Whargoul

by Dave Brockie

  So think of me as the punk kid who siphons the gas out of your brain.

  As the van begins to consume itself, and the helicopter hovers like some voyeuristic insect, I slump, overwhelmed by the relief which courses through my being. The hunger dissipates, replaced by a glowing, giggling glee, which is augmented by the fact that I have more food close at hand, which I bend to with alacrity, jamming my feeding device into yet another skull and sucking out his ism as the gas tank explodes.

  “Yowch!” The cab fills with flame as I take my leave, bursting out the back doors and into the street, rolling once to extinguish my clothing and come to my feet right in full view of the stupefied crowd, the hovering TV news helicopter, and the previously unseen cop car rolling in my direction.

  I hightail it for the sewer, flatten my form and pour into it like a gush of slime. Then I’m gone, ignoring the shouts and the sirens, racing through my maze and at one point blocking the tunnel with a plug three men couldn’t move. I don’t stop until I’m back in my fort, up to the lookout post on top and gazing upon the carnage in the street four blocks away.

  Normally the cops didn’t even come into my neighborhood unless there was a corpse to pick up, and that day they had several. The aftermath of my actions would be the first step on the way to the troubles I would experience over the next few months. You just can’t go around exploding Claymores and brain-sucking potential council-members, no matter how strongly you might disagree with their policies. My methods were usually much more covert and most of my victims were never found, plus I preferred hunting those that society would never miss anyway.

  On orders from those that I had sworn to destroy, I had violated my own code. I had committed a flagrantly violent public action, murdering a prominent figure. It drew unwanted attention to my realm. For the next few days the police presence was heavy, as the cops imposed a curfew and ransacked local dwellings for evidence, inflaming the bad feelings on both sides. Several humans were hauled away and beaten half to death; one had a mop-handle rammed up his ass. The area around the crime was cordoned off for days and meticulously searched. They even sent dogs into the sewer and I think Maug (my dog) killed one, as he came back slick with blood, panting and happy. It was dumb luck that my domicile was not discovered, but I was ready to defend it if it had been. And that would have been a real mess. Had I known the real reason that I’d committed the crime, I scarcely would have believed it myself. As it was, I wouldn’t begin to realize the full implications until a week later when my growing hunger compelled me to venture once again out of my fort.

  ***

  My first week in “Das Reich” was an eventful one.

  My flesh had stopped regenerating for once, even though I didn’t have any skin. I felt fairly certain that it would return with my next feeding, which could wait, if need be, for some time. This was due to my experiences in the hospital, sucking the soul-wafts of the mangled. My batteries were fully charged. It was a good thing because I had been under intense pressure and scrutiny since my enrollment in the division.

  A black truck filled with soldiers takes me to a small and isolated camp, deep in the Romanian wilderness. I am under strict guard—ten soldiers with heavy weapons that follow me everywhere. They do not speak, and they have faces that look like turnips.

  In a cool concrete chamber, I am interrogated about the Russians, their tactics, and weapons. The voices come through the wall. I tell them everything I can, and I knew a lot. The questions about my personal history never came. Where I’d been born, what my name was, what my family was doing—these were questions at that point unpondered by me, and already known to them. I was assigned a name: “Josef Mueller,” which was just about as generic as you could imagine. Then they teach me about the German army, just the facts and the manner in which I must behave in order to “fit in.” There are also visual aids. It takes a couple days.

  Then it’s off to the range. I am taught war skills. Usually I train alone, though I am always under guard. I am instructed and supervised by Sturmscharführer Trengret, a member of the “Werewolf” order. We are followed by a large armored car, an Sd. Kfz. 232 with eight wheels and numerous MG’s, along with a 37 mm cannon in the turret. Trengret reports to the vehicle for orders. He talks to it, and it talks back. The German small arms I am already familiar with, so they teach me how to drive a tank, how to shoot a rocket launcher, and many other techniques of murder that will prove useful. I ask to fly planes but they will not let me. So I shoot guns and blow stuff up all day. Nice work, when I can get it.

  I rest in one room, the guards in the other. I am instructed not to speak with them. They don’t talk to each other either, and eat brown paste that comes out a hole in the wall. I am brought food, which I don’t need but still enjoy. After a week I’m getting pretty hungry, and the guards are starting to look good. But I act with the iron will that is expected of me.

  One day I realize that training is over. Alone in a field, I watch the soldiers pile in the truck and drive off towards camp without me. The Sd. Kfz. sits for a moment, regarding me, then also moves off in a different direction at high speed. Grabbing my weapons, I run towards camp, taking a short leap off a cliff and arriving before the truck. I take up a position outside the camp and wait. The SdKfz comes into view first, atop a small hill overlooking the whole scene. Then comes the truck, barreling down the road. I fire my Panzershrek (shoulder-mounted rocket launcher) in a flurry of angry sparks. The truck erupts in flame and slews to a halt, a chorus of high, piping screams escaping. Blazing men stumble out, their ammo exploding. I cut them down with my sub-machine gun and advance, looking for a feed. I barely see the grenade explode and take a heavy blow. Dropped to the earth, I scuttle away, leaving the dead and my filthy prize. There is metal in my face and chest, but I’m not badly hurt.

  Trengret bursts into view through a wall of smoke, upon me with a dagger. I twist about and take the blade in the shoulder, hardening the flesh and snapping the blade as my hands grasp his throat and then his skull, forcing him down while driving my claws into his flesh. I break open his neck at the base of the skull and force my tongue into the hole, not missing a drop.

  Finishing my meal, I hear the familiar rattling of tank treads. It is the PZ IV I had been training on, rushing down the road to the scene of carnage and loosing a shell at me. I duck under the explosion and run off in a great looping circle. The tank turns with me, rotating its turret and firing madly, bullets striking just behind me as I outrun its axis of fire and get behind it. The driver throws the transmission into reverse and tries to run me over, but I bound onto the rear of the tank, ripping open the engine cover and dropping a grenade inside, just as the rotating main gun knocks me off. The grenade explodes, doing unknown damage. The tank continues to grind about, searching for me as a sudden gush of black smoke rushes from the rear deck. I leap onto the front deck and ram my SMG into the vision slit, spraying a stream of lead into the aperture from point blank range. Metal explodes into the drivers face, and I jam the muzzle of my weapon further into the small opening, pumping a full clip of fire into the tank’s interior, filling it with shredding lead which is dense enough to—BLAM!—set off a shell just as my gun explodes—I pitch into space boots first as the shattered weapon melds with my arm and face in a glorious ripping of flesh and steel, arranged in a cone of fire. The beast immolates itself as I thud into the earth.

  Rising painfully, I regard the burning tank. They are all aflame, so there is no food. Brain juice burned up quick.

  “What a waste,” I sniffle.

  Suddenly I hear a voice, from a distance, calling to me. A metallic voice, rising from a speaker attached to the front of an armored car.

  “Mueller! It is I, the Obersturmbannführer!”

  I look towards the hollow sound.

  “You have made me proud. I can see I was right about you. It is good that you are back with us.”

  I stand there, covered in blood, uniform aflame, a dopey look on my writhing f
ace.

  “There will be no more mistakes. There is a new offensive. This time you shall fight on the correct side. If you return, I shall tell you more. Walk down the road. A vehicle will meet you. Inside will be normal soldiers. Do not kill them. They will furnish you with papers and you shall assume the identity described within. There will no longer be a guard upon you. You shall be conveyed to a front-line unit, which you shall join as a replacement soldier of the “Das Reich” division. Your new life begins today.”

  I stare back, deeply satisfied. I had waded through rivers of gore for this moment, and I knew that I deserved it. Finally I was hanging around with people of quality.

  “And one more thing. You’ll be pleased to know your seed has found able purchase in the womb of Nurse Faber. She has been conveyed below and will be used to create new material. If the material is satisfactory you may be allowed to mate with her again.”

  But hadn’t I had left her lifeless corpse at the bottom of a stream?

  “Now go. Go and reap the whirlwind . . .”

  I stride off, breathing heavily as I continue to regenerate. No, I wouldn’t kill them. I could wait. They were to become a part of the greater killing. The Obersturmbannführer respected me, understood my special needs. And needed me. Needed me to kill, needed me to rape. All I had to do was play along. Play with my favorite things at my favorite playground.

  I was off to a place they called Kursk.

  ***

  Maug was my loyal and trusted dog, a 160-pound pit bull with something of the devil up his butt. He was usually good-tempered, but sometimes prone to random fits of mindless violence against my furniture and me. I still trusted him a lot more than most humans I had met, with the exception of Cheng.

  Maug had just shown up one day, and would often disappear for extended periods of time, rummaging through the underworld and doing dog knew what. I’d occasionally drive him out to the country for extended romps, but his main purpose was guarding my abode during my periods of absence, or potentially fighting with me in its defense. It was also nice when he would lick my face.

  I had several vehicles tucked about the New York area, my favorite being a black panel van, a Ford, with a steel mesh cargo cage, fat tires and a ball-shrinking growl. It was my battlewagon. There were other machines, like the Riviera and a couple of motorcycles. I would take these vehicles on my “beer runs,” always changing my positions and avenues of approach. I never drove up to or out of my fort, and that night I decided to walk all the way.

  I needed to score dope, good dope, and maybe fuck a whore. It was that or kill somebody. Still bloated from my last feed, I felt confident about my chances of controlling my lustful urges. That night I just wanted to have fun.

  So I got dressed—boots, sweat pants, and hooded sweatshirt, all black. I had my money belt and a thousand bucks in my pocket. My watch read 9:38 pm, E.S.T. Saturday night in sin city. I finished off my ensemble with a nasty stiletto tucked into my boot and a double shot of Bushmills. Patting Maug goodbye, I slipped into the shaft and made my way to the outside, his plaintive whine fading behind me.

  In a few minutes I appear beside the railroad tracks, which I begin to creep along, listening for movement, feeling a colony of rats scurrying along beneath me. Moving down the track through the greasy blackness I come to a rusty metal ladder that I leap up, avoiding the security screen with ease. I plop down in an alley and begin to make my way through the glowing and raucous streets of New York City.

  Foremost on my agenda is Fat Lenny’s, a notorious open-air drug market that I don’t get within a block of due to the copious amount of swirling blue lights that denote a large police action in progress. There are shouts and blows as skulls are cracked. I give them a wide berth, silently cursing. I’ve always hated cops, and since becoming black I have felt their heat even more so. As I furtively move along, the police presence is noticeably greater than usual and does not slacken until I begin to enter the more affluent areas of mid-town. Apparently my latest attack has rattled city hall.

  Away from the black neighborhoods, the streets are packed with the insane variety of humanity that only New York City can bring forth. Punks, pimps, professionals—a panoply of persons cross my path, all looking wary and confused. There is a tense feeling in the city tonight and I get more than a few suspicious looks. I slip into a deli, buy some malt liquor and suck it from a brown paper bag. You might not think that a creature that feasts on brainstems semi-regularly would enjoy a cold 40 of Olde English, but I appreciate the numbing effect it has on me.

  Me. What the fuck was me? I stare at my reflection in a store window, packed with gadgetry. So many devices. Tiny screens and fighting figures. Personal computers and pocket pussies. And my black face staring back at me.

  Then I’m on TV.

  The hot blonde newscaster reports the story from behind the wall of glass, as I tune in my hearing. The footage shot from the news ‘copter is played for the millionth time that week. People want to see the blow to Moyer’s face, the retreat and then the unexpected explosion, and finally me, leaping from the flames and rolling, then rushing into the sewer.

  This is what I get for only ever watching the History Channel—I’d become a celebrity and didn’t even know it.

  They zoom in as close as they can until the fuzzy outlines of my frame fill the screen, my body blurring, the ski mask anonymously terrifying. They show it again, in slow-mo. Next, a horribly burned survivor is interviewed. Then the officer in charge of the investigation, a great, meat-faced man whose harsh voice is somehow familiar . . . I’m fascinated by the level of attention my story has received. I mean, bombs went off all the time.

  Then I realize I’m still wearing the same clothes, except for the mask, which is hanging out of my back pocket.

  “Fuckin’ piece o’ shit . . .” says a white guy to his drunk friends. “They ought put a wall around Harlem.”

  “Then cart us off to the death-camps, right?” I turn on him with a roar, blowing them backwards with the sheer volume of my voice. They scuttle off into the crowd.

  But he is right. They need a wall, if only to keep me in. Me, the monster, the rat that ate Baby Kiesha’s brain.

  I remember the shouts from that day—shouts of “Baby Kiesha,” and “rats.” A baby girl had been found dead in her crib, apparently killed and partially devoured by a rat. The rally I had attacked had been part of a last-ditch effort by city hall to head off a rising condition in the black community, a condition widely known as “black rage,” a condition which had led to a citywide crisis and manhunt.

  I stumble down Broadway, panic suddenly assailing me like a cloud of wasps. Once again, I was the pawn. I thought they had forgotten me, I had prayed they’d never find me . . . but they were using me, using me to start another filthy war. And this time I didn’t want to play.

  I throw my sweatshirt away and purchase a Simpsons color print T-shirt. In the store the radio blares “the suspect is described as a 6’5” black male, powerfully built, wearing a black sweatshirt, gym pants and combat boots.” I throw a fifty at the black shopkeeper, mumbling sheepishly about us being “brothers” as I grab another 40 oz. from the fridge and run into the street.

  Feeling vulnerable, I lose myself in the mob. Soon, the streets are packed to the point where I can barely move. I wriggle madly, assailed by a thousand vapors, an infinite set of possibilities, all pointing towards my doom. Three-card Monte is jamming the curb, limos are arrogantly parked three-deep, and boxes of jewelry are shoved in my face.

  Then from across the street something catches my attention, a commotion, a sound I am somehow drawn to. A crowd has gathered about a junkyard percussion unit-trashcans, 5-gallon drums and the like. It’s a good beat, and I strain to get closer.

  The crowd has focused on the antics of one maniacal individual, a middle aged, rattily dressed Asian. As soon as I see him I forget my panic and stand, dumbfounded. He’s prancing about to the beat, doing some sort of a bizarre mantis danc
e, like a kind of drunken Tai Chi. Occasionally and without warning, he whirls up to an onlooker and exhorts them to join him in this mad waltz. He only goes after those most likely to say “no,” like a group of burly bikers, who invariably turn beet-red and insultingly refuse. Undaunted, he capers about into an amazingly adroit kick-jump, landing directly in front of me.

  “I’m Chinese!” he says. “Time to dance!”

  Something about his face made him suddenly appear younger than his visible years, yet ageless. My hand touches his and a discernible energy passes up my arm, as I effortlessly slip into the ring. We begin twirling about, staring without embarrassment into each other’s eyes as the crowd erupts with delighted squeals. I lift him high and toss him, and he flips, dirty clothing flapping in slow-motion, and then he does the same with me—all 240 of my pounds. The panic and confusion of the evening slips away in this suspended interlude. I feel unfettered, free, unstained by my bloody deeds, and sensing the proximity of my energy, the band redoubles their efforts, garbage drums pounding a relentless staccato. The dance reaches its furious climax and I tear myself away, shaking with uncontrollable laughter, moving as quickly as the crowd will let me, the Chinese man capering behind me, calling to me to return . . .