The Death of Wendell Mackey (33 page)

“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 standing 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—”

But the gun shot interrupted her. The bullet took a piece of flesh off the back of Wendell’s neck.

It came from the disemboweled man, covered in blood and stretched out on his side like a monstrous slug, holding his gut in with one red hand and the pistol with the other. His face was gray, his arm shaking.

Wendell put a claw over his neck and dashed for the door, with two shots following close behind. Leaving the apartment, he stopped and turned long enough to see Agatha swinging one of the wooden chairs down onto the man, whose last shot went high and drove into the plaster over the front door. Wendell turned and ran towards the stairwell, wobbling under the heavy neons, oppressive and blunt and too white for his eyes. The vertigo was back and the hallway appeared to tilt; blue plumes and starbursts popped and fizzled in his vision. He ran into the wall, sliding along it towards the stairwell door. The door opened and a man burst through carrying what looked to be a shotgun. Without thought Wendell tumbled towards him, watching the man’s mouth open into a bottomless well as he tried to bring his gun up, but wasn’t fast enough. Wendell’s claws found him. White bulbs and blue suns and a despairing gurgle, but Wendell saw none of it as it ended as quickly as it had started, and somehow he fell into the stairwell, the door closing behind him.

Wendell was met with cool air in an updraft that swirled up the stairs. He grabbed the railing to steady himself and looked up, seeing two people looking down at him from the floor above, one a woman in a nightdress and the other a man in a stained undershirt holding a baseball bat.

“Cops’re comin’,” said the man. “We just called ‘em. Y’all’re killin’ this city.”

The woman scowled, then disappeared from view, followed by the man.

St. Jude’s
, Wendell thought,
just get to St. Jude’s
.

He moved towards the stairs, grabbing the railing with both claws as the blue shapes came back to dance in his vision, now ringed with a bright light. He let his hooves—still, after all the action, in their shoes—take each step cautiously, as if he had just learned to walk, feeling his way down the stairs as his vision still spun and sparkled. After one flight walking felt more natural, his head began to settle, and he moved quicker.

Someone else is here
, he told himself.

One more flight down and he stopped when he saw Santos. Hunched and facing the corner, cradling his arm, Santos turned when he heard Wendell’s steps. His face was bloody.

“I warned her,” he gasped, “said it’ll all go to hell.” He tested his injured arm, winced, and Wendell saw that each of his teeth was lined with bright blood.

“Was it them?” Wendell asked.

“Them who? The hell you talking about?”

“Or the cops?”

“Ain’t no cops. You know that.”

“But I just got here…I didn’t…”

“Ain’t even gonna get no last rites.
Dios mio
,” he said, lip quivering, “you ain’t gonna finish me off…” And he shrank back against the wall.

“No,” Wendell said. “No, I’m not gonna do anything. But she’s okay,” he added as he nodded his head upwards, indicating the woman he left two flights above and behind him, “least I think so.” He stepped past Santos and onto the next flight down, not wanting to look back.

“There are more down there,” Santos said behind Wendell.

Move fast enough
, Wendell thought,
and I’ll cut right through ‘em
.

He sped up, and in seconds he saw the foyer, empty of all save the plastic plants and paint-by-number wall hangings. Dust hung in the air, and played in whirls and eddies under the brass light fixtures hanging at odd angles. Now at ground level, Wendell crept forward and peeked out the front doors. His vision was now clear, but there was still some unsteadiness in his legs.