The Bottom Feeders and Other Stories by Aaron Polson Page A

spewing curses at the boys, catching Ralph by the collar
before he could scramble to his feet and run.
    “ Mr. Roberds?”
    The voice yanked Albert from his memory.
“Yeah—yeah, what is it?”
    The foreman stepped forward, handing him a
phone. “Your wife, sir. Something about a friend of your boy…in the
hospital.” His voice was ground under the cracking and rending of
old wood as the bulldozer crushed the small house.
    When Albert came home that evening, he
checked the container of worms, verifying that they were still
there.

    Elroy Jantz came to visit Albert in his
dreams that night. The old man’s pinched and grey face swelled
before him, just as it had twenty-five years ago. Albert was a
child again, a boy cowering before the gnarled man that held his
best friend. He wanted to run, to hide, but the magnetic pull the
old man held him locked to the moment.
    “ I’ve been watching you.
You threw rocks—broke my window, trampled my garden, and now you
boys want some worms, huh? Well, have some, have some.” He forced
Ralph’s jaw open and shoved a wriggling thing inside. “Eat up,
boys.”
    The twelve-year-old Albert panicked, burned
with terror upon seeing his friend’s wide, frightened eyes. He
turned and ran, left his bike behind the old man’s fence and
sprinted home, lungs exploding all the way. The old man yelled
after Albert. He closed his eyes, but Jantz’s face swelled again,
and a voice rose in his head. “Your turn’s comin’ boy. You’re
next.”
    Albert woke with a thick coat of sweat
covering his head and arms. He heard a sound, maybe small feet
working up the stairs, and then a click of a door. Albert rose,
moved quickly from bed, out his door, and through the hallway to
Owen’s room. Inside, the boy lay quiet and still. Albert turned
back to his bedroom, and noticed a small smudge of mud on the
carpet. He returned to bed and stared at the ceiling until
dawn.

    On Tuesday afternoon,
Albert stepped out of the hospital into the bright sunshine. Lonnie
had looked worn and
grey , much like his memory of Ralph from
all those years ago. Albert felt compelled to make the visit—he had
to check Lonnie’s arms, see for himself all the unnatural pink
lines under his skin. In the parking lot, a man stepped from behind
a truck—just a pale shimmer of a man, a flicker in the afternoon
sun. Elroy Jantz.
    Albert’s breath caught in his throat, and he
forced his eyes away. The air fell heavy on his bare skin, loaded
and icy—enough that Albert shivered and drew the collar of his
jacket about his neck. A quick gust of breeze whispered past his
ear, and curiosity ripped his eyes back to the old man. He was
gone, devoured by the grey air. A voice spoke in his head as Albert
rushed to his car.
    Elroy Jantz’s ghost chased Albert home. His
anxiety grew as he sped through quiet, residential streets,
knuckles whitening as he clutched the steering wheel. The worms had
to go—maybe back to the lot that once held Jantz’s little house or
dumped by the roadside out of town—but they had to go.
    He guided his car into the driveway and
waited as the garage door slowly rose, allowing a growing bar of
muted daylight inside the dark space. The worm box rested on the
workbench, and Albert snatched it quickly and tucked it under one
arm. Meghan’s voice punched at him from inside the house as Albert
turned back to his car.
    “ Albert!” she called again,
almost shouting to snap his hypnosis.
    He stopped and turned. “Yes?”
    “ Albert, I’ve tried to call
all afternoon. Your phone—”
    “ I shut it off.” He backed
a step toward the car. “I went to see Lonnie Bowman
today.”
    Meghan stepped into the garage, her face
pale like fresh wax. “Oh. Albert, Owen came home sick today.” She
pushed at her hair, an anxious gesture.
    Albert blinked. The box felt heavy, and he
dropped it on the hood of his car. “Sick?”
    “ He doesn’t look good. His
arms…I’ve called Doc Wilson.”
    The box seemed