The Half That You See by Rebecca Rowland (best summer reads .TXT) 📕

liked Renzo’s, and this had been the first indication that Clay was truly alone in the world: as a kid, he and his friends divided over pizza.

Both restaurants were now gone, and Clay crossed the street to where Donato’s had been and peered inside. In the dark, he could barely make out the counter where he would order his meatball slices and orange soda. The yellow glow of the streetlight above him helped him get a view of the tables he usually found himself at, those thick Formica classics from the 1980’s.

It was at Donato’s that Clay first saw the boy. Well, not the first time, but it was during a moment of childhood laziness that Clay found himself in Donato’s, playing Street Fighter 2 in the corner when a kid who moved to town a few years earlier walked in. Clay found himself not paying attention to the game and instead, noting every movement the boy was making. He couldn’t remember his name, but his every movement drew Clay’s attention.

Clay had never paid that much attention to another guy before. Girls, sure, but not a boy. At first, Clay was confused, and a little angry to be so focused on this kid waiting for his pizza at the counter, hands lazily in his pockets, bobbing his head to the pop music on the restaurant’s speaker system. When the boy noticed Clay staring at him, he turned and gave a light wave.

“Hey,” he said. The boy’s eyes caught the light and seemed almost flecked with gold-orange light.

“Hey,” Clay said back. Clay remembered the nervousness in their first words to each other. Vicious, unbridled anxiety that only a teenager could know or understand. The kind of anxiety that fades with age and experience.

It looked like the place hadn’t changed from Clay’s memory; at least, until the day the doors closed forever. He wondered where the owner was. He was an older guy, even when Clay was a kid, so it’s possible he just passed away. The thought made Clay feel uneasy. It seemed as though when he left for college, the entire town just closed up shop for good. His parents never talked about Kirkbride’s Bluff, and Clay didn’t have any other family members in town, so, once he left for school, his parents moved into the city, and that was that.

The whispering slipped into his ears again, and Clay turned to look across the street, past Renzo’s, and down the alleyway next to the lesser of the two pizza joints. Checking before he crossed the street, Clay chuckled to himself, thinking how strange it was that Main Street was this empty. There was seemingly no one else around. Only the wind, the misting rain, the yellow beams of light from the streetlights, and him. There weren’t even any stray cats, dogs, or even any birds. It was as if Clay stepped into another world completely, one that time had left behind and progress and growth had disregarded.

Clay’s therapist prescribed him some medication for his nerves, because when the words became unintelligible, he mentioned them to his shrink. He didn’t quite know what else to do. He didn’t feel like he was going crazy, and yet, he was hearing voices, unknown, distant, in the dark. Clay fumbled with his briefcase and grabbed the pill bottle. He twisted the top off and popped one into his mouth, swallowing it dry.

He walked toward the alley, the whispers sounding clearer. He looked into the darkness, bracing himself on a chain link fence. “Hello?” he called, not expecting an answer. There was a level of panic in his chest that he hoped the anxiety medication would snuff out, but hadn’t yet. The familiar pins and needles of nervousness washed over his arms, up his shoulders and to his neck, and he waited, motionless, for any sign of movement or sound.

He was met with the cold, empty solitude of Kirkbride’s Bluff. Where only whispers seemed to live.

As he stared down the alley, he heard movement. Impossible, he thought, searching for his cell phone. He produced it from his suit jacket breast pocket, turned the flashlight on and slid it into the pocket usually reserved for a handkerchief, the top of the phone peeking outward and the light beaming down the alley about eight feet in front of him.

He moved slowly, one hand braced against the brick and cement wall of the pizza joint, and watched his step, moving past overturned garbage cans, their contents spilled out, rotting in the night. Ancient pizza boxes, long-stained with grease and cheese that was more plastic than dairy, mounds of brown and slick black disgust in smaller piles, which he avoided, lest he ruin his light brown nubuck Johnston & Murphy shoes. The smell found its way into his nostrils and made him gag.

He coughed lightly, and pinched his nose, noticing the light suddenly providing more than just a view of rotting garbage and cement alley. What looked like a foot, as though interpreted through a Francis Bacon hellscape, was lit up by his phone. “Hello?”

The “foot” twitched and scurried out of the light, and Clay recoiled quickly. He remained in place, his eyes scanning around, the light cast in various directions. Finally, pressed against the fence at the end of the alley, after a few cautious steps forward, was the figure Clay’s light had scared away. Or, at least, Clay imagined the light scared it. He couldn’t imagine what this thing was. Once close enough, he saw it was completely nude, its back slick with the misty rain, which was starting to increase in intensity. A low mist hung around Clay’s ankles, and he took two cautious steps toward the figure, which writhed, huddled in the corner.

Two clubbed feet, more like hooves, connected to two sinewy legs, all bone, muscle and tendon, no fat anywhere on the creature. Creature was the only word that worked, as Clay couldn’t tell if the thing was human or not, though it vaguely