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

needed your stuff for
work.”
    The burning started in his toes this time,
slashing through every nerve in his body. He stepped closer to the
table, Gina stood, and the jar seemed to grow. “I—I’m fine.” One
finger touched the glass, and six eyes spun to meet his gaze. He
remembered the whispers. Those eyes had told him what to do the
night of the wreck, they told him what to do that day in the
morgue, but they were quiet now.
    “ I found this, too.” She
held out his pocketknife. “I—I think I know why you did it.” She
moved behind Calvin and gently pushed him into a chair. He didn’t
resist. “She had such beautiful eyes—such blue eyes.
Electric. Intoxicating .”
    “ Gina …”
    Her fingers brushed across
his cropped hair. “When I found the jar…it was like they were
talking to me ,
Calvin. Whispering, telling me what to do.”

    Calvin’s car was gone when the police
arrived. They entered through the open door and found his body
slumped against a wall in the kitchen. A dark stain swallowed the
front of his shirt, a thick run of blood from his throat. Both eyes
were gone, gouged out, leaving two rough wounds in his face. His
old pocketknife sat on the table, alone, smeared and sticky with
blood. The jar, the eyes, and Gina were nowhere to be found.

    7: Grim Adaptations

    On a late Sunday afternoon, Scab Hullinger
caught an abomination in the Republican River about forty yards
downstream from the old wrought-iron bridge south of Springdale.
Glistening wet, heaving, and gray as a dislodged lung, the thing
flopped and writhed in a cooler filled with murky river water.
Three boys on the fringe of manhood, one thin like a twist of wire,
one wide and solid like a bulldog, and Scab somewhere
between—slender but athletic—stood on the muddy bank, staring at
the thing.
    “ Damn Scab, that’s big.
Nibbled like crazy on my fingers.”
    “ Did it get any of them?”
Joel asked with a chuckle while rubbing his grubby hands across the
front of his jeans.
    “ Naw. Just sandpaper gums
like most bottom feeders.” Allen, a skittish rail of a boy with
brown-black eyes bulging from his thin face, squatted next to the
cooler. “I’ve never seen a channel cat that color.”
    “ Can’t be a channel cat,”
Joel said.
    “ Like hell.” Allen spat in
the mud. “Has to be. It’s got the flat head, whiskers and pretty
grim looking spines on the sides.”
    “ Sure does. Cut myself on
one of them.” Scab held the meaty part of his left palm, squeezing
just hard enough to produce a thin stream of blood from a jagged
gash.
    Joel kicked the cooler with one muddy boot.
The fish flopped slightly in the cramped enclosure, showing a wide,
flat eye of green-gray. “You ever seen a channel with eyes like
that?”
    The three were silent for a moment.
    “ I’m gonna call Barry. He’s
home this weekend.” Scab said, fumbling in his jeans for a cell
phone.
    Joel scratched his black hair. “Your
brother?”
    “ Yeah, he’s studying fish
and wildlife at college, right?”

    Allen paced behind his garage while Joel
cleaned the rest of the afternoon’s catch.
    “ You could help out, you
pansy.” Joel wiped the filet knife on a rag. “It’s your house, your
freezer, your fish.”
    “ You’re doing fine all by
yourself.” Allen flipped open his cell phone. “Where the hell are
they, anyway?”
    “ Hell if I know.” Joel
rubbed his hands under the backyard spigot. He was shaking them off
when Scab’s car pulled into the alley.
    “ Hey Scab,” Joel called.
“Hey Barry.”
    Barry Hullinger smiled as they climbed out
of Scab’s Honda. Scab managed a cursory grin while cradling his
wounded hand.
    Gavin Hullinger earned the unfortunate
nickname “Scab” in middle school when Cori Hamilton, still the
prettiest girl in Springdale, caught him chewing on a bit of loose
skin from his elbow in seventh grade PE. He grew out of his
awkward, boney frame in the five years since and became starting
linebacker for the