The Death of Wendell Mackey

by C. T. Westing

  Quickly, just don’t make a scene.

  Wendell moved towards the market, seeing no customers inside or out. He scanned his surroundings, looking for eyes turned his way. Out of a whole pile of oranges, two or three wouldn’t be missed. The sweeping clerk wouldn’t care. The Pakistanis wouldn’t care.

  Across the street was the Mortimer Cinema, where Wendell’s father had taken him after their first week in the city to watch cartoon cats battle cartoon dogs and eat popcorn so salty his lips cracked. Above the front doors was the theater marquee, with the word Mortimer in neon letters descending in a vertical column into the marquees’ top. Swirls of gold and lines of holes where glass bulbs were meant to go lined the marquee, which now held the words UNDER NEW MANAGEME. A solitary N hung for dear life at the bottom; the T must have been long gone. On the decline even when Wendell was young, the cinema was now dead, but just didn’t know it yet. The poster displays out front were either broken or held faded posters of women in slinky lingerie pouting their lips. The ticket stand was empty, but next to it was a man, leaning against it and staring out across the street.

  Staring at Wendell.

  No, he’s looking at something else, not at…

  The man walked to his right and leaned against a mailbox painted with bird droppings like abstract art. He coughed into his fist.

  Not coughing. He’s talking, into a mike in his hand…

  He raised his eyes and again looked at Wendell. It had to be at Wendell.

  He sees me.

  The man had a wiry sponge of hair covered in a gray knit cap, with a thick beard covering all but eyes and a bulbous nose. On any normal day he would just be another homeless loser on the street, searching garbage cans for recyclables or bumming smokes off pedestrians. On any normal day. But the world was off its axis, the earth was swallowing the city, and Wendell was seeing first hand a new world emerge. Normal was gone. So Wendell stared back, knowing but not caring that staring would bring it all to a new level.

  The man flipped his hand over to reveal a cigarette as if it were a magic trick, lit it and put it to his lips. With his other hand he scratched at the hair sticking out from his knit cap.

  That cap, Wendell thought. Yes, I knew it.

  The Corner Pocket Lounge, two days earlier. It had been raining. A man, stumbling down the sidewalk, and clearly a good actor. He had been following Wendell all along. This was no homeless man. Even that bird’s nest homeless man beard was too obvious.

  Fake. Fake hair, fake nose. All of it.

  The man would shuffle his feet, fish for something in his pocket, or adjust his cap, all while dropping his glance and then returning it to Wendell.

  “Walk away,” Wendell whispered. Something’s in that pocket of his, he thought. He pulled his trench coat collar up and turned towards the market. Wendell reached Brewster’s, picked his way through the tables and crates on display on the sidewalk, thinking nothing of oranges. He kept his eyes pointed to Mortimer Street so that he could keep the man in his periphery; he was now walking a few paces behind Wendell on the other side of the street. Wendell slowed, and the man slowed. A horn blared in the street, and Wendell took it as a starting pistol, quickening his pace, knowing toes were breaking in his sneakers. The man followed.

  Mortimer intersected with Greenfield Street at the light. Wendell turned left sharply and kept up his pace. Greenfield was empty of all traffic, all people, silent, like it was sleeping.

  Echoes. Behind him. With the naked street and the concrete brownstones, the footsteps swelled in Wendell’s ears. His throat tightened.

  Just keep going, just don’t stop, Wendell thought, trying to convince himself of the best option, just run, find a public place. Just don’t let it happen, don’t let him…

  And then came a devilish thought: stop and face him.

  Yes, stop. You know you want to.

  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.

  “Often, we must murder to create,” said the voice. “And right now, in you, we are creating something of great beauty. One of pure id, Mr. Mackey, uninhibited, unencumbered.”

  Out of the black came blurs, which sharpened into focus. Wendell was in his room at the institution, and the voice was Scotia’s, who stood over him. Behind Scotia was a lab tech, tapping his fingers on his tablet computer, waiting for his chance to check Wendell’s vitals.

  “So,” Scotia continued, “even out of something seemingly bad, comes something good. Something profound.” He smiled, broader than normal, showing his rows of unnaturally straight teeth. He turned, nodded to the tech, and began to step away, but stopped himself. “Oh, yes,” he added, looking down at Wendell again, “your mother is dead.” It was said without a smile, not because of the gravity of the words, or sympathy, but more out of a belief that it was a necessary addendum to what he really wanted to say. He turned again, heading for the door.

  The tech was now busy on his cell phone, first texting, then making a call. He looked up at Wendell and smiled, ending the call and dropping his phone into his pocket.

  Then it started, the roars, likely from one of the sub levels, audible though not loud on Wendell’s floor. It had been happening virtually every night that week. Fierce, inhuman, yet from the anguished lungs of a man whose humanity had been replaced. What was replacing it was still unknown. But it carried on in its agony, its roars interrupted only by occasional tortured bleats. The chimera spoke in the only language it knew, furious and terrified at what was happening.