The Death of Wendell Mackey (26 page)

The gun was still on top of the refrigerator, but Wendell didn’t miss it.

Take the gloves off.

They came off, and slipped into the coat’s pockets.

Twenty yards ahead was an alley.

Quicker footsteps behind him.

Wendell took the alley. He could hear the man’s labored breathing.

Halfway down, Wendell stopped and turned around. The brick walls were moist. A garbage bag lay broken in a puddle. Banana peels like dead yellow squid floated in the water.

“Hey man…”

The voice preceded the man. He turned the corner to catch up to his words, and was startled to see Wendell waiting for him.

“Hey man, I got a question for you.”

Wendell said nothing.

It can’t be real
, he thought. Bushy black explosions of hair stuck out from under the knit cap like a Halloween wig. But what really caught Wendell’s attention was the knife in the man’s hand.

“Spare a few bucks?”

“What?” asked Wendell.

“Hey man, no trouble, okay?”

“What are you doing?”

“What do you think?”

“I don’t—”

“Just
do
it! Your money!”

Pulses, like electric charges, ran down Wendell’s spine to his extremities.

“I think…” and Wendell paused, looking at the knife, “…I think you’re getting in over your head.”

“Says the guy with no knife. Just gimme it all. Whatever you got.” The man shook his knife.

“I don’t have any money. Anything at all.”

“Bullshit. You were walking to the market, so you got something.”

“I got nothing.”

“I’ll use this,” and he shook the knife again. “You ain’t my first.”

“Things are about to get really bad.”

“Just give me the—”

“It’s been you, hasn’t it?” Wendell’s voice was oddly strong.

“What?”

“It’s been you, all along, following me.”

The man paused. “Look man,” and he crinkled his eyes, making the lines of grime in his crow’s feet more prominent, “yeah, I’ve been watching you, but just so—”

“So they sent you.”

“The money, man.”

“They sent you.”

“Who sent me?”

“We both know who.”

“Look, just—”

“But I’m not going back.”

Confused, the man with the knife looked around, wondering if he was being watched. “You’re high man, crazy ass high.”

“You think I’m going back?”

“Just back off, man.”

Wendell didn’t even realize he had taken steps towards the man. His eyes were on the man’s ear, on
something
in the man’s ear, an ear that stuck out from under the cap like a mushroom.

Earpiece. They’re talking to him.

“You don’t have to do this,” said Wendell.

“Look, it’s just a little money, and then I’ll…” He trailed off as his jaw dropped. Wendell was beginning to change.

A guttural sound—part croak and part growl—boiled up from Wendell’s abdomen. His lips pulled back and his arms shook. He brought his narrow fingers up.

“—the hell are you
doing
man—”

No rage. No fear. Wendell moved as if he had been born to do so. The man stabbed out at Wendell with the knife, but Wendell grabbed his wrist. Pulling it up before his face, the tighter he squeezed, the more he saw his old skin peel away. The man’s disbelief turned to horror as he watched Wendell’s new claw squeeze hard once and snap his radius and ulna.

The knit cap fell to the ground. The man’s mouth bent into a screaming oval, but there was no time to scream.

Wendell stepped into the man, his claws stabbing like pistons. He pushed him into the brick wall, looked into his paralyzed face, and let his new self take over.

Sneakers flew off. And the coat. The world exploded. All ran red.

Everything was cut to ribbons. The man had no chance.

Something was screaming.
Wendell
was screaming, like a mythic beast.

He dug and clawed, moving faster.

And then the last breaths, the last heartbeats, and Wendell felt them all.

One final wheeze escaped the man, but from an opening other than his mouth.

The assault ended. Rain began to fall. Wendell stood above the body, his chest heaving. He was covered in…everything. In his hands were tufts of wiry hair still clinging to clumps of skin. The blood ran down his arms in rivers.

Wendell looked towards Greenfield Street. Still empty.

His mind cleared, and limping back into it was that last of human emotions: resignation. Last because, by its nature, it signaled an accepted conclusion. What he saw below him was that conclusion, tailored to him, raw and terrifying. He could fight the resignation, but in the end, he had to give in. He had transformed, completely and irreversibly. And he knew that
they
would find him, because something like him couldn’t hide forever. That earpiece, now on the ground, told him that. The man must have contacted them before he died.

Is that an earpiece?

It was small, gray, arched to fit around the outside of the ear with a clear piece that fit into it. An earpiece, or a hearing aid? Maybe he was just a thief, another nobody. Still, it wasn’t murder. Murder was when one man killed another man. It was unfortunate for this man, sprawled in a pile of his own gore like a ruptured sausage, but Wendell didn’t murder him.

“I’m so sorry.” Not that it mattered. His tongue felt swollen.

Wendell stared down at the man, clearly dead but somehow still trying to scream.

But there was something more.

Wendell tasted the blood pooled behind his lip. It was no swollen tongue. Something was
in
his mouth. His eyes widened.

He spat, recoiling, as he felt something soft and rather large pass by his teeth. On the ground landed a chunk of pink flesh like uncooked hamburger. He wondered how much he had swallowed before he realized what was happening. The dead man was not just a victim. He was dinner.

If he kept looking at it, Wendell knew, he would want more. The headache roared back to life, and with each pound in his skull, he thought he saw that piece of flesh pulse, as if still alive, desperate for its heart’s beat. He turned his eyes to the alley’s wet walls, feeling his body begin to shake.

It’s what animals do Wendell.

“Please,” he mumbled. “This didn’t just happen. This isn’t…just
please
no.” He shook his head, feeling tears well up. “God help me, this didn’t just happen.” He stepped back.

Animals Wendell
.

Now it was his mother’s voice in his head. And if he closed his eyes, he knew he would see her again. So he kept them open, new eyes for a new creation, seeing the world for the first time.

It’s all labor Wendell.

“Shoulda been her,” he said.

Shoulda been nobody
, he thought,
or shoulda been you. You can call yourself a monster, but killing is killing. If you don’t do it to yourself and end it all, then you’ll do this again, and again, and again, whether they catch you or not
.

“Take the knife,” Wendell said to himself. He picked up his coat, which had been thrown to the other side of the alley, and pulled it on. Then he reached for his sneakers, flecked with blood, and slipped them on his black and broken feet—not as much clawed as hoofed, as he didn’t yet see any claws. Finally he reached down and picked the knife up, slipping it into a coat pocket. Unable to run with his shattered feet, Wendell hurried as best as he could out of the alley and down the street.

Now the headache felt like a truck spinning its wheels on his forehead.

Within sight of the apartment building, Wendell stumbled, dropping to his knees in a puddle. He went to brace himself with his hands, and saw that both were painted in blood. His coat was hanging open, and his t-shirt was now red, with black hairs still clinging to it. Quickly he stood up, tied his coat closed, jammed his hands in his pockets, and hobbled the rest of the way to the building.

At the front doors, Wendell looked around in the rain, almost surprised that he didn’t see them: a fleet of police cruisers flying around the corner, or an armed-to-the-teeth SWAT team dropping from helicopters. After all, he
was
a killer.

No, not a killer. Worse.

In a just world, a SWAT team would put him out of his misery. It would be far more pleasant than what the institution would do to him. Wendell went through the front doors, thankful that the foyer was empty, and climbed the stairs with both hands on the railing.

“Just don’t be there,” he said to himself, “just don’t even be in your apartment. Be at church or something, be…anywhere else.”

Or just keep your door closed
.
Please Sister, keep it closed
.

“For her own good,” Wendell mumbled. “She comes out and she sees me and she…”

And she’s dead. Because you do what animals do, Wendell
.

Thankfully her door was closed, and he heard no sounds behind it. Wendell went to his own door, found the key in his pocket to unlock it, and slithered into the apartment. He closed the door silently, locked it, and then grabbed one of the chairs sitting around the kitchen table and wedged the top of it at an angle under the bottom of the doorknob. He turned and leaned his back against the door, covering his mouth with his hands.

“It’s not real…”

Yes, it is.

“He was gonna kill me.”

So you killed him, and then…

“No…no no…no, he was coming at me and all I did was—”

Wendell closed his eyes and inhaled strongly, sucking his fingers close to his lips. The tip of his tongue touched a finger, then another, and then pulled down to the palm. Before he knew what was happening, he was lathering saliva all over his hands, licking the blood off. His eyes opened, and he had two fingers in his mouth, sucking them clean. He didn’t want to stop. It tasted too
good
.

He pulled his hands away, and then brought them back.

“
N-no!
”

Wendell rushed to the kitchen sink, turned on the hot water and waited for the steam, waited until he could feel the heat radiate from the water, then stripped down: the coat, the grubby sneakers, bloody jeans, and the once-gray t-shirt, all dropped into a pile on the counter. The knife fell out of the coat’s pocket and he tossed it on top of the refrigerator. First he thrust his hands into the water, feeling nothing. What blood remained came off in the water, and Wendell dabbed his hands dry with the coat sitting to his right. Then came the t-shirt, which with one look he knew was impossible to clean. But Wendell tried, covering the middle of the shirt with the borax from the box sitting next to his pile of clothes, scrubbing it against itself under the water. Nothing changed. Then the pants, which had fallen onto the floor. He reached down for them, and stopped.

Perhaps he had been too focused on his toes while in the tub, because he saw his legs as if for the first time. The feet—yes, most of the toes were gone and yes, they looked more like hooves, giant split-toed deer or goat hooves—were black, missing most of their skin save for a few straggling pieces, and the ankles and lower legs were dark as well, but muscled like a horse, each of his Achilles’ tendons long and prominent like a steel cable. All previous leg hair was gone. With the horror of the situation, Wendell had to stop and marvel. He looked at himself and saw raw power, dreamlike and stunning. His legs were sculpted with rippling muscle, and as he reached down to touch his calf, he saw that even his skinny arm looked stronger, covered in thin, ropy muscle. It
felt
stronger too, as he formed a fist and flexed his biceps. It was mythological: he was the one to whom the virgin sacrifices would come. He was the one who frightened the warriors from his mountain cave. Feared and worshipped, he was the monster.

“You’re meant for so much more,” said a voice.

“Who’s there?” Wendell asked, looking up, startled.

It sounded like it came from the walls.

“No,” Wendell said, straightening up, “no, not me.”
Almost
. He almost bought it. But what was left of his mind had to keep up the fight.

His back arched abruptly, stung by spasms of pain. It was liquid fire, ferocious, releasing his bladder onto the floor and making his pulse pound like a jackhammer behind his eyeballs.

Thump-thump-thump.

The door. No, his heart.

Thump-thump.

The door, yes. But he couldn’t move, standing in a pool of his own urine.

Thump-thump-thump.

The voice again, whispering to him from the walls.

Thump-thump.

…please find me…

He lost consciousness hearing that voice, not his own, or Agatha’s, or his mother’s. It was familiar, and male.