“What we have done?” Scotia laughed and looked at Darby, then at the three other men, all smiling. “What exactly have we done?”
“Just look at Wendell,” she said, out of breath, “and you tell me what you see.”
“I see a man—”
“A man?” Wendell blurted out, his words feeling heavy in his mouth, as if the air had thickened. “Man? Look at me. Look at what I am!” He held up his hands and stomped a shoed hoof into the floor. “Look at this! And this—” and he pointed to the hole in his right temple “—this this THIS! I’m a monster, and I’ve got your fingerprints all over me. I even tried putting a bullet in my head, but I can’t even kill myself because of what you’ve done.”
Agatha’s hands went to her mouth. The two men at the door leaned in to see the wound in Wendell’s head.
“I don’t know what you were doing, but any bullet that you fired merely grazed your head,” Scotia said, “even I can see that. A nasty scratch, but a scratch nonetheless.”
“You tried to…” Agatha put a hand out towards Wendell, but retracted it.
“Ma’am, please, Mr. Mackey here is—”
“You’ve destroyed him,” she said.
“—insane.” Scotia shrugged, like he was disappointed in being the only one to grasp the obvious. “Paranoid delusions, schizophrenia, a completely diseased and broken psyche. Don’t tell me you actually believe him. Does he talk about Unit 200?”
She paused. “Yes.”
“It doesn’t exist. At least not anymore. It was a Japanese unit during World War II that tested bioweapons on the Chinese. He must have picked it up in a book somewhere, and added it to his delusion. It’s not unusual for this to happen.”
“But just look at him and tell me that’s insanity. Look at his skin, at his head. He’s falling apart, or—”
“Or he’s been doing it to himself. He just admitted to a suicide attempt. Under certain circumstances, mentally disturbed people will cut themselves, starve themselves, even mutilate their own bodies. He’s a sick man. We’re here to bring him back to the clinic and give him what he needs.”
“You’re not cops.”
“No we’re not,” said Scotia. “We just want him to come back. We just want to help him.”
“He’s always been delusional,” said Darby, “ever since he first came to us. Ever since he was a child, frankly. We actually talked with the psychiatrist he had as a child. This all has deep roots. In fact, what we’re talking about right now his mind is probably translating into something completely different.” He tilted his head down and looked at Wendell with the tops of his eyes, as one would address a child. “Do you know what we’re saying right now, Wendell?”
Laying the condescension on like syrup was common with the institution’s doctors. Yet it felt different now, dangerous, a taunt tossed at something vicious against which the doctors had little defense.
“All of this,” Wendell said to Darby, “I’m gonna—”
eat you
“—make you regret all of this. Lying to me, torturing me, hunting me down. All of it.” His voice was half an octave lower with a metallic ring in it, which Darby heard, distinctly, as his eyebrows peaked. Yet for some odd reason, aside from Darby, everyone else in the apartment didn’t notice, keeping to their own conversation.
“But where are the police?” demanded Agatha. “If you really are psychiatrists, then you need legal warrant to take him. So where are they?” She stepped towards Darby and Scotia, who remained motionless.
“They’re in the stairwell, waiting for us. We’re hoping this won’t need to escalate.”
“Then I want to see them.”
“He signed papers with us. He is legally to be under our observation.”
And with that Scotia nodded to the three armed men, all of whom took a collective step towards Wendell. Wendell stepped back, less a shrink and more of a defensive posture.
“Mr. Mackey, please.”
“It’s not gonna happen,” Wendell said.
Electricity in the air. But not the breath of God, not this time. Something lower, darker.
“You are ours,” said Scotia slowly.
“Then take me.”
Whatever was said next faded into the buzzing in Wendell’s ears. Scotia was talking about healing, about reshaping humanity, about being a new light in the world. He was speaking but not moving, like a ventriloquist dummy. And no one but Scotia was listening. None of it mattered.
The three armed men stepped towards Wendell.
Drake, and the guy in the alley, he thought. They were now just piles of bones and skin in body bags at the medical examiner. Lonely little men, who pushed something they didn’t understand too far. Like the men in front of him. Stupid men. Men who should have known better. He felt his heartbeat in his face and hands and his breathing quickened. Everything began to turn red, and for the first time, Wendell felt comfortable with his new self.
The first man reached out for Wendell’s left hand, grabbing with no hesitation.
“No, no you can’t—” Agatha yelled, bursting forward and being caught by one of the other men’s forearms. He barred her at the chest, and then as she struggled against his arm, he moved it up to her throat. The man put his other hand to the side of her head and shoved her to the floor. Quickly she stood up, gasping for air, and stepped towards the man who, with the full force of his frame, rammed her backwards, releasing her and letting her own weight carry her into the wall, where she fell in a heap.
“Not like this!” yelled Scotia, as if finally discovering emotion. “This will ruin everything!”
Wendell, feeling the man’s fingers around his wrist, looked up at him.
“It’ll make for a better world,” Wendell said, “with all of you gone.”
One motion, so quick it seemed fake. Wendell’s free hand arced up and then down, his sharp fingers slicing through the man’s forearm like an axe through Styrofoam. In the time that it took for the arm to fall and the man to fill his lungs to scream, Wendell saw Agatha, crumpled up next to the wall, a red ribbon of blood seeping out of a purpling oval on her forehead.
The man screamed, his stump coughing blood.
“Please listen,” Wendell said quietly.
Scotia, Darby, and the two other armed men watched their companion crumple to the floor and pick up his severed limb with his good arm. His blood was quickly pooling around his knees.
“Please! Listen.”
That electricity, filling the air in the apartment.
All eyes shot back towards Wendell.
“Mr. Mackey,” said Scotia, “you’ve just escalated.”
The two other armed men had something new in their eyes, cruel and uncompromising. And now Wendell knew that they were armed with more than just tranq guns.
Wendell took off his trench coat and let it drop to the floor. “Let me show you something.”
“What are you doing?” said Darby.
In that stifling apartment, Wendell actually felt cool. That electricity, which he knew wasn’t divine, wasn’t what he had felt those years ago at the church healing ceremony but instead originated from within himself, cut a circle from out of the stubborn, swampish air around him. It was temporary, he knew, but powerful, and it felt tremendous. The armed men looked up at Wendell, finally swallowing the fact that their employer was involved in far more than medical experimentation, knowing that their former ignorance was indeed bliss. On his chest, Wendell’s new skin peeked out from beneath the old in patches worn into holes in a random, shrapnel wound pattern. Where the skin wasn’t peeling, on his shoulders and near his waist, the old had begun morphing into the new, with the once pink flesh color mixing with a dark metallic gray like different dyes swirling and smoking together.
“Let me show you who I am,” Wendell said, stretching his arms out from his sides and raising his eyes to the ceiling. He didn’t know how they would emerge, just that they would, as naturally as extending his tongue or st
anding on one foot. It started as dual flutters, like giant arrhythmic hearts, then quickly became an aggressive pumping, like feet kicking against a wall. The moment the membranes burst Wendell’s vision went white as an unspeakable pain ripped through him, stretching the cords in his neck like harp strings. He breathed out an animal moan, and before the air had completely left his chest the wings unfurled, spreading and casting a shadow over the men. He regained his vision as the pain continued to burn holes in his back. Birthing pain, he thought. What he saw was blurred, ringed with flashing light. But in seconds the blurring stopped and he looked at them staring back at him, gape-jawed and frozen, their eyes giant like saucers. All but Scotia, who seemed in awe, his open mouth hooked up slightly at the corners.
And by the wall was Agatha, her head hanging, either unwilling to look or unable. Her hand went to her forehead.
“This is what you wanted,” Wendell said, letting his wings beat the air.
Darby shook out of his stupor, gesturing to the two armed and uninjured men.
“He’s got a—weapon…”
There came a heavy pause, as everyone prepared for what would come next and eyes lined on their targets.
“Take him,” Scotia urged.
The two men grabbed their tranq guns from their belts, stood before Wendell and raised the barrels. Before fingers even touched triggers, Wendell’s claws bolted out and grabbed both guns, jerking them out of their hands and throwing them to his sides. With little effort, Wendell punched into the men’s chests, launching them both backwards and to the floor where they slid to a stop at the apartment door.
Darby snatched one of the wooden chairs sitting at the kitchen table, and as Wendell watched the two men reorient themselves near the door, he raised the chair above his head and brought it crashing down into Wendell’s left shoulder. The chair splintered, and Wendell, once convinced of his invincibility, realized that pain was an ever present reality, invincible or not. His shoulder and left wing blazed with pain, and he dropped to one knee, catching his breath before grabbing Darby by his shirt collar and pulling him out over the kitchen table, toppling Darby to the floor and knocking the round table off its legs, where it rolled lazily in a soft arc on its edge.
Scotia, now furious, didn’t move.
“What is happening?” asked a voice, hollowly.
The handless man struggled to stand, but fell to his back, crab walking backwards with his feet and good hand to avoid Wendell. His injured arm spurted little puddles of blood over the floor. Wendell stopped him in two quick steps, planting one shoe, then the other into the man’s chest, twisting them and grinding down with all his weight. The man’s eyes bugged so widely Wendell saw the curve of each eyeball. Then his neck muscles loosened and his head fell back to the floor. Unconscious, dead, Wendell didn’t care. He had more to do.
Now Agatha was standing, wobbly but alive, an abstract splotch of blood on her forehead.
The two men by the door were up and on him. One hand squeezed the base of his right wing; two arms were around his waist. A forehead rammed into the small of his back and Wendell went to his knees. Darby held back Agatha, who struck out and clawed at his face. Wendell watched Darby push her back, close his fist and strike her full force on the side of her head. She shrieked and went to the floor again, where Darby put a foot into her back to keep her down.
Wendell reached back with a claw and pulled one of the men off his back like he was removing a backpack. The other man, attached to Wendell’s waist, spun to the floor as Wendell stood. The man reached out for a table leg, which he pulled down and snapped off. With the jagged piece of wood, he lunged at Wendell, not expecting Wendell’s speed. The wooden dagger caught Wendell’s forearm and peeled back a length of old skin, but his claw grabbed the weapon, stopping the man’s momentum. Wendell twisted his body around and shot out his other claw, raking it across the man’s belly. The man squealed and fell backwards into his partner, part of his gut lolling out in red coils into his hand.
“Wendell, please…please!”
Darby’s foot came down harder on Agatha.
The last guard, hesitant at first, then swelled with foolish strength, made his attempt, first reaching down to his ankle, lifting his pant leg to reveal an ankle holster and pistol. He pulled it out.
Agatha screamed.
On one knee, the man aimed, his foot sliding in a puddle of blood. He pulled the trigger.
His little slide made a difference. The bullet impacted against Wendell’s shoulder sending old skin, and some new, flying. Wendell grabbed his shoulder as Scotia and Darby reeled at the gunshot, cupping their hands over their ears. Agatha, free from Darby’s foot, crawled forward towards the first aid kit, now on the floor. She worked the top madly, opening it and reaching for—
The man with the gun stepped towards Wendell, his gun still up.
—the kit’s road flare.
The man knew he only had time for one shot, and with this new and seemingly unstoppable Wendell before him, it had to be a shot through the eye.
Darby was grasping for the wriggling Agatha. She popped the plastic lid off the flare, turned it and scratched it against the exposed flare head.
Wendell turned back from his shoulder to see the pistol in his face.
A purple triangle of fire shot from the flare, which Agatha planted firmly onto the back of Darby’s reaching hand. He screamed, recoiling.
The man with the gun jerked at Darby’s scream, which was all that Wendell needed. His left claw came down onto the man’s jaw, shattering it and making it hang limply like an overstretched rubber band. And with a fiendish efficiency, Wendell began swinging his arms down onto the man in wide arcs. The claws did what they were engineered to do. Blood splattered onto Wendell’s face, and the noises were hideous: animal screams, tearing fabric, ribs cracking. In seconds, the man was finished, dead but for a moment still standing, and then collapsing to the floor.
But then came a new pain, in Wendell’s back.
Darby was struggling with Agatha, a new black burn now on his cheek.
The handless man was motionless on the floor.
The second sat slumped, holding his stomach in.
The third, hollowed out like a pumpkin, lay in a ball.
But Scotia had grabbed the knife that was in the middle of the floor the whole time and jammed it into Wendell’s back. Or had attempted to; it didn’t go deep.
“This was wrong,” he whispered to Wendell, “all wrong.”
Wendell felt Scotia struggle to push the blade farther in. The pain radiated in sharp, electric bursts.
“Imagine being a good little boy,” he continued, “never leaving your room, never leaving our building. Imagine never seeing this apartment, never seeing her.”
Wendell looked down to Agatha, her little frame carrying more force in it than seemed physically possible. She was getting to her knees, the flare still in one hand. Darby still fought back, but was now mewling and clearly afraid.
“Never ruining her life,” Scotia said, “and watching her die. Just a good little boy, doing as he was told. We would have taken care of you, let you be a part of such things,” and his pitch rose, “such great things.”
Wendell reached back and grabbed Scotia’s wrist, which was still trying to push the blade in deeper.
“But you’re a disturbed little boy, Mr. Mackey, completely broken. Killing your father...”
Wendell’s eyes narrowed and he clamped his jaws together.
“You’re a liar,” Wendell hissed, “a liar. I was there.”
“…and then your mother. Killed her by killing him, and letting her just waste away over it.”
It was in Scotia’s voice, a tinniness, the realization that he couldn’t win. It was all coming apart; trying to drag Wendell down with him would bring him some consolation. But the sound of defeat in his voice made his lie all the more obvious to Wendell, who had been there and knew what had happened to his father and mother. He had to fight a smile
as he pulled back on Scotia’s wrist, bringing the blade out from his back. And in one quick motion Wendell spun around, baring his teeth and snapping Scotia’s wrist at a right angle. Scotia dropped the knife and jammed his other hand into Wendell’s face, which Wendell promptly bit, hard enough for his upper and lower teeth to touch through Scotia’s flesh. Scotia, too stunned to scream, went limp. Wendell hoisted him up and threw him across the kitchen and into his old bedroom, where he crashed into the boxes and stacks and assorted collections, ending up both beneath and atop mounds of garbage.
Wendell turned to see Darby gaining an upper hand on Agatha, holding both of her wrists as she tried to push the flare towards his face. Darby, knowing he was the only institution man still standing, turned his head towards Wendell.
“It was nothing personal,” he said, with no remorse, “never was.”
Knowing Wendell was mere steps from him, he wrenched Agatha’s wrist one last time to free her of the flare. She shrieked, opened her hand, and the flare flew through the air and landed right inside Wendell’s bedroom doorway.
All three of them stood, watching the purple flames leap and dance across the carpet. They saw Scotia’s eyes, peeking out from under a pile of papers and now lunar large, almost not Scotia’s eyes since they held in them the fear that Scotia never appeared to have. Somewhere under the pile Scotia’s hand slipped and his body weight carried him backwards on the bed. When his head came back up, they only saw it through a curtain of fire.
“Wendell, leave,” said Agatha, rubbing her wrists. “Get out.”
Darby looked at him dumbly.
Wendell responded by grabbing Darby by the neck and ramming his head into the refrigerator door. Darby dropped to the floor and the door, now dented and broken open, swung out listlessly and stopped where it touched the top of his head.
Wendell felt the flames from his bedroom. He heard Scotia screaming.
“Get out of here Wendell!” Agatha screamed.
He stooped down to grab his trench coat, which he put on, and turned to Agatha.
“I’ll be right behind you,” she said. “I’ll drive to St. Jude’s and—”
The Death of Wendell Mackey Page 24