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

heavy iron door. The screams faded to moans, and soon
I was lost to nothing but the constant scuttling and scrabbling of
antennae and legs as the unreal beetles swarmed through the
wreckage of the café.

    In the morning, after the world fell silent,
I climbed out of that oven covered in soot and grease. Little bits
of glass and broken furniture crunched as I crawled toward the
smashed front of the café. Outside, the forest listened. Surely
those awful beetles waited in the darkness under the pine boughs,
waited for the night when they would move on.
    I found no bodies on Main Street—nothing but
broken glass and small bunches of debris washed into little piles
by overnight rain. I walked through the dead streets, meandering
toward my house, my car. Lumpy, his hair matted and wet, crawled
from under a parked truck, sniffing my hand and wagging his tail
weakly. That plague of awful, black horrors seemed to have devoured
the rest of Monument. When I reached my house, I would call, warn
anyone who would listen about the plague, and then load Lumpy in my
car and escape that valley while the sun offered protection.

    5: Care and Feeding of the Old Flat Mile

    I
    Some places were just born evil, and the Old
Flat Mile slid easily into that description. Constructed shortly
after the Second World War, that stretch of road was originally
intended for glory. Architects and businessmen pointed to what they
dubbed the “Golden Mile” as the linchpin in Springdale’s future
rise to prominence. The luxuriant homes built there were sure to
draw investors with the deepest of pockets. That was the plan until
little Calvin Unruh was crushed under the tracks of a bulldozer
while chasing his brother’s errant throw.
    Construction halted immediately, investors
clambered for their money, and the proposed housing development
disappeared like a summer mirage. The county took over the road,
dubbed it North 1800, and left it unpaved. The locals christened
North 1800 “Flat Mile,” surely with no pun aimed at poor Calvin’s
unfortunate accident.
    Meanwhile, Calvin’s older brother, Daniel,
lived with the knowledge that he threw the football his brother
chased that day. He spent many years as a haunted, pale boy with
black eyes. And as Daniel grew up, the road waited.
    In time, Daniel’s guilt faded. Especially
after he eased into his teen years and developed a penchant for
tinkering with engines and blondes. Some said he tried to forget
his brother with those fast cars and girls, and maybe they were
right.
    Daniel loved to drag race, and the level
stretch of the Flat Mile was the perfect spot to flex his
automotive muscle. There were other times, quieter evenings with
full moons, during which he would ease his ’57 Chevy down that road
to put his girlfriend in the mood.
    On one of those nights built for romance, he
steered onto the Flat Mile only to find his buddy, Jeb Harwood,
waiting in his own hot rod, itching for a race. Something in the
rumble of those two cars must’ve woken the road; it had tasted
blood once, and its hunger must’ve grown.
    Daniel ended up losing control on a patch of
loose gravel, and the race concluded with his’57 wrenched around a
tree. His girlfriend survived, eventually moving to Kansas City,
marrying, and raising three children. Daniel, however, never really
left the Flat Mile.
    Unfortunately, Daniel wasn’t the last to
smear his young blood in the dirt and sand. Teenage boys, full of
hot blood, loved to prove their mettle with fast, reckless driving.
After a few more fatalities, city officials blocked off the Flat
Mile, and the road was left in loneliness and disrepair.
    Over the next forty years, stories faded,
signs were taken down, and the road slept. Eventually, a new
generation of Springdale teens found a use for North 1800.

    II
    Oblivious to history, Jimmy Campbell, tried
to navigate his father’s Chrysler through the thick April mud of
the Old Flat Mile while his girlfriend, homecoming runner-up