The Bottom Feeders and Other Stories by Aaron Polson Read Free Book Online

shells, like the beetles
had been molting…growing. Like the cicadas. A bunch of them. But no
live ones.”
    The crawling sound grew louder, just
underneath our voices, a scratching from the shadows. I looked at
Nancy again, “I think we better call the sheriff.” She nodded and
started punching numbers on her phone. Feet shuffled on the
pavement, a small gathering of nervous movement.
    Randy climbed from his truck, engine running
and lights still shining. Another set of headlights swerved down
Main Street from the south. “Sheriff Kress!” Randy shouted,
recognizing the police vehicle. Those lights clicked off, and Benny
stumbled out of the driver’s door. Illuminated by Randy’s lights, I
could see his face was ashen and dotted with dark spots. He held
one arm close to his side, a dark streak spreading down his hand.
In his injured arm he carried a shotgun.
    “ Get out, all of you! Load
up and get the hell outta here!” He took the bloody hand from his
arm and waved it wildly at the small crowd.
    “ Where’s the
Sheriff?”
    “ Dead…shit…he’s dead. They
were everywhere—those goddamn bugs—coming this way. Sheriff stood
there, point blank, and unloaded his twelve-gauge. They didn’t
flinch. Get the hell out.”
    There was a singular moment of silence, and
then the handful of citizens in front of Pine Peaks Café started in
separate directions, slowly at first. That sound, that scratching,
moving sound, grew louder, surrounding and swallowing us. Movement
hovered just outside the light, and at the edge of my vision I saw
small legs like black bamboo and probing antenna fingers.
    Benny hit the pavement with a wet smack. His
shotgun dropped to the ground, skidding toward my feet with the
force of the blow. A beetle, an abomination the size of a desk,
perched on his back, locked its awful pincers around Benny’s head,
and twisted with a quick, wet snap and spurting gout of blood. Then
the thing started on his body, scratching and snatching with its
nightmare jaws.
    Randy shoved me aside, and grabbed the
shotgun. At the edge of the headlight beam, I could make out the
black, moving legs of many more beetles. Randy took quick aim at
the beast on Benny’s body, and fired into its mass.
    “ The light…they’re
nocturnal! Stay in the light!” Lane yelled. It was too late. The
headlights yanked away, and I turned just in time to see a shadow
of Pete’s terrified face behind the windshield of Randy’s truck.
With a quick turn and jerk, he pulled a U-turn on Main Street,
heading north toward the old highway. The moon poked out from a
little cloud, and I saw the shining black carapaces of a half-dozen
beetles as they latched on to the vehicle. The street all around
swam with the shimmering shells of the devil beetles as they
swallowed the town, their little skittering feet chasing the soft
padding of shoes on pavement.
    Randy fired again, and I just caught a
glimpse of a black monster rise up in his muzzle flash. Darla
shouted, “Get inside!” Temporarily blinded by the shot, I stumbled
toward the café. I pushed past her as she held the door open, the
sounds of screams and frightened shouts at my heels. Glancing over
my shoulder, I saw nothing but black on the street. With the moon
gone, the beetles became invisible, just a scratching and snapping
mass of black.
    Choking on my burst heart and sucking in air
to cool my terror, I climbed over the counter and pushed into the
kitchen. The glass windows broke behind me with a thunderous crash.
Darla screamed. Needing a hiding place, any place, I felt for the
door of the large baking oven, the oven used last when Pine Peaks
baked its own bread. I threw it open, yanked out the baking rack,
and scrambled inside, pulling the door shut behind me. I hid in
that oven all night, cramped and crying in darkness and sweat,
listening to the muffled shouts of the townspeople—the screams that
echoed into my oven tomb, horrible shrieks that slipped through the
cracks in the