The Death of Wendell Mackey (14 page)

“Just gotta get out of here.”

Wendell stopped, looked over at the rocking chair, half expecting to see it move on its own.

“Probably don’t have much time.”

Stay, and he would give them time to find him. Stay, and soon he might be physically incapable of leaving. Stay, and he would stay for good.

He walked around the kitchen, kicking his feet out in front of him to wake them up. He arched his back, heard it crack, then reached for his sneakers on the floor next to the kitchen table. He sat down, pulled them on, and reached for the gloves and coat in a pile on the table. Wendell slipped them on and slipped himself into the coat, stepped to the refrigerator to grab the key and the pistol—dropping one in each coat pocket—and walked to the front door.

Just tear that rocking chair up first
, he thought,
just in case. Break it into kindling and pile it up on her bed and set it all on fire
.

It was tempting, but time was short. Wendell turned back to the door.

Opening it, he almost tripped over the package in the hallway in front of his door. It was wrapped in a brown grocery bag, held closed with a line of twine. On top was a piece of stationery folded in half. Wendell stuck his head out into the hallway, looked both ways, and reached down for the note. Unfolding it, he saw words written in a script measured and small:

Trust old ladies, Wendell. We bake well. —Agatha.

He looked up at her closed door, wondering if she was watching, then back down at the note. He folded it again and put it in his pocket next to the gun and reached down for the package, which he brought back into the apartment and set on the kitchen table. He knew it from its smell.

“Bread.”

He had smelled it the day before, in the hallway. He pulled at the twine, which slipped out of its knot, and unfolded the paper. The inside of the paper was already moist, with little flecks of the still warm bread pulling off and sticking to it. Before he could register what kind it was and before his mind could assent to eating, his hands were in it and chunks were in his mouth. Apple bread. At least half was gone before Wendell realized that he hadn’t yet chewed, but had only swallowed the chunks. He tried to slow his pace, attempting to savor it, knowing that this subtle and human glimpse into heaven would quickly pass. In only minutes it was gone, and Wendell was licking the remnants off of his wool gloves. But for the moment, his inhuman hunger subsided.

“Trust old ladies,” he said, licking his lips and smiling.
She’s safe
, he thought.
As far as anyone can be safe
. He turned and looked out his front door—which he had foolishly left open in his haste—to her door across the hall.
Good to know
, he thought.
But now it’s time.
There was quite the walk ahead of him. With a little luck, some agreeable weather, and now with something in his stomach, he could leave the city. His trail would grow cold. And any memory of his mother would die as the city skyline faded behind him.

Still, he couldn’t help but look back to the closed door across the hall. Was she watching? Was this kind of thing just common neighborliness? Perhaps she was sitting on her couch, hands folded patiently, waiting for him to knock. But the speculation ended as his headache returned, and in earnest, so Wendell left the apartment, closed and locked the door, and hoped he would never see it again.

The rain gave up early that morning, with the sun burning a hole through the storm clouds. Before long, the whole city shimmered in thick and sickly heat waves. The sun gleamed on windows and car chrome and brought with it the kind of heat that weighted pedestrians down to the sidewalks. Cars and trucks swam through the humidity. Wendell walked out the apartment’s front doors and felt the fever of a new day, giving the street a pulse, making it throb like a headache. Like
his
headache, his forehead now a slowly drummed timpani. He had hoped—silly, he knew—that it would all look different with a new day, with the rain washing the streets clean. But it was all the same, the same garbage in the storm drains, the same cracked sidewalk slabs, the same craterous potholes. All of it furthered his resolve to look on that street for the last time, and to think only of the
outside
: hills, farmhouses, and hole-in-the-wall diners with sassy waitresses like in the movies.
There would be empty spaces
, Wendell thought,
and trees, where I can disappear
. He reached the sidewalk and turned left, not wanting to see again the alley and whatever was left of the red stains.

Steam rushed out of a sidewalk vent as if some beast below had just exhaled. Wendell’s headache grew, and he began to sweat. He glanced around, catching some curious eyes, but nothing seeming too threatening.

“Just another homeless guy,” he muttered, quickening his pace, “nothing to see here.”

From what he had seen, a trench coat and wool gloves on a hot day didn’t register as too bizarre for most people. As a child he remembered the White Woman of Towson Street, one street north. She would wear a white mask, cover her head in a shower cap and a hooded white sweatshirt, and wrap her arms and legs in toilet paper, with thick white mittens and moon boots, all to protect against radiation from Chernobyl. And there was old Mr. Pickett, who would line his clothes with tin foil and attach antennae to his shopping cart, which he dutifully pushed to the local grocer every morning, railing against any clerk who dared pass his milk over the barcode scanner. With types like them preceding, and with the assortment of oddities presently walking the streets, Wendell thought he could avoid focus and fade to the background. People would see him, and then see past him, which was all that he wanted. That, and rain. The heat promised to melt him into the sidewalk.

Two blocks up, he turned left, wondering where exactly to go, but sure that any direction that put distance between him and the apartment building would work. He passed a bus station, crowded with a line of city buses like mechanical dinosaurs, growling and steaming. Each had a different location written out on digital signs over their giant windshields, all locations outside of the city. People ran up the stairs to each bus, and one by one, the dinosaurs groaned and spat and lurched forward, slowly rolling away. Wendell watched them all leave, then continued on to the end of the block. Traffic grew, and clouds began to roll in.

His hands went to his forehead, cradling it as he clenched his teeth. He must have been running a fever, which was causing the headache. He stopped at the corner, feeling a touch of vertigo as the road and buildings seemed to tilt and move while he stood still. He shook his head, clearing the vertigo but exacerbating the headache.

Clench any tighter and I’ll crack my teeth
, Wendell thought. The pain above his eyes was now unrelenting. Before he passed out on the sidewalk he knew he had to stop, so he hopped across the street when the traffic broke, ducked into an alley, and walked into the shadows. Panting, he leaned against a dumpster. No relief.

And no privacy. Someone else was there.

Wendell’s hands were slick with sweat, so he pulled the wool gloves off and stuffed them into his coat pockets. He squinted, looking into the darkness. Then he felt the eyes staring back at him. He heard a shuffle, then a grunt, or a growl, something both human and canine. Wendell moved his eyes without moving his head, catching motion in his periphery. It was a black shape in a blue shadow. He turned his head, and lost the sound of the street when he saw the man.

“Ain’t this nice,” the black shape said.

Wendell didn’t think he had been followed, but this couldn’t have been coincidence.

“Ain’t this just like Christmas,” said the voice, now familiar. It chuckled.

Wendell stepped down the alley, and saw
him
, again, or at least, saw his shape, which was unmistakable. Drake sat against the opposite wall a few paces from Wendell. In his hands were fistfuls of his flyers. The shadows hid his features but Wendell could still feel his face.

“Told ya,” Drake said.

Wendell stared at him. “Told me what?”

“That we’d be seeing each other again.” The shadow stood up.

“You following me?”

“Nope. Just one of life’s surprises.”

“You followed me.”

“We were meant to meet. It’s how the world wants it.” Drake pushed off from the wall and came to full height, and in the shadow he looked much bigger than before. “It’s beautiful, ain’t it?”

“Look man, I’m just trying to get out of here.”

“Nah, you’ll be staying.”

“What?”

“This is where things get a little awkward.”

“You came at me. I just defended myself. I never wanted trouble.” Wendell’s head pounded. He reached out for the wall to fight off more vertigo.

“Awkward, you know?” Drake stepped forward out of the shadow. “Like, who moves first, you or me? So I’ll just give it to you. Your move Mr. Wendell.” He opened his hands and the flyers fell to the ground. Above, clouds quickly rolled in.

“Look, Drake, just let me walk out and—”

“Just walk away. It’s that easy, right?”

“Yeah.”

“After what you did to me yesterday.”

“Come on…”

“You know how things end, don’t you?” Drake said.

Wendell stood silent.

“How you see things,” Drake continued, “right before you die. They say your life flashes before your eyes. But we believe that at that moment, everything flashes before your eyes, your past and any future you were meant to have, all right before you. Where you were supposed to go, who you were supposed to be. Like your brain’s wishing for what it can’t have.”

“What do you want?”

“That’s what we think,” Drake said. “So I’m wondering what you’re seeing right now: little Wendell walking to school, or playing with his toys; and you, walking out of this city thinking you got away from me.”

“Just take it easy man.” Wendell looked down one end of the alley, then the other. No one else was there.

Another chuckle, almost a gurgle. “You’re not gonna leave.”

“I just wanna get outta here.” Wendell bit his lip. “It doesn’t have to go this way—”

“Yeah it does. And if not by me, then by one of those guys following you.”

They’re close. I knew it.

“What are you talking about?” Wendell’s throat tightened, and like a slate wiped clean, his headache disappeared.

“Yeah, I saw them. Watching you. Which means they were watching me too, and I can’t have that.”

Wendell’s hands twitched. “You saw them?”

“They’d get you soon enough. Too bad for them.”

“Look, you don’t want this.”

“It’s how the world wants it,” Drake said, stepping forward again. “And it won’t hurt much.”

“You’re crazy.”

“If only.”

“Please…”

“You’re not gonna leave.” And for a moment, Drake almost sounded nervous.

“…don’t do this…”

“It’s all good. I’ll be quick.” Drake’s features seemed to tilt to one side as his mouth grew into a sneer like cracked glass.

You can’t stop it
, Wendell thought,
no matter what, you can’t stop it
.

The switch was being thrown again, that primal urge, lustful and hungry. There was tunnel vision, with Drake swelling at the center as everything around him receded; with cat’s eye clarity Wendell even saw the individual pores in the man’s bent nose. Wendell felt his arms and legs tense. The heat increased. His ears began to ring.

“Wonder what you’re seeing right now Wendell.” Drake’s smile grew. He stepped forward.

Wendell lunged.

Drake’s mouth froze open.

Black.

Feeling wet and cool brought him back. Wendell opened his eyes, and found himself standing in the rain on the roof of an unfamiliar building. At the
edge
of the roof, past the three-foot brick parapet lining it, the toes of his sneakers hanging out into the air. He gasped, recoiled, and fell backwards, feeling the parapet on the backs of his knees. He sat down on it.