The Crabapple Game is a story that I have in the EVIL LITTLE FUCKS anthology from Sinister Smile. The theme was evil children, and this idea immediately popped into my head. The Crabapple Game is based on something that I spent quite a bit of time doing as a child with my brothers.
We were raised in small town, USA, way out in the country and our home was between two giant fields, with a farm across from us and plenty of woods to explore. Our dad taught us how to whip rotten crab apples across the fields and ponds with thin branches. Why? I don’t know. To pass the time, to see what apple would go the furthest or highest? It was fun, I guess, until one day for me, it wasn’t.
One afternoon, I was in the lower part of our yard that ran parallel to the road and our neighbor's farm was directly across. We knew them and spent many afternoons playing in their fields and the woods above them, so it wasn’t a problem for me to whip rotten apples into the stream that ran along the lower section of their field, ACROSS the road from our yard. I was probably around ten years old at the time and was just bored, playing around outside by myself. So, I had my branch, my rotten apple and I got into position. Eyeing up the stream, shoving the apple on the sharp end of the branch and drew my arm back to launch it.
Two things happened at once. A small truck came barreling around the corner and my apple left the launch, as I was already in mid-swing. I froze in horror as the apple hit the windshield of the truck and when I say this man slammed his brakes on; he SLAMMED that pedal to the floor. He stopped, got out cussing, and I bolted up through our yard to the safety of the house and my mom, absolutely terrified. Of course, a minute later he was in our driveway, cussing up a storm.
I felt terrible, of course. I was smart enough to know what could have happened, and I apologized profusely, sobbing the whole time. Pretty sure I never whipped crab apples again, for any reason, but when this anthology theme was announced, I remembered this incident and I thought “What if?” So read with caution, know that I really did play this game, and that one day, it almost turned out badly. The girl in the story is much more sinister than I ever was.
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