The Street

The roads that made up the new Diamond Estate were all named after gems. There was Emerald Avenue, Ruby Close, Garnet Crescent . . . and Bloodstone Street.

It started on the day the Peters family moved in. Patty was lying in the road and when her farther made her get up her body left a damp imprint on the asphalt.
"Look, Daddy," she said, "the street is crying."

But within days the tarmac was bubbling with a malevolent will of its own, sucking at the feet of unwary pedestrians, chopping at the...