The Half That You See

by Rebecca Rowland

  First, the dog paces you, racing alongside the rig. Driver gets scared and goes faster, trying to lose it. He’s heard the stories, after all, but thinks maybe he can outrun the thing. Maybe it’s not too late. And for a minute or so, seems he’s right. It’s gone, vanished into the rushing darkness. That’s when you see it again, barreling out of the night ahead. Its roar is squealing brakes and twisting metal, breath like burnt rubber and oily smoke.

  You still okay? Good deal.

  If you’re fading, help yourself to those red pills in the far cup holder. Careful though, they’re serious stuff. Speaking of which, pass me a few. This is no time to lose your edge. Miles to go and all that, right? Thanks.

  There’s coffee in that blue thermos and a can or two of cola in the fridge behind your seat. I tell you, these new rigs are really something. All these gizmos and creature comforts. You’d never know we’re creeping past eighty because the ride’s so smooth. Don’t worry, I’m a professional. And like a wise man once said: I never drive faster than I can see.

  Now then, I first obtained the facts regarding the black dog from a most reliable source, the man who taught me the ways of the wheel. Sullivan Smith drove for a cross-country outfit for about two hundred years before moving onto a local route near the shipyard in Bremerton, where I got out of the Navy. I was hired on as a probie and he was my training instructor. Geezer’s handle was Locksmith because supposedly he’d been something of a Don Juan back in the Pleistocene Epoch and had the key to the heart of every lady he met, or so they say.

  He told me all about the black dog and I sat there nodding politely, just like you, and thinking pretty much what I expect you’re thinking right now. It took a long time before I understood the truth.

  Locksmith died about sixteen years ago, but not in a crash. Gas station robbery. Poor old man walked into an all-nighter for a doughnut and a cup of coffee, right into a holdup. Got the back of his head blown off by some desperate junkie with a shotgun before he knew anything was up. Actually not a bad way to go, if you think about it. I’ve seen worse. Yes, I certainly have.

  It was Locksmith who first told me about the music, though I’ve heard others mention it since. Black Dog Blues, he called it. The sound a driver hears just before the dog appears, a sorrowful howling that leaks through on the CB and sharp, staticky barking. Sometimes, they say you’ll hear an inhuman voice growl your name. That’s how you’ll know it’s time.

  You’ve got your belt on, right? Good deal.

  I heard the Black Dog Blues once, except it wasn’t playing for me. There was this woman, a trucker, name was Lydia but her handle was Sassy because she had one hell of a smart mouth. Never cared who might be listening, right there on the CB she’d just say whatever she was thinking. We used to stop at the same spots and run the same routes. There are drivers who work in teams—partners, married couples; it gets awful lonely out here—and we were talking about maybe giving that kind of arrangement a try. Never got the chance, though.

  We were both slated to make a run for the same outfit. I’d gotten this new radar detector, so I was driving point and keeping an eye out for smokies. We were making good time and chatting on the CB, us and a few others in the general area, playing this game where we’d be carrying on a technically PG-rated conversation but using as many sexual innuendos and double entendres as possible. Sassy was good at it. Sometimes, I’d get to laughing so hard I couldn’t breathe.

  I said we were making good time. In fact, we were speeding along pretty well. That was the whole point of the radar detector. But the thing started acting funny, making crazy chirps and beeps, and I got distracted trying to restart it. I didn’t notice Sassy had stopped talking. I didn’t notice anything until I saw her rig bearing down on me, coming up way too fast on the left. Brake failure, I assumed. Something had to be wrong with the rig because Sassy was an outstanding driver. I was cruising just below the century mark—about how fast we’re going now, actually—and she flew past me like I was parked.

  That’s when I saw it, just for a second as she passed, running outside the beam of her lights. An enormous black dog moving unbelievably fast. I got on the CB, but she didn’t answer. So I pulled out my phone and called her. She did answer then, and I heard her crying. She was so afraid, kept screaming, “It’s coming for me, True! It’s coming for me!”

  And in the background, I heard her CB crackling. This awful howl, a scream of static that hurt my ears. It wasn’t coming through on my radio, though. I could only hear it through the phone. It was the Black Dog Blues playing just for her.

  Something said her name. A voice like out of your worst nightmare. If there is a hell, I think whatever greets you at the gates will sound like that. I saw her rig jackknife and go careening off the road. Thing rolled three times as it went over the embankment. By the time I finally got slowed down and pulled over and ran back to the scene, the fire was so big…there was nothing I could…she was just gone.

  That was three weeks ago. I’ve racked up a lot of miles since then. Side gigs, overtime—I don’t like to stay put too long. Figure I’ve been up about four days straight now. Pardon my reach, just need something out of the glove compartment. Relax, it isn't for you.

  This is the Smith & Wesson Governor, a snub-nosed revolver capable of firing small-caliber shotgun shells. A very reliable gun. Please don’t look at me like that. I already told you, I'm a professional. The gun is for the dog. The story is for you. Like I said, such stories need to be shared. Make sure you got your belt on now. I’m counting on you to survive this and tell the tale. Please, be on my side.

  You mean you really haven’t seen it? On the shoulder of the road, just outside the headlights? Running alongside the rig? Right there! You can’t see that?

  No, too late. It’s gone…for now.

  Never mind, I’m not too worried about it. Let’s coax this big boy up to a buck-twenty and see if we can’t run the bastard down. Keep your eyes peeled. Somewhere in that blackness up there, it’s headed straight for us. And I’m going to kill it. They didn't believe me when I told them what happened to Sassy, looked at me like I was a raving lunatic. About like how you're looking at me right now, actually. But that's OK. I don't care what they think—or you either, matter of fact. Soon you'll see for yourself. Then, you'll know the truth. And you can tell everybody. You can tell the story.

  Hear that? It's as if the sound was being stretched and pulled like taffy, and that terrible crackling growl under the static. That howling, lonesome as a lifetime spent on the road.

  Oh yes, they’re playing my song tonight.

  Imaginary Friends

  Nicole Wolverton

  The offices of Mixship Elementary School looked exactly as Julie knew they would—maybe because primary school offices all looked the same. She imagined there was a company that specialized in décor meant to cow children into frightened submission, encourage them to fall into line, to obey all the rules, to be good little children and do the right thing. The chairs would be that special mix of too big for a child but too small for an adult, so no matter who was doing the sitting, it would mean a torturous discomfort. Discomfort and aggressively cheery yellow walls.

  Julie squirmed until she found that crossing her legs at the ankle and hunching forward wasn’t quite so awful as any other position. The elderly receptionist smiled blandly at her over a stack of paperwork, but only for a second. No doubt the administrative staff were in on the joke, secretly broadcasting the unfortunate souls waiting to face Principal Boden to a network of evil academic sadists who cackled uproariously with every pained expression—or, the case of poor Augie, who sat beside her, short legs sticking out in front of him like straight pins, with every tear.

  Her nephew hadn’t stop silently crying since the second his butt hit the chair.

  “Come on, Augie,” Julie said for the tenth time. “Tell Aunt Julie what the problem is. Why’d Principal Boden call me? What does he want to tell me?”

  Augie’s thi
n shoulders rose and fell, quick as a breath. His pudgy face was pink; brown eyes, bloodshot. There was no sign he’d been in a fight—his red and white striped shirt and his jeans looked the same as when they’d left her house that morning—and he wasn’t exactly the type anyway. He wasn’t a cheater or a back-talker. There wasn’t much left that a first grader could have done bad enough to warrant a parent being summoned.

  “Principal Boden will see you now.” The receptionist gestured toward the closed wooden door to Julie’s left and fixed a cold, rheumy gaze on Augie. “And you, August, you’re to stay right where you are.” He nodded and kept crying. Poor kid.

  Julie groaned as she unfolded herself from the plastic chair. She dropped a kiss on the top of Augie’s head. “Hey, don’t worry about it, buddy. Everything will be okay.”

  The door opened like magic and inside, behind an enormous metal desk, was a short man with a dark comb-over and a blue tie just off-center, his jacket hung askew on a coat rack in the corner of his tiny yellow office. More stellar work from the design company, for sure. The chair that waited for her in front of his desk was another of those goddamn torturous tiny-big chairs. Perfect.

  He didn’t smile when she crammed herself down and balanced on the edge of it.

  “Miss Strawbridge, I’m afraid we have ourselves a problem. An imaginary friend problem.”

  She knotted her mouth to keep herself from letting loose something very inappropriate. Her sister and brother-in-law would only be gone another few days, but they’d shit a brick if Julie got on the principal’s bad side—but all this over an imaginary friend?

  Finally, she said, “I’m not a child development expert, but isn’t having an imaginary friend… I don’t know, normal for a kid Augie’s age?”

  She’d had her own secret, invisible friend when she was a child—a razor-fingered, corkscrew-haired woman named Mona with a fondness for laughing at the top of her lungs whenever young Julie got in trouble, who told her stories and commiserated with her when she was grounded. It was comforting—maybe Augie needed comfort, too. And now these jerks were making him feel bad for it? She set her jaw to keep her face neutral.

  Boden’s throat clearing ripped the certainty from her like an extra-sticky bandage, pulling with it bits of skin and hair. “You have to understand,” he said. “We aren’t concerned that August has an imaginary friend, or friends, as the case may be. You’re right. That’s perfectly healthy for a child of his age. But he’s selling them.”

  “Selling them? What do you mean?”

  “He’s selling imaginary friends to the other children in his class. For a dollar.”

  “I see.” A fission of laughter welled in her stomach. God, that kid was a riot. “You know, maybe you should wait until Augie’s parents gets back to discuss this. I don’t feel—”

  “Yes, well. You are listed as August’s legal guardian until his parents return, and I’m afraid the matter is quite serious.” Principal Boden stared at her from behind his compulsively-organized desk. The dirty overhead lights buzzed and tittered, flickering like an eyelid spasm. For just a moment she could imagine all of those other kids sitting here while he lectured them. Scaring them. Hammering the creativity and uniqueness out of them.

  Screw this guy. Augie was a good kid. A quiet kid.

  “If it’s a matter of the money, I’ll just pay it back.” Julie reached for the purse she’d set on the floor beneath her splayed knees. “How many kids are in Augie’s class?” She peeled a twenty-dollar bill from the fold in her wallet. “This should cover it, right?”

  Principal Boden help up an oversized hand. It shook slightly. “That’s not the main problem.”

  She dropped the twenty back in her purse. “What is the main problem?”

  “The problem is that August is doing a little more than simply fooling these kids into buying imaginary friends. He’s filling their heads with unfortunate, dangerous ideas.”

  Her back cramped. She contorted her body, feeling like a pretzel. “Not to rush you, but could we cut to the chase? Does Augie have detention? Do I need to give a donation to the class trip fund?”

  “Your nephew has been selling these imaginary friends to his peers, with the promise that they will do the bidding of those who own them.”

  She fought the urge to laugh again. Maybe she shouldn’t have let Augie watch late night television last weekend. Her sister would love that—Julie would never hear the end of it for leading poor Augie into a life of petty crime.

  The principal continued, “I’ve had dozens of calls from parents. Their kids are setting fires, stealing things, committing acts of vandalism, and blaming these imaginary friends. We cannot have anarchy like this, Miss Strawbridge. We really cannot. The President of our PTA woke up this morning with a dead mouse planted on her pillow next to her face. Her child said her imaginary friend did it. No, I’m sorry to say that detention is not going to fix this problem.” He sighed. “I’ve decided it’s best to give August a two-week suspension. To start.”

  “Two weeks? Are you kidding me? All he did was show a little entrepreneurial spirit.”

  “My decision is final. It’ll give him time to think about the wrong he’s caused, and perhaps give the shenanigans he has perpetuated time to subside. You may not be his parent, Miss Strawbridge, but I encourage you to treat this with the seriousness it deserves. I will be talking to his mother and father at the end of the two weeks about how we move forward from this. August is a disturbed young man. Another school may be better equipped to handle his… imagination.”

  Julie unfolded herself from the torturous chair. Her back cracked loud as fireworks. “I have never heard anything so outrageous. I get that selling imaginary friends is wrong, but the rest of it? How can he be blamed for that? He’s just a kid.”

  “My decision is final,” Principal Boden repeated. The lights in his office flared again—once, twice, three times. He sighed. “Final.”

  Julie shoved the handles of her purse up over her shoulder. With one last withering glance at the Principal, she whipped open the door to his office and found Augie sitting outside, his hands clenched on his lap. He looked up at her with wide hazel eyes. His lashes were dark and wet, but his cheeks were dry.

  “Am I in big trouble?” he asked quietly.

  She nodded but smiled. “Yeah, but not with me, okay, buddy? Let’s get out of here. I’ll buy you some ice cream.”

  The receptionist leaned forward, like she didn’t want to miss a word. Julie frowned at her, but the lady sat as though petrified, her tight gray curls like stone.

  “Okay, but can I stop at home first? I want my pillow.” Augie hopped off the chair and slung his plaid backpack over his shoulder. He was a solid little presence, close as her shadow and just as silent, all the way to the car.

  He was quiet on the drive, too. He sat and stared out the window at the gloomy day, and Julie’s mind gravitated back to Mona. She’d probably blamed things on her imaginary friend just as these other little first grade kids had. That had to be just as typical as having a make-believe friend in the first place.

  Kids grow out of believing in things that aren’t there. Santa. The Easter Bunny. The tooth fairy. All of it. Julie didn’t remember the day she stopped seeing Mona and her razor fingers and her red curly hair, but it was easy to recall sitting in her room after bedtime, telling Mona about her day—and Mona being her friend. The one she went on adventures with, like the time Mona convinced her to run away from home after getting in trouble for finger painting. She’d never told anyone about Mona. Not her parents and not her sister. She was something secret, all for Julie. Her secret friend.

  She shook her head to clear it. God, it had been forever since she even thought of any of that. She glanced over at Augie, still engrossed in the trees and houses whizzing by the window.

  “So,” she said at the back of his head, “what’s up with conning the kids at school out of their lunch money, Augie? Do you need to buy something? You could hav
e asked me for whatever it is, you know.”

  He shook his head. “What does conning mean?”

  “It’s when you lie to someone to get what you want, the way you lied to your friends in class that you were selling them an imaginary friend. Like that.”

  “Oh. I didn’t lie. Mommy says lying is bad.”

  “Well, she’s right. Lying is bad. So maybe let’s just tell the truth from now on. What did you do with the money?”

  “Nothing,” Augie said to the window. “I didn’t even want it, but there’s this kid in my class, Kyle. His dad is real mean, and he needed help. So I told Leonardo to go and help, and then Kyle gave me a dollar and told everybody.” He paused. “A lot of kids have mean mommies and daddies.”

  “Who’s Leonardo?”

  “Leonardo is my friend.”

  “Your imaginary friend.”

  “No adults can see him.” He turned his face toward her, and his eyes narrowed a bit. “Maybe you can. I don’t know yet.”

  Her sister’s house curved into sight around the bend. The white saltbox looked forlorn and dark under an overcast sky. The windows were black as the Principal’s eyes, and it felt like the house was staring at her just as hard. She pulled into the narrow driveway.

  “You don’t have to come with me, Aunt Julie,” Augie said. “I’ll be real quick. Mommy taught me how to unlock the door by myself.”

  “Don’t be silly. Of course I’m coming in.”

  He met her at the front of the car and slid his small, soft hand into hers. He nodded, and she let him lead her to the door. The gold key was solid and bright in his stubby fingers. He glanced up at her from under his long bangs. A thin, crooked smile spread slowly across his face.

  Julie’s stomach inexplicably twisted.

  Just above his head, the curtain that hung in the door’s window twitched. For one moment, she was sure she saw a red curl.