Something Terrible

by Wrath James White

  Kenneth fought back tears of his own. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I won’t be going anywhere.” He smiled. “Besides, I’m here for more reasons than you think.”

  Really? Jason’s hands were wet from the tears he wiped from his cheeks.

  “Yes.”

  ***

  Kenneth put a dollar into a homeless man’s upside-down hat before he stepped onto the escalator. The man was playing a saxophone and nodded when he saw the money drop into his otherwise empty hat. As Kenneth rode the escalator up to street level, he listened to the notes and melodies echo off the tile walls. With a smile, he thought of Jason, he thought of the beautiful music, and he didn’t feel too bad about the world he lived in.

  Exiting the subway station, he was met with a scene unlike anything he was used to. The side of the old brick convenience store had been transformed into an artist’s canvas. In the center of the mural was a man, dressed in ripped clothing, holding a cardboard sign. It read, “I’ll bet you a dollar you saw this sign.” All around him were people, noses held high, rushing in various directions. These people were dressed in suits and ties. The man bore an exhausted face, sorrowful. Above the entire image was God, who, just like the pedestrians ignoring the homeless man, had his head turned up from his poor creation.

  A young boy in a black hoodie was signing his masterpiece. He kept checking right and left down the street. As he focused on perfecting his signature, a dark-blue Ford Crown Victoria rounded the corner. It slowly approached the teenager, parking on the sidewalk near him. Though the windows were darkly tinted, Kenneth could see the white uniform of the city’s police force. He wanted to warn the artist, tell him to run, but his words caught in his throat. Before he had time to reconsider, the officer dashed from the Crown Victoria and bashed the kid across the head with his baton. The teenager had no time to react; as he dropped sideways, a line of spray paint traced his fall to the ground from the end of his signature. Though his subject had already fallen, the officer had no intention of stopping his attack. Kenneth watched with a rising frustration. He remembered the last time he was seized by fear in the face of adversity, idle, a witness to police brutality toward a rebellious youth, a one Jason Lee.

  Kenneth’s inaction put Jason where he was today. No compensation in court. Kenneth swore to repay him, even though it wasn’t his fault, even though no other party knew of his idle presence. Now, every day, he visited the boy to somehow correct the wrongs that the nation had beat into him.

  Kenneth saw the white baton redden. With each strike, he felt an overwhelming restlessness expel the hesitation from his limbs. He rushed across the street and snatched the baton from the officer mid-swing.

  “The fuck do you think you’re—”

  Kenneth whipped the baton across the cop’s jaw before he could finish his question. His chin slid out of place with two loud pops as both sides of his jaw dislocated. The cop leaned forward and spit out a pair of bloody teeth onto the pavement before falling forward onto his own face.

  Kenneth stood tall, looking down at the two hurt men. The red liquid on the sidewalk stained the cement. It looked like Jason’s crime scene. Coagulating blood on the pavement. Like stinking shit on a tiled hospital floor. What he had been reduced to.

  The police officer held his chin with both hands, rocking back and forth in his own mess. Retribution.

  “You know that’s not allowed, right?” The voice was deep.

  Kenneth turned toward the source and was greeted by the buff black man in the suit, the one he’d recently met watching Mecca on the news. He dropped the nightstick.

  “Don’t worry. I’m a good guy. I’ve been observing you. But we should probably flee. You watch the news enough to know what happens to cop killers.”

  Kenneth was not sure whether to trust the man. Kenneth wholeheartedly disagreed with him on the church’s conquest over Mecca, but that alone shouldn’t make him a threat. But what of the silver necklace? He could have just imagined it, his nightmares crawling into his daydreams. The man frightened Kenneth, sure, but he had a point. The cops would seek vengeance to the full extent of the law and then some in order to protect their divine image. Kenneth glanced around at the rubbernecks in idle cars and people gathering on the sidewalk. “Yeah, let’s get out of here. Do you have a car?”

  “Yes. Follow me.” The man led him to a Mercedes parked down the street.

  “Who are you?” Kenneth asked, settling into the car’s heated seat.

  “I’m here to protect you.”

  “Why?”

  The man ignored Kenneth’s question. “Give me the directions to your home. Don’t make it direct. Take a roundabout way. I need to be sure we aren’t being followed.” He sounded legitimate, like he knew what he was doing.

  “Do I get a name at least?”

  “Call me Roy.”

  The crowd looked around at each other for a few seconds, then at the beaten teenager and officer lying on the floor beneath the graffiti art. Cars were stopped up and down the block as drivers hung out their window to see what was going on. And for a few seconds, as the sounds of honking horns, screeching brakes, and revving engines diminished, music filled the street from the entrance to the subway, saxophone, jazz. A few people snapped pictures with their cell phones, others simply backed away as if they hadn’t witnessed a thing. Eventually the crowd dispersed, and the two injured men blended into the cityscape. People stepped over them to get to their destinations, as if they were stepping over just another bum begging for change. Cars drove by, their passengers shielded from the outside within their mobile cubicle. And the melodic sounds of the saxophone was again lost under the commotion of the city.

  As Kenneth gave his final directions to the apartment complex, the man began to smile, as if dwelling over a secret memory. Roy never needed the directions, he apparently already knew this place very well.

  “What is it?” Kenneth asked.

  “Oh, nothing.” Roy’s lips were pressed into a straight line. “Where should I park?” He made sure to park his car between two empty parking spaces.

  They walked up the steps to his apartment. “Come on in.”

  “Jennifer, you’re home early.”

  “Lunch break,” she said, her back turned. “I take it your job hunt was shitty as usual?” She faced Kenneth and jumped when she noticed the man standing behind him. “Gerald?”

  Kenneth scrunched his eyebrows. “I thought your name was Roy.” Then he turned to Jennifer: “How do you know him?” It wasn’t a question, rather a demand that expected an answer.

  “From work.” She spat it out quickly, as though it were the first excuse that popped into her mind.

  “Really? You called this man Gerald. I’ve seen a text on your phone from a person named Gerald. Care for an explanation?”

  The man stood with his arms crossed, never offering input, simply smiling as he watched the commotion.

  “Well. Well. I.” She looked back and forth between the two men.

  The man interrupted. “I’m fucking your girlfriend.”

  “What? What?”

  “Sorry, man.” He struck Kenneth on the side of the temple.

  Kenneth stumbled backward, hands in the air, trying to block the man. Again, the man punched Kenneth. He moved forward as Kenneth reeled back on his heels, pinned against the kitchen table. He had nowhere else to run. The man continued his attack.

  “Please! Don’t fight over me!” She ran to them, trying to pry them apart.

  “Bitch, I don’t care about you,” Roy said, tossing her aside with one hand. “I’m here on other business. You’re a pawn to me.”

  She slipped and fell on the kitchen tile, hitting her head on the floor.

  Roy gripped Kenneth around the throat with his huge black hands and began to squeeze.

  Eyes bulging, lungs burning, Kenneth flailed his hands.

  Roy stooped right into Kenneth’s face, flaunting his masculinity. As he smothered him, Kenneth’s nose was fill
ed with the man’s musk and body odor. It smelled familiar. As when he smelled the lavender, he felt he was going to vomit again. That scent triggered an animal within him. Like the beast that fucked Jennifer, this one kills men. Then, blindly, he clutched some smooth ceramic object to the side of him. As soon as he had a firm hold, he swung it around, the plate colliding against his attacker’s skull. It shattered into pieces, bits of half-eaten scrambled eggs raining around them. It was the breakfast he’d prepared for Jennifer.

  Roy recoiled, releasing his stranglehold. Kenneth still held a sharpened end of broken plate. Without hesitation, he charged the man. He aimed for Roy’s chest, lunging forward with his makeshift shank. But Roy blocked it with his arms, the plate wedge digging into his flesh, then sticking between the parallel bones in his arm.

  Roy cried out, dropping to one knee in pain. He tried to stand up, but Kenneth caught him before he could do anything. He ripped the plate shank from his arm, chunks of meat flying off, and drove it through Roy’s leg.

  “Sit the fuck back down.” Kenneth saw handcuffs attached to the man’s belt loop. This man wasn’t a cop to Kenneth’s knowledge. He must be some sort of official in one of the many government agencies unknown to the public. He took them and bound him to the heater. “Wait here and watch what I do to this pretty little slam piece of yours,” Kenneth growled, turning to his girlfriend, knocked out on the floor in an abnormal position.

  Kenneth was not himself; he embodied his nightmare. The tortured becomes the torturer. He picked up a jagged edge of the broken plate and mounted his stunned girlfriend. He raised it above his head then drove it down into her chest. Her eyes opened, and she sprang up from unconsciousness just in time to witness her own death. She looked up at her boyfriend, his face twisted in anger. For a fraction of a second, just before the lights behind her irises faded, Kenneth thought he saw her smiling. She looked happy. Why? Was this the Kenneth she wanted? The Kenneth who killed people, the Kenneth who let his fury dictate his actions. The Kenneth who fucked his woman.

  She died with a calm expression despite the pain, imagining her effeminate boyfriend fucking her like an animal, each stab like a thrust in bed. Kenneth yearned for how the relationship was in college, but if this is the man she wants. This is the man she gets. This is the man who kills her.

  The man, handcuffed to the radiator, had calmed down. “Killing her doesn’t mean anything to me, you know.” Though blood dripped from his wounds, he seemed undisturbed. “She was just some slut I used so I could snoop around your apartment when you were away.”

  Kenneth crouched in front of the man. “I’m better off without her.” He dragged the tip of his bloody plate against the man’s neck, hooking the silver chain and pulling it up out of his shirt, presenting the lamb pendant. “You’re the person from my dreams. Well, not you, specifically, but someone like you. Always wearing this lamb. Always killing me, or whichever person I am. Different centuries, different continents, different ethnicities, but one of you always finds and kills me.” He applied pressure to the man’s neck, drawing blood. His vein was easy to find for his neck muscles were already bulging. “I want answers, and I want them now.”

  The man laughed. “Oh? You haven’t figured it out yet? Usually they learn their purpose before they start remembering their past lives.”

  Kenneth gasped. “My past lives?” He still held the man by the shirt collar.

  “Yes, your past lives, idiot. You are the Buddha. You know you think differently, you know you are an individual. I ran a background check the moment I had my suspicions about you. Though it’d be extremely hard, since we control every aspect of society, we still can’t run the risk of your ideals spreading. One bad apple ruins the bunch. We can’t have you being the impetus for free-thinkers. You gave yourself away that time you recognized my necklace. Almost made my job too easy. My necklace shouldn’t mean anything to anyone unless he’s seen it before. I’ve been tailing you ever since. And my purpose is to kill you before you reach your purpose, to become enlightened. Because if I let you become enlightened, I risk the world becoming enlightened. And that’s a bad thing.” He wagged his finger like a metronome. “That means certain institutions lose their power. And if they lose their power, they lose their money. And my paycheck goes bye-bye. Think of current events, kiddo. Mecca’s gone. We run the politics, the consumers, the media. The Jews are converting, everyone is converting. You are the last obstacle. With you dead, that gives us”—he stopped and pointed at the ceiling, at the heavens—“that gives Him another eighteen years or so of free reign before we need to kill the next Buddha.” He looked at his watch again. “But it looks as if you’ve dug your own grave with these crimes. There’s no way in hell you’ll get off without capital punishment.”

  He turned his head toward the dead woman. “It’s a shame. She was pretty, and you had to ruin her life.” He looked back up at Kenneth. “You know, I was really looking forward to torturing you. Took it as one of the perks of the job, besides all the control and the fat payday once I got your head. But, alas—”

  “You’re sick.” He grabbed the man’s neck and banged his head against the heater.

  “I run this fucking city. Anytime some reincarnated vermin like you is unfortunate enough to be born in my city, I track him down and kill him. Before you go and meddle with the natural order of things. We have always been on top and always will be. There are many more like me. All over the world. No matter which country you are born in, we’ll be waiting, and we will kill you. There’s no running. There’s no hi—”

  Kenneth clutched the man’s throat before he could finish his sentence, weighing down on his trachea with the full force of his grip.

  “Please—killing me won’t solve anything,” the man managed to squeak out.

  “I don’t care. I’ll kill whoever I have to kill to cleanse this filthy world!”

  The man tore his neck away from Kenneth, leaving raised nail scratches. “You sound familiar,” he said with a wink.

  “Shut up!” He bashed the man’s skull against the heater a second time. A third time. “You. Fucked. Up. My. Life.” Each syllable was emphasized with the man’s skull being rammed into the heater. As Kenneth continued the onslaught, two cops kicked down the front door of his apartment. A neighbor must have called after hearing the commotion.

  “Freeze!”

  Kenneth felt two pricks in his back, and then his muscles tensed and his entire body shook. He’d been tazed. His eyelids sank and he flopped to one side. Kenneth fought to stay awake, at least long enough to see if his victim was dead, if his chest rose and fell, if Roy had died. But he passed out before he could see any signs of the man’s death.

  Chapter 3

  “What’s going on?” the nurse asked.

  “He’s probably having a nightmare.” The two nurses, dressed in dreary green uniforms, stood behind the glass door, watching Kenneth toss and turn inside his holding cell.

  The sheets on his bed were torn off, the blanket had been thrown to the floor, and he mumbled to himself as he slept.

  “What’s he in for?” one of the nurses asked.

  “Listened to the news on the radio on my way to work. Apparently he just went on a rampage. He killed a teenager on the street and then killed a cop who tried to help. Then he went to his apartment and killed his girlfriend and another guy. Crazy shit, man.”

  “You really think he did all that alone?”

  The nurse looked up and down the hallway before replying. “You know the media loves to exaggerate. And you know the media would never give so much coverage to some whack-job; the government banned media coverage of mass-murderers, claiming it bred more of them, remember? They are trying to slander him, to discredit him. He must know something.”

  They watched him a while longer.

  “He’s being held in this psychiatric ward due to the nature of his crime until his trial. The less we know the better.”

  “Let’s come back later after he’s aw
ake.” The two nurses walked down the white hallway to tend to other patients.

  ***

  Kenneth fidgeted in his sleep, groaning. There he lay, discomforted, his mind littered with happenings of his past. The moans finally came to an abrupt stop when he rolled out of his bed and fell to the tiled floor. The fall woke him, but he did not get up right away. Rather, he lay on the cold tile floor, shivering as the sweat and tears chilled him further.

  “Where am I?” he asked when he finally stopped crying. He sat up, assessing his environment. “Where am I?” He took in his surroundings, the white walls oddly reminiscent. And as he garnered his senses, making out where he could be, he noticed another patient watching him. The patient rolled his wheelchair as far as he could against his glass door and peered across the hallway into Kenneth’s cell.

  “Jason?”

  The patient looked in either direction, a finger pointed at his own chest. “Me?”

  “Jason! I’m so glad to see you.”

  “No, I’m not Jason. You must have the wrong—”

  “Jason? Don’t you recognize me? It’s Kenneth!”

  “That’s not me. I-I’m someone different. I—” The patient began tapping his fingertips on the armrests of his chair, his eyes darting every which way. Never completely focusing on one object.

  “Jason! Don’t pretend like you don’t know me! Jason! Jason!”

  “That isn’t me, man. I’m just. Look, man.” He took handfuls of his own hair. “Just stop. Stop it.”

  “No, Jason. Answer me! Why won’t you answer me, Jason? I’ve missed you, kiddo!”

  “No. Stop. Please, I’m not Jason. Stop!” With wobbling legs he stood from his chair, pounding on the glass. “Stop!”

  Kenneth continued his badgering. “Just look at me. Jason?”

  ***

  And so it went. The stranger pounding on the walls of his cell, drowning out the voice of the new patient in the communal psychiatric ward. Both on the verge of tears, they yelled at each other, only eleven white tiles separating the two. Their yells echoed down the hallway, agitating each neighboring cell’s inhabitant, the wails counteractive to the numbing drugs, meant to subdue these legally insane criminals. As each patient fell from his blissful high, more throats were turned up to the atmosphere, spewing screams of their own. Hospital gowns, white sheets torn apart. Knuckles bleeding from punching the walls of their holding cell. Tears fell. Deranged prisoners slammed the call buttons on their nightstands.