The Bottom Feeders and Other Stories (2 page)

She took his hand, surprised that it was
warm. Both looked like they wore a good layer of frost.

“
They were just telling me
about the farm, Court.”

Olson stepped closer to Courtney, gently
turning her to face the road across from the house. “I was just
about to explain the legend of the hollow field,” he said, pointing
toward the empty space just beyond the road.

“
All I see is a bunch of
dirt,” Courtney said.

The two local men exchanged
a quick glance. They smiled. “Exactly the point,
miss
,” Weedeman said.
“But it’s
hungry
dirt.”

“
I don’t like those men,”
Courtney said as she undressed. “And I hate these damn pregnancy
clothes. This stupid elastic.” She snapped the navy band at the top
of her jeans.

Zach wrapped his arms around her from
behind, rubbing his fingertips over her bulging belly. “I think you
look cute, especially out of the jeans.” He pushed against her
buttocks.

“
All I feel is fat. Fat and
tired.”

Disappointed, Zach released her and grabbed
his guitar from the case on the floor. “A lullaby, then.” He began
at a moderate pace, finger-picking a gentle tune that soon faded
into a slow, quiet rhythm.

Courtney crawled into bed
and pulled the comforter around her neck. The house was silent save
for the slow vibration of guitar strings.
Dark too
. She wasn’t used to that
much darkness.
After tonight, he’ll be
ready to go
, she thought. She tried to
think more, but the trip had worn on her, the music rang too sweet,
and she slipped into sleep.

She was in the driver’s seat of Zach’s Civic
with her foot smashed against the accelerator. The needle on the
speedometer had already crested eighty-five, and now flickered at
the bottom of the gauge. Her eyes were stone. Her hands stone upon
the steering wheel. Her foot was stone too, crushing the gas
pedal.

I shouldn’t drive this
fast—the baby
. She glanced down at her
flat stomach.
The baby?

A flash, she lurched, found herself lying on
her back, facing the stars. Faces surrounded her, grey, leering
faces. They smiled, opened their mouths, and rats writhed out,
crawling down dark limbs, pouring toward her—

Courtney woke, sweating, under the pinching
discomfort of a Braxton-hicks contraction. “Shit,” she muttered.
Zach was gone. When the contraction subsided, she slipped from the
bed, bristling at the icy air in the farm house. The place reeked
of dirt and mud with years of farm work floating in the air.

She found Zach in front of the picture
window in the living room.

“
It’s so quiet out here,”
he said without facing her.

Courtney moved behind him, reached out to
touch him with one hand, but drew back at the last moment. “Come
back to bed.”

He nodded, a bobbing black silhouette
against the blue-black night sky. “In a minute.” He turned to her,
his eyes shimmering for a moment, catching the glint of star light.
“Why do you think they call it hollow?” His hand rose and pointed
to the field across the road.

Zach’s promised one night had become most of
a week. Complications with the will, he said. Trying to squeeze the
largest sum from the farmland, he said. Desire to know his
grandfather’s land before parsing it out, he said. After four
consecutive nights of Broughton’s Hollow Diner fare—the leftovers
being both breakfast and lunch the next day—Courtney had enough.
“I’m going to that little grocery, the one next to the only gas
station in this god-forsaken hole,” she told Zach as she left the
house.

He shrugged, eyes fixed across the road.

She took the Civic, leaving Zach on the
porch with his guitar resting across his lap. He hadn’t played in
three days. He hadn’t done much of anything for the last three days
except take long walks around the property. Courtney pushed the
accelerator into the floor, throwing a cloud of dust in her wake.
She eased off as the car began to fishtail. “Careful, careful. Let
it go Court,” she muttered to herself.

On the way into town, she
passed one of the four churches. It stood like a battered sentinel
on the edge of the village. Paint hung in limp strips and the roof
over the front stoop sagged slightly. The marquee was empty save
for a dangling lower case t and the permanent St. Joseph’s Church
inscribed at the top. Courtney smiled as she drove past.
Even the churches look dead around
here.

The Hollow’s only grocery store was attached
to the town’s only working gas station. Another two empty husks
stood idle at opposite ends of the town, their abandoned pumps
standing at attention like rusty soldiers from a forgotten war.
Courtney circled the village twice before mustering the courage to
pull into the parking lot at Earl’s Thriftway. Two older men sat on
a bench outside the sliding glass door, both with eyes locked on
Courtney as she climbed out of the car.

“
Afternoon, miss.” One
fellow touched the brim of his green John Deere cap.

“
Lovely weather,” the other
said.

Courtney glanced skyward without thinking.
Grey, nondescript clouds blotted out the sky. “Yes,” she said.
“Lovely.”

Inside the store, crackling
speakers spread easy listening through the aisles. The shelves
rested in the same color-sapping haze as the rest of the town; they
were well-stocked, but devoid of color, like the cornflake boxes
and cans of green beans had faded in the sun.
If there was any sun in this godforsaken
town
, Courtney thought. She pulled a cart
from a cluster by the door. It rattled free, wobbling on one gimpy
wheel.

The clerk, a scrawny woman poking out of a
blue Thriftway smock, smiled. “Don’t bother, miss. They’re all a
little broken.” The skin covering her skeletal arms was of the same
ashen color as everyone else in town.

“
Oh. Yeah, thanks.”
Courtney leaned into the cart, forcing the wonky wheels into a
straightish line. The store was small, four aisles of the basics
with a tiny meat counter and four freezer cabinets. She filled the
cart with only the basics, cereal, bread, some bologna. Hoping for
fresh vegetables and fruit, she picked only a handful of bruised
red delicious apples and a browning head of iceberg lettuce from
the meager selection.

“
Most folks just drive into
Springdale,” the clerk said when Courtney began unloading her cart.
“We sell a lot of milk, last minute stuff like that.” Even her eyes
were grey. She started punching keys on the register, ringing up
each item by hand.

Courtney tried to say something, but her
words stuck in her throat. She wanted the food and she wanted out.
She wanted out of the town, away from the permanent haze and the
grizzled old men out front. She wanted to forget the town existed.
Whatever Zach thought would happen, needed to happen, and soon.

“
Have you thought about the
hollow field?”

“
What?” Courtney bristled,
caught off guard by the question.

“
That’ll be $23.52,
miss.”

“
Oh, yes.” Courtney fished
out the bills, handed them over, and took the change. The cashier’s
hand brushed hers, the waxen, translucent skin warm—just like the
men at the house.

“
You need some
help?”

“
No—I’m fine. I can manage,
thanks.”

After dropping the bags in the trunk, she
drove away from the store, slowing as she approached the church.
The marquee facing town was blank—not even one dangling letter.
“Now that’s really odd,” she muttered.

She had tired of reading and watching TV,
and nothing more interesting waited at the farmhouse, so she guided
the Honda next to the curb outside the church. The sidewalk cried
for help, too, cracked in places with weeds crawling from the dirt
beneath. She only took a few tentative steps inside the front
door—unlocked of course, as most places surely were in the Hollow.
Stairs to her right led down with a second flight to her right
going up. The sanctuary looked like the aftermath of a riot: pews
scattered, some bits of trash strewn on the floor, and an
overturned altar.

She felt a chill, a little thing kissing the
back of her neck, and hurried back to the car.

Zach leaned into the table with hands
outstretched as if pouring his will into Courtney. For her part,
she sat with legs and arms crossed—a physical sign of her
psychological reluctance.

“
Listen, Court. It’s
perfect. The house is mine. The basement is huge, and I can easily
fit it for a studio with some of the cash we make in the land deal.
This is my break.”

“
What about the apartment,
Zach?” She unfolded her arms and seized the sides of her belly with
both hands. “What about the baby? Our baby?”

“
He’ll be born in
Springdale, at the hospital.”

And grow up in this
shit-hole?
She shook her head, slowly at
first as though still weighing her opinion. “I don’t know. I’m not
ready for this. A week and a half ago—”

“
I hadn’t thought it
through then. I have now. I want to make music, Court. I feel a
connection to this place.” He patted the table, calling for her
hand. “I want you to be here with me.”

Courtney picked at her fingernails. “I don’t
know. This town is kind of freaky. Look, Zach…I stopped by one of
those churches today, after the groceries. I just had a weird
feeling.”

“
Lay off the bible-belt
references.”

“
No, that’s just it.” She
straightened in her chair. “The place was mostly empty. Pews
knocked over. A real mess. Isn’t that weird?”

Zach shrugged and left the table for a glass
of water.

Courtney took the hint. “What about
musicians? Where’s your audience out here…the ladies quilting
club?”

Zach took a long drink and returned to the
table. “Kansas City is only a few hours drive. I can stay with
Jerry or Rick on the weekends.”

She dissected him with her eyes, really
studied his face. Even under the bright fluorescent light of the
farm house kitchen, he looked pale. A little colorless, like them.
Glancing at her own hand to be sure, Courtney stood, moved away
from the table, and put physical space between her and Zach. “I’m
going, Zach. With or without you. I’ll give you until the
weekend—if you want to have a future with me, our baby.”

His head dropped. “Don’t do this Court.”

She roused again that night—the house too
silent, waiting for something. Zach had been sleeping in a
different room the last two nights—too crowded in the double bed,
he had said, but she was still startled at finding herself alone. A
small silver wash of light crept into the bedroom from the hallway.
Courtney followed it, allowed the glow to lead her from the bedroom
into the hallway and living room beyond. He was there again,
standing sentinel at the big picture window. The near full moon
backlit Zach; he was but a blank, black form. He’d changed—grown
distant, like something seeped into his blood since they’d arrived
at the house.

“
Zach? Come to bed, babe.”
Courtney approached, reached out with her fingers and touched his
arm. Cold. “Zach?”

He turned, spilling his gaze over one
shoulder. “That field, Court. The hollow field. Look, it’s
swelling.”

She slid next to him, wrapping her hand
around his naked forearm. From the picture window, they had a fine
view of the field—a darkling plain of black under the white
fragmented moon. In the center of their frame, about fifty yards up
from the road, the field did swell, a mild slope maybe, but
definitely a lump in the earth that wasn’t there a week ago.
Courtney brought her free hand to her stomach and caressed her own
swelling.

“
You should get some
sleep.”

Zach’s head bobbed absently.

Courtney crossed the room in front of him,
but stopped at the hallway. He had only budged a few feet from
where he previously stood. “Zach?” When he turned, Courtney
flinched at the silver-grey wash of his skin. Just the moon, she
thought.

“
It’s beautiful, really,
out here. I went to the field, touched some of that dirt this
afternoon. I don’t ever want to leave.”

“
Today, Mom. I told him I
would leave today, after he meets with the realtor. Either he comes
with me, or…” Courtney switched the cell phone to her other ear so
she could work the fuel pump. “Sorry, I’m filling the car…no Mom,
the gas fumes aren’t going to hurt the baby…love you, too. I’ll
call when I—
we
get home.”

She shook the pump before pulling it from
the car, a trick she’d learned from Zach to keep drips from the
paint. She screwed the cap in place, snapped the fuel door shut,
and gave a slight squeal as she looked up. A man, youngish with a
smudged, two-day stubble, stood over her.

“
Sorry. I could’ve helped
you with that.” He pointed at a sign above the pumps that read
“Full Service Only”.

“
Oh, no problem, really.”
She fished into her purse and produced a few bills for the
attendant’s waiting hand.

“
Thanks.” The man lumbered
into the building.

She paced the parking lot
while waiting for her change, wincing a little with the effort—her
belly had begun to tighten on occasion; the baby would come soon.
The sky had cleared, and an icy blue-white now rested above the
town. Courtney pulled her jacket collar close about her throat. She
felt the weight of the small town, all the eyes, pressing against
her. Across the street, a playground sat empty, brightly painted
swings and slides next to a brick building the color of dried
blood.
A school?