Chapter 1

It was the Summer of 1986. It was a hot one that year, but that didn’t stop us from playing baseball each and every day, sun up to sundown. With of course periodic breaks for playing Nintendo and watching movies. Star Wars was still a favorite, the whole trilogy, really. Back when it was a trilogy, before the dark times, before the prequels. Marathons of the Holy Trilogy were a clique staple at least once a month, we had them all on one tape, bootlegged from various tv airings, on a tape that passed around from house to house like, and along with an older cousin’s or brother’s Playboy magazine collection, the 1984 Madonna issue a personal favorite of mine at the time I recall. Personally, there was just something about the rawness, all the hair, in those pictures that brought the goddess of MTV down to a more relatable, human level. Of course, all I saw and thought about at the initial seeing of those pictures back then was just a lot of boobs and bush.

On this particular Summer day, July 8 to be exact, we were playing baseball as per usual in those days. Not that we were on a team or anything like that, nothing so official. None of us were really that great athletically, and there were only four of us, but we still played for the love of the game only. It was in a lot of ways a lot like the movie, The Sandlot, though we didn’t know what that was yet, not for another 6 years and a fantastic adventure later, which brings us back to the day in question.

The gang was comprised of myself, Billy Schmidt, age 12. Looking awkward as ever with messy brown hair, oversized glasses, and a Ghostbusters shirt. My little brother Jimmy, age 7, who was still a part of the clique by default, as I couldn’t go out and play without keeping an eye on him, but he was still just as much a part of the group back then in his own right. There was also Dean Roberts, our defacto leader of the clique, a year younger than myself, but he was kind of the badass of the group. I mean, he had a pet snake, which for 12 years old in 1980s standards was about as badass as you can get. Then last but certainly not least was our friend Joey, he was the only black kid in the group, and he was also overweight, but he was never like the token member of the group, not that we even knew what that would have meant back then, all we knew was that he, along with the rest of us, like wrestling, video games, and Star Wars, which was all you needed back then to be our friend, in my case, all three of those things still hold up for my friendship checklist. Hit all three, and we just became best friends.

I was up at “the plate”, in reality, the manhole cover at the end of our circle. It was our baseball diamond back then, the manhole was home plate, the drain cover 30 feet away was 1st base, the paint stain 20 feet from that was 2nd, the green power box was third, and that was that. We didn’t really have a catcher or anything like that, as it was just the four of us, one of us pitched, one of us was the outfield/infield guy, one at bat, and one getting ready to bat. In retrospect we probably could have had the fourth kid be catcher, but we never really thought it out fully. So, I’m at bat, Dean throws the ball, which felt to me like a 95 mile an hour fastball, but in likelihood was only an average pitch, I close my eyes Obi Wan Kenobi style, preparing to be hit, take a swing, and I connect with the ball. Rather than the ball hitting me, I hit the ball, and it goes soaring into the sky, far away from me, sailing over the light pole (which was our standard for a home run), and it’s about that point that I open my eyes, and then I start running, well, more of a jog, a victory lap, as I felt like a total badass in that moment.

The group cheered and hollered for my victory, until we all wondered one question. Where did the ball go?

We looked in the sewer, we looked in Dean’s backyard, nothing. There was only one place it could be, the abandoned house two doors down from my family’s house. The house that nobody really stayed for long, for whatever reason, but we had our own theory, that it had to be haunted. We called it the Witch House, and were scared to go near it, as the legends we made up in our head about the place, and who may have lived there back in the day grew larger and more fantastical each day. The ball needed to be in that backyard. We had no choice, we had to go in the back there.

Dean took charge in the front.

“C’mon guys, we need that ball back. You do remember we made up those stories about this being the Witch House to scare Jimmy, right?” Dean exclaimed.

“Well, yeah, but still…” I replied, trying to feign confidence.

It didn’t help that the sky had gotten awfully dark at that moment, a storm was coming in, and coming in quick. Had we known better at the time, we’d have taken that as a sign not to go back there, but we were either too brave, or too dumb, to know any better, so up the driveway we went.

I stood on my tiptoes and reached over the fence to unlock the gate. It was the same gate lock setup as our own house, so it was pretty easy. The gate opened up with a loud creak, it hadn’t been opened in months. There were loads of boxes and in the backyard, the last people to live here not only left quickly, but they didn’t really stay long to begin with. Apparently they left their stuff behind too.

Fear turned into curiosity, as while I looked for the ball, the rest of the group looked into the boxes for treasure (read: Playboys) We lost track of Joey, and next thing we knew we turned around to find him with old makeup all over his face in a crude design.

“Hey guys, check me out, I’m Axe from Demolition!” Demolition was a popular tag team in the WWE (then WWF at the time, for you uncultured kids out there.)

I laughed. “Joey, that’s easily the dumbest thing we’ve seen you do in a while, you don’t know where that makeup has been!”

I almost gave up search for the ball, until, in the corner of my eye, I noticed it peeking out from the corner of one of the boxes.

“Hey guys, I found the ball!”

“Sweet, now let’s get back out there and finish this game!” Dean said.

“Hey wait, what’s this book?” I said back to him, pulling out this really old book, leather bound, looked like the kind of book that would open up those old Disney movies, I opened up to a random page, and there was a painting in it of all of us, looking at the book, dressed exactly like we were at that moment.

“Uh, guys, you might want to look at this.”

“What is it dumbass? We need to finish this game before this storm hits!”

Dean and the rest came over to my location. I also was aware that the clouds got darker still, and lightning flashed across the sky.

“Guys, look, it’s us.” I said, in wonder.

“What does it say, Billy?” My brother said, he couldn’t quite read that well just yet.

“It says….What does it say, Billy? My brother said….”

“Holy shit! This is some Neverending Story shit yo!” Joey yelled.

“It says that too, right there…what is going on here?”

The words said, “And then the clouds gathered above us in a large funnel, and lightning struck all around us, then the portal opened up and took us…away.”

And then they did, and it did.

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