of the plate. The guy at bat took a huge cut at it. He crushed the ball, sending it sailing out of the park.

“Home run!” people screamed.

“What's the matter with you, Gibson? Don't just stand there. Run home,” the third-base coach urged.

I ran to home plate. Then I trotted to the dugout. As I passed the fence, I caught a glimpse of the parking lot.

Whoa. A huge maroon car with an odd, rounded shape sat next to a pickup truck. The car looked as if it came from one of those old gangster movies. The truck was straight out of the
Beverly Hillbillies
reruns I sometimes watch.

“Uh—are we sharing the park with a classic car
show today?” I asked a freckle-faced kid in the dugout.

He stared at me as if I were crazy.

“What's a classic car?” he asked.

I started to feel more than weird. I started to feel downright scared.

I could think of only one explanation for all this.

I
was
crazy. The knock on the head had made me go insane.

My temples throbbed. I sat on the bench and rubbed my head. My hair felt funny somehow. Stiff.

“Are you okay, Buddy? You don't look so hot,” the freckle-faced kid told me.

I'm not okay! I wanted to shout. I'm going nuts!

But I was scared to say it out loud. What would they do to me if I were crazy? Take me off to a nuthouse?

“Head hurts,” I mumbled at last.

I glanced down to the end of the dugout. A dozen strange, small gloves lay in a pile on the ground. They looked like pot holders. Leather pot holders. Not baseball mitts.

Nearby was a stack of wooden bats.

Wooden
bats? Our league always used aluminum bats. Didn't we?

I was still trying to figure it all out, when the freckled kid poked me with a bat. “Get up, Buddy. Three outs.”

“What?” I glanced up. Players in pin-striped uniforms
streamed past me to the pile of gloves. It was our turn in the field.

I must have looked uncertain, because the man with the slicked-back hair reached into the pile and pulled out a glove.

“Get out there, Gibson,” he barked. “We don't have all day.”

I caught the glove and pulled it on as I ran for third. It looked small on my hand, but it felt like a perfect fit. Someone had written “Gibson” on it in blue ink.

That name again. I knew it from somewhere, but where?

Then, suddenly, I remembered the old man from yesterday. Ernie Ames. The guy Eve thought was a ghost.

Gibson was the kid Ernie told me about. Buddy Gibson. The kid in the photograph.

The photograph from
1948.

I stopped running and stood there with my mouth open.

Could it be? Was it even possible?

I suddenly began to have trouble breathing. There was something I had to check out. Right away.

I dashed off the field and into the parking lot. I ran to the big maroon car and peered into the sideview mirror.

A stranger stared back out at me.

A stranger who Had a blond crew cut instead of curly brown hair. Who had blue eyes, not brown. Who
had a small scar over his right eyebrow. Who was about four inches taller than me.

A stranger who looked just like the kid in that 1948 photo.

The world seemed to swoop in a dizzy circle around me.

Now it was all starting to make sense—in a horrible way.

Now I understood why all the uniforms looked so goofy. Why the gloves were weird. Why everything seemed as if it had come from an antique shop.

And why everyone kept calling me Gibson.

Somehow, I
was
Gibson.

Somehow, I had gone back in time!

I
stood there, stunned.

I had gone back in time!

Back—into someone else's body!

How? How did it happen?

I was broken out of my daze by the coach with the slicked-back hair. He ran over to me and grabbed my arm. “What is the matter with you, Gibson? Are you nuts?” he demanded. “Get out on that field. Now!”

He hustled me back to the diamond. I stumbled toward third base.

Think, I told myself. I just have to think.

“Hey, what inning is it?” I asked the catcher as I passed home plate.

“The ninth.” He grinned. “Looks like another winner!”

I couldn't concentrate on the game at all. My mind kept whirling, trying to figure out what had happened. And how.

I rubbed the side of my head through my cap. There was still a little pain.

Was that it? I wondered. Could my knock on the head have made me
believe
I went back in time? Could it have made me see Buddy Gibson's face in the mirror instead of mine?

I nearly blew an easy play, when a line drive popped out of my tiny glove. But I scrambled to pick it up and managed to make the throw to first in time.

The left fielder hollered at me. “What's the matter, Gibson? Can't handle a little pepper?”

I glared back at him. He was tremendous—he looked closer to fourteen than twelve. He had reddish hair and a mean squint. I thought he might make a better linebacker than a fielder.

Normally, I would have answered him. But I kept my mouth shut. I didn't want to talk to anyone until I was sure of what was going on.

“Play ball!” the umpire shouted.

As the inning went on, I studied the people around me. Under their ball caps, most of the guys wore buzz cuts.

Most of
my
teammates, back in real time, had longer hair.

And my shoes. They were heavy, clunky, spiked things, stiff as iron. Nothing like my Nikes.

I
must
have gone back in time. Everything seemed so real. The nerdy-looking uniforms. The gloves.

Even the name “Gibson” written on my glove. The “S” was a little lopsided by the glove's seam. I couldn't
imagine
things in so much detail—could I?

I thought about Ernie. I played back our conversation in my mind, trying to remember everything he said about Gibson. And about 1948.

He said they called this team the Doom Squad. Because everyone that played them was doomed to lose.

And because—

I caught my breath, remembering the old man's words. “Now they're buried in the Fear Street Cemetery!”

They all died after the championship game!

I sucked in my breath. Holy cow! Was
this
the championship game?

I peered over my shoulder at the scoreboard in right field.

Shadyside, seven. Oneiga, two. We were up five runs in the ninth inning.

Ernie told me that in the championship game Shadyside was ahead by only two in the ninth.

Whew! It must be a different game. I was safe—for now.