The Bottom Feeders and Other Stories (6 page)

“
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 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 Maggie
Bloch, complained. Beneath them, the road smelled engine exhaust,
purred with the sweet rumble of a straining engine, woke, and
called its children home.

“
What the hell were you
thinking, Jimbo?” Maggie asked. Her long fingernails carved deep
into the smooth faux velvet bench seat as the car groaned, its
wheels spinning in place.

Jimmy’s beefy paws clutched the steering
wheel, gripping so tight that his knuckles turned white. “Look, I
figured it hadn’t rained in a couple days, so it’d be okay.”

“
Well, a couple of dry days
don’t matter much when it rains for a week straight.” Jimmy ran a
handful of stubby fingers through his sawed-off brown hair. “Hell,
I thought the full moon would be nice.”

Maggie wasn’t ready to play nice. “Real
romantic,” she said, glancing out the window and catching a ghost
of her own, thin-faced reflection in the glass. “It isn’t even a
full moon.”

“
Like hell.” Jimmy released
his foot from the gas, and the car sighed with relief. He pushed
his face against the windshield and searched for the
moon.

“
No, it’s only about
three-quarters.”

“
Awww,” Jimmy moaned,
dropping his head to the steering wheel. “I wanted to, you know, do
something you might think was romantic.” His hands dropped to his
chin. “I really fucked up. If the Charger was ready, we wouldn’t be
stuck.”

Maggie’s face broke into a smile. “You think
your dad’s old clunker could get us out of this mud pit?”

Jimmy’s face sprouted with
red blotches. “First of all, it’s a ’69. A classic, not a clunker.
And
no
it
couldn’t get us out of the mud. Once I get that puppy humming, I’m
not taking it out in this stuff, anyway. If the road was dry, hell
yeah. I can’t wait to—”

“
What? Spin out on the flat
mile and end up in the ditch?” Maggie shook her head and brushed
her auburn hair away from her face, pulling back into a loose
ponytail. “Listen, sweetie. You get me out of this mud-hole, and
I’ll make sure we find a dark, quiet spot for some real romance.”
Her hand slid onto his lap, and stroked the inside of his
leg.

Jimmy slowly straightened in his seat. He
glanced at Maggie. “I love you, babe.”

“
I know.” She smiled, but
her face suddenly dropped into a stunted frown. “What the hell was
that?”

“
What was what?”

“
I saw something move
behind you.” She shivered. “Look, the sooner we get out of here,
the better.”

“
Don’t freak on
me.”

“
I’m not, I just …want to
get back to town, okay? Civilization?” She waved her fingers toward
the blue glow of Springdale. “I don’t like this road. The
stories—”

“—
are mostly silly legends
to scare kids; to keep people from driving too fast.”

“
Well, they’re working. I’m
scared.”

“
Right. I’ll get us out of
here, then.” Jimmy pushed his door open with a squeak of rusty
hinges.

“
Where are you going?”
Maggie’s voice eked out with a taint of panic.

Jimmy had slipped from the car, but
momentarily ducked back into the dim glow of the dashboard lights.
“Just going to find some wood or something I can wedge behind the
tires. You know – for traction.”

“
All right,” she said
slowly. “Just hurry, okay?”

“
Don’t worry about it. I’ll
be back in a jiffy.”

Maggie jabbed the automatic
locks as soon as Jimmy slammed his door. She huddled on her side of
the car, feeling a bit chilly in the April darkness.
If he would just hurry
,
she thought. She twirled a bit of hair on her finger.
This place is creepy, but the old full-moon trick
is kinda sweet. He’s a
—

Maggie’s thoughts were interrupted by a loud
bang on her door. Jimmy’s face hovered just outside her window.

“
Gotcha,” he muttered, loud
enough to be heard through the glass.

Maggie snapped the door open, smashing it
across his knees. “Damn it Jimbo, I nearly wet myself.” She stood
up next to the door, and looked into the darkness, past her
doubled-over boyfriend. “Jimmy …who's that?” she asked,
shivering.

Jimmy let a pathetic little groan slip out
of his mouth as he rubbed his knees. “Just some guys. They can help
push the car.”

Three figures shimmered in the moonlight.
They appeared to be teenage boys, somewhere between sixteen and
nineteen, but they all seemed strange. Their faces were pinched
together, too gaunt and pale, even in the moonlight. Maggie tried
to muster a friendly smile, and the boys’ lips cracked open in
response. They wore dirty clothing, streaked with dark stains.

Most likely
mud
, Maggie thought.
Gross
.

One stepped forward and stretched out a
withered hand. His fingertips were stained black. “I’m Dan. This
here’s Lonnie and Earl. We can help,” he said. Maggie couldn’t see
his lips move. A taint floated with his voice, like the sound of a
light wind cutting through a strand of old trees. The other two
stood behind him like chimps; the one introduced as Lonnie poked a
finger into his mouth and scratched at his gums, digging out
something black that shone in the moonlight.

A rancid odor oozed off the boys. It was wet
and fishy—the scent of a riverbank after a flood.

Maggie quickly slipped into the car and
slammed the door shut. Jimmy said something to the three, and
sloshed through the mud to the driver's side. He tried to shake the
thick muck from his shoes before shutting the driver’s door and
slipping the gear shifter into neutral, but it was no use.

“
Who
are
those guys?” Maggie whispered.
She caught herself with one hand against the dash as the car
lurched forward. The back of her neck burned like some dull razor
had plucked out the hairs one by one. “I haven’t seen them around
school.”

Jimmy shrugged, maintaining a solid grip on
the steering wheel. “Probably home-schooled or something.”

“
Home-schooled? Really?”
Maggie cast a curious glance at Jimmy’s profile. “They look a
little freaky to me.”

“
Yeah, well, some of those
home-schooled kids are religious fanatics, you know. Maybe these
guys are part of some wacky cult. They seem nice enough,
though.”

Maggie turned to look over
her shoulder. The yellow faces of the three strangers grinned in
the back window, showing bent and browning teeth. Their eyes were
cold and black, so she quickly snapped her eyes back to the front
of the car. “They make me feel
dirty
. The way they
leer
at me.”