The Outsider

Stanhope: Oh, yes.
Detective Anderson: Thank you, Mrs. Stanhope.
Stanhope: Who could believe Terry would do such a
thing? Do you suppose there have been others?
Detective Anderson: We may find that out in the
course of our investigation.

5

Since all City League tournament games were played at Estelle Barga Field-the best baseball field in the county, and the only one with lights for night games-home team advantage was decided by a coin toss. Terry Maitland called tails before the game, as he always did-it was a superstition handed down from his own City League coach, back in the day-and tails it was. "I don't care where we're playing, I just like to get my lasties," he always told his boys.


And tonight he needed them. It was the bottom of the ninth, the Bears were up in this league semifinal by a single run. The Golden Dragons were down to their last out, but they had the bases loaded. A walk, a wild pitch, an error, or an infield single would tie it, a ball hit into the gap would win it. The crowd was clapping, stamping the metal bleachers, and cheering as little Trevor Michaels stepped into the lefthand batter's box. His batting helmet was the smallest one they had, but it still shaded his eyes and he had to keep pushing it up. He twitched his bat nervously back and forth.

Terry had considered pinch-hitting for the boy, but at just an inch over five feet, he drew a lot of walks. And while he was no home run hitter, he was sometimes able to put the bat on the ball. Not often, but sometimes. If Terry lifted him for a pinch hitter, the poor kid would have to live with the humiliation through the whole next year of middle school. If, on the other hand, he managed a single, he would recall it over beers and backyard barbecues for the rest of his life. Terry knew. He'd been there himself, once upon a time, in the antique era before the game was played with aluminum bats.

The Bears pitcher-their closer, a real fireballer-wound up and

Stephen King is the author of more than sixty books, all of them worldwide bestsellers. His recent work includes the short story collection You Like It Darker, Holly, Fairy Tale, Billy Summers, If It Bleeds, The Institute, Elevation, The Outsider, Sleeping Beauties (cowritten with his son Owen King), and the Bill Hodges trilogy: End of Watch, Finders Keepers, and Mr. Mercedes (an Edgar Award winner for Best Novel and a television series streaming on Peacock). His novel 11/22/63 was named a top ten book of 2011 by The New York Times Book Review and won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Mystery/Thriller. His epic works The Dark Tower, It, Pet Sematary, Doctor Sleep, and Firestarter are the basis for major motion pictures, with It now the highest-grossing horror film of all time. He is the recipient of the 2020 Audio Publishers Association Lifetime Achievement Award, the 2018 PEN America Literary Service Award, the 2014 National Medal of Arts, and the 2003 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. He lives in Bangor, Maine, with his wife, novelist Tabitha King.

Praise for The Outsider:

"A juicy tale that plays at the forefront of our current phobias... [The Outsider] will remind readers of King's early novel It."

- Kirkus Reviews