“That’s not good.”
There were more scars. Two ran horizontally at the back of each shoulder and ended where the trapezius muscles turned up into the neck. At the small of the back were two vertical scars, more raw—and thus, he thought, more recent—than the shoulder scars, seeming to trace the backbone. But what were most striking were the two thick black lines, like bruises, running down each scapula to the lower back. They looked to be ten or eleven inches long, at least. At the center of each was the telltale incision line healed over. It all created a topographical map of sorts, with purpled mountains and running eskers and strip-mined, decimated skin revealing a landscape reengineered and laid waste.
“This isn’t real,” he told himself. A lie, of course, but one he hoped would bring some comfort. But none came. He stared at the carnage.
And to his mind came the operating room and the team of doctors scrubbed and gowned and ready for him. They would place him on his stomach, pump the anesthesia, and he would awaken in his room with bandages across his back. Nurses and techs would come in every hour to check his pulse and blood pressure. Scotia would occasionally wander in, pull down on Wendell’s lower eyelids to examine his pupils, or tap his fingers on Wendell’s stomach to listen for abdominal sounds. Blood was drawn from a bruised hole in his arm at least three times daily. By then, even in his weakened state, Wendell knew he had to escape.
He slipped the t-shirt back on, leaning in and baring his teeth at the mirror, examining the swollen line along the edge of his gums, and caught something in his periphery.
No, I’m not seeing that, I’m not seeing it at all.
He turned his head towards it, but stopped himself.
No, don’t do it. It’s not there. It’s not real.
He closed his eyes, then opened them, and there it was.
Sitting on the rim of the sink, with what looked to be its own trail—like the silvery slime trail of a slug, but this one red, this one clearly blood—was a torn piece of flesh, still retaining the shape of the thumb from which it was ripped, still attached to the thumbnail, like some mutant mollusk that had dragged itself out of the sea.
Proof. Of what he did. Of what he was becoming. He looked at his own fingernails, at the flakes of blood. That shape, darker than the darkness, somewhere outside of the apartment, he had killed it.
The air in the bathroom felt heavy, viscous, laboring his breathing. The thumbnail began to spin, the ceiling switched places with the floor, everything moved one way and Wendell moved the other. The light was on, but the room dimmed.
And Wendell’s face rushed to meet the linoleum.
Wendell’s vision swam, then slowed, solidifying on his room in the institution.
Strobe light in the hallway.
Lab tech, oblivious.
Shackled hands.
He began to tremble. Shake.
Hands were now free.
Of course it was a dream. He knew it was a dream. He had been here before. Still, it felt new.
The dream flickered like the strobe’s pulse, in and out, light and dark. Hand up—
Dark.
Tech’s head down—
Dark.
He bashed the lab tech’s head into the metal railing running alongside his bed, the act nearly effortless. With hindsight it was horrifying. But now he was seeing it as if for the first time. And none of it bothered him.
Lab tech falling—
Dark.
At the door—
Dark.
Bare feet on tile. Long hallways.
Normally, they would be snoring into cups of cold coffee, the graveyard shift. Not now. It was high alert, but not for him, so they ran in the opposite direction.
No, not for me, for that…that thing.
Floors below him. Those screams. That was where they were all running.
The doors and—
Dark. And for a moment, this darkness felt like it wouldn’t end.
—his hands pushed them open, but now a second alarm sounded, shrill and insistent. He was spotted after slipping through the stairwell at the end of the hall. The stairway led to—
—his mother, and her bedroom, clean and ordered, lights on and windows open. But this was the final day of that, Wendell knew, reading the lines on her face. He knew. It was that night, when it all changed. She was backing up, moving toward the head of her bed, because she knew it was happening. She turned the lights off, and knelt down.
And if I go into the living room, I can stop it all…
Turned for the door, the open door through which he saw—
Dark.
Infirmary. The institution. They were behind him.
The can opener was left on a tray with an assortment of silverware outside of the kitchen, down the hall from the infirmary. He used it to remove some screws and squeeze into the infirmary’s vent. After thirty feet of pure claustrophobia, he realized that when desperate, no exit is too small. The grate to the outside was already loose, as if it had been waiting for him, requiring little effort to punch off.
Night sky. Clouds rolled in like smoke, obscuring the moon.
Was that gunfire? Below. Stopping the screams.
I’m gonna die in here.
He slithered out the end of the vent, panting, fevered, basted in sweat and grease. The night air cooled his face and he dropped, followed by a belch of exhaust, from Level 2 into a line of shrubs. Then came the siren, the slow moan of a dying animal. The front doors to the building opened, and he dashed through the trees behind the building, holding out his hands for—
Wendell awoke face down on the floor next to his mother’s bed. He shot up to his feet, surprised. Nothing looked to have changed. He shook his head, feeling a grogginess like the after effects of a drug. He walked out of the bedroom and into the bathroom, flicking on the light.
“Don’t remember turning the light off.”
The skin, the nail, the thin trail of blood, all gone. The rim of the sink was clean, almost cleaner than it had looked when he had first entered. He reached to open the medicine cabinet, finding an old toothbrush in a plastic glass. He took the brush, reaching with it to scratch the persistent itch between his shoulder blades, and left the bathroom with the light on. Walking towards the couch, his eyes wandered around the living room space, to the books and magazines where the television once sat, and to the wall behind it, with dark rectangles like ghosts showing where frames used to hang.
More police sirens. Whether they were coming or going, he didn’t know.
He turned towards the windows and the drawn drapes. For a moment, there was a blink of blue from the police lights outlining the plaid drapes. It disappeared, leaving only black.
Wendell sat naked in the bathtub, thinking it impossible to get clean in water with its own color. He draped his gray t-shirt, jeans, and tan socks over the sink. His sneakers sat next to each other on the linoleum next to the tub. A cloud of sediment swirled in the water, and began to collect at the bottom near the drain. He grabbed for the toilet brush sitting in the water next to him—the old tooth brush just wasn’t cutting it—leaned forward, and began scratching his back. Fortunately, he had found another tooth brush—still with white and unbent bristles—in the medicine cabinet, which sat on the edge of the tub next to a box of borax from beneath the kitchen sink and a rag that he was using as a sponge. Wendell leaned back, placed the toilet brush on the opposite edge of the tub, poured some borax onto the wet rag, and began to rub it in his armpits, on his ribcage, neck and shoulders. Rub. Scrub. Hard. Wanting whatever was in him to come off, as if it was just a stubborn ink stain, or a temporary tattoo.
“She must’ve had fleas,” he said, wishing it were true. His back continued to itch, right between the shoulder blades, and he thought of the lines crossing it, each with a mate, like some sort of tribal scarring. He sighed, then reached for the borax, poured it on the new toothbrush, and proceeded to brush his teeth.
“This is wrong,” Wendell said, wincing
and spitting into the tub water, “wrong wrong, all wrong, just… I’m wrong. I’m not—”
Not me. There is no me anymore. Just this…thing that used to be me.
“Just get it out,” he told himself, “just get it outta me, pour it down the drain.” He spat again, cupping some of the water back into his mouth to flush it out. He poured some borax onto his fingers and rubbed them on his tongue and the insides of his cheeks. He gagged and his eyes watered as a long line of pasty white drool dripped from his lower lip into the water. One more handful of water and a final spit finished it off. He watched more sediment swirl and begin to settle.
No. It wasn’t sediment. It was him. Tiny flakes of skin were peeling and detaching from him, from his feet and thighs. He watched them hover momentarily in the water before catching an unseen current and spiraling down to the bottom. Yes, the water coming out of the faucet wasn’t clean, but he was making it worse. One look at the toilet brush confirmed that the skin on his back was peeling. Its bristles were coated in a light red color, with a few small flakes still clinging on.
“Well, that’s it,” Wendell said, working his best Scotia affectation in his voice, “in a nutshell.” He remembered the doctor’s words as he sat across from Wendell in his office, like a customer ready to sign off on his new purchase—a car, or a house. A slave. In a nutshell. Simple, wrapped up, irreversible.
A door slammed outside and down the hallway.
Wendell snapped his head up.
Heavy footsteps followed.
They’re coming.
“No, not yet,” Wendell said. He gripped the sides of the tub. Then he heard a man’s voice, laughing to himself. It was the man from earlier, probably letting his woman sleep off her violation in some corner of his apartment.
The footsteps stopped in front of Wendell’s front door. Wendell moved slowly, leaning forward and craning his neck, able only to see part of the front door from the tub. But he did see the shadow of the man’s feet through the crack under it.
Tap tap tap
“Just go away,” Wendell whispered.
“You thought I forgot, didn’t you?” the man said through the door.
Wendell held his breath.
“Just forgot about the whole thing,” the man said. “But I can’t forget. Not you. Couldn’t just let this all lie. So now I’m back, all friendly-like. And I know yer still in there.”
Pause. Then thump thump thump.
“Come on man, just make it easy on both of us and open the door.” And then came faint scratches, as he pawed at the door playfully. “It’s not like I’m a bad guy. I won’t hurt you too bad. Just open…the…
—whump—
…door!” He slammed his body weight into the door.
Wendell stood up in the tub. “Just leave me alone!”
“Now there you go. Knew you’d be in there.”
“Go away.”
“Not tonight.” He pounded his frame into the door again.
“Just go—”
“This ain’t gonna end well.”
“I didn’t do anything to you, just leave—”
“That ain’t how it works.”
Silence. At first Wendell thought he heard the man’s breathing. But he was whispering, his volume growing.
“Come on little kitty, come on out.” Louder: “Here kitty,” he continued, “heeeere kitty kitty.” He laughed.
Water collected into pregnant drops and fell from the faucet. The light above Wendell hummed. And then:
“I know you,” the man said. “I know who you are.”
Wendell didn’t feel anything, and with hindsight he assumed he would feel something, especially for such a reaction. But it was immediate, as if a switch had been thrown. Without a thought, without even the time to register what he was doing, a naked Wendell lunged out of the tub and had left the bathroom and crossed the great room in eight steps, propelling his frame like a cannonball into the door. He landed, pounding the heels of his hands, his knees and forehead into the door.
“Leee-eeave me alone!” The door shook in its frame. “Just leeeave! Get outta here!” He head-butted the door twice more before realizing what he had done. He stopped, waiting for a response.
None came. At least, not what Wendell expected. Another door opened, across the hall, and Wendell heard the same woman’s voice from earlier.
“So you’re back,” she said.
“Chill out lady,” the man said.
“You got your answer Drake. Now get out of here, or I’ll call the police again.”
Nothing. Wendell, now aware of his surroundings, cold and wet and naked, refused to look out the peep hole.
“I’ve done it before, and you know I’ll do it again,” she said. “And we both know that you’ll do nothing to me.”
“Just mind yer own business lady…”
Wendell heard the woman chuckle. “It’s just not scary anymore,” she said. “Just a little man and his little tantrums. Or not a man at all. Just go back to your whores, Drake, and leave us all alone.”
Feet shuffled. The man gave a half-hearted laugh, trying to recover a portion of his intimidation.
“We’ll settle this,” he said to Wendell, slapping his hand against the door. Wendell heard him walk away. The door at the end of the hallway that led to the stairwell opened and closed.
“He’s gone,” she said. “You can come out now.”
“I’m not,” and Wendell looked down at himself, now shivering, “I’m not in anything…just out of the bathtub.”
“Just a crack then. Let me see my new neighbor’s face.”
“No, I can’t.”
“Of course you can. I just pulled you out of the fryer. Least you can do is show me your face.”
He turned the deadbolt and hesitated, then flicked the lock on the doorknob, and opened the door just enough for his face to show.
“Now that wasn’t too hard,” she said. She was small, almost mole-like, with a long forehead that sloped and tapered into her nose, which came to an abrupt point. The knit blue shawl buttoned closed over her dress was frayed at the edges, and the dress, another shade of blue but appearing washed out in the hallway’s lights, was browned at the bottom, like she had been gardening or changing her car’s oil in it.
“I gotta…”
“Now see, I was right. You don’t look like the devil or anything.” She brushed a few strands of hair out of her face, hair more colorless than gray, limp ropes like a mop that had dried before being pressed in the wringer. Her cheeks were dark and creased like walnut shells, and she stuffed her hands in the shawl’s pockets, nonchalantly, as if nothing of consequence had just happened in the hallway.
Wendell stared at her, then slowly began to close the door.
“You don’t want my name?” she asked.
“What? Well no, I mean, yeah, I mean—”
“It’s Sister Agatha.”
Wendell stopped.
“Sister, like a nun sister?” he asked.
“For forty-eight years.”
“Listen, thanks, but I—”
“You’re Diane’s boy, right?”
He nodded. “Wendell,” he said.
“Hello Wendell. So, she was an interesting lady, your mother.” Wendell could hear in her voice that interesting wasn’t her first word choice, but just what she thought would be more palatable to him. “Can I call her original? Yes, original. Don’t meet many like her.” She was using kid gloves, and he knew it.
“Will he be back?”
“Drake? Maybe. Probably. Yeah, I’d say so. But don’t let it keep you up at night.”
He was shivering.
“Look, I gotta—”
“So I’m just across the hall,” Agatha said as she pulled a hand out of her pocket and threw her thumb backwards towards her door, “if you need any—”
“I need to go.” He closed the door abruptly. And behind it, in the hall, she stood, clearing her throat.
“This place
isn’t all that bad,” Agatha said through the door, “if you just get rid of all the people.” She laughed to herself. “In here, you get jaded fast. Or just go crazy, like Drake.”
Just leave lady, he thought, just turn around and walk away.
“But that’s this city for you,” Agatha added, “and you learn to deal with it. Don’t know if your mother ever did. She had that nurse, Maggie, and I’d talk to her sometimes. She said your mother was ready for her big final exit, just so she could get out of here. Anything to get out of here. That’s too cynical for me, but that was her way, I suppose.” She mumbled something to herself before adding, “I’m sorry. More than you need to hear right now. Nice to meet you. Good night.”
Wendell heard her door open and then close. He took a deep breath and held it, feeling his pulse race in his neck, then exhaled. That man, Drake, would be back, as would she. The question was which Wendell would be there to meet them. The shy and timid Wendell, the Wendell he had always known, would evolve out of him, he feared, like a vestigial organ, replaced with a nameless urge, planted in him by them. He didn’t even know how much of that old Wendell would be left when Drake or the neighborly nun returned. It was gaining ground rapidly, that nameless urge, dark and primeval, fluid and unthinking in its actions. And it would be his new life. It would be—
—good.
Wendell’s heart fluttered. He shook his head. “No, not that,” he said. “That can’t happen.” He turned towards the kitchen. A growing puddle of water surrounded his feet, and he moved his toes in it, toes with black nails and flesh that was increasingly looking darker. He looked back at the front door and in the low light saw a crescent shadow, a dent in the metal door, where his head had made contact. He stepped towards it, examining it closer, touching the dent.
The Death of Wendell Mackey Page 5