“As the two newest members of the baseball team, you have to do it. It’s tradition.”
That was Joey, the team’s star third baseman and captain. He wasn’t wrong – walking to the Black Angel at midnight was a team tradition for all new players – but it didn’t make it any more palatable. But if I wanted to ingrain myself with my new teammates, I knew I’d have to do it. At least I wouldn’t be going alone. Tommy, our new left fielder, had moved here from Texas and instantly got the starting role. Dude was a stud and had no fear in between the chalk. Calm and steady as a surgeon. On the field, nothing got to him. But outside these gates, he shrunk.
“How far is this thing?” he asked. “I don’t want to be here all night.”
“It’s not too bad of a walk,” Joey said, “Maybe ten minutes or so. You can’t miss the Black Angel. She’s six feet tall and in the middle of the cemetery.”
“We just walk to her and stand there for a bit?” he asked.
Joey handed us each a baseball card. “When you get to the base of the statute, place your card there. That way, we’ll know if you actually went and didn’t chicken out halfway.”
“I’m not going to chicken out,” I said.
“Everyone says that, but there are some spooky things in there,” Joey said.
“No devil shit, right? I can’t stand devil shit,” Tommy asked.
“I don’t know,” Joey said, “but there is some weird shit that can happen. Last year, Paul said he saw the angel blink.”
“I did,” Paul said. “I still see that shit in my dreams.”
I laughed because I thought he was joking. No one else did. I stopped laughing.
“Just to let you know, if I see a statue blink, I am out. I’m not sticking around to place a baseball card on the base or whatever. You wanna think I’m a bitch, fine by me. I’m here for one year,” Tommy said. He meant it.
His arrival had upset the balance of the team. Joey had been the big man on campus since his freshman season. People had him tagged for a D1 program or potentially MLB draft. He’s more or less lived up to the early hype, but like the Black Angel’s brass, his shine had diminished. There might still be a D1 program in his future, but JuCo seemed a more likely route. His MLB prospects had narrowed, too.
Tommy, however, was a different animal. He was nationally known as a freshman and had only improved with each passing year. He was a legitimate MLB prospect, and scouts had started showing up at our games. He would be drafted and probably pretty high. He wasn’t going to jeopardize that for some stupid high school tradition.
“No need to get your panties in a bunch, dude. You’ll be fine. You’re lucky. You get to go with another person, even if it’s Chuck.”
Everyone laughed this time. While I had proved myself on the field, I was still just a freshman. I didn’t have the same cache as the other guys yet. The youngest member becomes the whipping boy for the season. Like Tommy, I had one season to gut through. Next year, I’d be the one shitting on the new guys. The circle of life continues.
“I did this by myself,” Joey said, “and the upper-class men made me stay out there for a half hour.”
“What did you see out there?”
“I don’t want to spoil the surprise, Chuck.”
“He didn’t see shit, dude,” Tommy said. “He’s just trying to scare us.”
“Hey, believe me, or don’t. You’re call. You’ll see soon enough.” Joey said with a smirk. “Now, as it’s nearly midnight, I think you boys should get going.”
Tommy took the baseball card from Joey and looked at me. “You ready?”
“Yeah,” I said, taking the card. “Let’s get it over with.”
We turned and headed through the gates into the darkness of the waiting cemetery. Joey must’ve said something funny about us because as soon as we were out of earshot, the entire team started laughing.
“Don’t worry about them,” Tommy said. “They’re jealous.”
“Of what?”
“Us. Most of those guys don’t have a future in the game, so they have to flex now when they have a little bit of status. But dudes like us are destined for better things. This town is only a stop on our journey, not the destination.”
“You think I’m good?” I said, a bit stunned.
“Bro, you’re a starter as a freshman on a decent team. How do you not know you’re good?”
I’m not going to lie to you; that made me feel better than I ever had before. Before this conversation, I hadn’t really spoken to Tommy too much. He was an intimidating figure. But to hear him praise my play broke down a barrier in my mind.
“Thanks, man. Are you excited for this year?”
“Yeah. My trainer told me if I can cut down on strikeouts, it’ll raise my draft value.”
“There a place you want to go?”
“I grew up an Astros fan, so Houston would be cool, but, honestly, I don’t care. I just want to make money playing ball, ya know?”
“Yeah, that’s the dream.”
We walked in silence down the gravel path. It crunched under our feet as we walked through the headstones. I couldn’t make out any of the names because of the dark. Unlike newer cemeteries, there were no lightposts along the trails. We could still see the front gate lights from where we were, but each step towards the Black Angell meant the light dimmed that much more.
“What is this shit all about anyway?” Tommy asked. “What is the Black Angel?”
“It’s a statue for Gail Ford.”
“I don’t know who Gail Ford is, dude.”
“Oh, uh, she was the wife of a big oil baron from the 1800s. He founded the town. She was…an odd person.”
“Like, ‘collects jars of piss’ odd or dangerous odd.”
“Both, I think,” I said. “She believed in all kinds of spiritualist shit and contacting ghosts and openly talked about the world ending. Like, she assumed it would happen in her lifetime.”
“Whoops,” Tommy said.
I laughed. “The town had a love/hate relationship with her. They tolerated her because of how powerful her husband was but kept her at arm’s length,” I said. “After he died, she had a dream that the town was destined for destruction, and the only thing that could save us would be an avenging angel.”
“Weird.”
“Yeah, she was kinda nuts. When she woke up, she sketched out the angel and hired a guy to make a statue for the town. She wanted it placed in the town square.”
“So why is it in the graveyard?”
“The town officials didn’t like it. People thought it was bizzare.”
“Why?”
“It’s… it’s weird-looking. Kinda evil, which is the opposite of what you want in an angel.”
“No shit.”
“Like, when you think of an angel, you think it’s going to be smiling and sweet and stuff. But her angel is angry. It looks mean. Plus, after a few years, the brass turned black from the weather. That didn’t help with everyone who thought it might be evil.”
“So they just made it her tombstone?”
“Basically, yeah. They didn’t want to destroy it, but they didn’t want to display it either.”
“From the sounds of it, I don’t blame them.”
“Not long after she died, people started saying they saw the angel flying above the town at midnight, saw its eyes glowing red, stuff like that. Urban legends.”
“No thanks. Back in Texas, we had a local legend about some old woman who appeared on the side of the road and asked about her dead children. Creepy AF.”
“I’d just keep driving.”
“Hell yeah, man. Fuck stopping for any of that. Not gonna die because of some ghost shit.”
At this point in the journey, we were in complete darkness. Your eyes adjust as best they can, but it’s impossible to see anything more than a few feet in front of you. We knew to just stick to the gravel path, and it would eventually lead us to the Black Angel.
“What card did you get?” Tommy asked.
“Tatis. You?”
“Castellanos.”
“At least we both got good cards,” Tommy said.
I stopped walking, and Tommy looked back at me, confused, before stopping himself. I scanned out to my left, but I didn’t see anything. I cocked my ear and thought I heard raspy breathing in the distance.
Tommy tapped my arm, “What’s up?”
“I thought I heard something out there.”
“You fucking with me, bro?”
“No,” I said, nervous, “I thought I heard footsteps out there.”
“That it?”
I paused, “Maybe something breathing.”
“Man, remind me to never come back to this freaky place again, huh?”
“That makes two of us,” I said.
Off in the distance, we watched as two red dots started glowing. We froze, unsure of what to do. Again, the unmistakable crunch of gravel underfoot rang out in the still night. As it did, the two glowing red dots lurched forward. A second later, they winked out.
“Are there fireflies in this part of the country?”
“Yeah,” I said. “But I don’t think….”
“Yes,” Tommy said, refusing to believe what his eyes just saw, “yes, those were fireflies.”
I didn’t respond. When nothing more appeared, I allowed myself to breathe. Maybe it had been fireflies, and I was connecting dots in my brain because of the fear. That made more sense than an angel statue coming to life and stalking us.
When we were sure nothing more was happening, we started off again only with our hackles up. Nothing was going to catch us off guard. We walked about ten feet when we heard the dragging footsteps off to our left again.
“It’s just those assholes pranking us,” Tommy said.
“Yeah,” I agreed.
The shuffling in the darkness continued, and we tried to ignore it. It was becoming more difficult, especially as the shuffling seemed to be picking up speed. It was as if they were trying to get in front of us and cut us off.
I was about to say something when we both heard the sound of flapping off to our right. We froze, expecting to see a red-eyed avenging angel come flying down on us, but started laughing when we saw what had caused the commotion. A barn owl landed about ten feet in front of us with a dead rat clutched in its talons.
“Gross,” I said.
“I think its eyes were popped out.”
The owl, seemingly upset we were talking about it, flew off. As it did, our attention shifted to two burning red dots about fifteen feet in front of us. I yelped and turned to run but heard footsteps cross our gravel path behind us. I snapped my head around but didn’t see anything there. When I looked back toward the eyes, they were gone again.
“Those weren’t fireflies,” Tommy said.
Off to our right, an ear-piercing scream emerged from the inky darkness like an oncoming train. On our left, the dragging footsteps returned. We were surrounded. I looked at Tommy, who was trying to keep his cool but losing more of his nerve with every second.
“The fuck, dude! You stepped on my shit!” That came from our right. It was Dave, the second baseman. The illusion was broken. No monster speaks like that.
“Why are you talking, you asshole?” shot Paul from the left side of us. It was clear now that the team had been following us and scaring us the entire time we were walking. I felt the weight pressing down on me instantly deflate. Tommy’s fear dripped away only to be replaced by anger.
From both sides, the rest of the team came out of the darkness and surrounded us. They were laughing and saying things like “Chuck nearly shit himself” and “You guys were terrified.” Feeling embarrassed I ever thought the Black Angel thing was serious, I didn’t say anything. Tommy, though, he wasn’t having it.
“The fuck was that all about?” he said, looking directly at Paul. “Think this is funny?”
“Hey man, relax. I don’t know how you do it in Texas, but around here, we play jokes on each other. We’re team building, man.”
“The way you guys treat Chuck, I’m sure he feels like one of the guys here,” Tommy said, nodding at me. I agreed, but at that point, I had hoped to melt into the background.
“What are you two, gay for each other?” Paul said with a sneer. He hoped the rest of the team would come with him, but they didn’t. The power was shifting.
“What if we had run and tripped on something? Broke our ankle? Our knee? I’m looking to getting drafted this year. I know that’s not in your future, but I would appreciate it if you tried to not fuck up mine.”
“Fuck you,” Paul said.
“You wanna do something about it?” Tommy said, puffing up his chest. He had about three inches and twenty pounds on Paul, but that didn’t matter. Paul had a tenacity that was admirable on the field but a liability off. Tommy would absolutely wreck Paul in a fight, and it wouldn’t be close.
“Who had the red lights?” I asked, trying to break the tension.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Paul spat.
“Who was using the red lights. We both saw them. How did you do that?”
“Nobody had red lights,” Paul said.
“Don’t lie,” Tommy said, “We saw them a bunch of times.”
“I’m not lying, am I guys?” Paul asked the assembled team. Everyone agreed with Paul this time. Nobody had brought red lights. Nobody had shined them at us.
I walked through the crowd of guys, who parted like I was Moses and walked about ten feet from where I had been standing. It was where we had seen the owl and the rat and the red eyes. “Somebody have a flashlight?” I asked.
One appeared and I pointed it at the trail. There was a set of footprints. Unlike all of us, there was no design on the bottom of these shoes. No waffles. No zigzags. No company names. They didn’t look like boots or Nikes or anything. They weren’t even bare footprints. They were smooth like the metal mold of a foot.
Tommy walked over and glanced down at the prints. He was as confused as I was. “What made these?”
We heard the woosh of large wings flapping above us. We all turned and craned our heads up to the dark sky. We couldn’t see a damn thing, but we knew something was up there. I pointed my flashlight in the direction of the noise. The light caught the outline of an all-black figure hovering in the sky.
My hands started to tremble as I slowly moved the light up this thing’s fluttering body. It was hard to keep the beam straight on, and right before I could get a good look at the thing’s face, the camera bulb exploded. I dropped the Maglite, and the creature’s red eyes turned to us.
It locked eyes with me, and I couldn’t look away. An otherworldly yellow light shone through deep stress cracks around the creature’s neck. As this eerie glow emerged, it provided enough light to shine on the creature’s dower and craggy face. I knew right away what I was staring at.
It was the Black Angel.
Everyone on the team took that as a cue to run away, even Tommy. I’ve been alone in the past. When I was six, I got turned around at the mall and lost my parents. The minute I realized I was lost, my brain flooded my body with panic. My heart’s beating had flipped from turtle to rabbit, and I could hear my blood in my ears. My palms flooded with sweat like some avenging deluge from the Old Testament. I wanted to scream, but my voice silenced as it came up my throat.
I melted down. At that moment, I saw my short life taking a Dickensian turn. Lost in the world and thrown away like trash. Looking back, it wasn’t as bad as all that, but in that moment, I felt like life as I knew it was over. I was lost and alone forever.
Staring at the Black Angel was ten times worse than that.
The grid in my mind blew – all power to do anything was gone in a flash. My essential motor functions were working off some sort of animal-level generator stored deep in the folds of my brain. Even that was sputtering as my breath became shallow and quickened.
With her burning hot eyes searing holes into my psyche, an unfamiliar disembodied voice echoed in my mind. “I have so many things to show you, child. So. Many. Things.”
Images sprang forth into my brain. Horrific things. I saw it raining fire. I saw women and children covered in ash and blood. I saw great cracks in the earth and swarms of shadowy figures bursting out like water from a broken hydrant. I could hear the screams and wailing of people being tortured and flayed alive. The acrid tang of sulfur filled my nostrils, followed by gas and propellant and burning bodies and death. I saw mangled bodies – some in pieces, others torn limb from limb.
“Look at the world Gail saw. Look at the world she promised me.”
I couldn’t close my eyes – they were being held open by some unseen force. Tears began to stream down my face from not blinking. The Black Angel turned to me and flew closer. I could feel the beat of its massive metal wings but couldn’t move. From the middle of her hellish red eyes, strands of jellied stark white goo started to leak out. But these globular tears didn’t fall. They elongated and inched towards my own eyes. The tips of the approaching slime took on a life of their own. They thrashed back and forth, looking to attach to anything in it’s path.
“You are the vessel for this prophecy. You have been chosen to birth this nightmare into existence.”
The slime was coming closer, but my body remained rigid. I couldn’t move a muscle. I could see the tips of the ooze now, and they were lined with razor-sharp teeth that gnashed in the air. Around the approaching slime, I could still see and experience the horrific visions that awaited me in the future. This hellscape that Gail Ford not only planned for but encouraged.
“Your struggles will soon be over, child.” Then laughter. Horrid cackling that boomed around me like a drumline.
That’s when I heard the sweetest sound I know crashing through the noise. It was the cracking of air around a hard-thrown ball. It clanged against the head of the Black Angel and knocked her to the side, breaking the trance. The jellied goo snapped back into her eyes.
I saw Tommy standing there. He launched another rock at the statue that clanged against the brass and sounded like a demented bell. He picked up another rock but looked at me. “Motherfucker, are you going to run or what?”
He chucked the last rock, and it hit one of the red eyes of the Black Angel. It let out an ear-splitting scream. That got me going. Tommy and I ran like we were legging out a triple. When we got to the gate, I finally looked back and saw the creature ascending into the sky. The higher they climbed, the more the brittle, black metal tore away, exposing the intense yellow light. As it reached its zenith, the Black Angel transformed into a blazing yellow beacon, lighting up the surrounding area.
Tommy fired up his car and called to me to get in. I stared up at the Black Angel and heard a cackling so loud I was afraid it would shatter Tommy’s windshield, but when I glanced back at him, he didn’t react to the laughing.
“Do you hear that?” I yelled.
“Get in the fucking car!”
I looked back at the Black Angel – now nothing more than a bright, burning mini sun - and felt a wild wind starting to whip all around us. Soon, the tops of the trees were being whipped back and forth like they were caught in a twister. Lightning began to crack all around her glowing body. Through the blinding light, I saw a pair of red eyes watching me.
I ran into Tommy’s car, and we tore ass down the street. We got as far away from the cemetery as possible. I glanced back and saw the wind tunnel growing in intensity. “Floor it, man.” He did.
An hour later, things calmed down. The team reconvened and discussed what had happened. A lot of crazy shit was said at that meeting, but we ended up agreeing on two things: 1) end the tradition of going to see the Black Angel, and 2) not telling anyone what we saw. The entire town would think we were either pulling an elaborate prank or insane. Neither option would do any of us well in the long run.
The following day, there was a local news story about a tornado touching down in the old graveyard, causing some damage. They reported that Gail Ford’s guardian angel statue had gone missing and was assumed to have been destroyed in the storm. I kept my mouth shut.
About three days have passed, and things are okay. Not surprisingly, I’ve had some trouble sleeping, but I’m hanging in there. None of the horrid visions I saw have come to pass. Baseball practice starts this week, and everyone is thankful for the distraction. Tommy and I have hung out every day since, cementing the idea that trauma bonds people.
Something happened last night after practice that has me worried, though. I stayed after to do some hitting in the cages. After I was done, I walked past the empty field, and something caught my eye. It was a pair of smooth footprints in the dirt along the first baseline. I had been so focused on hitting that I hadn’t noticed anything on the field watching me, but something clearly had done so. I hope it was Paul pulling the worst prank in human history, but I know deep down it’s not.
This thing wants something from me. I don’t know why, but it does. I’m afraid it won’t stop until it gets it. Until then, I carry my bat with me everywhere I go.