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

there with my Spiderman comic, shit. They must think I’m
stupid.”
    You’re not stupid—you took
forty bucks from me this week , Calvin
thought.
    “ Can you believe that? She
didn’t look like some cold-blooded, freak killer.” Lenny
chuckled.
    “ I need to do something,”
Calvin said, almost in a trance. He drifted away from the billiard
table and through the crowd. Calvin moved straight to Brad and
tapped him on the shoulder.
    Brad turned, “Oh, lookie, it’s Ansel
freakin’ Adams. How’s your girlfriend, buddy?”
    “ You’re a dick,” Calvin
said before blindsiding him with a right uppercut. Brad slipped off
his stool, stunned by the sudden blow. Steel bands wrapped around
Calvin’s arms before Brad could scramble to his feet.
    Joel, the bouncer, dragged Calvin outside
and dropped him on the damp sidewalk. “None of that shit, buddy. Go
home, all right?” He towered over Calvin. Joel had played a few
years of football in college before blowing a knee, and he still
cast an imposing shadow.
    Calvin nodded and started to pick himself
off the ground.
    Lenny popped out of the door. “What the hell
were you thinking? C’mon, lets get you home before B-rad decides to
come for round two.”
    “ Yeah…yeah.” Though sober,
Calvin staggered to his feet, needing some help from his scraggly
accomplice to keep from flopping back to the concrete. He felt
dirty, dragged through a muddy field. Nerves pricked in his arms
and legs like the tiny cuts from rolling in crisp grass.
    “ Look, champ. The cops were
asking about you, too. You made the call the night Jane wrecked,
right?”
    Calvin nodded, his head swimming. “Yeah,
first on the scene,” he muttered. As Lenny led him down the street,
he imagined that girl—Jane Doe, the murderer—lying in the ditch
with her eyes cut out.

    “ Shit, Cal. What were you
thinking?” Gina stood in their bedroom doorway with her arms
crossed, a dour look dragging her lips into a frown.
    Calvin shook his head. “I
just… something pushed me.” He eyed the room, resting his glance for a moment
on the camera bag on the sofa. “How the hell did you
know?”
    She closed her eyes. “Megan called. She was
at the bar, too.” Her eyes opened, looking black in the dim
kitchen. “He’s a jerk, Cal, but starting a bar brawl—”
    “ I didn’t start a god-damn
bar brawl. I just decked that asshole, and they tossed me
out.”
    “ Whatever. It’s just not
like you.” She uncrossed her arms. “Is it the job, Cal? I was on
the computer today. I stumbled on some pictures by accident…that
young woman…” She shuddered. “Something like that has to…get to
you. That wreck…”
    Calvin’s neck burned. He
shivered, feeling hot pinpricks again. Anger. “How the fuck do you know what I’m like?” His voice swelled,
filling the kitchen. “Shit!” He balled his fists and thrust one
through the sheetrock next to the phone. The knuckles stung,
streaked with blood and loose skin. Calvin pushed the throbbing
hand to his mouth and sucked on the wound. Gina disappeared through
the doorway. He heard a slam and the distinct click of his bedroom
door lock.
    He stuck the injured hand
under the tap and flipped on the cold, letting the water cool his
hand and his temper. His brain swam inside his skull, lost at sea
somewhere. Thoughts bounced and rocked, but he couldn’t grasp
anything long enough to make sense. Calvin wiped his hand on a
towel and tumbled to the sofa, kicking the camera bag to the
floor. The camera bag.
    He reached for the bag, but the vice
tightened on his head again and his fingers wouldn’t obey.
Something seemed to crawl through his veins, forcing him to lie
down. He lay there, staring at the ceiling, for most of the
night—not asleep, but not quite awake. Toward dawn, he drifted into
a fitful sleep.

    Calvin dreamed of Gina. She
held the camera bag over one shoulder. Brad was in the dream too,
bare-chested and smeared with oil like at a body building